Diva Las Vegas (16 page)

Authors: Eileen Davidson

Tags: #Actresses, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction, #Television Soap Operas, #Television Actors and Actresses, #General

BOOK: Diva Las Vegas

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“He doesn’t look harmless,” I said. “He looks creepy and crazy.”

“That may be, but I think he’s just a crazed fan—my partner amped to the ninth power.”

“No, you’re wrong on this one. Davis is nothing like that guy. I know fans and I know crazy. There’s a difference.”

“Maybe you’re right. Anyway, I warned him, maybe even scared him a little,” he said.

“What did he say about that other thing?” I asked. “The Genesis thing?”

“He didn’t say anything,” Jakes said. “Couldn’t get him to talk.”

“How did you let him go? I mean, where—”

“I had security walk him out of the building; told them to hassle him if he came back in.”

I nodded.

“Cushing looked up the Bible passage. Something about God creating man and woman in his own image. Why would he be spouting that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “Which version did she look it up in?”

“King James, I think.”

I decided not to talk about her anymore. Didn’t want him to think I was jealous.

We drove in silence for a few minutes. And then I asked, “Is this what you and Davis do for each other? As partners? Back each other up?”

“Hell, no,” he said. “Davis would never do this, and he’d never stand for me doing it. My old partner, though—my longtime partner—he and I did whatever we had to do to solve a case.”

“And how many cops like you are there on the force?” I asked.

“Are you asking me how many cops bend the rules?” he said. “I can’t answer that. It’s up to each individual how far they want to go to solve a case.”

“And how far do you go?”

“To solve a murder, I go all the way, Alex,” he said. “It’s the only way I know how to do things.”

I flashed on a bathtub full of bubbles and a bottle of champagne on ice in his motel room. He wasn’t lying.

“How did your day go?” he asked.

“Very well, considering,” I said. “But I’m more interested in your day. What did you and Detective Cushing do after you dropped me back at the hotel?”

He took a quick glance over at me.

“You know what we did. We went to see the roommates.”

“Well,” I said, “we’re going to be in the car for a while, so why don’t you tell me how it went?”

“Okay,” he said, “I’ll tell you exactly how it went. . . .”

Chapter 39

Linda Bronson, née Bronsky, had shared a condo just off the strip with two other girls who worked with her at the Riviera.

“Susan Couture and Elizabeth Sessions,” Cushing told Jakes, “are about the same age as Linda was, twenty-five. That’s not exactly young for a showgirl. There are plenty of twenty- and twenty-one-yearolds working the casino shows these days. The Riv is starting to show its age, so that’s apparently the only place these girls were able to get jobs.”

“I thought the Riviera was a legend in Vegas,” Jakes said. “One of the last vestiges of the Rat Pack-era Vegas.”

“That’s what I said,” Cushing replied. “Aged.”

“Okay, so you’re saying these girls are not top showgirls.”

“Far from it.”

“So maybe they’d be going to somebody like Dr. Reynolds for help?” Jakes asked.

Cushing nodded and said, “That’s what we’re here to find out.”

The condo had an underground parking lot. Jakes and Cushing rode up the elevator to the fourth floor, found the unit they wanted, and rang the bell. Cushing used her cell phone to call the Riv and find out if the girls were working that night. She was told that both were off on the weekend. She rang the bell a second time.

“Maybe they’re out on the town,” Jakes said. “Don’t showgirls do that when they’re off?”

“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “But my guess would be they’d be resting when they have time off.”

“Let’s hope you’re right.”

Jakes was about to ring the bell again when they heard the locks turn. The door opened as far as a chain lock would allow, and one bleary blue eye looked out at them.

“Can I help you?”

“Are you Susan or Elizabeth?” Cushing asked.

“I-I’m Susan,” the girl said. “Who are you?”

Both detectives showed their shields.

“We’d like to come in and ask you a few questions about Linda Bronson.”

“Linda?” Susan said, her eye widening. “L-Linda’s dead.”

“We’re here about her murder, Miss Couture,” Jakes said. “Let us in.”

“Oh, uh, all right,” she said. “I’ll just—all right.”

The door closed, the chain came off and then she swung it open. Jakes and Cushing entered and closed the door behind them.

“Where’s your roommate?” Jakes asked.

“She’s . . . out,” Susan said.

She stood there in a shapeless blue terry cloth robe, arms folded across her chest. Jakes couldn’t tell if she had a showgirl’s body or not. Her face was pretty, even devoid of makeup, but he thought she looked older than twenty-five. She seemed to have the crow’s-feet of a thirty-five-year-old.

“I’m sorry,” Susan said, running her fingers through her mussed-up blond hair. “I was asleep.”

“Is that what you girls do on your days off?” Jakes asked. “Sleep?”

“What else is there to do?”

“Go out on the town?” he asked.

She laughed humorlessly. “Who’s got the energy for that?”

“Can we sit?” Cushing asked.

Susan waved them to the furniture, which looked secondhand. The building itself was upscale enough, but it obviously took three of them to make the rent.

Cushing and Jakes sat on the sofa while Susan took the two-cushion love seat.

“Is that what Linda used to do?” Jakes asked. “Sleep when she had some free time?”

“Sure,” Susan said with a shrug. “I guess.”

“Was it one of her days off when she was killed?” Cushing asked.

Susan hugged herself and said, “Yes.”

“Did you do things together?” Jakes asked.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“We weren’t friends, not that way,” she said. “Just . . . roommates.”

“I see,” Jakes said. “So that’s why Linda was alone that night?”

“She wasn’t supposed to be,” Susan said, barely mumbling.

“What?” Cushing asked.

Susan raised her head and said, louder, “She wasn’t supposed to be alone. She was . . . meeting someone.”

“A date?” Cushing asked.

“No, she said she was just . . . meeting someone.”

Cushing frowned.

“That’s not in the case file,” she said, more to Jakes than Susan. Then she turned to Susan and asked, “Why didn’t you tell the investigating detective that?”

Susan shrugged again, rubbed her arms.

“Susan, are you feeling all right?” Jakes asked.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m just . . . tired. And my . . . my face hurts.” She touched her cheek. “I—I think it’s a tooth, or something.”

“So, why didn’t you tell the investigating officer about Susan meeting someone?” Cushing asked, pushing the girl.

“He didn’t ask, I guess,” she said.

“Okay, well, we’re asking,” Jakes said. “Who was she meeting if it wasn’t a date?”

“I don’t know.”

“Man or woman?” Cushing asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Where were they meeting?” Jakes asked.

“I don’t know!” Susan said. “I don’t know anything. She just said she was going out to meet somebody. I told you, we weren’t friends like that.”

“What about your other roommate?” Cushing asked. “Elizabeth? Would she know?”

“I doubt it,” Susan said, “but you’d have to ask her that.”

“And when will she be home?”

“Tomorrow,” Susan said. “She’ll be home tomorrow.”

“So, there’s nothing else you haven’t told the police?” Jakes asked.

“No,” she said. “I don’t think so.” She hugged herself and rocked. Her body language said two things: one, she was sick; two, she was lying.

“Susan,” Jakes said, “do you do drugs?”

“Drugs?” She seemed shocked by the question. “No, of course not. We’re tested at work, randomly. If we’re caught doing drugs, we get fired.”

“When were you checked last?” he asked.

“About a week ago. I was clean. I mean, except for some prescription medication I take for pain.”

“What kind of pain are you referring to?” Jakes asked.

Susan hesitated long enough to get Jakes’s attention.

“Girl stuff. You know. Menstrual.”

“Are you lying to us about something?” Jakes asked.

“Lying? Why would I lie?”

Cushing looked at Jakes, who shook his head. He didn’t want to push her at that moment.

“Okay, Susan,” Jakes said, “Detective Cushing is going to give you a business card. If you can think of anything else we should know, give her a call.”

Cushing took the hint and produced a card. Susan took it, squinted at it.

“What’s this mean,
Community Relations
?”

“It’s just a title,” Cushing said. “Just call and ask for me.”

“Okay.”

Jakes stood up. Cushing followed. Susan walked them to the door.

“We’ll probably come back to talk to Elizabeth,” Jakes said.

“We’ll both be at the Riv tomorrow,” Susan said. “You better come there.”

“All right.”

At the door, she leaned against the doorjamb and asked, “Should I not mention you were here?”

“No, you can tell her,” Cushing said, after a nod from Jakes. “No harm in that.”

“A-all right.”

“Go back to bed, Susan,” Jakes said. “You look like you need some rest.”

She nodded, smiled weakly and closed the door.

Chapter 40

Out near the car, Cushing said, “Something’s wrong with that girl.”

“Yeah,” Jakes said, “she looks wiped out. She needs some sleep.”

“I’ve been wiped out, too,” Cushing said, “but it doesn’t make me look ten years older.”

They got in the car, slammed the doors.

“I noticed that,” he said. “You know what does that to a person?”

“Drugs?”

“And booze,” Jakes said. “Or both.”

“What do you think she’s using?” Cushing asked.

“That’s the problem,” Jakes said. “No blood-shot eyes, no shakes, her nails weren’t bitten to the quick. Whatever’s bothering her is something else entirely.”

“Why didn’t we ask her?”

“Because we’re going to talk to the other girl, Elizabeth, first.”

“Why don’t we look for her now?”

“Relax, Cushing. Tomorrow will be soon enough,” Jakes told her. “We know where she’s going to be. I have to meet Alex tonight.”

“Oh.”

Cushing started the car.

“She’s very beautiful,” Cushing said as she drove.

“I know.”

“She was once voted most beautiful woman on daytime TV,” she said. “In fact, I think it might have happened twice, but I’m not sure.”

“I’ll ask my partner,” Jakes said. “He knows those kinds of things.”

“Is he a fan of the soaps?”

“More than a fan,” Jakes said. “He’s a soap nut.”

“Big fan of Alex’s?”

“He was until she left
The Yearning Tide
. He kind of took it personally, but he’ll get over it.”

“She left the show?”

“Didn’t you know? I thought you watched it.”

“I did, until I got this job. I was hooked for a long time, but once I was fully employed, I managed to break the habit.”

“I guess any kind of addiction is bad for you.”

“Is yours?”

“What?”

“Your addiction,” Cushing said. “Is it Alex?”

Jakes thought about that for a moment, then said, “I guess she is.”

“But you said addictions are bad.”

“I guess I just proved myself wrong.”

“So you’re in love with her?”

“Oh yes,” he said, “I am.”

They drove in silence for a few moments, and then he said, “Take me someplace I can rent a car—a discreet kind of car.”

“But I can drive you—”

“No, you’re done for the day,” Jakes said. “I’ll rent a car for the rest of the night. Alex and I have plans.”

“Sure.”

“Then you can pick me up at my motel tomorrow morning. Alex is going home with her mother and daughter. You and I, we’re going to the Riv to talk to the other roommate.”

“I can get back on the computer tonight,” she said. “I’ll just do some surfing. You never can tell what you’ll come across.”

“You going back to work now?”

She shook her head.

“I can do it from home,” she said. “I’ve got my laptop linked to the department computer.”

“They know about that?”

“They don’t have to.”

Jakes laughed and said, “I’ll make a detective out of you yet, Cushing.”

Chapter 41

I stared at Jakes.

“What?” he asked.

“She asked you if you were addicted to me?” I said. “And if you were in love with me?”