Scottsdale Sizzle: a romantic light-hearted murder mystery (Laura Black Mysteries Book 3)

by B A Trimmer

  “I thought you said no more one night stands?”

  “Well, I told myself I wasn’t going to hook up with anyone tonight, but I can already feel my resolve weakening. It’s because I’ve been drinking and these men smell so good. It’s not my fault. Besides, who knows? Maybe this is the way I’m supposed to find Mr. Right.”

  ~~~~

  I stayed in the club for a little over an hour. At one point, a guy bought me a drink but I was distracted with thoughts of work and after a few minutes of conversation, the guy went away. Sophie had her arms wrapped around some good-looking guy who appeared to be four or five years younger than she was. She had the pink glow on her cheeks that showed the guy was in for a long night.

  By about twelve-thirty, Sophie and the guy, whose name was Justin, were getting ready to leave. I also decided to call it a night. Elizabeth had been talking to the same guy all night. When I looked, they were holding hands and sitting close. I got up and walked around to where they were sitting.

  “Don’t forget I’m picking you up tomorrow morning.”

  “What time?” she asked.

  “Nine? By the queen palm?”

  Elizabeth looked over at the guy then back at me. “I’m not sure when the club closes, but let’s make it ten.”

  ~~~~

  I woke up Sunday to the alarm going off. I opened one eye and saw it was only eight. That seemed too early, so I hit the snooze. Nine minutes later, I hit it again. I kept hitting the snooze until it was eight thirty-six and I was going to have to rush to get to Elizabeth’s hotel by ten o’clock.

  I put on a pot of coffee then dashed into the shower. I kept the clothes simple with a pair of black Capris and a light blue V-neck knit. I fed Marlowe the rest of a can of turkey that was still in the fridge and I was out the door.

  ~~~~

  I pulled into the parking lot of the Hyatt at a few minutes after ten. By ten after ten, I was in the lobby by the queen palm. I looked around but Elizabeth wasn’t anywhere. For some reason this annoyed me a little. I guess when you are always the person who’s late, you expect the other people to be waiting for you. When they are even later, it somehow seems sort of rude.

  At twenty-five after ten, Elizabeth came walking through the lobby. She had on some tan shorts and a scoop-necked light pink top. She looked happy, but I could tell she hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep.

  “Sorry I’m late,” she said. “I couldn’t get up this morning. I’m not used to staying out all night.”

  “You didn’t go home with that one guy, did you?”

  Elizabeth blushed bright red and giggled. “No, but to be honest, when I woke up this morning I was a little disappointed I hadn’t.”

  “Well, the cougars go out a couple of times a week. I’m sure they’d like to have you come along again. Maybe you can find another one?”

  “Maybe, but I like the one from last night.”

  “It’ll be hard to find him again. It seems like there’s always a different group of guys every night.”

  “Actually, it won’t be too hard to find this one,” Elizabeth said as she pulled out a business card.

  “Oh you bad girl,” I said. She handed me the card and I read it out loud. “Jeremy Mathews, Director of Strategy at Glick, Goldberg, & Edwards.” I looked up at Elizabeth. “I’ve heard of them. They are a big brokerage firm downtown that services the old-money people in Scottsdale. Are you going to call him?”

  “Probably, it depends what I’m going to end up doing with myself. I need to make some decisions about my future. I already have a life in Chicago but to be honest it might be time for a change.”

  ~~~~

  There are several small towns in the mountains north of Scottsdale with Payson, Sedona, Prescott, Pine-Strawberry, and Jerome being some of the most popular. On any given day in June, you can be assured the temperature in the mountains will be fifteen or twenty degrees cooler than down in the Valley of the Sun. This fact alone would make the towns popular, but when you add in shopping, restaurants, hotels, and beautiful scenery, you can see why tourists from Scottsdale flock up there.

  Prescott is a town with tons of charm and loads of history. It’s about an hour and a half up Interstate-17 from Scottsdale. Around the time of the Civil War, Prescott was founded as the capital of the newly created Arizona territory. The town quickly became the hub of trading for the many gold, silver, and copper mines in the area. Today it’s one of the many places people go to escape the summer heat and to enjoy the beautiful Arizona mountain scenery.

  The center of the town is called the Plaza. The central feature of the Plaza is the old courthouse, which sits in the middle of a large green city park. Bordering the Plaza to the north is Gurley Street, home to dozen wonderful boutique shops. Along the west side of the Plaza is the 100 block of Montezuma Street, otherwise known as Whisky Row. After the Civil War, almost twenty saloons crowed along this one block, making it the center of social activity in the young Arizona Territory.

  A fire destroyed most of downtown Prescott in the summer of 1900, but the saloons were quickly rebuilt. In fact, many of the bars put up temporary shacks and tents across the street in the park the very next day.

  Over the years, I’d taken many people to Prescott for a bar crawl. Heading up to Whisky Row and having a beer in each of the saloons on the must-do list of many first time Arizona tourists.

  ~~~~

  As we drove into downtown Prescott, I noticed there were signs and banners along the road announcing the town was having an annual arts festival. Even though it was a Sunday, traffic was heavy for the small town and it took us longer than usual to get to the business district. Luck was on our side and we happened to catch a car that was pulling out of its parking space on Cortez Street, on the east side of the Plaza.

  From where we were, we could see that the park in front of the courthouse was filled with dozens of tents jammed with paintings, ceramics, sculptures, and crafts. There were at least a dozen food trucks and a large stage with a band. We got out of my car and joined the crowd as they headed to the festival.

  The first thing I noticed when I stepped out of my car was that the air was cool and smelled like pine trees. The band was playing classic rock and it made a nice soundtrack while we wandered through the gallery tents.

  We easily made it through several tents that had Southwestern themed paintings and sculptures, but we were hopelessly delayed at a tent that featured some beautiful Native American jewelry. Since I barely had rent money, I knew I was safe from buying anything, even though I had mentally picked out several nice pieces. Elizabeth didn’t have that problem and she bought a beautiful turquoise and silver necklace with matching earrings. I helped her put the necklace on and it really seemed to go well with her complexion.

  As we had walked past the food trucks, I could smell grilling meat wafting out from several of them. I decided Lenny could spring for a snack for each of us. I went to a truck featuring carne asada and chicken street tacos. I got each of us a three-pack, along with a Diet Pepsi for me and a Coke for Elizabeth.

  We took our lunches and sat in front of the stage on one of several picnic tables. The tacos were delicious and seemed to go perfectly with the fun atmosphere from the music and from the talking and laughing of the people sitting around us.

  “Do you have any idea how we’re going to find Penelope?” Elizabeth asked between bites.

  “No idea,” I said. “I did a Google search and I couldn’t find anyone named Penelope living in Prescott. The saloon your granddad owns is over on Whisky Row.” I gestured with the hand holding the Pepsi to the saloons lining the other side of the street. “Let’s head over there and see what we can find out.”

  We finished our tacos and walked across to the bars. We went first to the Bird Cage, then to Jersey Lilly, a bar with a great view from a second floor balcony. Next, we walked to the Palace Saloon.

  There is something about being in a saloon that has been serving at the same spot for over a hundr
ed years that makes it seem special. Each bar was filled with a good-sized afternoon crowd of people eating, drinking, and talking. Elizabeth had a good laugh when she found out Dos Equis, Tecate, and Corona are sold in Arizona as domestic beers and many places have bowls of sliced limes sitting on the bar to go into these “domestic” beers.

  At each place, we asked the bartenders and waitresses if they knew of anyone named Penelope. One bartender at the Bird Cage said he had dated a woman named Penelope in college, but didn’t know of one living in Prescott.

  We finally ended up at the Gilded Garter, the bar Elizabeth’s granddad owned. It was slightly bigger than the other bars on the Row and was decorated as it had been back in the eighteen-eighties. There was a band on a small stage and the crowd seemed a little larger and more rowdy then at the previous places. The rock-n-roll from the band sounded a little out of place in a saloon that seemed like it should have someone playing an old, out of tune, piano.

  Elizabeth and I found a couple of empty stools in the middle of the bar. Behind the bar was a large painting of a plus-sized nude woman with tightly curled dark hair and a Cleopatra style headpiece. She was laying on a red velvet chaise lounge with a piece of shear white cloth artfully draped over her meaty thighs. She had a look on her face that was seductive and yet somehow vulnerable. Other than the headpiece, all she had on was a necklace and a ruby ring. On either side of the painting were what appeared to be genuine Native American eagle feather headdresses. A busy bartender served us two beers and then hurried away before we could ask him about Penelope.

  I had been getting frustrated by my lack of progress on finding both the jewelry and Penelope. It sometimes helps if I go over things. Sometimes saying what I know out loud seems to put thing in their proper place and helps me see connections.

  “OK,” I said, half to myself. “So what do we know?”

  “Umm, we know we’re looking for Penelope?” Elizabeth asked.

  “Yes, but in the broader sense we know your granddad died and set up this treasure hunt for you and Les to run all around Arizona to look for his jewelry. We can’t be sure why he did that. Perhaps he had a strange sense of humor but I’m thinking he wanted to force the two of you to work together and maybe patch things up. We know your granddad seems to want us to find the jewelry since he keeps leaving us clues. And we think the jewelry is somewhere in the house, because everything your granddad’s told us has turned out to be true, at least so far.”

  “We know Les is involved with some pretty rough guys out of Chicago,” Elizabeth said.

  “We know a guy was killed. And we know a woman in Prescott named Penelope has our next clue.”

  After that, Elizabeth became quiet and slowly sipped her beer. I could tell her thoughts were going out to her brother and I didn’t want to intrude. After about five minutes, she was almost through with her beer and she happened to glance up at the picture behind the bar. For some reason the antique painting of the woman seemed to interest her. I could see her intently staring at the painting and I knew she was trying to make a connection.

  “It’s funny,” she slowly said, “but the necklace on the woman in the painting is exactly the same as one Granddad has. Remember, I told you about the necklace he got after the war from someone who said he was a Duke. I said Granddad traded the necklace for twenty dollars and two cartons of cigarettes. I used to wear it and pretend I was a princess. I swear it’s the same necklace.”

  “How could it be the same one? I asked. “Everything in this bar is an antique. Well, except for the beer signs. That painting looks really old, at least back to the eighteen-hundreds. Your granddad got the necklace only about sixty or seventy years ago. It can’t be the same one.”

  “But look,” Elizabeth said. “In the center of the chains that hang down is a gold and black eagle with a green eye. And there are two black pearls and a big diamond on either side of the eagle. Do you see? I’m serious, it’s the same one I would wear as a little girl, my princess necklace.”

  Elizabeth looked at the painting for almost two minutes without speaking. Her eyes were glazed over with a faraway look. It was as if she was looking at the painting but seeing something else entirely.

  “You know,” she finally said, “the ring on the woman’s hand also looks familiar.” Elizabeth’s voice had risen to a higher pitch and she was getting excited. She knew she had made an important connection. “Do you see the center stone’s a big ruby and it’s surrounded by a bunch of smaller diamonds and ruby’s? I’m sure that’s one of the rings Granddad got after the war. I’ve held that one in my hand as well. Both Les and I have. I remember Granddad laughing and saying he’d love to sell the ring so he could use the money to buy something else, but he couldn’t sell it.”

  “Did he say why he couldn’t sell it?”

  “No, that’s all he said, he couldn’t sell it. But I assume if he got it after the war there wouldn’t be any documentation. I’ve asked around and it turns out if you can’t prove where you’ve bought a piece of expensive jewelry and it was a legal sale, it’s hard to turn around again and sell it through a legitimate dealer. They call the piece an orphan and they won’t touch it. You’d need to go through a pawnbroker or someone like that. But without the paperwork, they’d only give you pennies on the dollar.”

  The bartender came over and asked if wanted another round. We asked him about the painting and about the necklace on the woman.

  “Funny you should ask about that,” he said. “An old guy came in six or seven months ago. He was with a younger girl. Turned out, she was an artist. He said he wanted the girl to paint a necklace and a ring on the painting. I told him he was crazy. That painting is over a hundred and fifty years old and has been in Prescott ever since the Civil War. It’s been hanging over the bar here ever since they rebuilt the place after the fire in nineteen-hundred. I told him the painting was part of the history of the place and he couldn’t deface it.”

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Well, the manager was in that day and I saw her rushing through the crowd to come over to us. I thought she’d also be pissed about what the old guy wanted to do. Instead, she was shaking the old guy’s hand and doing everything but bending over to kiss his wrinkled ass. Turns out the old guy owned the place.”

  “So, it looks like he was able to add the necklace on the painting,” I said.

  “Yeah, but even though the old guy owned the place, I gotta tell you I was still pissed about him wanting to deface her. I’ve worked here for almost fifteen years and the bar is sort of known by this painting. She’s called Penelope of Prescott and men have lusted over her for a hundred and fifty years. I’ve seen grown men get drunk and have long conversations with Penelope. I didn’t want to see anything happen to her.”

  “It looks like the necklace and ring are part of the original painting,” I said. “You can’t tell they were added on.”

  “Well, you’re right about that. It’s the damndest thing. It turns out the artist he brought with him was from the Phoenix Art Museum. I got to talking with her and she specializes in restoring old masterpieces that have been damaged or vandalized. It took her about two weeks, but she painted on the necklace and the ring and it’s as if they were part of the original painting all along. Actually, I think it’s great Penelope has some classy jewelry now. She doesn’t look so much like a cheap tramp anymore. The part that confused me is why the artist girl also painted the Greek statue. I’m getting used to it, but it still seems a little out of place. Penelope has the Egyptian Cleopatra thing going on. I think an Egyptian statue would have looked better.”

  “What Greek statue?” I asked.

  “The one behind Penelope and to the left,” he said. “It’s sort of in the background, but you can still make it out.”

  “The one that looks like a naked guy throwing a discus?” Elizabeth asked.

  “That’s the one.”

  Elizabeth got the faraway look in her eyes and I could tell that once
again she was thinking about something.

  “You know,” she said at last. “That looks like a statue that’s in Granddad’s house. I’m sure you’ve seen it too. It’s in an alcove in the library.”

  “It does look familiar,” I said. “Is it the one in the library on the bottom level? On the wall against the side of the mountain, in a little recess?”

  “That’s the one. But why would Granddad have an artist paint a picture of a naked Greek throwing a discus behind Penelope of Prescott?” Elizabeth asked. “It doesn’t make a lot of sense.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “But it somehow ties in to the jewelry. Let’s go back to the house and take a look at it.”

  ~~~~

  We drove back down I-17 and only got into one traffic slowdown, right before we got to the Loop-101. We finally made it to Camelback Mountain at about five-thirty. I drove up to the house and was about to pull into the courtyard when Elizabeth stopped me.

  “There’s a white car in the driveway.”

  I turned the wheel hard and pulled back out onto the road.

  “Thanks,” I said. “Well, unless Morningstar was watching the courtyard, I don’t think he could have spotted us. Let’s see if he calls to ask what we’re doing.”

  “If he does call, what should we say?”

  “I don’t know, but we’ll think of something. Are you hungry? We can have dinner then come back and see if they’re gone.”

  “I’m starved. The tacos were good, but that was hours ago.”

  “Are you up for Mexican again?”

  “Sure, if it’s good and not too spicy.”

  “I know a great place.”

  We drove west on Camelback to State Route 51, otherwise known as the Piestewa Freeway. We took the 51 south until it merged into I-10. We got off on Buckeye and made our way over to 12th Street and Mohave.

  Elizabeth looked around the neighborhood. “Umm, where are you taking me?”

  “It’s called Carolina’s. It’s not fancy and it’s in a sort of a mixed neighborhood, but the food’s some of the best in town.”