“Any ideas about who could have killed John Richard?” Marla asked.
“No way,” Sandee croaked. She reached for a paper napkin, then dabbed her eyes. She cried for a minute, making a sound that was halfway between a cat mewing and a human choking. Then she honked into the napkin. “The detectives wanted me to think some more about who John Richard’s enemies were. You know, if anyone argued with him at the lunch? Stuff like that.”
Marla gestured to me with a bejeweled hand. “Speaking of the lunch, Goldy’s making a list of the guests. We know most of the people from Southwest Hospital, but there are some people”—she nodded in Lana’s direction—“who we’re not sure about.”
Although I didn’t put a whole lot of stock in Sandee’s memory, I obligingly reached for the pad I’d stashed in my purse.
“Oh, I totally don’t remember anybody.” Sandee frowned at the empty pad. She made another furtive scan of the club interior. Could Marla not be noticing? Was Sandee not allowed to be talking to us? Was she looking for Ruby, Lana, the bald guy? “The only person I knew at the lunch was John Richard,” Sandee said, her voice halting. “I mean, besides Lana, you know, and Dannyboy. You know, and some other Rainbow people.”
“What did you do after you left the lunch?” I asked gently.
“We went back to his house and, you know, messed around in the car for a while. But not for long, I mean, I had to go back to work.” She raised mournful eyes. “Later, you know? He was taking Arch to the club. The golf club.” Her chin trembled, her eyes filled, and she again began mewing into the napkin. Marla rolled her eyes. I was thankful for the clink of glasses and pound of music around us.
“Sandee,” I said, as calmly as I could over the cacophony, “what are you worried about? Lana told us it was okay to talk to you.”
“She did?” Sandee seemed surprised, but looked around again, as if to confirm that Lana was not hovering.
“We just need to ask you about his money,” I continued. “John Richard’s money.”
At that moment, we were interrupted again. This time it was the bald guy, who leaned his pimply-faced, hunchback-of-Notre-Dame body over the table, nuzzled in next to Sandee’s neck, and whispered more words in her ear. Then he handed her some cash, which she thrust into an unseen pocket of the black dress. She smiled up at him, gently turned his wrist to see what time his watch said, then whispered something back.
Marla raised her voice. “Sandee!” The bald guy jumped, then trundled off. “Remember that day,” Marla continued, “when we came over to John Richard’s house and you asked us if we’d brought money? What was that about?”
“Uh, let’s see.” Sandee dabbed at her smeared mascara. “I asked you for money?”
“Yes, you did,” Marla replied evenly. “And then when Goldy showed up at John Richard’s house yesterday, a tall guy driving a blue sedan was parked out front. He asked Goldy if she had his money. Now, John Richard had no job, but he was living a fancy lifestyle that included a house, an Audi, and a cute…how old are you?”
“Twenty-eight,” Sandee replied, blushing.
“Twenty-eight-year-old,” Marla continued, giving me a raised eyebrow. “He also forked over major bucks to sponsor a golf tournament. We are his ex-wives, Sandee. His expensive ex-wives. We know his money situation coming out of incarceration was not good.”
“Incarceration?”
“Jail,” we ex-wives said in unison.
“You were living there, Sandee,” Marla went on. “How did he have an income? Was he borrowing money? Were people demanding that he repay it? Do you think that’s why he got killed?”
“I don’t know,” Sandee insisted. She crumpled the napkin with fingernails painted a glittery green. “You know, his cash? He just had lots of it. That’s all.” Her tone turned morose. She glanced in the direction of the front door. “Know what? I don’t care what Lana told you. Club policy is, I can only stay at one table for two minutes. Besides, I gotta go fix my makeup.” With that, she took a deep breath, pushed out her chair, and clattered away.
“Let’s get out of here,” Marla said abruptly. She looked down with distaste at our barely touched plates. “We can stop for sandwiches and ice cream on the way home. Think, prosciutto and arugula. Think, butter-roasted pecan ice cream. Think, no one making a declarative statement and posing it as a question. Think, fudge sauce.”
But for once I wasn’t pondering food. I was mentally totting up the lies I was sure Sandee had told: She was closer to twenty-one than twenty-eight, and she had asked Marla for money. Did this prevarication mean that Sandee knew more than she was letting on? Or was she just a flake who lied about her age and couldn’t remember anything? And where had Ruby Drake disappeared to?
The sudden appearance of Lana Della Robbia distracted me from these questions.
“Lana!” I said. I could see now that she, too, was wearing the clingy black signature dress of the women who worked at the Rainbow. “Tell us more about the Kerr-Vikarios conflict.”
“It was a long time ago, after I had my babies. I heard they had some kind of falling-out, right around the time Dr. Kerr and Holly left for England. I don’t know what it was about,” Lana concluded dramatically.
Marla and I exchanged a glance.
“That’s interesting, Lana, really,” Marla said. “Just out of curiosity,” she plowed on, “how did John Richard come to get hooked up with Sandee? He came over to receive your thanks for saving him? Then he picked a nubile filly from your little stable? I mean, she did have a gun-toting boyfriend, right? The singer? Am I wrong?”
“Dr. Korman was a good customer,” replied Lana, her tone diffident. And yet now it was her turn to scan the club, looking nervous. “Anyway, that’s not why I came over to your table.”
A young woman running the cash register called to Lana for help. Lana, who was clearly the boss, turned and beckoned with that formidable-looking, scarlet-painted acrylic nail for us to follow. Did everybody in this place have killer nails?
Marla sighed audibly, but we obliged. Once she was at the front counter, Lana dealt with the crisis—a group of twenty handsomely dressed guys in their forties were arriving for a late lunch. The adding machine had frozen up and Lana needed to count the cash and hand the guys their tickets.
“They look like lawyers,” Marla said in disbelief, eyeing the suits.
“They are lawyers,” Lana muttered under her breath, frantically counting bills.
“So what happened to American Express?” Marla asked. “Visa?”
“We take ’em,” the young woman who’d called Lana over said mournfully. “But the guys don’t want their wives checking the statements. I mean, how would you feel if your husband ate lunch at a strip club?”
“Our ex-husband did,” Marla and I said in unison. The young woman shrugged, as if to say, See?
“Goldy and Marla,” Lana said softly, rubber-banding the bills. “Do you know when Dr. Korman’s funeral will be?”
“Not yet,” Marla replied. “Probably sometime this week. You can call St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Aspen Meadow for more info.” And with that, Marla hustled me out the exit.
“Are you out of your mind?” I shrieked at Marla once we were striding along the gritty sidewalk.
“No, I’m hungry,” she said. “By the way, did you notice that Lana never asked who we thought killed the Jer…Oh Christ,” she said, when she spotted her car. She grabbed my arm.
I thought she must have gotten a parking ticket, or been sideswiped by a garbage truck, maybe retaliating for that morning. At the very least, the Mercedes must have a flat.
But no. The unattractive bald man, Sandee-the-
stripper’s admirer, lay sprawled across the hood of Marla’s Mercedes. Ringing started up in my ears. I trotted across the gritty sidewalk, feeling in my pocket for my new cell phone. As I got closer, I could see blood streaming out of the man’s nose and mouth.
He wasn’t moving.
11
B
efore I’d pressed the 9 in 911, Marla wrenched the phone from me.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she demanded.
“This guy is bleeding—”
“Forget it. You can’t see that because you’re not here.” She closed my phone and handed it to me, nabbed her own cell from her big Vuitton bag, and punched buttons. As she did so, she leaned down over the injured man and shook his back. He groaned. Marla then held up a warning finger while informing Denver emergency response that a man had been beaten and left on the hood of her car. Yes, he was conscious. Yes, there was blood, lots of it, all over the place. No, it didn’t look like a gunshot or a stab wound…well, a wicked bloody nose, not something you could do to yourself. Marla gave an approximation of our street address, then closed the phone while the operator squawked, “Please don’t hang up, ma’am, we need to know your name and the man’s identity if you happen to know—”
The bald man moaned again and struggled to turn his head. I scrambled over to him.
“Don’t move!” I barked while assessing his bloodshot eyes. I tried to make my voice reassuring. “Help is on the way.” The man moaned more loudly.
“Hey!” Marla hollered, her head next to mine. “Who hit you, guy?” When the man didn’t answer, Marla raised her voice. “Whoever beat the crap out of you left you on my car!”
With great effort, the bald, bloodied man focused on us. He blinked. He burbled something. Marla and I edged closer and said, “What?”
The man wheezed. He announced, a tad louder, “Elvis.”
Marla and I looked at each other.
Marla said, “Goldy, you need to scram. Let Denver PD handle this. If the Furman County detectives get wind of what’s happened here, and that you were involved, they could haul down the mountain and demand to know why you were here questioning Sandee. As for Sandee, she knows more than she’s letting on. Looks to me as if her jealous boyfriend Bobby could be snagged for assault, end up doing the jailhouse rock.”
“Sandee was checking around that club like a parakeet looking for the house cat. She and Lana both. I should have known something was up.”
“Something’s always up at a strip club,” Marla commented somberly.
“We shouldn’t joke,” I said. “This poor guy”—I gestured at the fellow groaning on the hood of her SL—“probably got beaten up for paying attention to Sandee with two e s. Think our ex got whacked for the same reason?”
Marla shrugged. I slumped against our parking meter and tried to think. Why would Nashville Bobby have stolen my kitchen shears? Had he beaten me up prior to killing John Richard, just for good measure? Or was my being assaulted incidental to the theft of my kitchen shears and my thirty-eight? The theory of Bobby-Elvis as the killer was intriguing, if mystifying. Then again, we didn’t yet have the autopsy results. Maybe Marla was right, and John Richard had been shot and then stabbed with the shears. I shuddered.
Worry for Arch solidified into a hard pain in my chest. How was he doing? Shouldn’t I be trying to comfort him over the death of his father instead of racing around Denver trying to figure out who had killed his father?
I tried to stand up straight, felt dizzy again, and grabbed the meter. Arch was blaming me this morning. For not locking up my gun. For not calling paramedics. And yet this was the same Arch who saved half his allowance for a soup kitchen. He’s not himself, Goldy, Tom had said. And then instead of feeling dizzy or worried, I realized I was experiencing something else: a rising panic, a raw fear that only figuring out who had murdered John Richard would restore my relationship with Arch.
“Damn the Jerk!” I jumped away from the parking meter and started kicking it. “Damn him!” The meter clanked more loudly inside its concrete hole each time my foot whacked it.
“Now what?” Marla cried.
“I hate him! He wrecked my life while he was alive. And now he’s screwing it up from the grave!”
“Take it easy, will you?” Marla cried, inserting her large body between me and the meter. “There’s a fine for destroying Denver city property, you know.” She seized my shoulders. “When the Jerk is actually in the grave, you and I can go dance on top of it. In the meantime, go stand there by the bald guy. Kick my tires if you want.”
I stalked over to the Mercedes, crossed my arms, and fumed. I hated John Richard Korman more than ever, with his schemes, his libido, his lying, and all his excuses and justifications for bad behavior. Now he was dead, and I was the prime suspect in his murder.
When was all this going to end? But I knew the answer to that: when the cops, or I, or someone figured out who had killed John Richard. And why. Oh, yes, and then there was that dancing-on-the-grave bit.
“I just called you a limo,” Marla announced as she snapped her cell phone shut. “They’re right around the corner, and I ordered you an express. In a few minutes, you’ll get transported back to the mountains in style.” She frowned. “You look awful.”
“I don’t care.” I stared at the Mercedes hood and the poor bloodied bald fellow, who was still moaning. “Look, I don’t need a limo. I’ll take an express bus to Aspen Meadow and walk the twenty minutes to my house.”
“The hell you will,” Marla retorted. “There’s no way I’m letting you brave those reporters camped on your porch. The driver’s going to escort you right to your door. And I am going to stay here and deal with the Denver police. Not to mention whatever city agency oversees parking-meter destruction.”
I frowned at the meter, now listing toward the street. And then, for the second time in two days, sirens wailed in the distance, and they were coming toward a crime scene that involved yours truly. I kicked the parking meter again.
“Will you stop?” Marla hollered. “Pay attention. I need you to tell me what to say to the cops. Quickly. Should I tell them about this bald guy”—she pointed at the man on her hood—“and his connection to Sandee’s boyfriend, Nashville-Bobby-the-Elvis-impersonator, and Sandee’s connection to the Jerk?”
“You already said you didn’t want Denver PD to connect this to Furman County. So don’t mention Sandee Blue or Bobby Calhoun.”
The guy on her hood moaned. “It was Elvis.”
“Why not?” Marla demanded. “It wouldn’t involve you.”
“Look. If you say anything about this guy somehow being connected to John Richard’s murder, Denver PD will call the Furman County detectives, who will roar down here and demand to know what your connection is to the Jerk and his death. And by the way, they’ll ask, ‘What were you doing here, Mrs. Korman? Who was with you?’ Then they’ll talk to everybody in the Rainbow, demanding to know how long you were in there and if you were alone, on and on until we’re all hauled in for questioning again. This would not make Brewster-the-criminal-lawyer happy. Marla, please. I’m thankful you got me a limo. Trust me with the cop stuff.”
“But—”
“Listen. Let Denver PD do a simple assault report. Tell them this fellow who got beaten up said the guy who hit him looked like Elvis. Then say vaguely that you think the Elvis impersonator hangs out around here, and if the Denver cops go into the Rainbow, they might be able to get the name of the assailant. The end.”
A silver stretch limo rounded the corner and flashed its lights.
“But how will they ever connect the beating of the bald guy with the Jerk’s murder?” Marla protested.
“Anonymous tip. As in, you call Furman County later and leave one.”
Marla rolled her eyes, then bustled me and my cell phone, purse, and sore kicking foot in the direction of the limo. A tall, smiling driver held the door open. The limo’s plush red interior was frigid from air-conditioning. I shuddered and stared out the darkened windows that filtered what was now murderously brilliant sunshine. Without warning, the limo floated away from the curb. Twenty yards from the Rainbow Men’s Club, we sailed past two shrieking black-and-whites and an ambulance.
There was chaos on the street. I closed my eyes. Again anxiety gripped me. The
re was chaos in my soul, no question. My life had turned into one big chaos soup, and I was not happy about it.
As we headed west, I tried to think. Form a plan, I told myself. Luckily, I still had Holly Kerr’s phone number and address, off Upper Cottonwood Creek Drive, entered in my Palm. Sometimes I was grateful I’d entered the Age of Technology, I thought as I retrieved my new cell and punched in Holly’s numbers. Yes, her voice crackled, she was back from her class, and she’d be happy to see me now. When I asked for directions, the driver interrupted to say he had an onboard navigation system. I whispered for him to wait as I tapped directions into the Palm—five dirt roads and a curvy mountain turnaround. I closed the cell and informed the driver that the Age of Technology did not extend to finding remote areas and landmarks of Aspen Meadow, Colorado. We’d had whole passels of bewildered tourists toting their handheld Global Positioning Systems as they searched for abandoned gold mines and cowboy hideaways. They invariably became lost. Just last week, the forest service had helicoptered out six rock-climbing orthodontists from New Jersey, and told them never to come back.
Forty minutes later, the driver was cursing under his breath as the limo bounced along a cratered single-lane dirt road that meandered off Upper Cottonwood Creek Drive. Melting hail had rendered the byway an obstacle course of stone-washed gullies, soft dirt, and mud-filled holes. Rocks and gravel scratched mercilessly against the sides and underbelly of the sleek silver vehicle as we splashed through the puddles. I wondered how much paint had been scraped away, and if they’d charge Marla for it. Finally, we ran aground in front of a dirt driveway that climbed upward at a forty-five-degree angle.
The limo guy eyed the steep driveway and shook his head. “Lady, it’s not happening.”
“I can walk.” We both disembarked. The driver squinted in all directions, at aspens, pines, and rocks. There wasn’t another house in sight. “An hour or so, okay?” I asked.
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