Ink Flamingos

by Karen E. Olson

  “What’s going on?” Flanigan asked.

  Tim gave it to him in a nutshell. Flanigan was nodding. “You take her and talk to her,” he said, meaning Melanie. “Get a description of the woman who asked her to take the picture. I’ll go upstairs.”

  “Where should we go?” I asked.

  All eyes landed on me. It was not a comfortable feeling.

  “You found the body?” Flanigan asked.

  Jeff and I both nodded.

  “Then you come with me.”

  Sylvia stepped forward, her cheetah-print bag swinging from her shoulder. “And where do I go?”

  Flanigan’s mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile. “Mrs. Coleman. I remember you.” From a couple of months before. “You might as well come with us, too.”

  I was glad we didn’t have to leave Sylvia behind again, and Tim looked relieved that she wasn’t going to be his responsibility.

  Flanigan took me, Jeff, and Sylvia up in the elevator with him, along with the hotel manager, who had to let us in the room, and sent the others up in a separate elevator. No one said anything as we went up.

  We arrived at the same time the uniforms and CSIs did. Guess there wasn’t too much elevator traffic today.

  We all made our way down the hallway maze to Sherman Potter’s room.

  We watched as the manager slipped the key card into the door, and it swung open. Flanigan went in first.

  I knew we were in trouble by the look on his face when he came back out right away.

  “There’s no body in here. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

  Chapter 46

  No body? I craned my neck to see between Flanigan and one of the uniforms. Flanigan noticed and stepped aside, waving his hand and giving permission for me to enter. Jeff was right behind me.

  The bed was made. The pillows plumped. At least as much as they could be. There were no clothes scattered on the floor. The room was tidy. A glance in the bathroom told me the wet towels were gone.

  Jeff and I looked like the boy who cried wolf.

  “He was here,” I insisted.

  Jeff was nodding. “We both saw him.”

  We heard a squeaking sound in the hall and turned to see a maid’s cart making its way past the room. Jeff sidled past me and asked the maid pushing the cart: “Did you just make up this room?”

  The little Hispanic woman in the ill-fitting white uniform got a deer-in-the-headlights look about her.

  Flanigan stepped forward, flashing his badge. “It’s all right, ma’am,” he said politely. “Did you just make up the room?”

  Not sure the badge was a good idea, because she looked even more scared. She probably thought she was going to get deported.

  “Did you see anyone in the room?” I asked softly.

  A quick shake of her head and then, “The sign was gone.” She indicated the doorknob.

  The DO NOT DISTURB Sign. It had been there when Jeff and I left. Someone had taken Sherman Potter out of here, taken the sign, and the maid had cleaned up. All while we were downstairs in the business center checking out that blog and then talking to Melanie, who had taken my picture. A great distraction.

  If Melanie were the one behind all this, then she would have to have an accomplice.

  Ann Wainwright.

  It seemed as though it was all falling into place.

  I told Flanigan about Ann and how the woman Melanie claimed had asked her to take my picture fit her description. Jeff added that he’d seen a woman with red hair go into Sherman Potter’s room with him. Flanigan listened, to his credit, and then folded his arms across his chest and stood with his feet apart. He wasn’t sold.

  “Do you think a woman could carry a big guy like Sherman Potter out of here undetected?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” I said. “She’s tall, too, like me, and bigger than me. Maybe she lifts weights or something. Lots of women do.” I didn’t, but I did hike and swim. He probably didn’t care about that, though.

  “What about cameras?” Jeff asked, his voice piercing the long silence as Flanigan thought about what I’d said.

  The hotel manager’s face turned red. He was obviously embarrassed. “No cameras in the halls here,” he said apologetically. “This isn’t the Bellagio.”

  No kidding.

  “Is there a back stairway?” Flanigan asked.

  Good thinking. I mean, whoever pulled Sherman Potter out of here couldn’t very well have taken him in the elevator to dispose of him.

  The hotel manager pointed down the hall, a little farther from where we were standing. If the stairway was back in that direction and there were no cameras, then it might figure that whoever was carrying a body might not be detected. Except maybe by the maid. She didn’t look as though she was following what was going on, though. I wondered if anyone in Flanigan’s entourage spoke Spanish.

  Flanigan indicated that one of the CSIs should go into the hotel room to see if there were any clues left after the cleaning up. It was possible, since we hadn’t been downstairs all that long, and it should take more time to clean a hotel room than that. Another strike against that poor maid. I hoped she’d still have a job after this.

  Flanigan brought the other CSI and the hotel manager with him to check out the stairway. He didn’t say where Jeff and I should go, so we stayed put outside the hotel room with the maid.

  Jeff turned to her and started talking to her in Spanish. Really. He was just full of surprises these days. The maid’s face brightened as their conversation went on, then darkened, looking pointedly at me, then abruptly away; then her face lightened again.

  Finally, Jeff turned to me. “She says she was coming down the hall and saw a woman go in there. A redhaired woman, like you.”

  Great.

  “That’s when the DO NOT DISTURB Sign went on the door.”

  Exactly what Jeff had said, but then he came downstairs to meet up with me and Sylvia. Between then and the time we went upstairs, the mysterious woman—who I was convinced was Ann—had killed Sherman Potter. She was likely hiding out, waiting for us to leave, before she dragged him down the stairs.

  I thought about that picture text. She may have sent it in the hopes that it would lure us away. It worked. Once we were gone, she got down to business.

  Like I said, I had it all figured out.

  We heard a door open somewhere, and Flanigan appeared. He was alone. His forehead was knit in a frown, his hands clenched at his sides as he strode toward us, looking as though it were my fault that Sherman Potter and his abductor had disappeared.

  I worried that he thought it really was my fault.

  “Besides that room, were you anywhere else?” he demanded.

  My heart began pounding as the panic set in. What was he looking for?

  I shrugged. “We were on the elevator,” I tried.

  “But you were in that room,” he said, and there was something in his tone that made me wonder if he thought I was lying. This was so not good. And then I remembered.

  “Jeff has the room key. It was on the desk.”

  Jeff totally did not want me to give that one up. I could tell from the glare he shot me, but to his credit, he produced the key and handed it to Flanigan.

  “We wanted to get into the business center, and we couldn’t if we didn’t have a room key,” I explained.

  Flanigan studied the key card a second, then gave me a long stare. “Why did you need to get into the business center?”

  “There’s a picture on that Ink Flamingos blog. Of Sherman Potter.” Uh-oh. It really wasn’t of Sherman at all, but the tattoo on his arm. I quickly explained what we had seen and what was in the picture.

  “You didn’t give Mr. Potter that tattoo?” Flanigan asked.

  “I never saw Sherman Potter before the other day. He certainly had never been in my shop. The tattoo, though, was older,” I said, trying to offer up something useful and looking at Jeff for backup. He nodded, but didn’t say anything. So much for us having a thing.
If we were really having a thing, he’d pipe up right about now and get us both off the hook.

  From Flanigan’s expression, though, I knew I wasn’t off the hook. Something was up, but before I could ask, he spoke.

  “We found strands of red hair in the stairwell.”

  Chapter 47

  “Ann Wainwright has red hair,” I said.“Ainsley’s twin sister. She’s been using her sister’s name. I don’t really know why. But she must be the woman who went into the hotel room with Potter. The room was in her name.”

  Flanigan looked at me with a sad expression, like I was suffering from some sort of dementia. I think it was that whole evil twin cliché. But there really was an evil twin. Why didn’t he get that?

  Sylvia and Jeff were still quiet. Had they become mutes when I wasn’t paying attention? When I was trying to talk my way out of this one?

  My butt was on the line, and my impostor was again trying to implicate me. The fact that the Ink Flamingos blog was set up in my name and now sported a picture of Sherman Potter’s flamingo tattoo could hammer yet another nail in my own coffin.

  “Brett didn’t do anything,” Jeff finally said. “I was with her the whole time.” I couldn’t help but hear the implication: If he hadn’t been with me, would I have dragged Sherman Potter down the stairwell, leaving my hair behind?

  I was feeling rather paranoid. Was it justified? Maybe. Because Flanigan didn’t seem sold on my alibi.

  “I have no reason to do anything to Sherman Potter,” I insisted. “I mean, I didn’t even know the guy. I met him once.” I was totally protesting too much.

  Flanigan asked the hotel manager if there was a room he could use to take statements. The manager’s head bobbed up and down as if he was going for an elusive apple, and he produced a master key card, saying Flanigan could use the room next door to the one Sherman Potter had been found in. As he spoke, he opened the door.

  It was identical to the one next door, except everything was reversed, a mirror image. Flanigan ushered me and Jeff and Sylvia in.

  “I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Sylvia argued, forgetting that Jeff was her ride and she couldn’t get home without him.

  “It shouldn’t take too long,” Flanigan said with a kind smile. I wished he’d given me that smile. Instead, he cast a narrow eye at me and asked me if I would allow one thing.

  “What?”

  A crime scene investigator hovered over me. I wanted to shove him aside, but figured that might not go over well.

  “We’d like a strand of your hair,” Flanigan said flatly, as if he were merely asking me to sit down.

  They wanted to match my hair to the hair found in the stairwell. He really didn’t believe me.

  “It’s a formality,” he explained. “We need to remove you from any suspicion.”

  Because until they realized my hair didn’t match the one found in the stairwell, I would most definitely be one of those persons of interest they’re always talking about. I wasn’t born yesterday.

  I nodded and felt a tug. The CSI apologized and stuck the two strands he’d managed to yank out of my head into a small plastic bag.

  “Is it going to take a long time to make sure it’s not a match?” I asked, my voice sounding about a million miles away. I blinked a couple of times to keep a tear from escaping. It wasn’t that it had hurt; it was just everything. The whole thing. The impostor, Daisy, Sherman Potter.

  I felt a hand settle on my lower back, and Flanigan’s eyes flitted from me to Jeff as if he knew Jeff and I might have a thing after all. He was a detective.

  “It shouldn’t take too long,” Flanigan said, although he wasn’t forthcoming with a specific date. “Let’s get started.”

  An hour later, Jeff, Sylvia, and I were free to go. Tim had showed up about fifteen minutes in, with Melanie in tow so she could get subjected to even more questions by Detective Flanigan. She was still there when we left. Tim came into the hall with us.

  “Going back to the shop?” he asked, and from his tone I could tell he didn’t want me to go home yet. Maybe my room hadn’t been completely cleaned up from the night before.

  I did have another client coming in about eight, and it was already seven o’clock as it was. “That’s right,” I said. “I should be done about ten or so.”

  “I’ll come by and pick you up and take you home then,” he said, giving me a quick hug. He motioned something to Jeff, but I couldn’t really see what it was. I was so pathetic.

  When he’d gone back inside, I rubbed my head where they’d taken those hairs.

  “You okay, Kavanaugh?” Jeff asked when we got into the elevator.

  “Of course she’s not okay,” Sylvia answered for me, slapping Jeff on the arm. “Someone’s playing around with her head, pretending to be her. Be nice.”

  “I thought I was being nice,” Jeff said teasingly, with a wink at me. “I’m being nice, aren’t I?” he asked me.

  I rolled my eyes at him. At least some things never changed.

  The elevator doors slid open to the lobby, and we stepped out.

  “Am I glad that’s over,” Sylvia said loudly. “But I wonder whatever happened to that Sherman fellow.”

  I’d been wondering the same thing. While I suspected Ann of being the culprit in all this, did she really have the strength to carry Sherman Potter’s body out of a room, down a hall, and down the stairs and then hide him somewhere?

  We’d left the hotel and were crossing the parking lot toward our cars. I could see my bright red Mustang next to the orange metallic Pontiac. The cars piqued my memory, however, and not in a good way.

  Panic bubbled up in my chest, but by now I was used to the feeling.

  I stopped, grabbing onto Jeff’s arm and cocking my head toward my car. “It’s been used as a coffin before,” I said, referring to that time a couple months back when the body of a Dean Martin impersonator had been found dead in the trunk of my car. What if I’d find Sherman Potter in there, too? It had leaked to the news stations that I’d had that misfortune. If my impostor wanted to really freak me out, putting Sherman in my trunk would totally do it.

  “Give me your keys.” Jeff held out his hand, and I gave them to him. “Stay here,” he said to both of us.

  “What’s he doing?” Sylvia asked.

  “He’s checking my car.”

  “For what?”

  I shrugged, not wanting to say it out loud again.

  She made a face at me. “You’re much too paranoid, dear,” she said, hooking her hand around my elbow.

  No kidding.

  Jeff had rounded the back of my car, and the trunk hood lifted. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know. Then I heard, “Come on!”

  Slowly, I opened my eyes again, and Jeff was beckoning us. Sylvia and I made our way to the car, our arms still linked.

  “Nothing here,” Jeff said, showing me the empty trunk before slamming the hood down. “It’s okay.”

  Was it really? I had no idea.

  “I’ll follow you to the Venetian,” Jeff said as his mother climbed into the passenger seat of the Pontiac. “And if you need anything later, call me. You know where I am.”

  The ride to the Venetian was uneventful, and I was thankful for that. I gave Jeff a wave as I turned in to the lane that would take me to the self-parking garage. Being back on familiar ground, I relaxed a little.

  The security guard held up his hand, and I stopped, smiling at him. I leaned out my window and said, “I’m going to the shops,” anticipating his question as to whether I was a hotel guest or going to the casino. I pulled back into the car, ready to move on, but he stepped out in front of the Mustang, studying it.

  “I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’ve had a report.”

  I moved the gearshift so I could take my foot off the clutch and it wouldn’t lurch forward and stop, then put on the parking brake. I opened the door and stepped out. “A report?” I asked. “I own The Painted Lady; it’s in the shops. You can check.”

>   He shook his head. “I’ve been told to detain you.”

  Chapter 48

  My first instinct was to make a run for it. Hightail it out of there on foot and see how far I could get. And then my more sensible side told me that was ridiculous: I’d look more guilty that way. But guilty of what?

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  He had a clipboard with a sheaf of papers and started flipping through the pages, finally jabbing his finger on one. His eyes met mine, and I could see something bad was on that page. But after all the things that had been going on the last few days, what could be worse?

  “Could you please stand over there?” the guard asked, indicating I was to move toward the little guardhouse. I was acutely aware that another guard had appeared out of nowhere and was standing behind me now. So much for sprinting.

  “I think I have a right to know what’s going on,” I said loudly, with much more bravado than I felt.

  At that moment, a familiar Toyota Prius was turning the corner to exit. Joel spotted me, his face lit up, and he pulled into a handicap spot near the guardhouse. As he emerged from the tiny car, the guard who’d approached him seemed a little taken aback by his size and gave him a wide berth.

  “I’m sorry, sir, but you can’t park there,” the guard admonished.

  Joel shrugged. “What’s going on, Brett?”

  I sighed. “They’re ‘detaining’ me,” I said, making little quote marks with my fingers. “I have no idea why.”

  I noticed now that a third guard had joined us and opened the driver’s side door. The motor was still running, since I hadn’t shut it off. I had a crazy thought that it was a good thing Sherman Potter’s body wasn’t inside the trunk.

  Joel came closer, a frown on his face. He was considerably bigger than the first guard, who seemed very intimidated.

  “I think you need to tell the lady what’s going on,” Joel said sternly.

  “We need to search the car,” the guard said, as the other two guards were now doing just that.

  “What do you think you’ll find?” I asked, hearing a familiar siren in the distance. “Did you call the police?” This was too much.