Murder by Chance (Betty Chance Mystery) (2 page)

If she wasn’t cautious, an uncontrollable penchant for slot machines could easily become her next uncontrolled passion. Fun-sized candy bars quickly stopped being fun when she noticed seventeen of them in the bottom of her purse. She gave up on Extreme Couponing when she found herself driving twenty-one miles to save twenty-five cents. But gaining a few pounds due to lack of self-control, or wasting a buck and a half worth of gas to save a quarter was not comparable to what could be lost to a gambling addiction.

So far, she’d been conservative with her gambling. In order to continue working in the gaming industry, she’d have to remain that way. But then, she’d always been a cheapskate. Even with her vices. She’d rather eat a bag of M&Ms than a pound of Godiva. Betty didn’t crave fancy French restaurants or their pricey menu. The local diner featuring Mac & Cheese was just fine with her. Losing twenty bucks for an entire night of church basement bingo was her kind of entertainment, not gambling away thousands playing high stakes poker.

After the last of the passengers appeared to have disembarked, Tillie motioned toward the inside of the bus. “I’ll check to see if everyone’s off,” she said, as her short, petite, 36-year old body bounded up the steps. Inside, she lifted her zirconia bejeweled hand to her forehead and peered out toward the back of the bus. “I don’t see anyone.”

“That can’t be right,” Betty replied, waving a single booklet. The casino’s marketing department had sent her exactly forty-four Fun Books, one for each passenger. “There’s one left.”

“Then we must have a sleeper,” Tillie said, lifting up on her tiptoes and craning her neck as she looked across the high seats.

It wasn’t unusual to discover a rider snuggled into the plush seats of the rented luxury bus. The passenger would be snoring away, oblivious to the fact that the group had arrived at its destination.

Betty charged back up the steps. She too looked out across the padded headrests. She didn’t see a single soul.

She began to walk down the narrow aisle, carefully checking out the twenty-three rows of seats. Except for the odd candy bar wrapper, or tossed aside magazine, everything appeared normal. She could even smell the scent of an orange that one of her passengers had eaten earlier. It wasn’t until she and Tillie reached the end of the dark aisle, standing next to the washroom, that a different scent made her gag.

“Do you smell that?” Betty asked, as her vivid imagination began its warm-up stretches.

Tillie sniffed. “Yeah, it’s weird. Kind of like that pricey rotting cheese, covered with dollar-store perfume.”

Betty stared at the large double back seat, placed just below the tinted rear window. A lone newspaper lay spread out on a seat cushion. Even in the dark, Betty could see it was written in a foreign language. There was nothing else. No containers were left unopened, or rancid liquid spilled on the seat. Across the aisle from the seat, was the washroom. It was a room so small, unless it was urgent, most passengers refused to enter it.

She glanced at the room’s closed metal door, and noticed the occupied sign was lit. Her eyes continued downward until saw a small puddle of liquid that had seeped out from underneath the door. The color was golden with a rose tint. The watery substance had a fluorescent glow.

Betty and Tillie exchanged nervous looks.

“Hello?” she said, tapping loudly, hoping an aged client would open the door. Or at least give an irritated “Occupied!”

When there was no response, she pounded on the door.

“Hello, anyone in there?” she yelled. Again, she waited for a response. None came.

She jiggled the knob. The door was locked.

“This isn’t good,” Betty said and pointed to the locked key box, located on the side of the door. A spare key to the restroom was hidden inside. “Tillie, will you open it?”

Tillie nodded and, stepping around the wet carpet, punched in the combination to the lock. The key box door slid open. She reached inside and grabbed the thin brass key.

Betty thought it ironic that earlier in the day she’d told Tillie a potential problem in traveling with seniors is that, at any moment, any one of them could die suddenly. Though it hadn’t happened to her yet, a few months ago a senior citizen had died of a sudden heart failure while traveling with Tours by Tina. Not only did a human life end, Tina’s ridership declined by thirty percent for the following year.

Now, it looked to her as if her small talk to Tillie was nothing less than a premonition.

Tillie slid the key into the restroom door keyhole. The latch clicked and she opened the door. A silver box catapulted toward her, its thick pink liquid content splashing over her face and torso. “What the …?” she gasped and instinctively shut the door.

A toilet paper roll careened down the aisle.

Tillie touched the goop on her face with her fingers. She slowly drew her fingertips to her nose. “It’s soap!” she announced. “Look, the liquid soap container was ripped off the wall.”

“Open the door again,” Betty commanded, gearing herself for whatever was lurking in the tiny room. A scenario of possibilities raced through her mind. Someone could have suffered a fatal cardiac attack. Or perhaps they were still alive, but too sick to unlock the door. Or maybe the person inside committed suicide because they realized that Take A Chance’s destination—a casino—was the last place they needed to be.

Tillie slowly reopened the door, inch by inch, blocking Betty’s view with her arms. The driver’s shoulders slumped downward before she muttered, “My god!”

“What?” Betty demanded.

Tillie swallowed hard. “Remember how you said you worried about your seniors dying suddenly from natural causes?”

“Yes?” Betty replied in a small voice.

Tillie used her thumb to gesture toward the interior of the restroom. She said, “I can assure you … this ain’t natural.”

Betty squeezed herself around the metal door and stepped in front of Tillie.

An enormous male outfitted in a jogging suit filled the cubicle. His three hundred and fifty pound body was slumped face-first against the outside wall of the bus. The grey velour clothing covering his massive rump, thighs and back gave the appearance of an overstuffed chair crammed into the tiny space.

Tillie was right about one thing. There was nothing natural about this man’s death. Not with a butcher knife buried in his back.

Betty stood next to the parked tour bus. She closed here eyes hard, squeezed for a hopeful moment, and then snapped them open.
Damn! She wasn’t having a nightmare
.
This was real
.

She shivered in the frigid air, buttoned up her jacket and turned her collar up around her neck. She rubbed her hands together for warmth and noticed her breath was forming little clouds of frost. She watched as the paramedics pushed the gurney toward the ambulance. The EMTs weren’t bothering with IV’s. She’d overheard an officer tell them the moment they arrived the body was ready to be bagged and tagged.

“I can’t believe this, Tillie, ” Betty said, burrowing her hands deep into her jacket. It was the fifteenth tour the two women had worked together. By the seventh trip they had become close friends.

“I can’t believe
him
,” Tillie said, pointing to the law enforcement officer that stepped out of their tour bus. “He kind of looks like the sheriff in that cartoon flick, if the sheriff was sexy, that is.”

“
Toy Story?
” Betty asked.

Tillie nodded, her eyes remaining fixed on the officer.

Betty agreed that the short, muscular man bore a striking resemblance to the animated character of Sheriff Woody. His wavy reddish brown hair flopped around on his head in the strong wind. His eyes were small brown pupils surrounded by a sea of white. His face was long and his prominent chin square and strong. His skin was as pale as sweet cream.

“You think a man who looks like a cartoon is sexy?” Betty asked.

“I think all men are sexy, animated or not,” Tillie responded. “How old do you think he is?”

“It’s hard to say. Could be like Dick Clark was and look twenty years younger than he actually is,” Betty responded.

“Well, then he’s got to be thirty-four because he looks fourteen to me.” Tillie said. But before wrapping her arms tighter around her body, she unzipped her jacket to reveal a bit of cleavage.

Betty applied the brakes: “Oh no, you don’t Tillie. This is not the time to flirt. Not only could it hurt our business, it might hurt the investigation. The sheriff has to have his eyes on the crime, not your spectacular boobs.”

Reluctantly, Tillie zipped back up.

The Sheriff stomped over. He said crisply, “I’m Sheriff Severson. Let’s go inside to talk, ladies.” He pointed toward the building and abruptly walked toward it.

His dismissive attitude didn’t bother Betty. She understood policemen. Not only had she spent decades being married to one, she’d been born into a family of Chicago cops. Homicide investigations were as familiar to her as cookies at Christmas.

Betty and Tillie followed the sheriff inside. As they entered the lavish hotel lobby, squeals of joy and moans of disappointment escaped from the casino floor. Even at one thirty in the morning with death at its door, Moose Bay was a maze of people racing to find their fortune.

Betty noticed Mrs. Kotval waiting patiently on one of the overstuffed, burgundy leather sofas. Tall ferns and a brass coffee table enveloped her. The Beatles
We All Live in a Yellow Submarine
was being projected softly overhead. Mrs. Kotval’s white Velcro strapped sneakers tapped reflexively on the travertine marble floor to the beat of the music.

“Sheriff, will you excuse me for just one minute?” Betty asked, beelining to her client before he could answer.

She placed her arm gently on the woman’s shoulder. “I assumed the hotel staff had taken care of you, Mrs. Kotval. I was sure you had your room key by now.”

“Oh, I do, dear. It’s true I was tired earlier, but now I don’t want to go to bed. I want to see what’s going on with the...” and then Mrs. Kotval whispered “murder.” She beamed. “I feel like Angela Lansbury! Did you know
Murder She Wrote
is one of my favorite TV shows?”

Betty pursed her lips. It seemed pointless to mention that a real murder was hardly comparable to a fictional one. Anyway, her client seemed to be in a jolly good mood about the whole thing and she didn’t want to spoil it. Take A Chance Tours had at least one satisfied customer.

In fact, Betty wished she could take the murder as lightly as Mrs. Kotval did. But she’d seen too many murder investigations gone wrong where innocent people ended up on death row. It made her anxious. The fact that the investigation was being led by what looked like a man-child didn’t make her any less so.

“Okey-doke, have a good night,” Betty said before following Severson and Tillie to a small conference room. Two other local policemen were already inside the room. The door shut behind them. For the first time, Betty was away from the noise of ambulance sirens and screeching patrol cars. The sheriff motioned for Betty and Tillie to sit at the large oak table.

As she slid into her chair, the thought crossed Betty’s mind that her tour company was DOA, just like the bus victim. Bad publicity would mean fewer riders. Casinos might decline to work with her. Take A Chance Tours would have to shut its doors.

The sheriff removed his fur-lined bomber jacket and hung it on the back of a chair. As he did, Betty noticed the pint-sized sheriff’s massive biceps. They looked like they would burst through his khaki sleeves at any moment. In her experience, there were two kinds of cops. The ones who treated their bodies like they were a weapon for survival that need to be fine-tuned at all times. And the others who thought their bodies were nothing more than oversized dumpsters for junk food.

Tillie poked Betty in the side and whispered, “His shirt is tighter than mine!” She sighed. “He’s not a toy sheriff. He’s a boy toy sheriff.”

Severson turned around. “Did you say something to me?”

Tillie shook her head. “Nope, just girl talk.”

The sheriff gave her a stern look and said, “I don’t think this is a time for chitchat.” He walked to the head of the table and sat down.

“We understand, Sheriff,” Betty responded gently. She leaned forward as if to share a confidence: “I was married to a police lieutenant for twenty-seven years.”

In the past, when Betty identified herself as a policeman’s wife, it usually worked to her advantage. Only three weeks earlier, a smile and a mention of her son Codey was rewarded with a warning instead of a four hundred dollar speeding ticket.

Severson’s shoulders stiffened and his eyes turned into stone-cold versions of
I give a crap about that, because
?

Betty slumped back into her chair.

“I’ll need to speak with each of your passengers,” he said.

Betty remarked quietly, “It’s so late, Sheriff. Can you possibly do it in the morning? Most of my clients are senior citizens. Mr. Farsi was actually one of our youngest riders.”

“The victim?” he asked.

Betty nodded.

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much, unfortunately,” Betty reached down and picked up the leather tote bag she carried. Inside was a trip list of the passengers’ names, gambling and hotel preferences, a short bio and emergency numbers. It was the same information she’d faxed to the casino the day before their arrival. “This was Farsi’s first time traveling with Take A Chance.”

Severson leaned back in his chair, clasping his hands around his head, his biceps were tight against his shirtsleeves, as if he were the Incredible Hulk on the verge of exploding out of his clothes.

Tillie gasped as Betty stepped lightly on her foot underneath the table to stop her. Betty meant for the tap to be a warning to behave. Betty knew the last time Tillie got close to a set of biceps like that she behaved so outrageously flirtatious, she was almost arrested for solicitation.

Severson continued. “Do you know why he chose your company?”

Betty answered, “Because we’re the best?”

She laughed. Severson didn’t.

Betty cleared her throat. “I’m not sure. This particular junket is The Boomer Blast but it’s open to anyone, of any age. We advertise it in senior magazines, on our website, and a few oldies-but-goodies radio stations in the Chicago area.”

“The group you’re hosting isn’t a specific organization or club?” Severson asked.

“Not this time,” she responded.

“Was Farsi traveling with anyone?”

“I don’t think so, but I’m not sure. It was the first day of the tour so I hadn’t gotten to know the new passengers very well.” She added proudly, “I try to eat at least one meal with each new client or at least gamble next to them.”

The sheriff stared at her for a moment. “So, you’re a gambler?” The sound of his voice suggested the adjective “degenerate” should be tossed in as well.

“
Buffet Betty
a gambler?” A voice interrupted from behind. Tom Songbird, head of casino security, stood in the doorway, a lopsided grin on his already craggy face. “Why, she drops thousands every time she visits,” he jested.

Betty turned around and smiled—probably more than she should, considering the circumstances. In his mid-thirties, Tom referred to himself as lean but never mean. Right now he seemed as friendly as ever and to her that was a good sign, especially since she managed to deliver a stiff to the tribe’s doorstep.

She looked at the sheriff and explained, “The thousands he’s talking about are thousands of pennies. Tom likes to tease me because I’m too much of a coward to be a high-roller.”

“But she’s brave enough to be a terrific low-roller!” Tom laughed.

“Buffet Betty? Is that your nickname?” Severson inquired, not to be sidetracked.

“My pen name,” Betty clarified. “I write a little online blog about casino buffets.”

“It’s hardly little,” Songbird contradicted. “Buffet Betty’s Blog is famous. I’m sure she gets tens of thousands of hits every day.”

Betty agreed. “Oh, I do. In fact, blogging is what led me to the casino tour industry. I wrote about casino buffets for years. Just for fun. Eventually, my blog became popular. When I realized I needed more income after my divorce, I decided to …”

“…do what she loved and the money would follow,” Tillie interrupted. “She’s told me that story a dozen times since I’ve known her. Of course, if I did what I love doing for money, you’d have to arrest me, Sheriff.” Tillie shot the sheriff a wickedly flirtatious smile.

Severson didn’t laugh. Nor did he seem amused. He didn’t seem to be anything but granite. Betty thought if he played poker wearing that face, no one could beat him. His expression didn’t provide a clue as to what he was thinking.

Maybe the Sheriff isn’t such a young fool after all
, she thought.

Sheriff Severson turned to Tom. “You have anything for me?”

“I called my friend in the FBI.” Tom answered. “He can’t locate any information on an Alexander Farsi,” He turned to Betty. “The emergency contact number Farsi had given you was a pre-paid cell phone. There’s no way to trace the owner. And the company Farsi supposedly worked for? The one he listed on his form? No such company, at least not one the FBI can find.”

The sheriff gave Betty a quick look of total disbelief and demanded, “Don’t tell me that Take A Chance doesn’t check the backgrounds of their riders? Or their ID’s?”

Betty squared her shoulders, preparing herself for a fight if need be. “There’s no reason to check. We’re not traveling out of the country. Each client pays for the trip weeks ahead of time, using a credit card, check, or sometimes cash. We’ve never had a problem.”

“Not having a problem is no excuse for not preparing one,” Severson lectured. “Any one in transportation has to be extra cautious these days. Remember 911?” he asked condescendingly.

Betty tightened. Of course she remembered 9/11. But she also remembered a little thing called constitutional rights. She didn’t think it was possible, but the sheriff made her feel even more uncomfortable. She’d heard stories about getting on the wrong side of the good old boys up north. There was no telling what could happen to her, Tillie, or even her passengers if any of them did. She nodded like a good student.

The sheriff seemed satisfied. He asked, “How did Farsi pay for his trip? Did he use cash? Credit card?”

Betty answered honestly, “I don’t know.”

“Then find out, please,” his tone betraying his growing impatience. “If he used a credit card or a check, I want the account number.”

“I’ll have that information for you ASAP,” Betty replied, trying to sound cooperative—and professional. “I’ll call my niece and business partner Lori in the morning. She handles the company’s finances.”

Severson gave a slight roll of the eyes as he turned his attention to Tillie and asked, “You didn’t see anything suspicious happening at the back of the bus from your rearview mirror?”

Tillie shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “I didn’t see anything at all.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t notice Farsi going into the toilet? He was kind of hard to miss,” the sheriff said. “He must have taken up the entire aisle.”

Tillie chuckled thinking he had made a joke.

He hadn’t.

“It was dark,” she answered nervously. “Sometimes, I can see the outlines of bodies moving about, but that’s about it.”