Outside, the Vegas air had a sharp chill to it, and Anna pulled a cardigan out of her bag and wrapped it around her shoulders. We walked wordlessly in the dark, each of us seeming to be lost in our thoughts. A few moments later, I realized we were heading toward Jim’s Crowded House, the same coffee joint we’d gone to with Pete. It was appropriate, I supposed.
Once again, the place was bustling when we got there, with young twenty-somethings chatting and laughing while enjoying their late-night coffee and snacks.
The barista looked at Anna and smiled, and she smiled back. I wondered if this had been a regular date-night spot for her and Pete.
We managed to grab a tiny table at the back, and I asked Anna what she’d have. “Decaf, black,” she said. “I’d like to get some sleep when I get back home. Maybe.” She laughed humorously, as though she’d made a joke.
As Ian headed over to place our order, I asked her, “Do you have to work during the day?”
“No.” She shook her head. “This gig pays me well enough I can relax during the day.”
I smiled. “It’s hard working these late shifts. I’m a casino dealer myself.”
Anna looked at me with interest. “Really? Which casino?”
“The Treasury.”
She nodded. “No shift tonight?”
As Ian returned to our table, I said, “No. I called in a favor so that I could do my other job.”
“Which is?”
“I’m a part-time private investigator.”
“And I’m her partner!” Ian chimed in excitedly. He never missed a chance to say that, even though he wasn’t officially my partner.
“Wow.” Anastacia looked from me to Ian. “That’s quite a side gig.”
“I suppose so,” I said. I sighed, thinking of Gladys and my inability to track her down. I needed to do something about that. “Some jobs are harder than others.”
“I suppose people don’t make it easy for you.”
“No,” I said, as our orders arrived.
We sipped our coffees for a bit, and I observed Anna surreptitiously. Beyond her obvious beauty, there was something about her that hinted at intelligence, and a sense of empathy.
“So,” I said after a few moments, “do you know Harvey Gaudet?”
Anna shook her head. “Not personally. I heard of him, though. He’s the guy who got killed, right? He used to be Pete’s boss.”
I nodded. “Yes. You never met him?”
“No,” she said. “Never.”
Wow. That was a dead end, very fast. I looked at Ian and saw my disappointment reflected in his eyes.
“Are you sure you never met him?” Ian said. “Not even once?”
Anna shook her head. “Sorry, not even once.”
Ian’s eyes brightened as he had an obvious thought. “Maybe you met him but he was in disguise!”
Anna looked at him, surprised. “In disguise? What do you mean? Why would he be in disguise?”
Just as quickly as he’d brightened up, Ian deflated. “Not sure,” he mumbled.
“Maybe he wanted to avoid being found out by his wife,” I suggested, trying to cheer Ian up. “Maybe even if he wasn’t in disguise, he used a fake name when he had affairs with other women. Like lots of guys do when they pick up women for one-night stands—they use a made-up name. Maybe Harvey called himself—I dunno—Harold, for instance. But he was really Harvey.”
Ian beamed at me. “Yes, that’s exactly what I meant!”
Anna continued to look at me dubiously, so I pulled out my phone and found a photo of Harvey. “Here,” I said, passing my phone over to her. “This guy. Have you ever met him?”
Anna studied the photo for a few moments, and then passed the phone back to me with a shake of her head. “No, sorry. Not this guy. Besides, it’s not like I would accidentally have an affair—he’s my boyfriend’s boss. Or used to be, until Pete lost his job. Although, Pete thinks that maybe now that Harvey’s dead, he might get his old job back.”
She smiled at me, looking slightly hopeful. “That’d be nice,” she went on. “I’m really hoping Pete gets his life back together. He’s a great guy. He deserves a good life.”
“Umm, about that.” Ian and I exchanged a glance, and I shuffled uncomfortably in my seat. “Well. See. Pete’s… dead.”
Anna’s jaw dropped. “Are you—is this a joke?”
“No.” I reached out and tried to place a hand on her arm, but she drew it back before I could do so. “I’m afraid not. His car went up in flames and he was trapped inside.” I decided not to tell her that he was definitely murdered. She already looked like she was in shock.
“You’re not serious?” she repeated.
I nodded, and she looked to Ian for confirmation.
“It’s true,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
Her eyes welled up with tears, and she stood up suddenly, pushing her chair back. “This is too much—I need to go! Leave me alone!”
“Wait!” I stood up just as quickly. “Please, sit down,” I said, indicating her chair. “Please, don’t go.”
She hesitated a moment, and then sat down again.
I tried to keep my voice low and soothing. “I know this has to be a huge shock for you.”
She nodded, wiping a tear away.
“You need to go and talk to the police,” I said. “They’re looking for information about Pete, and you could help them. Ask for Detective Elwood.”
She nodded her head again, and I wondered if she’d remember the name. If she’d even go to the cops. It didn’t matter; I decided I’d tell Elwood myself.
“Another thing. Were you dating Roger Briars?”
She looked at me in surprise, her eyes wide. “Yes. Why?”
“Roger and Pete?”
She nodded. “I wasn’t exclusive with any of them. And me and Roger were more—one-off friends, if you know what I mean. I was going to end things with him if Pete got his life together again, which I knew he would. I mean, me and Pete could’ve been serious, could’ve gone somewhere. Roger though—a man like that doesn’t care about women. He only cares about himself.”
She sounded almost bitter when she said that last sentence.
Ian said, “If you didn’t like Roger, why were you with him?”
Anna laughed unexpectedly. “No, I didn’t dislike him. We had our tiffs now and then, but … see, sometimes I get confused. Not sure about what I want. And then a guy like Roger’s fun. But if you want something more, then Roger’s not that guy. He’s just a phase. A fun phase, but still, just a phase.”
I nodded. Her words sort of made sense, in a roundabout, convoluted kind of way.
“Right,” I said. “So that last time you met him, what happened then?”
Anna looked at me warily. “Why do you ask? You don’t seem like a pervert to me.”
“Oh no,” I said quickly. “It’s just—that’s the day Harvey’s body was found in Roger’s room. And you were the last person to see Roger before that. So I was wondering…”
I let my words trail off, and Anna seemed to relax. “Oh, okay. I understand now.”
She thought for a moment, then said, “I knew when his set was going to end, so I went straight up to his room. He’d shown me how to walk to avoid the cameras. He liked his privacy, and to be honest, so did I.”
She took a sip of her now-cold coffee and went on. “By the time I got to his room, he was already there. So we hung out a bit, and then I left.”
That matched with what Roger had told us had happened. “Did you go into Roger’s bedroom?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “We just hung out in the living room. Then I left. That’s it.”
She looked at me expectantly. “Was that all you wanted to know?”
I sighed. “I suppose so.”
Anna shrugged. “I’m not sure how that helps you.”
“You know Roger’s trying to get in touch with you?” I tried to keep from frowning at her. “Why haven’t you come forwar
d backing up Roger’s story of what happened?”
She shook her head. “I can’t.”
“Why not?”
She looked down at the table and mumbled sheepishly, “Don’t like the police.”
“I understand the sentiment, I do. But you still need to talk to them.”
Anna shook her head again. “My friend was arrested for possession when I was younger. I don’t trust the police.”
“But you could help out Roger.”
She looked into my eyes. “If I thought my story would really help him, I’d have come forward sooner. But it doesn’t give him an alibi or him, does it? All it shows is that I’ve been seeing two men at once—and like I said, I don’t trust the police. I don’t want to talk to them any more than I have to.”
I sighed deeply. I understood where Anna was coming from, but her attitude was still frustrating.
“Are you sure you didn’t know Harvey?” Ian asked again.
Anna forced her lips into a smile. “No, I didn’t. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go home. Figure some things out. I can’t believe Pete’s really dead, but that would explain why he hasn’t been answering his phone. I just can’t believe—we were meant to—”
She broke off, her eyes welling with tears.
She dabbed at them, and Ian patted her shoulder awkwardly. “There, there,” he said.
“Thanks for telling me,” she said, suddenly standing up again. She looked down at us and smiled sadly. “I hope you two find what you’re looking for.”
With that, she was gone.
Chapter 29
By the time Ian and I left the café, it was almost three in the morning. I’d made no further progress on the Harvey Gaudet case. Nor had I gotten anywhere further with talking to Gladys Hartley.
Annoyed at myself for my lack of any headway, I decided to drive straight to Gladys’s house, despite the late hour.
Gladys’s house was in a small neighborhood north of the Strip. It was mostly project homes here, and they looked relatively small and modest from the outside. The road her house was on was almost completely dark, save for the streetlights, at this hour.
It seemed that most of Gladys’s neighbors were law-abiding regular folk who liked to go to sleep at a decent hour—not stay up ‘til the early morning, like us.
Gladys’s house, like its neighbors, was pitch black.
I knocked loudly on the door – but not too loudly, in case I woke the neighbors up.
Next to me, Ian was a bundle of negativity. “She’s not going to answer even if she’s at home,” he said. “She ran away from you in broad daylight. What makes you think she’ll talk to you at this ungodly hour?”
I ignored him and knocked again. What did they say about positive thinking? “I’m sure she’ll want to talk to me,” I said. “I’m sure it’s all just a big misunderstanding.”
“She’s always running away from us,” Ian grumbled. My positive thinking had not rubbed off on him. “She ran away from us at the casino too.”
I raised my hand to knock again, but then I stopped.
This house felt different.
It was quiet, but the quiet of an empty house. Not the quiet of a house where people were asleep, but the quiet of a house where there were no people.
“She’s not here,” I said softly. “She’s at a casino.”
Ian quirked one eyebrow. “That could be. Lots of the seniors like to play the slots all night.”
“If she’s at the casino, she’ll come back,” I reasoned.
Ian let out an unhappy groan. “Do you expect me to stand out here all night? Because I’m freezing! I should’ve brought a hoodie. But I didn’t. I thought I’d be home with Snowflake by now.”
He continued making unhappy, grumbling noises, so I relented.
“Let’s wait in my car. We’ll see her when she arrives.”
Ian was slightly cheered up by that. “Okay,” he said, sliding into the passenger side seat. “As soon as we see her, we’ll pounce!”
“But in a non-threatening way,” I reminded him. “You don’t want her pulling out the pepper spray.”
“Hmm.” He tapped his chin in thought. “It’s hard to be non-threatening at this hour.”
“I’ll come up with a plan,” I said. “And if she tries to run, we won’t be polite this time. no more Miss Nice Girl.”
“Or Mister Nice Guy,” Ian added.
I nodded in confirmation.
We sat there quietly, but when no Gladys showed up, I allowed my mind to drift off and think about Harvey Gaudet and his potential killer.
Ian was clearly thinking the same thing, because after a few moments, he said, “Do you really believe Anna? That she didn’t know Harvey?”
I chewed my lower lip thoughtfully. “Hard to say. She’s got no reason to lie. I mean, she told us about Pete and Roger—why would she go out of the way to lie about Harvey?”
“Because Harvey’s dead?”
“But so is Pete,” I argued. “And Roger found a dead body.”
“She doesn’t have much luck with men.”
“Hmm. But that doesn’t mean she knew Harvey.”
“She could still be lying about that.”
“She could,” I relented. “For whatever reason, maybe she thought it best to lie about that.”
“Then what do we do?”
I thought some. “We need to come up with a way of proving it.”
“That she didn’t know Harvey?”
I nodded. “Yes. That she didn’t know him. Or that she did. Either one of those.”
We sat in silence for a bit, and then Ian said, “How do we prove it?”
“I don’t know, I admitted. “But first thing tomorrow, I’m going over to Elwood. I’m telling him about Anna.”
“You don’t think she’ll go on her own?”
I shrugged. “Grief makes people act in strange ways. She might forget. And she’s admitted she doesn’t like cops. She might just not go, even if she’s upset about Pete’s death.”
Ian nodded. “Good thinking.”
“And Elwood has more resources than we do,” I admitted. “He can run through lots of state cameras, and more. He can try to find a connection between her and Harvey.”
“If he wants to,” Ian said bitterly. “He might not try very hard. He’s pretty convinced it was Roger who killed Harvey.”
“That’s true,” I admitted. “Sometimes the cops don’t try very hard. They’ve got resources, but they’re also stretched thin. Usually, they just go for the easiest solution.”
“Hmm. Maybe we can bake some more cupcakes to motivate Elwood.”
“Maybe,” I agreed. “That might work.”
“Or it might not.”
“We’ll know in a few days. Elwood knows I’ll keep hounding him for info if I tell him about Anna.”
“And he might really not find anything out about her and Harvey.”
“Chances are high,” I said reluctantly. “I don’t think Anna was lying about not knowing Harvey.”
“Then what?” Ian said. “What does it all mean?”
I thought about that. “Greg said Pete was having an affair with Harvey’s best gal. We took it literally to mean Pete was sleeping with Joan. But Joan denied that. So we thought, maybe Harvey’s best gal was his mistress, Anna. But Anna’s not his mistress. So his best gal is still Joan.”
“So Pete was sleeping with Joan?”
“I don’t know,” I said with a sigh. “It doesn’t seem likely, does it?”
“Maybe Harvey had a different mistress,” Ian suggested.
“Maybe.” I turned the thought over in my mind. “Maybe Joan’ll let us go through his things. Or maybe she knows something.”
“Or maybe she’s lying. Maybe she actually did have an affair with Pete.”
“We need to go talk to Joan again.”
“Exactly!” Ian nodded animatedly. “She’s bound to tell us something new!”
We were silent for
a few more seconds, and then Ian said, “And what about Nadia?”
I sighed. “I don’t like her,” I admitted. “I’m sure she’s okay as a person, but she’s got far too much motive to frame Roger, and nothing to lose.”
“I agree,” Ian said. “Nadia’s got too much riding on this. If you could get a dead body for free, without killing anyone, she’d definitely use that to frame Roger.”
“But you can’t just get a dead body for free.”
“Hey!” Ian snapped his fingers. “Maybe someone else killed Harvey and maybe she somehow found the body.”
“It sounds unlikely,” I said dubiously, “But stranger things have happened.”
“What if…?” said Ian, his excitement growing. “The person who killed Harvey. The person who stashed his body in Roger’s room. The person who killed Pete. What if they’re all three different people?”
I felt a shiver go down my spine. It seemed like Ian might be onto something.
“Hang on,” Ian said, as his phone pinged. “I just got a news alert on Roger Briars.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
As Ian unlocked his phone, he explained, “Every time there’s breaking news on Roger, I get an alert. Usually, it’s nothing.” He dropped his eyes to read the headline and let out a low whistle.
“What is it?”
“There’s been an attempt on Roger’s life!”
“What? Let me see that!”
I leaned over, and Ian showed me the headline and the snippet from the news article. A man had accosted Roger after his show, as he’d been going up to his room, and physically attacked him.
“There’s a video,” Ian said, scrolling down.
He hit play, and we watched as a newscaster repeated the news, and then the screen showed footage of a man being arrested.
“Hey!” said Ian. “It’s that guy who was protesting with Nadia.”
We watched a few more seconds, as the reporter explained about Roger and Alicia, and the fact that the man had been protesting outside the casino earlier.
“He’s one of Nadia’s group,” I said softly.
Ian switched off the video. “You think Nadia set him up?”
“I’ve got no doubt about it. She’s charismatic, and she’s calling the shots. She wants Roger dead.”
Lounge Singers And Liars In Las Vegas Page 15
