by AR Winters
“This is Jameson,” said the voice on the other end. “Nobody’s asked about Stone in a long time.”
My mouth felt dry, and I could hear my heart thumping loudly in my chest. “Well – uh – uhm – yes.” My brain seemed to have lost the ability to formulate proper sentences.
The voice on the other end sounded kind and patient. “Was there anything specific you’d like to know?”
“Well – yes. Was Stone really in the CIA?”
There was a long pause, and then finally, Jameson said, “That’s a good question.”
“And?”
“It’s not really yes or no. Maybe we should chat about that in person.”
“Sure. Anytime. Anyplace.”
“I’m heading to the Strip in an hour. Why don’t we meet at the Café de la Rue in The Riverbelle, two hours from now?”
I smiled. I knew why he’d picked the Riverbelle, and I didn’t care. “Sure. I’ll see you there.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Two-and-a-half hours later, I was sitting in the Café de la Rue, not feeling particularly happy.
This was the café where my unpleasant encounters with former Riverbelle staff had started, and the décor was still uncannily similar. The place was dark and romantic, with soft jazz piping through – a world away from the bustling casino pit just a few yards away.
I’d de-frosted and chowed down half a frozen pizza at home, and my casino uniform was stuffed inside my large tote bag. Jameson was running late, and I didn’t know how long our chat would take. I didn’t want to be late to my shift.
I sipped my coffee nervously, checking out everyone who entered the café. I expected Jameson to be old-ish – he had to be older than Stone, at least. Other than that, I didn’t know what to expect – he could be bald and fat, with bad taste in clothes and a python wrapped around his neck. Or he could look like a regular tourist.
Five minutes later, Stone walked into the café.
I frowned and leaned back against my seat as he sat down opposite me.
As usual, his face gave nothing away, but I could tell he knew why I was here.
“What’re you doing here?” I said.
“Why’re you here?”
“You know. Where’s Jameson?”
“You’re spying on me.”
“You’re the one who gave me Jameson’s number as a reference.”
“A long time ago.”
“It wasn’t that long ago, and it’s important now.”
There was a moment’s silence, and then Stone said, “And why is that?”
“Because. I want to know who you are. I don’t like secrets.”
Stone looked at me seriously. “There are things about me that I just can’t share. I’m sorry, but that’s how it is.”
“Why?”
I knew I sounded like a petulant child, but Stone just shook his head. “I can’t help it. If you don’t want to work with me, you don’t have to.”
I shook my head immediately. “No. I – If you ever need my help, I’m there.” I took a deep breath, trying to think of what to say. Finally, I said, “I’m breaking up with Jack when I see him next.”
Stone’s eyes lit up. “Really? Poor Jack.”
I smiled and rolled my eyes. At least I wouldn’t be late for my shift.
Chapter Twenty-Two
I managed to turn up to work just in time, ready to sink into the bright lights and happy noises of the casino pit. The loud, boldly patterned carpet and seemingly crazy layout of the games tables were a glaring contrast to Stone’s cool, ordered office, and I wondered if he had access to the Treasury’s security cameras.
In a way, I was grateful that the next couple of hours were more chaotic than usual: a group of drunk friends got into a brawl at my blackjack table, a man who won five figures at the roulette table broke up with his girlfriend and got a drink thrown into his crotch, and security had to break up their subsequent fight. For some reason, everyone seemed to be cranky, and the wins and losses and alcohol just fueled their pugilistic moods.
I wasn’t in the best mood myself. I knew that I was doing the right thing by breaking up with Jack. He was one of the best-looking men I’d ever met, and he was charming and intelligent, but our chemistry had died out. All I could see now were the glaring difficulties in our relationship. We were too different, and we just didn’t see each other often enough.
Whereas Stone and I could see each other whenever I wanted. Stone always had my back, and it was reassuring to know that his office and his home were just a few doors down from the Treasury. The mystery about his past bothered me, and it would’ve been nice to be able to chat with Jameson. But nevertheless, I trusted Stone.
The next day, I woke at noon, determined to get to the bottom of the mystery of Stone’s past. But first, I needed to solve the mystery I was actually getting paid for – the death of Margo’s son, Max Langton.
My first stop was at UNLV, to visit Professor Gerald Deaking. Elwood’s case notes had mentioned that Max was enrolled to do a PhD on modern commercial architecture, focusing on Vegas buildings. Professor Deaking was supposed to be his supervisor, so I called the number provided in the notes. A man identifying himself as the professor said that yes, he knew Max, and yes, he was holding office hours today. I could go to see him anytime within the next hour.
Fifteen minutes before I set out, Ian turned up at my door to tell me the exciting news that Snowflake had learned to roll over on command, like a dog.
“Where are you going?” he asked, once he’d finished showing me all the new Snowflake photos on his smartphone.
“It’s a new case.” I filled him in quickly, telling him most of the important bits from Max’s case file. “I’m off to see his professor, now.”
“Take me with you! I can help! Please, pleeease…”
I made a face. “What about Snowflake? Won’t she be lonely when you’re gone?”
“She sleeps most of the day. And you need a partner! Every detective has a partner – I’d make a great partner! You can quit your casino job, and I’ll use some of my trust fund money as seed capital for our new PI firm.”
“I can’t take your money, Ian. And you should stop throwing it around.”
“But you need a partner.”
A lightbulb seemed to go off in my head, dredging up all kinds of old emotions and bringing them to a head. I remembered working with Stone, hanging out with him at the shooting range, getting self-defense tips from the Krav Maga instructor he’d recommended. “You know, I always thought that someday Stone and I would be partners.”
Ian snorted. “Yeah, sure.”
“Why not?”
“He’s far too cool for you. And he’s busy with his own firm.”
“That’s true.” And he’d offered me work. Why had I ever thought he’d be my partner as a detective? It didn’t matter, of course, because we were friends, and we helped each other out.
“You need a partner,” Ian was repeating. “You can’t just work by yourself. It’s not safe, and every PI needs a partner.”
Maybe he was right. Ian had actually helped me out a couple of times, and despite his annoying persistence, he was sweet and thoughtful. “Ok,” I said. “You can come with me this one time. But you have to behave.”
“When have I not behaved?”
All the time. Ian was the master of inappropriate questions and comments.
Parking at the university was a breeze. The UNLV campus was a refreshing change from the crowds and hustle over at the Strip; the buildings were large and serious-looking, and students hurried about, looking like they actually cared about education. The architecture building was nestled on one side of the campus, and it took me less than fifteen minutes to find Professor Deaking’s room.
The door was open, and I knocked softly and walked in. The room looked exactly what I’d imagined a professor’s room to look like – just a little bit cleaner and a lot neater. Bookshelves filled with thick textbooks and back
issues of academic journals lined one wall. An obviously fake potted plant sat in one corner, and a window looked out across the campus yard. Bright fluorescent lights illuminated the professor, who was typing away on his keyboard at one end of the room. Two small visitors’ chairs waited opposite him and two journals lay open on the desk.
He stopped typing as I walked in and looked up.
Professor Deaking was a large, red-skinned man with round eyes that peered out from under thick-rimmed glasses. There were a few stray wisps of hair on his head, and they looked like they’d been arranged artfully to try to cover some of the professor’s baldness – an attempt that hadn’t been too successful.
“You must be Tiffany,” he said, smiling politely and indicating a chair opposite his desk. “And this is…”
Ian leaned forward to shake his hand. “I’m Ian, Tiffany’s partner. Wow, your skin is so red!”
Professor Deaking blinked. “Yes, my skin burns when I go out in the sun.”
“And it’s always sunny here.”
“I’m sorry about Ian,” I said quickly. “He doesn’t—”
“That’s ok,” Professor Deaking said. “We have many high-achieving students with Asperger’s. I know how it is.”
“No, Ian doesn’t have Asperger’s.”
“Maybe I do,” Ian said. “You always say I need to think before I speak, but I’m just being honest.”
“Uh-huh.” I looked at Ian carefully. Maybe he did have Asperger’s – he was smart, brutally honest, and had no social skills. But that wasn’t why we were here.
Professor Deaking said, “You wanted to talk about Max Langton?”
“Yes.” I pulled out my smartphone and found the voice recording app. “Do you mind if I record what we say?”
“No. But I’m not sure I can help you.”
“I understand, and that’s ok. I just wanted to ask – what do you remember about him? He was supposed to be doing a PhD with you, right?”
“He was. But he didn’t.” Professor Deaking punched a few more keys on his keyboard and then looked at me again. “I don’t mean to be rude, but I had to save my work. Anyway, Max applied for a PhD in modern commercial architecture, which interests me. He had a great portfolio from his time working in New York, and he seemed to have a genuine interest in switching over to the academic world. You know, it’s very interesting, getting paid to do research and a bit of teaching.”
I smiled politely. The job sounded stuffy and boring to me, but I murmured, “It sounds fascinating.”
“It sounds horrible,” Ian said, before I could stop him. “Do you even get paid well?”
Professor Deaking laughed. “Not as well as they pay in the casinos, I’m sure. But I love what I do, and many of us like the work.”
“And what about Max?” I said, trying to steer back to the topic. “Was Max also interested in your kind of work?”
“Yes. Well. Max showed up almost a year ago, and he claimed to want to be an academic. We went through his thesis proposal, which was quite decent. But as you know, the scope of a thesis can change as you do your research, so I told him what I tell all students – do a significant literature review and get back to me. We’ll take it from there.”
There was a knock on the door. I turned around, and it was a bespectacled young lady with long brown hair, carrying a thick folder in her arms. “Greg?” she said. “I just wanted to let you know all the assignments were submitted.”
“Excellent,” he said. “Tiffany, this is my TA, Marissa. Marissa, Tiffany.”
We mumbled polite greetings to each other, and then she disappeared. I said, “Are those all assignments from an undergrad course?”
“Yes,” he said. “Marissa helps with the grading.”
“Right. Did Max have to do any coursework for his PhD?”
“Not necessarily, it would depend on his literature review. But he never got that far!”
“How do you mean?” I said.
“We were meant to catch up once a month while he did his work. We met the first two months – the first month, he’d done some work, but the second month, he was far behind. And after that, he never got back to me. When I emailed him asking what was going on, he said he couldn’t make it that month; and then the next month he said he had the flu; the month after, he said he had to go back to New York.”
“Hey!” said Ian. “I used to say that kind of stuff when I was a student! One time, I had to stay up all night with my friends who did that startup, and I didn’t go to any classes for two weeks. I told my lecturers I had stomach poisoning.”
Professor Deaking gave me a knowing look. “You hear all kinds of excuses from students. And as I expected, Max officially dropped out of the program after that last excuse.”
“I dropped out of my course, too,” said Ian. “After the startup took off. Although, I wish I’d stayed on.”
“Education is very important,” Professor Deaking said seriously. “You should consider going back and finishing your degree.”
“Nah,” Ian said. “I’m working with Tiffany now.” He gave me a hopeful look, and I frowned and turned back to the professor.
“So – was Max on some kind of PhD scholarship?”
“Yes, but it was just a small stipend, meant to cover the cost of books and such. Most PhD students get work with professors on their research projects, or do some TA work. Max would’ve had to give back six months’ worth of stipend money once he dropped out, but that would only come to maybe ten thousand dollars or so.”
“Wow. That’s not much.”
“Exactly. You have to do research because you love it, not for the money.”
“Do you have any idea why Max didn’t come to your meetings?”
Professor Deaking shook his head. “You’re asking the same things the police did, and I’ll tell you what I told them. No, I don’t know why Max didn’t turn up, or why he didn’t do his work. Students can be flakey. They don’t come to class, they don’t do their work… That’s always because they think they’ve got something better to do. Undergrads go off and party. Sometimes they have relationship issues. Sometimes they just don’t think it’s worth it to finish the degree; that happens quite a lot here, when they find out they’ll make more money working in a casino.”
Ian and I exchanged a look, and I said, “You never followed up with Max?”
Professor Deaking shrugged. “I emailed him, but when he didn’t reply, I figured he’d lost interest. I’m not about to harass someone to do their PhD. And I heard from the cops he’d got bitten by the poker bug.”
“Do you play poker?” asked Ian.
The professor shook his head. “No, my work keeps me busy.”
Ian said, “There are people who make lots of money from poker.”
“I’m sure there are. But most of them burn out.”
“Did Max have any friends here?” I asked. “Did he maybe meet some students at orientation, or in the library?”
Professor Deaking shook his head. “Not that I know of. There were only two other students who enrolled in PhD courses in architecture at the same time as Max, and I doubt they were friends. You can get their details from the admissions office, I’m sure.”
The names and details were already in the Detective Elwood’s case files, and the two students claimed they barely knew Max. But I didn’t say all that.
“Have you tried any of those special sunscreens?” Ian asked.
“I have,” Professor Deaking said. “But it turns out I’m allergic to them so I just turn redder.”
There wasn’t much else to say, so Ian and I thanked Professor Deaking and headed over to our next interviewee.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Ian insisted we stop by his apartment first, and Snowflake woke up when we entered.
She purred and rubbed against my legs, and then she turned over for me to tickle her belly. As Ian rummaged through his stock of wigs, I told him that Mrs. Weebly would no longer bother us about Snowfla
ke, as long as we kept Snowflake a secret.
“What brought that on?” Ian asked, fitting a bald wig over his head and fussing about his reflection.
“She met Stone and liked him, and then… Well, I’m not quite sure how it happened, but it did.”
Ian nodded, and ran his hands over the smooth wig. He looked like a fussy old man, and I smiled, trying to imagine him growing old.
“Can you recognize me in this?” said Ian.
“Only because I know it’s you.”
“But I look old,” he whined. “And ugly.”
“Well, pick another wig, then! We don’t want to be too late.”
Ian finally settled on a wig with spiky brown hair. “I look like I’m in a boy band,” he said happily, as we said goodbye to Snowflake and left the apartment.
I didn’t want to be late so I didn’t bother to correct him.
***
It felt a bid odd walking into Max’s building in broad daylight. I knew that at some point we’d run into Snowflake’s previous owner, but with any luck, she wouldn’t mention Snowflake.
“Margo Langton must’ve mentioned me,” I told the uniformed security guard.
He seemed more interested in the newspaper than me, and just nodded. “Sure, go ahead.”
“Can I ask you some questions first?”
The guard lowered his paper and peered at me with watery brown eyes. He had pasty skin and the slumped posture and broad body of someone who didn’t do much walking around – or any other exercise, for that matter. “This is about that guy’s death, right? I just started working here last week.”
The guard – his nameplate said “George” – looked like he was superglued to his chair. I wondered what he’d do if there was ever any real trouble in the building, but he was probably only authorized to call the police anyway.
“One week with the security company or a week here?”
“A week here,” George said. “I like it here. No trouble. Everyone’s nice.”
