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

by A. R. Winters

  Ian gave me a hurt look. “I don’t want to date them. Did I say anything about dating them?”

  I shrugged. “Sorry. What’re you getting at? And why don’t you want to date them?”

  “Because they’re all married! They’re all married to really rich guys, too. And they go to a lot of those expensive parties.”

  “Hmm. Maybe that’s how Adam met them. Maybe he met them there and started to date them. Oh, yeah,” I added. “I forgot to tell you. I talked to Cynthia this morning–”

  “When?”

  “After my shift.”

  “Why didn’t you take me along?”

  I frowned at him. “Because it was six o’clock in the morning and you would’ve been fast asleep. I went straight from work.”

  “Oh, ok.” He was about to let it go, but then he added, “You could have woken me.”

  “Why? So that you can go flirt with her again? Besides, you don’t want to do that. She’s already started sleeping with this other guy from Adam’s work.”

  “Damn. I’m too late.”

  “Did you not hear me? She met this guy at Adam’s memorial service at Verdant Wealth and then they got together. How tacky is that?”

  Ian shook his head morosely. “Smart guy.”

  I took a deep breath. “Ian. Listen to me. You do not want to get involved with this woman.”

  “Who said anything about getting involved? I could just, you know.” He shrugged, trying to look cool. “Go for something short-term. A fling.”

  “Have you ever had a fling? Ever? In your whole life?”

  “Just because I haven’t so far doesn’t mean I can’t start.”

  “Yes, it does. Anyway, where was I?”

  “You went to talk to Cynthia without me.”

  I looked at him carefully and decided to let it go. “Right, and she told me she thinks Adam was cheating on her.”

  “Poor girl.”

  I sighed. “Anyway. Back to the problem at hand. Do you have contact details for all these women? How many were there, three?”

  “Four that were paying money every month. I looked way back through the older statements, and I found one other woman, Alexia Boyle, who paid him for two months and then stopped, about five months ago.”

  “Right. Well, in any case, that’s a lot of women we need to talk to.”

  “I found some of their addresses online, but no phone numbers. I can show you their photos, if you like.”

  He looked at me hopefully and I said, “Sure, email me. We’ll figure out how to get their phone numbers – aren’t they listed anywhere?”

  He shook his head. “Nope, they must have all unlisted numbers. But maybe we can ask around?”

  “Huh. Maybe. Anyway, I’ll think about it. But for now, I’m going to grab some more sleep before I have to leave for my parents’ place.”

  “Can I come, too?”

  “Sure,” I said. “The more the merrier. Although my mom’s going to be freaking out. Nanna’s trial got pushed forward to a fortnight away.” Ian looked at me in horror and I nodded. “Yup. I just found out last night. I’m sure my mom won’t be happy about it.”

  “That’s terrible.”

  “It is. But I’m too tired to panic about it now. I’ll see you at lunch-time.”

  Chapter Thirty-One

  My nap didn’t last long enough to make me feel particularly refreshed, but at least I managed to get some sleep before Nanna, Ian and I all piled into my car and headed north towards my parents’ place for lunch. The drive up was silent – Nanna had received a phone call from her lawyer earlier in the morning, and now it was official: we all knew that the trial would start two weeks from now. Even Ian seemed to have run out of steam.

  My parents’ place was surprisingly quiet when we drove up, and my dad greeted us all at the door.

  “Your mom’s in the kitchen,” he told me. “Adding finishing touches to the salad.”

  “Oh.”

  I exchanged a glance with Nanna, and we all trooped into the kitchen just as my mom finished whatever final touches she was adding.

  “I guess we should start eating,” she said, looking at us all calmly.

  We all nodded and headed towards the dining room.

  “Why is she so quiet?” I whispered to my dad.

  “She took a couple of those calming down pills,” he said in a voice low enough for us to all hear, but not loud enough to carry to the kitchen, where Mom was taking the chicken and mushroom pie out of the oven. “Before this, there was some yelling and some tears.”

  As we dug into our food, Mom glanced at Nanna every now and then, until she finally asked me, “How’s the investigation going? You haven’t found anything, have you?”

  “Um, not yet,” I said nervously. “But I’m trying.”

  She sighed. “I know you are, sweetie.” And then she turned to Nanna. “My mother, the criminal.”

  She started to laugh softly, the creepiest noise I’d ever heard in a long time. Ian and I stared at each other, wide-eyed, and my dad stared at his food.

  “Maybe we should, uh…” I looked at my mother, wondering what I could possibly say to make her feel better.

  “I’ll be fine,” Nanna said. “My friend Steven Machhione promised me a good lawyer, that young guy, Jerry Sabatino, who does all the family cases. Have you ever seen a Mob guy go to jail? A high up, who had a proper lawyer, I mean?”

  My mother stopped laughing long enough to stare at Nanna in wonder. “So it’s come down to this,” she said. “We can all be a proud part of the corruption of this great city.”

  I looked at Nanna and shrugged. I didn’t mind being a proud part of the corruption if it kept an innocent woman – namely Nanna — out of prison. Of course, I didn’t say that out loud.

  “I’ll find something before then,” I said out loud. “I will, I promise.”

  ***

  Half-way through lunch, my phone buzzed, and I excused myself to take the call. It was Adam’s brother, Mike Bitzer, calling to say that he was back in Vegas, if I would like to come over to talk to him today.

  “I’ll be there in about an hour,” I told him, and headed back to the lunch table.

  My mother was staring morosely at Nanna, and everyone was picking at their food silently.

  “I talked to my friend, Madge, about the prison,” Mom said. “She told me it’s not too bad. The hospital’s not great, and of course the other inmates are terrible. They’ve got real murderers in there. Real murderers. And kidnappers and psychopaths. They’ll be a bad influence on you.” She turned to me and said, “Your nanna always meets people who are a bad influence.”

  A lone tear started to trickle out of her right eye, and she brushed it away quickly. I could sense the pills she’d taken were starting to wear off, and I gobbled my food as quickly as I could.

  Every week, I have lunch or dinner at my parents. Often, I go twice a week. It’s nice to see them, and the free home-cooked food is pretty great, too. Of course, in exchange I tolerate my mother’s well-intentioned “match-making,” which really just consists of her introducing me to the most terrible guys in the world. I’m talking chauvinistic, shower-free, conversation-handicapped men. To make matters worse, most of them seem more interested in my mom’s cooking than in me.

  So, yeah, I’ve had some pretty terrible meals at my parents’ place. But this lunch took the cake – even without any cringe-inducing men present. I hated to see my mother so upset – despite the meds which were clearly inducing a creepy, artificial calm. My dad was silent, glancing from me to Nanna to Mom every now and then, and I was helpless in the face of it all.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Ian, Nanna and I left as soon as we could. We all felt pretty terrible, but there wasn’t much we could do – at least not while sitting around the dining table watching my mom try not to have a breakdown.

  “We’re going to talk to Mike in an hour or so,” I told Ian as we drove, “But before that, I guess I should
talk to Adam’s friend, Detective Stiggins.”

  “You think he pushed up the trial date?” Ian asked.

  “Well, maybe not him. Maybe it was the DA who thought this’d be an easy win for him or something, like Nanna’s lawyer said. But Stiggins would know what’s going on.”

  “But would he tell you?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  We never did. When I called the station and asked to speak to Detective Stiggins, I was told he was out. “But you can leave a message for him, if you’d like,” suggested the helpful receptionist.

  I demurred, and asked if Detective Elwood was in, instead.

  “Let me check… Yes, he’s in. Would you like to speak with him?”

  People tended to be less forthcoming over the phone, and I wasn’t sure how helpful Elwood would be anyway, so I said, “No. Just tell him he’ll have a visitor in ten minutes.”

  I hung up before she could ask me my name, grabbed my tote bag and Ian, and headed off to the station.

  Elwood didn’t look too thrilled when he saw me – but he didn’t look more than his usual amount of grumpy, either.

  “What d’ya want?” he grumbled, as he led us to a small conference room. “And who’s this guy?”

  “I’m Ian,” said Ian chirpily. “I’m helping Tiffany with her investigations.”

  Elwood gave me a questioning look as we sat down, and I returned it with a perfectly impassive stare. At least, I think I was perfectly impassive, and Elwood turned to Ian and said, “Good luck.”

  “How’s your wife?” I asked, before we got down to business. I was hoping that reminding him it was my idea to send her flowers would put him in a slightly more helpful mood. “Did she like the roses?”

  I’d expected Elwood to lighten up a little, maybe even smile. Instead, he turned his pudgy face towards me, narrowed his eyes and leaned forward. I half-expected steam to come out of his nose.

  “You!” he growled. “All your fault. You and your stupid ideas.”

  My eyes widened. “Why, what happened?”

  “She’s allergic!” Elwood spread his arms wide and leaned back. “Allergic to roses! How’m I supposed to know that? And know she thinks I don’t even know she’s allergic to roses! I mean… How’m I meant to recover from that, you tell me. No, wait, don’t say anything. I don’t want to hear it.”

  He leaned back in his seat unhappily, and Ian said, “Oh man, that sucks. Tiffany gives the worst dating advice. You should never listen to her.”

  Elwood grunted. “Yeah. Now I know.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said, but Elwood waved me away before I could say anything else.

  “You know what you should do?” Ian said. “Get her some jewelry. Women love jewelry. It’s better than perfume, because some women don’t like some smells, but all women like a tiny locket. You know, a nice diamond or something.”

  “Huh.” Elwood looked at Ian curiously. “I can’t afford diamonds. How about a fake diamond?”

  “No, no.” Ian shook his head emphatically. “Never get fake diamonds, they hate that. If you want to cheap out, you go gold, or even gold-plated.”

  “Yeah, that sounds like a plan,” Elwood said. “Maybe I’ll try that.”

  I decided it was Ian’s turn to take over the conversation, and I nudged him with my foot. He got the hint.

  “Anyway,” Ian said, “Do you know why the trial was pushed up?”

  “Yeah.” Elwood glanced at me and then looked at Ian. “Wish I could help you there, but we’ve got no clue here. I reckon it was the DA looking for an easy win. That happens, once in a while.”

  Ian nodded. “Thanks, I guess there’s not much we can do about that.”

  “Maybe I could try to talk to the DA,” I mused aloud.

  “He’ll never go back on his word,” Elwood told us. “These types, they’re just looking for ego-boosters and things that make them look good. They don’t really care about justice or helping people, or anything like that.”

  I sighed, and Ian nodded sagely.

  “Well, thanks for your help,” Ian said. “I hope it works out between you and your wife…”

  “Me too,” said Elwood, managing an annoyed glance in my direction.

  I lifted my shoulders and tried to look apologetic. “I’m sorry, I was just trying to help.”

  “I’m sorry about her,” Ian said as he shook hands with Elwood. “She has no clue about women.”

  I raised one eyebrow but didn’t say anything, and we rushed off to meet Mike Bitzer.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Ian and I found ourselves sitting in Claire’s expensive cream-and-white-with-expensive-artwork living room once again; except, this time, Claire wasn’t there.

  We were sitting opposite Mike Bitzer, who I suppose looked like an older version of Adam. He was a little under six feet tall, had dark circles under his eyes and was thin enough to look haggard. There was a three-day growth of beard adorning his jaw, and he was dressed in ratty, soft-looking jeans and an equally soft-looking blue t-shirt. His hair was thinning and dark, and fell gently across his face.

  “I’m still not quite believing it,” he told us, staring at the ground. “I keep thinking Adam’s gonna call, and we’ll meet up for drinks at the pub or something.” He let out a sigh. “I can’t believe I’ll be watching the Superbowl without him, this year.”

  Ian and I were silent, not quite sure what to say to comfort him, and Mike sighed. “Anyway,” he said. “I guess we should get started. I’m happy to help you guys out, even though I don’t believe the cops would get things wrong. Besides, Adam was a really nice guy. He had no enemies, wasn’t mixed up in anything bad. He had good friends, a good job – he’s a pretty boring guy, if you think about it.”

  He smiled sadly and I said, “I’m sure the cops did everything they could, but it’s my job to just make sure that… they didn’t miss anything.”

  Mike shrugged. “Sure, I get that. My wife says she’s sorry she couldn’t be here, by the way. She had work.”

  “That’s ok, I understand.”

  Mike shook his head. “The funeral’s on Sunday. I mean… my little brother’s funeral.”

  I twisted the band of my watch uncomfortably, and Ian said, “Hey, it’s a good thing you made it back in time. Where’d you go, Nebraska?”

  “Yeah. I wanted to come back as soon as I got the news, but I couldn’t just let Joe down.”

  “Joe?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Mike nodded. “His dad’s got Alzheimer’s, and Joe and his wife’ve been taking care of him, not getting any time together and stuff. So I told them I’d be happy to help out – give them a week to get out of town, just relax, make sure their marriage is ok. I’m a nurse, so I figured I should help out my buddy.”

  “That’s really nice of you,” I said. “I know it’s hard to care for a parent with Alzheimer’s.”

  Mike shrugged. “It’s the least I could do. We were best friends in high school, and Joe’s not quite ready to send his dad off to a nursing home. Besides, that’s why I became a nurse in the first place – to help folks out when they need me.”

  I smiled. “Yeah, Claire said that’s one of the reasons you got together in the first place. That you both like helping people.”

  “I suppose that’s right.”

  I watched him with admiration. Living in Vegas, most of the people you meet are selfish hedonists – though I suppose that’s the case in most cities, of course. Everyone knows there are bad things in the world, but we expect other people to “take care of it;” Claire and Mike were those other people.

  “How are things between you and Claire?” Ian asked. “You both seem so busy with your careers.”

  Mike shrugged. “You make time. And I guess we’re both lucky in that we’ve got flexible work hours, so we can adjust our times and stuff.”

  “Right.” I took a deep breath. “Anyway. We’ve got to ask a few questions about Adam – standard stuff, we’ve been asking eve
ryone, but we need to ask you, too.”

  Mike nodded. “Sure.”

  “What was he like?”

  “Just a regular guy, I suppose. He’s got his work, his girl. But he works long hours sometimes, so he doesn’t – didn’t – have hobbies and stuff.”

  “But he was part of the charity circuit.”

  “Yeah, he made time for that. Claire and I encouraged him a little – I mean, what’s the point of earning the big bucks if you don’t give some of it to charity?”

  Except he wasn’t earning the big bucks. And I didn’t really believe in the charity circuit – if people want to give money to charities, why don’t they just do that, instead of going to swanky parties?

  Ian said, “Did you know that he’d had a pay cut recently? Did he do any other work on the side?”

  Mike shook his head. “First I’m hearing about a pay cut. I reckon he still made a lot after that, we didn’t really talk about cash.”

  “Did he have any other girlfriends?” Ian asked. “Did you ever see him with any other women? Beautiful women?”

  Mike looked at him, slightly puzzled. “How’d you mean? He was always faithful to Cynthia, as far as I know. He never mentioned any other women, didn’t even really check out other women when we went out and stuff. He’s a good, stable guy.”

  “Was he planning on getting married?” I asked.

  Mike shrugged. “I’m not sure about that. He never mentioned it, but he wasn’t interested in other women, if that’s what you mean.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance, both thinking the same thing. I decided to go ahead and ask it. “I went through Adam’s bank statements. He was getting money every month from a couple of different women. Do you know anything about that?”

  He looked at me blankly and shook his head. “No. That makes no sense. But maybe they were giving him money to manage and didn’t want to give it to Verdant Wealth directly?”