by Leslie Wolfe
She stepped out of the shower stall, letting water drip from her body onto the thick carpet before she patted herself dry with a soft towel. She blow-dried her hair while running a brush through every long, blonde strand, making sure it shined and crackled and settled into perfect waves around her face.
It wasn’t the time for stage makeup; just a tiny touch was enough, a little foundation, a bit of blush, and discreet, pink, lip gloss. They weren’t going out that night. As they usually did on her nights off, they stayed in, savoring each other, spending precious time away from the prying eyes of everyone out there.
For the final touch, she opened a vanity drawer and extracted a small cosmetics jar. The container didn’t have a label, but she knew quite well what was in there, not something you’d find in a store: a custom-made mix of concentrated hashish extract and an edible, slightly fruit-flavored gel. She dipped two fingers into the gel and applied some to her nipples, then to her neck and lower abdomen. She checked her reflection in the mirror one last time. Satisfied with the sight of the gorgeous, naked beauty looking back at her, she grabbed a purple, silk gown and wrapped it around her body, tying the wide sateen sash with a bow.
She went back into the living room, feeling the same chill at the mere sight of Crystal’s bedroom door. With pleading eyes, she looked at the clock on the wall. It was ten past eleven.
“Please, don’t be late tonight,” she whispered, as she sat in an armchair by the window, looking outside restlessly.
A few minutes later, the familiar shape of the black BMW coupe with deeply tinted windows appeared and stopped at the curb.
Paul was here. Everything was going to be just fine.
Relieved, she let a long breath of air escape her lungs and rushed to open the door.
15
Profile
After spending the night on the downstairs sofa, I left Anne sleeping soundly in the master bedroom and snuck out of the house with the light of dawn. I’d spent a restless night, tossing and turning, trying to make sense of the little information I had. At about five-thirty in the morning my eyes popped wide open and the notion of sleep seemed like an impossible endeavor. It made more sense to get an early start to my day.
First thing I did was request a squad car in front of my house, in the odd case that Anne was still a target. When I pulled out of the garage, I saw Holt’s unmarked Interceptor SUV across the street a few numbers down but pretended I didn’t, unwilling to start an argument, especially with the squad car already there.
I made my first stop at Starbucks, where I bought everyone’s favorite form of liquid life support in a venti size: a black coffee for Holt, a Frappuccino with lots of whipped cream and everything on it for Fletcher, and a green tea for me. While I stopped for coffee, Holt had the time to get to the office before I did, so he could pretend he didn’t spend the night on an unnecessary protection detail.
I parked my white Toyota in a visitor spot at the precinct, took the beverages upstairs and didn’t stop until I set them on Fletcher’s desk. As expected, Holt was already there, wearing yesterday’s shirt and a tired smile. My heart swelled a little, but I hid it behind a frown and feigned ignorance like a pro.
“Hey, what happened to you? An adventurous night?”
He shook his head slowly, only once, wondering if I was for real or something. I couldn’t help it; I burst into laughter.
“What’s with the girl drink?” he asked, pointing at the Frappuccino as I handed it to Fletcher.
The young tech rubbed the sleep from his eyes and the shirt he wore could’ve served as his pajama top the night before; I wasn’t entirely sure he’d changed after getting out of bed.
“Excuse me?” Fletch reacted, stifling a yawn. “This ain’t a girl drink, and even if it were, so what? It’s awesome. It’ll wake me up and that takes a miracle.”
Holt smiled but didn’t reply; it was his turn to swallow a yawn, a long one.
“Want some?” Fletcher offered, pushing his venti cup toward me.
“No, thanks,” I replied, thinking I’d probably have to give up dinner to make up for such an indulgence.
“Wait ’til you see what I got,” he said playfully. “You’ll be sorry you didn’t take me up on that sugar rush.”
“Did you find him?” I asked, referring to the mysterious man who, by several witness accounts, had interacted with Crystal minutes before her death.
“Did I find him on the video? Yes,” Fletcher replied pedantically, stopping long enough to suck some caramel-coated whipped cream through the thick, colorful straw. “Did I find out who he is? Not yet.”
He put up the surveillance video on one of his wide monitors. It was already cued to the right spot. Mr. Cline, the witness who’d stated the man had approached Crystal at about three in the morning had been unusually accurate for a witness. The time code read 03:04:17 when the unknown man entered the view of the camera.
I held my breath.
The silent video was showing both of them from their sides, at a distance, and only the profile of the man was visible, not a frontal view of his face. The camera, installed on a nearby wall, was to Crystal’s right as she faced the stranger, and all we could see was the left profile of his face. And yet he seemed familiar somehow.
Their interaction was brimming with intense emotion. I let the recording run uninterrupted at full speed, taking in all that emotion conveyed clearly through their body language. I watched him approach the elevated stage, as the girl recognized him and came closer to the edge of the stage, hesitant, worried. He shoved what could’ve been a casino chip between her breasts with a forceful, angry gesture of his hand. She didn’t react; she seemed petrified, stunned. He grabbed the thin strap of her bra and pulled her down closer to him, his face now mere inches away from hers. He said something to her while she looked at him with eyes rounded in fear and a slacked jaw. She put both her hands on his forearm, pushing him away, but he didn’t budge. After saying what he had to say, he let go of her and left, walking quickly out of the frame.
The entire interaction had lasted fifty-five seconds.
“Were you able to run facial recognition against this?” Holt asked.
“Not enough markers in this view,” Fletcher replied. “But I believe I have an idea about learning what he said, that we couldn’t hear. There’s a new girl in Human Resources, she just started a few months ago. She’s deaf; I wonder if she could lip-read what this guy says.”
“From the side?” Holt reacted. “I doubt it, but sure, why not give it a try? See what she says. But we need him identified, Fletch. His mug must be on video somewhere else. Let’s request the rest of the video surveillance, the entire floor, the lobby, the exits.”
“You got it,” Fletcher replied, typing quickly with his long fingers.
“Okay, now go back to where he first approaches the girl and play it in slow motion,” I asked.
Fletcher executed.
I watched again the expression on Crystal’s face as it changed from the jaded smile she wore while she was dancing to the incontestable fear when she recognized the approaching man. As he spoke, that fear intensified, and, at some point, she looked around to see if anyone would help her. No one did.
“Freeze frame,” I asked, and the video paused. “Let’s see who else was there. Here’s Farley, who sees the man grabbing her but doesn’t intervene.” I pushed play and watched the rest of the interaction again, this time focusing on the players at the blackjack tables. “These guys, they don’t seem to notice, but the woman, she’s watching the whole thing with amusement,” I said, almost touching the LED screen next to the woman’s entertained smile and raised eyebrow.
“She didn’t intervene though,” Holt said.
“Let’s face it, guys,” Fletcher said, “there’s no real reason to interfere. He didn’t hit her; he gave her a tip, right?”
“Yes, the chip we didn’t find,” I said. “Let’s rewind and watch again, in slow motion, and watch for that chip
. See if you can catch a frame where you can zoom in.”
The recording was dark and the many club lights made it difficult to distinguish details about anything in the video, but Fletcher managed to catch a particular frame where the chip was visible, held between the man’s right thumb and index finger.
“Magnify that, will you?” Holt asked impatiently.
“Hold your caffeine-fueled horses, it doesn’t work like that. I have to augment it, apply some filters, otherwise all you’ll see will be a blur of pixels.”
He worked quickly and with every click of the mouse, the image became a little clearer. Holt and I approached the screen until we could see each grain in the enhanced image.
“That’s as good as it gets,” Fletcher announced.
The remaining blurriness made it difficult, but I could distinguish a white and purple chip bearing the insignia of the Scala Hotel and Casino. The value of the chip was hidden by the man’s thumb, but we could easily determine that; every casino had its own color scheme for each chip denomination, and all we had to do was ask what value the white and purple ones were.
“Okay, so that chip was gone by the time we got there,” I said for Fletcher’s benefit, although my guess was he already knew. “Let’s find it.”
He played the video at an accelerated speed, and we watched Crystal resume dancing immediately after the man walked away. The only sign of distress she’d shown was to run her hand over her forehead and hesitate a little, looking around. Then Farley looked at her and she immediately grabbed the pole and let herself bend backward until her long hair touched the floor.
“Then nothing happens until here,” Fletcher announced, “when I think she started to feel sick.”
I watched the video with a strange feeling of powerlessness, as if I somehow could’ve rushed and saved Crystal’s life, forgetting for a moment she was already dead. The time code showed 04:09:24 when she slowed her dance and tripped but managed to grab on to the pole and stand on her feet. She looked around, probably for Farley, but he wasn’t in the frame, so we couldn’t be sure where he was. It was just my assumption; that’s what I’d do if I were sick while working, while dancing on a stage: I’d ask someone for help.
Seconds passed, and she continued to dance, moving slower and slower, out of rhythm, but that too was an assumption, because the video didn’t carry any sound. She slipped to the floor, letting herself slide against the pole in a clumsy manner, and holding on to it for as long as she could. When she let go, her head bounced as it landed on her extended right arm, and her hair settled around her like an ethereal veil.
The time code read, 04:12:07, marking the exact moment of Crystal Tillman’s death.
“There it is,” Holt said, pointing at the screen excitedly. “Rewind a little and play it slow, okay?”
Fletcher obliged and played frame by frame the seconds before she died. As her body hit the ground, the chip dropped out of her bra and rolled onto the stage. It fell off onto the floor and disappeared from view.
“The damn thing might still be on that floor somewhere,” I said, while Holt grabbed his car keys.
“You better hurry, guys,” Fletcher said, “they’re about to release the crime scene.”
16
The Chip
We rushed all the way to the Scala, eager to get our hands on the missing gambling chip that could still carry the mysterious man’s fingerprints and DNA. It was a stretch, I knew that, considering Crystal had danced for a while with it tucked inside her bra, but we still needed to find that piece of critical evidence.
While Holt drove us there, going at least twenty miles over the speed limit, I called the crime scene techs and found out the scene hadn’t been released yet, but they’d finished collecting evidence and they were about to sign off on the release, under the continuous pressure coming from the hotel’s pushy legal department. Unfortunately, no white and purple chip had been found, and they usually did a thorough job combing through a crime scene.
Holt parked right in front of the main hotel entrance and left his flashers on. We rushed all the way upstairs to the high-limit gambling room, afraid we’d see it already swarming with staff and patrons; it wouldn’t’ve been the first time a powerful, connected organization like the Scala cut a few corners and didn’t wait for the official release. Instead, we found the wide doors closed, and a hotel security employee standing in front of them with his arms crossed at his chest. The uniformed officer who should’ve been guarding the crime scene was slouched comfortably on a nearby red, plush settee, texting away on his phone, completely unaware of our presence.
I glanced quickly toward Holt, but he was already standing in front of the officer. His furrowed brow wasn’t predicting a friendly conversation. He slid his badge between the officer’s eyes and his phone, startling the young man.
“Officer Jarvis, is that correct?” Holt asked, reading the man’s nametag.
The uni jumped to his feet, visibly flustered. “Y—yes, sir.”
“Where’s the police line and the seal that were supposed to block access to the crime scene?”
“Um, an official removed them,” he replied, avoiding Holt’s inquisitive glance like the plague.
“A police official?” he asked calmly.
“Um, no, sir, a casino official.”
“Since when do we allow civilians unrestricted access to active crime scenes?”
Officer Jarvis shifted his weight from one foot to the other, nervous. “Nobody’s got access, sir, the room is locked.”
Holt nodded a little sideways. “Good. Now let’s have the key, please,” he asked, extending his hand.
“I don’t have it, sir, the, uh, official has it.”
“What the hell, Jarvis? You’re going on report. You’ve handed over the control of an active crime scene on a damn silver platter.”
“They said they can’t have crime scene tape and stuff in plain sight to scare their clients away. I had no choice.” His pitch was higher, conveying his frustration mixed with anxiety over having screwed up at his new job.
“How about calling a supervisor? Did you think of that?”
“I did, sir, I called him,” Jarvis replied, red as a beet. “He said it was okay, as long as those doors stayed locked.”
I almost felt sorry for him; I’d been just as young once, although I liked to think I’d demonstrated more street smarts than Jarvis. But whatever trace of compassion I had for the inexperienced Officer Jarvis would immediately vanish if we failed to find the missing casino chip.
A familiar figure appeared at a brisk pace from around the corner and headed straight for us. Joe Deason, the casino security manager, had been hailed by the guard he’d posted at the door. I was willing to bet the intimidating, never-smiling man was the official who’d talked his way out of the crime scene tape and seal being displayed at the door.
“We need to go inside, Mr. Deason,” Holt announced in an uncompromising tone.
Deason took out a key from his pocket and unlocked the doors, then hit some light switches and flooded the room with bright white service lights. A faint smell of deodorizer and cigar smoke still lingered in the air, but at least that air was breathable without much effort, unlike the day before.
We rushed to the stage where Crystal had performed her last dance and turned on the flashlights, scanning the floor for that chip.
“May I ask what you’re looking for?” Deason probed, seemingly a little concerned, uneasy.
“We’ll know when we find it,” Holt replied dryly, without even looking at the man.
I kneeled on the plush carpet and shone the flashlight beam in all directions, but still nothing. Then I had an idea.
I got up on my feet and searched for the camera whose feed we’d been reviewing earlier on Fletcher’s monitors. It was on a wall behind us, about seven feet up from the floor. I positioned myself right underneath the camera, making sure what I saw now had the same vantage point as the recording, with the exceptio
n of height. Immediately, I could visualize where Crystal’s body had fallen on the stage, and where the chip had rolled off and disappeared.
“It should be under those table legs,” I said, pointing at the two blackjack tables on the right.
The tables around the stage were relatively close to one another, their legs only a few feet apart. The carved legs were thick, at least five by five inches, and seemed firmly set on the thick carpet, apparently leaving no room for anything to slide underneath.
“Are these tables riveted to the floor?” Holt asked, crouched down, trying to look under the thick table legs and not seeing much.
“No, they’re on recessed casters,” Deason replied. “I’ll get someone to move them if you’d like.”
I glared at him. Really? He couldn’t be bothered to push over a table on casters? Good thing Holt and I could.
Before I could offer a hand, Holt had easily pushed the first one out of the way by himself. The casters supported the legs leaving a one-inch clearance between the floor and the wood, nearly invisible in the dim light and against the thick, dark carpet. There was nothing trapped under the legs of the first table, except for some dirt the vacuum cleaners couldn’t get to.
Holt pushed the second table in the opposite direction from where the chip would’ve rolled under the leg.
“Jackpot,” he said, when he saw the small, purple-and-white plastic disc. He slid a glove on and picked it up carefully, then whistled in surprise and showed it to me.
“Jackpot indeed,” I said, stunned.
The chip had a face value of five hundred thousand dollars. I didn’t even know they made them that large.
I looked at Deason, whose anxiety had picked up a notch or two.
“Anything you could tell me about this chip, Mr. Deason?” I asked, firing nothing but a shot in the dark.
