Furniture Fatality in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “There don’t seem to be any bills or mail lying around, so we might as well look at his computer now that we’re inside,” I said. I looked around, wondering if anyone could see us from outside, but that didn’t seem possible. “We need to be quick—we don’t want Margie calling the cops to check out this house.”

  Nanna fired up the laptop and pressed a few buttons, and we found ourselves trolling through David’s emails.

  “Here’s an email he sent to the Vegas electric company, asking about the sweepstakes,” Nanna said.

  Ian and I craned over her neck, and we all read through the email. David had been perfectly polite but curious, asking what was going on.

  “He must’ve been telling the truth about that weird phone call,” I said. “Nobody goes to such lengths just to establish a story.”

  The rest of David’s emails seemed to be mostly junk mail, and the occasional emails to his brother who lived in New York, talking about nothing in particular. Nanna and Ian insisted on doing a few more walk–throughs of the house, and then dusting down every surface we might have touched, before they finally agreed to leave.

  We left the way we’d come in, walking briskly down the path and getting straight into my car. Thankfully, we didn’t run into Margie again, and my veins throbbed with adrenaline as I drove off and decided where to go next.

  Chapter Twenty

  “This doesn’t look like the way back home,” said Nanna as I drove along.

  “It’s not. I thought we might go check out Janice’s apartment now.”

  Nanna nodded. “I do always say that you can learn a lot about a person from their apartment.”

  “Hang on,” said Ian, sounding surprised. “You’re just going to break into Janice’s apartment?”

  I shrugged. “I guess Nanna’s a bad influence. But I remembered that old neighbor who told us he slid Janice’s mail under her door, and I figure we might learn something from there. Besides, we’ve already broken into one house today. What’s one more?”

  “You’re a lot more fun to be around when Nanna’s with you,” said Ian approvingly.

  I shook my head. “I think she’s a bad influence. But I suppose this is how things are going to be from now on.”

  “There’s no harm having a look,” said Nanna. “And it’s not like we’re breaking in to steal anything. If Janice really was murdered, she’d want us to break into her apartment if she thought we could learn anything new.”

  In a weird, convoluted way, what Nanna said made sense.

  I parked my car near the apartment, and the three of us went straight upstairs. Ian and Nanna stood on either side of me as I fiddled with the lock for a few seconds, using the lock–picking set that my former boyfriend had given me.

  Before anyone could see us, the lock turned, and the three of us headed inside and closed the door behind ourselves.

  “It smells real musty in here,” said Ian. “Maybe acting like a woman has made me all sensitive to smells now.”

  “You’re just pretending,” I reminded him. “It’s not like you’ve really become a woman.”

  But I had to agree with him. The apartment windows hadn’t been opened in at least a week, and an invisible layer of dust must’ve settled over everything. I was getting the heebie–jeebies from being inside the apartment of someone who’d probably been murdered, but it was time to put on a brave face and do some serious sleuthing.

  Ian and Nanna followed me as I looked around the room.

  Janice’s apartment was similar to mine—a generic one–bedroom. The place was neat and sparsely furnished, with no decorations or knickknacks. Janice clearly hadn’t intended to live here for very long.

  The front door opened onto a tiny living–dining room, furnished only with a couch and a small TV. A small kitchenette occupied the far corner. The kitchen stove had two burners, and there was enough cabinet space to hold two plates, two bowls and two mugs. Janice must never have had company over, other than her new boyfriend, and judging from the empty pantry, she wasn’t much of a cook either.

  I opened the fridge to find a couple of beer bottles, a half–empty jar of mayo, and some deli meat that had started to go green.

  In the bedroom, there was a queen–sized bed with unmade sheets, and a nightstand next to it. An old–looking lamp stood on the nightstand, along with a small alarm clock. I opened the drawers of the nightstand and found a Kindle reader, a Starbucks gift card, a packet of tissues, and some hair accessories. The contents of her wardrobe and small bathroom were just as boring, and Ian hurriedly wiped down everything I had touched before we went back to the living room and picked the pile of mail up off the floor.

  I stared at the sealed envelopes for a few seconds. If I opened them, someone would know that Janice’s mail had been tampered with after she’d died. But perhaps the blame would fall onto her nosy neighbors.

  As though he’d read my mind, Ian said, “I could run out to the convenience store and buy some glue. Then, after you’re done reading her mail, we could glue the envelopes shut again.”

  I shook my head. “That would take a fair bit of time, and I’m not sure it’s worth it. Better that people think the neighbors have been going through her mail.”

  I divided the mail up into three piles.

  The first pile was what looked like obvious junk mail—envelopes with names of charities and lotteries on them, and the occasional letter which had been addressed to someone other than Janice.

  “Marlene Masterson must’ve lived here before Janice,” I said, handing the pile over to Nanna. “We might not learn anything from these letters, but they’re probably still worth going through.”

  “So I get the worst pile because I’m your newest member?” said Nanna.

  I shrugged. “That’s just how things are. And you never know, there might be something useful in there.”

  In the second pile, I put the letters that seemed to have come from her bank or telephone company—these were the letters that I was going to go through. Ian got a pile of letters that looked like bills, and then the three of us got to work.

  We sat in silence for what felt like hours, but was probably closer to thirty or forty minutes. Nothing unusual jumped out at any of us, until finally, when going through her latest bank statement, I found something unusual.

  “That’s odd,” I said. “There was an electronic deposit of one thousand dollars made into Janice’s bank account. It says that the sender was Irene Addison, and the description says “our secret.” I’m pretty sure this is Irene from Betta Furniture, but I should check the account number just to be safe.”

  “I didn’t find anything interesting,” said Ian. “Maybe we should head back home once we’re done with the mail, so you can run the account number through your PI database and check that it’s the same Irene.”

  “Nothing unusual here either,” said Nanna. “This wasn’t half as exciting as I’d hoped for.”

  “But if Irene really had given Janice a thousand dollars for some kind of secret, that’s pretty exciting.” I sifted through the rest of the letters, putting them neatly back into the envelopes once I was done. “We can stop back home, and if it is the same Irene, we’ll head over to Betta Furniture.”

  “This is the worst timing,” said Nanna. “Your mother will be expecting me back home within an hour. I guess I won’t be there when you guys go talk to Irene.”

  “We’re still not sure that it is Irene,” I said.

  But an hour later, I checked the account details in my database, and it turned out to be the same Irene who worked at Betta Furniture. We said goodbye to Nanna, who was going to meet up with Wes and head back home, and then Ian and I set off to talk to Irene again.

  Perhaps this time, she’d be more willing to tell us the truth about what was going on.

  Chapter Twenty–One

  Ian and I drove over to Betta Furniture, and I made sure to make a few sudden U–turns, just in case Cecilia had managed to tail us again. I didn’
t see any sign of her when we pulled into the parking lot, so I was fairly confident that we’d managed to lose her.

  There was only one customer in the store when we walked in, a thirty–something–year–old man, and John was busy showing him bedroom furniture. Emily was sitting near the back of the store, reading something on her smartphone. She looked up at us warily when we walked in, and I smiled and waved at her. She returned the wave, and when we didn’t head over in her direction, she returned to her reading.

  Irene was standing near one of the sofas at the front. Her face looked as drawn and worried as usual, and when Ian and I walked over to her, she forced her lips upwards into a polite smile.

  “You’re back,” she said, trying to sound friendly and failing.

  I nodded. “Something new came up.”

  Irene glanced at Ian. “Have we met before? You look quite familiar.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Ian.

  Irene’s eyes widened, and she snapped her fingers. “You look just like that other woman who came in with Tiffany yesterday, what’s her name? The one with the long blond hair. You’re just her height and weight, and if I put a blond wig on you, you’d be twins. She’s not your twin, is she?”

  Ian’s face began to turn red, and he started to stutter. He’s not the best liar in the world, and I could see that he was about to start explaining his predicament to Irene, so I quickly said, “Actually, they’re brother and sister.”

  I wasn’t sure why I fibbed, but I didn’t want to go into detail about Ian’s love life. Besides, I had gotten Cecilia thrown out of the store yesterday, and perhaps this lie was needed to cover the original lie. Which is another reason I hate lying: I’m not too good at it, so somehow, I find myself stepping into a complicated web that’s hard to keep track of.

  Irene nodded. “Yes, that makes sense. I knew you two had to be related somehow.”

  “Anyway,” I said, “we’re here to talk to you about Janice.”

  Irene smiled politely. “I told you everything I know about her yesterday.”

  I shook my head. “Turns out, you didn’t. You didn’t tell us that she was blackmailing you.”

  Irene didn’t bother denying it. She lowered her head and stared at the ground off to one side. “How did you guys find out?”

  “It’s not important how we found out,” I said. “What’s important is that you tell us exactly what was going on.”

  Irene nodded and met my eyes again. “When I moved to Vegas, I was having a hard time getting work. So I made up some things on my resume, and that’s how I got this job. Janice found out somehow, and she told me that she would tell Harry, and then I’d never be able to get work here again. She said it’s a small town, and all the businesspeople know each other.”

  “That’s true enough,” I said. “But you could have moved to another city. It’s not like you grew up in Vegas, is it?”

  Irene shook her head. “I’ve been trying to learn to play poker, and once a week I go to the Bellagio and play with the tourists. I’m still not very good, but I don’t want to move away from Vegas.”

  “And Janice kept your secret?”

  Irene nodded. “She found out a few weeks before she died, and I paid her a thousand dollars to keep quiet.”

  I looked at her seriously. “You know that this looks very bad for you.”

  “You really think I killed Janice because she was blackmailing me?”

  The truth was, I couldn’t imagine Irene killing anyone. She looked like the kind of person who looked left and right at least twenty times before crossing a road; she probably stressed about everything, and I couldn’t imagine her mustering up the courage to actually murder someone. Besides, a thousand dollars wasn’t so much money in the grand scheme of things.

  I said, “It doesn’t matter what I believe. I’ve got to look into everything. And unfortunately, we haven’t found anyone else who could have hated Janice enough to kill her.”

  Irene nodded and looked past my shoulder outside. I could see the wheels turning in her head, and finally she said, “There’s always Janice’s boyfriend.”

  I raised one eyebrow. “So you did know about her boyfriend.”

  Irene nodded. “He found out that I paid money to Janice, and after Janice died, he told me that if the cops or anyone investigated Janice’s death, they’d be looking at the two of us first. So we made a pact—he wouldn’t tell anyone that I was being blackmailed, and I wouldn’t tell anyone that he was dating Janice.”

  The breath left my lungs in a loud whoosh, and I shook my head. “That’s the craziest thing ever.”

  “Is it really?” Irene looked at me seriously. “I didn’t want the police investigating me, and I could understand why her boyfriend wanted the same for himself.”

  “So, who is he?”

  “You guys went to talk to the people at the bank yesterday, didn’t you? You’ve probably met him already.”

  My eyes widened. “Eric?”

  Irene looked at me, confused. “No, Brett.”

  I frowned. “I haven’t met any Brett.”

  “He works as a teller at the bank. I think he might have been working yesterday; he’s friends with Emily and Eric.”

  I nodded. “I guess that sort of makes sense, why Janice was friendly with Eric. It was because he was her boyfriend’s friend.”

  “Maybe they even went on double dates at some point,” said Ian. “And Eric was a good friend, too. He told us he didn’t know anything about Janice’s boyfriend.”

  “And Emily knew about this as well,” I said thoughtfully, letting my eyes drift over to where Emily was still sitting and reading. Our glance met for a moment, and then she looked back at her smartphone and continued reading. “Everyone’s gone to quite some effort to hide this relationship.”

  Irene shrugged. “So now, don’t you think Brett is a more suspicious person than me?”

  I looked at her contemplatively. “He’s certainly someone we need to talk to. I can see why you kept his relationship with Janice a secret, but what about Eric and Emily?”

  Irene shrugged. “I guess they were all just good friends.”

  “How did you even find out that Janice was going out with Brett? I thought the whole thing was a big secret.”

  “I ran into them at a restaurant one day,” Janice said. “It seemed like a pretty romantic place, and they were sitting by themselves and looking all lovey–dovey. When I asked them how long they’d been going out, they didn’t bother denying it.”

  “Then how did Janice get away with blackmailing you? If she wanted money, you could have just told her that in exchange for her silence about your secret, you’d say silent about her secret.”

  “Janice wasn’t too concerned about keeping her relationship a secret,” said Irene. “She said that everyone would find out ultimately. And that I shouldn’t tell anyone, but even if I did, it wouldn’t matter.”

  I nodded seriously, just as a young couple walked in through the door, obviously about to buy themselves some furniture.

  Janice’s relationship had been such a well–kept secret that I couldn’t help but hope we’d learn something unusual from Brett.

  Chapter Twenty–Two

  As we headed out of the furniture store, I glanced back at Emily, who was still sitting in the back and reading on her smartphone. For a moment, I thought of asking her about Janice’s love life, but I decided to talk to Brett first.

  Inside the bank, it looked just the same as it had yesterday. Eric was still standing by the door, and I noticed that one of the tellers had dark hair and brown eyes. There were two customers in the bank today, one at each of the tellers’ windows, and I decided to wait till Brett was free.

  Ian and I headed over to talk to Eric, who gave us a polite smile.

  “I see you’ve got a different partner today,” he said.

  He didn’t say anything about Ian looking similar to the woman I’d come in with the day before, and I decided to not say
anything about it myself. Instead, I said, “We thought we’d talk to the tellers today.”

  Eric slid his eyes toward them and then back at us. “Brett and Eva are both busy at the moment.”

  I nodded. “Actually, we only need to talk to Brett.” Eric didn’t react, so I went on. “Why didn’t you tell us that he and Janice were going out?”

  Eric didn’t look too shocked that we’d figured out their relationship. He looked at us steadily for a few seconds, and then he shrugged and said, “Brett asked me not to tell anyone.”

  “But this is kind of different, don’t you think? It’s a murder investigation.”

  “I’ve gotten used to keeping it a secret. I don’t even think about it.”

  “Why was he so insistent on keeping it a secret?” said Ian.

  “That’s just how he is,” Eric said.

  “And you didn’t think that was odd?” said Ian. “Most people like to tell other people about their relationships, unless they’re ashamed of the other person or something.”

  Eric shrugged. “I’ve been working here for six months now, so I don’t know Brett that well. I don’t know if he was ashamed of Janice or something.”

  “What exactly did he tell you about the relationship?” I said.

  We both turned to look at Brett, and he exchanged a glance with Eric. I couldn’t quite tell what that look meant, but I was sure I’d find out.

  “He hardly talked about Janice,” said Eric. “Just that they were going out, and that it was a secret. I didn’t pry.”

  I shook my head. The whole thing sounded quite odd and unbelievable. On the other hand, perhaps there were men who didn’t like to talk about their relationships with other people.

  “So did you hang out much with Brett and Janice?”

  Eric’s face was as impassive as ever. “I’ve been to dinner with the two of them a couple of times. It gets boring, living in a big city like Vegas. I’m not that interested in gambling, and I don’t have a girlfriend myself. Brett invited me to come along with him and Janice sometimes, and I’d go.”