My heart does a little leap when he sounds delighted to hear from me. “How have you been the last few days?” he asks.
“Fine. Are you still in Vegas?”
“I left then came back for some pick-up shots. We added a Liberace segment.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.” I have to laugh. “My mother has been going to his museum every day.”
“Has she seen his ghost yet? I’m told he also haunts his favorite restaurant, Carluccio’s. That changed locations, though, and he may not like the new one.”
That gets another chuckle out of me. “Any chance I could pick your brain about something? A criminal matter. I’ve been nosing around the Danny Richter murder.”
“I bet you have. And now his girlfriend’s been killed, too.”
“She’s the one I was trying to help get on a reality show.”
His voice gets serious. “I hope you’re being careful, Happy.”
He doesn’t say, Remember what happened on Oahu? I’ll never forget. I got into a real pickle, and if it hadn’t been for one Mario Suave, Happy Pennington might be showing off her sash and tiara to Liberace himself in the Great Beyond.
“I could make time to meet,” he says. “Say in an hour?”
We agree to meet in the lobby of the Cosmos and I hang up fearing I’m developing an addiction to Mario Suave as well as to homicide investigation. I wonder how much of that is because he’s just about the only person who doesn’t discourage my sleuthing efforts.
My next call is to Samantha. I start by asking her if everything is okay.
“Everything is fine. Pucci and I are fine.” Her voice quavers as she delivers that assurance, which undermines the effect. “Why wouldn’t we be?” she adds weakly.
“Samantha, I saw your Cadillac get towed. I know what Brandon did,” I assert, though in truth I only suspect.
“Sometimes his temper gets the better of him. He’s a good boy, my Brandon.”
On those occasions when he isn’t wielding a crowbar, maybe he is. “Why doesn’t he want you and me to be friends?”
“He’s protective of me. He only has my best interests at heart.”
I can just imagine what my mother would scream if she heard this. She’s just like that Noreen Dudek!
“Samantha?”—I speak in as soothing a tone as I can manage—“Are you at all worried that maybe Brandon’s temper got the better of him with Danny and he did something very, very wrong?”
She shrieks so loudly I have to hold my cell away from my ear. I hear a commotion on the other end of the line and then Brandon comes on, bellowing. “What the hell do I have to do to keep you away from my mother?” The line goes dead.
I sink onto my bed. It takes me a few minutes to calm down. I’d say I hit the mark with my question to Samantha. It seems pretty clear that she does not put it past her son to have shot Danny. His anger is so ferocious that neither do I.
I do not like Samantha being alone with him. He’s a maniac. I wonder if Detective Perelli can have an officer check on her from time to time. I call to ask.
“I’ll have a squad car stop by. By the way, Travis Blakely checks out clean.”
“Nothing on his record?”
“And no evidence of bad blood between him and Richter. I talked to him. There’s nothing there.”
So it appears I gave Detective Perelli two useless “tips,” one about Hans and one about Travis Blakely. That leaves three likely suspects in these murders: the counterfeit-money passer, Brandon St. James, and Frank. I still find it hard to believe that Frank is a killer but his name never seems to get erased from the short list.
“Does Brandon St. James have a good alibi for Saturday afternoon?” I ask.
“No. Neither does Bobby Erskine. The counterfeiter,” she clarifies. “We got him in custody in Arizona.”
Erskine may have shot Danny. But since he was out of state at the time, he can’t be guilty of stabbing Cassidy.
We chat a while longer and then Detective Perelli reiterates that I should stay far, far away from Brandon and Frank. I know the former is very angry with yours truly. I keep to myself that I just spent one-on-one time with the latter, although I do share the 411 about some of Danny’s money ending up in his Uncle Frankie’s hands. Given the ongoing murder investigation, I can’t keep that in confidence. I get the idea that nugget is news to her, which gratifies me. Maybe I’m being at least a little helpful.
Frightening and frustrating as all of this is, there is nothing like an assignation with a hunk of a pageant emcee to make a beauty queen forget murder and mayhem. I check my face and head downstairs.
Mario happens to be looking in my direction when I exit the elevator and so we hold each other’s gazes as I traverse the busy lobby to meet him. He looks as delectable as ever in wheat-colored straight-leg twill pants and a slim-cut dress shirt in purple and white stripes. We share a quick hug and I get a whiff of his musky cologne. I try not to let it go straight to my head.
“Shall we grab a lemonade or something?” I suggest.
He smiles. His dimple puts in an appearance. “I’d love to.”
At his side, I am again reminded what a temptation he is. After we settle in with our beverages, I try to be all business. “I don’t want to go into the details but I’m wondering how big a crime it is to take money that you think might have been stolen.”
He frowns. “You haven’t done that, have you, Happy?”
“No, no. Somebody else. And I want to help him. But I don’t know how bad it could be for him.”
Mario keeps frowning. “This isn’t Jason we’re talking about?”
I reassure him that it’s not and he explains how it’s a misdemeanor and the severity of the crime depends both on the value of the stolen property and whether the person has prior related criminal charges.
“I don’t think this man has any priors,” I say. “Would he have to go to prison?”
“Unless the property value is really high, he’d probably get away with probation and a fine. Maybe community service, too. Especially if he suspected but didn’t know for sure that the money was stolen.” He leans closer. “So tell me about this investigating you’re doing.”
I give him a brief run-through, including everything that happened with Hans Finkelmeister.
“Good for you for getting the better of that loser. If it were up to me I’d kick his ass to kingdom come.”
“Get in line.”
We gaze at each other. Around us people laugh and chat like this is an ordinary autumn afternoon in sunshiny Las Vegas. For me it’s not quite. I’m here with Mario Suave and that always throws me.
Which is why I shouldn’t be with him. I asked my question, I got my answer, I should go. I drain my lemonade and put on a cheery smile. “Thanks so much for your help, Mario. I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Guess so!” He grins. “Goodbye, Happy.”
I force myself to walk away.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Maybe in ancient times, like 1980 or thereabouts, all a singer needed to be popular was a fantastic voice. Not anymore.
As my mom and I sit in the theater waiting for Ziana’s show to start, we watch her music videos play on a dozen ginormous screens all around us. In every one of them, her beauty-queen-perfect blond self executes a wildly complicated dance routine. Behind her, a bevy of drop-dead gorgeous 20-year-olds mimic her moves. The choreography makes the Sparklettes synchronized kick-line maneuvers, which have bedeviled me all week, look like child’s play.
“Will I know any of the songs?” my mother shouts at me. The music is so loud I’d never hear her otherwise. She is looking shockingly stylish in an animal-print jacket I gave her paired with a white top and trousers. Plus she’s sporting a face full of makeup, tastefully applied. Eddie Wozniak and his bowels must have been dazzled.
“If you listen to the radio, you’ll probably recognize a few songs,” I yell back.
“I don’t listen to no radio,” she ho
llers. “Except for the traffic reports.”
It is not news to me that my mother lives in a kind of bubble. Normally that’s not a problem. But employment—should it ever happen—will push her into regular interaction with the Real World. I’m not sure that either she or the world is ready.
The theater darkens and the music amps up even further. Like at the volcano I feel the beat pound through the soles of my metallic sandals. Whoops rise from the audience as colored spotlights rake us. When smoke envelops the stage, I get a tad panicky. I wonder how long it’ll be before I can see smoke billow without thinking of Sally Anne’s aborted wedding or Danny Richter’s murder.
Seconds later I hear the opening notes of one of Ziana’s blockbuster hits. A beam of light cuts across the theater to illuminate Ziana herself, suspended high above the crowd clinging to a thick white rope sparkling with glitter. She’s wearing a gold sequined catsuit with gaping cutouts. Her long blond hair is Brigitte Bardot wild and her makeup is Halloween dramatic. Our fellow show goers burst into whistles and shouts. She begins to sing as the rope carries her toward the stage, where her dancer posse—half-naked all—busts out moves, many of them obscene.
I glance at my mother, whose eyes are wide with astonishment. Well, Hazel Przybyszewski will get an eyeful this afternoon but that’s what a Vegas show is all about.
Seeing Ziana in the flesh with a few thousand of her rabid fans surrounding me, I can’t believe I got so close to her the prior afternoon at the recording studio. Travis Blakely must be backstage somewhere helping to make the magic happen. Thinking of him reminds me of the backstage passes in my handbag.
The production is an hour and a half of almost nonstop singing and dancing. I conclude that Ziana has admirable aerobic capacity. Every once in a while she pauses to laugh and joke with the audience and several times she disappears for costume changes. It’s really exciting when she performs the song I heard at the studio. It sounds exactly the same. I guess that’s what separates the amateurs from the professionals.
When it’s all over—including a couple of standing ovations and an encore—we stand up to file out. My mother grabs my arm. “I can’t hear myself think!” she hollers.
“Are you okay? Did you enjoy it?”
“I enjoyed it but I got a headache like you wouldn’t believe! I want to go back to the hotel and lie down.”
I’m not happy to hear that but it does make what I’d like to do next easier. “You sure you don’t want to go backstage with me? I snagged a few passes.”
“I need to go backstage like I need a hole in the head!” she informs me, at which point I escort her to the cab line. She raises no objection to my going backstage alone.
I’ve never been the groupie type and I don’t blend in with the Ziana groupies waiting at the venue’s alley exit—most of whom are Rachel’s age. My pass allows me to shoot past them all.
I stride through the backstage area as if I have some idea where I’m going. In fact I’m heading for the banging noises ahead of me. And wouldn’t you know it, before long who do I see but Travis.
He’s again in jeans but has foregone not only his cowboy hat but his plaid shirt. Instead he’s wearing a faded navy blue tee that demands in white letters: OBEY ME. I’M A ROADIE. He gapes when I heave into his line of sight. “You again? How did you get back here? Are you an effing stalker or what?”
“I have a backstage pass. I’d just like to talk to you.” I’m thinking Travis might have some insight into what was going on with Danny. After all, what do drinking buddies do besides drink? They talk. More to the point, they talk when alcohol has lowered their guard.
“You got nothing better to do? Like play the slots or go to the spa or something? Women like you go to spas.”
I don’t appreciate the stereotyping although he is right on the money. “As a matter of fact I go to the spa at the Cosmos Hotel. Maybe you know the guy who’s letting me into the cryogenic chamber all week? Frank Richter?”
“I don’t know any Frank Richter.”
“He’s Danny Richter’s uncle. Danny’s one of the friends we have in common.”
Travis narrows his eyes at me. “You know Danny?”
“I met him through Frank. I stood up at Frank’s wedding. Or what should’ve been his wedding.”
Travis grabs me by the elbow and pulls me aside as a few guys roll past with sizable aluminum trunks that I imagine contain concert gear.
“I know you were a friend of Danny’s, too,” I go on. “Cassidy Flanagan told me. I’m really sorry about what happened to both of them.”
“You know her, too?”
“Not very well. Were you and Danny friends for a long time?”
“Every once in a while we grabbed a beer. That’s it.”
“Do you know if he had any enemies? Was there anything going on in his life that—”
“I got no clue what was up with him. It’s a shame and all but in a big city these things happen.” He eyes me. “What’d you say your name was? Happy something?”
“Happy Pennington.”
“I got a piece of advice for you. Keep your nose out of what isn’t your business.”
“Don’t you want to know what happened to them?”
“We weren’t that close and it’s none of my business.” He grabs me by the elbow again and this time propels me back the way I came. “I got work to do. Time for you to go.” He hands me off to a security guard. “Have a nice day.”
So much for getting information out of Travis Blakely. I make for the cab line, powering my cell phone back on as I do. I see I have two voicemails from Jason. He’s arrived in Vegas.
So much for my investigating.
I’ll make a confession. Excited as I am to have my husband in town, it’s tinged with regret. Not that there was much hope for it but now I’ll never figure out who killed Danny or Cassidy. Jason made clear on Oahu that he does not approve of my investigating. And who can blame him? It does get me into trouble. It is dangerous. I am untrained. I have no backup. And it distracts me from what should be the primary focus of my professional life: being the best Ms. America titleholder I can possibly be.
I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. I’m one of those people who don’t like being told what they can and cannot do.
Back at the Cosmos, I go straight to Jason’s room. As I knock, I hear ESPN blaring inside. I know what I’ll soon see: that Jason’s been on the bed watching the tube, nursing a beer, and downing potato chips.
The door opens. My beaming husband greets me shirtless and in running shorts, dark hair damp, sweat gleaming on a torso that, I will tell you, looks notably leaner than when I last set eyes on it mere weeks ago.
“I’m too gnarly to hug you, babe.” He gives me a gonzo smooch instead. “Where the heck were you? I hope you weren’t snooping around that best man’s murder.” He leads me into the room and turns off the TV.
I realize Jason knows only about Danny Richter’s murder and not about Cassidy Flanagan’s. He’d be even less happy to hear about my investigating if he knew a second person had been killed.
I’m not going to tell him about that right now. “I’m sorry I’m getting back so late,” I say instead. “I took Mom to a Ziana show.”
He throws back his head and guffaws. “Did she freak?”
“She was okay but it gave her a monster headache.” I eye Jason. He’s always been hot but in recent years he’s let himself go a bit. Suddenly I’m getting the idea that trend is reversing. He’s thinner. His olive-toned skin is tanned and his dark eyes sparkle. His bad-boy thing is still going, mostly from the hair he keeps on the longish side the way it was back in his glory high school days when he was on the football team. He hasn’t looked this good in years. I hope it’s not because he’s away from me. “What have you been up to?”
“I went for a run.” He lies down on the floor and starts doing stomach crunches. “Up and down the Strip.”
“Not the whole Strip.”
; “Half of it.” Crunch. “Four miles round trip.” Crunch.
“Wow! And it’s like ninety degrees out!”
“I’m trying to get back to my all-time best time.” Crunch. “Remember that 5K I ran back in high school at six minutes twenty-nine seconds a mile? I’m at like eight and a half minutes now so it’s gonna take a while.”
What with the Sparklettes rehearsals all week, I have been putting my own body through the paces. But at the moment I feel like a couch potato compared to Jason. That’s new. “Is this because of pit school?”
“Yup. I need to get back to peak physical condition. My stamina’s not what it used to be.” He winks at me during another crunch. “At least, not in everything.”
“Well, I’m glad to see you’re liking it as much as you are.” I knew he would. That’s why I pushed him to go. And thanks to my Ms. America winnings, we can actually afford it. I want Jason to be able to pursue his dreams the way I’ve been able to pursue mine.
“We need to talk about after the training,” he tells me. Crunch. “You won’t believe what the guys make who are on a team.” He changes position to do pushups and gets a lift / grunt sequence going.
“Do you mean a job on a pit crew?”
“Exactly.” Grunt. “It depends on who the driver is and how much sponsorship money he pulls in. On a major team you can make up to ninety grand a year. On a smaller one it’s more like thirty or forty.”
Which is what he makes now as a mechanic. Which is what I make, too, as a personal assistant. “But you can’t be on a pit crew in Cleveland,” I point out.
“Exactly.” He sounds completely matter-of-fact. “Which is what we need to talk about.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I’m stunned to hear Jason make this declaration. First Pop, then my mother, and now my husband. What is up with my family members? It’s as though everything that used to be true about them is changing. That’s more than a little disconcerting.
I’m thinking I may have to take Sally Anne’s words to heart. This is Vegas, baby. Roll with it.
Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 2) Page 18
