“Ah, yes.” Realization dawned on Sam’s face. “I remember that thing.”
“Oh, so you knew about it?”
“Yeah.” He smiled wryly. “Who d’you think gave Crystal the idea?”
I nodded. “So he was just a hired hand.”
“Essentially. I knew Crystal could be big, but she needed to build up buzz.”
“Then why was he fired after just one set of photos?”
Sam shrugged. “Crystal got what she wanted. I told her it was better to have a stalker here, briefly, and then hire someone again once the movie came out.”
“Hmm.” I looked at him thoughtfully. It kind of made sense. Well, not really. I didn’t get all this Hollywood business, but it was clear that Rupert didn’t have anything to do with the murder.
Sam looked at his watch. “Did you have any other questions? I’d like to grab a drink and get back to work, if you’re done.”
“Oh yeah, I understand. One other thing, where were you that night?”
Sam looked at me, puzzled, and then he smiled. “You mean like my alibi?” He chuckled. “The detective I talked to asked me the same thing. I was out at dinner with Jack and Ben, the producers, and then we hit up a bar and had some drinks.”
He was smiling, but I was worried that my question might’ve offended him, so I said, “Thanks, I’m asking everyone that, so I hope you don’t mind.”
“Not all. Give me a buzz if you want to ask me anything else, I’m happy to help.”
He handed me his card and signaled a waitress, and I went to say hi to Minnie. She was busy giving a guy a real-looking black eye, and I showed her my list of names. There was a tick beside the names of everyone I’d talked to, and there were only a few names without ticks now.
“Seems like you’re being really thorough,” Minnie told me. “I saw you earlier, shuttling from one person to another.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “Big help that’s been, though. No-one here knows anything.”
“It was worth a shot,” Minnie said. “Hope you find out something.”
We said goodbye and I headed home. So far, the Hollywood side of Crystal’s life hadn’t turned up anything, and I wondered if her secret stripper life might turn up something. There was still that pile of mail Max had given me, and though I hate paperwork, I figured it was time to go through it and find out if it held any secrets.
Chapter Fourteen
I stopped by Glenn’s apartment on my way home, and handed him the sprinkles I’d picked up for him the other day.
“You’re just in time,” he told me. “I’ve made a big batch of triple-chocolate cupcakes, they’re a bit too sugary but I think you’ll like them.”
“I think I’ll love them,” I said. “No such thing as ‘too’ sugary.”
“Wait here and I’ll get them for you. And my lady friend’s here, too, so now you can meet her.”
Glenn took the sprinkles from me and disappeared. He returned in a few minutes, holding a big plastic box that I knew contained at least a half-dozen big cupcakes, a woman at his side.
“These are for you,” he told me, handing over the box.
I peered inside. Big, dark cupcakes, looking and smelling delicious. I smiled.
“Namaste,” the woman was saying, and I looked up.
I’d been so blinded by the cupcakes that I’d completely ignored her, and I felt mortified by my rudeness.
“I’m sorry,” I said, “I got distracted by these.”
I lifted the box to indicate, and looked at her carefully, trying not to appear judgmental.
Glenn’s girlfriend wasn’t the vacuous twenty-something-year-old I’d expected. I pegged her at about fifty, maybe late fifties. She looked like an aging flower-child, with hip-length brown hair streaked with grey, a floor-length gypsy skirt, and a white t-shirt that showed off her slender figure. She wore no makeup, her pale skin was wrinkled, and her cornflower-blue eyes were smiling at me.
“You must be Tiffany,” she said. “I’m Karma.”
“Oh?” My eyebrows shot up a little. “I always expected Karma to look different.”
She smiled, refusing to take offense, and said, “I get that a lot.”
I felt ashamed of my jab immediately, and said, “So that’s really your name? Your parents named you Karma?”
“Oh no, they named me Kristine. I changed it to Karma as soon as I could.”
“It must’ve seemed like a good idea at the time.” I tried not to sound too disapproving. We all do crazy things when we’re young.
“Oh, it was a great idea,” Karma said. “I’ve been blessed – or should I say cursed – with second sight. It’s happened through my years of transcendental meditation.”
“Uh-huh.” I nodded politely and glanced at Glenn, who was smiling. I remembered his admonition to be nice, and said to Karma, “That must come in handy.”
“Yes.” She nodded. “For instance, that’s how I met Glenn. You see, I had a strong sense that something good would happen if I moved into this building.”
“You mean, beyond the cheap rent and closeness to the Strip?”
She laughed, a light, tinkling laugh. “I see you’re a skeptic.”
“What gave that away?” I tried to hide my annoyance behind a polite smile.
Karma leaned forward and looked into my eyes. “I see things in your life, too. You have a darkness in your life, and danger in your future.”
“See that, Tiffany?” Glenn said. “Isn’t that spot on?” He turned to Karma. “Tiffany’s a private investigator. She deals with danger all the time.”
I said, “I could’ve been an accountant with a sexually troubled past, and an angry boss.”
Karma smiled. “You’ll see. Someday you’ll believe me. Just as someday you’ll understand that what you’re holding there in that box is poison. Sugar will kill you slowly from the inside.”
I frowned, unable to help myself. Crazies, I can deal with. Insults to me, I can understand. But how dare she insult Glenn’s cupcakes?
I bit back a response, turned to Glenn and said lightly, “Can I speak to you outside for a second, please?”
“I’ll be back, honey,” he said to Karma, and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“I’ll miss you,” she called, as he stepped out into the hall with me and closed the door behind himself.
I walked a few paces toward the elevator with Glenn, and then turned to face him.
Before I could say anything, he put up his hands and said, “I warned you she was a bit different.”
“But why are you dating her? She’s nuts!”
Glenn shook his head. “She’s not nuts, she’s just very talented. And you know, she really can predict things. She saw things in my past that I hadn’t told her.”
I rolled my eyes. I didn’t care if the woman was pretending to be a psychic. What I cared about was that she was dating Glenn.
“Why her?” I asked. “Can’t you date someone normal?” Glenn looked offended, and I immediately added, “I’m just concerned for you.”
“Well, don’t be. I’m doing fine.”
I placed my hand on Glenn’s forearm and said, “I’m sorry, I do want you to be happy.”
Glenn smiled. “It’s ok. Besides, aren’t you happy she doesn’t like sugar? If she did, there’d be fewer cupcakes for you.”
“You’re right,” I said thoughtfully. “I’m glad she thinks sugar is poison.”
We said our goodbyes, and I headed up to my condo. Even the delicious-looking cupcakes couldn’t displace my concern about Karma. I’m sure she didn’t mean any harm, but I worried that she might turn Glenn off sugar too, or maybe hurt him somehow.
I was so engrossed in thinking about Karma as I unlocked my door and opened it, that I almost missed the white envelope lying in the middle of the floor.
It was right there, staring up at me benignly, and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. My condo was cool, despite the Vegas heat outside, and I’d drawn the curtai
ns before leaving, so it was slightly dark. I opened my eyes again and held my breath, waiting to see if I could hear anything – any noises out of the ordinary. There was the dripping of the bathroom tap, and the drone of a TV next door, but no muffled psychopathic giggling or quiet breathing.
There was probably nobody inside, but I still walked through the room quietly, up to the bedroom door and peeked inside. It was dark and empty. I checked through the bedroom, under the bed, inside the closet, behind the curtains and inside the bathroom. Nobody.
The pounding in my chest began to slow down a little, and I gulped. I walked back to the front door, closed it, and sat down weakly on my sofa. I remembered Karma telling me that I would have danger in my future. I cursed Glen silently for dating her, and wished I’d never met the woman.
The box of cupcakes was sitting on the coffee table in front of me, and I snapped it open and gobbled one down. It was delicious, moist and chocolatey. I was feeling a bit better, so I ate another one. Better still. I was debating whether to eat one more, but then I remembered that I had a party tonight, and I might as well try to save some space for the free food.
I looked at the envelope lying on the floor again and took a deep breath. I might as well get it over with. I was just about to pick it up when my cellphone rang loudly, shattering the quiet.
I sat up straighter, and my heart started pounding loudly again. It’s just a phone call, I told myself, and pulled the phone out of my bag.
The caller ID said “Emily” and I answered it nervously.
“Are you ok?” Emily said. “You sound funny.”
“I’m fine.” I took a deep breath, and then exhaled. I just needed to remember to breathe, that was all.
“I’m calling about those prints. On the photos and that message?”
My ears perked up eagerly. “Yeah?”
“I’m afraid I have bad news.”
I frowned. “How bad?”
“There aren’t any.”
We were both silent for a few seconds, and then I said, “No prints? None at all?”
“None at all.” Emily paused and then said, “Whoever sent them must’ve been wearing gloves. They were very careful.”
“Oh.” I tried not to think about what that meant, and I glanced at the box of cupcakes. I needed to stay calm. Now was not the time to panic. Maybe later I’d panic, but not now.
“You ok? Hello?”
“Yeah, hi. Well, it’s good to know that someone careful is stalking me.” I didn’t feel as glib and lighthearted as I sounded. But maybe if I faked it, I’d feel it soon.
“Be careful, Tiff.” Emily sounded like she was frowning. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
“I never do anything stupid,” I said. “Thanks for telling me about the prints.”
We hung up, and I looked at the envelope again. Somehow it seemed more menacing now, mocking me with its blank, fingerprints-less whiteness.
“You can have more cupcakes once you get see what’s in there,” I told myself, and the bribe worked. I opened the envelope.
At first, there were just more photos of me. Me meeting Stone, eating my burger and talking to Stone. Walking up to The Tremonte, entering The MontePatria Casino, heading back to my condo.
There were a lot of photos of me. I wondered how I’d missed the photographer, considering that I’d been looking over my shoulder every five minutes or so. But it’s easy to get lost in a crowd of snap-happy tourists, and these snaps were probably taken with a telephoto lens.
At the end of the snapshots, there were a couple more photos of me, my face blown up to almost fill the whole frame – but this time the guy had gotten a bit more creative, and had used photo editing software to add in a knife held against my throat. Any other time, I would’ve laughed – the photo manipulation was amateurish, and the knife didn’t look very realistic. But this wasn’t any other time, and I frowned and bit my lip. I didn’t like where this was going, and even though he wasn’t good with Photoshop, the guy had made his point.
And just to rub in that point, after the creative pictures there was a piece of paper with a one-line message on it: “You’ll never know when.”
I ate two more cupcakes but they just made me feel sick. Maybe Karma was right, maybe what I’d just eaten was poison.
I sat curled up against my ratty sofa for some time, not liking how I was feeling, trying not to think about the message, but in the end I picked up my phone and tried to stop my fingers trembling long enough to call Stone.
I told him about the new envelope, and he was silent for so long that I thought maybe he’d hung up. But then he said, “Has Emily gotten back to you about the prints?”
“No go. The guy must’ve been wearing gloves.”
Stone swore softly. “I was hoping we’d get prints.”
“It’s a minor setback,” I said lightly. “He can’t always be careful.”
On the other end of the line, Stone was silent again.
“You could say something to cheer me up,” I suggested, but Stone was still silent.
Finally, he said, “I can’t always be there, so I’ll get one of my guys to stick with you from now on.”
I appreciated the concern, but I didn’t like feeling dependent on Stone—especially when I wasn’t paying for his services—so, of course, like an idiot, I said, “No, it’s fine. I can take care of myself.”
There was a brief second of silence, and then Stone said, “I’m coming round at seven, are you stepping out before then?”
“No.”
“Ok.”
He hung up, and I ate another cupcake, appetite for dinner be damned.
I took a hot shower, found a dress to wear to the dinner, made my bed and vacuumed the condo. Finally, when I ran out of other things to procrastinate with, I sat down with the papers Max had given me.
There was a notebook among the papers, and I pulled that out first. I was hoping it’d be a diary, detailing all of Crystal’s secrets and shedding light on the murder, but it turned out to be a day planner. It could still be useful, I told myself, and flipped through the pages. It was completely blank.
I took a deep breath and tried to stop myself from throwing the empty day planner at the door. Maybe someone had given the day planner to Crystal, maybe she thought it made her look more successful, or maybe she carried it around hoping its organizational skills would transfer over to her through osmosis. Either way, it was zero help to me.
Next, I sorted through all the papers. There were bills and bank statements, copies of Crystal’s resume, a file containing large, professional photos of Crystal, a postcard, and a photo of a chubbier, older version of Crystal with three kids and a man with a receding hairline. I figured that was Crystal’s sister Carol, with her kids and husband.
I went through Crystal’s resume with an ironic smile. She’d gone to high school in Nebraska, and then moved straight to LA. She’d been a waitress for a while, but she’d quit that job two years ago. I guessed that was when she discovered the profitability of being a stripper. I noticed she’d also had roles as an extra in three movies, two of which had been directed by Sam Rampell. That’s probably how he’d noticed her, and decided to give her a minor speaking role in Casino Kings.
There were two bills – one from the Screen Actors’ Guild, informing Crystal that her fees were due, and a copy of her cellphone bill. Neither of these told me much, other than the fact that Crystal was part of the SAG, and that she had an expensive, latest-model cellphone which she used pretty frequently.
The bank statement covered the last three months, and I went through it carefully. There were once-a-month deposits, a couple of grand each time, which I assumed was her income from being a stripper. Other than those deposits, there was no money coming in. There were a couple of cash withdrawals, and there was a regular, once-a-month bank transfer of five thousand dollars each month, for the last three months, to a Cheryl Czekanski.
Cheryl must’ve been one hell of a pal for Cry
stal to transfer so much money over to her each month, but I’d never heard of this girl’s name before. I switched on my laptop and typed it in, half-hoping that I’d find a result. Instead, there were twenty pages of results. Clearly, there was a large population of Polish women named Cheryl, so I changed my search to “Cheryl Czekanski, Las Vegas.”
This time, I got about five pages of results. I clicked through the top couple of results – there was a dermatologist, a marketing expert, a nutritionist. This was going nowhere. I skipped over to the “Image” results, hoping I’d see a familiar face. Once again, I didn’t see anyone I recognized. There were photos of the dermatologist, the marketing expert and the nutritionist, along with photos of a dozen other girls. There were a couple of kids who looked about five years old, and I had a brief moment of worry about their privacy before I moved on. There was a photo of a gorgeous blonde, a woman with curly black hair, and someone who wore two-inch thick eyeliner and had dyed her hair purple.
I switched off my laptop and called Samantha. My phone went straight to voicemail, so I assumed she was at work and left her a message, letting her know I’d come by to talk to her tomorrow. I needed to talk to Crystal’s friends at The Peacock Bar, and maybe I could ask Samantha if she knew Cheryl Czekanski.
It was almost time for the party, so I slipped into the shimmery green dress I’d selected, piled on some eyeliner, mascara and lipstick, and ran a straightener through my hair till I figured I could almost pass as an extremely high-class escort.
There was a knock on my door at exactly seven, and I wondered whether Stone had arrived early and waited in his car until the precise, correct time. When I opened the door, he raised one eyebrow almost imperceptibly, and I thought I saw the hint of a smile.
“I’ve never seen you wearing a dress before,” he said.
“And I’ve never seen you wearing a suit.”
Our eyes met and held for a brief second. I wondered whether I should admit that he looked good, but I waited for him to say something first. Another second ticked away.
Finally, I said, “Aren’t you going to tell me I look nice?”
A.R. Winters - Tiffany Black 02 - Green Eyes in Las Vegas Page 8
