by Sharon Dunn
“We go to the same church.”
Ginger slowed. “Oh.”
“I know what you’re thinking.” Ann Jannette walked down a hallway, talking over her shoulder. “Why would a Christian lady be doing quickie weddings?”
“It’s not the profession you would expect a believer to gravitate towards.”
“My husband has been to seminary. He does the ceremonies. A lot of these chapels turn matrimony into a joke or a costume party.” She stopped outside a closed door and turned to face Ginger. “Do you want to know a secret? You can take the most hard-hearted dancer off the Strip and when you push her to an honest place, you know what she wants more than anything? To wear a pretty dress and to be made to feel special.” Ann rested her hand on the doorknob.
“Guess I hadn’t ever thought of it that way.” She didn’t know any women who were exotic dancers. Everyone she knew was pretty much like her, middle-class suburbanites. Until tonight, she had never met people like Ann or Ida Mae. I need to leave my hometown more often.
“My husband finds a way to get the gospel into the ceremony.” Ann pushed the door open, revealing a long, narrow room with a couch, coffee table, and television. “I find a way to let the bride know she is beautiful and valued by God while she picks from our wedding dresses. After the ceremony, we eat with them. People from the church sometimes join us for the ceremony and reception. They bring gifts and casseroles.” Ann cupped Ginger’s shoulder. “In Vegas, you got to live outside the box if you want to reach people.”
“It sounds like a good thing that you do.”
Ann nodded, stepped inside the room, and clicked on the light. A portable clothing rack with wedding dresses hung on it stood in a corner of the room.
“Some of them have had too much to drink.” Ann laughed and shook her head. The laugh was more to herself, and she stared at the carpet while she talked, probably seeing some memory playing in her mind. “You can speak a lot of the gospel into a drunk woman’s ear without meeting much resistance. You never know when your seeds will sprout. The reason why some of these people are here is because no one has ever made them feel valued. They want a special day, but they don’t think they deserve it. Not all of them, some just want to get married without all the fuss and money. They sure aren’t the people who would come into a church, so church has to come to them.”
Ginger followed Ann into the room.
A box heaping with mesh and satin rested by the wedding dresses. The coffee table contained brides magazines, a candy dish, and two devotional books.
“This room is sort of extra storage and a place for people to wait; the fitting room is through that door. The couch is pretty comfortable. I’ll wake you in a couple hours, and you can make your phone call.”
“Thank you, thank you for everything.” She had been saying that a lot tonight. Help had come from such unexpected places and unexpected people. All her assumptions about what a Christian was had been turned on their heads. Life outside of suburbia sure wasn’t boring.
Ann Jannette nodded. “Should be pretty quiet for the next couple of hours. Since they changed the law about us not marrying between midnight and eight, business has slowed a bit. I’m just doing the books. Jon, that’s my husband, is praying.”
“I’m not usually the person who has to ask for help.” Ginger plunked down on the couch and picked up one of the devotional magazines. “I’m usually the person giving it.”
“Sometimes God does that.” Ann leaned against the doorway, crossing her legs at the ankle. “He turns things upside down, so we can see them better. Have a good rest.”
Ann Jannette closed the door. Ginger curled up on the couch. Her sense of urgency, of needing to get back to Calamity and tell the detectives what she had found had been replaced by a peace that everything would work out okay. She’d call in a few hours, and someone would come and get her. Worrying about it wouldn’t make it happen any faster. She closed her eyes and drifted off …
The buzz of a television jerked Ginger awake. The male commentator said, “I am standing here outside of the Wind-Up Hotel on this Saturday morning.
She sat up. Not another murder. The television commentator stood beside a hand-painted sign that said Garage Sale. An aerial-camera shot showed several parking lots and fields filled with garage sales. They cut back to the news commentator. “… where the Worlds Biggest Garage Sale is about to be kicked off with a ribbon-cutting ceremony. We have two celebrities who are going to do the ribbon cutting and the countdown to 7:00 a.m.: Fiona Truman from the Shopping Channel and Victoria Stone, child star well-known for the song ‘My Heart Belongs to You.’ Fiona, how does it feel to be here?”
Ginger watched the festivities feeling far removed from the excitement. She had forgotten about the garage sales starting today.
Fiona looked very pulled together in her navy shirt and brown slacks despite her hair being tossed by the wind. She leaned toward the microphone. “I’m used to buying stuff new and at full price, so this hunting-for-treasure thing should be fun. I’m delighted to be here.”
The door opened, and Ann Jannette’s eyes went to the television. “Sorry, one of my kids must have come in and turned that on. Oh hey, that’s Little Vicky.”
“You remember her?”
“Vaguely. Jon performed the ceremony for her and her third husband a few years back.”
Hadn’t Vicky said she never had a husband? “Do you get that many celebrities in here?”
“We get a few. Las Vegas is a place where former celebrities come to live out their last days quietly. It keeps them close enough to the spotlight for the occasional photo op.” Ann clicked off the television.
Ginger stretched. “Someone should be up and answering their phone by now.”
“Listen, the reason I came in here is that we have a couple who are on their way back to Calamity. They’re not flaky. It would save you having to wait for someone to come and get you. You can still call and let them know you’re coming home.”
Ginger wasn’t so sure about getting a ride from strangers. Then again, she’d been relying on strangers for the whole night.
Ann read her mind or picked up on some signal in her expression or body language. “Why don’t you meet this couple and then decide?”
“Okay.”
Candace and Barry Sheldon turned out to be a very normal twosome. She was a nurse and he was an insurance salesman. They had done the quick wedding so they could put the money toward a honeymoon. Smart and practical.
Ginger tried calling Earl from Ann’s office where the sun shone in from a high window, washing the office in an early-morning golden glow. Earl still wasn’t answering. She tried Kindra.
“Hello?”
“Hey.”
“Ginger, where are you?”
The sound of Kindra’s voice made Ginger want to cry.
“It’s a long story, kiddo. But I’ll be back soon.”
“So much has happened here.”
“Did those detectives find the bear suit with jewels?”
“Ah … no. Xabier found me.” She said Xabier’s name with nuances of affection. “Some guys are after him. I haven’t talked to the detectives.”
“I need to talk to them.” Ginger flipped through a magazine while she talked. “We’ll get this straightened out when I get back. Kindra, it sure is good to hear your voice.”
“You sound different.”
Her eyes rested on a picture in the magazine of a meadow of wildflowers. The detail in the photograph, the separation of each petal on the flowers, the greenness of the grass made her chest feel tight. “I feel different.” Something had changed. She flipped the page to a picture of an older couple standing at an altar. “Have you seen Earl?”
There was a long pause. “Oh sorry, I was shaking my head,” Kindra laughed. “Like you could see that. I haven’t seen Earl. Do you want me to meet you when you get back?”
“Sure, kid, it should take me an hour to get to the hotel. I’ll mee
t you in the lobby.”
“Sounds good. See ya.”
Ginger held the phone to her ear for a long moment after Kindra hung up.
A few minutes later, she stepped out of the chapel. Sun warmed her face. Ann hugged her good-bye. Barry and Candace waited in their Honda Accord. When she crawled into the backseat, Barry turned around and asked, “Would you like us to stop for a coffee or anything before we hit the highway?”
Ginger relaxed into the plush backseat. “Whatever you want to do is fine with me.”
Candace craned her neck and smiled.
An hour later, after fighting the traffic created by the World’s Biggest Garage Sale, the newly married couple dropped Ginger off several blocks from the Wind-Up.
“Ever notice how roses don’t have a smell anymore, Jacobson?” Detective Mallory pressed her back against the wooden bench. The rooftop gardens of the Little Italy Hotel were nearly va can’t in the morning. In the cool postdinner hours, couples looking for that just-right romantic spot took to this place like a rookie on night shift took to espresso. At this time of day, though, it was the perfect place to have a private conference.
“They die so fast too.” Jacobson opened her foam container. “Nathan got me some for our anniversary. Two days later, they were dead.”
The swirl of oregano, basil, and pepper that rose up from Jacobsons takeout overwhelmed Detective Mallory. How could she eat Italian this early? Deep inside her, the voice of a plus-size gal, the one that didn’t care about silly things like heart attacks and diabetes and fitting into a size ten screamed, “Oh baby, get me some pasta now.”
Jacobson brought the plastic fork to her mouth. “Are you all right? You look a little pale.”
Mallory pictured a steak fried in butter and a salad with vinegar and oil dressing. On the protein diet, she could be bad in her own special way. “I’m fine. Lets make our list and check it twice.” Mallory pulled a laptop out of her briefcase.
Jacobson shoveled the lasagna into her mouth, in a delicate ladylike way, with one hand. With the other, she flipped open her notebook. She spoke between bites. “We have a missing squirrel who winds up being part of a crime. Do we know for sure if the squirrel is what killed Mr. Clydell?
“They x-rayed the squirrel. Lot of broken bones.” Mallory tapped under her eye. “Remember Clydell had some petechial hemorrhaging and bruises on his neck.”
“So our murderer strangles the victim.” Setting the takeout on the bench, Jacobson rose to her feet and paced. “Binky has the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, gets crushed when Dustin falls. Our murderer stuffs the squirrel in Dustin’s mouth, out of anger or to throw us off. Then he seals the bear head on Dustin and hauls the bear and the squirrel to the boat.”
“Mr. Simpson seemed genuinely upset about the loss of his squirrel. The one anomaly in his room was an excessive amount of ice. Maybe the squirrel was at the scene by accident.” Mallory typed. “What’s your take on the woman who was with him, Martha Hillstrong?”
Jacobson shrugged. “If we get desperate, I suppose we can question her. We have jewelry thefts, mostly diamonds, according to Officer Spurgen’s report. The thefts stop after Dustin Clydell dies.” She sat back down on the bench. “His missing kid, Xabier Knight, will probably inherit the hotel. He’s got motive if he knew that. Father and son are seen fighting shortly before Dustin’s death. We have a second ex-wife who was told she was going to inherit. We have a ransacked room and a stolen bear suit.” Jacobson picked up her takeout box and fork.
“Dustin had appointments with Victoria Stone and somebody named Edward Mastive who nobody else seems to know. Victoria told us Dustin never showed. Gloria said Dustin never met her on the boardwalk. I wonder if he kept the appointment with this Mastive guy? We still don’t have a lead on who he is.” Mallory glanced up from her laptop. “Don’t forget the note ‘Walt Disney did it.’”
Jacobson pressed her lips together, then looked down, pushing the lasagna around in its container.
“You don’t think that should be on the list?”
“It just doesn’t seem important.”
“I don’t know if this makes any sense to you, but I just got a feeling when I saw that note.”
Jacobson scraped tomato sauce off a noodle. “Okay, we’ll leave it on the list.”
“But you don’t think it’s evidence?”
“You’re the senior detective.” Jacobson scratched foam with her fork.
Her partner thought she had gone off the deep end. Mallory decided to let it go. She had been able to solve more than one case by following up on a feeling. Jacobson could be a little too textbook and procedure sometimes.
“Forensics confirms your theory that the body was moved.” Jacobson closed her takeout container. “Whoever took him out to the boat was probably planning on dumping him in the middle of the lake. Maybe that’s why they put the head back on. For weight.”
“And the perpetrator got interrupted?”
“The convention floor and the connecting hallway were cleaned that night, but they don’t think it took place there.” Jacobson paused. “We combed the pier and didn’t find anything. It makes sense, though, that the murderer wouldn’t want to haul the body too far. Trying to find forensic evidence in an outdoor location can be tricky. Let’s assume he was killed somewhere outside.”
Mallory continued to type as she spoke. “People were milling around at that time of night, but maybe there was enough darkness to get to the boat undetected.”
“What do you have to do to make someone want to kill you in such a violent way? What fear, what threat would drive such an impulse?”
Mallory shrugged. “Loss of identity or fortune or both, revenge. I agree that this had to have been an impulse murder.” Mallory lifted her fingers from the keyboard. “So what’s next for us?”
“We still have to get the Salinskis in for questioning. If the Mrs. doesn’t surface soon we can press Earl Salinski. What if they’re jewel thieves? He stayed here to play the innocent while she takes off to find a fence for the stuff.”
“According to Tiffany, the thefts started before the Salinskis showed up. They would have to have an accomplice.”
A faint meow sounded in the garden, and a gray cat with white toes emerged from some rosebushes. The cat swept past Jacobson and rubbed against Mallory.
“She likes you.”
Mallory gathered the ball of fur into her arms. The cat purred and nestled against her. “I didn’t know they allowed cats up here.”
“I bet you she sneaked up.”
“No tag on her. She’s probably one of those alley cats down by the Dumpster that live on pizza and pasta.”
“Didn’t you say your dog ran away?”
“Just to the neighbor’s house. I thought dogs were supposed to be loyal.” The cat purred so intensely she was vibrating. It was nice to be liked and appreciated. The cat was well nourished. “Maybe I’ll take her home.” She nuzzled close to the cats face. “You deserve better than the alley, don’t you?”
“What are you going to call her?”
“I think I’ll call her Aunt Bee after my favorite Mayberry character. Just call her Beebe for short.” She stroked her new pet under the chin. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”
Jacobson’s cell rang. She answered the call with a series of yeses and okays and a “How soon can you get it over to forensics?”
“I take it that wasn’t a personal call?”
“A little bit of a lead. An officer found the squirrel’s rolling ball tossed down a laundry chute. They’re going to see if there are any fingerprints on it. We need to figure out if the jewelry theft, the squirrel abduction, and Clydell’s death are connected or separate crimes.”
Mallory nodded. “True, we could be working this thing all wrong. Why don’t we break for a couple hours? You can go home so your kids and hubby don’t forget what you look like, and I’ll take my new friend home.”
Ginger stepp
ed into the lobby of the Wind-Up Hotel. A cool and constant artificial breeze swirled around her. She scanned the lobby couches for Kindra’s blond head and then searched the area by the elevators and the slot machines. Tiffany stood behind the counter handing a key to a young couple. She would know if Kindra had been here.
Tiffany looked fresh and professional in her off-white sleeveless blouse. Her makeup was subdued. But the hair was as big as ever.
“Are you running the place now?”
Tiffany drew her eyebrows together, an instant darkening of mood. “I’m running it because nobody else seems to care about running it. Even the new owner, Dustin’s one and only child, hasn’t bothered to show up and claim his inheritance.”
Xabier inherited the hotel. That was news. “What did Dustin leave you?”
Tiffany held up her hand, forming a big O with her fingers. “None of it is official; the lawyer’s secretary let it slip when I talked to her. Everything is stalled because of the investigation.” She blew a strand of curly hair out of her eyes. “I suppose I can still hope I’ll get something, but then I’d be thinking the same way I did when Dustin was alive.”
“So why are you still here?”
Tiffany stopped flipping the papers she had been sorting through. “’Cause I’m good at this, running the hotel. A murder could be a PR disaster. Yes, the Inventors Expo fell apart, but the hotel is almost totally full again because of the World’s Largest Garage Sale. The staff likes me. People are depending on this hotel continuing to run.” She shook her head and lowered her voice. “It should have been mine.”
“Have you seen Kindra? You know, the young blond who came in with me on Thursday.”
Tiffany shook her head. “She picked up a message just when I was getting on shift, read her message, and left.”
“Hmm.” It wasn’t like Kindra to miss a meeting. “Did my friends get another hotel room?”
“Let me check, sweetie.” Tiffany turned her attention to the computer.
On the other side of the lobby, the elevator doors opened. Victoria Stone stepped out.
Earl was behind her.
