Buried In Buttercream (25 page)

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Authors: G. A. McKevett

BOOK: Buried In Buttercream
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Chapter 23
“
W
hat do you want to do first,” Savannah asked Dirk as they walked into the Victoriana, “have dinner or go twist a knot in Ethan Aberson's tail?”
“Oh, the tail twisting, definitely. Just think how much tastier dinner will be if we've roasted him first.”
That told Savannah all too clearly how aggravated he was that he'd been chasing his own tail trying to nail this guy. Dirk seldom got terribly, deeply annoyed when on a case. After so many years, it was all pretty routine for them both.
But this one had proven especially frustrating with so many suspects, so few alibis, and so little physical evidence.
She understood his vexation and shared it.
It was enough for her to want to go after Ethan Aberson on an empty stomach. And that was a first for her, a woman with her priorities in order. Food first and then ... well ... everything else.
“Then let me call Tammy and see what room he's in,” she said.
“She's probably sitting outside his door, watching it like a cat watching a gopher hole.”
“Probably.” She punched in Tammy's number on her cell. Tammy answered right away. “Whatcha doing?” she asked.
“Still watching Ethan's door,” she said, “with Waycross, of course.”
“Of course.” Savannah laughed and nodded to Dirk. “What number is it?”
“Three fifteen.”
“We'll be right there.”
“Good. 'Cause we could both really, really use a potty break.”
 
Savannah and Dirk found Tammy and Waycross exactly where she'd said, down the hall, eyes glued to the door of room 315.
“Good Lord, Tammy,” Savannah said. “You aren't guarding the president, for heaven's sake. Go pee, both of you.”
As they raced down the hallway toward their respective rooms, Savannah and Dirk laughed.
“I wish there was that kind of dedication on the job,” Dirk said. “If I had a few like her in the department, I wouldn't have to work half as hard.”
“Yeah, but she makes me tired, just watching her.” She pointed to the door. “And hungry. Let's go get this wrapped up. I want to hit one of those famous buffets.”
They walked up to the door, and Dirk stretched out his hand to knock on it.
“Hey,” she said. “You've been doing a lot of that lately. My turn.”
As she nudged him aside, she whispered, “It'd be better if he looks through the keyhole and sees me instead of you.”
“Why?”
“I'm prettier. And if you were a guy, wouldn't you open a door faster for a woman than some dude you didn't know?”
“What do you mean, if I were a guy?”
“Shhh.”
She knocked and listened. The television was on pretty loud inside, but someone turned down the volume. Then she heard footsteps approaching.
“Yes?” a male voice said. “Who is it?”
“Housekeeping,” she replied, trying to sound like a tired, bored, hotel maid and not an investigator with her pulse thudding.
“I don't need anything. Thank you.”
“I have to turn down your bed.”
“It's down. I'm in it. Thanks anyway.”
She could hear the footsteps walking away. “Damn,” she muttered under her breath.
“Yeah, leave it up to you,” Dirk said. “If you were a woman, maybe you'd have been able to—”
“Watch it.”
She knocked on the door a second time, a little harder and a bit more insistent.
Again the steps approached. “Yes?” he said on the other side. “Really, I don't need turndown service. Thank you. Good night.”
“But, sir, I'll get in trouble if I don't give you your mints; it'll just take a moment and then I'll leave you alone.”
There was a pause, then the rattling of a chain.
She turned and made a face at Dirk.
When he didn't return her mug, but reached inside his jacket to unsnap his weapon's holster, she sobered up a bit, too.
It was great fun getting to lie to strangers and outsmart them for a good cause, but they were hunting a killer. And it was time to get down to business.
Ethan opened the door, and when he saw Savannah, he gave her a warm smile and reached out his hand for the promised candy. But when he saw Dirk standing beside her, his warmth evaporated.
“Hey,” he said, backing away from the door. “What's this?”
Dirk put his foot in the door before he could close it. “Not what you think. We're not here to rob you.”
“Oh.” He gave a nervous little laugh. “Good.”
“Naw, it's not that good,” Savannah said. “In fact, by the time we're done, you might even think it's worse.”
 
By the time twenty minutes had passed, it was Savannah and Dirk who were hating the visit as much or even more than Ethan Aberson.
They had gone in the same verbal circle with him enough times that Savannah was getting dizzy.
She had decided five minutes into the interview that it was a mistake to do this on an empty stomach. Her brain never functioned at full capacity without a generous helping of carbs.
Chocolate never hurt either.
“I don't know what that man and that girl at the brothel were talking about,” Ethan said for the fifth time as he paced back and forth the length of the small room. “I went there once, yes. That's perfectly legal here in Nevada.”
Dirk shifted in the small chair he was sitting in next to the table. Savannah sat across from him, equally restless.
“But you told them, paid them, in fact, to lie about where you were the day after that,” he said. “Don't tell us that you didn't again, because my friend here doesn't like being lied to. In fact, she chewed up and spit out the big Russian guy who runs that dive for lying to us about your so-called second visit. The one that didn't happen.”
“You paid them to say that you were there, when you were here in the hotel,” Savannah said. “We absolutely know that. And you're losing all credibility by telling us otherwise.”
“If you have solid evidence that I was here in the hotel,” Ethan said, running his fingers wearily through his thick silver hair, “why are you harassing me like this? I couldn't have been here in this hotel and in San Carmelita murdering Madeline at the same time, now could I?”
It was true, of course, Savannah told herself. But there was still something very peculiar about this business of establishing a false alibi, even if it turned out that you had a better one elsewhere.
She knew bull-pucky when she smelled it, and from where she stood, she could swear she was standing in the middle of a dairy's grazing field.
“Look,” Ethan said, “I'm sure that if you've been investigating my wife and her life for the past few days, it didn't take you long to find out that we didn't like each other, to say the least. But I didn't kill her. I don't know who did. I'm not the only person who was on the outs with her.”
“We know that,” Dirk said. “But we also know that divorces, and especially bitter custody battles, bring out the worst in people. Then we find out that you're hanging out in brothels, and bribing the prostitute and pimp to lie for you. We have to find out what that's about.”
Ethan walked over to the bed and abruptly sat down on it, as though his legs had just given out beneath him.
“Listen,” he said. “I'm going to tell you one more time, and you can believe me or not. I went to Monique's that first day that you're talking about. I went and ... to be embarrassingly frank ... I couldn't ... you know. I'd never gone to a place like that before. I guess I was just in a weird mood because of all the stress Madeline put me through. Anyway ...”
He stopped, took a deep breath, and then continued, “I couldn't, you know, perform. The girl felt bad and told me that if I came back the next day she'd give me a freebie. I told her I'd think about it. I gave her a big tip, because I felt sort of sorry for her. She seemed like a good kid in a bad place.”
“She is a good kid,” Savannah said. “A sixteen-year-old kid. And we took her out of that bad place.”
“Oh, wow. Then I'm glad I didn't do anything with her. I wouldn't want that on my conscience.”
Savannah watched him closely, and her intuition told her that at least that much was true. Plus, on the way to the bus station in Vegas, Charlene had told them as much about his lack of performance power.
“That part of your story jibes with what the girl told us,” she told him. “But the rest of it, about the next day ... that doesn't fly.”
“I don't know why she and that Russian guy would claim that I bribed them to say I was there the second day. I did not. Like I said, I gave her a generous tip. Maybe she misunderstood and miscommunicated it to him. I don't know.”
Savannah knew they had hit a wall with this guy. And when she looked over at Dirk, she could see all over his face that he knew it, too.
All this time and effort, and this suspect was a dead end like all the others.
“Ethan,” she said, “if you didn't kill your wife or have it done, do you have any notion who did?”
He thought for a while before answering. And when he did, he looked her straight in the eye with as much sincerity as the most innocent person she had ever known.
“I really don't,” he said. “I've thought about it a lot. I know Madeline has enemies. Her former lover and his wife. Her business partner. Some people whose parties and weddings she ruined. Honestly, the woman had way more enemies than friends. Everyone in my life told me for years to leave her, that she was no good.”
“Is that why you left her?” Savannah asked.
“No. I don't care what other people think. Believe it or not, but I loved Maddy. We had some really good times in the beginning. And with our beautiful little Elizabeth.”
He broke down in tears, bowed his head, and covered his face with his hands.
Savannah looked around the room, spotted a nearby tissue box, and offered him a handful.
“Thank you,” he said as he wiped his eyes and blew his nose. “The bottom line is: I finally wised up and realized that she didn't love me. She never had. Maddy had something broken inside her. She wasn't capable of love. And now”—his voice cracked again—“and now my little daughter has to grow up without a mother. It breaks my heart.”
 
As Savannah and Dirk left the room and walked down the narrow, dark hallway with its bloodred carpet, Dirk asked her, “Do you believe him?”
“About loving his daughter? About Madeline's shortcomings and other enemies? Yes.”
“Me, too. But about the brothel ... no way. He was lying like a rug about that.”
“Absolutely. I could practically see the smoke curling up off the back of his pants when he was talking about that.”
“But why do you suppose he'd set up an alibi and then not use it?”
“I don't know. And frankly, right now, I'm too hungry to give a hoot. My stomach thinks my throat's been cut. Let's go eat.”
Savannah and Dirk collected Tammy and Waycross and showed the youngsters the “real” Las Vegas in all of its glorious, gaudy, way-over-the-top grandeur. The majestic, golden hotels reaching into the black, desert sky. The strange architectural wonders—gigantic roller coasters, replicas of the Eiffel Tower, the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge, even a great pyramid, and a Roman palace. It was all simply too much to take in.
Even Savannah, who tried hard not to be impressed, had to admit that the lights were truly beautiful. Sparkling, glowing, flowing, shooting, exploding everywhere. She couldn't help but be completely dazzled.
And to everyone's delight, they had no problem at all finding wonderful food to satisfy everyone's eclectic tastes, from Tammy's organic vegetables to Waycross's rib-sticking steak.
They were a tired group when they finally returned to their hotel rooms.
Savannah wasted no time hitting the sheets. But the excited, effervescent Tammy wasn't about to let her get off that easily.
“I had more fun today than I've had all the rest of my life put together!” she exclaimed as she practically danced out of the bathroom, having taken her shower and slipped into her pajamas. “It was wonderful! I got to do some real, live detecting and ... oh, that was so exciting! My heart was pounding when we followed our subject around, and surveilled his every movement!”
“I'm happy for you, darlin'.” Savannah yawned. “You can tell me all about it in the morning.”

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