“I’m Tiffany Black,” I told her. “I’m a private investigator looking in Crystal Macombe’s death.”
The smile disappeared from her face, and I knew I was onto something.
It was time to go on the offensive, so before she could think up a story, I said, “Why’d you kill her?”
Cheryl shook her head furiously. “I had nothing to do with her death.” She moved to a quiet corner, away from the club patrons, and Samantha and I followed her.
We all stood huddled together, and Cheryl glanced from me to Samantha, who was standing there with her arms crossed, her face stony.
“That’s a big claim,” I said. “Especially when Crystal was sending you so much money each month.”
“Why would I kill her?” Cheryl looked at me, all wide-eyed innocence. I half-expected her to flip her hair to make a point.
“What was the money for?” I asked.
Beside me, I could feel the anger emanating from Samantha. I turned to look at her, and flinched when I saw her narrowed eyes and pursed lips.
Cheryl stared at us wordlessly, her lips twisted into a sulky pout. Finally, she said, “I don’t have time for this. I have to get back to work.”
She took a step forward, and Samantha immediately moved to block her path. The two glared at each other, and I saw a bouncer glancing over at us nervously.
“Guys,” I said, “I don’t want either of you losing your jobs over this.” I turned to Cheryl and said, “You don’t have to talk to me – but if you really didn’t have anything to do with Crystal’s death, you should. Unless you want me to give the cops your details so you go to lockup for a few days. Your manager’ll love that.”
She glared at me and took a step back. “Fine,” she hissed. “What d’ya wanna know?”
“Why was she sending you money?”
Cheryl glanced at Samantha again, and so did I. Samantha looked like she was ready to pounce at any moment now – her cheeks were flushed, and her hands were balled up into loose fists.
“Why don’t you go back to work,” I told Samantha. “I should talk to Cheryl in private.”
Samantha shook her head. “No way. Bitch messed with my girl, maybe she killed her. I’d like to know.”
I wanted to give Samantha a good shake, but I satisfied myself with grabbing her arm and dragging her a few steps backwards with me.
Cheryl stood in the corner, watching us with wary eyes.
“Look,” I whispered, when we were out of earshot. “You need to let me do my job, ok? Maybe she knows something, but she won’t tell me if you’re there.”
Samantha stared at Cheryl for a few seconds, and then sighed. “Fine. But you need to tell me what Airhead here says.”
“Of course.”
I watched Samantha sashay away, and then I went back to Cheryl and asked, “What happened between you and Crystal?”
Cheryl studied her perfect French manicure. “I wondered why Crystal only worked one weekend a month. I figured she either had another job or a sugar daddy. One time, I overheard her talking on the phone with some guy, telling him she loved him and she was at some modeling job and she missed him.”
“So you blackmailed her.”
Cheryl shrugged. “It wasn’t really blackmail, if you think about it. I was doing her a favor.”
“How?”
Cheryl looked at me blankly.
“How was it a favor?”
She shrugged again. “Fine. So it wasn’t a favor. But I figured the bitch could pay me a bit of cash, it’s not like she was hurting for it.”
There was a pause as Cheryl frowned and studied a nail which seemed to be chipped.
I tapped one foot, trying not to be impatient. “Then what happened?”
She looked up at me. “Huh? Oh yeah, she stopped paying up. Told me to go eff myself, and I told her I would.”
She frowned, remembering their fight, and I waited for a few seconds before prompting her. “And then?”
“I’m not as stupid as everyone here thinks,” Cheryl said. “I took some photos of Crystal on my phone and then I mailed them to her boyfriend.”
I listened to my heart thudding, wondering if I’d heard right. “You emailed her boyfriend?”
She shook her head. “No. I don’t know his email. But I knew Crystal was staying at The P’lazzo, so I rang up and found their room number. Sent the photos by post.”
“When was this?”
Cheryl tilted her head, thinking. “Couple of days back.”
“And sending him the photos was meant to help, how?”
She looked at me steadily, not saying anything. I could almost see the wheels in her head turning slowly, trying to remember why she’d thought it’d be a good idea.
I sighed. “Did the boyfriend get in touch with you?”
“No. He didn’t know I’d taken the photos.”
I thought back to the conversation with Max. How sad he’d seemed, how proud that Crystal would get a part and that she had values and morals. That didn’t seem like a man who’d found out that his girlfriend was a stripper. The guy must be one hell of an actor, I thought, not really wanting to believe it. Hopefully, he was still in Vegas.
“Thanks for your help,” I told Cheryl, not really meaning it. “Don’t leave town.”
Chapter Twenty
The drive to The Palazzo was short but nerve-wracking; I worried I wouldn’t get to the hotel in time, and I drove like a woman possessed, trying to think of what to say if Max was still there.
I didn’t bother to stop at the front desk, and went straight up and knocked on Max’s suite. When he opened the door, I felt my body sag forward with relief.
“Max,” I said, too happy to be worried anymore. “I’m glad you’re here.”
I walked in uninvited and sat myself down on the leather sofa. It was only then that I noticed Max looked different from the last time I’d seen him. His forehead was creased, and he seemed to be moving stiffly.
“How are you?” he asked mechanically, and I smiled, ready with my polite response.
He had his back to me, and I watched as he began to open a desk drawer.
I rose to my feet automatically. I was sure that Max was reaching for a gun and I fumbled for my bag, trying to undo the zip as quickly as possible.
Time slowed down. The room seemed really bright, and I couldn’t hear any noise from outside. Why wasn’t I carrying my gun today? I watched Max reach into the drawer and grab something, and there was my hand, inside my bag, wrapping around the bottle of pepper spray. Not that pepper spray would win a gunfight.
“My friend St—” I began, as Max turned around.
He wasn’t holding a gun. There was a big white envelope in his hand, and I let my sentence hang in the air, unfinished.
“What about him?” Max said.
“Um, Stone, right,” I babbled. Max didn’t seem to want to kill me, but it might be a good idea to tell him the lie I’d just thought of. “He’s waiting for me downstairs, we’re meant to go somewhere after this.”
My words didn’t seem to register with Max – his eyes looked dull and lifeless. “I got this in the mail today.”
He handed the envelope over to me, and I opened it and pulled out the photos of Crystal. They were low-resolution, blown up, and unflattering. There was Crystal dancing on a pole, and there she was leaning over some guy’s table. There weren’t any pictures of her actually giving a lap dance, but there were a few pictures of happy-looking men following a topless, flirtatiously smiling Crystal. Looking at the pictures, I felt a little sick myself, and I could understand why Max was now sitting on the sofa, head in his hands.
“Why didn’t she tell me?” he said. “If she needed money, I’d have been happy to pay. I guess she had her own sense of pride.”
He looked up at me, his eyes silently pleading me to tell him something worth listening to.
“Uh,” I said.
It’s an act, I told myself, but I didn’t believe that. Max
looked so forlorn and dejected; I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
“You know she was ambitious,” I told him. “She probably wanted to earn her own money.”
“But she could’ve told me. I could’ve gotten her a job as a secretary somewhere.”
But then she wouldn’t have been able to spend all her days chasing auditions. Being a weekend-stripper was a time-honored tradition among starlets, surely everyone in Hollywood knew that? But Max was just another clueless male.
“When did you get these?” I asked.
“A few minutes ago. I got a call from the front desk, so I went down, thinking it’d be business papers, but…”
I looked at the envelope. It was addressed to The Plassoo Casino, and I could imagine the postal workers scratching their heads over where it needed taking to.
I took a deep breath and sat down beside Max.
“Did you know about it?” he asked me, and I nodded.
“I’m sorry. I was told to keep it a secret.”
“Does everybody know? Am I the last to find out? I really believed her, that she was doing modeling work. I feel like such an idiot.”
“You’re not an idiot. And nobody else knows, just me and Samantha. And I only know because Samantha told me.”
He nodded unhappily, and I excused myself and headed down to the lobby. I needed a few minutes alone, and I needed to figure out how to validate or disprove what Max had just told me. I wandered down the hallway to the gift shops, where I watched the tourists poring over fancy dresses and over-priced watches. Cameras blinked, high up on the ceiling, and I knew that if I could just get into the surveillance room with its fancy monitors, I could check the footage to see if Max had really gotten his mail today.
But that would involve calling in a favor from Stone, and I didn’t want to do that. I found myself wandering back to the front desk, and the idea came to me.
Why hadn’t I thought of this earlier? That’s the problem with technology, I told myself, it makes you ignore real human beings. Oh no. That sounded like something Karma would say.
The man at the front desk was tall, thin and bespectacled. His name tag read “Geoff,” and I went up to him and smiled.
He smiled back politely. “What can I do for you?”
“Did you just get an envelope addressed to The Plassoo Hotel?” I asked. “My friend just showed it to me and – was that for real?”
I half-frowned, half-smiled like I couldn’t believe it, and Geoff chuckled. “Yeah. Just came in. Some people, huh?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Some people.”
I made my way slowly back to Max’s room, thinking about his ignorance. But if he had nothing to do with Crystal’s death, I was back to square one. Who could’ve possibly wanted Crystal to die?
Chapter Twenty-One
I said goodbye to Max, and drove over to my parents’ place, with Stone tailing behind me. I didn’t have the heart to discourage Stone, and I was grateful for the company as he pulled up to the curb soon after me, and walked me to the door. We both glanced over our shoulders as we walked, but there were no other cars driving down the street, and no dangerous-looking photographer hovering nearby.
My mother opened the door, and looked slightly surprised to see Stone.
“It’s lovely to see you,” she said to him, and then turned me. “What a surprise.”
I could see that she was slightly rattled, and Stone said, “I hope I’m not imposing. We should’ve called ahead.”
“Oh, no,” my mom said. “It’s great to see you. I just didn’t know you two were still together.”
She looked at me suspiciously and I shook my head, “We’re not. We were never together. We’re just friends.”
This was about the fiftieth time I’ve told my mother that, but she never seems to believe me. Stone and I followed her inside to the den, which was dark with its heavy drapes, and always ten degrees cooler than the temperature outside. When we got there, I saw why my mother had been so flustered to see Stone with me – there was another man sitting next to my dad. He looked about three feet wide, wore a checked shirt that he appeared to have slept in, and, judging from the strained look on my dad’s face, seemed to have last showered a few months back.
Introductions were made all around, and it turned out that the obese man’s name was Pearce. Nanna winked at me, and my mother said, “Stone’s just a friend of Tiffany’s. She’s not dating anyone at the moment.”
I rolled my eyes, and Pearce said, “How come you’re still single? You look quite pretty.”
“Thanks,” I said. “How come you’re still single?”
Pearce smiled broadly. “I’ve got very high standards.”
I looked at Nanna, who made a face.
“So, what do you?” asked my dad.
“Video game reviews,” said Pearce.
Stone frowned. “You upload videos of yourself playing video games?”
Pearce nodded. “Yep, but it’s a bit more technical than that. You need to know Youtube and stuff.”
“Doesn’t sound technical to me,” Nanna said. “I know how to use Youtube. I can do HTML and other coding, too.”
Pearce looked at Nanna skeptically so I said, “She’s right. She can do all that.”
“So, what does it pay?” Nanna asked. “I bet it pays really well.”
Pearce shrugged. “You’ve gotta hit it big.”
“And have you?”
“I’m close.”
“So it’s not really making you any money,” Nanna said.
“I make some.”
“Enough to pay the bills?”
“I live with my parents, so I don’t have to pay the bills.”
“That must be fun,” my dad said drily.
Stone looked at Pearce, one eyebrow raised one one-hundredth of an inch. Anyone else might think that Stone was just bored, but I knew from his mild expression that he was half-amused, half-disapproving.
Pearce didn’t get my dad’s sarcasm and shook his head. “No,” he said regretfully. “They’re always nagging me to vacuum and clean my room and stuff. I’m hoping to move out.”
“Right,” said my dad. “So you’re looking for a job?”
“No,” said Pearce. “I’m hoping to get a girlfriend. That way I don’t have to pay the rent or vacuum or clean.”
He smiled at me hopefully, and I said, “Don’t look at me. I don’t vacuum, clean or pay other people’s rent.”
The corner of Stone’s mouth went up a tiny, near-invisible fraction of an inch. Pearce looked crestfallen and my mother said, “Tiffany. That’s not very nice.”
I shrugged. “At least I’m not a mooch.”
“I can see why you don’t have a boyfriend,” Pearce said. “You aren’t nice at all. I don’t think you’ll ever have a boyfriend.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But at least I’ve got a life.”
Just then, there was a knock at the door, and my mother and I raced each other out to answer it. It was Nathan, standing there with a bunch of roses in his arms. I raised an eyebrow and my mother pursed her lips, but we didn’t say anything about the flowers. Nathan followed us to the den, where he got the chance to give Nanna the flowers.
“I should’ve brought something,” Pearce said, clearly unhappy at being upstaged, but unwilling to shell out the cash to actually bring something. I’d been expecting him to leave, but he seemed unwilling to miss out on a free lunch.
Nanna went to put the flowers away, and all of us turned our focus on Nathan. My dad and I wasted no time in quizzing him about his poker-playing, while Pearce just sat there sullenly, obviously hoping for lunch to be served soon. Stone leaned back in his chair and listened to Nathan, but didn’t bother to ask anything.
“What’re you doing while you’re waiting to be a poker success?” I asked Nathan, just as Nanna returned to the room with the flowers in a big vase.
“I’m looking for work,” Nathan said. “Maybe I’ll be a valet. One of my friends i
s a valet, he said he’ll set me up.”
My father and I exchanged a glance. Valets in Vegas make more money than doctors in other cities, and I thought to myself that maybe Nathan wasn’t a con artist after all. My mother said to him, “And you don’t have a girlfriend?”
Nathan shook his head. “Haven’t found the right woman.”
“Tiffany’s single,” said my mother.
“I’m the one who invited Nathan over,” said Nanna. “He’s not interested in Tiffany.”
Nathan smiled at Nanna and said, “That’s true, I’m not. I prefer mature women. No offense,” he added, turning to me.
Nanna and Nathan began to talk in low voices, and I couldn’t hear what was being said, but after a few minutes, Nanna started to walk out of the room.
I looked at her questioningly, and she said, “I have to get something. “
With Nanna gone, my mother turned to Nathan again and said, “Are you sure you don’t want to date someone a bit younger? Tiffany’s pretty mature.”
“Thank you,” I said to her. “I am mature. But I don’t want to date Nathan.”
I smiled, pleased at having gotten to the rejection first.
“She’s right,” Nathan said. “I wouldn’t want to date her.”
“Besides,” said Pearce. “That’s why I’m here.”
He leered at me, and I said, “Still not gonna pay your rent. Or do your vacuuming.”
“If you want a boyfriend, you’re gonna have to take care of him,” Pearce said.
“Yeah,” I said. “And he’s gotta take care of me, too. And, you know, even take a shower once in a while.”
“That’s it!” Pearce said. “As soon as I’ve finished my lunch, I’m never gonna see you again.”
I rolled my eyes. Why couldn’t he be a man and leave, if he was so offended? I exchanged a glance with Stone, who was watching me through dark, amused eyes.
Nanna came back into the room carrying a thick book in her hand. “What’d I miss?” she said. “Why’s everyone so quiet? Why’s Pearce looking like a blowfish?”
“Tiffany’s being rude to him,” my mother said.
A.R. Winters - Tiffany Black 02 - Green Eyes in Las Vegas Page 12