Red Roses in Las Vegas (9 page)

By the time I’d showered and changed, Ian had wormed his way into my condo and was digging into the scrambled eggs and bacon that Nanna had made me.

Nanna noticed the way I was glaring at Ian’s plate, and quickly said, “There’s more on the stovetop for you.”

“What’re you doing here, anyway?” I asked Ian, as I grabbed my own plate.

“Nanna invited me in,” he said. “Isn’t this breakfast great? Why don’t
you
make scrambled eggs and bacon?”

“Because it takes effort,” I grumbled, digging into my food. “But really, why are you here?”

“I thought you might be asleep,” Ian said. “I know you had a late shift and I didn’t want you to miss the appointment.”

I looked at my scrambled eggs thoughtfully. “Ok,” I conceded. “I suppose you’ve got a good reason to be here.”

As we drove over to Claire’s Summerlin house, Ian said, “We need to impress her. State Senator and all that – maybe she’ll want to hire us, later. Or maybe she’ll have colleagues who’ll need a PI. And her dad’s rich – maybe he’ll want to hire us.”

There might not be an “us” pretty soon. But I didn’t feel like dampening his enthusiasm, so I said nothing, other than a brief warning that he should behave himself.

Claire Bitzer’s house was a low, Californian bungalow with a lush garden in front. It was obvious that she had a regular gardener in, to maintain all those tropical plants she had out front, and I felt a pang of jealousy that I didn’t have a green thumb. Inside, the living room where we sat was tastefully decorated in shades of white, with white sofas and a cream rug that must’ve needed daily vacuuming. The white was offset by bright orange and green cushions, and the walls displayed artwork by local Nevada artists.

Claire followed my glance and said, “I do think it’s important to support the local economy.”

I nodded in agreement, even though I’d never be able to afford one of those paintings. Unless Jack stole one for me.

“I hear you might be on your way to Washington, soon,” I said, and Claire shrugged modestly.

“I don’t really care where I work,” she said. “As long as I can do my bit to help folks here in Nevada.”

“How long’ve you been in politics?” Ian asked, and Claire smiled at him.

“Feels like forever. But it’s only been a few years, now. I used to work for my dad, but I realized pretty fast that my heart’s not in all that money-making. I’d rather help people out.”

I smiled politely, even though something about her rubbed me the wrong way. I was probably just jealous – she had a gorgeous house, the kind I’d never be able to afford, and she was pretty, in a classical, tasteful way, all bobbed blonde hair and subtle pearl earrings. She was friendly enough, but I couldn’t help feeling that there was a big gulf between us – she’d been born into great wealth and made amazing use of the opportunities she’d been given. Not many people I know would turn down a money-making career just to help people out, and not many people I knew would be able to afford to turn down said money-making career. Except for Jack, of course, but he’s not someone I should know. 

“I’m sorry to hear about your nanna,” she said to me. “But I can’t believe the police wouldn’t do their jobs properly.”

“You’d be surprised,” I said lightly. Of course, as a politician, she
would
defend the cops.

Ian said, “Tiffany’s solved a lot of cases where the cops got it wrong. They’re understaffed, so sometimes they jump to wrong conclusions.”

“Oh?” said Claire, looking at me politely. “I thought you were new to being a PI.”

I watched her carefully, wondering if I’d heard the hint of disapproval, or whether it was just my neurosis. I’d probably heard it, I decided. Claire seemed like a goody two-shoes, and naïve to boot. She probably thought that PIs didn’t have any work these days, other than tailing around unfaithful spouses.

“Tiffany might not have been working that long,” Ian said quickly. “But she’s really good. She solved the Ethan Becker murder, even though that was a really tough case. And she cracked a murder case the cops’d given up on. And a bunch of other smaller cases, of course. We can’t mention them because of confidentiality, but Tiffany’s really, really good. And discreet.”

He’d all but handed out a brochure saying, “Tell your friends,” and I frowned at him.

“Ian,” I said warningly, “You know I’m not that good.”

“She’s the best,” said Ian staunchly. “She’s just being polite.”

“Well, I’m convinced,” said Claire, smiling at him. “Her nanna’s lucky to have helping out.”

Once again, I was sure I’d heard a hint of condescension. Was she implying that Nanna was a criminal? And that even if I wasn’t an experienced PI, some help was better than none?

“Speaking of helping out,” I said quickly, before Ian could start another litany about how great I was, “tell me about Adam. Were you two close?”

“Not particularly,” she admitted. “We met every once in a while for family dinners, but my job’s pretty crazy and I don’t get to socialize as much as I’d like.”

“What do state senators do, exactly?”

Claire smiled. “You would
not
believe it – there’s so much work involved. I’m usually at work by now.” I glanced at the clock – it was only a quarter to eight. “There’s a bunch of correspondence involved, keeping in touch with constituents and that kind of stuff. And there’s a lot of legislation I need to vote on, and there’re bills I need to decide on or try to pass. Right now, I’m working on a bill that’ll help in-need families save more assets. So I need to gather support for those bills, and that means talking with groups like The Women’s Network of Attorneys and The Rotary Club. And I need to research things, be briefed on a lot of things, attend a lot of meetings, and of course, there’s senate legislation. And then, at the end of the day, I need to go to a lot of networking parties, keep in touch with people.”

“Wow,” I said. “It sounds terrible.”

Claire smiled. “It’s exhausting, but it’s worth it. At least, I hope it is.”

I laughed politely, admiring her resolve to help people out. Most of us just complain about politics – Claire was actually doing something about it. “Speaking of networking,” I said, “I heard Adam liked to go to a lot of these charity events. Did you ever run into him there?”

She nodded. “Quite often. He and that beautiful girlfriend of his went to these things a fair bit.”

“Cynthia Pruttley,” I prompted, and she nodded.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

“Any idea why Adam went to all these parties? As far as I know, he wasn’t earning all that much money, and it’s not like he’s got family money.”

Cynthia twisted her lips and shrugged. “Sorry, I can’t help you there. Maybe he was helping out with the charities and didn’t have to pay for those tickets and things?”

“No, I don’t think so.” If he’d been volunteering at a charity, his mother would’ve added it to the list of reasons why he was a saint. Still, it might be worth calling her and checking up.

I went through the rest of my questions, and got the typical responses in return. Once again, I learnt that Adam didn’t seem to have any enemies, he did seem quite friendly, and he hadn’t seemed any different in the weeks before he’d been killed. No, she had no idea what he’d been doing in the office so late at night, and she didn’t know anything about “red roses.”

Finally, I asked her how her trip to DC had been.

“Good,” she said. “I met with a couple of people and I think we’ve really progressed on some matters.”

“When did you get there?”

“Flew out late last Sunday night, and then I flew back this Saturday. Mike’s still in Nebraska. We went to the airport together last week, but caught flights in opposite directions.”

I smiled. “What about Mike? What’s he like?”

“Just the best husband in the world,” Claire said. “We’ve been hoping for kids, but it doesn’t seem like that’ll happen. The two of us are really happy together and I’m just so glad I married him.”

“Is his job as crazy as yours?”

“It’s nuts in a different way. I think that’s why we got together in the first place – we both want to help people, and Mike’s way of doing that is to help people who are ill.”

I nodded, unable to think of anything else to ask, and glanced at Ian, who’d been pretty quiet and well-behaved during the interview.

“Well, I guess that’s it,” I said, fishing out a card from my bag and placing it on Claire’s shiny white coffee table, on top of the big book about historic Las Vegas. “Call me if you think of anything.”

“Of course,” she said, with a friendly smile.

I always have this conversation when I’m leaving. People always say they’ll call, but they never do. I couldn’t depend on Claire to tell me anything new – I could only hope that my conversation with Cynthia Pruttley would reveal something. Anything.

Nanna was fast asleep when I got back to my condo, and I decided that a nap wasn’t such a bad idea. I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow, and before I knew it, my cell phone alarm was going off, and there were five voicemail messages waiting for me.

The first was from my mother, asking me why I wasn’t picking up, and what was Nanna up to? The second was from my friend Emily, asking me if we were still on for cocktails this afternoon. The next three were all from Natasha, with info about Adam’s friends. His three closest friends were Charlie Stiggins, a cop; Barry Wardle, a marketing exec at a construction company; and Johann Tappley, who’d got married and moved away to Canada a few months back.

I wrote down their names and numbers, and after a brief chat with my mother about how Nanna was doing, I called Charlie Stiggins.

“I suppose I could talk to you,” he said, his tone implying that he’d much rather not. “But I’m sure the LVMPD’s already done a thorough investigation.”

I ignored the last part of what he’d said. “Great! When can I come by to talk to you?”

There was a pause, and then he said, “If you’ve got to come along, I guess you might as well come today. Might as well get it over with.” He made it sound like a tooth extraction. “I’ve got a bit of free time before lunch.”

I glanced at the clock. It was only eleven. “I’ll be there in a couple of minutes.”

“Fine.”

My next call was to Johann Tapley, who picked up after a few rings and told me that he was bored stiff in Montreal, and hadn’t been back to Vegas since he’d left.

“It’s an eight month contract with the company here,” he told me regretfully. “I couldn’t even get time off to go to Adam’s funeral.”

I murmured my condolences for having to work for such a strict company, grabbed the company’s name (Invicta Oil and Holdings), hung up, and Googled their contact details. I made a quick phone call to the company’s “employment enquiries” number, and got routed through to an HR lady who informed that Johann had, indeed, gone to work every single day for the last six months. 

My final call was to Barry Wardle, whose voicemail informed me that he wasn’t in his office at the moment, but if I’d like to leave my name and number, he’d call me straight back. So I did just that, fixed my makeup, grabbed my large black tote, and went over to Ian’s condo.

“We’re going to speak with Adam’s friend Charlie,” I told him, and let him trail after me happily.

Detective Charlie Stiggins met us in one of the tiny LVMPD conference rooms, usually reserved for suspects and witnesses giving statements. It was white, with little bits of color, but the complete opposite of Claire’s warm white sitting room. This room was about half, or maybe a third, the size of Claire’s room, and it was as sterile as any space could be. The walls were shiny, the lights bright, and the chairs hard.

“We go way back,” Charlie told us. “Adam and I went to high school together. Can’t believe someone shot him.”

We asked him all the questions we asked everyone else, but once again, we got the same answers. Adam had no enemies, hadn’t acted any differently before he’d been killed, and Charlie had no idea what “red roses” could’ve meant to Adam.

“I’m sorry it’s your nanna who’s accused,” he told me, not sounding very sorry. “But all the evidence points to her, right now.”

“It’s not her,” I told him. “I know her better than anyone else here, and I know she’s nuts, but she’d never kill anyone. I don’t think she’s even owned a gun, or shot one, ever.”

Charlie shook his head slightly. “Whoever it is, we’ll get justice soon. We don’t need an inexperienced PI messing round with stuff.”

He looked at me, his face a polite blank, and I tried not to blow up in anger.

We left, feeling worse for having talked to him, and ran into Elwood just before exiting the building.

“Your nanna’s not mad at me, is she?” he asked, and I scowled.

“She should be. You should be ashamed of yourself, arresting an innocent woman like that.”

He shrunk back, knowing better than to defend himself, and said, “Well, if there’s something else going on, I’m sure you’ll uncover it. Even though you never found out who stole that Van Gogh, did you?”

I narrowed my eyes. I had, actually, found out all I wanted to know about that theft, but I was sworn to secrecy, so I held my tongue.

“How’s your wife?” I asked, instead, and Elwood stared at the ground.

“I don’t know. Counseling’s not going so well. She doesn’t seem to want to get back together.”

My anger disappeared. “I’m sorry. Maybe you could try sending her flowers? Does she like roses?”

“I don’t know,” Elwood said, looking from me to Ian. “Do you think she’ll like roses?”

I shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Try sending her a big bouquet – maybe some nice red roses.”

He nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

When we got back to the condo, it smelled like roast chicken. Nanna had made us lunch, and we gobbled up the chicken, mashed potatoes and a tiny bit of the salad, before Ian and I rushed out again to talk to Cynthia Pruttley.