Til Death Do Us Party

by Vickie Fee

  “Why were you following him?” Di asked.

  “I wanted to see who he was going to meet.”

  “What was he doing upstairs?” I asked.

  “Okay . . . I had spotted him one day last week getting on the hotel elevator with his camera bag.

  I thought that was odd, him taking pictures in the rooms. But I thought, maybe he was getting some pictures of the groom’s father tying his bow tie, or the bride’s mom fastening her daughter’s necklace—you know, something like that. It also occurred to me that he might be shooting less innocent pictures. But that was before Little Junior got arrested, so I had no reason to care. And I know Gordy has a darkroom in his house where he prints what he calls ‘art’ photography.

  “I tried to trail him yesterday, but I got on a different elevator and then I wasn’t sure which floor he’d gotten off on. I wandered down the halls on a couple of floors before admitting I’d lost him. Today, I didn’t lose him.”

  “Where did he go?”

  “I followed him to the seventh floor. A lot of high rollers book on the seventh floor—they think it’s good luck. I was in uniform and kept my head kind of turned away from him. The elevator was full and I don’t think he even noticed me. When he got off on seven I acted like I was continuing up to a higher floor, but hit the door-open button and slipped off just after he’d walked away. I kept out of sight, but did see which room he went into. After about five minutes, I walked to the door he’d gone through and listened. I didn’t hear anything from that room. But there was a real party going on in the room next door. A clothes optional kind of party, if you know what I mean.”

  I knew what she meant.

  “I ducked into the stairwell and kept watch through the little glass panel in the door. When Gordy headed to the elevator, I ran down the stairs and got onto the elevator on the sixth floor, so he wouldn’t know I’d been on his floor.

  “Anyway, I thought maybe the party next door had hired him to film the action, but somebody got cold feet. Or maybe a second party was booked, but didn’t show up.”

  “No, I’m thinking maybe he did film the party. Maybe through a two-way mirror?” I said.

  “You mean blackmail? Oh, I don’t think the suits would allow that. They’ve got a very ‘what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ attitude about guests’ privacy. And some of our guests are people you wouldn’t want to mess with—especially on the seventh floor.”

  “What kind of people are you referring to? You mean organized crime types?”

  “Sometimes. And the suits may have even arranged that little party I overheard. You know, to keep the big money customers happy.”

  “Maybe the suits set up the blackmail to nudge somebody who owes them money,” Di said.

  “Oh, they have much less subtle ways of dealing with people who owe them money,” Crystal said.

  “Maybe the suits don’t know about this little blackmail operation. Would it be possible for someone in security or maintenance to install a two-way mirror without the powers that be knowing about it? And maybe that same person could alert Gordy when a blackmail target was in play,” I said.

  “I don’t know.... Wait a minute. There might be a way. I know from someone who used to work in housekeeping that there are some rooms, and suites, that have a special security designation. Only certain maids and maintenance workers are allowed to go into those. So, it might be possible to work with someone in housekeeping or maintenance with security clearance, or at least pay them to look the other way. But that would be awfully risky. Makes me shaky just thinking about it. I hope the security cameras didn’t zero in on me as I had my ear to the door.”

  Crystal looked really and truly frightened, which confirmed, for me at least, that she was telling the truth.

  “I have a feeling security cameras may not be focused on those high security clearance rooms. Certain people might not want a record of everybody who comes and goes from their rooms,” Di posited.

  “Hmm, this is all pretty exciting. But I don’t really see how Steve fits in to the picture,” I said. “Was he in on the blackmail scheme? And if so, what part did he play? Gordy is filming the proceedings. And somebody is tipping him off on times, but that person has to be someone who works at the hotel, right?”

  We all fell silent for a long moment.

  “Wait,” Di said. “What if Steve found out what Gordy was up to and started blackmailing him. He could have threatened to tell the hotel suits or one of the blackmail victims unless Gordy forked over a fat cut of the blackmail money.”

  “Ooh, that sounds promising,” Crystal said.

  “I had been working under the assumption that Steve got knocked off by a jilted girlfriend or a jealous boyfriend; it may be much more complicated than that,” I said. “Or . . . maybe not. Crystal, remember you told us the day you drove us to the chapel that you had seen Steve going up to the rooms.”

  “Yeah. But now we know he was probably spying on, or meeting with, Gordy,” Crystal said.

  “Or he was hooking up with somebody’s wife or girlfriend. Somebody who would take a very dim view of that kind of thing. Some big somebody—a high roller or maybe even someone with organized crime connections,” I said.

  “I’m confused,” Crystal said. “Was Steve blackmailing Gordy or did Gordy video Steve in a compromising position?”

  “We don’t know yet,” Di said. “Either way, it could’ve gotten Steve killed.”

  “Oh, wait. Crystal, didn’t you say something about Gordy having a darkroom?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I went to his house once when Steve and I were dating.”

  “We heard that the poison in the flask that killed Steve is something they use in photo chemicals. That could put Gordy squarely in the frame for murder,” I said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Crystal had to go work her shift. We agreed to meet with her later to discuss plans about what to do next for Operation: Free Little Junior.

  “We were trying to figure out what we wanted for lunch an hour ago. Before Miss Betty texted. I’m starved,” I said.

  “Well, you can walk just a few steps from here and order pizza, Chinese food, or hot dogs. What do you want?” Di asked.

  “I think I’ll get a slice of pizza,” I said, and Di decided to do the same.

  We carried our pizza and beer back to one of the tables in the food court and continued to discuss various blackmail scenarios that could have led to Steve’s death, and what role Gordy may have played.

  “Liv, you know, something just occurred to me. Crystal was acting like Gordy wouldn’t notice her on the elevator if she didn’t make eye contact, like they’re only passing acquaintances. Yet, she knew that Gordy has a darkroom, and even admitted that she’d been to his house.”

  “Good point. So what are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking her whole story about following Gordy to the seventh floor may be some hooey she made up for us. Maybe she was meeting Gordy. Maybe she even found out about some blackmail scheme and was trying to get in on the action. Maybe she was already in on blackmailing Steve and things got ugly.”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “She seems to genuinely care about Little Junior. Do you really think she’d let him take the fall for murder?”

  “She may not have known about the murder. Or she may be trying to implicate Gordy to help Little Junior—or to help herself. Either way, I’m not convinced she’s completely innocent in all this,” Di said.

  “I wish there was some way we could find out what’s really been going on upstairs,” I said.

  “Well, if we could come up with any kind of evidence that Gordy, or Crystal, is involved in blackmail, or that Steve was involved somehow, the cops could probably get a warrant to look at hotel security footage.”

  We both mulled that over for a bit. I was about to suggest we go to the bar for some liquid inspiration when an idea popped into my head.

  “Wait a minute . . .” I said, the wheels turning. “May
be I have a connection that could get a peek at the surveillance video. I’m going to see if I can beg my pal Jana into helping us. I’ll text you after I talk to Jana.”

  Di and I parted ways and I was making my way to the conference area when my cell phone buzzed. It was Holly. “Hi, Holly.”

  “Liv, I swear and declare this reunion dinner is cursed,” Holly said without even saying hello, which alerted me that something must be very wrong.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “We have to change venues again—and truly at the eleventh hour. The toilet in the men’s room at the Moose Lodge had backed up and overflowed. The head of the lodge got someone out to fix it right away. Sounds manageable, right? Except he brought in one of the lodge members who isn’t really a plumber and had no idea what he was doing. So now we have a busted sewer pipe and raw sewage flooding into the kitchen! This is a monumental catastrophe.”

  Holly wasn’t overstating the jam we were in. Finding a replacement venue a few days ago was a challenge. Finding one the day before the event would be nearly impossible.

  “I’ve left messages at a couple of the churches and with people from the Elks Lodge and the VFW. But the two churches with halls big enough to accommodate the dinner are either stark or churchy looking. And our local VFW Post is very dated. Keep your fingers crossed that the Elks come through,” Holly said.

  “I’ll say some prayers while you make a Hail Mary pass. Meanwhile, I’ll see if I can come up with any other venues we might have missed.”

  I pushed the venue dilemma to the back of my mind for the moment. Partly because I knew Holly would leave no stone unturned. And mostly because I needed to focus on getting Little Junior out of jail and Mama and Earl’s wedding back on track.

  After scouting the conference area with no sign of Jana, I decided to check her office. Just as I started walking to the elevator, my phone dinged. It was a text from Larry Joe.

  In room. Need to talk. Pls bring ice cream.

  Apparently it was my day to receive odd text messages from my family. If Larry Joe was asking me to bring ice cream instead of getting it for himself, I assumed he wasn’t feeling well. So I returned to the food court and got him some mint chocolate chip in a cup.

  I took the elevator up to our room. When I walked in the room I saw Larry Joe propped up on pillows against the headboard, holding an ice pack to his left eye.

  I rushed over.

  “Honey, are you okay? Did Jimmy Souther do this to you?”

  I sat the ice-cream bowl down on the nightstand and gently pulled the hand with the ice pack away from his face, so I could get a look at that eye. It was swollen and already turning a painful shade of purple.

  “It’s not as bad as it looks. And Jimmy had nothing to do with it. I made the mistake of wading into the middle of a domestic dispute.”

  The ice wrapped inside a washcloth had begun to melt, leaving the cloth soggy.

  “Here, give me that. I’ll get you a fresh cloth and some more ice.”

  “Thanks, hon. There’s ice in the bucket.”

  In a moment, I returned from the bathroom with a fresh ice pack. I sat down on the bed beside Larry Joe, who was lifting a spoonful of ice cream to his mouth. He flinched as I carefully placed the wrapped ice against his eye.

  “Thanks for picking up the ice cream.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, tell me what happened.”

  “This guy sitting at the end of the bar had been having words with his date. I wasn’t really trying to listen to their conversation, so I’d only caught a few words here and there. But enough to know he wasn’t treating her like a lady.

  “She picked up her purse and slid off the bar stool. She took one step and he grabbed her arm and pulled her back, saying, ‘You’re not going anywhere. ’ She wrested her arm from his grasp and told him she was just going to the ladies’ room. At that point, he grabbed her by the hair and pushed her against the wall, telling her again she wasn’t going anywhere.

  “You know I can’t just stand by and watch some guy get rough with a woman. So I stepped in and told him to let her go. He swung around and clocked me. Pretty graceful move from a guy who’d been drinking all afternoon. At that point Jimmy and another guy stepped in and told him he had to leave. He said he wasn’t leaving without his girlfriend. Jimmy told him it was up to her whether she stayed or went. But she said it was fine, and then left with the guy.”

  “Honey, you are a gentleman, and I’m proud of you,” I said, leaning over and kissing my knight in slightly dented shining armor on the forehead. “Don’t ever do that again, okay?

  “Does Dave know about your black eye?”

  “Yeah, he knows. We already conferred.”

  “Did he learn anything while he was watching Jimmy’s house?”

  “Yeah. Jimmy had two visitors and Dave had license plates run on both of them. The first was some woman named Cherita, who works at the bar with Jimmy. She stayed a couple of hours and Dave said their good-byes at the door were pretty friendly. So if Jimmy is trying to fan the flames of old embers with Di, she’s not the only one he’s setting fires with.

  “The second visitor was a guy named Paul something. He only stayed about ten minutes. Don’t know what they talked about, but he has a rap sheet as long as Jimmy’s. In fact, hanging out with a known felon, like Paul, is likely a violation of Jimbo’s parole.”

  He must have read the worried look on my face.

  “Don’t worry. Dave’s not trying to get Jimmy in trouble with his parole officer for just talking to another felon. But if he finds evidence that suggests Jimmy’s involved in any illegal activity, Dave will pass that information along to the Las Vegas cops.”

  “So what about you—did you learn anything of interest about Jimmy at the bar when you weren’t getting into brawls?”

  “Not much. Everybody seems to like him. He was talking up his new business venture, and I heard him inviting two different guys to invest in his photo booth scheme. But I don’t guess that’s illegal unless he takes their money and uses it for things other than the photo business.

  “I did see him give a couple of free drinks to this one guy. The man had cash in his hand and slid it across the bar like he was paying. Jimmy pulled his hand across the bar like he was taking the cash—only he didn’t. I saw the guy palm the money and slip it discreetly back into his pocket.

  “I heard some people calling the guy ‘Mac.’ I didn’t get a last name. But I did snap a picture of him. I texted it to Dave and he’s going to see if the local cops know him.”

  My phone dinged again. It was a text from Di wanting to know if I had talked to Jana yet.

  “Honey, are you going to be okay?” I asked Larry Joe. “I need to get back on the case.”

  “I’ll be fine here with my ice pack and my ice cream. What are you up to?”

  “I need to talk to Jana again to see if she can dig up some information for me. Wish me luck.”

  As I walked to the elevator, I texted Di back to let her know I’d gotten sidetracked but was on my way to talk to Jana now. I hit the elevator’s down button and hoped I could remember my way through the maze of hallways leading to her office.

  I tapped on the office door, and she said, “Enter,” but her expression let me know she was surprised to see me.

  “Liv, what are you doing here?”

  She must’ve realized she had sounded abrupt, because she added, “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “I really hope so. Jana, I need to ask you another favor. Let me start by saying I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t a life and death situation for my cousin. Nevada is a state that still has the death penalty—I Googled it.”

  “You know I’ll help you if I can. What’s the favor?”

  “We need to look at some hotel surveillance videos.”

  “Now, that’s something I can’t do for you—even if I wanted to. The hotel executives take every measure possible to protect guests’ privacy. They won’t even let t
he police look at surveillance without a warrant.”

  “I understand, but we would only need to look at video from the seventh floor, covering rooms 7121 and 7123.”

  “That’s really specific, but I still couldn’t get access. . . .”

  “Listen, we’re pretty sure Gordy, the photographer at Burning Love Wedding Chapel, is involved in some kind of blackmail scheme using those rooms to get incriminating photos.”

  “I hear what you’re saying, Liv. And I understand why this is so important to you. But looking at video footage in the hotel would be way above my pay grade. . . .”

  “Oh, okay. I understand the heavy emphasis on privacy for the guest rooms. But what about in the casino? Security is always watching for gamblers who might be cheating or employees stealing, right? Would it be easier to get a look at casino footage? Say from today about eleven-thirty a.m.?”

  “Let’s say I could get a peek at casino surveillance from such a specific time. What exactly would I be looking for?” Jana asked.

  “Gordy. And more specifically, who Gordy may have met there.”

  “And this presumed blackmail business has something to do with that Elvis minister’s death?”

  “Yes. Steve was also seen going up to the guest rooms here recently. And the poison that they found in Steve’s whiskey flask is one that’s found in certain photo chemicals—chemicals that Gordy could have in his darkroom. And Gordy also would have known where Steve liked to stash his whiskey flask during weddings.”

  “So what do the police have to say about this? Do they believe Gordy is involved in the murder?”

  “They won’t listen to me. That’s why I need some proof. Something concrete. Can you help me?”

  “I can’t get into surveillance of the guest rooms. But I might be able to get a look at the casino floor, especially for the short window of time you’ve specified. What time was that again?”

  “Around eleven-thirty, give or take.”

  “It sounds like you could be right about Gordy. I mean, like you said, the killer had to be someone who had access to the poison—and to the victim’s whiskey flask. Someone who knew he stashed his flask behind the roses in the chapel before weddings.