Pesky Politicians in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “And besides,” said Ian, “I don’t think Stone’s the kind of person who’ll hide behind a new facade. I think he’s going to try to track down the CIA insider and make things right, once and for all.”

  “I think you’re right,” I admitted. “Why else would Johnson talk about doing surveillance on the CIA guy when he comes to Vegas?”

  “I hope this won’t be too dangerous for you,” said Ian, sounding worried. But he brightened up again the very next instant. “I know you’ll be fine. You’re a great PI, and there’s no reason why you shouldn’t be able to help Stone out.”

  I smiled at Ian gratefully. There are moments when I doubt my own abilities, and it’s nice to have him around as my cheerleader.

  Just then, there was a knock on the door.

  We opened it to find Nanna standing there, wearing exercise leggings and a large T-shirt that said “eat, sleep, yoga, repeat.”

  “Karma and I went to a seniors’ yoga class together,” said Nanna, coming inside. “I thought I’d stop by before I went home. See if you guys need any more help with your investigation.”

  Ian looked at me hopefully. “Maybe Nanna can come along? Things are more fun when she’s there!”

  Nanna beamed. “So you’re going somewhere? I’d love to come along; you know how helpful I am!”

  I looked at Nanna doubtfully. I love her to bits, but I wasn’t sure that she was the right choice to bring along to an investigation.

  “You might be bored,” I said. “We’re going to talk to Gary, to see if he can remember anything else from that night.”

  “Excellent!” Nanna smoothed down her hair and pulled a lipstick out of her bag. “I’m good at getting people to talk to me.”

  “Perhaps we should just go alone…,” I said, trying to think up a way to discourage Nanna diplomatically. “It’s just a routine chat.”

  Nanna looked at me sadly. “You know Wes and I are leaving Vegas after a few days. Why don’t you let me enjoy my last few moments with my granddaughter?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Nanna, it’s not like you’re going away forever. You’ll be back after a few weeks.”

  “And what’s the point of being back in Vegas if my own granddaughter doesn’t want to spend time with me?”

  “She does have a point there,” said Ian. “If you want Nanna to move back to Vegas, you should be nice to her.”

  I sighed; there was no way I could fight the two of them together. “Okay,” I said, resigning myself to the inevitable. “You can come along.”

  Nanna and Ian let out soft whoops of victory, and then Nanna said, “You won’t regret this. I’m really good at finding things out. People say all kinds of things to me.”

  Gary lived in a house north of the airport, just off West Alexander Street. The area was full of tall palm trees and Spanish-style single-family homes with lovely front yards. I was surprised that Gary lived here; I had half-expected him to be living in a one-bedroom apartment, not in a nice family neighborhood where the houses were large and proximity to a good high school was important to the residents. On the other hand, given that he was a gardener, he probably appreciated having a nice garden of his own.

  After I knocked loudly, Ian, Nanna and I waited for a good five minutes till Gary opened the door, wearing shorts and a rumpled T-shirt that had obviously been slept in.

  “Hey,” he said, rubbing his eyes and peering out at us sleepily. “I wasn’t expecting to see you guys so early.” And then he looked at Nanna. “Who are you?”

  “I’m Tiffany’s nanna,” said Nanna. “How come you’re sleeping so late? I would have thought gardeners wake up early.”

  “I had a late night,” mumbled Gary.

  “This is a really nice neighborhood,” said Ian. “Your house seems big for one person.”

  “It’s a three-bedroom,” said Gary. “I share it with a roommate.”

  “Well,” I said, “aren’t you going to invite us inside?”

  “Of course,” said Gary. “Sorry. Come on in.”

  We walked inside, passing through a small foyer into a large, neat living area with a dining room off to one side. I could make out a big kitchen that looked like it was barely used, and a corridor led off to one side.

  “Is your roommate home right now?” said Nanna.

  “No, he’s gone to California to see his folks for a week,” said Gary.

  “Then who else is home right now?” said Nanna. “You’ve got a girl in here!”

  All three of us stared at Gary, who went pale. His eyes and mouth went all round, and he blinked slowly a couple of times, looking a lot like a goldfish.

  “Way to go, man!” said Ian, trying to give Gary a high five.

  “Who is this girl?” said Nanna. “How long have you been together?”

  “I—umm—it’s not really—” said Gary.

  “I think we should meet her,” said Nanna, heading off down the corridor.

  “I’m not sure we should invade Gary’s privacy like this,” I said gently as I followed Nanna. “It’s his love life.”

  “I like to know about people’s love lives,” said Nanna.

  Nanna opened a door on our left, and it turned out to be an empty bedroom with a perfectly made bed.

  “That’s my roommate’s bedroom,” said Gary from behind us. “And I don’t think you should go around being so nosy. My girlfriend has nothing to do with this case.”

  But Nanna ignored him and walked over to the next door; when she opened it, it turned out to be a large, empty bathroom.

  “You’ve got a really nice place,” said Nanna. “It works out for you, that you can entertain ladies here like this.”

  Behind us, Gary was muttering something about how perhaps we should all go and sit down in the living room, and sit and talk together.

  But Nanna ignored him, and I wasn’t in the mood to discourage her. In fact, now that I thought about it, it was a bit odd that Gary had taken so long to invite us in after he’d seen us at the door. Perhaps he was trying to hide something.

  The next door that Nanna opened turned out to be Gary’s bedroom. The bed was unmade, and in one corner of the bed sat Angela. She wore a short black miniskirt and a magenta tank top. Her arms were folded, and she glared at us all disapprovingly.

  “Angela!” I said. “What are you doing here?”

  Without giving her a chance to answer, I spun around and glared at Gary. “Why didn’t you tell me you were dating Angela?”

  Gary looked like he’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar, and he shrugged apologetically. “It really isn’t a big deal.”

  “Of course it’s a big deal!” I said. “You two are in cahoots!”

  “Who’s Angela?” said Nanna.

  “Angela is one of the radical feminists who was always protesting Carl’s policies,” I said. “She and Gary must’ve been working together.”

  I looked at Angela, unable to stop the rage I felt bubbling inside me. I felt like I’d been played, and that I should’ve seen this all along.

  “It really isn’t a big deal at all,” said Angela coldly. “Just because Gary and I are together doesn’t mean we had anything to do with Carl’s death.”

  I laughed bitterly. “Try telling that to a jury.”

  Ian looked at Gary and said, “No wonder the cops found all those feminist brochures at your place. Angela must’ve given them to you.”

  “Sure,” said Angela. “I gave Gary some reading material. But that doesn’t mean anything.”

  I felt my head begin to throb as I tried to put all the pieces together.

  I turned to Gary. “That evening, you didn’t go over to Carl’s house to collect your payment, did you?”

  Gary looked at the ground and shuffled from one foot to the other. “Carl said he’d pay me, but I didn’t find any envelope in the study.”

  “I don’t think he said he’d pay you,” I said. “You just used that as an excuse to go inside the house. Once you were inside, you w
alked over to the back door, which you unlocked, and then you turned off the alarm system. You didn’t have to turn off the cameras because that would raise alarms with the bodyguards, and the back door wasn’t monitored, anyway. Once Angela was in, she’d go ahead and kill Carl.”

  “Angela’s not a killer!” said Gary. His eyes met mine, and I saw a mixture of defiance and doubt. “Okay, so it’s true that I walked in and turned off the alarm system, and then I left the door open for her so that she could go in and talk to Carl. But she just wanted to talk to him.”

  “He’s right,” said Angela. “I just wanted to talk to him. I don’t believe anyone’s an evil person, and I thought that perhaps if I could just explain to Carl what an idiot he was being, he would stop suggesting such ridiculous policies.”

  “This is absurd,” said Nanna. She turned to look carefully at Gary. “You’re so love-struck, you would go to prison as a murderer, when the reality is that this woman tricked you into becoming the suspect.”

  “I had nothing to do with Carl’s death,” said Angela. Her voice was calm, and she didn’t seem to be as agitated as the rest of us. “I was at the café all night, remember?”

  “Yes,” I said slowly, “But you stepped out and took a stroll past Carl’s house. I guess that’s when you were planning to slip in through the back door and go talk to him.”

  “Okay,” said Angela, “You got me. That’s what I was planning. But by the time I got to the house, Carl was already dead.”

  I looked from Gary to Angela, and then back at Gary.

  “Yeah,” said Gary. “Angela had nothing to do with this.”

  Suddenly, I was speechless; I realized that Angela had a rock-solid alibi, and there was no way she could have had anything to do with Carl’s death.

  Nanna asked Angela and Gary how they had met, and they told her about how Gary had run into her protesting outside Carl’s house one day, and then they’d gone out for drinks and gotten to talking. They both shared a lot of common interests, and over time, they had gotten closer.

  As everyone chatted around me, I tried to put the pieces together. There was no way Angela could’ve killed Carl. But Gary had gone into Carl’s house and unlocked the door for Angela. Perhaps he had taken it one step further and gone ahead and poisoned Carl for her.

  But if Angela had told him that she wanted to talk to Carl, then Gary wouldn’t have taken it upon himself to kill him. And, of course, if he really had killed Carl, Gary wouldn’t have hired me and Ian to look into the murder.

  I stayed quiet for a few long minutes, trying to figure everything out rapidly, but at the end of it, nothing made any more sense than before.

  Finally, I asked Gary if he had noticed anything out of the ordinary that day when he’d gone to Carl’s house, or if Carl had been acting strangely in the days before his death. But Gary couldn’t tell us anything new, and after a few more minutes, we all left.

  As I drove Nanna back to my parents’ house, the three of us pondered what had happened.

  “I think Angela’s taking advantage of Gary,” said Ian. “She was just using him to get closer to Carl.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said. “And now that Carl’s dead, she’s bored in Vegas, and so she hangs out with Gary. I don’t think she really likes him.”

  “Regardless of what’s going on,” said Nanna, “aren’t you glad you took me along with you? If I hadn’t been there, you might not have found out about this tricky situation.”

  “You did help us out,” I admitted begrudgingly.

  “I can sense when people are hiding things,” said Nanna. “It’s one of those instincts you pick up from playing poker.”

  “Well, either way,” I said, “I’m glad you’re here in Vegas with us now.”

  “Don’t get too worried about the case,” said Nanna. “I’m sure everything will fall into place soon.”

  Chapter Twenty–Four

  Ian and I wound up staying back at my parents’ house for an impromptu lunch. My mother had decided that it was time she tried cooking Asian recipes, so we indulged in a delicious meal of Massaman curry, steamed jasmine rice and stir-fried veggies. After lunch, we all sat around sipping coffee and enjoying a dessert of poached pears, until finally, Ian and I decided that we should get going; it was time to talk to Steve, Carl’s bodyguard.

  When we showed up at Ellen’s house in Henderson and knocked on the door, Steve answered after just a few seconds.

  He scowled when he saw us, and said, “You again. Are you here to talk to Ellen? She didn’t tell me she was expecting you.”

  “Actually,” I said, “Ellen said you’d be working for her today. She said we could come by and have a chat with you.”

  Steve glared at me, and then he grunted and indicated that we should follow him inside. The three of us headed over to a small living room that was close to the front door and looked out onto the garden.

  “This is where I hang out,” said Steve. “We’ve got the security footage set up here.” He indicated a large flat-screen TV that hung on one wall and displayed feeds from the different cameras set up around the house.

  “So what’s it like, working for Ellen?” I said, trying to find some way to break the ice. “You must be glad that it’s not so stressful.”

  Steve shrugged. “There’s not much happening, but I still gotta stay alert.”

  “How long did you work for Carl?”

  “As long as he’s been in Vegas,” said Steve. “Just over a week.”

  “What was he like as a boss?”

  Steve shrugged. “Okay. At least he wasn’t like those celebrities who trick you and go partying alone. He knew we had a job to do, and he cooperated.”

  “Did he pay you on time?”

  Steve nodded. “Paid weekly. So does Ellen.”

  “What did you think of Carl? As a person, I mean.”

  “He was okay,” said Steve. “I don’t judge.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t judge?”

  Steve shrugged. “I hear people didn’t like him because of his politics. And there were rumors he had affairs with women, but I turn a blind eye to that stuff.”

  “So you saw him with other women when he was in Vegas?”

  Steve shook his head. “He told me he never fixed the camera over the back door so that he could sneak a woman in, but I never saw him do that—I don’t think he met anyone here.”

  I nodded. In a way, the faulty camera was starting to make sense. “But he tried to.”

  “Sometimes he’d hit on women he met. Didn’t mean anything. Maybe he was trying to be a charming politician.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance. We were both pretty sure Carl had known that married politicians were not supposed to hit on other women.

  “Did you see him get together with anyone other than his wife?” I said.

  Steve shook his head. “No.”

  “And what was his relationship with his wife like?”

  Steve shrugged. “I don’t know. Pretty usual, I guess.”

  “What do you mean? What’s pretty usual?”

  “They seemed happy enough. They’d fight sometimes, and then the next day they wouldn’t talk to each other. But then they’d be normal again.”

  I frowned. Ellen had told me that she and Carl had never fought. If she had lied about this, perhaps she had lied about other things.

  “And what was his relationship with his stepdaughter like?” I said.

  Steve shrugged. “Teenagers. You know how they are.”

  I sighed. “No, I don’t. What was she like?”

  “She barely talked to him. Sometimes they’d snap at each other, but that’s just how it is, right? Kids.”

  I nodded thoughtfully. Carl’s relationship with his wife and stepdaughter was beginning to sound more like a normal family relationship, not like the picture-perfect relationship he had portrayed for the press. “What did Carl fight about with Ellen and Trish?”

  Steve shrugged. “Can’t
remember.”

  “I guess you don’t know Carl well enough to say this, but do you think he’d been acting strangely around the time when he died?”

  Steve shook his head. “Nah. Seemed fine.”

  I was beginning to think that Steve hadn’t wanted to talk to us because he didn’t like to talk to anyone at all, not because he had something to hide.

  “The night that Carl died, you were the one who found the body. What happened that night?”

  “I was sitting here. Then Gary the gardener came knocking and said Carl was supposed to have left something for him in the study.”

  “So you let him in.”

  “I said that instead of going through the whole house, he could go around outside and walk in through the French doors. So he did that. I switched off the alarm system so that he could walk in, and then as soon as he was in, I turned the system back on again. Anyway, Gary left after a few minutes.”

  “Did anyone else come in?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe through the back door?”

  “Nope.”

  “How can you be so sure? The camera over that door wasn’t working.”

  Steve’s face darkened with annoyance. “I’d have heard if anyone came in. I walk around the house, checking the doors every now and then. Nobody came in.”

  “Perhaps a young woman came in to meet Carl?”

  Steve’s face grew another shade darker. “I already told you, nobody came into the house that evening.”

  “Okay. Well, where was Carl that evening?”

  “Dunno, I guess upstairs making some calls? I heard him and Trish come into the kitchen afterward. Trish was making herbal tea for herself. I heard her asking if Carl wanted any, but Carl said he’d just brewed some fresh decaf in his study. And then he went into his study, and I guess he was doing some work there on the computer.”

  “And then what?”

  Steve shrugged. “I didn’t hear anything after that.”

  “So what made you go into Carl’s study?”

  “I wanted to ask Carl if it was okay to take a five-minute break. I figured it would be okay since we’ve got security cameras.”