She noticed how he’d ignored her counter and she was happy he was respecting her wish. Still, his words stung like a pinprick—a little pain at first, but then it began to fester. Why did he think she would mess things up? Troy was the one who hadn’t bothered to communicate. He was the one who had withheld information.
Seconds turned to minutes as Madison listened to Terry explaining the situation to Annabelle, who obviously didn’t like him leaving the house so late. Madison shouldn’t have come. And if the double life of a young woman wasn’t possibly behind the three murders, maybe she could have walked away. But Zoe Bell had been involved with a dangerous crowd. One of them could have gotten even for something.
Still, Faye Duncan had been boiling water for tea. Madison found it hard to imagine anyone from Club 69 tipping a teacup to his or her lips.
Madison was about to tell Terry she’d go it alone, but then he hurried past her to the department car she had checked out from the station.
“We’ve got to be quick. She’s not happy about this. At all,” he said.
Inside, Annabelle was standing down the hall. Madison waved, but Annabelle kept her hands on her stomach.
“I’m sorry, Terry. It was a bad idea coming here.”
“You think?” He got into the passenger seat of the sedan and Madison got behind the wheel before Terry continued. “But you did the right thing. It might be bad timing, but I’m glad you came to get me. Club 69 isn’t anywhere you want to go alone. Just promise me one thing.”
Her chest became heavy and she took a deep breath.
“What is that?” she asked.
“If I come with you tonight, I don’t work tomorrow. Besides, it will be Sunday.”
“I didn’t realize you observed the Sabbath.”
“If I did, today would have been the correct day to observe it.”
She let out a moan.
“What? I’m trying to educate you. Sharing this useful information.”
“That wasn’t exactly what I was thinking.” She smirked at him before glancing in the rearview mirror and backing out of his driveway. Her mind was no longer on his useful information; it was on the investigation. Was it someone from Club 69 who landed both Zoe and her great-aunt in the morgue?
THE SIGN OUTSIDE CLUB 69 advertised that they had the sexiest dancing girls in the city—a brave claim. But it was worse for Madison to note the push for patrons to book a private room. Goons guarded the entrance. Their eyes followed Madison and Terry, but they didn’t try to stop them.
The music in the club pumped loudly—the bass vibrated in Madison’s chest. Through a fog-machine haze, colored strobe lights danced across the stage, spotlighting the current act—a trim blonde flinging around a pole and bending in ways bordering on contortionism.
“Welcome to Club 69. My name is Kitty.”
Kitty was another blonde—sort of. The color was too pale next to her tanned skin to be natural. She wore a black bustier paired with a lingerie skirt. Garter belts were fastened to its base, holding up thigh-high netted stockings. Her heeled boots came to midcalf. Kitty was more scantily clad than a woman working the streets.
Madison held up her badge and so did Terry.
“Whoa.” Kitty gestured for them to move to the side. She shuffled them down the bar until Madison was next to a bald-headed black man with a chest like a tank. He wore a leather vest and a bronze crucifix hung from a black cord around his neck. He passed Madison a sly smile, but it faded when Madison showed him her badge. A second later, he walked away.
Kitty put a hand over Madison’s badge. “Please. Mario don’t like cops in his place.”
Well, isn’t that too bad.
Madison could request that she fetch him but figured it was best to start with Kitty. “Do you know Zoe Bell? I understand she works here.” For now, she also thought it best to go with present tense.
“Zoe?” Her pixie nose wrinkled up. “I only know one Zoe, but she was a friend back in college. She got messed up with drugs and ended up dying last year from AIDS.”
Madison should have known better. Zoe would have worked under a stripper name. She extended her phone to Kitty with Zoe’s DMV photo on the screen. “Do you recognize her?”
“Oh, you mean—”
“Hey, Sweet Cheeks, get me a table.” A man with a substantive gut brushed his way in the door. He leered at Madison. She glowered back. If he made one move, she’d take him down. He only had to lick his lips and Madison needed a shower.
“I’ll be right back.” Kitty handed Madison’s phone back to her and sauntered off, her hips swaying left to right, right to left—no doubt putting in extra effort for showmanship. Even from behind Leer Boy, it was apparent he followed the movement, his head angling in direct correlation.
Pervert.
Before the interruption, Kitty had clearly recognized Zoe. God, Madison hated to think of her as Kitty. It was demeaning to the female sex. A woman should own her sexuality, not exchange it for a dollar. By doing so, she was giving her power away, gambling on her femininity, and setting women’s advocacy back decades. Women like Zoe and Kitty may have viewed it from the opposite perspective, feeling that it gave them influence.
It was still hard to fathom that Zoe was a stripper. The image Madison witnessed at Della’s house was very different from this world, this lifestyle. Even judging Zoe’s house from the outside, it seemed kempt and proper.
Kitty’s hips swung at a gentler pendulum on her return saunter back to them.
“You recognized this woman?” Madison asked, flashing Zoe’s photograph again.
“I knew her as Eden.”
“Eden?”
“Yeah, as in the Garden of Eden.”
Madison knew exactly what the Garden of Eden was from church as a child. What happened in Zoe’s life to take her from religion to a place like this?
Madison’s back was to the bar, but it was apparent that Kitty caught eyes with someone behind Madison. Madison turned to see the bartender pouring a stream of golden liquor into a shot glass. It seemed like he was avoiding making eye contact, but she kept her gaze on him long enough that he raised his eyes to meet Madison’s.
“Is there something you’d like to add to our conversation?” she asked.
He shook his head and headed down the bar with the drink he had poured. He set it in front of a man in a suit.
Madison watched after the bartender, but he never returned. Interesting. She’d talk to him before they left the club.
She turned to Kitty. “Did you know Eden well?”
“I don’t pay you to talk.” A man sidled up next to Kitty. He was Ioan Gruffudd’s doppelganger from the mussed brown hair to soft facial features and subtle cleft chin.
“I’m sorry,” Kitty said.
He slapped her on the ass, and she let out a yelp, one Madison figured was more for show than from pain.
“Are you here for the entertainment?” His dark eyes scanned over them with an air of indifference. “Because something tells me you’re cops.”
“I’m Detective Knight, and this is—”
“I’m Detective Grant.” Terry took a step toward the man. “Now that you know who we are, who are you?”
“That doesn’t really matter.”
Madison regarded Terry’s protective stance. “We believe it does,” she said.
“Name’s Ken.” His jaw loosened, and his eyes wandered around the bar before returning to them.
There were some similarities to his DMV photo, but he looked quite different in person. “Ken Shelton?” She had Terry pull a detailed background on him along with Mario Cohen as they drove over. They had both served time.
Ken remained silent and peacocked his stance—widened legs, rigid shoulders, straight back, hands clasped in front at his waist.
“We understand that Eden w
orked here,” Madison said.
He guffawed. “There’s probably an Eden at every strip club in the city.”
She brought up a crime scene photo of Zoe and held it for him to see. “We’re concerned with this one.”
He glanced at it. “That’s a girl?”
Madison pulled her phone back and loaded Zoe’s license photo. “What about this one? Easier to make out?”
He visibly swallowed. “I recognize her. Someone killed her?”
No one said the man was a genius. Madison wasn’t in the mood to placate by responding to such a stupid question after the man had just seen Zoe dead. Men’s clothing or not—the implication should be clear.
“Do you know anyone who could have done this to her?”
“Everyone here loved her.”
Madison found it odd how the director of an establishment like this could have affection for his girls, especially ones he just recognizes. It was more a legalized brothel. “‘Loved her’? Are you sure that’s what you mean?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”
“Who was she closest to around here?”
“You mean customers?”
Madison shrugged. “Sure.”
“She had regulars. I can’t see any of them doing this to her, though.” He pointed toward Madison’s phone.
“What was your relationship like with her?” Terry asked.
He broke eye contact with Madison to look at Terry. “We got along fine.”
“Everyone around here loved her, but you got along fine,” Madison said.
Ken shoved his hands into his pockets. He licked his lips. “She never gave me a shot.”
“She wouldn’t have sex with you?”
“Exactly. But she’d spread her legs for everyone else. Not customers, of course. Outside of the club and on personal time.”
“Of course not,” Madison said dryly. “We’ll need a list of her regulars.”
“You’re kidding, right? She was one of our most popular features.”
To hear her referred to as a “feature” nauseated Madison. Zoe had been flesh and blood, a human being, not a sideshow, not an attraction at Disney World. Madison wasn’t naive to how the world worked; being a cop opened her eyes to the depravity of the human race. It didn’t mean she had to like it when it smacked her in the face, though.
She steadied her breath. “We’ll still need the list.”
“I’ll have to talk to Mario.”
“By all means, get him now.”
“Fine. The truth is, I don’t know where he is tonight. He just called to say he wasn’t coming in.”
Seeing as Mario lived at the address listed for Angels Incorporated, he was somewhere other than home. “When was the last shift Eden worked?” Madison asked.
“Last night.”
What if Elias found out about what Zoe really did for a living? Would that have proved to be enough to push him over the edge? The fact that he brought lives into the world didn’t mean he couldn’t be responsible for taking three out.
-
Chapter 35
“IT’S NOT LIKE I HAVE a list of names I can just give you.” Ken crossed his arms. “It’s not like we take them here.”
“But you take plastic?” Madison asked.
“Yes, we do, but—”
“Your accounting records will do.” Cynthia might hurt her for making such a laborious request, but depending on the direction of the case, it may be of benefit to have the information.
“No, no way. You’re not seeing those without a warrant.” Ken unlaced his arms. “I think I’ve been more than hospitable to you—”
“We’d like to see in Eden’s locker, speak to some of the girls before we leave,” Madison said.
“You do realize it’s Saturday night—the busiest night of the week? I can’t be holding up my girls to talk to you.”
“Let us go backstage, then. We’ll talk to them as they come off and before they go on,” Terry suggested.
The music amped up. Another thumping, bass concoction that hardly deserved to be termed music.
Ken hesitated, seeming to give thought to Terry’s proposal. She couldn’t imagine Mario being too happy about it if Ken agreed to the request, but that wasn’t her problem. She had only one thing to worry about and that was catching a killer. If it inconvenienced people along the way, it was of little consequence. Murder investigations demanded prying into recessed corners that people would rather keep in the dark.
“I guess you could. You should probably get a warrant for that, too,” Ken said.
“You served ten years for stealing a car back in ’98. You’ve only had freedom again for less than a decade. Are you sure you want to go behind bars for interfering with a police investigation?” Madison asked.
“Now you’re threatening me? And this is to get me to cooperate?”
She’d try going about this another way. “You said Eden—” She almost said Zoe this time “—wouldn’t sleep with you, but she slept with everyone else?”
“I think I said she’d ‘open her legs’ for everyone else.”
Madison curled her lips downward. The fact that she wasn’t impressed with his direct nature would have been clear.
“Yes and no,” he said.
“This probably made you angry. She wouldn’t put out for you. Did she have sex with Mario?”
Ken’s face contorted. He started breathing from his mouth.
Madison continued to prod him. “She put out for everyone but Ken Shelton. Maybe you took what you felt was yours?”
“Now I raped her?” He flailed his arms in the air. “This is ridiculous.”
“Is it? I’m not so sure.”
Terry nudged his foot against hers, but she kept going.
“What’s to say you didn’t kill her to keep her quiet about what you’d done? Or maybe you really didn’t have the balls and never did have her. But other men did, and you couldn’t stand it. You killed her because of it.”
Ken scoffed. “You’re a good storyteller.”
“Am I? Who do you think the DA would believe? An ex-con or a respected Stiles PD detective?”
“Cops invent things to convict people. I didn’t steal that car.”
“The report says you were found behind the wheel. The car wasn’t registered to you.”
He waved his hand. “Small point.”
“Small point? That is the definition of car theft.”
“I borrowed the car. I was going to take it back.”
“Uh-huh. Listen, I don’t care. I’ll be honest. What I do care about is why Zoe Bell—Eden—is in the city morgue. Cooperate with us and it will look good when you come up before a judge again.” It was a fact that 40 percent of those who had served time were convicted at least once more. As for her promise, it was a load of hogwash. She hoped he was stupid enough to buy the line.
“Fine. I’ll take you backstage,” Ken said.
Jackpot.
THE DRESSING ROOMS WERE AN extension of the backstage area. There were no privacy curtains. Of course, when these women bared all in front of strange men, what was a show of flesh among one another?
The blonde who had been on stage when they first entered the club was sitting in front of a mirror applying rouge to her cheeks. She wore a silk wraparound robe that reached her upper thighs. She paused application of the powder, stalling the brush midway between the compact and her face. Her blue eyes reflected back at them in the mirror. “I don’t know who you two are, but you’re casting shadows.” She touched the brush to her cheeks.
Neither Madison nor Terry said anything and she set the applicator down next to the blush.
The woman shot to her feet. “Ramone!” she shouted.
Madison stuck her badge in the girl’s face. Her lips fell i
n a straight line and twitched as if she were going to say something but hesitated doing so.
“We’re detectives with Stiles PD,” Madison said.
Her eyes traced up and down Terry. “Are you here to arrest me because I’ve been a naughty girl? I’ve been meaning to pay that ticket, I swear.”
They didn’t have time for this nonsense. “How well did you know Eden?” Madison asked.
Her blue eyes ping-ponged between Madison and Terry. “Did something happen to her?”
“She was murdered,” Terry said.
“Oh my…God.” The girl backed up until she reached the makeup table and rested her hips against it.
“Do you know anyone who might have done this to her?” Madison asked.
She turned over her left wrist. There was a daffodil tattoo with a ribbon tied on its stem. The word SHINE was inked below it. She rubbed her fingertip over the tat, seemingly lost in her thoughts.
Madison gave her a few seconds, but time was moving along and concern about Annabelle became a factor. “Do you know—”
“My mother was my beacon in this world.” She continued pawing at her wrist. “This was her favorite flower.” She sniffled. “She said that they are the color of sunshine to make us happy.” There was a scoffing tone in her voice, but it seemed she was desperately trying to cling to her mother’s belief. “When I’m down, I look at this.” Her fingers stopped moving, but she kept them pressed to her skin.
“Were you and Eden close?” Madison asked.
The girl just stared blankly at Madison.
“What’s your name?”
“I wanted Daffodil, but the doofuses who own the place thought it was a dumb name for a stripper. Said it sounded like Donald Duck or something. Jackasses.”
“What is your real name?” Terry asked with evident impatience.
A partial smile had only one side of her mouth rising. “I rarely use it, but it’s Vicky Hart.”
“Were you close to Eden?” Madison repeated.
“You mean Zoe? Yes.” Her eyelids lowered. From grief, from exhaustion? It was hard to tell.
The hoots and hollers of the lechers in the bar area echoed backstage. To be in this line of work took a unique individual, that was for sure. Madison hated it when men simply leered at her. To think about them groping her, sticking dollars in her G-string—not that a G-string was a comfortable choice to start with—and yelling for her made her blood curdle. She’d likely end up behind bars for beating their asses.
Deadly Impulse Page 14
