Til Death Do Us Party

by Vickie Fee

  “Okay, I know you’re worried about your cousin. I won’t risk losing my job over this, but I might have a friendly connection in security who can get me a peek at the casino footage. I’ll see what I can find out and get back to you.”

  “Thank you, Jana. I’ll be forever in your debt.”

  Walking back from Jana’s office, I felt dazed, trying to take it all in. What should I do next? What were we missing?

  I made my way to the lobby level and sat down on a bench to think. I decided to call Holly and at least offer moral support, since I wasn’t being much help to her otherwise.

  “Hi, Holly . . .”

  “Good news is the Elks Lodge is available, for a price. The bad news is the price they’re asking is highway robbery.”

  “How much?”

  “More than double what we were paying the restaurant or the Moose Lodge.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” I said.

  “That’s what I told the Exalted Ruler—that’s what they call the head of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Benevolent, my eye. He’s playing at extortion,” Holly said.

  Even when I’m nearly having a panic attack, Holly usually keeps her cool, exerting a calming influence on those around her, me especially. Even her genteel southern accent, her r’s polished smooth by a proper finishing school, has a calm, melodic cadence to it. At the moment, it sounded more like a growl. Obviously, the alpha Elk had gotten her dander up.

  “Who is the Exalted Ruler—anybody I know?”

  “Ronnie Mains. You know what an A-hole he can be.”

  I did. And, while Holly is gifted in the art of persuasion, I knew Ronnie Mains wasn’t a snake that would be easily charmed.

  “Who are some of the other officers of the Elk Lodge? We need to do an end run around their Exalted Ruler,” I said, knowing from experience that the man at the top of the roster wasn’t necessarily the one in charge.

  “Hang on. I’m pulling up their Web site. Here we go.”

  Holly ran down the list, from Esteemed Leading Knight and Esteemed Loyal Knight to Grand Inner Guard and Grand Trustees, telling who currently held each office. Two names leapt out at me.

  “Holly, don’t you worry about a thing. The reunion dinner will be held at the Elks Lodge. I’ll take care of making that happen. You go take care of everything else—I know you have a million things to do, including the luau tonight. I’ll check in with you later.”

  I took the elevator up to our floor and knocked on Di’s door. After she let me in, I said, “Okay, I talked to Jana, but now you and I need to talk things through. There are so many bits and pieces, I feel like we’re missing something. But first, would you mind going down and getting us some coffee. I can’t get used to not having a coffeemaker in the room, but apparently that’s the norm in Vegas. I think the caffeine hit might help me concentrate, and I have to make some phone calls to put out a few fires back in Dixie. I promised Holly I would handle some issues we’re having with our problem-plagued reunion, and I haven’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “Sure. I’d kind of like to stretch my legs anyway,” Di said, grabbing her purse and heading out the door.

  “Okay,” I said aloud, trying to gather the thoughts I’d had on my ride up in the elevator about the problem of the Elks attempting to overcharge us on the hall rental.

  There were two officers at the Elks Lodge I could reach out to, the chairman of the Elders at my church, Brother Scott Woods, and my landlord, Nathan Sweet. I could appeal to Brother Scott’s sense of Christian charity about the Elks trying to gouge us with an exorbitant fee on the lodge rental. My landlord isn’t so much the charitable type, but he wouldn’t be happy if the Exalted Leader lost money for the lodge’s coffers by refusing to offer us a reasonable rental fee.

  I called Brother Scott first, just because he’s more pleasant to talk to. But his cell phone went straight to voice mail. When I called his house, his wife said he was out on the golf course and always leaves his cell phone in his locker while he’s playing. She would tell him to call me the minute he got home.

  Since she wasn’t sure when that would be, I had to move on to Nathan Sweet. He is the “Sweet” in Sweet Deal Realty and rents out the office above the real estate office to me for my party-planning business. To say he’s eccentric would be an understatement—but he’s also a shrewd businessman. Case in point, he has me paying rent on an office that doesn’t even have a restroom. But, use of the facilities in Sweet Deal Realty is included in my rent. And all I have to do is go downstairs, out the front door, walk a few steps down the sidewalk and in through the front door of the real estate office. Not entirely convenient, but it gives my business the visibility of being on the town square—and the rent’s cheap.

  “Good mornin’, Sweet Deal Realty, this is Winette. How may I help you?”

  Winette is the only agent at Sweet Deal Realty, other than Mr. Sweet. Unlike her boss, she is charitable. In fact, she heads up Residential Rehab, a volunteer organization that provides house repairs for the disabled and elderly in our community.

  “Hi, Winette, it’s Liv.”

  “Well, hello. So have you gotten your mama married off?”

  “Not yet, but that’s a long story. Is Mr. Sweet around?”

  “No. He’s probably across the street in the barbershop talking to some other old men. What’s up? Are your mother and Earl thinking about buying a new house?”

  “No. The only way my mama will ever move out of her house is feet first. Besides, you know we’d hire you as the listing agent, not Mr. Sweet. I’m in a bind and I’m hoping Mr. Sweet can help me out.”

  “Girl, you are in a bind if you’re depending on Nathan Sweet to help you out. Is there anything I can do?”

  I gave Winette a quick rundown on what had become our traveling fiftieth high school class reunion dinner, which so far, had been evicted from the hotel restaurant and the Moose Lodge because of sewage issues.

  “The Elks are being unreasonable about the rental fee. What do you think my chances are of getting Mr. Sweet to intervene on my behalf with the Exalted Leader? And do you think Ronnie Mains will listen to him?”

  “Oh, he’ll listen, all right. Being the big cheese at the Elks Lodge is the most exalted position Ronnie will ever hold. He’s not going to risk messing that up by getting on Nathan Sweet’s bad side. And you just leave Mr. Sweet to me. I can handle that old coot. Just tell me the rental fee you were paying elsewhere and I’ll tell him that’s how much his lodge is going to charge you. If he gives me any grief, I’ll threaten to find you a new office space—one with a restroom,” Winette said with inspiring confidence.

  “Would you?” I said.

  “Would I what?”

  “Would you actually find me a new space with a bathroom?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve grown fond of our little chats when you come through to use the facilities or pilfer a cup of coffee. You wouldn’t want to give all that up for a toilet, would you?”

  “No, I really wouldn’t,” I said with complete honesty.

  After I got off the phone, I heard what sounded like someone kicking the door, and realized Di probably had her hands full. I hurried over and opened the door for her.

  She was holding two large coffees and a little bag containing sugars, creamers, and stir sticks.

  “So were you able to put out some fires in Dixie?” Di asked.

  “Winette volunteered to be my fire chief. She’s going to tell Mr. Sweet what’s what.”

  “If anyone can, it’s her. Do we want to risk indigestion by talking about the murder suspects?”

  “I’ve had a queasy feeling ever since Little Junior was arrested. And Uncle Junior having chest pains hasn’t made things any better.”

  “Have you heard any more about your uncle’s condition?”

  “Not in a while. But Mama said she’d call as soon as they knew something.”

  “So what have we got?” she said.

  “I’m not sure. But
I feel we’re getting close to something big.”

  “I hope you’re right. First, we’ve got Steve dropping dead from poison that Gordy may have had lying around handy. And it sounds like Gordy has been playing at blackmail, which is a dangerous game at best,” Di said.

  “Right. And as much as I’d like to think otherwise, Crystal may not have been entirely honest with us. She could have been with Gordy upstairs, instead of keeping him under surveillance. And afraid of getting caught, she decided to throw him under the bus. Plus, she admitted she’d been to Gordy’s house. She says it was only once, but for all we know they could be friends or even partners in crime. It’s possible she even took the poison from Gordy’s place.”

  “And Steve was up to something. Crystal saw him going up to the guest rooms on more than one occasion, when he wasn’t performing in a show here,” Di said.

  “We only have Crystal’s word for that.”

  “Yeah . . . Wait. What was it your mama overheard Steve and Taylor bickering about? Something about, ‘they can’t find out.’”

  “Oh, right, let me check.” I walked over to the desk and dug around in my purse for random notes I’d been taking about the investigation. I pulled out a couple of bank deposit slips I’d scribbled on.

  “Here we go. Taylor said, ‘We can’t let him find out,’ and Steve said, ‘She thinks she owns me, but she doesn’t.’”

  “If ‘he’ is Gordy, then is ‘she’ Crystal?” Di offered.

  “Could be. But I think ‘he’ could be the owner of the wedding chapel. When I asked about Taylor, Jana said there were rumors—unconfirmed—that Taylor had been fired from her previous job for dipping into the till. Maybe she was up to her old tricks.”

  “Then who is ‘she’?”

  “That I don’t know. But maybe their whispered conversation in the chapel wasn’t about business. Maybe it was just a lover’s quarrel. Maybe ‘he’ and ‘she’ were other romantic partners in their complicated affairs.”

  “I suppose,” Di said.

  We both sipped on our coffee while we mulled that over for a long moment.

  “Steve was known for changing dance partners regularly. Next time I talk to her, I could ask Jana what the gossip is about Tay—”

  I stopped before finishing my sentence, something nagging at me, just out of reach.

  After a pause, Di asked, “What is it?”

  “Seems like there was something Jana said. What was it?” I said. “Wait a minute. She said ‘roses.’ That’s it.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Suddenly a lightbulb had lit up over my head.

  “What?” Di asked, seeing my expression.

  “Jana said ‘roses.’ She said Steve liked to stash his whiskey flask behind the roses in the chapel.”

  “Okay . . . so? He did, didn’t he?”

  “No, he didn’t. The standard arrangements in the chapel are carnations and daisies. That’s what Taylor told us. The only reason there were roses in the chapel was because Mama had upgraded the arrangements to roses for her wedding. And they were brought in fresh that afternoon. The florist’s delivery van was in front of the chapel when Little Junior dropped us off at the door.”

  “Oh, I get it. The only way Jana could have known there were roses instead of carnations and daisies in the chapel when Steve died was if she was there. So, that means Jana is the murderer, right?”

  “She either killed Steve or was working with whoever did,” I said.

  “But how do we know she even knew Steve?”

  “We don’t,” I said, feeling deflated.

  “Wait a minute. Gordy and Crystal both mentioned that Steve was in that Ages of Elvis show that ran here at the hotel. Jana could have met him then,” Di offered.

  “That’s right. And Holly told me Jana’s marriage broke up after she took up with some singer here in Las Vegas.”

  “Should we tell the cops?” Di asked.

  “I doubt they’re going to be as impressed with Jana’s slip of the tongue as we are. Should we talk to Dave?”

  “No. He’s not even talking to me right now. And he’s too busy trying to pin the murder on Jimmy to be bothered with another suspect—even if Jana is the real killer,” Di said.

  “I think we have to talk to Dave—he’s the only one we know that the police might take seriously. Detective Bains certainly doesn’t have fond feelings for us at the moment. But, you’re right, I’m not sure Dave will listen to us either.”

  Di started chipping the polish off her recently manicured nails and I flopped back on a pillow. I shot up, suddenly sitting up straight in the bed.

  “I know. I’m going to tell Larry Joe what we think and ask him to talk to Dave. If Larry Joe buys our conclusions about the real killer, I think our stubborn sheriff will listen to him.”

  I texted Larry Joe to see if he was still in the room. He replied that his mom and dad had just gotten back from visiting the hospital and, of course, his dad wanted to get something to eat.

  I decided to just call him instead of composing a long text reply in my slow one-thumbed typing style.

  “Hi, honey, could you let your mama put the feed bag on your dad. I need to talk to you—urgently. Can you come up to the room?”

  “Sure, hon, I’ll be right there.”

  “Larry Joe’s on his way to our room. Would you call Crystal?” I asked Di. “It just occurred to me that, if we’re right about Jana, she won’t be trying to get a look at any security footage—especially if it implicates her. Tell Crystal what’s going on and see if she knows anyone in security who could take a look at the footage from the casino this morning just after Gordy disappeared into the crowd.”

  “Okay, I will.”

  I started toward the door, and Di called out, “Wait, Liv. I don’t have Crystal’s phone number.”

  I texted her the number.

  “Got it,” she said. “And good luck with Larry Joe.”

  I went to our room, sat down on the edge of the bed, and tried to organize my thoughts. Larry Joe came in just a couple of minutes later.

  “Honey, is your mama all right? Did something happen with Uncle Junior?” he said, walking over to me with a worried look.

  “Oh, no. No medical emergencies—and nothing new on Uncle Junior.” I stood up and gave him a hug. “There has been a major development in our murder investigation, though. Sit down and let me try to lay it all out for you.”

  He listened intently and didn’t interrupt or roll his eyes even once, which I took as a good sign.

  “So let me see if I have this straight,” he began. “It seems Gordy is up to no good, maybe blackmail, and you believe Steve was involved as either a blackmailer or blackmailee. The blackmail scheme on the seventh floor would’ve needed a connection from someone who works in the hotel, and you think that’s probably Jana. And you know Jana was at the chapel around the time of Steve’s murder because she slipped up and said the flask was behind the roses, when normally the flowers in the chapel are carnations and daisies.”

  It didn’t sound like much when he played it back to me, but I was convinced we were right.

  “Are you sure you didn’t mention the word ‘roses’ to Jana and she just picked up on that?”

  “I’m sure. I didn’t even bring it up—she did. But the police should be able to check out at least the blackmail angle, if they can take a look at the security footage or set up their own quiet surveillance on the seventh floor.”

  “What does Dave think?”

  “I was hoping you’d talk to Dave. He’s not in a receptive mood to listen to Di or me—especially Di—at the moment. But if you think our take on things sounds plausible, he’ll listen to you.”

  I looked at him with pleading eyes and was prepared to beg. But I didn’t have to.

  “I think you and Di are on to something. And Gordy’s a photographer, so he would know how to get hold of the photo chemicals in the poison they found in the flask—and in Steve, by the way. Dave said the medic
al examiner confirmed the cause of death.

  “I’ll call and see where he is now.”

  Larry Joe dialed and put the phone to his ear.

  “Dave, I need to talk to you. Where are you at? Great. I’ll see you in ten minutes.”

  He dropped his phone back in his pocket.

  “Dave’s back in his room.”

  “So I have you to myself for ten whole minutes?”

  “No. I have some other business to take care of,” he said, going into the bathroom and closing the door.

  I texted Di that Larry Joe thought we were on the right track and that he was going to tell Dave about it.

  “Hold good thoughts,” I said.

  “Fingers crossed,” she said. “Oh, and I talked to Crystal. She said she doesn’t think she can get a look at surveillance video. But she has a friend in housekeeping she thinks might be able to get us into those rooms on the seventh floor for a quick look around. Does that help?”

  “Ooh, it might.”

  Just then, Larry Joe came through the door.

  “Put your shoes on, Liv. And if that’s Di on the phone, tell her to meet us at the elevator. We’re all going down to the police station.”

  “Di, did you hear that? Okay.”

  I ended my call with Di and asked Larry Joe, “So does Dave think the cops will listen to our story, or is he having us arrested for interfering in a police investigation?”

  “He’s thinking the former. But, the lead detective may have other ideas. We’ll see.”

  Di came out of her hotel room just as Larry Joe and I stepped into the hallway. Dave was waiting for us by the elevator. We all got in and Larry Joe hit L.

  “I think you two may have stumbled on something here,” Dave said, staring straight ahead at the elevator doors.

  I exchanged glances with Di. I could tell she shared my feeling that Dave was being condescending. But I think it bothered her more than me.

  “Remember, this is Detective Bains’s investigation,” Dave continued. “Let him lead the questioning. Don’t try to run the show and things will probably go more smoothly.”