by Lauren Carr
At the library, Jacqui was filling up the white board with additional information that they had been discovering from the detectives investigating the three additional Graduate Slaughterer victims.
With a wide grin filling his face, Elliott thanked the homicide detective from the sheriff’s office in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “That’s good information, Stan. I’ll let you know if it leads to something on our end.” After saying goodbye, he disconnected the call.
Across the table, Bruce was smirking in his direction.
“Well?” Ray snapped from the computer monitor. “Sounds like you actually talked to someone who knew something.”
“Everyone that we’ve been talking to has to go back to check with victims’ friends and family to find any connection with the Stardust Casino,” Jacqui said.
“Well,” Elliott said, “it just so happened that Angela Romano’s connection was already in the case files. She was a regular at the Stardust. She’d come out on one of those tourist buses filled with gamblers and spend the whole day playing the slot machines and filling up on the all-you-can-eat buffet. She did that at least once a month up to three weeks before her murder—when she got banned from the casino.”
“Why’d she get banned?” Bruce asked.
“She stole another guy’s winnings. The detective is not really sure what happened. This guy had hit the jackpot—fifteen thousand dollars. Angela was nearby. When he went to cash in his chips, he forgot some sort of ticket that the machine spits out. That was what they would use to cash in the winnings—not the chips. Angela had grabbed the slip and cashed it in. There were witnesses, and the casino did get her on the security recording stealing the slip. But, by the time security caught up to her while she was chowing down at the buffet, she already had the cash and refused to return it. She was screaming about finders keepers and it was the guy’s loss for not knowing the rules. The police were called, and they hauled her out. There was a police report filed. She was charged with theft and the casino banned her for life.” Elliott held up his finger. “But she never gave the guy his winnings. The local police said they had no grounds to take it from her since the guy had left the slip of paper behind. She kept the money.”
“That’s why it was in the case file,” Ray said. “The guy she stole the money from had a good motive for killing her.”
“He was out fifteen thousand dollars,” Elliott said. “He was furious and did threaten her—right there at the buffet in front of witnesses.”
“Wasn’t Angela the victim who had told someone that she felt like she was being watched shortly before she was killed?” Jacqui said. “That could have been her guilt working.”
“The guy had a solid alibi,” Elliott said. “Not only that, but their crime scene people found skin under the victim’s fingernails—enough to get a DNA profile. It doesn’t match his.”
“He could have hired someone to kill her for him,” Bruce said.
“They found no money trail to prove it.” Elliott shook his head. “Besides, the guy really didn’t have a real motive. Our local prosecutor did charge Angela with theft and they’d already set up a trial date. He had filed a civil lawsuit against her for theft and had a strong case against her between the security video and witnesses. When she got killed, he ended up having to sue her estate and to this day still hasn’t gotten his money.”
“The important thing is that Angela Romano does have a definite connection to the Stardust,” Bruce said, “just like Mona Tabler and Shirley Rice.”
“You said she was confronted at the buffet,” Jacqui said. “That’s three out of five victims not only connected to the casino, but the restaurant.” She checked off each name as she reviewed the list of victims on the white board. “Mona Tabler was the restaurant’s hard-as-nails manager. Shirley Rice confronted her estranged husband in the restaurant. Angela Romano was a thief caught red-handed in the buffet.”
“All we need to make our theory complete is to connect Carla Pendelton and Patricia Handle to the Stardust.” Hearing a gust of wind and the door slam behind him, Bruce turned around in his seat. “Three out of five is a good start.”
Before his vision cleared, Bruce suspected who was standing behind him. He could tell by the wide-eyed expressions on the rest of the squad.
Bundled up in her black leather coat, gloves, and high-heeled ankle boots over her blue jeans, Doris Matheson stood before them. “What’s going on here?”
Behind her, Katelyn, Emma, and Nikki carried their bookbags to the children’s section of the library, where they could amuse themselves with laptops, books, and snacks.
Ray disconnected their satellite connection. Casually, Elliott turned off the monitor while rushing to Doris to distract her while Bruce and Jacqui got rid of the evidence.
“Doris, you managed to get out,” Elliott said. “You look lovely, today.”
“You’re full of it, Elliott. What are you doing here?” Doris leaned to one side to see what Bruce and Jacqui were doing.
Jacqui swung the white board around so that its back was to Doris and snapped a picture with her cell phone of the data they had collected. Bruce stacked the case files and stuffed them into the folder box.
“What are you doing here?” Elliott asked. “I thought the library followed the county school board’s schedule as far as closing in bad weather.”
“Our power’s out,” she said. “The girls were going bonkers without wi-fi, so I took them to lunch. Christopher had texted that the power was on here and suggested I bring the girls down.” She peered around him. “Speaking of Christopher, have you seen him? Do you know where he’s taken off to?”
Elliott shook his head. “I haven’t seen him since the book club meeting the other night?”
“He told me he had breakfast with you just this morning.” She placed her hands on her hips.
“Oh!” Elliott smacked his hand flat against his forehead. “Did I say the other night? I meant this morning! Yes! I had breakfast with Chris this morning. I forgot. I needed to talk to him.”
“About what?” She glared at him.
“I had to ask his permission.”
“Permission for what?”
Elliott grabbed her hand. “To ask you to be my date for the Valentine’s Day dinner dance.”
Jacqui and Bruce froze.
“I mean, Kirk had passed away only eight months ago, and traditionally, a woman is supposed to mourn for a year. But it is Valentine’s Day, and the benefit is for such a good cause. I didn’t want Chris to think that I was disrespecting his father. So I asked him to breakfast to make sure he’d be okay with it.”
“Oh, Elliott.” Doris’s hand flew to her chest. “What did Christopher say?”
“Oh, he’s fine with it,” Elliott said. “He even offered to pay for the tickets.”
“That’s my Christopher.”
“So you’ll go to the dance with me?” Elliott asked.
“Well,” she demurred, “it is a good cause.”
“Great.”
“Now, that we have that out of the way...” Her smile fell. “What are you doing here, Elliott?”
“Doing here?” Elliott glanced behind him to see that Jacqui and Bruce were rushing to clean up the remnants of their lunch. “What are we doing here?”
“That’s my question.”
“Well, you’re going to think we’re crazy,” Elliott said.
“Everyone knows you’re crazy, Elliott. Now answer my question. What are all of you doing here in the library when it’s closed?”
“We’re going over the Black Dahlia murder case,” Elliott said.
“What?” Doris’s face screwed up.
“The Black Dahlia. I’m sure you heard of it. Elizabeth Short, known posthumously as ‘the Black Dahlia’, was found murdered in Leimert Park in Los Angeles in 1947. The murder was never solved.” El
liott extracted a hard-backed book from his book bag. “This book came out last month. The author claims she cracked the case. We’re fact checking to see if she got it right.”
Doris cleared her throat. “Let me get this straight. All of you came out here to the library to fact-check the clues for this seventy-year-old cold case to prove whether this writer got it right or wrong?”
Jacqui joined in on the lie. “She got it wrong.”
“And now we’re on the track to the real killer,” Bruce said.
“Are you going to notify this author that she got the killer wrong in her book and that you’re hot on the trail of the real killer?” Doris asked.
“Of course not,” Elliott said. “She’ll think we were a bunch of weird old folks with too much time on our hands.”
“Why would anyone think that?”
Chapter Fifteen
Chris recognized the hard glare in Helen’s eyes.
The elevator was filled with frosty silence while it made its way to the main floor. Seemingly in slow motion, the numbers above the door lit and dimmed to indicate their descent.
In his head, Chris knew the ride was not taking any longer than usual—it only seemed that way.
“Anybody else chilly?” Francine asked with sarcasm from her spot between the two of them.
“I asked Peyton to the benefit for a reason.” Chris directed his statement over Francine’s head to Helen.
The elevator doors opened and Helen shot out like a race horse making for the finish line. Chris chased after her.
“We all know why you asked her, Studmuffin.” Francine dug her buzzing phone out of her handbag. “She’s hot and you’re horny.”
While running through the gaming room after Helen, Chris caught sight of what looked like a German shepherd tucked between an elderly couple dancing with glee at the blackjack table.
That dog looks just like Sterling. Remembering the German shepherd he had left in the truck, Chris stopped. Sterling! He whirled around. The elderly couple were dancing behind a tall pile of chips. The stool where he thought he had seen Sterling was empty. Must have been my imagination. He chuckled. Dogs playing blackjack? Have you lost your mind, Matheson?
Chris refocused on catching Helen and spotted her at the top of the stairs leading into the lounge. He caught up with her at the end of the bar. “Helen, you need to listen to me.”
“About what? You can ask whoever you want to your mother’s fancy dinner dance. It isn’t like we love each other.”
“Is everything okay here?” A broad-shouldered bartender with dark hair and an ultra-short beard and mustache strode from the opposite end of the bar where he was chatting with the lounge’s only other customer. Dressed in a maroon suit jacket with the Stardust Casino emblem on the breast pocket, the man was texting on his phone between bites of a cheeseburger and fries.
Both of them eyed Chris as if they were ready to do battle in Helen’s defense.
“We’re fine,” Helen said in a low voice while shooting a steely glare over her shoulder at Chris. “Are you Tyler?” She took her police shield off her belt.
“Depends on who’s asking,” he answered with a broad grin.
She showed her badge to him. His grin fell, and he shot a glance to the man at the end of the bar.
“Do you remember having this gentleman as a customer within the last week?” Helen showed him a picture of Tommy Bukowski on her phone.
Tyler paused. “We get a lot of customers in here. What’s this about?”
Once again, the bartender shot a glance in the direction of the other customer who appeared to be sending a text while glancing in their direction.
“His girlfriend reported him missing,” Helen said. “He checked out of the hotel on Monday morning and hasn’t been seen since.”
“I waited on him the other night,” Tyler said. “I’m not sure if I remember which night it was. But I do remember that he was with a gorgeous redhead who was all over him.” He lowered his voice to whisper to them. “I think she was a professional, if you know what I mean.”
“Had you ever seen her in here before?” Helen asked.
“Once in a blue moon. Her name is Josie.” Tyler turned to the customer at the end of the bar. “Seth, I think you saw her. It was that night that Ethel Lipton got so wasted that you to drive her home.”
Chris had to restrain himself to control his excitement. Ethel Lipton had been in the lounge at the same time that Tommy Bukowski had been seen with a mysterious redhead. Tommy ended up murdered, and Ethel told the police she had information about a murder at the Stardust.
It had to be Tommy’s murder that Ethel was talking about.
The customer who Tyler had called Seth eyed all of them in silence. “Yeah, I remember her vaguely. I didn’t get a clear look at her.” He added, “I certainly couldn’t identify her in court or anything.”
“Right now this is just a missing person’s case,” Chris said to play down their professional interest. “We just want to find out what happened to him. His girlfriend is worried.”
“His girlfriend reported him missing?” Tyler asked with a wicked grin. “The way that babe was all over him, my guess is that he got lucky and decided to ditch the girlfriend. That’s not unheard of around here.”
“But you just said she was a professional,” Helen said. “Does this bar frequently have hookers working here?”
“We try to discourage that,” he said, “but we can’t really help it if our customers bring them in here for a drink before going up to their rooms. As long as they pay their bill and give me a nice tip,” — he shrugged his shoulders — “who am I to complain? As for this redhead—she certainly wasn’t one of my regulars.”
“I understand Ethel Lipton was a regular customer of yours,” Chris said.
“Yeah, she was in here all the time.” Tyler frowned. “Haven’t seen her lately though.” He turned to Seth. “Not since that night that you drove her home.”
Seth lifted up his hands and shoulders in a broad shrug. “Maybe she’s still sleeping it off. She got so wasted that the man himself—”
“What man himself?” Helen asked.
“Mason Davenport,” Seth said. “Mr. Davenport didn’t want another DUI connected with the Stardust.”
Tyler jumped in. “Ethel had a history of getting drunk here and then having accidents on the way home.”
“Even though she only lived five miles away,” Seth said.
“Why don’t you ban her from the lounge?” Helen asked. “It is okay for bars to refuse service to habitually troublesome customers.”
“Ethel is protected for some reason,” Tyler said. “Don’t ask me why. Davenport lets her get away with whatever she wants.”
“Must be part of the land deal,” Helen said. “If she hadn’t sold him their property, the casino never would have happened.”
“So the other night, Mason Davenport ordered you to take Ethel Lipton home,” Chris said. “Did anything happen while you were taking her home?”
“No,” Seth said with a scoff. “She was passed out as soon as I poured her into the back of my limo. I had to actually carry her into the house. She couldn’t even get her keys out of her purse. I had to fish them out to unlock the door.” He grumbled. “What a lush.”
“What’s this about?” Tyler asked.
“That lush was gunned down Tuesday night,” Chris said.
Tyler’s mouth dropped open. He turned around to Seth, who was wiping his plate with the last of his fries to get every last grain of salt.
“The gunmen were killers for hired,” Helen said. “Do you have any idea why someone would have wanted her dead?”
Tyler turned back to Seth, who ignored his gaze. “None. But…” his voice trailed off.
“But what?” Chris held up two fingers. “Two customers in the same
bar at the same time. One killed in a professional hit. The other goes missing.”
Tyler turned back to Seth, who lifted his eyes to give a silent warning. In response, he shook his head. “I didn’t see anything to give me the impression they knew each other. Ethel was drinking here at the bar. This other guy was in the booth over there,” —he pointed at a dark corner in the lounge — “with Josie all over him.”
Helen fished her business card out of her purse and slid it across the bar in Tyler’s direction. “If you remember anything…” she was saying as Francine rushed in and grabbed Chris by the arm.
“We’ve got some exciting new developments in the Graduate Slaughterer murders,” she said in a harsh whisper.
Hearing her, Helen turned around. “The Graduate Slaughterer?”
“I know. It’s a mouthful.” Chris followed Francine out of the lounge to a bench in the common area.
“Bruce was right,” Francine said.
“Who’s Bruce?” Helen took a seat across from them.
“A member of our book club,” Chris said.
“What does your book club have to do with someone called the Graduate Slaughterer and who is the Graduate Slaughterer?” Helen sighed. “You’re right, Chris. That is a mouthful. Who came up with that name?”
“I did,” Francine said with a frown. “Isn’t my fault all the good serial killer names are already taken.”
“Serial killer?” Helen let out a gasp. “What serial killer? We were working on the suspicion that the mob killed Tommy Bukowski. A couple of thugs for hire assassinated Ethel Lipton.” She shot a glare at Chris. “What the hell is all this about?”
“We’re talking about a couple of Dad’s cold cases,” Chris said. “Now they’re yours. Mona Tabler was murdered in Shepherdstown in 1998, and Shirley Rice killed in Martinsburg in 2003.”
“Five years—”
“Plus three other women from the surrounding states,” Francine said. “All of them have the same MO. Not only that, but both Tabler and Rice, plus another one of the other three were all connected not just to this casino, but the restaurant.” She arched an eyebrow in Chris’s direction. “Three out of five. Since we’re in a casino, care to place a bet that the other two have some sort of connection?”