A.R. Winters - Tiffany Black 03 - Red Roses in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “She works in casino security, right?”

  “That’s right. Got her degree from UNLV and all. And then there’s Mike, who’s a nurse at the Spring Valley Hospital, and Adam – well, he was happy working in his finance jobs.”

  She sat sadly, remembering Adam, and I waited for a moment before saying, “Can you tell me a bit about Adam? What was he like?”

  She went on for a while, proud as a Crossfitter with blisters. If I were to believe her, Adam was pretty much a cross between Don Giovanni (with less chauvinism) and Einstein (with just a slightly different hairstyle).

  “I can’t believe someone up and killed him,” she said, and then turned to Nanna. “And don’t worry, I don’t believe for a second it was you. Him losing that money was just a fluke, you know, temporary. He woulda won it all back in a few days.”

  “I know,” Nanna said, “That’s the only reason I yelled at him, to remind him I’m friends with you.”

  I tried not to smile at Nanna, and wondered if Leona had no idea about her son’s demotion at work, and consistent bad performance. On the other hand, why would Adam worry his mother with work stuff?

  “Did he get on with everyone at work?” I asked, and Leona regaled me with tales of how popular her Adam was. “His closest friends were outside of work, though. There’s Josh, who’s a cop, and Winston, who works in some office downtown, and a bunch of other boys from his high school whose names I can never remember.”

  “Do you have any of their phone numbers with you?” I asked, but she shook her head.

  “No, you’ll have to ask that girlfriend of his. Maybe she’ll let you look through their place, maybe he’s got an address book, somewhere.”

  I doubted that – in my experience, these things don’t just fall into your lap. And even if he did have a list of names or a diary of some sort, the cops would’ve gotten their hands on it. I made a note to quiz Cynthia about Josh and Winston, and asked Leona to tell me about Cynthia.

  She was very complimentary, but ironically, most of what she told me jibed with what Sharon, Adam’s co-worker, had told me. Cynthia was gorgeous, intelligent and ambitious, Leona said, but she wasn’t a very good cook, and had crashed her car thrice in the last year.

  “What about Mike?” I asked. “What’s he like?”

  Leona said that Mike really cared about people and humanity and was pretty much Florence Nightingale reincarnated. His wife, Claire, was fabulous, too – she was a senator, and the daughter of one of the richest men in Vegas, Joe Stephanopoulis. They were a lovely couple, and even though they lived on the other side of town, in Summerlin, they visited her all the time.

  After what seemed like ten hours, I figured I’d asked enough questions and learnt about as much as I ever would from Leona. I grabbed Natasha’s, Mike’s and Claire’s numbers from her, gave her my card, and asked her to tell them that I’d like to speak with them as soon as I could.

  “I’ll call them straight away,” Leona said with a sad smile as she waved goodbye. “I want as much as you do to find out who did this to my son.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  I arrived back at my condo with Nanna and threw my purse onto the sofa as she closed the door behind us. I barely had any time to reflect on our meeting with Leona, when my phone started buzzing. I dug through my purse, sifting through all the things I carry around with me on a regular basis, and managed to find my phone before it stopped vibrating.

  “Hello?”

  It turned out to be Leona.

  “I’ve told all of them—Natasha, Mike and Claire—to expect your call,” she said. “Good luck with the investigation.”

  As soon as I hung up, there was a knock on the door.

  “I heard you and Nanna chatting in the corridor,” said Ian, “So I knew you were back. How’d it go?”

  “Not great,” I said. “You didn’t miss anything.”

  “Yeah,” added Nanna. “Leona thinks all her kids are sainted.”

  “Gee,” said Ian. “I wish my parents thought that way about me. But nooo. They think I’m a big loser who sits on his ass all day and doesn’t even have a career or anything. They always wanted me to do amazing things.” He brightened up. “But now that I’m a private investigator, helping out innocent people and all that, maybe they’ll think I’m ok.”

  I looked at him doubtfully and said, “Uh-huh, sure.”

  In my experience, parents who expect “amazing things” from their kids are never happy unless the kid turns out to be an amazingly successful doctor who’s discovered the cure for cancer, or turns into a self-made multi-billionaire entrepreneur. Preferably, an amazingly talented doctor who’s discovered the cure for cancer, and is a self-made multi-billionaire entrepreneur at the weekends.

  “What’s for lunch?” Nanna asked. “I haven’t made anything. Do you want me to bake something? Or do you want to go to McDonald’s again?”

  “I love McDonald’s!” said Ian, turning to me. “How about it?”

  “I don’t know,” I said to Nanna. “I’m a bit worried about your cholesterol.”

  She flicked a hand. “Pshaw! My cholesterol’s fine.” And then she looked at me carefully. “Why are you even worrying about it? Have you been talking to your mother, again?”

  I shrugged. “She worries about you.”

  “Too much.” Nanna crossed her arms against her chest. “The woman doesn’t know to keep her nose out of my medical charts. That stuff’s supposed to be private. I could sue her. Anyway,” she said, smiling again, “If you’re worried about my health, we could mix it up a little. Variety’s supposed to be good for you – how about KFC today?”

  “Yeah, KFC’s great!” said Ian.

  “I don’t know.” I hardly ever go to KFC. But then again, Nanna was my guest, so it’s like I had an obligation to feed her what she wanted, so I shrugged. “Sure, why not.”

  ***

  After an hour, the three of us returned to my condo, bellies stuffed full of ridiculous amounts of fried chicken. Minutes later, my phone buzzed; it seemed as though my crossing the threshold was some kind of cue for people to call me.

  It turned out to be Natasha, Adam’s sister.

  “My mother gave me your number,” she said. “And I know you’d like to talk to me, so I was wondering if you’d like to stop by at around six? My shift ends then.”

  “Perfect,” I said, “That’s just a bit before my shift starts, so I’ll see you then.”

  “Downstairs in Casino Venezia? How about in The Bellissimo Café?”

  “Sounds good.”

  We hung up and I turned to Ian. “We’re going to talk to Adam’s sister at six. Why don’t you come by at a quarter to?”

  “Ok,” he said. “What’re you doing till then? Anything I can help with?”

  “I’m taking a nap,” I told him. “You can help out by doing some research on Claire Bitzer. She’s a state senator, so you should find lots of dirt on her online. And see if you can find out anything on Adam’s girlfriend, Cynthia Pruttley. She works at Petite Bijou Designs or something, so maybe you can find something on their website.”

  “Aye-aye, captain.” Ian gave me a mock salute and headed off, and I headed toward the bedroom, wondering just what the evening would reveal.

  Chapter Seventeen

  The Casino Venezia is, from the outside, the world’s most ridiculously designed casino, with its fake “Venice” landscape, complete with canals, gondolas and Doge’s Palace. Inside, it looks like just any other Vegas casino – the designers obviously gave up on the Venice theme once they got inside, and settled for “standard casino tacky.”

  The Bellissimo Café, in keeping with that standard, was like a slightly gaudier Starbucks, with its ornate ceiling and elaborate fake-mahogany booths and chairs. Golden chandeliers imparted an “opulent” glow, and the menu was, as part of the homage to opulence, greatly overpriced.

  “I get an employee discount,” Natasha said. “In case you’re hungry.”

 
“I’m fine,” I said, and stuck with a cappuccino, but Ian decided to order a slice of raspberry cheesecake in addition to his coffee.

  Natasha looked tired. She’d just finished a ten-hour shift and had bags under her eyes. Her pale skin was obviously foundation-less, her lipstick had smeared to a light pink, and her eyelashes were coated with a thinning layer of mascara. Her brunette hair was streaked with lighter shades, but there was a four-inch gap of unstreaked dark brown. The whole impression was that of someone who was a whisker away from giving up.

  “I don’t want to waste your time, since you’ve got a shift in a few hours,” Natasha said. “What do you do?”

  “Dealer at The Treasury.”

  She nodded. “It’s nice of you to help out your nanna like this.”

  I shrugged modestly, as a waitress appeared with our coffees and Ian’s cheesecake. “Not sure how much I’m helping, really. So far I haven’t found much.”

  Natasha sighed. “I still can’t believe it, sometimes. It’s all so… senseless.”

  “Any idea who might be behind it?”

  She shook her head. “No. Adam had no enemies, as you’ve probably already heard. He wasn’t involved in anything unusual, he was just a regular guy. Regular Adam.”

  She stared blankly at her coffee, and Ian dug into his cheesecake, as though he hadn’t just stuffed himself full of KFC a couple of hours ago.

  “What about the girlfriend?” I asked. “Cynthia?”

  “Cynthia Pruttley.” Natasha looked up with a wry smile. “Now, that. That’s a piece of work. She’s got her head up here, and her shit don’t stink ’cause she’s a size zero and an interiah designah.”

  “You’re not fond of her?”

  “Hard to be. Not that there’s anything wrong with her, of course,” she added hastily. “She’s just not… friendly, I guess. She doesn’t really care to be nice anyone, not even Adam.”

  “Did they fight? Or have any problems?”

  “No, not like that. It’s more like… she was indifferent to him, and he just let her walk all over him.”

  “I see.”

  Ian swallowed his bite of cheesecake and said, “What about you? How did you get along with Adam?”

  “Me?” Natasha seemed surprised by the question. “We got along fine. I was a bit annoyed that he wouldn’t let Mom stay with him once in a while, but I guess I do understand. Puts a bit of a damper on your love-life, if you’ve got a geriatric parent living with you.”

  I smiled sympathetically. “Tell me about it. Do you have a boyfriend?”

  She shook her head. “No. We broke up a few months back.”

  Ian said, “Did you and Adam have any arguments recently?”

  “No,” said Natasha.

  “And what about your alibi?” said Ian. “Where were you on Friday night?”

  Natasha raised an eyebrow. “You’re accusing me of murdering my own brother? What are you, nuts?”

  She glanced at me, more amused than offended, and I shrugged. “Sorry. He is a little nuts.”

  “It’s ok,” she said. “I was at work. Pulling a night shift – they’ve got me on tape, I’m pretty sure. You can ask my supervisor and look it up.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I said. “Ian’s just being silly.”

  “I am not,” he said. “You’ve got to ask everyone for their alibi.” He turned to Natasha. “I can’t just exclude you because I’m being polite or because I don’t want to upset you or something. I’m really serious about finding out who killed Adam.”

  Natasha nodded solemnly. “That makes sense.”

  I breathed a silent sigh of relief that Ian hadn’t managed to do too much damage and said, “What about red roses? Did Adam have a fondness for them or something?”

  Natasha crinkled her face. “I’m not sure how you mean. He wasn’t into gardening or anything like that.”

  I didn’t want to tell her that his last words had been about red roses, it would just make her think of how he’d died. But I still asked, “Do you think red roses might be connected with his death in any way?”

  She shook her head. “No, I can’t possibly see how.”

  “What about his friends? Leona said Adam had lots of friends.”

  Natasha shook her head. “No, he was a bit of a loner, really. He had a lot of acquaintances – he was a friendly guy, but only a couple of close friends. There were these guys he met with to play golf with every now and then.”

  “I guess I should talk to them.”

  Natasha nodded. “I don’t have their info on me right now, but I’ll go home and look it up for you.”

  “Thanks, I’d appreciate that.

  A few minutes and a few questions later, I decided that there was nothing more to learn from Natasha, and handed her my card with instructions to call me if she thought of anything.

  Ian and I walked away from The Venezia thoughtfully. So far, we’d uncovered pretty much nothing.

  By the time we got to The Treasury, I was exhausted all over again, despite the long afternoon nap I’d taken. Failure has a way of tiring you out.

  “I’m beat,” I said. “Why don’t you head home and have dinner with Nanna, and I’ll take five before getting to my shift.”

  The plan was to relax over a coffee until it was time to deal with the gamblers, and maybe have a slice of cake or two.

  But then Ian said, “Aren’t you going to make those phone calls? We can’t waste time, you know.”

  I stared into his pale eyes until I remembered, and then I slumped forward and groaned.

  Chapter Eighteen

  “Tell me what you’ve found out,” I said, as I settled in with my coffee and slice of chocolate mud cake.

  “Cynthia’s pretty,” Ian said. “I found a bunch of photos of her on a social networking site, and she’s got a profile on the Petite Bijou Designs website. I don’t know if she’s any good as a designer, but she specializes in doing “Grand Designs” style homes. And according to the social networking site, she’s big on partying. Speaking of which, Adam had a profile on that site too, but it was pretty quiet. He never posted photos of himself or updates about his life or anything. Seems like a pretty quiet person.”

  I nodded and dug into the cake. Delicious, moist chocolaty goodness. “Anything interesting on Cynthia?”

  “Not really. Can I have a bite of that?”

  “No. Get your own slice.”

  “I already had cheesecake.”

  “Well, sucks for you. What about the brother, Mike?”

  “Boring runs in the family. All three of them, Mike, Adam and Natasha had profiles on the social site, but none of them bothered to update. Mike’s been working at the hospital for the last ten years, married for just under that.”

  “And the wife? Claire?”

  “The state senator.” Ian’s eyebrows squished together. “You’d think, since she’s a public figure and all, there’d be more info about her online. But noooo. If anything, there’s less.”

  “But surely there’s news articles and stuff.”

  “Oh sure.” Ian nodded. “Lots of news, she’s got her website, her social networking profiles. But it’s all been scrubbed: it’s all about how great she is, how much she’s doing to improve the state of Nevada and our public schools and all that. I’m sure that if there’s any bad press, her marketing guy wipes it all clean.”

  “Hmm.” I finished the cake, and tried to scrape off the chocolate sauce they’d drizzled around the plate to make it look all fancy. “But you’d expect that with politicians, wouldn’t you?”

  “I guess so.”

  Ian was looking at me expectantly, now that my cake was all gone. I sighed and pulled out my phone, not particularly pleased with his nagging. Still, he was right – we were in a rush and I needed to make the phone calls.

  ***

  My first call was to Cynthia Pruttley, Adam’s girlfriend. Unsurprisingly, she was still in LA. “I already talked to the cops over here. Why do I have
to talk to you again?”

  I took a deep breath, explained that I believed the cops might have missed something, and that I’d really appreciate her time.

  “Ok,” she sighed. “I’ll be back in Vegas tomorrow. Stop by my office after lunch.”

  I thanked her and hung up, a bitter after-taste in my mouth. I could see why she wasn’t popular with Natasha and Adam’s co-worker, Sharon. There was an air of entitlement and arrogance about her, and I wondered if I should leave Ian at home when I went to chat with her. He’d probably be too busy drooling over Cynthia’s beauty to be much use. But then again, I had promised to take him everywhere with me.

  My shift was starting shortly, and I didn’t have time to decide whether or not to take Ian with me when I went to Cynthia’s, so I made my next call. Adam’s brother, Mike.

  “I’m in Nebraska,” he told me. “But I’ll be back the day after tomorrow and we can chat then.”

  I thanked him and hung up. No wonder the cops had no real suspects – everyone Adam knew seemed to have been away. Including Claire Bitzer, Mike’s wife.

  “I just got back yesterday,” Claire told me. “But I can talk to you tomorrow morning. Can you come by before 8:30?”

  I groaned silently, already missing my few extra hours of sleep, but I agreed anyway.

  I hung up, leaned back in my chair, and turned to Ian. “All done.”

  He nodded. “And with fifteen minutes to spare.”

  Like I needed to be reminded.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I played my part in the casino rigmarole, handing out cards, happy for players when they won, sad when they lost, and happiest when I was tipped well. Overhead lights helped disguise the ticking hours, and the ambient noise from the slot machines, abundant drinks and happy conversations made the place seem like the non-stop party zone that all the brochures touted.

  Half-way through my shift, I received a voicemail from Jack, and when I called him back, he asked if I wanted to meet up for coffee or breakfast.