Catch a Falling Knife

by Alan Cook

  “It sounds like a crime of passion,” Wesley said. “Especially since she was naked.”

  “Which definitely rules out Mark,” I said.

  “In your eyes,” Tess said. “The front window of the apartment was broken. That’s how the killer got in. No fingerprints were found, except those of Elise and her roommate. And no weapon has been found.”

  “Is there a local newspaper published in Bethany?” Wesley asked. “If so, we should subscribe to it. It might give more details about the case than the Raleigh paper.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Tess…”

  “I’m writing it down.”

  “That’s a good idea, Wesley, especially since I don’t think we’ll get much information out of Detective Johnson. And I’m not sure we can depend on him to make a thorough investigation. He seems to have his mind set on proving that Mark did it. So…let’s get organized. First we need a list of suspects.”

  “Unfortunately, Mark is at the top of the list,” Tess said, “since we can’t prove he didn’t do it.”

  “Next would be Elise’s father, Eric Hoffman,” I said.

  Tess wrote his name down and said, “Motive?”

  “What if he had found out that she was the Shooting Star? After his crusade to keep men out of the strip clubs, his own daughter was luring them in.”

  “What about her mother?” Wesley asked.

  “I haven’t met her, but we can’t eliminate her yet. Her name is June.”

  “And the roommate,” Wesley said. “She found the body, right?”

  “Donna Somerset. Yes. About eleven o’clock Wednesday evening, she says.”

  “Motive?” Tess asked.

  “I don’t know at this point,” I said. “In addition, it could be somebody from Club Cavalier, I suppose. The owner is a man named Lefty. Then there are the other dancers, although they didn’t seem to have much contact with her. What time is it?”

  “Ten forty-seven and 30 seconds,” Wesley said with the precision of an accountant.

  “Club Cavalier opens around noon,” I said. “I’m going to give them a call.” I suited action to the word.

  A male voice answered the phone, “Club Cavalier.”

  “May I speak to Lefty, please,” I said.

  “Who should I tell him is calling?”

  The voice was low and guttural, and sounded like that of the bouncer/ticket-taker/announcer. “Lillian.”

  “Hang on.”

  I hung on. The “hold” music sounded like traditional stripper music, but not what the girls actually danced to.

  “This is Lefty.”

  This voice had more class than that of the man who had answered the phone.

  “I have a friend who wants to see the Shooting Star,” I said. “Can you tell me if she is dancing tonight?” I had mixed feelings about the answer I wanted to hear. No answer would bring Elise back to life.

  I heard a background conversation at the other end of the line between Lefty and someone else. Then Lefty said into the phone, “I don’t know if she is or not.”

  “When did she last dance there?”

  “Wednesday. She was supposed to dance last night, but she never showed. Stupid broad. I thought she was more reliable than that.”

  “You’re sure she danced Wednesday, though.”

  “Yeah, I’m sure. Who the hell is this, anyway?”

  “I’m…a friend of hers.”

  “A friend? If you’re on the level, I need to talk to you.”

  “I need to talk to you, too. Are you going to be there this afternoon?”

  “Yeah, I’m always here.”

  “All right, I’ll see you about 1:30.”

  When I hung up the phone, Wesley said, “You’re going to Club Cavalier, aren’t you? I’m going with you.”

  “All right.” As a protector, I wasn’t sure Wesley would be much better than Tess, but at least he knew how to read maps and road signs. His fitness regime included working out in our equipment room three or four times a week, lifting weights and walking on the treadmill. He had lost weight and some of the florid color in his face and looked years younger, but I still couldn’t picture him as a threat to the bouncer at Club Cavalier.

  “The Shooting Star danced there Wednesday night,” I said so that Tess would write it down. “What do you think that means?”

  “According to our timetable,” Tess said, “she could have danced as late as ten and still made it home in time to get herself killed.”

  ***

  Club Cavalier appeared less exotic in daylight than it did at night. It would have looked like just another restaurant if it had had windows and hadn’t had girls painted on one wall. The parking lot held a sprinkling of cars. As we entered the lot in Wesley’s car I looked around to see if anyone was taking down license plate numbers. It was too early in the day and I assumed that Eric Hoffman had stopped doing that, at least temporarily, after his daughter had been murdered. I didn’t think Wesley was in any danger of being exposed on the Internet.

  I preceded Wesley into the building and noticed that no music was playing. There was a lull between dancers. That meant I wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of Wesley—and he wouldn’t be embarrassed in front of me. Also, I could make myself heard by the ticket-taker—the same one as the other time I had been there—as I told him that we had an appointment to see Lefty.

  He picked up a phone beside him and pressed a button. After a very brief conversation he motioned for us to follow him and led the way across the room to the hallway where the restrooms were. The few patrons nursed their beers and didn’t look interested in us. Then he went through the doorway to the lap-dance area. I would have really been embarrassed if anything had been going on there, but thank goodness the place was quiet.

  We passed the dressing room; a couple of girls were sitting in front of the mirrors. I didn’t look at Wesley so I didn’t know whether he saw the girls. We came to a closed door. Our guide knocked and we heard “Yeah” from behind it. He opened the door and stood aside for us to enter.

  I went in first. The room was cramped because it contained two gray metal desks at right angles to one another that took up most of the room. At one desk sat a woman not much younger than I was, I would be willing to bet from her wrinkles, but with bleached blond hair. I had stopped applying any color to my hair and had reconciled myself to its natural gray. Her off-the-shoulder top let me see more of her wrinkled skin than I wanted to.

  The occupant of the other desk must be Lefty. He wasn’t as big as the ticket-taker, but almost as heavy, with more fat than muscle. He had a big nose and a wide mouth. He wore a white shirt and a smashing, multi-colored tie. I wondered who bought his ties. He also wore cufflinks. His slicked-back, black hair was neatly trimmed and combed, and made him look like an old-time Italian movie star.

  He stood up and said, “Hello, I’m Lefty,” extending a beefy hand across the desk.

  “I’m Lillian,” I said, shaking his hand. “This is Wesley.”

  He shook hands with Wesley, gave him a quick once-over, apparently dismissed him and turned back to me. “Have a seat.”

  Two wooden chairs were crowded into the space between the desk and the wall. I sat in one and Wesley in the other. The woman was working with a calculator and rows of what must be figures on bookkeeping paper. She ignored us.

  Lefty sat down and said to me, “So you’re a friend of the Shooting Star.”

  I hesitated, not wanting to overplay my hand. “I’ve met her.”

  “Perhaps you can tell me why she didn’t show up last night,” he said, issuing a challenge with the tone of his voice.

  “Did you try to call her?”

  He looked at me, appraisingly. He said, “You don’t look like a cop, unless the police are recruiting from old folks’ homes these days. I know all the local cops, anyway. Here’s the deal; I don’t know anything about her, including her name. She gave me a false ID when I interviewed her.”

  “Her n
ame is Elise Hoffman,” I said, “and she’d dead.”

  “Dead?” Lefty’s eyes drilled into me. “You’re making fun, right?”

  “No. She was murdered Wednesday night.”

  “Murdered? You mean she’s the babe from the college who got herself knifed? Maud, where’s yesterday’s paper?”

  Maud, who had finally looked up when I said Elise had been killed, swiveled her chair around and produced a newspaper from a pile of papers and magazines on the floor. She handed it to Lefty and said, “I told you that girl was bad news. Maybe next time you’ll listen to me.”

  This must be the local paper. The story was on the front page, complete with a picture of Elise.

  Lefty skimmed the story, nervously drumming his fingers on the desk. He said, “She was killed not that long after she left here, if it’s really her.” He looked at the picture for a few seconds. “Yeah, that could be her. The mouth looks familiar. I never saw her without a mask and a wig. I wouldn’t forget those eyes if I saw them, but the Star’s eyes were always covered. When she came in here I told her to go play dress-up someplace else because she looked ridiculous. But she bugged me to give her a chance. I usually have the girls strip for me so I can see what kind of bodies they have, but I could see there wasn’t any point with her. She didn’t have anything up here.”

  He cupped his hands over imaginary breasts. “I let her go on during the afternoon when the place was empty so she wouldn’t get stage fright. I figured she’d chicken out, anyway, either before or after. But she had the moves and she exuded such charisma that the few guys who were here loved her immediately. She had ‘em inside her g-string right from the start. So of course she was hooked. No girl can resist that kind of power.”

  “So she packed them in,” Wesley said.

  “Yeah, word got around. Look, I’m in this to make a buck, so what am I supposed to do, show her the door just because she’s got idiosyncrasies? She wanted to be paid in cash, she wouldn’t give me her phone number, but she always showed up when she said she would—until last night. So what’s your connection to her?”

  Lefty looked at me. I decided to be partially honest. “She was taking a class from my granddaughter’s boyfriend. He teaches at Crescent Heights. It’s a long story, but he’s a suspect in her murder and I’m trying to clear him.”

  “Did he do it?”

  “No.”

  “That’s tough. What can I do to help?”

  “First, I suspect the police are going to want to talk to you. A Detective Johnson is handling this case.”

  “Johnson. I think I know him. He must have got promoted. He used to drive a patrol car. All right, I can handle him.”

  “Did she have any enemies here?”

  “No. But she didn’t have any friends, either. Never stuck around long enough for anybody to get to know her. She always came in costume, wearing that damned mask. And she’d leave after each show, even if she was going on again the same night.”

  “How about the patrons? Do you think anyone might have been stalking her?”

  “Not as far as I know. She never complained. Like I said, after each show she’d charge out of here like she had to catch a plane. I guess she had a car down the street. At least, she never parked in the lot.”

  Speaking of the parking lot rang a bell. “Are you familiar with a website on the Internet that posts the license plate numbers of patrons of the clubs here in Bethany?”

  A broad grin lit up Lefty’s face, making his mouth wider than ever. “You mean the site that old guy Hoffman maintains? That guy is a piece of work. But he’s good for business. The young dudes brag about getting their plates on his site.”

  Talk about unintended consequences.

  “He’s the father of Elise.”

  “No.” Lefty looked dumbfounded. “You’re shittin’ me. If he knew about her dancing here…”

  “He would have killed her? I’m going to look into that possibility.”

  “Look, if there’s anything I can do to help you, let me know. I’m sorry the Shooting Star bought it. I liked that girl, in spite of her idiosyncrasies. She had guts.”

  Chapter 13

  “How long did you wait the other day?”

  Wesley was clearly getting restless, and because he had insisted on driving I couldn’t hold him here against his will. We were sitting in his car across the street from Elise’s apartment, waiting for Donna Somerset. I wanted to express my condolences to her. “Let’s wait ten more minutes and then we’ll go.”

  We only had to wait five more minutes. Donna’s car pulled to a stop directly in front of the apartment. I was thankful we were in Wesley’s car because she wouldn’t recognize it, and I was on the passenger side, where she couldn’t see me. I decided not to accost her in the middle of the street, but waited until she had entered the apartment. Then I followed her to the door, telling Wesley to wait for me. The broken front window was covered by a brown packing box that had been flattened out.

  Donna opened the door at my ring, looked at me and said, “It’s you. What are you doing here?”

  “I wanted to tell you how sorry I am about Elise,” I said. “My name is Lillian Morgan, by the way.”

  “Did the police talk to you?” She looked ready to close the door in my face.

  “Yes, I talked to Detective Johnson. I confirmed what you told him, that I was here on Wednesday. I don’t know if you know it or not, but I actually talked to Elise on Wednesday. But I didn’t kill her, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  Donna considered this and then said, “Come in.”

  I followed her into the now-familiar front room. I noticed that the pictures of Elise had disappeared from the wall. When Donna offered me a seat I avoided the beanbag chair and sat in another one. She looked somewhat the worse for wear. Her hair was messy and her blouse was wrinkled, as if she had slept in it. She flopped into the beanbag chair, with one leg underneath her.

  “It’s been a madhouse around here,” Donna said. “The police kept coming in here and looking around and taking pictures and looking for clues and all that stuff. I couldn’t sleep here the last two nights. In fact, I didn’t get any sleep at all Wednesday night because Detective Johnson and other people kept asking me questions. Then my folks called and asked if I wanted to go home for a while. I said no. They offered to help me find another apartment, but I like this one. I want to stay here. The police let me back in this morning, but it’s going to be too weird sleeping in the same room where Elise got killed, so I may sleep out here.”

  She motioned toward an old couch. After her outburst she deflated deeper into the chair. I sympathized with her, making the small talk that I’m not great at because I wanted her to view me as a friend. When I thought she had softened toward me, I said, “May I ask you a question, Donna?”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Last week you asked me to tell Dr. Pappas to go to Club Cavalier.”

  “That was a crazy thing to do, wasn’t it?” Donna giggled.

  “Why do you say that? Didn’t you want Dr. Pappas to find out that Elise was the Shooting Star?”

  “Elise wasn’t the Shooting Star,” Donna said, quickly.

  “What? What do you mean?”

  “No. Elise wasn’t the Shooting Star. I was the Shooting Star.”

  I stared at her. “I saw the Shooting Star. You couldn’t be the Shooting Star.”

  “I am. Come on, I’ll show you.”

  I followed her into the single bedroom. It contained twin beds, against opposite walls, plus dressers, bed stands and two wardrobe closets. One of the beds had been stripped down to the innerspring. The mattress had been taken. Donna went to the other side of the room, opened a drawer in the dresser and started pulling things out.

  “Here are a couple of my g-strings and bra tops. Here is my mask and here is my wig.”

  Everything looked familiar, but so what? “Since you shared this bedroom with Elise, having those things doesn’t prove that you were
the Shooting Star and she wasn’t.”

  “Watch.”

  Donna put on the mask and the wig. Then she took a lipstick from the top of the dresser and with the aid of a mirror on the wall above it, colored her lips bright red. She turned toward me.

  “Ta-da!”

  I had to admit that from the neck up she looked like the Shooting Star. At least her face looked like the face I had seen in the spotlight as I sat in the back of the room. But what about her body? She weighed more than Elise, and I was sure it would show with her clothes off. Also, breasts are unique to a woman, as well as nipples. Like fingerprints. But again, I might not be able to spot any differences because of my imperfect view at the club. How could I satisfy my doubts?

  “What music did you use?”

  “Perry Como. ‘Don’t Let the Stars Get in Your Eyes.’ It’s from a CD Elise had. I have to admit, Elise had the thing for old music, not me. But when I decided to call myself the Shooting Star, it seemed to fit.”

  Donna went into the other room and returned with the CD. The title was something about Perry Como’s greatest hits.

  “I took dance lessons when I was young,” Donna said. “I know it was a crazy thing to do, but I always wanted to dance in front of a live audience. I had to wear the mask and wig. If my parents ever found out…. I made some pretty good money, though. Look at my haul from Wednesday.”

  She pulled an envelope out of the dresser and flashed a wad of bills inside it.

  I was having trouble absorbing all this. “You’re speaking in the past tense.”

  “Yes. Of course I couldn’t go on last night. And now I think it’s time to call it a career. Short and sweet. It was fun while it lasted. Whatever gave you the idea that Elise was the Shooting Star in the first place?”

  “Well, you did. You’re the one who asked me to tell Dr. Pappas to go to the Club Cavalier and look for the Shooting Star. You said it would help him. And since we’d been talking about the sexual harassment case against him…”

  “I have a confession to make.” Donna giggled. “I have a crush on Dr. Pappas. When I heard you talk about him with Priscilla I thought, wouldn’t it be great if he came and saw me dance. Of course he wouldn’t know it was me. And I would never have had the guts to tell him.”