by AR Winters
Max’s interactions with Katrina bothered me. I hated the woman because of what she did to Snowflake, and she seemed like a particularly fickle, superficial human being. I’d sort of been hoping that she’d been the one who’d left the message on my phone, and that she’d turn out to have something to do with Max’s death.
I typed her name into the search engine and read through every article on her; nothing jumped out at me. Her social media pages were set to public, and were full of fluff and sexy photos (probably intended to attract new boyfriends, I thought unkindly), and the news articles where her photos appeared were all about silly galas and fundraisers.
I even tried mixing the two names, typing in “Wynona Bronson” and “Katrina Beyers,” but nothing relevant came up; there didn’t seem to be any link between the two. Finally, I called the number Katrina had given me for Jeff’s cell phone.
A woman answered, and I asked for Jeff.
“What number did you dial?” she asked, and I told her. “This is the number,” she said. “But there’s no Jeff here. He must’ve given you the wrong number.”
It was obvious she’d thought it was a relationship-type situation – and I was the desperate loser chasing after a man clearly not interested in me. I blushed, despite that not being the case, and mumbled an embarrassed apology. Which made me sound even more like a desperate singleton.
“Don’t worry about it,” the woman said kindly. “Plenty of fish out there.”
She hung up, making me feel even sillier for getting the wrong phone number.
I had a few minutes before my shift, so I typed in Jeff’s name and address into the online directories and managed to find his cell-phone number on one of them. In a way, I wasn’t surprised that Katrina had given me a made-up phone number; she saw Jeff as her meal ticket, at least for now, and she didn’t want any chance of losing him to someone else.
I needed to rush off to work before I could call Jeff, and I couldn’t wait to finish my shift and talk to him. Maybe he could tell me something new about Max.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The shift seemed to pass by in a flash of bright lights and happy gamblers. The chime of the slot machines reverberated in the background as I dealt cards. I kept a lookout for potential trouble-makers but my mind was on Katrina and Jeff.
I was beginning to wonder if Katrina had some other devious motive for not giving me Jeff’s phone number. Maybe there was a reason beyond Jeff’s initial brusqueness, and maybe Katrina was trying to protect him.
I wanted to call Jeff as soon as I left the casino, but I was exhausted and sleepy, and I needed to be completely alert when I talked to him. Now that I knew the threatening message was from Jacinta, I didn’t bother to check for intruders before I crashed for my six hours of shut-eye.
After I woke up, I made myself some instant noodles and did the math. It was early afternoon in Vegas, so it was probably night-time in Macau. Jeff would hopefully be free to have a quick chat. I took a deep breath and dialed the number I’d found, hoping it was the right one.
A man’s voice answered after four rings.
“This is Tiffany Black,” I said, my voice ringing with apparent relief. “Jeff Goldblum?”
“Yeah, I remember you. You were at my apartment two days ago.”
“Yes, that’s me! How’s Macau?”
“It’s hot, it’s humid, and it’s late. What do you want?”
“I’m really sorry to bother you b— ”
“Get to the point.”
“Umm. Well. Ok. Max – the guy whose photo I showed you. You said you might’ve seen him around.”
“Yeah. So?”
“Where exactly did you see him?”
“Coming and going, in the lobby.”
“Did you ever talk to him?”
There was a moment’s silence on the other end, and then Jeff said, “We might’ve said hi at some point. Just being polite.”
I could tell he was lying, so I decided to go for the kill. “Katrina told me you two had a huge fight. She said you went over to his apartment and punched him in the face and threatened to kill him. She said he won a lot of money off you in a poker game.”
Jeff laughed shortly. “What a bitch. I should’ve dumped her months ago.”
I cringed, feeling sorry for Katrina for the first time. “So you did have a fight with Max?”
“Yes, but I never punched him.”
“So you did play poker with him?”
“Look, one night I got a little drunk and headed to the casinos. I thought I saw Max at one of the tables. And then I saw him in the building later on, and I thought he was stalking me.”
“So you two had a fight?”
“I was drunk, I might’ve told him off. Big deal.”
“And why didn’t you tell the cops about this?”
“I wasn’t there when Max died. I was over in Atlantic City, trying to finish a merger.”
I wasn’t sure if I believed Max, but I could check it out later on. “You never thought about going to the cops once you got back?”
“It wasn’t important. And I’ve been busy.”
“I know. Katrina told me.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Jeff said, “What exactly has she said?”
I felt like I’d revealed too much, so I hesitated, trying to decide what to say.
Jeff said, “She’s cheating on me, right? Looking for someone else?”
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “But she thinks you’re cheating on her.”
He laughed shortly. “Well, at least she didn’t go around telling the cops I punched some dead guy.”
“Did you punch him?”
“Probably not. But I was drunk. Why does matter?”
“I guess it doesn’t.” Although I wasn’t too sure about that.
“How’s Katrina doing, now that I’m not in Vegas?” Jeff asked.
“I’m not sure. If you don’t like her, why don’t you end it?”
Across the line, I heard Jeff sigh. “Inertia, I guess. She does well at fundraisers. And people look at her and me and think maybe they can have us over to couples’ dinners and couples’ tennis – that sorta stuff.”
It was time for me to head into the pit and start dealing with the gamblers, so I thanked Jeff for his time.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said gruffly. “I’m sorry that guy died, and I hope you find out something. Call me around this time if you wanna chat again.”
As I hung up, I wondered if that was some kind of vague proposition. And then I gave myself a mental shake – just because I was single again didn’t mean that every guy I spoke to was hitting on me.
Jeff didn’t sound like a bad person – just someone who was very busy. He hadn’t even been in Vegas when Max had been killed. Apparently.
Chapter Thirty-Four
It was almost three o’clock by the time I finished my chat with Jeff, and I hadn’t heard from Ian all day. That was a little worrying, given his enthusiasm about being a private investigator. I wondered whether he was moping around about Jacinta, or worse – if he’d gotten in touch with her again.
When I walked over to his apartment and knocked, there was no response. I tried Ian’s cellphone, but once again, nobody answered. Puzzled, I went back to my own apartment and fired up my laptop.
I’d just opened the search engine when Ian called me. “What’s going on?” I said.
“My parents are in town and we got lunch. We’re still having coffee and desserts. It’s taking forever.”
Ian’s parents lived in Santa Barbara, and they were scary. They were educated and intelligent, and his mom had a PhD in mathematics, as did Ian’s older brother. Although Ian had earned millions from the sale of his share in a startup, his parents claimed he hadn’t achieved much else in his life, that he wasn’t “contributing to society” and that he was a disappointment to them.
“Are they trying to convince you to leave Las Vegas again?” I asked.
&nbs
p; Ian groaned. “What else? They keep asking what’s keeping me here. If I could tell them that I’ve actually got a job helping people…”
I knew where he was going with this, but I didn’t want to get involved. Maybe Ian’s parents were right: he was a smart guy, despite his annoying habits, and he did have a lot to offer the world.
“Have fun,” I said. “I’ve only got a few hours before my shift, so I better use them well.”
I hung up, feeling a twinge of guilt at not offering Ian any solutions. I knew his parents wanted him to finish his degree, and maybe go on to do a PhD like his brother – and maybe they were right. Maybe that’s what he should do.
Meanwhile, I was bothered by the fact that Max had called Katrina “Wynona Beyers” multiple times. There was also the fact that I couldn’t really trust most of the things Katrina said – half the time we’d spoken to her, she’d seemed to be drunk.
Perhaps it was a better idea to start with Jeff: maybe I could check with my contact at McCarran, and find out when Jeff had flown back into Vegas; but what if he’d flown into LA and then driven the rest of the way to Vegas? It would be more prudent to check the Atlantic City tapes.
I decided to call Jeff again, to ask where he’d been staying in Atlantic City, but this time the call went straight to voicemail. He was probably asleep. No point leaving a voice message – I’d call him again tomorrow.
“Wynona Beyers,” I typed into the search engine.
The same results I’d seen last time popped up again. There was only one Wynona Beyers – a dark-haired, fifty-something lady who lived in New Hampshire. There were three blondes: Wynona Byers who lived in Los Angeles and was trying to break into modelling, Wynona Beers whose social media profile was thin but revealed that she lived in Canada, and Wynona Beyres who was a high-school teacher in Alaska. None of the blondes looked anything like Katrina, and I didn’t see how Max would’ve ever met them.
Which gave me an idea. Max had lived in New York before he’d moved to Vegas. I typed in “New York City Wynona Beyers.”
The only three results were all about a New York socialite, Wynona Myer. The photos of her showed that she looked nothing like Wynona – she had brown eyes, a long nose, and wavy brown hair. She was very beautiful, but in a completely opposite way to blonde-haired, blue-eyed Katrina.
I clicked through the links nonetheless. Her photos appeared regularly on gossip columns and websites about New York socialites. I had no idea there were so many gossipy websites devoted to New York’s social elite. But there were, and the websites all contained photo after photo of the rich and well-heeled, who seemed to have nothing better to do than to attend various gallery and restaurant openings, polo matches and charity dinners.
The gossip websites sucked me in. They revealed that Wynona was originally from upstate New York, and had been working as a PR executive when she met her husband, George Calamezzo, who owned a shipping company, several breweries and part of a large tobacco company. There were a couple of wedding profiles – the two had married in an exclusive, over-the-top ceremony in Napa Valley – the bride wore a Vera Wang gown that cost almost as much as my apartment – and then they’d gone off to honeymoon in Tuscany. While Wynona was tall and glamorous, George had sagging jowls and a wide frame; he could’ve been anywhere between forty and fifty years old.
Various articles yammered on about the parties Wynona went to and what she and the other ladies wore. Wynona went to the Met Gala, the opening of Club Kitchen, a fundraiser for deaf orphans, and a funeral for George Calamezzo, her husband.
I stared at the photo of Wynona, dressed all in black, her dark hair pulled back, her eyes shaded by dark glasses. I clicked the link to find out more about George.
It turned out that he’d been in his mid-forties and had died in a scuba-diving accident, off the coast of Thailand. I kept following the links in the newspaper: there was a legal battle over his will, with George’s ex-wife and sister fighting for their share of the Calamezzo fortune. A year later, the paper reported that there had been “a private settlement between all involved parties.”
I went back to Wynona, caught up in the gossip. The settlement of the will had happened two years ago, and since then, she seemed to have disappeared. I scrolled through all the gossip sites and NYC tabloids, but nothing about Wynona’s life after the will’s settlement came up. I tried pulling her photos into Google Images, and various search parameters – still nothing recent.
Two years ago, Wynona Myer seemed to have disappeared.
And then I had a brainwave.
I saved one of her photos, and opened it with my new photo manipulation software. I colored her dark hair yellow and her eyes blue.
The resemblance was uncanny.
Chapter Thirty-Five
I found myself at Katrina’s apartment quicker than a fat man who’s heard about a free buffet.
Katrina opened the door after just a few knocks.
I blinked when I saw her face and tried not to look too surprised. “You look different,” I managed to say.
Her skin was bright red and splotchy, and this was the first time I had seen her without any makeup. Against her bare skin, her permanent eyelash extensions looked preternaturally long and creepy.
Katrina scowled, and let me follow her inside. “I know, I look hideous. I skipped spin class because of this peel. At my age, you’re always fighting between looking skinny and looking young.”
“How old are you?”
We sat down opposite each other, and Katrina tapped the side of her nose. “A lady never tells.”
“Right.”
I looked at her carefully, suddenly confused about who she really was. I’d had such a strong hunch about Wynona Myers being Katrina Bronson, but I hadn’t managed to find any proof of name change. If Wynona had been sneaky, she might have gone to a small town somewhere and covered up the court records. Sitting in front of me with splotchy red skin and blue eyes, Katrina looked nothing like the glamorous Wynona.
“Well,” said Katrina. “Why are you here?”
I tried to think of a polite way to accuse her of changing her identity, but came up blank. “I’m still thinking about Wynona Myer.”
Katrina rolled her eyes. “Not that again.”
“Why not? Did you know any Wynona Myer?”
“Never heard of her.”
“Until Max called you that.”
“Of course,” she said. “Are we done now?”
“Not quite. I looked up Wynona Myer. Turns out, she got a bit of plastic surgery, some blue contact lenses, and some blonde hair dye – and changed her name to Katrina Bronson.”
Katrina held my gaze steadily. Her eyes revealed nothing, and the artificial redness of her skin hid any potential blushing. “You can’t prove that.”
I smiled, proud of my successful bluff. “I just did.”
Katrina rolled her eyes, as if our conversation was so terribly passé. “Fine, I changed my name. So? It’s not a big deal.”
“Then why was it such a big deal when Max found out?” My heart began racing wildly. My pride at trapping her was changing rapidly into a panic. Katrina was watching me with cold blue eyes; if she had something to do with Max’s death, she wouldn’t let me get off that easily.
“It was just a bit annoying.”
“Why did you keep it a secret for so long? Why—”
“Look,” Katrina said. “All I wanted was some privacy. After my husband died, I wanted the newspapers to stop following me. They wouldn’t leave me alone.”
“That’s hard to be believe.”
“Well, believe it. Do you think every movie star on the cover of US Magazine invites the paparazzi into her home? No. These people follow you, and stalk you, and they’ve got no boundaries. Everything was horrible – first George died, then his family went after me, and then those newspaper people wouldn’t leave me alone…” She looked at me in despair. “You’ve got no idea what it’s like, hiding in a tiny apartment all d
ay, ordering takeout because you’re too scared to step out to get groceries.”
I didn’t bother hiding my skepticism. “And that’s why you changed your whole identity?”
“You wouldn’t understand.”
“Does Jeff know about this?”
Katrina’s blue eyes grew wary again. “Sure.”
“So I could ask him about what happened.”
“Why not? He’ll get back from China in a few months.”
“Or I could just call him, like I did last night.”
Katrina’s blue eyes widened slightly. “You talked to Jeff last night?”
“I did. I found his number online.”
Katrina stood up and headed over to the kitchenette to fix herself a glass of water. “I might not have told Jeff everything,” she admitted.
“And Max threatened to tell him?”
She shook her head. “No.”
“Then why did Max keep calling you Wynona?”
“He was just being annoying. Like the kids in the schoolyard. You know, the kind who keep teasing you for having bad teeth.”
I watched as she drank the entire glass of water and turned back to refill it. “I don’t think that’s true,” I said slowly, finally feeling like I was onto something. “I think Max threatened to tell Jeff who you really were. I think he was blackmailing you, and I think you paid him enough cash to fund his poker games.”
Katrina scoffed. “That’s not true.”
“And that’s why you killed him.”
“Look,” said Katrina, her voice laced with barely-concealed annoyance. “Max was irritating. But if I was paying him off, why’d I kill him?”
“Oh, I don’t know.” I tried to sound flippant. “Maybe you got tired of making payments?”
Katrina rolled her eyes. “Would you like to see my bank statement? Because I definitely don’t worry about money. I got enough from my ex-husband’s will. And I wouldn’t care if Max told everyone who I was. Nobody’s interested in me anymore – George died years ago, and everyone’s moved on.”