Innocent in Las Vegas (3 page)

I replayed Nanna’s message from the previous night. Her voice was low and I could make out the soft music of slot machines and jingling coins in the background: “Tiffany! You must be at work. I’m at work too. Just met the World’s Biggest Sucker - but don’t tell your mother.”

I smiled to myself and then played the message I’d received this morning. “Tiffany, this is your mother. Call me back when you get this. Your grandmother came home after 1 a.m. last night and I know she’s up to something. Has she told you anything?”

Just when I was thinking of maybe calling back tomorrow, my phone rang. It was my mother again.

I groaned, but there was no point putting it off. I summoned up my courage and answered the phone. “Hi, Mom.”

“Tiffany.” I could hear the disapproval in every syllable, and I pictured her standing in the middle of the kitchen, wearing her ‘Mom Uniform’ of a floral-print shirt and baggy, high-waisted jeans. “Do you have
any
idea what your grandmother’s up to?”

“No, Mom.”

“Well.” There was a slight pause and Mom lowered her voice. “She came home late last night but I couldn’t smell any alcohol on her. I’d be happier if she was out drinking. She said she was playing slots with her friends, but I don’t believe that.”

“I’m sure she can take care of herself.”

“Hmm.” There was a pause. “How are you doing?”

“I’m ok.”

“Have you met anyone nice? You know, I’ve been telling you I could introduce you to my friend Kirra’s son. He’s very handsome.”

I groaned. “No, Mom, I don’t want to meet him. I told you before.” She tried to say something but I interrupted quickly, “Is Nanna around? Maybe she’ll tell me what she’s doing.”

My mom was clearly disappointed at not being able to regale me with tales of how wonderful Kirra’s son was. But curiosity about what Nanna was up to won out. “Ok,” she said, sounding a bit dejected. “Hang on.”

I heard her calling out, and then a long pause until Nanna picked up the phone in her room. “Tiffany, dear.”

“Hi Nanna, how are you?”

“Tiffany, I know your mother’s listening in from the phone downstairs and I told her specifically not to. I may be old, but I need my privacy. How would she like it if I listened in on her call to Berta when she talked about how annoyed she was tha– ”

I heard a soft, disgusted grunt, and then a sharp click. I laughed and I could sense Nanna smiling at me with her sharp blue eyes at the other end of the line. She was pretty quick with her opinions and insights, and despite her wrinkles and white hair, she was a snazzier dresser than my mom.

“So,” I said, “How’s the poker going?”

“Terrific. You know, last night I was at the Mirage and this hick man from Texas showed up. Played all aggressive at first, so I took him for a ride, and then he tightened up and lost on some big hands. And then I lost a hand to him on purpose, bidding up on a pair of fours, and he thought I was a stupid old hag and started playing too aggressively again. And after that,” she finished smugly, “I won some of the easiest money ever.”

“Well, good for you!”

I was proud of my Nanna. At seventy-four, she’s one of the smartest, most ruthless women ever, and it’s a terrible idea to cross her. She’s not a Vegas local, but when she moved here a few years ago to live with her daughter she quickly infiltrated Vegas’ mafia-like retirees’ society, learned all the local gossip, and got the hang of Vegas coupons, slots and comps.

A few weeks back, I thought she might be getting a bit bored. One of her closest friends, Madge, had passed away and Nanna started talking about getting too old to do things. So I introduced her to the world of poker. I was sure she’d be a natural, with her innate talent for math, seeing through peoples’ lies, and keeping her own thoughts and knowledge under wraps.

I was right. So far, Nanna had been steadily picking up more skills, playing up her Silly Old Codger persona and, thanks to clueless tourists and drunken locals, slowly increasing her bankroll. According to her, poker was fun, exciting, and of course, profitable.

“How’s your love life?” Nanna asked. “Have you met anyone exciting?”

“I’m too busy for that, Nanna. I –”

“You know,” she said, “You haven’t been with a man in ages. In my day, we used to say, ‘use it or lose it.’”

I didn’t want to know what ‘it’ was. Nanna has a gift for the inappropriate, and though she’s super-smart, sometimes I dread to hear what will come out of her mouth next. So I quickly said, “Actually, I’m too busy because I got my first case as a PI!”

“Well that’s exciting!”

“Yeah, but remember, don’t tell Mom and Dad about my PI work yet. I want to be able to close my first real case before I tell them what I’m doing.”

“Ok. So who’s the client?”

“Sophia Becker.”

I heard a sharp intake of breath and then Nanna said, “That old Ethan Becker murder? I never believed for a moment that Sophia was the killer!”

“Really? Because they found the gun in her bedroom…”

Nanna made a noise like a cat throwing up. “That’s nothing, something else is fishy. You need to focus on the other suspects, wrap things up fast. This case should be a cinch for you, I don’t want you wasting too much time – don’t you want me to see my great-grandchildren before I die?”

“Sure,” I said, slightly disappointed that no matter what, Nanna managed to turn the conversation back to my non-existent love-life and off-spring. “Anyway, I should say goodbye to Mom and get to work.”

I heard Nanna holler for my mother, and after a few seconds Mom picked up. “Well? What’s going on with your Nanna?”

“Oh, nothing.” I tried to keep my tone light. “I think she’s just having some fun with those old friends of hers.”

My mother made a strange snorting noise. “That’s not much better! You know how much trouble those crazy old hoons can get into.”

“I think they’re just enjoying some late-night comped buffet dinners. You shouldn’t worry so much.”

“Hmm.” My mother sounded doubtful, and I made a move to hang up before she could start badgering me again about my life, my boyfriend and my career – or my lack thereof of all three. Well, maybe the career thing might improve if I could solve this case.

“Give my love to Dad,” I said, “And don’t feed Sprinkles so often, he’s way fatter than any cat should be.”

I stood at an empty blackjack table, cards spread out in a fan before me, waiting for someone to step up. It didn’t take long. The weekend rush continues till Monday at the Treasury, and it was still only Sunday.

I dealt the cards, made some small talk, and dealt some more. Midwesterners in colorful clothes, businessmen on the last day of their holiday, and groups of partying kids came and went, won and lost. I laughed at their terrible jokes, told them sincerely that I hoped they won, and accepted their tips.

I moved between tables and there were times when I had to concentrate – when I was calculating the payouts on roulette or blackjack, when I was trying to charm players into giving me more tips, or when I needed to deal with an angry drunk guy and had to marshal up my meager powers of diplomacy.

But every other moment, when I was alone at a table, on a break between shifts, or working in a zombie-like trance, I thought about Leo Becker.

The kid was cute. I understood why Sophia couldn’t imagine him being a killer – he seemed so naïve and sweet and easy-going. It might have been one big act, but he’d seemed too hung-over to pretend. The inheritance could’ve been a motivation for anyone else, but Leo didn’t seem to care much about money.

I quickly ruled out Leo as a suspect and began to wonder about Ethan and Sophia’s marriage instead. Had Ethan really been having affairs, and if so, had Sophia known about them? In between dealing cards for a game of PaiGow and coquettishly refusing the advances of an inebriated Asian man, I wondered if Sophia had been hiding anything from me.

After my shift finished, I went home. I stayed up for a long time, unable to sleep. It was my first day on my first real case, and I could feel the anxiety building within me – I wouldn’t find anything new, Sophia would be convicted, and I would never get another job as a PI. My own client was hiding things from me and I was terrible at interviewing people. I wasn’t tough and cynical enough; why would anyone ever hire me again? On top of all that, I would never meet anyone decent in this stupid town, Nanna would never get to see great-grandkids, and I would die alone – unloved, miserable and a failure.

At some point, I curled up into a tiny ball of neuroses and drifted off to sleep.

When I woke up in the late morning, the first thing I did was to call Sophia and tell her that I needed to see her, would she be home half an hour from now?

“Of course,” she said, laughing bitterly, “Where else could I go? I was always the scandalous stripper and now I’m the outcast.”

I hung up and raced through my apartment, pulling on jeans, running a comb through my hair and tumbling over myself in the rush to get to my car. In my haste to meet Sophia, I contributed to the speeding problem on the expressway and, like everyone else who was driving above the speed limit, I felt perfectly justified in doing so.

After the previous night’s near panic-attack, I was determined to crush through my fears and figure out whatever I could to help Sophia be acquitted. I told myself I could do it, I would focus on one thing at a time, and before long all my work would be finished – and then I would let myself stress over everything else that was wrong in my life.

By the time I entered Sophia’s pretentious mansion, I was in a slightly bad mood. I was annoyed at all the expressway drivers who’d been in my way, and at Sophia for hiding facts about her marriage from me. Plus, I was caffeine-deprived.

So after Sophia ushered me into her mansion, I skipped the small talk and announced, “I need coffee and some breakfast.”

If Sophia was surprised by my bluntness, she didn’t show it. She didn’t even make a snarky remark about not being a café – she merely turned around and led me to her large, gleaming marble-and-stainless-steel kitchen where she heated up a blueberry Danish and made me a latte.

As soon as I had two bites of Danish and a sip of coffee inside me, I turned to Sophia and said, “Tell me what you know about Ethan’s infidelities.”

There was something in my tone that told her not to evade the question. Or maybe it was the wild glint in my eyes, my crazy hair, or just the fact that she wanted me out of her house before I guzzled my way through all of her expensive coffee. Either way, Sophia said, “Before or after I married him?”

“Both.” I took another sip of the coffee. “But start with after.”

Sophia’s eyes drifted downwards and she raised her shoulders in a tiny shrug. “I should’ve seen it coming. He was rich, he could do whatever he wanted. I had a vague hope that he’d be faithful to me but I guess I wasn’t enough.”

“When did you find out?”

“Three months after our wedding. He was having one-night stands. Six months later, I thought he might be serious about someone else.”

“And then?”

“I was bitter about the one-nighters, but I freaked out about the affair. I thought he might leave me, so I raised hell. As far as I know, he ended it. I reminded him that if I had evidence of the affair, a divorce court would null the pre-nup for me. He got more careful after that.”

“But?”

Sophia sighed. “It’s not like he stopped seeing the women. He just got more careful. Three months before he died, I was pretty sure he was seeing someone again. But Ethan promised me he’d start getting therapy, and we’d work on making the marriage better.” She looked at me seriously. “I don’t want you to think he was a bad man or we had an unhappy marriage.”

Who was I to judge? The closest I came to romance in my own life was when I bought heart-shaped boxes of chocolate for myself. My last serious relationship had been over a year ago, and I’d come to accept that finding and being with a man you loved wasn’t as easy as it seemed in those upbeat romantic movies.

I shrugged and finished my Danish. “I don’t care about your marriage. But this does give you a motive for murder. Did anyone else know he was unfaithful to you?”

“I’m sure a few people did.”

“Did anyone know you were unhappy about his affairs?”

“Probably. I had a fight with him in his office a few weeks before he died. I thought he was seeing someone there. But he kept telling me we’d be fine, we’d work things out and stay together.”

I swirled my tepid coffee around in the snazzy glass latte cup. “Who was she?”

“What?”

“Who was the girl?”

Sophia shook her head. “She could be anyone. A stripper, a friend, someone he ran into on the street.”

“But you had your suspicions.”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I thought it might be Audrey. This girl I was introduced to, once.”

“Audrey who?”

“Audrey Waldgraf.” She shook her head again. “But I don’t want to make false accusations.”

“What makes you think it was Audrey? Who is she?”

“Ethan’s casino was being audited… ”

I almost spit out my coffee. “By the Gaming Commission? This is
huge!
”

“No. This was an internal audit.”

I let out a breath. “Oh.”

“Yeah, Audrey’s firm was looking at the Riverbelle’s accounting.”

“Nothing to do with the gaming?”

“No, Audrey worked at Spencer, Tyler and Goldberg, the audit firm Ethan had hired.”

“And what makes you think she…?”

Sophia frowned. “Like I said, I’m not sure. But one time when I went to the casino to pick up Ethan, she was there, and Steven introduced us. She was cute.”

“And?”

Sophia rolled her eyes. “It was a hunch. Ethan started acting weird again, coming home late, going on strange trips. I caught him with a pair of Cartier diamond earrings one time. He claims they were for a high-roller client, but I’m not stupid. I saw Audrey a few days later, wearing a flawless diamond pendant that cost more than her annual salary.”

We sat in silence for a few moments and then Sophia said softly, “The thing that got to me was the
effort
he put in. He’s always gone for the women he’ll get easily, the ones who are super-eager to sleep with him. He’s never bothered to chase someone.”

“
I’m
pretty convinced from your story that he was seeing Audrey. Did you ever ask Ethan about her?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not like I saw them together or anything. The first time, before he got careful, I caught him in bed with a woman.”

Her voice was dry and cynical, and I stared at her like she was nuts. Which she was. If it had been me, I would have shot Ethan that very first time.

I didn’t like my thoughts travelling down that route, so I said, “Tell me about before.”

“Well,” Sophia said, “To hear him tell it, he never found true love. Vanessa was a good wife, but just not…”

“He told you that?”

She shook her head. “Word gets around. He used to visit the club when he was still married to Vanessa, and strippers talk to their clients.”

“That was ten years ago. You wouldn’t have been working then.”

“No. But rumors trickle down.”

“So… he told the strippers he wasn’t happy with Vanessa, that’s why he slept around?”

“Pretty much.”

“Anyone else tell you this?”

Sophia smiled. “When you’re about to get married to one of the richest men in Vegas, people will tell you things.”

“People who?”

“Leo had dinner with us before we got married. He told me I’d be just like his mom, unhappy with a cheating husband.”

“How’d Ethan react?”

“He said Leo didn’t know what he was talking about.”

Once a cheater, always a cheater. But I didn’t know how this information helped in the investigation. So I said, “I talked to Leo yesterday.”

Sophia nodded. “Cute kid, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re wasting time talking to him. Any jury’ll love that guy. You need to speak to Neil, I’m sure he’ll let something slip.”

I wasn’t quite so sure, but it was on my list of things to do and I might as well get it over with. “Where’s the best place to find him?”

“Go to the casino, you can pretend you’re there for business or something.”

I nodded. There didn’t seem to be anything else to talk about, so I thanked her for the breakfast and left.

It took me a stressful half hour to get from Sophia’s gated mansion to my humble off-Strip condo. Once home, I reflected on the fact that I was feeling slightly better about my work, incredibly disgusted with Sophia’s ‘marriage,’ and a whole lot more caffeinated. I pulled out my laptop and did some research on the Riverbelle Casino and its employees.

After making a few notes, I dialed Neil Durant’s cell phone number and held my breath, hoping he would answer and fall for my plan.