Clutches and Curses

by Dorothy Howell

  I crept down Las Vegas Boulevard taking in the sights and sounds. Traffic was always near gridlock here, but that was okay with me tonight. I wasn’t in a hurry to get back to my room.

  In the daylight, The Strip looked kind of gaudy, maybe even a little cheesy. But at night when the casinos and hotels were lit up, it shone like a magical kingdom.

  The sidewalks were packed with people, laughing, strolling, looking up wide-eyed at the huge casino buildings. I spotted a few—well, okay, more than a few— strange-looking people, and I wondered if Cliff and his fellow ufologists were patrolling The Strip tonight.

  The fountains danced in front of the Bellagio. The roller coaster clacked on its tracks above New York-New York. Flags waved above the minarets of the Excalibur. The golden lion glistened at the MGM.

  I wished Marcie was here. Or Ty.

  When I finally got back to my home-away-from-home at the Culver Inn, I’d just kicked off my shoes when my room phone rang.

  “Miss Randolph, this is the front desk,” a woman said when I answered. “Could you come down here right away?”

  Good grief, what now? I wondered.

  Then I knew. Oh my God, they’d charged another night’s stay to my credit card and the charge hadn’t gone through because my card was maxed out. I was going to get kicked out of this place tonight.

  No way could I let that happen. I had nowhere else to go.

  “I can’t really do that,” I said, and hung up.

  I stood by the phone expecting it to ring again, but it didn’t. Whew. Thank goodness. At least I could sleep here another night. And tomorrow?

  Well, I’d worry about that in the morning.

  A knock sounded at my door.

  Oh, crap. The desk clerk with security backup was probably outside ready to evict me from my room.

  The knock sounded again, louder this time. I rushed to the peephole and looked out. Two men stood in the hallway. The view was cloudy, sort of distorted, but they looked familiar—

  Oh my God. It was Detectives Dailey and Webster. What were they doing here?

  “Open up!” Detective Webster called, and pounded on my door again. “We know you’re in there!”

  I opened my door.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  I was going for a see-how-calm-I-am-and-that-proves-I-didn’t-do-anything-wrong look, but I’m not sure I pulled it off.

  “Miss Randolph,” Detective Dailey said. “We’d like to speak with you about the murder of Rosalyn Chase.”

  CHAPTER 23

  “Rosalyn is dead?”

  I blurted that out standing in the doorway of my motel room, and I’m pretty sure it came out sounding stunned—because I was stunned.

  Detective Dailey’s expression softened a fraction, but Webster snarled back.

  “Yeah, like you don’t already know that?” he demanded.

  I looked back and forth between the two of them. Rosalyn was dead? Murdered? And the detectives had come here? To see me? Why would they do that? Shouldn’t they be out investigating—

  Oh, crap.

  “We’d like you to come with us,” Detective Dailey said.

  He was using his everything-will-be-all-right voice. I’m sure he’d coaxed many a suspect into custody with that tone. But he didn’t fool me—not with all the Law and Order reruns on TV these days.

  Oh my God. They wanted me to go to the police station with them. To be questioned. Grilled. For hours, probably.

  Why didn’t I have a mom like Helen Pennington? If her little Bradley were in trouble, she could call in attorneys, investigators. She even had friends high up in law enforcement, thanks to her donations to the widow’s fund.

  All my mom could do was give advice on tiara placement, runway turns, and lip liner. She could tell me how to give a gracious acceptance speech, but, frankly, I wasn’t feeling particularly gracious at the moment.

  Maybe I could call Jack Bishop. He’d come help me, but what could he do? He operated in Los Angeles, not Vegas.

  Detective Shuman would help, but he was an L.A. homicide detective. Dailey might listen to him as a professional courtesy, but that wouldn’t keep me out of jail.

  Oh my God. Who was left? Who could I turn to who might—

  Oh, wait. I had a boyfriend with tons of money and an army of overpriced attorneys who’d like nothing more than to ring up more billable hours courtesy of the Cameron family.

  Jeez, why didn’t I ever think of Ty first?

  No time for deep thoughts right now. I had bigger problems.

  Yeah, okay. One problem—staying out of jail.

  “What happened to Rosalyn?” I asked, trying for an I-haven’t-got-a-clue effect. It came across as pretty convincing—because it was true.

  “Let’s go someplace where we can talk,” Dailey said.

  I didn’t have to go with them, unless they were arresting me. At least, that’s what I thought.

  Jeez, I really hoped I was right.

  “Here’s fine with me,” I said, still standing in my doorway.

  Dailey’s expression hardened again. I knew it didn’t suit him, but he didn’t push.

  “Where were you today?” Dailey asked.

  “At work,” I said.

  They could check my time card and see when I’d punched in and out for the day. Dailey glanced at Webster. He pulled a little notebook from his jacket pocket and flipped pages, then nodded.

  I guess that meant they’d already checked my time card.

  Not a great feeling.

  “So what happened to Rosalyn?” I asked again.

  “A neighbor got concerned when Rosalyn didn’t answer her phone or door. She has a seizure disorder. The neighbor had a house key, so she let herself in,” Detective Dailey said. “She found Rosalyn in the bedroom.”

  “Dead,” Webster said. “Stabbed.”

  Just like Courtney had been stabbed.

  Now I kind of wished I’d agreed to go somewhere with them, at least the lobby, maybe, so I could sit down.

  “Where did you go after work?” Dailey asked.

  I wasn’t feeling all that great at the moment.

  “Neighbors saw you at Rosalyn’s house,” Webster barked.

  I didn’t even want a Snickers bar, or a bag of Oreos—that’s how bad I felt.

  “I was invited,” I insisted. “Rosalyn asked me to come over and look at some fashion accessories a friend had designed.”

  “What friend would that be?” Dailey asked.

  “Danielle Shepherd and Courtney—”

  “Courtney Collins?” he asked.

  Maybe I should stop talking now.

  Again, Dailey looked at Webster, who consulted his notebook.

  “Nothing like that at the scene,” Webster reported, and seemed pleased to announce it.

  “But there had to have been,” I said. “That’s the reason I went.”

  “So you admit you were there,” Detective Dailey concluded.

  I really should stop talking now.

  “A witness saw you go to the back of the house,” Webster said. “You were back there for a while. Long enough to slip in and murder Rosalyn.”

  “I didn’t murder anybody!” I shouted.

  Could I trade in my month-long Dubai shopping trip for bail money?

  “Look,” I said. “I was only at Rosalyn’s place for a few minutes—not long at all. Then I left.”

  “Where did you go?” Detective Dailey asked.

  Oh, crap.

  I’d been tailing the son of an upstanding, law-abiding pillar of the Las Vegas community. For no real reason, except that I didn’t like him and hoped to discover something terrible about him that I could use to help my friend build her muffin empire.

  I couldn’t tell the detectives that. It sure as heck wouldn’t help anything. They’d probably think I was a stalker or something.

  “I went for a drive,” I said. Yeah, okay, that sounded really lame.

  Detective Dailey must have picked
up on that, too, because he morphed from good-cop to bad-cop in a heartbeat.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull here, Miss Randolph, but I’ve had enough of it,” Dailey told me. “You showed up in Henderson with some far-fetched excuse for coming here, and your old high school rival just happened to get killed the day you arrived.”

  “I had nothing to do with that,” I insisted.

  Dailey ignored me.

  “Then I overheard you using an alias with your coworker,” he said.

  Cliff. That idiot insisted on calling me Dana—how was that my fault?

  “You lied about your job to a Reno police officer who came to the store,” Dailey said. “You claimed to be working undercover.”

  Reno police officer? I didn’t know any—

  Oh my God. Robbie Freedman was a police officer?

  “You’re at the scene of a second murder that’s somehow connected to the death of Courtney Collins.” Detective Dailey gave me big-time, bad-cop triple stink-eye. “Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t arrest you right now?”

  Oh, crap.

  “How about some evidence?” I shouted over the song playing on my car stereo.

  Yes! That had shut him up.

  I turned onto Sunset Road, last night’s standoff in my motel room doorway still playing over and over in my mind. Me being forceful and dynamic, demanding some evidence from the detectives. The look of total defeat on both their faces.

  Maybe I should become a lawyer.

  I’d showed those guys last night. No way were they going to mess with me.

  Yeah, well, okay, I hadn’t exactly shouted at the detectives. And, honestly, they hadn’t looked totally defeated. But I’d definitely hit them with some undeniable logic—no evidence.

  How long would it take to get a law degree?

  I was on my lunch break—and on a mission—and I still couldn’t get the whole incident out of my head. Stocking bras and panty hose for four hours this morning just hadn’t taken a lot of concentration. Go figure.

  Detective Webster had glared at me like a rabid dog, and Dailey had given me a definite I’ll-be-back look as they’d left last night.

  Not a great feeling.

  But at least they’d left. I was still free to come and go as I pleased—and solve these murders, since the detectives didn’t seem to be making any progress.

  True, they had no evidence against me. But, unfortunately, I had no proof that I was innocent, either. My word didn’t count for anything, obviously, and I didn’t even have any electronic backup.

  My GPS, when they downloaded it, would show that I’d driven to Rosalyn’s house. I hadn’t used it after leaving her place, so there was no proof of where I’d been. The detectives could contend that I’d driven right back to her house, once I knew where to find the place, and killed Rosalyn.

  The cell phone call I’d received from Danielle would prove I was at Rosalyn’s house, which wouldn’t do me any good. I’d gotten a call from Ty and used the Internet later in the evening. Since the detectives had already, apparently, checked on the time I’d left Holt’s for the day and they’d still come and questioned me, that must mean Rosalyn had been killed shortly before I got there, which meant the call from Ty or my use of the Internet wouldn’t help me.

  Detective Dailey was probably right that the murder of Courtney Collins and Rosalyn Chase were connected—but not because of me. And the only connection I could think of was the handbag club and Valerie Wagner.

  Poor Rosalyn. She was such a nice lady. I couldn’t believe she was really gone—or that I’d probably been knocking on her door and all the while she’d been inside dead. Yikes!

  I wasn’t sure if Dailey knew about Valerie. I certainly wasn’t going to mention her to him. Not now, anyway. Not until I checked out something for myself.

  I turned onto Pecos Road, searching the store fronts for a house number or, better yet, a sign for Wagner’s Fabrics. I’d found Valerie’s business address easily enough on the Internet this morning, and now I intended to confront her, see what she had to say for herself.

  A big white sign depicting a spool of thread and a sewing needle caught my attention a couple of seconds too late. I braked hard, and swung into the strip mall. Tires screeched behind me. Jeez, drivers really should be more alert.

  It seemed like a nice enough location for a fabric store, along with about a dozen other stores and offices all looking clean and well tended. An insurance firm, a bakery, a Chinese restaurant, a gift shop, that sort of thing. I pulled into a parking slot in front of Valerie’s fabric store and got out.

  A CLOSED sign hung in the bottom corner of her display window near the entrance. I walked closer and checked out the hours posted nearby. The store was scheduled to be open.

  I peered inside and saw bolts of fabric, displays of thread, bobbins and notions, cabinets of patterns. Lights off. No movement.

  I really hoped Valerie wasn’t lying in the back room stabbed to death.

  I went to the gift shop next door. A little bell tinkled as I walked inside. The place smelled of scented candles and was crammed full of floral arrangements, dolls, books, kitchen gadgets, holiday decorations, home décor items, and just about every other kind of gift imaginable. Two customers were in the shop, one looking at the greeting cards, the other checking out a display of cat bowls.

  “Can I help you?” the woman behind the counter called.

  She looked toned and trim, dressed in a no-nonsense sweater set, and was busy packing a set of candlesticks into a white gift box.

  “I stopped by to see Valerie, but her store is closed,” I said, pointing in the direction of the fabric shop. “Have you seen her? Is she okay?”

  “She’s not open?” The woman rose on her toes and peered out her display window at the parking lot. “Valerie closed early yesterday. She stopped by on her way out to tell me she was going to visit her sister in Reno. I didn’t believe her. Valerie never closes her shop—well, except for when . . .”

  I knew she was thinking about the funeral of Valerie’s son.

  “Scott,” I said, nodding sympathetically.

  “It’s been hard on Valerie,” she said.

  Hard enough to murder Rosalyn last night, then hide out at her sister’s place in Reno?

  “I’ll catch her later,” I said, and left the shop.

  I got into my car and headed down Pecos Road again. I had just enough time to grab some lunch and get back to work before my lunch break ended. I spotted a Burger King and pulled into the drive-through.

  Of course, I had no evidence that Valerie had killed Rosalyn. She’d certainly looked angry and unstable enough to kill someone—namely, Rosalyn and me—when she’d confronted us in the parking lot after the handbag club meeting.

  I didn’t know what had set her off that night. Maybe just being back in the boutique and hearing Courtney’s name. Maybe she’d gone home and pulled out all of Scott’s old Mother’s Day cards and lost her mind—not that I blamed her, of course. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time someone like Rosalyn had been the target of misplaced anger.

  Still, it seemed like one heck of a coincidence that Valerie had closed her shop early on the day Rosalyn was killed, then conveniently gone to Reno to visit her sister.

  I pulled up to the menu board and ordered a burger and a chocolate shake—just to ensure good brain function for the afternoon, of course.

  Was there another coincidence in this whole thing? I wondered, as I paid for my lunch and drove away.

  Valerie had gone to Reno. Robbie Freedman was from Reno. Hmm. Reno was a big place, so it could very well have been just a coincidence. Still, it made me wonder.

  It made me think of Robbie.

  Robbie was a police officer? He should have told me. I mean, really, those guys should be required to wear their badges at all times. It’s just the decent thing to do. Then he’d ratted out me and my undercover work to Detective Dailey. What was that all about, anyway?r />
  As I made the turn onto Sunset Road, I wondered about everything Robbie had told me yesterday in Holt’s. Had he really driven all the way from Reno to Vegas—four hundred miles or something—just to see the place where Courtney had been murdered? It seemed weird, even if he was a police officer.

  I gulped down some of my chocolate shake. My brain cells flashed quicker than the paparazzi cameras on the red carpet, and I remembered that when I’d asked if he was going back to Reno, Robbie had said he planned to spend the night here, visit a friend.

  Oh my God. That meant Robbie had been in town when Rosalyn was murdered. Could he have killed her? For that matter, had he driven down and murdered Courtney?

  Motive . . . motive. Hang on a minute, I needed a motive. Those TV crime dramas were big on motive.

  I took another swig of chocolate milkshake and waited for another explosion of brilliance.

  Nothing exploded.

  I drove a few more blocks and diligently kept my brain infused with chocolate shake but couldn’t come up with one single reason why Robbie might have killed Rosalyn.

  Maybe I should switch to chocolate fudge shakes.

  Really, though, I shouldn’t be concerned that my standard chocolate shake had let me down. I hadn’t really found a strong motive anywhere for anyone to have murdered Courtney or Rosalyn.

  Yeah, okay, maybe I was getting a little carried away here, but still, Robbie’s behavior was weird.

  I unwrapped my burger and ate it as I drove. I couldn’t get Robbie out of my mind.

  If for some unknown reason Robbie had murdered Courtney, maybe that was why he hadn’t asked for my cell phone number or e-mail address at Holt’s yesterday. I mean, why wouldn’t he? I am, after all, me. Was it because he really thought I was working undercover in the store, and that’s why he went to see Detective Dailey to confirm it?

  I finished off my burger as I pulled into a parking space in front of the Holt’s store, sucked down the last of my shake, and went inside.

  The place was shaping up. Racks and displays were stuffed with clothing. The display team was busy assembling and dressing an army of mannequins. The grand opening was probably scheduled pretty soon. I didn’t know. If anybody had told me, I wasn’t listening.