Mind Scrambler

by Chris Grabenstein

  “The dancers knew she was up here,” says Ceepak.

  “Yeah,” says Dr. McDaniels, knuckle-punching him in the left arm. “So you two might want to go downstairs and talk to them about withholding evidence. Me? I’ve got another murder scene to process.”

  Ceepak nods.

  Dr. McDaniels inhales as much fresh air as her lungs will allow and heads back to her grim task. I see her swatting at black specks before the door to room 332 swings shut.

  She is, as Parker might say, embracing the suck.

  Ceepak and I trudge down the metal staircase to the second floor.

  This time when we knock on room 224, the two guys inside actually open the door. Fast.

  “Gentlemen,” says Ceepak.

  Jim Bob looks like he’s been crying. Blaine still is.

  “Is she dead?” Jim Bob asks.

  “Yes.”

  “We thought so. When we went up there. Found her like that. We hadn’t heard from her all day so we decided we had to check in on her.”

  “We had a key,” mutters Blaine.

  “We called nine-one-one. Right away. Even before we called you. I swear we did.”

  Ceepak nods. “I’m certain you reacted as swiftly as you could.”

  “Oh, my god!” gushes Blaine. “She’s dead! Sherry’s dead?”

  Ceepak nods again.

  “Oh, my god. I need to sit down.” He takes the foot of one of the twin beds.

  “How long have you gentlemen known she was upstairs?”

  “Since last night,” says Jim Bob. “When we booked the room for her.”

  “It’s in my name,” says Blaine. “I put it on my credit card. It’s why we had the second key.”

  “Thank you for being forthcoming about that,” says Ceepak. “We appreciate it.”

  Yeah. Of course, we would have appreciated it even more if they had been forthcoming about it when we dropped by this afternoon. Or tonight, when we tried to interview them through their dressing-room door. Or after the show, when they were in the hallway, hanging on every word we exchanged with Richard Rock and David Zuckerman.

  “We didn’t know if we could trust you two,” says Jim Bob. “We thought you might be working for them.”

  “Who?”

  “The Rocks!”

  “But then we heard you in the hall tonight!” says Blaine. “You drilled that man a new asshole.”

  “Come again?”

  Jim Bob tries to clarify: “When you figured out how we do the Lucky Numbers trick and Richard got all mad—you didn’t even care.”

  “You’re my kind of man!” adds Blaine.

  Ceepak doesn’t flinch. I would have. “We need to ask you gentlemen a few questions,” he says.

  “Of course.” Jim Bob gestures toward the one chair and then at the twin beds. “Please. Sit down.”

  We do. Ceepak lets me take the chair. He sits on the edge of the other bed.

  “We were afraid to go upstairs and check in on Sherry,” says Jim Bob. “Ever since that man came pounding on our door. We thought they had people watching us and we didn’t want to give away her hiding place. See, she usually lives upstairs at the Xanadu. They sneak her backstage at eight, right when the show goes up.”

  “Who was she hiding from?” asks Ceepak.

  “The Rocks, I guess. That man with the pistol, Krabitz, he works for them, right?”

  Ceepak nods. “He is a private investigator in their employ.”

  “Last night, we brought Sherry here, straight from the karaoke bar,” says Jim Bob.

  “She could barely walk!” adds Blaine, placing a hand beside his mouth so he can confide a secret. “She’d been doing shots of vodka since the show went down. Since she heard. First in the lobby bar, then that lounge with the dreadful Motown music.”

  “Heard what?” asks Ceepak.

  “That Nanny Katie was killed!” says Jim Bob. “Sherry felt horrible. She told us she was responsible.”

  Whoa. She confessed to killing Katie?

  “How so?” asks Ceepak. “Is she the one who strangled Ms. Landry?”

  Blaine sits up straight. Mugs this totally horrified face. “Sherry? Impossible. She wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  Again with the flies.

  “She didn’t kill Nanny Katie,” says Jim Bob. “But, okay, this is extremely complicated. Sherry Amour was really Julia Pratt. Jake Pratt’s mother.”

  “So we have heard,” says Ceepak.

  “Oh. Okay. Last night, when she couldn’t find Jake and ask him what had happened to Katie, she started freaking out. She was afraid Jake was somehow mixed up in the murder because, remember, he skipped out and nobody knew where he was. That’s why Sherry came up to Lip Sync Lee’s still in her costume. She’d been looking for Jake since she heard the news about the nanny.”

  “Looking for him and drinking,” adds Blaine.

  “Did Sherry think her son killed Ms. Landry?” asks Ceepak.

  “She knew it was a possibility. Jake Pratt was a hothead. He’d been arrested like a hundred times. Sherry blamed herself for that, too.”

  “Why?”

  “Years ago, when she was doing way too much cocaine, she basically abandoned Jake. Sent him off to live with relatives.”

  “He was like ten or eleven when this happened,” adds Blaine. “So this is only eight or nine years ago.”

  “Anyway,” says Jim Bob. “Sherry sent Jake to go live with his rich aunt and uncle out in LA. Beverly Hills.”

  “His aunt and uncle being Jessica and Richard Rock?” says Ceepak.

  “Exactly. Sherry begged Jessica to take the boy off her hands, said she couldn’t handle raising a son until she cleaned up her own act. Jessica agreed. The Rocks didn’t adopt Jake or anything, but they took him into their home.”

  “More like a mansion,” says Blaine.

  Jim Bob nods. “Seven bedrooms. Six baths. Maids. Five-car garage. Long story short, Jake loves it there!”

  Blaine waggles a few fingers near his left ear. “Swimming pools. Movie stars. What’s not to love?”

  “So Jake lived with the Rocks,” says Jim Bob. “Meanwhile, back in Las Vegas, Sherry kept churning out triple-X movies for Vivid Videos. But she also kept going to N.A. meetings. She worked hard, too. Got totally clean and sober.”

  “From the coke,” Blaine clarifies. “Not the booze. You can’t give up everything all at once.”

  “Anyway,” says Jim Bob, “when she was clean for eighteen months, she flew out to LA and convinced the Rocks that she was ready to raise her own son. She brought Jake back to Vegas to live with her. Now, of course, he’s turning twelve, thirteen. Hitting puberty. Has hormones screaming through his body, plus he’s used to sleeping on three-hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheets in a mansion, not on a lumpy Goodwill store couch in a lousy one-bedroom apartment.

  “Before long, Jake starts getting into all sorts of trouble with just about every Las Vegas-based law enforcement agency. He’s in and out of juvenile court so many times, all the bailiffs know Sherry by name and are constantly hitting on her, asking her out on dates. Jake eventually ends up doing some time inside the Clark County Juvenile Detention Center.”

  Blaine bats his eyes. “Some time? It was the boy’s boarding school for four or five years!”

  Jim Bob sighs. “Jake has serious anger issues.”

  “Gentlemen,” says Blaine, like it’s a royal pronouncement, “Jacob Pratt was nothing but trouble. Sherry told us he broke her heart on a daily basis.”

  “There’s more to it,” says Jim Bob. “Something bad happened to Jake while he was out in LA. Something horrible. At least that’s what Sherry said.”

  “What?” asks Ceepak. “What happened?”

  Jim Bob looks around. Whispers: “When he was ten, Jake Pratt was molested.”

  “By his aunt?” I ask because I’m the guy with the filthy mind.

  “Maybe. That’s what I think. But Sherry never got into specifics, never said who did what, on
ly that it was somebody ‘in the family.’ And it wasn’t a onetime deal, either. This went on the whole two years he lived out there in their mansion. It’s why Sherry joined the show in Vegas when she learned Jake had finagled his way into the cast.”

  “How’d he do that?” asks Ceepak.

  “Pulled some strings. Talked to his Auntie Jessica.”

  “When was this?”

  “Maybe nine months ago. We brought the show to the MGM Grand. Sherry and Jake were already living in town. It was easy for Sherry to keep an eye on her son, especially when she agreed to do the plastic surgery and stuff so they could work in the transporting illusion.”

  “I think Sherry really wanted to keep an eye on her,” sniffs Blaine.

  “Mrs. Rock?” says Ceepak.

  Jim Bob nods. “Don’t let her wholesome family-values act fool you. Mrs. Rock enjoys spending time with young, muscular men.”

  “She even hit on me!” This from Blaine with both hands on his chest in horror.

  “Anyway,” says Jim Bob, “last night, when she was so drunk she could barely walk, Sherry blurts out how she dragged the nanny into it, too.”

  Ceepak leans forward. “How?”

  “Saturday night when, yes, she was also drunk, she begged Nanny Katie to keep an eye on her son because Jake said he was falling in love again, that the ‘relationship’ was just as wonderful as it had been when he was out in LA, and his mean, miserable whore of a mother—that’s what he called Sherry—couldn’t stop him from doing what his heart told him was right.”

  “More like his dick.” Color commentary courtesy Blaine. “He bragged to us in the dressing room Monday about hopping into the sack with his old flame.”

  “Can we go back to the weekend?” says Jim Bob.

  Blaine bats his eyes. “Fine. Whatever.”

  “So, Saturday night, Sherry told Katie what had happened to Jake when he was living with the Rocks. She practically begged the nanny to protect her son. Katie didn’t totally believe Sherry, of course.”

  “She’s a sloppy drunk,” adds Blaine. “Katie probably thought it was the vodka tonics talking.”

  “On Sunday,” Jim Bob continues, “the male dancers had to do a photo shoot up on top of the Crystal Palace Tower. . . .”

  “Just us chorus boys and Mrs. Rock,” adds Blaine. “We posed on the helicopter landing pad. Pretended like she was making this grand entrance out of a whirlybird. By the way—I am terrified of heights.”

  “Mrs. Rock, too,” says Jim Bob. “So Sherry had to put on the costume, stand in for her.”

  “Jessica Rock is not afraid of heights!” Blaine protests. “She was too busy down in the casino to be bothered.”

  “Whatever. After the shoot, Sherry and Jake rode the elevator down together and, when they were finally alone, Sherry told her son how much she loved him and how Katie Landry was going to be his nanny now, too—making sure he didn’t get into trouble again.”

  That explains the elevator ride.

  And why Jake assumed Katie knew about his checkered past.

  “Then,” says Jim Bob, “yesterday afternoon, Monday, Katie found something.”

  “What?” asks Ceepak.

  “We don’t know. Around four-thirty, Katie called Sherry and said she had found something pretty horrible. She explained that she had some police friends who just happened to be in town.”

  “Is that you guys?” Blaine asks.

  We nod.

  “We’re sorry for your loss,” he adds.

  “Katie told Sherry she was going to consult with you gentlemen first,” says Jim Bob. “Figure out what to do with whatever it was she had just found.”

  “You think it was a secret sex video?” asks Blaine, all hushed and dramatic.

  “We do not know,” says Ceepak, even though that’s my theory, too.

  Blaine tortures his bottom lip into a twist. “Nanny Katie was a sweet person. Very, very sweet.”

  “Brave too,” adds Jim Bob. “Sherry said that, when she called, Katie promised she would do whatever she could to protect her son, no matter what.”

  No matter what.

  It seems Katie Landry was the one person in Atlantic City who actually meant what she said.

  Even if it got her killed.

  42

  “Earlier,” says Ceepak, “you mentioned that, last night, Ms. Amour showed up at the karaoke bar ‘in costume.’ What, precisely, did you mean by that?”

  “You know,” says Jim Bob, “she was still wearing the platinum wig. Too much makeup. Had her boobs pushed up high.”

  “And she was wearing that hideous cubic zirconium ring,” adds Blaine. “Très gauche.”

  “She only wears that thing when she fills in for Jessica during the last bit,” explains Jim Bob. “Lucky Numbers.”

  “Why would Mrs. Rock request that Sherry take her place onstage during the Lucky Numbers routine?”

  “Sometimes,” says Blaine, “Mrs. Rock likes to sneak out a little early and hit the slots before the casino gets too crowded.”

  So.

  Chalk up another lie for Mrs. Rock, that whole sanctity-of-the-engagement-ring BS she was shoveling earlier. The video clearly showing the diamond sparkling on her ring finger during the performance of Lucky Numbers on Monday night isn’t much of an alibi anymore. Mrs. Rock could’ve left the stage early for a different reason besides spinning for “Donut” bonuses. She could’ve slipped out to help her young lover murder my old girlfriend.

  “We should go arrest her,” I say to Ceepak.

  He holds up his left hand. “Hang on, Danny.”

  “She did it!”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “What?”

  “I sense the diamond ring is the distraction we are meant to focus on. We need to ponder alternative possibilities a split-second longer.”

  Great. Ceepak’s back in the middle of hell’s highway over there in Iraq, playing chicken with a car bomber, taking his time to consider all potential explanations. Well, maybe this time he will take too much time and, instead of an innocent Iraqi driver in need of polarized sunglasses, we’ll end up with Mrs. Jessica Rock getting away with murder.

  Then again, Cyrus Parker does have security guys stationed right outside her hotel room door so—unless she has another secret panel in the closet—Mrs. Rock isn’t escaping anywhere anytime soon.

  I let Ceepak play through.

  “Jim Bob . . .”

  “Please. Call me James. Mr. Rock came up with that corny Jim Bob crap. Thought is sounded more Texasy.”

  “We think it sounds lame,” adds Blaine.

  “Very well, James. Do you always act as Mr. Rock’s escort out of the auditorium after he puts on the hood?”

  “Yes. And it’s not really a blindfold. He can see right through that sack.”

  As Lady Jasmine suspected.

  “The fabric looks thick, but it isn’t. I’m just there playing seeing eye dog to help sell the illusion.”

  “You were with him on Monday night?”

  “Yep. I’ve never missed a show since we opened.”

  “Was Mr. Rock’s behavior different on Monday?”

  “Sure.”

  “How so?”

  “He was furious. Jake cut the show without any notice or telling anybody where he was and that ticked Mr. Rock off, royally. ‘I’m docking his pay! I’m firing him! I don’t care if he is effing family!’ See, usually we make a big deal out of walking up that corridor in front of the theater even though, as you probably figured out, they cut away from the live feed the second Fred does the swish pan.”

  “Go on,” says Ceepak.

  “Well, like I said, typically we walk up that hallway so everybody can see us because, you never know, some of those people may have already paid a fortune to see the show and our stumbling blindly up the hall gives them permission to believe that what they thought they saw on the video screen really happened. It’s also a great publicity stunt. Gets the buzz going.�
��

  “You won’t believe how many people buy tickets just because they saw Richard Rock walking up the hall like a zombie,” Blaine chimes in.

  “Usually,” says James, “we walk about a hundred feet with Richard pretending he can’t see where he’s going. When we get to the fountain, the one with the ducks, we head left, and go through a door that leads into a secondary backstage access passage.”

  Ceepak nods. We’re familiar with the route. We took it with them tonight.

  “Now, on Monday night, things were different! As soon as Freddy pivoted into his swish pan, Mr. Rock froze. We weren’t walking anywhere because he was furious, started reaming me out. ‘Where the F is Jake? Do you effing know?’ Of course, I didn’t. We weren’t really friends.”

  “Jake was an asshole,” says Blaine. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but forgive me, it’s true. He was a first-class a-hole.”

  “What happened next?” Ceepak asks James.

  “Fred, the cameraman, heads back to the lobby, per usual. Richard yells, ‘We’re taking the shortcut!’ and heads for the door right next to the lobby entrance. There’s a security guard standing there when we do the show, but he may not tell you much because he works for Richard Rock, Inc.”

  “Go on.”

  “We push through the door, head up the hall. Of course, that means we have to hug the right-hand wall so we’re in the safety zone, the blind spot that’ll take us under the security camera without it even knowing we’re there. The Rocks are fanatics about backstage secrecy. I guess most magicians are. We have cast meetings about security leaks all the time. Anyway, while we’re shuffling up against the wall single-file Indian-style, Mr. Rock tells me to hurry backstage and make sure that any setups in the wings or prop stuff Jake was responsible for are taken care of. I told him there wasn’t anything, that Jake should just be out there onstage with the other dancers, doing the cowboy routine, killing time. Mr. Rock tells me to go wait in the effing wings anyhow.”

  Ceepak nods. Why am I getting the feeling he already suspected something fishy was going on with Mr. Rock during Monday night’s performance of Lucky Numbers?