by Sharon Dunn
Jacobson tapped her pen on her notebook. “Did he say something to you about Xabier, inheriting?”
“He never mentioned his will. Tiffany is under the impression that she gets the hotel. I should have guessed Dustin was playing her.”
“So why now, after six years, do you decide to make a visit?” Mallory shifted her weight so she could lean against the booth.
Gloria pushed a piece of pie crust across her plate. “Xabier graduated from drama college. He told me that he thought his dad could get him some acting opportunities. I think, though, that Xabier’s real motive was that he wanted to connect with his father.” She cut a very small piece of pie and scooped it onto her fork. She chewed slowly. The area around her mouth seemed immobile, stiff. “All of my health problems made me realize I may not … be here for long. I wanted Xabier to have someone. I may have encouraged him against my better judgment.”
Jacobson flipped a page in her notebook. “Did Xabier find what he was looking for with his father?”
Gloria sat up, resting her arms against the back of the booth. “Nobody ever got what they were looking for with Dustin. He has … had a way of stringing you along, making you think it was just around the corner.” She traced the rim of the glass of milk with a puffy finger. “Dustin told Xabier he was going to set up a theater troupe for him. It wasn’t my son’s dream to be a dancing bear. The last time I talked to him, I think he felt degraded by his dad.”
“Hotel records show that you checked in two days ago. Xabier’s been here for a month.” Mallory sat down next to Jacobson.
“Things between my son and Dustin had gone downhill. I still have a little clout with my ex-husband. I thought I could patch things up.”
“What was the attraction between you and Dustin?” Mallory realized the question had nothing to do with the investigation. She just couldn’t figure out how two very different people had gotten together.
“When I met Dustin, he was different, beautiful and simple and poor. He pulled me out of a biker bar and drug addiction, introduced me to the Lord.” Gloria lifted her head, causing the dark circles under her eyes to intensify. “You feel a debt to the person who saved your life.”
Jacobson stopped writing in her notebook long enough to ask, “What changed him?”
“Dustin discovered his gift. People rallied around him and whatever cause he championed. They were drawn to him. He wanted to build a material empire under the guise of building it for God. I just couldn’t go there. Just because you put the God sticker on your greed doesn’t make it right.” Gloria fingered a crocheted shawl on the seat beside her. “He honored my wishes and took God out of his sales pitch. Watching my husband be consumed by his desire to be the next Donald Trump was like watching someone with a meth addiction. Suddenly the man I fell in love with was not there, not inside that body anymore.” Gloria rubbed her arms as though she were cold.
Mallory waited a suitable interval before getting back on task. “Please let us know if your son gets in touch with you.”
Gloria nodded and stared at the tabletop. The first Mrs. Clydell seemed to be working through some deep pain.
“Why does your son have a different last name than you and your husband?”
“Knight is his stage name. I don’t think he was fond of Clydell, didn’t want that identity. I wanted him to use my maiden name. He would have been Xabier Espina.” She shrugged. “Kind of like Antonio Banderas.”
Jacobson leaned a little closer to Gloria. “You’re aware that your son was seen arguing with Dustin?”
Mallory cringed at the question. Gloria was cooperative. They needed to keep it that way. Implying any guilt where Xabier was concerned was a bad idea.
Gloria looked at Mallory, then at Jacobson. “I didn’t raise my son to be a murderer, but I—” She shuddered and drew the shawl around her shoulders. “I’ve just never seen him so angry. I’m sure all this will make sense when he comes forward.”
The honesty of the answer took Mallory by surprise. This woman wasn’t hiding anything. She pulled out of her pocket the note that accused Walt Disney. “Do you know what this means?”
Jacobson sat up a little straighter and spun the salt shaker. It was her partner’s turn to be unhappy with the line of questioning. Jacobson must really hate it when she whipped out the Disney note. They needed to talk.
Gloria shrugged. “When Dustin was trying to work through something, he would write the same thing over and over.” She held the note, turned it slightly. “I don’t know. Walt Disney was an empire builder too.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Clydell. You’ve been very helpful.”
Ginger opened her eyes. She lay motionless, hands folded on her stomach. A canvas roof hung above her, and a light breeze stroked her cheeks. Thoughts leapfrogged over each other. Her senses scrambled to absorb something familiar.
In the distance, she heard the bubbling roar of a river. The aroma of coffee and bacon hung in the air. There were noises. People noises. Someone spoke in Spanish. A car caromed to life. A car door slammed. A moth flitted by beneath the canvas roof above her. Someone shouted in English about a broken drive shaft. The reply came in a language she couldn’t identify, maybe Japanese.
The throbbing at the back of her head intensified when she turned on her side. Tents, lots of tents. Different colors, different sizes. A forest of evergreens circled the tents. Given the international flavor of the conversation, her first thought was that she had been kidnapped by circus performers. Although she saw a woman in a sparkly leotard who could have passed for a trapeze artist, the other people didn’t look like performers. Some wore what looked like blue mechanics uniforms. A woman in brown slacks and shirt and checked apron sauntered through the camp.
“Looks like Sleeping Beauty woke up,” a bodiless voice, female, said.
Ginger saw legs, old legs, spider-webbed with varicose veins and wearing men’s trouser socks that were rolled down on the top. Chunky white shoes, the kind that nurses wear, covered the feet.
“Where am I?” Ginger lifted her head slightly. A hot lead weight seared the back of her head.
The legs sat down on a bench underneath the same canvas Ginger was under. A tinkling sound, someone stirring a liquid inside a mug, filled the air.
The headless voice spoke again. “You might want to rest awhile. You’ve had a pretty nasty blow to your head.”
Ginger closed her eyes. She did remember that part. Someone had hit her just as she was about to put the jewelry in her purse.
She heard footsteps and another voice, this one male and younger. “What shift they got you on today, Ida Mae?”
Ida Mae laughed. “That sounds like a song I might have learned on the piano when I was girl.” She sang, “What shift they got you on today, Ida Mae, Ida Mae.”
The man slapped his hands on his thighs and tapped his foot in rhythm to Ida Mae’s singing.
She continued her tune. “Mr. Fredricks wants me to clean the offices, downtown, downtown. I’ll be there from ten to four, ten to four, then I’ll collapse on the floor, on the floor.”
They both laughed.
“You rock, Ida Mae.”
“I don’t know about rocking, Donny. I did love to play my mama’s piano though.” An aah sound escaped her lips.
“I can take you in on my bike if you like,” Donny said.
“I would love to feel the wind in my hair, but I got to bring my Kirby with me tonight.”
Taking care not to lift her head, Ginger turned sideways. “Where am I?” A view of the man’s worn high tops was all she could manage.
“Hey, she woke up.” The high tops moved toward her.
“Just opened her eyes a few seconds ago.”
Ida Mae bent over Ginger. The face Ginger looked into was a very old face. Milky brown eyes floated in a sea of wrinkles. White hairs sprouted randomly in the furrows of skin. “We plucked you out of the river just like Moses.”
“I was floating in the river?”
Ida Mae’s head bobbed. “In a gondola boat with a hat over your head.”
Whoever had knocked her unconscious must have tossed her in one of the boats and sent her down the river. “I don’t suppose there was a bear costume or some jewelry with me?”
Ida Mae’s forehead crinkled even more. “Maybe you should rest a while longer.” She squeezed Ginger’s shoulder.
“Please, I’m not nuts.”
Since it was the position that created the least amount of pain, Ginger lay flat and stared at the canvas roof. She could still move her eyes even if she couldn’t move her head. The roof was a sort of awning outside of what looked like an army-surplus tent. She’d gotten a glimpse of Donny before the smoldering headache became too much. He had dark, curly hair and an acne problem. She’d managed to absorb some of her surroundings during her brief observation. Assuming this was Ida Mae’s tent, she owned a two-burner camp stove and a thirty-year-old Kirby upright.
“You don’t understand. I have to get back to Calamity.” Her voice didn’t even sound like it was coming out of her mouth.
“Calamity? Is that where you floated out from? I should have known with the gondola boat.”
“Where am I now?”
“You’re just outside of Las Vegas,” Don offered.
“Is this a commune or something?”
Both Ida and Don laughed.
Don got down on his knees so Ginger could see him. “This is a tent city. You’re on National Forest land.”
Ginger did a miniature shake of her aching head to show she had no idea what Don was talking about.
“We all have jobs in Vegas, but we can’t afford the housing costs, so we set up our tents outside the city limits. Our little city has rules. The biggie is you have to be employed.”
“And no druggies.” Ida put her face close to Ginger. The faint scent of Lysol wafted to Ginger’s nose. “You aren’t a druggie, are you?”
“No, I’m here for the Inventors Expo. I mean, I was in Calamity for the Expo. Now I have clues about a murder.” Given that her sanity was in question, she decided to leave out the squirrel parts of her story. She gripped Ida’s spongy arm. “I have to get back to the hotel. I have to tell the police what I found. I have to help Earl with his invention, or we’ll lose our home.”
“Sure you do, dear.” Ida patted her arm.
Don said, “We can take you into Vegas, but priority for the rides has to be for people who have a shift to work. I’m the transportation coordinator.”
“She’s a skinny thing. I bet we can just squeeze her in with me.”
“Maybe. I think some of the girls that work the Bellagio got to go in at nine,” Don said. “If you don’t mind going in an hour early, there’s space in Taheer’s van.”
What was she thinking? She could just call somebody. Earl or one of the girls could come and get her. “My cell phone is in my purse. Can you hand me my purse?”
Both of them shook their heads.
Ida Mae leaned over her. “Honey, you didn’t have a purse when we found you.”
She had no money, no ID, no credit card, and no cell. And she had lost the precious travel purse Earl had given her. “Does anyone in the camp have a cell?” Her voice was faint.
“We don’t have brick and wood homes. Cell phones are not exactly high on the list for our next purchase.” Don sat down on the bench by the two-burner camp stove. “Somebody in the camp might have one. I can ask around. Probably not going to get decent reception out here, though.”
No cell phone. How did she end up in this strange world with nothing that would get her back to the one where she belonged? “Sorry, I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
Ida stretched her arms so they touched the canvas roof. “If she rides out with me, that gives her four hours to sleep and maybe heal up.”
Heal up probably meant “come up with a more believable story for why she was floating down the river in a gondola.” The story she’d given, the true story, was too weird to be taken seriously.
Ginger felt herself drifting back to sleep while Don and Ida Mae chatted. Like being sloshed back and forth in a boat. No phone, no money, no credit card …
She awoke briefly in darkness to the aroma of warm comfort. A Coleman lantern hung from the metal frame of the canvas awning. Ida Mae held a bowl of steaming soup beneath Ginger’s nose.
“It ain’t much, but it will warm your belly. I suspect you could use some belly warming.”
She scraped the spoon through the bowl and touched it to Ginger’s mouth. The spoon shook in Ida Mae’s hand. Ginger opened her mouth like a bird waiting to be fed. The warm spicy liquid was the most marvelous thing she had ever tasted. A seafood dinner could not top the soup that was more spice than noodles and vegetables. But even lifting her head slightly caused it to throb.
Ida Mae stroked Ginger’s face from the forehead down to the temple. “You sleep. Won’t be long. Won’t be long now.” Ida Mae broke into song again. “Won’t be long now before my Savior comes to get me. And carries me, carries me home on His golden chariot. Carry me, carry me home …”
Ginger closed her eyes and focused on the hypnotic sound of the river rushing by and the gentle comfort of Ida Mae’s humming.
Mallory paused to read the sign on the restaurant door in the Wind-Up Hotel. “Shopping Channel auditions to be held here at eight p.m. We will be closing at seven.” She pushed the swinging doors open. Half the tables had been scooted against one wall. The other half provided a sitting area for the hopeful inventors. Inventions rested on or beside tables. Some had sheets draped over them. Others were visible in all their creative glory. Some of the hopefuls had brought banners with logos and sales pitches printed on them.
Mallory recognized Fiona Truman from the Shopping Channel standing in an area by the kitchen that had been cleared of tables. Yeah, her life had entered such a sad state that she knew the names of Shopping Channel hosts. She usually had the Shopping Channel on for noise when she got ready for work. At least that was what she told herself. It was all she could stand to watch beside her Mayberry reruns. From news to sitcoms, everyone on TV was selling an agenda. At least the Shopping Channel people were up front that they wanted you to buy what they sat in front of the camera.
Cameras and monitors were positioned at one end of the restaurant. Fiona stood by a counter interviewing each contestant. The line of on-deck inventors holding possible future products took up one wall.
Mallory scanned the room, looking for Earl and Ginger Salinski. She’d sent Jacobson home to her hubby and kids. This was the last thing she had to do before she went home to a carefully measured quarter cup of ice cream and a dog that liked the neighbor better than she liked Mallory. She couldn’t blame Roxy for being disloyal. Mallory worked erratic hours; sometimes the poodle got walked at five in the evening, and sometimes it was two in the morning. Mrs. Tribecca, a retired schoolteacher, was home all the time.
No chance of spotting Mr. Salinski. The room was filled with way too many sixty-something balding men. Mrs. Salinski had a fairly distinctive hairstyle. You didn’t see ringlets on a fifty-year-old woman that often. Mallory paced the perimeter, reading the various logos for the inventions and hoping that the Salinskis would recognize her and look her way.
A man with the same build as Earl Salinski slipped through a side door. Mallory trotted after him. She opened the door just as she heard Fiona ask for a five-minute break.
“Mr. Salinski?” Warm air hit Mallory when she stepped into the alley between the hotel and the discount bait shop. A twilight gray sky arched over the lake.
The man turned.
Mallory paced down the alley. “Remember me? Detective Mallory. I’ve been leaving messages on your cell all day.”
Earl Salinskis shoulders slumped. He anchored a cardboard box under his arm. In his other hand, he held the banner with the logo for the Pepper Light. “Sorry, I haven’t checked messages. Been kind of busy.”
“I need to talk to you and your wife
again.”
“She didn’t show up to help me with my audition.” His forehead crinkled as he shook his head. “I’ve been asking everyone. Her friends haven’t seen her since this afternoon.”
This did not look good. “Has your wife left the hotel?”
Earl placed his box on the top of a closed Dumpster. “I don’t know where she is.” He rubbed his thinning hair.
“I just need to get some clarification from you two. Your wife threatened Mr. Clydell. He gave your booth to somebody else.” She tapped the cardboard box. “How bad did you want to see this invention succeed?”
Earl took a step back and held up his hands. “I didn’t know I had lost my booth until the Expo closed down.” Earl turned slightly. “I want this invention to succeed pretty badly, but I am not going to kill for it.”
The side door swung open. Fiona Truman stepped out, wobbling precariously on four-inch heels. “Mr. Salinski. I wanted to catch you before you left.”
Earl perked up. “Really?”
Mallory had never seen a television personality this close up. Fiona had freckles and splotchy skin just like everyone else. Her dark hair was twirled up into a bun and glued in place with a metal doodad.
After making sure the alley wasn’t a high-heel land mine, Fiona stepped toward Earl. “Salinski is an unusual last name.”
“It’s Italian,” Earl said.
“I know the producer said that you didn’t make the cut. But I just wanted you to know that I like your product.”
Earl stood up a little straighter.
“Your stage presence was a little lacking. Maybe if you had a spokesperson, the producer would see the product in a new light.”
“My wife, Ginger, knows about the product, and she might be good in front of the camera. She can talk. She knows a lot about selling things.” His gaze rested on Mallory. “If I can track her down.”
“Our hotel room is booked through the end of the convention, so I’ll be around.” She pulled a business card out of her pocket. “It’s got my cell and my e-mail.”
