Mabyn held my gaze. “I didn’t kill Ginger, Aggie. I can’t tell you how good it felt to confront her. It helped me stand up to Fern a few days later after talking to you. I will never be anyone’s doormat again. That’s my New Year’s resolution, and I mean it.”
I believed her. At least most of me did. Was losing a job years ago reason enough to kill somebody? It hardly seemed so, not for a stable woman like Mabyn. “I’m going to have to tell Detective Roussos this story.”
“I guess I don’t blame you.”
I finished my tea and stood.
Sesame Street
would be over soon, and I wanted to be well on my way before Shirley was at loose ends.
I thought of one more thing to ask her. “You mentioned that you kept up with Ginger’s life after you left the station.”
Mabyn rose, too. “It sounds awfully petty. I guess it’s a measure of how upset I was. I’m usually not a vindictive person.”
“What can you tell me about those years? I don’t know much of anything. I’ve been talking to the new receptionist at WKLM, and he mentioned she was with somebody named Cass, maybe like Mama Cass? But he had to go before he could tell me anything.”
Mabyn walked me to the door. “Kas, with a K. Short for Kasimir. Kas Novy. It’s a Slavic name, and he’s from Eastern Europe somewhere. A real hottie by all standards and something of a local celebrity. And yes, he and Ginger were an item.”
“What do you know about him besides his birthplace and ranking on the Celsius scale? Anything interesting?”
“Oh, he’s interesting all right. Kas Novy owns Cincinnati’s most popular nightclub, a place called Technotes. It’s downtown, and it’s patterned after some of the famous clubs in New York and L.A., the ones with real attitude. No limbo parties or do-it-yourself martini nights. They pull in the rich and famous, keep it more or less exclusive. They do the velvet rope routine, you know, people on their special list get in without a wait. If you’re flashy enough you get right in without being on the list. If you’re just plain old, plain old, you might have to wait awhile. Especially on a Friday night.”
“There’s a market for this in Cincinnati?”
Mabyn stared at me as if my prejudices were showing. In truth I find Cincinnati with its hills, river, and colorful bridges appealing. Professional sports, a symphony and ballet, major department stores, a rich German heritage that means good wurst and beer always on hand. The list goes on. It’s definitely not just a larger Emerald Springs.
“Okay.” I held up my hands. “You’re right, and I get ten lashes with braided strings of sauerkraut.”
Mabyn smiled and I was off the hook. “I heard Kas got funds to open Technotes from some club owners in New York or maybe L.A. Maybe he got advice, too, because he really knew what to do and how to do it. The place has been a success almost from the beginning, although I’ve heard rumors recently that it’s starting to go downhill.”
“Oh? Do you know why?”
“Friends say it’s seedier, that some people have stopped going because they’ve seen prostitutes in the vicinity, heard maybe there was some illegal gambling. You know, stuff they don’t want to be caught up in if the police show up.”
I wasn’t sure how any of this related to Ginger, and I steered the conversation back to her. “Do you know how long she and Kas were an item?”
“For all I know right up until the minute she married Cliff Grable. I think Kas either bought her a condo in the city or loaned her the money to buy one. It’s supposed to be a real beauty. Practically on the river. The ultimate in luxury.”
So Ginger had left a sizzling Slav whose weekends were one big party, and along the way she had abandoned a luxury condo on the Ohio River, as well. All for Cliff Grable, who was as sweet a guy as I’d ever met, but nobody’s idea of scintillating.
“You definitely kept up,” I told Mabyn at the door.
“It got to be a habit for me and the people keeping track of Ginger. I kept waiting for the other shoe to fall, if you know what I mean? First she’s in the accident, then she loses her job at the station, then she publishes a book to no great acclaim.”
“Then she’s murdered.”
“That was more than I wanted, Aggie. Truly. I was finished with Ginger.”
I don’t know why, but I believed her. I wondered if Roussos would, as well.
My daughters came home from their shopping trip with new coats. Vel found a terrific sale and the girls were delighted. Teddy, who has never had one that wasn’t Deena’s hand-me-down, looked precious in a lavender jacket with white faux fur rimming the hood. Deena’s was puffy and reversible, scarlet on one side, silver on the other. Very out-doorsy and perfect for horseback riding or school. I gave Vel a longer hug than she was comfortable with.
I had called Lucy to tell her I wouldn’t be at the Victorian today, since I was driving Vel to the airport. She didn’t say a word about joining me, but half an hour before Vel was to leave, Luce showed up on my doorstep with a thermos of hot coffee, a bag of chocolate chip cookies left over from an early morning sales meeting, and her lovely cherry red Concorde.
“I just couldn’t see you driving all the way to Cincinnati in your minivan.”
“Are you giving me the keys, or are you coming?” We were alone in the kitchen while the girls helped Vel finish packing. Junie was upstairs in Teddy’s room teaching Sid to knit, something she’d wanted to do for years. Sid was hungry for distraction, and Junie had pounced.
“Just invite me,” Lucy said.
“I’d love your company on the return trip. You can keep me awake.”
Lucy lowered her voice. “We haven’t
talked
.”
Of course that’s not true. Lucy came on Christmas Day to deliver Hanukkah presents to my daughters and I’d given a brief summary of what had happened the night before.
But I knew exactly what Lucy meant. She thinks we’re a team that flips houses on one hand and solves murders on the other. And she was feeling left out.
“I can catch you up on the way back.” I added fruit to the cookie stash.
“Now.” She made three syllables out of this, which is tough to do but makes a point.
As briefly as I could I told her what I’d learned from Rand and Mabyn. Lucy’s green eyes got huge. “I know that club, and I’ve heard of Kas Novy.”
“Have you been there?”
“Yeah. More than once.” She looked me up and down. “You can’t go like that.”
“Hold on. I’m not going. I just mentioned—”
“Of course you’re going! What’s wrong with you?
We’re
going! You want to find out about Technotes, don’t you? You want to find out how Ginger was involved. How else are we going to do it?” She glanced at her watch. “How long before Vel has to leave?”
“Fifteen, maybe twenty minutes.”
“I’ll be back. Go scour your wardrobe and find something clubby.” She started toward the door, then she turned. “Do you know what that means?”
“Umm, maybe.”
She shook her head, fully aware what a club doofus I am. “I’ll bring some stuff. Think young and sexy. Think short and tight.”
“It’s December. I’m thinking warm and toasty.”
“Put comfortable out of your head.”
“Bad things happen when I barhop with you.”
“Club. It’s a
club
.”
“I’m just going to call Rand when I get to the city and see what else he can tell me. That’s all I’m planning to do.”
“Call him? Invite him! He sounds like a party animal.” She disappeared. I looked down at my airport clothes. Faded jeans. A navy blue sweater of Ed’s over a T-shirt that says “I Make Matters Worse.” Deena gave it to me for Christmas. I hope it’s supposed to be funny.
Mabyn had said something about flashy people getting right into Technotes. I figured that in this attire, my hair would turn gray while I waited outside the door. With a sense of foreboding, I went upstairs to see what was cowering in my closet.
13
Rand Garner has spiky bleached blond hair, narrow, rectangular glasses with shiny royal blue frames, about fifty extra pounds on a small-boned body, and a smile that undoubtedly cost his parents thousands in orthodontia. He wore a copper-colored camp shirt with bright renditions of Elvis in his
Viva Las Vegas
period, dark linen pants, and a string tie with a shamrock that blinked on and off when he squeezed the stem. When Rand talks, his eyebrows leap spasmodically. Since he talks a lot, it’s like watching two caterpillars dance the tarantella.
“You are
so
not ready,” he told me, when I came out of the station greenroom fully attired in the clothes I hoped would vault me over Technotes’s velvet ropes. “Lucy!”
Lucy came out in a black velvet camisole with rhinestone straps, a purple lame skirt that barely covered what it needed to, and gray lizard cowboy boots. Her hair was a seething mass of curls that looked like they might reach out and choke an unwilling bystander.
“Back in,” she said, hiking her thumb over her shoulder. “Wear my jeans.”
I was wearing jeans. My jeans. Jeans that fit me and a long-sleeved white poet’s shirt, daringly unbuttoned to hint at my rather substantial cleavage. “I can’t get into your jeans and sit, too.”
She traded looks with Rand and marched me back in.
I gave up and submitted to torture. Ten minutes later I had poured myself into Lucy’s jeans, tied a shocking pink satin halter top in place, dusted my shoulders with sparkly gold powder and donned pointy-toed stiletto heels from the eighties that I’d been too sentimental to throw away. Both Rand and Lucy approved.
Dropping Vel at the airport had gone smoothly, with me promising to keep her in the loop about Sid. Then Lucy and I had whisked through traffic to the station to catch Rand before he left for the day. He had been thrilled about sleuthing at Technotes with us, and we’d agreed to meet back at the station at nine o’clock to change and head over to the club. Lucy and I did some shopping—the lizard boots for her, a really cool set of kitchen sponges for me—then found a quiet little Italian restaurant not too far from the station. We shared a mushroom pizza and caught up on all the house and personal details we hadn’t had time for over the holidays.
Rand was waiting by the time we got back, and now we were all ready to go. Oh, somewhere in there I’d made a telephone call to my husband to tell him I would be later than expected—as in it would officially be tomorrow when Lucy and I got back. Rather than go into a lengthy explanation, I told Ed about our plans for shopping and dinner. I’m hoping he thinks the stores in Cincinnati stay open around the clock.
Our plan hadn’t left any time to ask Rand what he’d found out about Ginger, and there was no opportunity on the trip to Technotes, either. Rand gave directions without first explaining that he is mildly dyslexic. We saw a lot of Cincinnati before we found the Pendleton area near the Central Business District and at last, our street. We parked Lucy’s car in a nearby lot, and she tipped the attendant to keep a close eye on it. Then I limped toward what looked like a warehouse half a block away.
“I’m freezing,” I complained.
“You’re wearing a coat,” Lucy said.
“And practically nothing under it!”
“You’ve been a wife and mother too long. Free your inner tart.”
“If I could get my hands on any kind of tart, I’d eat it. Maybe the calories would keep me warm.”
“There’ll be no more eating, not in those jeans.”
“Ladies, a night of bliss awaits.” Rand directed us across the street where a line had formed behind not a red velvet rope but a shocking pink one that matched my halter top.
“Take off your coat,” Lucy said. “Aggie, get it off right now. Let the guy at the door see what you’re wearing!”
“Are you nuts?”
“Why do you think we’re dressed like this? You think he has X-ray vision? Take it off. Show him you match the decor!”
I experienced one of those moments when the world stands still. The kind where everything freezes, but somehow I have plenty of time to think. The kind I tend to have when Lucy Jacobs is at my side. I tried to imagine members of our church walking by and seeing me, half naked, flaunting my best assets wrapped in shocking pink satin just so I could get a jump on the people at the front of the line.
On the other hand, I imagined standing out here for hours, freezing those assets and every other part of my body until blue, not shocking pink, was the color of my night. And after all, I wasn’t really here to
party.
I was here to rescue my sister from jumpsuit orange.
I slipped off my coat, and Lucy did the same. Rand had donned a black leather jacket, and he unbelted it and let it hang free so that Elvis bogeyed shamelessly when Rand’s extra pounds jiggled against the shirt.
Lucy walked up to the man in charge on the coveted side of the rope. She performed her most seductive smile. “We’d sure love to dance.”
The guy, pencil-thin mustache, brown hair slicked straight back from a widow’s peak into a tight braid, one diamond stud in an earlobe, gave her the once over. He turned to Rand and took the hem of the camp shirt in his hand. “Nice shirt.” He had what sounded like a Russian accent.
“Oh, don’t stop now.” Rand leaned toward him.
The guy laughed, but he dropped the shirt like it had ignited. He gave me a slow head to toe. I was too cold by then to tell if I’d passed muster, but he jerked his head toward the door. “Have a good evening.”
Lucy grabbed each of us by an elbow and hurried us inside. I didn’t dare glance at the shivering folks behind the rope. I’m definitely not used to being one of the beautiful people. Lucy paid our cover and told us we could buy her a drink later.
No matter what Lucy calls Technotes, it is, at heart, a bar. There are three bars, as a matter of fact. One on each side of a room the size of our middle school auditorium, sporting thirty-foot ceilings so the clouds of cigarette smoke will have somewhere to go. The other is triangular, and it stands precisely in the center. I looked for chairs, but on this level the only seats were at the bars and every one was at least three rows deep in drinkers. This was a place to mill, drink, and dance, not to get comfortable.