by Joel Travis
“What money?”
“The three thousand dollars I put in the closet safe. I know you were mad when you read what I wrote in my journal. I wrote those things before I got to know you.”
“I don’t know why you say I took your money,” said the thief. “Yeah, I was mad. I wrote a couple of words in your journal, but that’s all I did. I wouldn’t have come to your table tonight if I took your money.”
“Well, here’s the thing. We’re in a sort of mess, you and me. The hotel has tiny security cameras in the closet of each suite to record when guests access the safe. I guess it’s sort of a liability thing so that no one can claim their safe was robbed when it wasn’t. Anyway, this guy David who works Security for the Stardust Hotel says he has a video of you removing cash from the safe. He wants me to press charges against you.”
“I didn’t see any camera,” she said. “I think I would have noticed.”
“I didn’t see it, either. But we weren’t looking for it. I guess that’s why the cameras are tiny, so people won’t be aware of them. Hell, I was nude when I discovered my money was gone.”
She forced a little laugh. “You’re not pressing charges, right?”
“Of course not.”
Lori scooted her chair closer and gave me a kiss on the cheek. She pulled back as our waitress arrived with the shots.
“Here’s to our weird trip to Vegas!” Lori said. We threw back the shots, using my beer as a chaser. I ordered two more shots.
“Did you win any money in the casino?” Lori asked, slyly switching subjects.
“No. Did you?”
“I never even got to play. I hung out with those girls you saw me with. They’re from Houston. We exchanged phone numbers, so I might visit them sometime and dance at their club. Did you know they were dancers?”
“I thought they might be,” I said. “Before I forget, let me tell you about the mess we’re in.”
“I thought the mess was that they have me on video.”
“There’s more. When I discovered you’d robbed me, I told a friend of mine about it. I wish I had kept my mouth shut, but I was upset at the time.”
“I don’t care if you told someone,” she said. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
“Well, it will. Do you remember reading on the first page of my journal how some of my friends came to the hospital to hear my final words when we all thought I was about to croak?”
“Yep.”
“Okay, then you also remember reading that one of those friends is a vice detective. When I told him you’d stolen my money, he got all worked up about it. He said I should press charges. I wouldn’t do it. Then he said that if I wouldn’t take up for myself, he’d do it for me. That’s why I came up here tonight, Lori. He said he was going to come up here and look for you. He’s sitting by himself over by Stage 2, drinking a beer.”
Lori casually looked around the club. “Black dude with a thin mustache?”
I nodded. “He said there’s a City ordinance prohibiting lewd dancing. Carries a fine of up to five thousand dollars! Do you know about it?”
“Of course I know about it. Vice guys come in here undercover and hand out tickets. The worst thing about those tickets is that if you plead guilty or get convicted, you’re automatically registered as a sex offender. I don’t need that on my record. I’m glad you told me he’s here.”
“What are you going to do?” I asked. “You need to do table dances to make money, but I’m worried that he’s going to issue you a ticket for lewd dancing and take you to jail.”
“Can’t you tell him I’m cool?”
“You know how the police are. A bunch of self-righteous do-gooders. He’s convinced himself that he’s helping me. Until I can show him you’ve paid the money back, he’ll be on a quest to teach you that crime doesn’t pay. I don’t think he likes dancers too much.”
Our waitress returned with more shots. “Keep those coming,” Lori said. She downed her shot before she broke the bad news to me.
“I can’t give you the money,” she said. “My drug guy came to my apartment yesterday. I owed him about three thousand dollars. He found your cash in my handbag.”
Suddenly I was in need of a drink. I tossed back my shot.
“Let me think about this,” Lori said.
While she was thinking, a drunk fat man stumbled up behind her and tucked a twenty down the front of her dress. She made a sour face he couldn’t see. Then she turned around, kissed him, and told him she’d come see him in a few minutes.
“Brit, I think I know a way to get back the money you lost,” she said as the fat man crashed to the floor behind her.
“I’m listening.”
“I learned about it from a customer a few weeks ago. He was a banker. I was telling him about my son, Tobias, and how I’d like to send him a little money if I ever had lots of cash I didn’t need. Buy him some tennis shoes or comic books.”
“How does this relate to paying me the money you swiped from the safe?”
“I’m about to tell you. See, this banker knows all about money, and he told me this great idea. I think he felt sorry for me because I was a single mom.”
“A single mom? You told me Tobias lives with your ex. You haven’t seen your son in years, have you?”
“Well, no. But the ex sent a photo. I know what the boy looks like.”
“Go on,” I said, disgusted with her pathetic parenting.
“Anyway, I want you to get your money, so I’ll tell you the idea for free.”
“I knew you were a good person.”
“It’s the least I can do.”
“Sure is.”
“Do you want to hear the idea or not?”
“I want my money.”
“Brit, I already told you that money is gone. I can’t go back in time. Be reasonable.”
I took a swig of beer.
“Here’s the idea,” Lori said. “Let’s say you buy a candy bar every day. You don’t really enjoy it that much, you just buy it and wolf it down. The banker explained how if you didn’t buy the candy bar, you would save a dollar a day without giving up anything you’d really miss. Brit, you could get your money back by doing something like that! All because I told you how. It would be like I was paying you back every day, except I wouldn’t have to give you a cent.”
The waitress was back again, serving up two more shots. I’d never seen a faster waitress in my life. I confided to Lori that I was broke as a result of the super speedy service. In an unprecedented event, a stripper actually paid for a round of drinks. Meanwhile, I borrowed a pen from our waitress and made a few calculations on a napkin.
“Okay, Lori, I’ve done a little figuring here. You owe me the three thousand dollars from the hotel safe, and at least a thousand dollars from the money I paid in advance for five days of your company. That’s four thousand bucks.”
“What about the cocaine you flushed down the toilet? And don’t forget, I had to buy my own ticket back to Dallas.”
“Fifty bucks for the drugs. Two hundred, at most, for the airline ticket. You still owe at least thirty-seven hundred dollars. According to your great idea, I can save a whopping one dollar per day. Seven dollars a week.” I made more tabulations on the napkin. “Dividing seven into thirty-seven hundred, I see that I can have all my money back in less than five hundred and thirty weeks. There are fifty-two weeks in a year, so that comes out to … ten years, ten weeks.”
Lori frowned. “That can’t be right.”
“Why not?”
“Aren’t there more than fifty-two weeks in a year?”
“No.”
Lori glanced back at Ace. “He’s looking at us. I have to do several dances for that fat slob who came by and stuck his hand down my dress. Do you really think your friend would write me a ticket for lewd dancing and take me to jail?”
“I know he would.”
Lori drank her shot. “I might tell my manager I’m sick and go home early.”
“
It’s Friday night, Lori. The place is packed with drunk guys who got paid today. You can make a lot of money tonight. Just give me a thousand dollars and I’ll let you pay the rest later. Does that sound like a fair compromise? I’ll show my friend the cash and get him out of your hair so you can start making money.”
She made a counter offer of five hundred dollars. We eventually agreed on seven hundred. She went to the dressing room. I thought I had seen the last of her, but fifteen minutes later she returned to my table and handed me the cash.
“I had to borrow from the other girls,” she said. “They gave me the money when I told them there was a vice officer here. I promised I could get rid of him.”
“We’re leaving right now.”
I pushed my way through the rowdy crowd to Ace’s table. I made a big show of showing him the cash, in case Lori was watching. As we left the club, I saw her performing a table dance for the fat man, who was propped up in a chair, fast asleep. I shook my head, feeling sympathy for the slumbering slob. If he didn’t wake up soon, he’d owe her a small fortune when he did.
#
The investigative team of Moran, Moran, Monroe & Associate never rests, even on a holiday weekend. On Saturday morning, Sheila and Barbara demonstrated impressive initiative by visiting the last known address for Melvin Hedgeway. Not that they expected to find him there. I’d told them how I’d called him a year ago—one week after the bet—only to find that his telephone had been disconnected without a forwarding number. Nonetheless, they thought the apartment manager might be able to provide a forwarding address or other useful information.
I sent Ace back to my apartment complex in search of a nosey neighbor who might have seen something suspicious during the first two weeks of November, when someone had broken into my apartment and taped ten photos of the Codger on my bathroom wall.
Meanwhile, I took a seat at Marty’s desk to examine the Codger photos with a magass. (Magass is short for magnifying glass.) I didn’t expect to learn much. The killer wouldn’t have left the photos if they contained a clue as to his identity or anything else of import. Yet even the cleverest of killers can overlook a tiny hint hidden in the background.
I moved the magnifying glass rapidly over the surface of each photo until I concluded that you can see so much more if you hold the magass still for a moment. After studying the ten photos three or four times, I pushed nine of them to the side and brought my full concentration to bear on one photograph, the one featuring a shirtless Codger pushing a lawn mower. I studied his pale, pasty skin, looking into every pore for a clue—any clue—as to why he didn’t get out in the sun more often. He had no tan lines whatsoever. That got me to thinking that the photo might have been taken in early spring, on one of the first days warm enough to go without a shirt, or mow without a shirt. But the Codger had disappeared a year ago and he’d been missing ever since, including springtime. The photo must have been taken spring before last, or even earlier. I was disgusted with the killer for providing an old photograph.
In the distant, blurry background sat a three-story brick house. Because the house was so far in the background, it appeared to be an expansive yard the Codger was mowing. I didn’t think he would be mowing a large yard at his age unless it belonged to him. But if it was his house, why had he been renting an apartment at the time of the bet? Perhaps he’d no longer needed such a large residence and had decided to live in an apartment and lease out his home.
We’d need to interview the residents of that house. There would be public records on file listing all properties owned by Melvin Hedgeway. I made a mental note to send the Stork downtown to the courthouse first thing Monday morning.
I leaned back in Marty’s comfortable desk chair. The intense concentration of detective work, combined with the eyestrain of looking through the magass, had worn me down. I decided to take a short nap to revive my eyes and refresh my mind.
#
Two days ago, Sheila woke me up by beating the hell out of me. Yesterday with a smelly mop. This time she was merely shaking my shoulder out of its socket.
“Wake up,” she said. “Barbara and I have big news! Wait till you hear what we accomplished this morning while you were sleeping.”
“I wasn’t sleeping,” I said, wiping the sleep from my eyes. “I was thinking about this photograph.” I waved the photo of the lawn-mowing Codger in her face, as if it proved anything.
“You were sound asleep. Wasn’t he, Barbara?”
“Dead to the world,” the Stork said.
“Where’s Ace?” I asked. “I want the whole team to hear what I’ve deduced from studying this photo.”
“He went back to his apartment,” Sheila said. “He turned in his report before he left.”
“Excellent. Let me get a pen so I can take notes.”
“I don’t think you’ll need to take notes.”
“Well, I think it’s easier that way. I can condense Ace’s report down to a few key points.”
“It’s already condensed,” she said. “He wrote it on this matchbook.”
She handed me the matchbook. Positioning the magass over the minuscule writing, I read Ace’s report aloud: “None of your neighbors know squat.”
“I guess he didn’t find out much,” Sheila said.
“I guess not,” I said. “Very professional of him to write up a report, though.”
“Okay, Brit,” Sheila said, “now that we’ve heard Ace’s report, it’s our turn. Wait till—”
“Yes, let’s wait. First I want you both to take a close look at this photo. Feel free to use the magnifying glass. There’s a clue there if you’re sharp enough to spot it, as I was.”
The Stork picked up the magass and craned her long neck into viewing position. Sheila looked over her shoulder.
“Well?” I said.
The Stork said, “Do you see what I see, Sheila?”
“That’s it, all right.”
“What?” I asked.
“The house,” Sheila said. “That’s what you wanted us to pick up on, right?”
“Well, yeah. But what made you zero in on the house? It’s way back in the background.”
“We’ve seen it up close and in person,” the Stork said. “If you’ll let Sheila present our report, you won’t have to ask stupid questions.”
She was still bent over the photo. One karate chop to the back of her neck and it would have been over.
Susan popped into the room with a coffee tray. “I thought you detectives could use some caffeine so you don’t miss any clues.” She set the tray down and left the room as suddenly as she had appeared.
“By the way, Sheila,” I said, “our investigation is top secret. Nothing leaves this room.”
“We can’t even tell—”
“Nothing leaves this room,” I said. “Do you understand?”
“Okay, nothing leaves this room,” she said. “Right, Barbara?”
“If you say so.” The Stork began to examine the other nine photos with the magass.
“I’ve been over those several times, Barbara,” I said. “You won’t find anything useful.”
“What about this one? Hedgeway getting out of a car.”
“Nothing noteworthy about that,” I said. “He had to get out sooner or later.”
“Yes, I suppose he did. But did you happen to notice this man sitting in the passenger seat? He’s wearing a hat. A fedora, if I’m not mistaken. His face is obscured in shadow, but I’m betting that he’s an elderly man. Young men don’t wear fedoras. The only part of his face not hidden by the shadow is his pointy nose. Hedgeway’s passenger is a pointy-nosed, elderly man who wears fedoras.” She looked up at me. “But I suppose you already knew that from studying the photos all morning.”
“It’s possible I missed something,” I said. “I’m not Sherlock Holmes.”
“Most definitely not,” she said. “The only thing you have in common with Sherlock Holmes is that you both use a magnifying glass. Perhaps I’ll take th
ese photos to bed tonight and study them until I, too, fall asleep. As for now, I think it’s high time you heard Sheila’s report.”
Chapter 12
There were some details Sheila could have left out of her report. Did I really need to know that Hedgeway’s former apartment manager was wearing “the cutest seashell necklace” which her granddaughter had strung together in a special preschool class for artistically-gifted children? How is that going to help me catch a killer?
However, Sheila’s report did contain a pair of surprising revelations. The first was that Hedgeway had moved out of his apartment because he couldn’t pay his rent.
“That’s strange,” I said. “He always had plenty of cash in the strip club.”
“That’s not even the most mysterious part,” she said. “Catch this. He moved out three days after he won the bet. He won a hundred grand and didn’t even try to collect from you so he could pay his rent.”
“I don’t know what to think now,” I said. “Unless he was suffering short-term memory loss and forgot he placed the bet, his behavior defies all logic.”
Sheila reported that it was Hedgeway’s niece who’d paid his November rent, as well as another three thousand dollars for breaking the lease. The niece, Cynthia Moreno, told the apartment manager that her Uncle Melvin would be moving back into her home.
“Moving back,” I said. “That means he lived there previously. I wonder if the lawn the Codger was mowing belongs to the niece. I also wonder if she took the photographs that ended up on my bathroom wall. If so, she’s a suspect.”
“The manager gave us the forwarding address Cynthia Moreno provided. Barbara and I drove over there, and yes, it’s the same house in the photo. We wanted to knock on the door and ask her a few questions, but we didn’t know if you’d want us to do that yet.”
“You did the right thing,” I said. “This will be an important interview. The niece will be able to tell us exactly when her uncle disappeared and under what circumstances. Furthermore, she’ll know who his friends and enemies were. Of course, if she’s the killer we’ll get nothing, or nothing but crap.”
“When do you want us to interview her?” Sheila asked.
