Driven to Ink

by Karen E. Olson

  I nodded. “Sure. Only a touch-up, though. Nice tattoo. Skull with daggers.”

  “He’s been here before.”

  “Sure he has. He came by yesterday. He was going on a job interview here at the Venetian.”

  “No, no, that’s not it,” Joel said, his voice getting higher with anxiety. He’d stepped inside my room now.

  “What’s up, Joel?”

  Joel’s eyes were wide.

  “He was here with that guy you found dead in your trunk.”

  Chapter 37

  “What do you mean? He was here with Ray Lucci?”I Wasked. “Bitsy never said anything about him, and she was here, too.”

  Joel was shaking his head so hard I thought it would bounce off.

  “She wasn’t here when they got here. She came in late. Dentist or something. I don’t know. All I do know is, that guy came in here with Franklin, or Lucci, or whatever his name was. He didn’t stay long, but long enough to poke around in my room while I was getting my inks together.”

  I remembered how Will Parker had been messing with my clip cord and then my power source. I had another thought.

  “He wasn’t in there alone, was he?” I asked.

  Joel’s hand shot to his mouth, covering it, and I knew. Parker had been alone.

  “I had to go get some red ink from the storage room. I was out. I wasn’t gone but a few minutes. He was gone when I got back.”

  Probably with Joel’s clip cord.

  “You didn’t tell the cops about him.”

  Joel sighed, his hand dropping down to his side. “I forgot all about him until I saw him now. It was a crazy morning. The phone kept ringing, we actually had a couple of walk-ins, and I had to schedule appointments.” He paused. “Which Bitsy had to reschedule. I never said I was good at that.”

  “I didn’t say you were. It just seems like this was pretty important, and you forgot.”

  Joel snorted. “It’s this diet. I’m forgetting all sorts of things. It’s like my brain is hardwired for sugar, and without it, I’m a complete mess. I’m so sick of meat.”

  I reached over and rubbed his arm in support. “I’m sorry,” I said softly but then jerked my hand away. Joel frowned.

  “We need to stop Will Parker,” I said. “Where’s Tim?”

  I didn’t wait for an answer. I went down the hall to the staff room, where Tim was leaning back in a chair, his feet up on the table, leafing through a tattoo magazine. He grinned and waved the magazine when I came in.

  “Interesting stuff,” he said.

  “I don’t have time for that now,” I said, launching into what Joel told me about Will Parker being here with Ray Lucci.

  A few words in, Tim pulled himself up and looked like a cat about to pounce. “Where is he now?”

  “He left,” Joel said from the doorway.

  “How long ago?”

  Too long ago, but I didn’t want to burst his bubble if he thought he could catch up with him. “I don’t know, a few minutes,” I said.

  Tim grabbed my arm.

  “Hey!”

  “You have to come with me. I only saw him for a few seconds; I don’t know if I’d be able to pick him out of a crowd,” he said.

  We passed Bitsy, whose expression was asking what the heck was going on. I said, “Joel will fill you in,” just as Tim pulled me out of the shop.

  Once on the walkway, we stopped abruptly, Tim’s head swiveling from right to left and back again.

  “Do you see him anywhere?”

  It had really been too long. I doubted we’d track him down now, but it was worth a shot. However, all I saw was tourists. I shook my head. Something told me to go toward St. Mark’s Square, toward where the Renaissance dancers perform, and I started to walk in that direction.

  A gondola sailed past, the gondolier’s even strokes moving it along the canal. With Tim following, I went up the small footbridge over the canal. From the top of the bridge, I could see farther, so I scanned the crowds on both sides of the water and then in the square. There was no music now; there were no dancers prancing about, only the sound of chatter and a line at the gelato place.

  “I think it’s a lost cause,” I told Tim. “I should’ve immediately gone after him, after Joel told me. But I didn’t quite understand at first what he was telling me.”

  Tim tugged my arm and led me over the bridge. “Come on,” he said. “You never know if he stopped somewhere along the way.”

  “Right. He probably went to the garage and got his car.” As I spoke, Tim and I stared at each other.

  “Well, that was pretty stupid of us,” I added. “Considering one of us is a police officer. A detective, no less.”

  Tim rolled his eyes as we went back over the bridge and weaved our way around one of the small walkways that led away from the canal. I didn’t have a chance to ogle the shoes in Kenneth Cole, as I usually do, although I did see Ace at the oxygen bar again. There should be a twelve-step program for air addicts.

  We rounded the corner, passed the newsstand and kiosk, and pushed the glass doors open, making our way down the ramp and then through another set of glass doors into the parking garage. We stared at the concrete and the lines of cars.

  “Another brilliant idea, Watson,” Tim said.

  The parking garage was huge. He could’ve parked anywhere.

  Tim’s Impala sat nearby.

  Tim crossed the pavement toward the car. I scurried to keep up.

  As we reached the door, the roar of an engine echoed through the garage, and I gave a little jump. A blue car screamed around the corner and sped up as it came toward us. Tim grabbed my shoulders and pulled me farther into the parking spot, wedged between the Impala and an SUV. The blue car flew around the corner and out of sight.

  My heart was pounding, and from the way Tim was clutching his chest, I could tell his was, too.

  But my heart was pounding because it was a total déjà vu.

  “It was a blue car that tried to run me and Bitsy down yesterday,” I whispered.

  Tim’s head whipped around, and he stared at me.

  “Was it the same car?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “Both times the car was moving so fast, I didn’t have time to even notice the make of the car.”

  “It was a Ford,” Tim said. “I only caught half of the license plate.”

  I regretted the snide teasing about him being a detective and not thinking clearly. This was why he was the cop and I wasn’t.

  He was already walking back toward the Grand Canal Shoppes. I skipped along behind him.

  “So what do we do now?” I asked.

  “Now I try to find out the rest of that license plate and who was driving that car. As for you, well, I think you have work to do, don’t you?” he said matter-of-factly, holding open the glass door for me. Our mother would have been pleased. But then again, she was always pleased with her only son.

  “But I’m a witness, too,” I tried. “And what if it was Will Parker? I know what he looks like.” I paused. “Will Parker does drive a blue car.”

  He stopped short, outside Kenneth Cole. There was a new pair of red patent leather pumps in the window. For a second I was distracted.

  “You’re sure he drives a blue car?” Tim asked.

  I nodded. “I saw it the day I met him at the wedding chapel.”

  “Well, that makes it easier,” Tim mused.

  “Because you can check out Will Parker’s driver information now, right?” I asked, pretty pleased with myself.

  Tim started walking again. “You think you’re smart, don’t you?” he teased.

  “We are cut from the same cloth,” I said. “So if Will Parker stole Joel’s clip cord, do you think he’s the one who killed Ray Lucci?”

  We’d reached the shop, and Tim pulled the door open.

  “You never know,” he said.

  Bitsy hopped up from her seat at the front desk.

  “Did you find him?” she asked.


  We shook our heads.

  “Don’t you have your clients fill out forms with all their information?” Tim asked.

  Bitsy nodded, knowing what he was looking for. She reached for the file folder with Will Parker’s information in it. She handed it to Tim.

  He opened it, scanning the forms, then looked up at Bitsy. “Credit card?”

  Bitsy shook her head. “He paid in cash.”

  “I need a little privacy. Can I use the computer in your office?” Tim asked.

  “Sure,” I said, following him down the hall and into the office next to the staff room. I indicated the laptop on the desk.

  Tim gave me a look.

  “What?” I asked.

  He knew he wasn’t going to get rid of me. He sat behind the desk and booted up the laptop. After a few seconds, he connected to the Internet and pulled up Google Maps. I looked over his shoulder as he put in Will Parker’s address.

  Tim zoomed in to the location, then leaned back in his chair and pointed at the screen. “What’s wrong with this picture?” he asked.

  I peered at the screen and did a double take. It wasn’t a residential neighborhood.

  The address was for an In-N-Out Burger.

  On Dean Martin Drive.

  Chapter 38

  “The guy pays in cash and puts an In-N-Out as his address,” Tim mused. “What’s up with this?”

  I was still hung up on Dean Martin Drive. Was that some sort of joke? He was a Dean Martin impersonator, so he just happens to pick that In-N-Out Burger? Couldn’t have been a coincidence. I pointed that out to Tim.

  Tim sat back up and reached for the keyboard. He started tapping. Yahoo! People Search. Will Parker. Las Vegas.

  Five hits.

  “What if he lives in Summerlin or Henderson or North Las Vegas?” I asked.

  Tim scowled at me. Okay, so I threw a wrench into his brilliant plan.

  “Why don’t you call the wedding chapel and see if they’ll give you his real address? They must have it. And you are the cops,” I said.

  “But I’m not on this case,” he reminded me.

  “So call Flanigan,” I said.

  He didn’t like that idea, though. I could see it in the way his brow furrowed, his eyes narrowing. It was the same sort of look our father got when he was stumped by something. Tim wasn’t supposed to be investigating because I, his sister, was directly involved. He was supposed to babysit me so I would stay out of the way. But that look, the one I knew all too well, meant that he was going to go a little rogue.

  “Can I go with you?” I asked.

  “Go with me where?”

  “Wherever you’re going to find Will Parker. The wedding chapel’s probably a good place to start. And will you call the department about that partial license plate number?” I was talking so fast I hoped he wouldn’t have time to say no.

  “Don’t you have a client coming in?” Tim reminded me about Colin Bixby’s unexpected appointment. “You need to stay here.”

  “He’s not getting a tattoo,” I said, again wondering what it was Colin Bixby wanted to talk to me about. Why he’d need to make an actual appointment. Maybe he was getting another tattoo. But somehow I didn’t think he’d want me to do it. It was far too intimate the last time, and despite the little peck last night outside the emergency room, I didn’t think we’d moved too far beyond the fact that he was still hurt by my previous unfounded suspicions.

  “Brett, you can’t go with me.” Tim’s tone sounded as it did when he told me I couldn’t go backpacking with him to Europe the summer after he graduated from college. But this was a totally different thing. And I said so.

  “No, it’s not,” Tim said. “Flanigan would have my ass if he knew I was out checking up on things, and especially if you were with me.”

  “But you’re going to do it anyway,” I tried.

  “You have a business to run.”

  I didn’t want to tell him that Bitsy was doing a fine job running things while I was out playing detective. He didn’t have to know that, and I didn’t want to think about it too much myself. While it was a good thing I had such a trusted employee, I knew it was wrong to count on her as much as I did. Even though I’d recently given her a nice raise.

  “If Will Parker took Joel’s clip cord, then I have a vested interest in all this,” I said. “Not to mention that Ray Lucci was found in my trunk with possibly that very same clip cord wrapped around his neck.”

  “Okay, I get it,” Tim said, “but I can’t let you go with me.”

  I had one more card to play.

  “If you leave me alone, then how do you know I’m not going to go out on my own anyway?”

  “You don’t have a car,” he said.

  Oops. Forgot that small matter. But I did have friends who had cars, who’d lent me cars in the past when I needed a way around.

  Tim knew what I was thinking. “You can’t call Coleman.”

  “How will you know if I do or not?” I asked, jutting out my chin defiantly.

  “You can promise me you won’t.”

  “And I can cross my fingers so it won’t count.”

  We sounded exactly as we did when we were kids, when Tim would want to go off and I tried to finagle my way into his plans. Nothing changes. Except now he didn’t have our mom to intervene and tell me to let him alone.

  Tim shoved his chair away from the desk and got up, combing his hands through his hair. Exasperated.

  “You won’t let up until I say you can go with me, will you?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “If you go with me, you have to let me do all the talking. You need to stay out of my way.”

  I tried not to grin too widely as I followed him out of the office.

  Bitsy said Colin Bixby wasn’t coming in for another two hours. She didn’t grill me about where we were going, because Tim was with me, and she didn’t want him to think she was a nag. I knew she’d get me later. But by then maybe I’d have some answers.

  Tim and I didn’t talk as we went out to the Impala. We climbed in, and I wondered how long the silence would last. We wound around the garage until Tim pulled out of the parking lot onto Koval Lane, waiting at the light to turn up to the Strip. He turned on the CD player, and the Ramones sang “What a Wonderful World.”

  I tapped my foot in time with the music—as well as someone who’s tone-deaf can—as the palm trees cast their shadows across the road, tourists traveled in packs at the crosswalks.

  “So why didn’t you call to find out about Will Parker?” I asked, breaking the silence.

  “Better in person.”

  “So you can show your badge. Prove who you are.”

  He didn’t agree or disagree, but I figured that’s what it was.

  It wasn’t until we pulled into the driveway at That’s Amore Wedding Chapel that I realized Tony DellaRocco might wonder why I was here with Tim when I was supposed to be marrying Jeff Coleman.

  I told Tim about my concern.

  He grinned as he pulled off his shades. “Then I guess you’d better wait in the car.” And he opened the door and jumped out.

  Great. Now he wouldn’t tell me what he found out because he wouldn’t have to.

  Business was down today. There were no cars with brides and grooms waiting to be married. No Dean Martins serenading.

  I glanced across the street at the Elvis wedding chapel.

  A line stretched almost onto the Strip. Three cars and a stretch limo with a logo on its side that I couldn’t read.

  Maybe word about the dead Dean Martins had spread, scaring away the married-to-be. Being serenaded by a Dean Martin who might end up dead the next day probably wouldn’t bode well. Although it could be a good story if the marriage lasted.

  I thought about how Will Parker had said the Elvis chapel owner—Sanderson, I think his name was—had tried to steal away the Dean Martins and turn them into Elvises. But I couldn’t exactly rely on Parker to tell the truth now that I knew he lived in
an In-N-Out Burger and he’d possibly stolen Joel’s clip cord.

  I wondered how long Tim would be.

  Would it be long enough so I could go check out the Elvises?

  Tim had gone inside, and there was no sign of him. I opened my door and stepped out, knowing he wouldn’t exactly condone this—but what else was I going to do? He’d taken the keys, and I couldn’t listen to any music. I was bored.

  I made my way to a crosswalk and pressed the button to wait for the walking-man sign, all the time glancing back to see if Tim had emerged from the building. By the time the little green man flashed, Tim was still inside, so I jogged across the street.

  The Elvis chapel was even more tacky than That’s Amore, with tall white Greek columns at its driveway entrance and a high trellis with some sort of fake white flowers and greenery. I skirted behind the limo, hearing the Elvis now, singing about how he was in love and all shook up.

  Whatever floats your boat, I guess.

  I preferred That’s Amore. But I’ve never been an Elvis fan.

  “No walk-ups!” The booming voice from somewhere to my left made me jump.

  Chapter 39

  He was a big guy, not just heavy but maybe about two hundred pounds overweight. His jowls sagged into his ample neck, which pillowed above his broad chest. Because of his size, he wasn’t really walking. It was more like waddling.

  He stopped next to me, his hands clutched together in front of his big belly. He had a swath of jet-black hair in a pompadour, like Elvis’s, and wore a stretchy white satin bodysuit that should not have been part of such a large man’s wardrobe. He totally needed What Not to Wear.

  “No walk-ups,” he repeated, staring at me as if I had three heads.

  “I’m just pricing,” I tried, wishing for the first time that Jeff Coleman was with me. He was much better at this than I was. “My boyfriend—um—fiancé and I want a wedding that will be memorable.”

  A wide smile that matched his girth spread across his face. “You’ll get that here, at the Love Shack.”

  I hadn’t noticed the name of the chapel on the heart-shaped sign because the Elvis cutout was so large. But Love Shack? Really? I mean, didn’t he realize that was the B-52s and not Elvis? At least Tony DellaRocco kept the Dean Martin theme in the name of his chapel.