Furniture Fatality in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  Cecilia’s brows drew together, and she crossed her arms over her chest. “What friend?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, he didn’t tell me.”

  “I think you’re lying,” she said. “I think you know where he is.”

  “I really don’t. And if he doesn’t want to be found, perhaps you should leave him alone.”

  “I’m not about to leave him alone,” said Cecilia. “He’s, like, the perfect guy.”

  My eyebrows shot up of their own accord. “I know Ian pretty well, and he’s far from being the perfect guy. The only thing he has is a little bit of money.”

  Cecilia shrugged. “Isn’t that the same thing?”

  “Not really.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting to marry someone for his money. Lots of people do that. Why should I struggle along when I can just find the right guy?”

  “That sounds like a good plan, but wouldn’t you rather be with someone who actually wants to be with you?”

  “Ian wants to be with me,” Cecilia said. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”

  “I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t have taken off to stay with a friend if he wanted to be with you.”

  “I’m not the kind of person who gives up easily.”

  “I can see that,” I said, “but there are lots of wealthy men in Vegas. Perhaps you should spend your time trying to find someone who’s got as much money as Ian, or maybe even more, and really wants to be with you.”

  Cecilia thought about it for a moment, but then she shook her head. “You know what they say about a bird in the hand. I might not meet anyone else, and I’m not about to throw away what I’ve got with Ian—if I can just spend some time with him, maybe sleep with him a couple of times, I know I can get him to change his mind about me. Men are silly like that.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Silly men.”

  “You’ll let me know if you talk to Ian, won’t you?”

  I nodded. “Sure.”

  Ian broke into a coughing fit, and Cecilia glanced over at him.

  “We should get going,” I said, suddenly worried that Cecilia might recognize him. “Nice talking to you.”

  I walked away from her briskly, pressed the elevator button, and was relieved when the doors slid open immediately.

  “Wait,” Cecilia called, “how will you get in touch with me? I haven’t given you my number yet.”

  She started to walk toward us, and I quickly pressed the button to close the elevator doors. A few seconds later, we were safely out of her sight.

  “She’s not so bad,” I told Ian as we headed down. “A bit of an annoyance, but she’ll be gone soon. Plus, it’s fun to get to see you dress up like a woman.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Ian and I drove over to Betta Furniture, ready for another day of interviewing the staff.

  When we went in, there was a young couple looking at bedroom furniture and talking to a salesperson, but the store was otherwise devoid of customers.

  We headed over to the back and approached a saleswoman who was standing near the office furniture. She was about my height, slim, with curly red hair and a friendly smile.

  Her name tag said Emily, and when I introduced myself, she nodded. “Yes, Harry said he would be having some investigators look into Janice’s death.” She glanced at Ian, whom I hadn’t introduced, and said, “You must be Tiffany’s co–investigator.”

  “He is,” I said. “I mean, she is. She’s just kind of shy and doesn’t talk much.”

  Emily peered at Ian carefully, but if she thought something about him was off, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she said, “I don’t mind talking to you guys, especially since we’ve got no customers now, but it’s all a pretty pointless exercise. I don’t know why Harry’s wasting his money—he should just pay the insurance premiums and move on. I don’t see the point in dwelling on bad situations.”

  “You seem pretty sure that Janice’s death was an accident,” I said, watching Emily closely.

  She shrugged. “Seems pretty crazy to me that someone would throw a sofa at you intentionally. I mean, all the things you see on TV and movies about killers show them shooting people, or stabbing them. Maybe poisoning them, at most.” She frowned thoughtfully, as though trying to remember other common ways of killing people.

  “Killers can be sneaky these days,” I said. “Sometimes they go to a lot of effort to disguise the murder.”

  Emily smiled and rolled her eyes. “It seems a bit far–fetched to me, that’s all. I think Harry just wants to get out of having his insurance premiums increased. Of course, you guys get paid either way, don’t you? Even if you don’t find out who the killer is.”

  Emily’s smile was friendly enough, and perhaps her question was innocent, but it kind of made me feel as though I was leading Harry on for no good reason, just to collect a paycheck.

  “I really do feel like someone tried to kill Janice,” I said. “Did you know her very well?”

  Emily shook her head. “No, she wasn’t friends with anyone here. I tried to be friendly, and I asked her how she was doing once in a while, but she didn’t seem too interested in being my friend. I’m a pretty outgoing person, but I know how to take a hint when I need to.”

  “How long’ve you been working here?”

  “Let’s see… a bit over a year now. My brother Eric and I decided to move to Vegas a few weeks before I got this job. We grew up in Wichita, but it was getting harder to find decent jobs there.”

  “And Janice was working here when you joined?”

  Emily nodded. “Yep. But we never talked much.”

  “When you did chat, what did you talk about?”

  Emily shrugged and looked off to one side, trying to remember. “The usual, you know. How was she, had she done anything interesting over the weekend, that kind of thing. But she never liked to share much about her life.”

  A movement near the front of the store made me turn around, and my heart sunk. Ian followed my gaze, and then immediately turned around again.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said, in a high–pitched chipmunk voice.

  My mouth set in a grim line, and Emily looked at the woman who’d just walked in. “Is anything wrong?” she asked, sounding concerned.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, trying to figure out what I could say to explain Cecilia’s presence. The woman must’ve followed us over here.

  “Is that woman someone you know?” said Emily. “You’ve both gone kind of pale.”

  I couldn’t come up with a good explanation, but we couldn’t have Cecilia following us around, no matter how harmless she was. Finally, I fibbed and said, “It might be nothing, but we’ve noticed her in a couple of high–end stores before. My assistant and I think she’s got some kind of shoplifting scam going on. Perhaps you should go and talk to her, and if she’s not here to buy something, you should have one of the security guards escort her outside.”

  Emily nodded, and Ian and I watched as she approached Cecilia and exchanged a few words with her. At the end of it, Cecilia shot me a dirty look and left the store.

  “You’re right,” said Emily when she got back to us. “I asked her if I could help her, and she said she was just looking around. I told her that we’d had complaints about someone matching her description, and she needed to leave. I hope I did the right thing.”

  Relief washed through my body, and I nodded. “You can’t be too careful with people like her. Who knows what she might be up to?”

  I felt only the slightest of guilt pangs for getting Cecilia kicked out of the store, and I turned the topic of conversation back to Janice, asking Emily the usual questions—did Janice have any enemies that she knew of, had she been acting odd lately? Did she hang out with anyone from the nearby stores?

  No, said Emily, as far as she knew, Janice had no enemies, hadn’t been acting odd lately, and she probably didn’t have any friends at the nearby stores either.

  “And what about her boyfrien
d?” I said. “I heard Janice got herself a new boyfriend recently.”

  Emily blinked at me in surprise. “Where did you hear that?”

  For some reason, I didn’t feel like mentioning that I’d talked to her neighbors, so I shrugged and said, “Just from people.”

  Emily shook her head. “I heard she was getting divorced from her husband, but I didn’t think she’d started seeing anyone already.”

  “So you never saw her with another man, or she never mentioned anything about her love life?”

  Emily shook her head. “No, I’m pretty sure Janice was single.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance, and I made a noncommittal noise. Janice had clearly done a good job of keeping her new beau a secret.

  “Where were you on Sunday night?” I asked, trying to sound nonchalant.

  Emily smiled thinly. “You mean my alibi?”

  I returned the smile politely. “We have to ask everyone.”

  “Sure. I was home. Watching TV.”

  “Anyone else with you?”

  “My brother, Eric. Clearly, we don’t have a great social life. But in my defense, it’s fun to be a couch potato sometimes.”

  “Of course,” I said. “Once you’ve got a job, it’s too hard to go out partying. What were you guys watching?”

  Emily frowned thoughtfully for a moment, then said, “Friends. Back–to–back episodes on Netflix.”

  “That’s a fun show,” I said. “I can see why you’d want to binge–watch it!”

  The other salesperson was still busy with the customers, so after Ian and I thanked Emily for her time, we headed back to the storeroom, nodded at the bored–looking Jonas, and introduced ourselves to the other employee we hadn’t yet talked to.

  Jonas’s coworker had close–cropped blond hair, a round face set off with pale lashes, and a name tag that said Bob.

  Unfortunately, after we introduced ourselves, he told us pretty much the same things Jonas had said—he rarely talked to Janice, and didn’t converse with the salespeople much. He only worked part–time, during the busy hours of the week, and barely knew the other salespeople.

  In fact, Bob said, the whole thing must’ve been an accident, and Ian and I were wasting our time trying to find a nefarious killer who went around throwing sofas at people.

  The entire conversation was rather depressingly pointless, so finally I said, “And what about her love life? Did you know anything about Janice’s boyfriend?”

  Bob frowned. “Was that who he was? Now that you mention it… I saw her standing quite close to a man one day when she was getting into her car, going home from work. They looked like maybe they’d just kissed or something, but I wasn’t sure. Perhaps he was a cousin or someone she’d run into.”

  “Do you remember what the man look like?”

  Bob shook his head. “Pretty ordinary. Average height, I think he had brownish hair. I’m not even sure he was really her boyfriend.”

  “Can you remember anything else about this man at all?”

  Bob squinched up his mouth in a facial shrug, thought for a bit, and then shook his head. “No, sorry. And like I said, maybe this wasn’t her boyfriend. Maybe it was just someone she’d run into.”

  “What about any friends in other stores? Did Janice hang out with anyone in particular during her breaks?”

  Bob shook his head again. “I’m in here, most of the time, when the salespeople go on their breaks. But I notice them sometimes when I step out for a smoke. I don’t think Janice knew anyone from the other stores, apart from Emily’s brother.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “Emily’s brother?”

  “Yeah,” said Bob. “Eric. He works at the bank next door. I only remember because Eric’s never really bothered to do more than nod at me, and Janice isn’t a friendly person, so it was odd to see her chatting with him.”

  “Hmm.” I pursed my lips thoughtfully and wondered why Emily hadn’t told me about this. “That’s interesting.”

  Bob shrugged. “I don’t know, I mean, I’d see Janice and Emily chatting sometimes when I took a break, so maybe it’s normal she’d know Emily’s brother.”

  “Could Eric have been the man you saw with Janice the other day, the one you thought might be Janice’s boyfriend?”

  Bob looked off to one side as he thought back, and then he shook his head. “No, the man I saw Janice with was a bit taller.”

  I felt my heart sinking as my brilliant idea turned out to be nothing. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, absolutely.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance. It would’ve made life easier if Eric had turned out to be Janice’s secret boyfriend, but clearly, we’d have to keep trying to find out who it was.

  We asked Bob a few more questions about Janice and the other salespeople, but he didn’t have any other information to add, so I said, “Where were you on Sunday night?”

  He looked off to the distance and scratched one ear. “Um… I was with some of the boys.”

  “Having dinner?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Whereabouts?”

  “Uh—the Quick Fox Tavern.”

  I nodded and made a mental note to check it out. “Could we get your friends’ numbers?”

  Bob shook his head. “I left my phone at home. Maybe if you stop by tomorrow, I can give you the numbers then.”

  “Okay,” I said, thinking to myself that it wouldn’t be necessary. The Quick Fox Tavern was a few minutes’ drive from here, and Ian and I could stop by and ask the waitstaff if they remembered Bob and his friends.

  I couldn’t come up with much else to ask Bob, so I thanked him for his time, handed him my card, and headed off to talk to the other salesperson, whose customers had finally left.

  Irene was a petite brunette with anxious brown eyes and the kind of drawn face that made you think she might have issues with anxiety. She was slender, in a way that made you feel as though she wasn’t too interested in food, and she smiled politely when Ian and I introduced ourselves.

  “Harry said you’d be coming by,” she said in a soft voice. “But I’m not sure I can tell you anything helpful. Besides, everyone here thinks that Janice’s death was an accident.”

  Ian groaned softly, and I sighed and said, “We’ve been hearing that all day. It’s kind of depressing when people keep saying it.”

  Irene smiled thinly. “They probably to say it because they believe it. Janice wasn’t too popular, but I can’t see why anyone would want to kill her. Besides, I’m sure there are easier ways to kill someone than to throw a sofa at them.”

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to think positive. Even if we were out here on a wild goose chase, I needed to go through my list of questions, so I asked Irene all the usual things, and she answered the same way that Emily and Bob had—Janice wasn’t very friendly, Irene didn’t know much about Janice’s personal life, no, she hadn’t been acting oddly before her death, she didn’t have any enemies that Irene knew of, and Irene couldn’t think why someone would want to kill her.

  “Did you know she and Emily’s brother Eric were quite friendly?” I said.

  Irene looked a bit confused and said, “No, I didn’t. I mean, I saw her talking to him every now and then, but I figured it was just small talk. But now that you mention it… she wasn’t friendly toward anyone. So I guess that counts as friendliness for her.”

  “And what about her boyfriend?” I said. “We’re trying to get in touch with him.”

  Irene frowned and looked at us with worried brown eyes. “She had a boyfriend?”

  “We keep hearing that she did, but nobody knows who he is. You wouldn’t have seen her with a dark–haired man, would you?”

  Irene shook her head no, but something in her expression told me that she was hiding something.

  “Janice never told me she had a boyfriend,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” I watched her closely. “Because we know she did have a boyfriend. Perhaps you saw her with someone, or you hea
rd something through the grapevine.”

  Irene pressed her lips together and shook her head again. “This is the first I’m hearing of it.”

  I smiled and tried to sound reassuring when I said, “If you do you remember anything—anything at all—we’d really appreciate it if you told us. I’ll make sure you don’t get into trouble or anything. Even if you’re not sure, it would help to know if you’ve seen someone who might have been Janice’s boyfriend.”

  Irene glanced off to one side and shook her head. “I really don’t know anything about her boyfriend.”

  I forced myself to smile politely. I had no doubt that Irene was hiding something, but I wouldn’t be able to force the truth out of her. Instead, I said, “Where were you on Sunday night?”

  Irene pushed a strand of hair behind her ear nervously. “I was home. Watching TV.”

  “Anyone else with you?”

  She shook her head no, her eyes going large. “Just me. But I really was home.”

  “I know,” I said, trying to sound reassuring. “We have to ask everyone this question, that’s all.”

  Irene nodded, but her eyes were watchful and her smile forced.

  I handed her one of my business cards and repeated, “Please call me if you think of anything. The information might seem trivial to you, but it might be something important.”

  Irene glanced at my card and tucked it into her pocket. I didn’t have much hope that she would call me, so perhaps I’d come back in a few days and see if I could get her to change her mind about talking about this mysterious boyfriend of Janice’s.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Before we left, Ian and I headed over to talk to Emily again.

  It was odd talking to people with Ian being so silent. Normally, when I talk to people, Ian keeps himself busy by saying or asking the most inappropriate things, which can be a hassle. I supposed I should enjoy the silence while it lasted; perhaps I actually had something to thank Cecilia for. I made a mental note to myself to take a good photo of Ian dressed as a woman and save it for any future blackmail purposes that might arise.