Lounge Singers And Liars In Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “Maybe he didn’t know he’d lose so much.”

  Jack shook his head. “No. You never know with these things but—Roger strikes me as a guy who’s a real performer, someone who wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize that.”

  We were silent once again as I tried to mentally arrange everything Jack had told me about Roger. So far, the guy seemed like someone who valued his career, was a great singer, and would’ve been unlikely to kill someone and hurt his singing life. Unless he hadn’t known how much he’d lose when his fiancé went missing.

  I said, “Did your entertainment manager say anything else about Roger?”

  “Not much. She says he’s no diva—maybe because of his past? He seems happy to have this job. He’s dependable, doesn’t give us any trouble, practices, and turns up for his shows on time—trust me, when you’re in the crazy casino world, it’s good to have a few employees like that!”

  I smiled sympathetically. “I know what you mean. And he keeps making the Tremonte a profit?”

  “Yep. In fact, he’s so reliable that he’s ignoring all this craziness and going on with his shows. He’ll be singing tonight, if you want to go check him out.”

  “I just might. What kind of people usually go to his shows?”

  “A few different sorts. There are some regulars—kids who used to be superfans of Roger and are now all grown up. These people never stopped believing he did nothing wrong.”

  I thought of Nanna and smiled as Jack went on. “They turn up to a few shows every now and then. Quite a few of them are still out there, and those tickets add up. But most of the show visitors don’t know about Roger or his history. They just turn up because the place has a nice atmosphere, and the guy’s a stellar crooner. And of course, there are a couple of ladies who get a bit obsessed with him.”

  “Nanna told me he’s a real ladies’ man.”

  “Nanna?” Jack’s eyebrows went up. “How’s she doing?”

  “Good. She’s one of Roger’s fans.”

  Jack suddenly burst out laughing. “Let me guess, she put you up to working for him?”

  I grinned. “She’s doing her best to convince me to. But back to Roger and the ladies…”

  “Sure, he’s popular with them. I hear rumors that he brings a different woman to his suite every other day. So many rumors that I even asked Gloria—she’s the entertainment manager—if it was an issue.”

  “And?”

  “And… she said there’s no proving the rumors. Roger knows where the cameras are, and he manages to block them or avoid them if and when he takes women up to his suite.”

  “I saw a news report that said Roger claims the night the body was found, he had some lady friend over in his suite. But then she didn’t appear on any of the casino cameras.”

  “That’s not unlikely. Roger did have women over every now and then. Why not on the night the body was found? And he knew how to avoid the cameras.”

  “Seems like he prefers his privacy.”

  Jack thought for a moment. “Makes sense. If he faced a huge backlash after his fiancé’s disappearance for dating too soon, he probably learned that it makes sense to hide your love life.”

  I chewed my lip and thought about that. I didn’t like Roger’s attitude of secrecy, though I wasn’t sure why. “And speaking of hiding—did Roger have any other secrets you know of?”

  Jack shook his head. “I’ve told you pretty much everything I know about him. I suppose this is where you kick me out of your apartment, right?”

  He grinned boyishly and I smiled back. “No, I just… I’m sure you’ve got places to go. People to see.”

  “I can always spare time for you,” he said softly.

  The apartment suddenly felt quite small.

  I tried not to let the awkwardness get to me and, instead, made small talk about his work and family. I’d heard about his sister when we’d been dating, but we never met, and now I assumed we never would—but it was still interesting to hear about his glamorous life as a casino owner. A life that was worlds apart from mine.

  When Jack asked about my work, I told him all about trying to get in touch with Gladys, and I told him about a few of the more challenging murder investigations I’d solved in recent months.

  We both avoided talking about our love lives, and after a few minutes, when it was time to say goodbye, I felt more comfortable with our relationship than I ever had since breaking up with him.

  As Jack headed out the door, he leaned down to give me a quick peck on the cheek.

  “Don’t be a stranger,” he said. “And let me know any time you need information or anything at all.”

  I smiled to myself as I closed the door after him. I wasn’t anywhere close to forgiving him for meddling in Stone’s life, but maybe he was right. Maybe I’d been too harsh on him when all he’d done was try to keep me safe.

  Chapter 7

  After saying goodbye to Jack, I took a few moments to gather my things and stuff them into my bag, trying to plan for the day and sort through what I might need. Would I be talking to people and then going straight to my job at the casino?

  In the end, I wound up calling my friend Vanessa and switching shifts with her. My shift that day was meant to be from five in the afternoon ‘til past midnight; Vanessa’s was the next day, from seven at night to three in the morning. By switching with Vanessa, my day off was today—which meant I had some extra time to talk to people and decide what to do about this potential new case.

  While going through my things, I found a cookbook that I’d borrowed a few weeks ago from my downstairs neighbor Glenn. Glenn also happened to be Wes’s brother and a good friend of mine. The cookbook was called Easy Fifteen Minute Dinners and was supposed to have made my life easier and healthier.

  Unfortunately, things didn’t quite work out and I never managed to have the necessary Easy Dinner ingredients on hand—nor the time or energy to cook them. Most nights, my easy dinner was scarfed down in the employee break room at the Treasury, and my lunches or other meals were defrosted microwave meals.

  Glenn was home today, and my timing turned out to be perfect—he’d just made a fresh batch of red velvet cupcakes! The aroma had me near fainting, and I took a few minutes to share a cupcake and a cup of decaf coffee with Glenn, as we chatted about our lives.

  Forty-five minutes later, I left Glenn’s apartment with a half-dozen cupcakes packed up as a peace offering for Detective Elwood, and a promise to stop by on my way home to take a few more cupcakes for me and Ian.

  Normally, I’d let Ian tag along with me on a fact-finding mission.

  But I worried that if I took him with me today, word would get back to Nanna that I’d started investigating—and I didn’t want to get Nanna’s hopes up too high, too soon. So I set off by myself, resolved to update Ian about my plans later.

  I turned up to the LVMPD precinct alone, save for the box of cupcakes I was toting for Elwood.

  The LVMPD precinct was housed in a red brick building, and the inside was just as stale and unimpressive as the outside. Whoever had decorated the place clearly appreciated the theme of “bureaucratic boring.” The walls were beige, the carpet was gray, and the whole place stank of stale air and day-old coffee.

  When I got to the large open-space area where the detectives’ desks were housed, I noticed that Elwood was engrossed in a conversation with a large man wearing a ski vest. I didn’t know why people insisted on dressing so strangely in the Vegas heat, but Elwood’s brows were creased together and he leaned forward, gesticulating his arms wildly as he spoke. I figured this wasn’t a good time to ask Elwood to tell me about the guy Roger was suspected of killing.

  So I decided to make a quick detour.

  My friend Emily worked as a detective at the same precinct as Elwood, and though we usually caught up over cheap chardonnay and greasy takeout, I hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, and I figured I might just bother her at work.

  I found her at her desk, neck-deep in paperw
ork, and she greeted me with a happy smile when she saw me.

  “Tiffany! Is this your day off?”

  “It is now,” I said, smiling. “How about you?”

  “No such luck. You know I need to stockpile my days off if I want to take that trip with Derek.”

  Derek was Emily’s latest beau, a man I had yet to meet, but whom Emily claimed was “a total sweetheart.”

  “Speaking of men,” Emily went on, “that’s great news about Ryan! Congratulations! You must be so proud!”

  I wondered if we were thinking about the same Ryan. “You mean his undercover mission?”

  “Yes, of course! What else would I be talking about?”

  “I don’t know…”

  “Well.” She smiled at me happily. “I know all about how hard he worked to get that project. He deserves it.”

  I forced my lips upwards and nodded. “Of course.”

  “And he had to really push and insist that the job be given to him, before they finally told him three months ago. You know how bureaucratic things can get around here sometimes!”

  “So he knew for the last few months that he was going away?”

  “Of course.” Emily’s smile faded a bit and she looked at me with concern in her eyes. “Didn’t he tell you?”

  I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my stomach. What was it they said about the wife always being the last to know? Why had Ryan kept his undercover assignment a secret from me if he’d known about it that long?

  “No,” I admitted, trying not to look too embarrassed at being kept in the dark.

  “I suppose he wanted to be absolutely sure about the job before telling you,” Emily said. “You know how men are with their pride.”

  I gulped down the lump in my throat.

  From what Emily had just said, it seemed like Ryan had been pretty sure of getting the undercover job. He wasn’t hiding the news from me because of misplaced pride and fears of failure. There must’ve been another reason. Did Ryan simply not care enough about me to give me a proper heads up? He’d told me just days before he left.

  “I suppose so,” I forced myself to say. My throat suddenly felt dry. “Do you have any news? On how Ryan’s doing?”

  “‘Fraid not. Nobody gets contact from detectives who go deep undercover. It might blow their whole story.”

  “I understand.”

  “You must miss him,” said Emily sympathetically.

  “I do,” I said. “Oh, look—Elwood seems to be free now! I need to talk to him, so I’d better go before someone else gets to him first.”

  “Sure.” Emily kept smiling at me, but I could see the worry in her eyes. I wanted to reassure her that I was fine, but that wasn’t really true.

  “We’ll make a date for another girls’ night,” she said. “What with work and us being on different shifts, it’s hard to find the right time.”

  “I’ll email you as soon as I get my shift info for the next two weeks,” I promised her, saying a quick little goodbye and walking off toward Detective Elwood’s desk.

  Chapter 8

  I dragged my feet all the way to Elwood’s desk. Part of it was that I wanted to give Elwood some time to destress from his previous seemingly-intense conversation.

  The other part was that I needed a moment to compose myself. I needed time to process what I’d learned about Ryan’s undercover mission—facts that Ryan had kept from me.

  Did Ryan and I have the kind of relationship where we kept secrets from each other?

  If Ryan had known months in advance that he was going to leave, why hadn’t he told me? We could’ve used that time to plan for the future. We could’ve discussed various scenarios, and I would’ve had more time to say goodbye to him.

  Instead, I was left with a pile of regrets and an even bigger pile of questions.

  Before I had any possible answers to those questions, I found myself at Detective Elwood’s desk, peering into his gray eyes as he scowled at me.

  “You again,” he growled.

  Somehow, his grumpiness cheered me right up.

  “Yep,” I grinned. I held out the cupcake box. “I come bearing gifts.”

  Elwood grabbed the box from me greedily, lifting the lid a tiny bit to peer in. He glanced around furtively, and when he was sure no one was watching, he snuck a single cupcake out of the box, pressed the lid quickly back on, and stuffed the whole box into a desk drawer.

  He was three bites into the cupcake before he looked at me again. “What?”

  “Nothing,” I said smiling sweetly.

  “You’re thinking I could’ve offered you a cupcake.”

  “Maybe.”

  He grunted.

  I watched as he took another bite, chewed rapidly, and washed it down with coffee from a mug that must’ve been sitting on his desk forever.

  “The way I see it,” Elwood said, “you’ve got unlimited access to these babies. Who made this batch? It’s de-lish.”

  “Glenn,” I said. “You know, my downstairs neighbor.”

  Elwood nodded. “They’re good. What about Ian? Is he still practicing his baking?”

  “Every now and then. He and Nanna made me pancakes with whipped cream and berry compote this morning. You should’ve been there.”

  Elwood narrowed his eyes at me, clearly jealous. “No one makes me pancakes,” he grumbled.

  I felt sorry for the man. “I’ll save you a plate next time.”

  He grunted again. He and I both knew I wouldn’t be saving him pancakes.

  We sat in silence as the cupcakes disappeared after a few more bites.

  Finally, Elwood said, “What do you want?”

  “What makes you think this isn’t a purely social visit? That I just wanted to give you some cupcakes?”

  “Is this a purely social visit? Did you just feel like giving me some cupcakes?”

  “No,” I admitted. “We both know I only come by with cupcakes when I’ve got something to discuss.”

  “Like a case. That you’re working on. That you shouldn’t be working on.”

  “Aww, c’mon. You think every case I’m working on is a case I shouldn’t be on.”

  “Very true.”

  “Well… it’s Roger Briars.”

  Elwood leaned back in his chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head. “The dead guy in the oven.”

  “Exactly.”

  “The case I’ve already told you to stay off of.”

  “Hey, we didn’t know back then that it had to do with Roger Briars.”

  “Huh.” Elwood narrowed his eyes at me. “So the client’s Roger Briars.”

  “Yes,” I admitted.

  Elwood shook his head. “Wrong guy to work for.”

  “And why’s that?”

  “Briars is guilty as hell.”

  “Guilty ‘til proven innocent?”

  “Huh. We’ve got him on tape stuffing the body into the oven.”

  I eyed him carefully. “If that was all the proof you needed, he’d be sitting in jail right now. Instead, he’s out and about, and I hear he’s still doing his lounge show.”

  Elwood grunted and said nothing in response.

  “So you’ve got nothing on him!” I said triumphantly. “You don’t let guilty men roam the streets.”

  “Hmm.”

  “Okay. So we’ve proved you don’t have enough on the guy—even though he’s on tape stuffing the body into the oven. What gives?”

  Elwood sighed. “You. And your questions.”

  “But I’m right. So what’s wrong with this scenario? Why isn’t it enough to pin the crime on Roger?”

  Elwood rolled his eyes and then cricked his neck this way and that. When he was done stalling for time, he muttered, “The dead guy. He didn’t die in the oven.”

  I leaned forward and nodded. “I know that. I found him, remember? He was slightly warm to the touch, but not burning up.” I remembered something and said, “His body did seem to be at weird angles.”

&nbs
p; Elwood nodded. “That happens sometimes if the body’s been moved after death.”

  “So if he didn’t die in the oven, how did he die?”

  “Full autopsy report’s not back yet,” said Elwood smugly.

  “But what did CSI say at the scene?”

  Elwood let out another long-suffering sigh. “Hypothermia.”

  “Huh?”

  “Freezing.”

  I grimaced. “Like the Vegas urban legend of waking up in a tub full of ice. Except this guy never woke up.”

  “Precisely.”

  “You think Roger Briars could’ve filled his tub full of ice?”

  Elwood shook his head. “Somehow, I doubt that.”

  “He could’ve ordered tubs of ice to his room. Special room service delivery. It’d raise a few eyebrows, but room service is used to stranger orders.”

  “If he’d done that, we’d have it on record. Or video. And we’ve got nothing like that.”

  I mulled that over. “So it would’ve been hard for Roger Briars to have frozen this guy to death without being noticed. What if he went down with a cart himself, and he managed to avoid the cameras while getting all the ice to his room?”

  Elwood shook his head. “You think we haven’t tried to prove plausibility? It just doesn’t add up.”

  “So… chances are… Roger didn’t ice the guy.”

  “Possibly.”

  “Which means he’s innocent.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “Why?”

  “Because. Roger has a reputation for sneaking women up to his room. He knows how to avoid the cameras when getting a guest up. Who’s to say a guest with a tub full of ice didn’t sneak into his room?”

  It was my turn to let out an unhappy sigh.

  Elwood was right. Roger Briars could’ve been working with an accomplice. Just because the cops couldn’t prove his guilt yet didn’t mean that he was innocent.

  “Speaking of guests,” I said, “Roger claims on the news that he was with a lady friend that night.”