Ink Flamingos

by Karen E. Olson

  “There always is with you,” he said. “Spit it out.”

  I told him about finding Sherman Potter, and he caught his breath.

  “What is it with you?” he asked. “I mean, how do you do this? It’s like you’re some sort of murder magnet.”

  Great. Exactly what I wanted to put on my résumé. Not.

  “Just get over here, okay?”

  “You haven’t touched anything, have you?”

  I glanced at Sherman Potter’s naked body again and shivered. “No. Nothing.”

  “Stay put.” And he hung up.

  Jeff had wandered into the bathroom, and now he emerged. “On his way?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  “She took a shower. There are wet towels on the floor.”

  “Maybe he took one,” I suggested.

  “His hair’s not wet, and it doesn’t look like the sheets under him are, either.”

  “Who died and made you a CSI?” I asked.

  He rolled his eyes at me—something I usually did, so it was interesting the other way around—and said, “I suppose you think you’re the only one who knows her way around a crime scene.”

  “Maybe we should buy those little flashlights like they’ve got on TV. Then we could look under the bed and see if there are any more clues.”

  Jeff laughed out loud. “And then we’ll find out it was Mr. Plum in the dining room with a candlestick. Let’s go down to the business center and wait for your brother,” he suggested, moving toward the door.

  “I told Tim I’d stay put,” I said.

  “We’re not leaving the hotel—we’re just checking on something. We’ll come right back.” He didn’t wait for me, went out into the hallway.

  His argument made sense, so I followed him out. He pulled the door shut tight, locking Sherman Potter inside.

  We wandered the hallway maze until we found ourselves at the elevators. Jeff pushed the DOWN button. I could hear the whir of the elevator, but it didn’t stop for us.

  “So, Kavanaugh,” Jeff said, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “Are we going to talk about it?”

  I knew what he was referring to, but I played stupid. “What?”

  “This thing between us.”

  “What thing?”

  “You know. We’ve got a thing.”

  “We do not have a thing,” I said, and the elevator doors opened.

  We stepped inside, and we were trapped together for the moment. I couldn’t get away.

  But he didn’t say anything. Not until the elevator doors opened to the lobby. As I started out, he touched my arm and said, “We do have a thing.” And then we stepped into the lobby.

  I totally did not need this right now. I did not need Jeff Coleman to start getting all relationship-y on me. If that was what he was doing. I couldn’t quite tell. It was so like him to dance around this, to make me start thinking about it. I shrugged it off. I didn’t have time. I had a stalker, an impersonator, I’d just found a dead body, and I had to sort all that out first.

  Jeff led the way to the front desk without saying anything else, which I was grateful for. I was also glad to see that the little blonde was nowhere in our vicinity. Maybe she’d gone off shift. One could only hope.

  I wasn’t paying much attention to Jeff, until I saw him slide a key card across the desk to the young man in a Mao jacket. Immediately red lights started to go off in my head. Had he taken Sherman Potter’s room key? He turned slightly and caught my eye, winking. Of course he had. He took the key card. This was so not good.

  The young man was now pointing around the corner. He handed Jeff back the key with a smile.

  “I can’t believe you did that,” I said in a hushed tone as we approached the glassed-in business center.

  “We needed a key to get in,” he said matter-of-factly. “We couldn’t have if we didn’t have a key.”

  Just as he slipped the key card into the slot on the business center door, I heard a voice from behind us.

  “What are you doing?”

  Chapter 44

  We’d forgotten all about Sylvia. We’d left her with her pie and coffee and said we’d be right back. We’d lied.

  Jeff shuffled her into the room with us. “Sorry,” he said, “but something came up.”

  “I would hope so, otherwise why would you leave an old lady alone?” she said.

  No one else was in the business center, and Jeff ignored Sylvia as he slipped into a chair in front of an old PC and clicked on the Internet icon.

  “What are we doing in here?” Sylvia asked.

  “Checking a blog,” Jeff said. I was glad he kept it simple; I wasn’t quite sure just how much to tell her.

  “You can’t do that at home or at the shop?” she demanded.

  Jeff waved his hand to shush her as the Skin Deep blog popped up on the screen. I peered over his shoulder, but no pictures had been posted since the ones of me and Harry. I looked away. I didn’t want to be reminded.

  “What were you doing, kissing that boy?” Sylvia asked me.

  I shrugged. “Momentary lapse.”

  “Induced by absinthe,” Jeff added.

  “You were drunk?” Sylvia frowned. “My dear, never kiss a boy when you’re drunk. He’ll get the wrong idea.”

  No kidding.

  Jeff was typing, and then another page came up on the screen. I cringed slightly, because it was “my” blog, Ink Flamingos.

  And there it was: Sherman Potter’s flamingo tattoo.

  I hate it when I’m right about the wrong things.

  Jeff scrolled down to see if there was any text, but there wasn’t. It was like on Skin Deep, just a picture with no title. Just like the one of Daisy’s tattoo on Skin Deep.

  “At least she didn’t have pictures of us up there,” Jeff mused.

  “Maybe she doesn’t know he’s dead,” I suggested. “She could’ve taken it any time.”

  Jeff pointed at the time on the screen. It had been uploaded fifteen minutes ago. “And what was it the text said? That you keep giving her good reasons to blog? Like the first dead body, and now this one?”

  He didn’t have to rub it in.

  “Let’s go back upstairs,” I said. “We have to meet Tim.” Somehow it seemed more urgent right now.

  “If he doesn’t see us up there, he’ll probably call your cell,” Jeff said absently. He was back to Skin Deep, now looking at the picture of Daisy’s flamingo. He’d clicked on the picture and it came up in a separate window, much larger than it was on the blog.

  I still couldn’t figure out why Daisy agreed to have color, although from what Flanigan said, it wasn’t this particular tattoo that killed her. It was that second time she was exposed to the allergen. But it still nagged at me that she’d gone somewhere else, to another tattooist, for this work, and not to me. Yeah, it was an ego thing.

  “Are you looking for something in particular?” I asked.

  “This is interesting,” he said softly.

  “Interesting how?” I asked.

  He turned to Sylvia. “What do you know about this?”

  “What do you think?” she asked belligerently.

  “I didn’t notice this before. Maybe because it was smaller, but I can see it now,” Jeff said. “And maybe you should explain.” He was still talking to Sylvia.

  “What didn’t you notice? What needs explaining?” I asked.

  Both sets of eyes turned to me.

  “Do you want to tell her?” Jeff asked Sylvia.

  “Someone better tell me, and fast,” I said.

  Sylvia patted my arm and smiled as though I were a moron for not picking up on whatever it was they saw.

  “I started a tradition a long time ago that in every tattoo I’d hide a little ‘mi’ for the name of the shop within the tattoo. You know, my signature,” Sylvia said. “No one knows,” she added with a little smirk, “but it’s the way we can keep track of our tattoos. When I turned the shop over to Jeff, he continued
with it.”

  Clever.

  Sylvia’s finger moved on the screen, and suddenly I saw it. The initials were there. In the pink plumes of the flamingo.

  “What?” I asked, turning to Jeff. “You colored her flamingo?” I hadn’t seen the initials the first time because I hadn’t been looking for them, and they were so small I wouldn’t have noticed them if they hadn’t been pointed out. Like the flowers in the tips of the wings that I’d done.

  Jeff shook his head. “Not me.” He looked at Sylvia, who’d puffed up her chest proudly.

  “It was a nice tattoo,” she said, “but it needed that color.”

  Sylvia did it. I took a deep breath and counted to ten.

  “Didn’t she tell you she was allergic?” I finally asked.

  Sylvia made a face at me. “Look at me, a hundred tattoos and I never keeled over, did I?”

  It stung a little that Sylvia had been able to talk Daisy into the color, and I hadn’t even been successful in the discussion about organic inks. I turned to Jeff. “Didn’t you know about this?”

  “Don’t go blaming him for any of this,” Sylvia admonished. “He went away for a weekend, remember that?” She turned to Jeff. “You and that nice girl, you said you needed a weekend away. So I opened the shop while you were gone. No big deal.”

  I had never seen Jeff Coleman blush before. I should take note of the date and time, so I could tease him about it occasionally. In fact, it would be very nice ammunition for when he decided to pick on me.

  And then I wondered who the “nice girl” was.

  I shook the thought aside. Sylvia had done Daisy’s color. Without asking about her allergy. But she was right, at least about this one. Daisy didn’t keel over from it.

  “She came to your shop?” I asked.

  Sylvia nodded. “She said you’d done the flamingo, but she’d seen the koi that Jeff did on your arm and she loved the colors and the design. She was disappointed he wasn’t there, but I convinced her that an old lady could do just as good a job.”

  Looking at the picture, I had to agree. The color was impeccable.

  “So you didn’t know about this?” I asked Jeff.

  “Not till right this moment,” he said. “Not till I saw the initials. I hadn’t looked that closely before.”

  I remembered how Flanigan had asked if I could ask around to see if anyone I knew would know anything about Daisy’s tattoos. And how I hadn’t, because I’d been too distracted by my own problems.

  “We should tell Tim and Flanigan about this,” I said, turning to Sylvia. “You’ve got paperwork, right, to prove when you did this?”

  The look on her face made me realize that maybe they weren’t exactly up to date on their paperwork over at Murder Ink. And the look on Jeff’s face told me that he’d been having issues with that.

  “Let’s go,” I said, not wanting to get into it.

  Jeff logged off the computer, and the three of us went back through the glass doors.

  A flash blinded me as we rounded the corner.

  Chapter 45

  I had a flashback from the other night with Harry, when all those flashes kept going off. My heart leaped into my throat as I blinked, trying to see who had the camera. Jeff was one step ahead of me, though. He grabbed a woman’s arm and whirled her around.

  I couldn’t believe it.

  “Melanie?” It was Melanie Black, Daisy’s bandmate, the one who’d invited me to the concert last night.

  She held a small camera, and she did not look happy with Jeff.

  “Let go of me,” she demanded; then she saw me and tried an awkward smile on for size. “Brett, can you tell him to let go of me, tell him who I am?”

  “Did you just take my picture?” I asked, ignoring her question.

  Melanie seemed surprised to see she was holding a camera. “I was taking pictures,” she admitted. “I don’t think I took one of you.” But her blush told a different story.

  “Let’s see,” Jeff held out his hand for the camera, and she frowned, but she handed it over.

  He had to let her go to look at the last picture she took, but she stayed put. Probably because she didn’t want him to keep her camera. Jeff studied the camera screen and then held it up for me to see.

  It was a picture of me. Jeff and Sylvia flanked me, but they were partially cut off.

  I looked up at Melanie. “Why did you take my picture?” She couldn’t deny that she had now.

  Her face clouded over for a second; then she forced a smile. “I didn’t realize. But it’s a good picture.”

  “Good enough for your blog?” I sneered.

  Melanie frowned. “What are you talking about?”

  This could not be a coincidence. Melanie had been the one to invite me to the arena last night. She had invited me backstage. I had wanted answers about Daisy, and then Jeff and I found ourselves locked out. She had fed me the story about Sherman Potter and Daisy. Maybe it was to deflect any possible suspicion from her.

  Although I hadn’t thought any of the girls in the band would be suspect. Daisy was their bread and butter. Why would any of them kill her?

  And then I knew. Because Daisy wanted out. Because she was leaving the band. Because she was their bread and butter, that wouldn’t set well.

  Melanie knew about me. Knew about the tattoos. Knew Daisy was allergic. Anyone could get a tattoo machine and all the equipment online for a do-it-yourselfer. The picture of the tattoo that Flanigan had showed me indicated it was the work of a scratcher, someone who didn’t know what she was doing. It would be easy to set up a real tattooist, too.

  Melanie was almost as tall as me. With a wig, she could impersonate me. She could be the woman who’d left that hotel room. She could be the woman Jeff met in the bar.

  Now she was here. At the Golden Palace. Where Sherman Potter’s body lay upstairs. And she was taking pictures of me.

  Maybe she killed Sherman Potter because he figured it out.

  Like me.

  Jeff was toying with the camera. “There aren’t any other pictures,” he said, then looked at Melanie. “If you were being a tourist and taking pictures, then why is this one of Brett the only one you’ve got in the camera? And why are you taking pictures here? It’s a hotel front desk. Not exactly something for the photo album, is it?”

  She looked decidedly uncomfortable. Good. But before she could respond, I heard a familiar voice.

  “Brett?”

  I turned to see Tim walking toward us, confusion crossing his face. He had a couple of uniforms and crime scene investigators behind him. They all stopped when he did.

  I went over to him, knowing Jeff would hold on to Melanie so she couldn’t get away.

  “I think this is her,” I said softly to Tim when I reached him. I told him about the picture and my theories about her.

  “Did Jeff ID her as the woman he met?” Tim asked as he checked Melanie out.

  Like I said, she was almost as tall as me, and her hair was short, too, but it had been dyed midnight black and the ends were purple. Her face was round and she had an upturned nose and pouty lips. Her eyes were on the small side, but she attempted to make them look larger with dark eye shadow and thick mascara and black eyeliner. It was a sort of goth look but fit the Flamingos’ updated punk look to a T.

  “She’s not exactly incognito,” Tim pointed out, and I grudgingly agreed. She would be noticeable in a crowd. But maybe she didn’t wear all that makeup all the time. I said as much.

  “If her purpose was to come here, kill Sherman Potter, then take your picture, why would she make herself up like that? And how did she even know you’d be here?” Tim was playing devil’s advocate, and I couldn’t blame him. He had unraveled my theory with that last question. “How did you come to be here and find Sherman Potter, anyway?” he asked.

  I told him how Jeff had followed Potter and how the room had been reserved in the name Wainwright.

  “But she’s dead,” Tim said, his expression telling
me he thought I might have gone over the deep end on this one.

  “It’s got to be her twin sister, Ann.” It was like on those soap operas, when someone ended up having an evil twin.

  “How do you know her sister’s name?” Tim’s face grew dark.

  I quickly explained how the woman at the hotel desk had said that the Flamingos’ new lead singer’s name was Ann Wainwright, not Ainsley, as she’d presented herself.

  Tim’s frown deepened, but he turned and approached Melanie. Jeff wasn’t holding on to her, and she hadn’t tried to take off.

  “My sister says you took her picture. What for?”

  I could now see Melanie assessing Tim, deciding what she should say.

  “Someone asked me to.”

  She could’ve just told me that before. At least she was coming clean with the cops.

  “Who?” Tim prompted.

  Melanie shrugged. “She asked me for an autograph, I gave it to her, and then she gave me her camera, asked if I could do her a favor. She said Brett Kavanaugh was in the business center, could I get a picture of her. When I said she should do it herself, she said because I knew her, it would be better if I did it. She said she wanted a candid shot, so I should be discreet, not let on what I was doing.”

  Sounded plausible, but I still wasn’t willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Neither was Jeff.

  “How did she know you knew Brett?” he asked before Tim could. “Did you ask her how she knew Brett?”

  Melanie seemed confused by the questions, by the fact that someone other than Tim was asking.

  “What did she look like?” I asked, throwing her off a little more.

  But she recovered enough to say, “She looked a little like you. Red hair, tall. Maybe not as thin as you, though.”

  My impostor strikes again. And the description could easily fit Ann Wainwright.

  “Where did she go?” I asked, looking around and not seeing anyone matching the description.

  Melanie shrugged.

  “Maybe you should come with me and answer some questions,” Tim said to her.

  “Kavanaugh?”

  Tim and I both turned to see Detective Kevin Flanigan coming toward us. The uniforms and CSIs parted like the Red Sea to let him through.