I itched to tell Tim, but I’d promised Jeff. I hoped nothing had happened to them. Since Jeff wasn’t worried, I shouldn’t have been, but I couldn’t help it. They were an elderly couple who’d decided to drive an old Buick to the Grand Canyon instead of taking one of the bus tours that ran regularly. Granted, when Sylvia had hinted she wanted to take my car not only to the wedding chapel but also on their honeymoon, I did say no with no reservations.
Maybe I should’ve lent them the car.
I shrugged off the thought and went back outside. Nothing I could do about it now.
Flanigan let me go to work an hour later, after he had me run through each moment of the previous day, before and after Sylvia and Bernie had dropped off the car. I struggled to come up with exact times for everything, although I said if he called my shop later, I could double-check my appointments with Bitsy, who kept track of every minute. It seemed that he didn’t think I had anything to do with Mr. That’s Amore, although he did spend a bit of time questioning me about Sylvia and Bernie.
When he finally felt satisfied, or at least sated for the moment, I left the cops and the coroner in my driveway, the banana yuccas fanning the crime scene, and headed out through Henderson and onto Route 215 toward the Strip.
The good thing about leaving late was there was no traffic. When I turned off the highway, I went up Koval Lane, behind all the resorts and casinos, so I could miss all the lights on the Strip. I was convinced that some deranged traffic administrator got a lot of pleasure out of knowing that timing the lights the way they did would mean an extra fifteen minutes on my drive up to the Venetian.
I parked on the sixth level of the parking garage and took the elevator to the level for the Grand Canal Shoppes. Once the doors opened, I turned to the left and then to the left again and through the sliding doors that led into the mall.
The developers probably would take issue with me calling it a mall, but that’s what it was. Granted, there wasn’t a Sears or JCPenney like at home in New Jersey, but the high-end stores, like Barneys New York, Shooz, Kenneth Cole, and others, that lined the walkway running along the fake Venice canal and surrounding St. Mark’s Square did constitute a mall, in my opinion. So what if it had ornate gold trim and paintings of cherubs on the ceiling with fake sky and clouds, and musicians and dancers dressed in Renaissance garb who entertained the tourists and shoppers, rather than a hokey North Pole setup with cotton-ball snow and Santa at Christmastime?
I sidestepped a couple of the aforementioned tourists as I reached the end of the canal, where gondolas were waiting to pick up their next fares, and pushed open the door to The Painted Lady.
Because it was a high-end mall, we weren’t allowed to advertise that it was a tattoo shop. We looked more like an art gallery. Ace van Nes, one of my tattooists, paints comic book versions of famous works of art. Today we had da Vinci’s
The Last Supper
, Ingres’s
The Valpinçon Bather
, and David’s
The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons
hanging on the walls. The blond laminate flooring clashed in a good way with the dark mahogany desk at our entry-way. Four individual workrooms were divided and closed off to the public. In the back, a sleek black leather sofa and glass-top coffee table served as our waiting area. We also had a staff room with a refrigerator, microwave, and light table, as well as a small office.
Bitsy kept everything in order. That was why I kept her on when I bought the business two and a half years ago. And while we had four rooms, we had only three artists at the moment: Ace, Joel Sloane, and me.
Ace was in Bitsy’s usual seat at the front desk.
“Hey, boss lady,” he drawled. He’d been calling me that for the last month or so, and even though I kept asking him not to, he persisted.
“Where’s Bitsy?” I asked.
“I’m fine. How are you?” One of Ace’s eyebrows rose higher than the other. It gave his handsome face a comedic look, and I couldn’t help but smile.
“Fine, fine.”
“Heard you had some excitement this morning.”
I bet he did. Bitsy couldn’t keep her mouth shut about anything.
“I’m not sure I’d call it exciting,” I said. “Where’s Bitsy?”
“She’s in with Joel.” Ace cocked his head toward Joel’s room. The door was closed. Something was up. Joel never closed his door unless a client specifically asked for privacy or he was tattooing a particularly private body part. Before working here, he’d tattooed in street shops, where most of the stations are all out in the open. He doesn’t like being closed in if he doesn’t have to be.
I took a step toward the room, but Ace’s voice stopped me.
“They’d hoped they’d find it before you came in.”
My heart had jumped up into my throat, and it took me a second to ask, “Find what?”
Ace sighed. “Joel’s clip cord. It’s missing.”
Chapter 5
I
t couldn’t possibly be the same cord. Mr. That’s Amore had been in my trunk since yesterday, and Joel was working yesterday, so it couldn’t be. As I’d told Tim earlier, I hadn’t taken any equipment home with me and didn’t keep anything in my car. But it did seem odd that I’d discovered a body with a clip cord around its neck, and now we had a clip cord that had gone missing.
“I used the extra one yesterday,” Joel was saying. “I don’t know what I did with it.”
Bitsy was riffling underneath Joel’s shelves, where he kept extra baby wipes, boxes of latex gloves, and inks. Her face was bright red, her breath ragged. I’d never seen her so undone. She was obviously making the connection, too, between what had happened this morning and Joel’s missing cord.
“I knew it was here,” she kept saying. “I put it right down here. I know I did.”
Joel and I shook our heads at each other and shrugged.
“Who was in here yesterday?” I asked Joel.
“Well, besides me and Bitsy, I did a couple of tattoos in the morning and three, I think, after lunch. It was a busy day.”
Bitsy stood up with her hands on her hips, staring at the space where she insisted she’d put the clip cord, as if it would miraculously appear telekinetically.
“So Ace didn’t borrow it?”
“Why would he?” Joel asked. “He’s got a couple in his room.”
I knew that, but I had to ask. I had two clip cords in my room, too, so would have no need to borrow anyone else’s.
“A client wouldn’t take it,” Joel said. “Would they?”
“It’s got to be here somewhere,” Bitsy muttered, shoving between me and Joel as she left the room.
“It probably got put somewhere, and we’ll find it later,” I said. “She’s jumping to conclusions.”
“You have to admit it’s a little weird,” Joel said, going over to his shelves and taking another look.
I didn’t help. I really was beginning to think this was just hysteria. There was absolutely no reason why anyone would take a clip cord from our shop.
Bitsy was scouring the appointment book when I came back out, leaving Joel to his own search. Ace was nowhere to be seen.
“He went out to that oxygen bar for his fix,” Bitsy said, referring to Breathe just down the walkway from the shop. Ace was addicted to the aromatherapy oxygen pumped through his nostrils at the trendy “bar.” He said the pretty Asian girl who massaged his back while he was hooked up wasn’t bad, either.
Joel lumbered past, his hefty frame looking—dare I say it—maybe a little less hefty.
I forgot about the clip cord for a second and asked, “Joel, have you lost weight?”
He grinned. “I’m on the Atkins diet. I’ve lost twenty-five pounds. You noticed?”
While I was pleased he was losing weight, I was dubious about Atkins. “You mean you’re only eating meat?”
“Haven’t you noticed he’s not eating the buns with the burgers?” Bitsy asked without looking up from the appointment book. She was the queen of multitasking.
I guess I’d been remiss. But Joel wasn’t holding it against me.
“I’m eating salads, too.”
“How long?”
“About two weeks.”
“No, I mean, how long are you going to be on it?”
“Brett”—he scowled—“there’s no time limit.” He reached for the door.
“Where are you going?” Bitsy looked up from the book. “You’ve got a client coming in ten minutes.”
“I want to take a walk around the canal. I’ll be back.”
As the door closed slowly behind him, Bitsy and I looked at each other.
“Exercise?” I asked.
“It won’t last,” Bitsy said. “You know how many times he tried that Weight Watchers.” She went back to her book. “His clients yesterday were a Ronald Haugen, Jessica Storey, Mark Wilkinson, Dan Franklin, and Tony Perez. But not in that order. Franklin was first. Then Perez, then Storey, Haugen, and Wilkinson.”
“Why does it matter what order?” I asked.
Her head shot up, and she stared at me, her bright blue eyes flashing. “Maybe because it makes me feel good to think there’s some sort of order in this chaos.”
I wasn’t quite sure how to respond to that, so I asked, “When’s my first client?”
“Not until three o’clock.” Her head was buried in the book again. “I rescheduled you.”
I figured I’d get some stencils done in the meantime, so I went into the staff room and sat at the light table. I’d been working on a portrait of a woman’s daughter who’d passed away earlier in the year. A pile of manila folders sat perched on the edge of the table, and I picked them up and leafed through them, looking for mine.
One of the folders slipped out of my hand and fell to the floor, its contents spilling everywhere.
It was one of Joel’s. I recognized his bold lines. As I stuffed the drawings and stencil back into the folder, one caught my eye.
I picked it out from the rest.
It was merely an Old English script, but what it said made my heart start to pound.
“That’s Amore.”
Chapter 6
T
he name on the folder was Dan Franklin. Joel’s first client of the day yesterday. The day the clip cord went missing. The day Mr. That’s Amore ended up in my trunk.
It couldn’t be a coincidence.
I was faced with a dilemma now, though. Did I call Tim and tell him about this? Maybe one thing didn’t have anything to do with the other. Maybe this Dan Franklin had come in wanting the title of a Dean Martin song embedded on him somewhere because he was a Rat Pack fan.
Rat Pack. Dino, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Peter Lawford, Joey Bishop. Vegas and the Rat Pack were interchangeable in the fifties and sixties. One of my favorite movies is
Ocean’s Eleven
, not the George Clooney version, but the Rat Pack original.
Had someone been sending a message with that rat in the trunk?
If I did call Tim, that Detective Flanigan might get suspicious of Joel. After all, Franklin was his client, and it was his clip cord that was missing.
On the other hand, if I told Tim, he could look for this Dan Franklin to find out whether he had any connection to the guy in my trunk. And we couldn’t be sure that the cord around Mr. That’s Amore’s neck was Joel’s.
I looked through the file folder but saw only the sketches Joel had done. I took it out to the front desk, where Bitsy was sitting with her head tucked in her arms.
“Dan Franklin,” I said loudly, startling her.
She jumped up and stared at me with wide eyes. “What?”
“Where’s the paperwork for Dan Franklin? Joel’s first client yesterday.” While I spoke, I waved the “That’s Amore” sketch at her.
Bitsy’s mouth formed a perfect “O” as she pulled out the drawer in the bottom of the desk and retrieved yet another file folder. This one, however, held the copy of the receipt and the release form Dan Franklin had filled out before his appointment.
“He paid cash,” Bitsy said as I scanned the form.
The release form included the client’s name, address, phone number, and a statement the client had to sign, claiming he was over eighteen years old. We made photocopies of the client’s driver’s license to prove he was of age. It was similar to the form you’d fill out at the doctor’s office, because it asked about health issues. We needed to know whether the client had any condition that might mean the tattoo would be dangerous to him or to us. The documents also included a waiver we asked clients to sign, saying we weren’t responsible for infection or aftercare.
Even Jeff Coleman, in his street shop up near Fremont and next to Goodfellas Bail Bonds, had client forms like this. Any reputable shop does.
Dan Franklin’s form said he lived in Henderson. Not too far from where I lived, actually. I picked up the phone, but I stopped before dialing. What would I ask him?
Hey, you got a tattoo at my shop. Did you just happen to pocket one of our clip cords when you left? And if you did, did you use it to kill Mr. That’s Amore?
It all sounded so ridiculous. And I didn’t even know Mr. That’s Amore’s name.
Bitsy scowled as I hesitated, and she leaned over and snatched the phone out of my hand. She punched in Dan Franklin’s phone number.
After a few seconds, she said, “Mr. Franklin, this is Bitsy Hendricks at The Painted Lady. We’re checking up to make sure everything’s all right with your new tattoo. Could you please call back at your earliest convenience? We need to make a report to the health department, so we’d appreciate your call. Thank you.” And she rattled off our number before hanging up.
Smooth. Very smooth.
“That’s why you work for me,” I said proudly.
Bitsy was beaming. “Thank you, thank you, to the Academy,” she said, bowing slightly at the waist, her short blond bob bouncing against her face.
I looked out the glass door toward the canal and spotted Joel lumbering back toward the shop. It was all I could do not to rush out and pull him in. I waited as patiently as I could until he pushed the door in, stopping short when he saw Bitsy and me staring at him.