High Heels Are Murder (12 page)

“I tell you, Alyce, I never believed in karma until I found out Mrs. Mueller’s daughter was caught by the local busybody,” Josie said.

Alyce laughed and chomped the last cookie. “There is a God and she is just,” she said.

At ten o’clock the next morning, Josie and Alyce were parked down the street from Cheryl’s house in Alyce’s massive SUV. The sky had that gray, bleak look that threatened snow—or suicide.

Alyce was shivering so bad her teeth chattered. “It’s never this cold in the movies,” she said, pulling her coat tighter around her. “I’m sorry I can’t keep the engine running.”

“I can see my breath in here,” Josie said. “I need some coffee.”

“Then you’d need a bathroom,” Alyce said.

“You never see that in the movies, either,” Josie said. “Private eyes don’t have kidneys. How do I look?”

“Your own mother wouldn’t recognize you in that black wig and red lipstick.” Alyce hadn’t bothered with a disguise for the first day, since Cheryl didn’t know her.

“Her house is the one with the Pella windows and the white pillars, right?” Alyce said.

“That’s it. The prefab Tara,” Josie said. Being without coffee made her mean.

“It’s everything I expected,” Alyce said. “Small yard, big garage. Bad feng shui. I bet their car is leased.”

“You should see that house inside,” Josie said. “All for show downstairs, nearly bare upstairs.”

“Typical,” Alyce said. “Did she have a humongous lighted china cabinet in the dining room?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“Probably following mama’s advice: You always get your living-room furniture. You can buy a good bedroom set later. But you have to spend the money on a good dining-room set with a china cabinet before the children come, or you’ll never see it. I heard that from my mother and Cheryl probably heard it from hers. One
of my friends had to resort to a weekend of oral sex before she nailed that china cabinet. It’s the symbol of the good provider.”

“That explains the wedding cake topper on the shelf,” Josie said. “Let me give you the rest of the verbal tour. The kitchen is gourmet, although I don’t think she really cooks.”

“I always think when they call a kitchen gourmet, it means you could eat it—or maybe it could eat you,” Alyce said. “What’s wrong with me? I sound like I have fangs and I don’t even know these people. I’m sure they’re likable.”

“Not Cheryl,” Josie said.

“But she’s never done anything to me and she sets my teeth on edge. Cheryl and Tom are just trying to get a couple of rungs up the social ladder. They’re probably making more money than Daddy and she’s spending it on that showcase house. In ten years, it will be beautifully furnished and they’ll be solid suburban citizens.”

“Then they’ll own the cars and the house?” Josie said.

“Then they’ll be as deeply in debt as the rest of us,” Alyce said. “What time is it?”

“Ten twenty-three. I hope someone doesn’t call the cops on us,” Josie said.

“I’ll say I’m collecting for one of my charities,” Alyce said. “I threw some paperwork and a collection can in the backseat, just in case.”

“You’re a natural at this,” Josie said.

They watched the usual suburban scenes. Repair people arrived. A woman jogged by with a sports stroller. A man ran down the street, belly bouncing above his designer sweats, comb-over flopping in the cold wind.

“I bet he was good-looking ten years ago,” Alyce said. “Suburban life takes its toll on men, too. You’re lucky to be dating a writer like Josh. He won’t settle for the safe life.”

“That’s what worries me,” Josie said. “From some remarks he’s made lately, I think he walks too close to the wild side. He knows too much about how the police work.”

“That’s what makes him sexy,” Alyce said. “I don’t
like naive men and neither do you. You can bet Stan the Man Next Door doesn’t know a thing about the cops. Would you rather spend your nights comparing paper towel prices with him?”

“Isn’t there anything in between?” Josie said.

Before Alyce could answer, Cheryl’s garage door rumbled up. Josie could see her strapping baby Ben into his car seat. There was no sign that Cheryl had been hauled off to jail the day before. Her caramel hair was in a perfect chignon. Her camel pants were impeccable. Cheryl backed her black SUV out of the garage.

“Here we go,” Alyce said, and started her engine.

“Finally, you can turn on the heater,” Josie said.

They were a mile from Cheryl’s house when Josie said, “She’s heading for the sitter’s. Follow her, but don’t turn into the subdivision. We’ll be too easy to spot. We can wait in the mini-mart lot. She’ll be back at the subdivision entrance in ten minutes.”

Josie’s predictions were correct. After Cheryl dropped Ben at the sitter’s, she headed for Highway 40. But she didn’t get off at any of the expected exits.

“I think she’s driving downtown,” Josie said.

“I wonder where?” Alyce said. Proper West County women did not drive alone into downtown St. Louis. They considered it too dangerous. Some bragged about how many years it had been since they’d been “in the city.”

“No, wait! She missed the last Missouri exit,” Josie said. “She’s going into Illinois.”

“Illinois? What’s there?” Alyce said.

If West County women rarely visited the city, they never went to Illinois. They regarded it as one long stretch of industrial polluters, strip joints, and sin spots.

“She’s turning off into East St. Louis,” Josie said.

“Omigod,” Alyce said. She was genuinely shocked. “What on earth is she doing there?”

Alyce would vacation in Baghdad before she went to East St. Louis.

“She’s turning in to the Royal Duchess casino,” Josie said.

The Royal Duchess looked like a riverboat made of plywood.

“Some Duchess,” Josie said. “This is a floating Wal-Mart. Isn’t that the Casino Queen over there?”

“Sure is,” Alyce said. “Makes the Duchess look like the Bellagio. The Duchess spent all her money on the parking lot. It’s lit up like Las Vegas.”

“At least something looks like Vegas,” Josie said.

Josie had flown to Las Vegas with Amelia’s father in a private plane. They’d had a wildly romantic weekend in an outrageous purple velvet suite with a four-poster bed. Josie had drunk champagne and won five hundred dollars at roulette. That was when she still took chances.

The Duchess did not look like a place for champagne or romance. The parking lot lights were so bright, even the gray November day seemed sunny.

“At least I feel safe here,” Josie said. “This place has more security than a federal prison.”

“This is a prison, too,” Alyce said. “It’s full of losers.”

Josie was surprised by Alyce’s bitterness. Maybe she was against legalized gambling. Josie wanted to ask her, but Alyce was struggling to track Cheryl’s SUV through the endless parking lot. Cheryl drove erratically up and down the aisles, sometimes speeding, other times stopping for no reason. Suddenly, she whipped into valet parking.

“Do you want valet parking, too?” Alyce asked.

“No. We’ll need to move quickly,” Josie said. “We
can’t wait for some kid to bring the car if we’re chasing Cheryl.”

“Fine. The valets always change my radio buttons,” Alyce said. “Most car parkers don’t listen to NPR.”

Josie and Alyce followed Cheryl into the casino. Cheryl moved with the sureness of someone who felt at home. Josie stumbled, blinked and tried to adjust to the lights. They were dim and flashing, all at the same time. She heard the constant sound of money clinking and jingling, although she didn’t see any coins.

“This is like a bad disco,” she said to Alyce.

“Including the customers,” Alyce said.

A man with lizard skin, a high black-dyed pompadour, and a purple shirt open to his navel stared at Cheryl’s beige perfection and puffed out his flabby chest like an old rooster. His chest was carpeted with gray hair and gold chains.

“Omigod,” Josie said. “If Elvis was alive, he’d look like that.” Suddenly, she swung around. “Where’s Cheryl?”

Their quarry had disappeared into the crowd where three wide halls intersected.

“We’ve lost her,” Alyce said.

They raced through herds of gamblers. Running on the bright confusion of the red-and-orange carpet made Josie dizzy. Bars beckoned. Neon glowed. Lounge acts, dressed like older, fatter versions of Elvis, the Bee Gees, and Frank Sinatra, sang dead men’s songs.

“Doesn’t anyone alive sing anymore?” Alyce asked.

“Never mind the state of casino music,” Josie said. “We have to find Cheryl.”

They ran by hard-faced women in tight jeans, grandmas in sweet pastels, workingmen in baseball caps. There was no sign of Cheryl’s understated elegance.

They sprinted by spinning roulette wheels and tense, soundless baccarat tables. No Cheryl. They could see high-stakes poker players roped off behind velvet barriers. Cheryl wasn’t sitting with that select group.

“Wait! That’s her,” Alyce said. “She’s playing the dollar slots.” Josie skidded to a stop.

Cheryl was enthroned on a padded black leather chair, pushing a bill into a slot machine. A baby spot highlighted her hair, turning it brassy gold.

“I thought you had to be at least seventy years old to play the slots,” Josie said. “Cheryl’s too young. Where’s her plastic coin bucket?”

“Boy, are you out of it,” Alyce said. “Casinos don’t have buckets. Slots don’t give out tokens anymore. They have tickets. Casinos don’t have slot machine attendants, either. Now they’re called luck ambassadors.”

“You’re making this up,” Josie said.

“Jake and I went to a casino—Harrah’s, I think—with some lawyers from his office. I lost a hundred dollars. I’m an expert.”

Josie stood back on the garish carpet and surveyed the scene. “I think we can watch Cheryl from the nickel slots and she won’t see us. Have a seat.”

Alyce plopped down. “This padded chair feels good.”

Josie stuck a dollar bill into a $10,000 jackpot nickel slot machine. “Where’s the handle on this thing?” she said.

“You don’t pull slot machines anymore,” Alyce said. “You press a button.”

Lights blinked, lemons and cherries spun, and finally two lemons and a cherry came up.

The machine went dark. Game over.

“That’s it? I lost a whole buck in two seconds?” Josie said. “It gulped down my dollar and I didn’t even get any pulsing lights or ringing bells. Why not put a gun to my head and empty my wallet? I can’t believe people get addicted to this. I’ve had more excitement buying a train ticket.”

“People don’t get addicted to losing,” Alyce said. “They get hooked on winning. You’re lucky. If you’d won the grand jackpot, you’d be back here every day trying to duplicate that high.”

Josie didn’t feel lucky. She kicked the machine. A luck ambassador started toward her. “We’d better sit in the penny slots. I’ll be bankrupt in an hour at this rate.”

“You find us two good seats,” Alyce said. “I’ll stroll by Cheryl and see how much she’s spending.”

Josie tried out several penny slot machines until she got two with an angled view of Cheryl’s slot. Cheryl didn’t notice Josie. She didn’t notice anything but her relentless machine. She fed it bill after bill, as if she were chained to a ravenous robot. The slot machine gave her nothing, but Cheryl never stopped shoving money into it.

Alyce glided back from her reconnaissance tour of Cheryl’s site, slightly breathless, blond hair floating every which way. “Cheryl’s gambling with ten-dollar bills. She lost fifty dollars while I was there. Fifty! She’s going through money like Kleenex in the cold season.”

Josie started keeping track of the bills Cheryl pushed into the machine. She played her own penny slot just enough to keep the luck ambassador away. The only thing Josie won was two free plays. Both tries were losers.

It was a joyless way to spend a day. The casino had no clocks, no windows, only the ruthless machines and the corrosive cries of greed and disappointment. There was no glamour, either. The room looked like a beer dive. The luck ambassadors wore saggy jeans and polyester shirts.

Josie wanted to run outside into the cold, fresh air. Alyce shifted restlessly in her chair. If there had been a kitchen nearby, she would have whipped up a soufflé to pass the time.

“There’s no reason for both of us to sit here the whole time,” Josie said. “We can take breaks as long as we stay close by.”

Josie bought a surprisingly good grilled chicken sandwich at a casino restaurant. Alyce went for lemon meringue pie. They gulped coffee, Mountain Dew and Diet Coke to stay awake. Time moved like a walker in a nursing home.

Cheryl never left her slot machine, not for food, drink, or the rest room. Unlike other gamblers, she made no desperate runs to ATMs along the walls. Her camel leather purse seemed to have an endless supply of ten-spots.

Cheryl won and lost with an equal lack of emotion.

She was down some five hundred dollars after the first hour. Then she had a winning streak and gained more than two hundred dollars. Her machine rattled and rang with programmed animation, but Cheryl’s expression never changed. She threw all her winnings and more back into her hungry little machine.

As the day limped on, Josie felt like someone had drained her blood. “This is boring,” she whispered to Alyce. “I’ve lost twenty bucks in the penny slots. Do you think I can put my losses on Mrs. Mueller’s expense account?”

“What time is it?” Alyce asked.

“Two fifty-five,” Josie said. “Cheryl has dropped seven hundred bucks in three hours.”

“My Lord,” Alyce said.

Promptly at three o’clock, Cheryl rose from her chair, drifted through the casino like a sleepwalker and handed her ticket to the valet. Josie and Alyce jogged to their SUV, then followed Cheryl to the highway.

“Those were awesome losses. I’ve never known anyone to gamble away that kind of money,” Josie said. “Even the poker players at the VFW hall never lose more than a hundred bucks a night.”

“Do slot machines count as gambling?” Alyce said.

“How can she afford to drop that kind of money? I’ve seen her house,” Josie said. “Seven hundred bucks would fill those empty shelves downstairs with decorator books, or buy new wallpaper for the upstairs.”