Red Roses in Las Vegas (17 page)

I’d left Michelle until the end because, honestly, I was a little scared of the man who answered her phone, and I didn’t look forward to dealing with the woman who was his boss. But I knew it was something I’d have to face.

Michelle and her girlfriends ignored me completely when I approached them and stood on the periphery of their circle. They were like the mean girls in high school, but meaner and prettier - thanks to all the plastic surgeons and high-end dermatologists they now had at their disposal. Michelle had probably been a cute brunette back in high school, but now she was a glamorous bottle-blonde, her naturally bronzed coloring and light brown eyes at slight odds with the golden blonde her hairstylist had created. Her pink dress set off both her flawless skin and her beautiful hair, and its low cut emphasized her shoulder-blades which jutted out at hard angles.

I was standing to Michelle’s left, and a tall woman with jet black hair pulled into a low, stylish ponytail took a step to her right, so that she was blocking me completely. I thought briefly about pulling her ponytail; would she still ignore me then?

I interlocked my fingers and coughed. Nothing.

So I said, really loudly, “Hi! Michelle Ackermann, right?”

The women turned to stare at me icily. I smiled at the brunette who’d been standing in front of me, and pressed her right shoulder gently. She flinched, as though my hands were made of ice, and stepped to the left. Her expression said that she expected better at these parties.

“Who’re you?” Michelle said.

I knew there would be no pretense with this woman, no way to sugar-coat things. So I said, “I’d like to talk to you about Adam Bitzer. In private.”

The brunette rolled her eyes, and the other girls glanced at each other with supercilious faces.

Michelle sniffed. “I don’t know any Adam Bitzer. You have me mistaken with someone else.”

“I don’t think so. Can you we talk in private, please?” She hesitated, and I said slowly, “Unless you’d rather have the conversation here.”

Something in her eyes flickered, and she said, “I still don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I’d rather not bore my friends with it.” She turned to her friends and sighed. “Sorry, girls. I need to find out what this
woman
,” she paused and gave me a dirty look, “is going on about.”

Her friends rolled their eyes and smirked at each other, and I trailed off after Michelle as she stalked toward a private-looking cluster of bamboo. I was pretty sure that bamboo didn’t belong in a rainforest.

She turned to face me when we were alone, crossed her arms, and raised one eyebrow.

I waited for her to say something first, but after a few seconds, I realized that she’d never cave in first. I wondered if she perhaps played poker with MI6 agents in her spare time.

“What was going on?” I said.

“About what?”

“Let’s try something different,” I said. “See all these people here?” I gestured behind me. “How do you know them?”

Michelle shrugged. “They’re friends. People I know through parties like this and friends of friends and stuff.”

“But how many of these people do you really know?” She looked at me blankly. “For instance, do you know Rachel Nge?”

“Yeah, sure. She married Wesley Howards.”

“Right. How about Alexia Boyle?”

Michelle raised one eyebrow in supercilious amusement. “Alexia doesn’t exactly hang out with us anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

She shrugged. “Got divorced. Broke some pre-nup clause, it got ugly. I heard she moved out of the house and had to get, like, a studio apartment or something. She’s probably looking for a job, too. Poor girl.” She let a flicker of sympathy soften her features for a second. “Who knows how she’s doing now.”

“Didn’t she – doesn’t she have any old friends here?”

“No, she wasn’t like us.” Michelle’s features hardened again. “She met David – her ex – when she was waitressing or something. She never really got along with us.”

“Really.” I wondered who
did
get along with Michelle. “How do you know all this about her divorce?”

Michelle checked her perfect, lady-like manicure. “I like to keep in touch with people. Know what they’re up to.”

Right. She was just the type to use any information she got, or gossip she overheard, to her advantage.

“Alexia never had any money of her own,” Michelle went on, seemingly happy at the chance to enlighten a neophyte. “You can’t make it in this crowd if you’ve got no money of your own. Not for long, anyway.”

She gave me a pointed look and I tried not to flinch. This woman was wasting her talents here; she was born to be a dictator of some medieval nation, the kind who sat on gold and platinum thrones and ordered the nobles not to fraternize with the stable-hands.

I glanced behind me and noticed Jack staring at us. He raised his glass toward me in a mock-toast, and I smiled and turned back to Michelle.

“Jack Weber?” she said. “Didn’t I see you two together?”

“Yeah.”

She smiled. “Are you having a nice time?”

I looked away, unable to bear to look at those piercing brown eyes anymore.

“Listen,” I said, suddenly impatient to get away from her. “Why were you paying Adam Bitzer $2,500 a month?”

She smiled, smooth and confident. “Who says I was paying him money?”

“I have his bank statements, Michelle. There are transfers coming in every month from your bank.”

She stared at me long enough to be sure that I knew what I was talking about. “Ok,” she said finally. “What did you want to know again?”

“Why?”

Again, the eyebrow raise. Was it just my imagination, or was she starting to look a little less sure of herself? She said, “Why what?”

“Why were you paying him that much money? Every month?”

She looked at me for a beat, the confident smile never leaving her lips. “It was a charity thing. Adam was giving money to…” She looked to her left, thinking hard for a minute. “Right. Rwandan street children. Giving them a better life.”

“Was it Rwandan street children?” I asked. “Or Rwandan school children?”

She shrugged. “Some children thing.”

“And you’re sure it was in Rwanda? Not Ethiopia?”

She rolled her eyes. “Look, I don’t know what difference it makes. I don’t really remember. It was a while back. And if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go back t–”

“Where were you?”

“Huh?”

“Where were you, Friday night at midnight?”

“What is this, some kind of interrogation?”

“I’m an investigator. Looking into Adam Bitzer’s death.”

“Really. Do you have your badge on you?”

“I’m a private investigator,” I said stiffly.

“Great, then. I don’t have to answer your questions.”

She had half-turned around and was about to walk away, when I said, “Wait. You don’t have to answer me, but this is still an open investigation. You want to behave suspiciously, I’m happy to tell the cops all about it.”

“Sweetheart, the cops never bother people like me.”

She looked at me, her brown eyes wide and honest, and she smiled. I felt my heart sinking, lower and lower, and I tried not to let it show on my face.

“I know you had nothing to do with Adam’s death,” I said. “Why not just tell me where you were? It’ll save the cops some time.”

She turned back to face me again, and shifted her weight to one foot. “Who hired you?”

“What?”

“Who cares how Adam died? Who’s paying you?”

I took a deep breath. “Nobody’s paying me. My nanna’s the chief suspect.”

She laughed shortly and then stopped when she saw my face. “Oh my god, you’re serious.” She considered me for a second and said, “Well, it’s still kinda funny. Tough luck for your nanna, though.” She glanced back at Jack and said, “I wonder if Jack wants to date someone with a criminal’s genes in them.”

“Nanna didn’t do it,” I said.

“Sure.”

I sighed. “Did you know anyone who hated Adam? Anyone who might’ve wanted to kill him?”

She smiled, but her eyes looked cold and cynical. “I can’t help you.”

“I think you can. Where were you on Friday night?” She snorted and was about to walk away, and I said, “At least tell me that, then I can stop bothering you. Otherwise, you can bet that I’ll be sticking to you all night. Your friends’ll wonder what’s happening.”

We stared at each other, neither backing down, and Michelle realized I was serious. I had nothing to lose; to me, this was just a stupid party.

She rolled her eyes. “Fine. I was out, having cocktails with my girlfriends at Clav Bar. We might’ve gone to Marquee at The Cosmopolitan afterwards.”

“Thanks.” Was that so hard? “Who’re your friends?”

“Just show my picture to the guys there. They’ll tell you I was there. Don’t bother me again.”

She walked away, and once more, I had nothing to show for all my interrogative skills other than a sinking feeling and the stench of failure. 

I headed to the swanky ladies room, with its dim lighting and marble-and-gold fixtures, to give myself some time to think. This party had been a bust, but I was sure that all four women knew something. I’d half-expected that if any of them had something to do with Adam’s death, they wouldn’t have come to the party – which meant that Alexia Boyle was the one I needed to talk to, even though, according to Michelle, she hadn’t come to the party because she was no longer a part of the group.

Where was Alexia? Ian said that the internet search hadn’t turned up anything, and I doubted that anyone in the room knew where she was.

When I re-entered the Amazonian ballroom, I headed straight for Rachelle Nge. A look of resignation crossed her face when she saw me heading toward her, and she excused herself before I could get to her group.

“What?” she hissed, when she reached my side. “I don’t want you bothering me.”

“I know,” I said. “But I was hoping you could tell me about Alexia Boyle?”

She gave me a puzzled look. “Not much to tell. The woman got divorced a few months ago. She wasn’t really… she wasn’t a big part of this scene to begin with. Kept mostly to herself.”

“She didn’t have
any
friends here?”

Rachel shrugged. “Even if she did, you don’t really–”

“Keep in touch after someone gets divorced?”

She shook her head. “It’s not like that. You don’t want to offend anyone, and her husband’s a big part of this group. Besides, Alexia wasn’t ever really a part of this crowd.”

“Since she’d been a waitress?”

“Yeah, there’s that. Plus, she didn’t really try. There’s people here you don’t offend. She didn’t bother sucking up.”

I thought I caught a tinge of admiration in her voice. “So there’s nobody here who even knows where Alexia is? Or has her phone number?”

“I’ve got her number,” said Rachel. “But I’m pretty sure she’s changed it.” I raised my eyebrows and gave her a questioning look, and she went on, “After we heard she was getting divorced, one of my friends tried to call her. Went straight to voicemail. I tried, too. She’s either screening calls or… Either way, you won’t get through.”

I took the number anyway. It was the same number Adam’s brother, Mike, had given me, and I knew that Rachel was right. I wouldn’t have much luck getting hold of Alexia on the phone.

“Any idea where she’s living?” I asked.

The same look of mild sympathy that had crossed Michelle’s face when talking about Alexia’s new life now crossed Rachel’s. “I heard she moved into an apartment somewhere,” she said.

“Where?”

“I’m not sure, but Gracie told me she saw Alexia walking into one of those big apartment buildings on the Strip one day.”

“Which one?”

She gave me a blank look and shrugged.

“One Las Vegas?” I asked. “The Ogden? Veer Towers? Sky Las Vegas? Panorama Towers?”

She just shook her head. “I’m sorry, Gracie didn’t tell me.”

“Who’s Gracie? Where is she?”

Rachel rolled her eyes. “Gracie used to be my hairdresser. She moved to LA a few months ago.”

I held my wrist tightly with one hand, and tried to stay calm. “Do you have her phone number? Any contact address?”

“No.” Rachel looked at me like that was a stupid question. “It’s not like I’ll be going to LA to have my hair done.”

I tilted my head back and took a deep breath.

“Besides,” Rachel said, “Just because Gracie saw Alexia walk in, doesn’t mean she lives there. She might’ve been visiting a friend or something.”

“Yeah.” I stared at Rachel again. She was probably right, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t try to track down Alexia.

“Anyone else see her around since the divorce?”

“No. And like I said, it’s not like we’re still in touch with her.”

“Right.” This conversation was going nowhere, so I said, “What can you tell me about Michelle Ackermann?”

I was half-hoping that Rachel would want to use this opportunity to gossip a little. But she didn’t. She just shrugged, and said, “We’re not that close. Why? I saw you talking with her earlier. And Nicole Weiss.”

She looked at me curiously, and I said, “Adam’s girlfriend said they might be friends.”

For some reason I wanted to play my cards close to my chest.

Rachel and I glanced back at Michelle, and I saw the two women exchange a strange look. I knew that something was going on, so I said, “Why do
you
think I was talking to her?”

Rachel regarded me quietly, and in the end she decided not to bite. “I don’t know,” she said. “I was just curious.”

“Why are you protecting her?”

Rachel looked at me, surprised. “What would I be protecting her from? You?”

She laughed, and I crossed my arms. These women were being no help, and I didn’t see any reason to stay here any longer. Waiters were lighting candles and placing fresh baskets of bread on the tables, and any moment now, somebody would announce that it was time to take our seats. I didn’t want to waste all night in this place.

***

“I’m sure it wasn’t so bad,” Jack said, as his town car inched towards my place. His hand covered mine; it was large and warm and made me feel a lot better about having suffered through the useless party. The Strip was packed with limos and cars, and for a moment I wondered if cancelling my shift tonight had been a bad idea.

“Do you know Alexia Boyle?” I asked.

Jack shook his head. “Not really, but I know her husband. I could give him a call, if you’d like.”

“Are you sure it won’t be too awkward for you?”

“Nah, I’ll just tell him to expect a call from you.” He smiled at me. “It’ll be ok. You’ll find her.”

“But what if she’s got nothing to tell me?”

“Well, then you’ll find something else.”

“How come Alexia’s ex didn’t come to tonight’s party?”

“I think he’s in Japan or something. Hang, on, I’ll try to call him.”

I watched as Jack pulled up the number and dialed, keeping the speakerphone on. There were a couple of rings, and then a woman answered.

“Robert Fallon’s phone. This is Milly.”

“Hi, Milly, it’s Jack Weber. Is Robert around?”

“No, he went to a health retreat yesterday.”

“Oh. Do you have the number for the place?”

“I do, but I’m not meant to give it out. Sorry. I’m supposed to call him only if it’s a family emergency.”

I closed my eyes shut and leaned back against my seat.

“I see,” Jack was saying. “When will he back?”

“Next week. Would you like to leave a message?”

“No, that’s fine. I’ll call back.”

I took a deep breath and tried not panic. There had to be some other way I could find Alexia Boyle. Maybe I was wasting my time again; maybe she had nothing to do with Adam’s death and she was as clueless as everyone else. But I didn’t think so. Something told me that this woman knew an important piece of the puzzle, and I was determined to find out what it was.