Ink Flamingos (16 page)

Jeff let him down with a thud, then turned to me and winked, putting his arm around me to herd me a little farther away. It reminded me of the time Tim had come to my rescue when Danny Brody had grabbed me during a game of capture the flag, his hands reaching toward my newly budded breasts.

Let’s just say Danny stayed away from me after that.

The monorail slowed again at the MGM stop. Everyone filed out, the white rapper giving Jeff furtive glances as though he were afraid Jeff would come after him again. The girl in the red dress batted her eyelashes at Jeff, and I wondered if they had made an unspoken date.

“Thanks for that back there,” I said as we walked from the monorail station to the MGM.

“Guy was out of line.”

“It happens,” I said.

“Shouldn’t.”

“You seemed to like that girl.”

“What girl?”

“The one in the red dress.”

Jeff chuckled. “What are you after, Kavanaugh? Trying to figure out my type?”

I shrugged. “I guess it’s just that you’ve met Colin Bixby, and you knew Simon Chase, too,” I said, referring to a casino manager I’d dated several months earlier. “I’ve never even seen you with a woman.”

Jeff’s face grew a little dark. He pursed his lips and stared straight ahead. “You knew about Kelly.” He was referring to his ex-wife, who had been murdered. He’d wanted kids with her and found out when she died that she’d been pregnant. I’d thought that because he never talked about it, he wasn’t still thinking about her. But I guess I was wrong. Hard to get over that sort of thing. Even for Jeff Coleman.

This was getting a little too personal. I was relieved to see we’d reached the entrance to the arena where the Flamingos were playing. I stepped up to the box office and told them my name.

“Melanie Black said she’d have two tickets for me,” I said.

The woman barely looked at me, rummaged in a drawer, and produced a small envelope, slipping it out through a slit in the bottom of the glass barrier between us.

I took it and looked around. Didn’t see Tim or Flanigan anywhere.

“Let’s go in,” Jeff said.

“I’m supposed to wait for Tim.”

“We’re late. He’s probably already in there.”

Jeff was right. But what was this? He wanted to go in with me?

“You can’t stand this kind of music,” I said.

He grinned. “Always up for something new.”

I hesitated.

“What’s wrong?”

Granted, Melanie had left two tickets for me; Tim was nowhere to be found. But I wasn’t sure about Jeff. First, because Tim might already be in there, ticket or no, and this wasn’t supposed to be a party. Second, Jeff wanting to go to a Flamingos concert was really out of character. Something was up, but I couldn’t figure out what.

Jeff leaned toward me and whispered in my ear, “Your brother isn’t here to go in with you, Kavanaugh. You’ve got someone taking pictures of you, accusing you of murdering a client. Accusing you publicly. I am not going to let you go in there alone. There must be thousands of people in there.”

And one of them could be my stalker. Okay, I got it.

I handed the envelope to the usher, who fished out the tickets. And something else. He looked at it, then handed it back to me. I glanced at it. A backstage pass.

“Go down to the front and give this to the usher near the steps,” he instructed.

I clutched it firmly in my hand as we made our way through throngs of people. At one point, I felt Jeff’s hand on the small of my back. At least I hoped it was Jeff’s. When we reached the front usher, I showed her the pass. She said something into a little walkie-talkie, then told us: “Hold on a minute.”

We stood, jostled by people taking their seats for the concert. Since we were so close to the stage now, I couldn’t help but notice the flowers. People had tossed bouquets and stray flowers and stuffed animals up on the stage. It was their way of paying their respects to the Flamingos. Since there was no street corner at which to leave them, the Flamingos’ fans had strewn them on the stage, where Daisy was more at home than anywhere.

I felt a sob escape my throat.

“It’s not your fault,” I heard Jeff whisper in my ear.

I swallowed hard, and before I could answer, a big, burly, black security guard came out of nowhere. The woman usher indicated us. “That’s them,” she said, but I couldn’t hear her because of the noise. I’d read her lips.

He barely looked at us, but a small nod of his head indicated that he might have actually heard her—or he was good at reading lips, too. We followed him up some side steps and around to the back. Before we could reach our destination, Melanie came running out toward us. The security guard stepped back, putting his hand to his ear, where he had a small headphone attached.

“What did you do, Brett?” Melanie demanded as she approached.

I looked at Jeff, then back at her, and shrugged. “What do you mean?”

“The cops. You sent cops over here.”

Tim and Flanigan. I nodded. “My brother—” I started, but she put her hand up to stop me.

“They took Sherman out of here in handcuffs.”

S
herman Potter? In handcuffs? “What are you talking about?” I asked her.

Melanie’s eyes flicked to Jeff.

“This is my friend, Jeff Coleman.”

Jeff gave her a short nod of acknowledgment, and she looked back to me. “Come on back,” she said, leading us through a hall to a door. She pushed it open, and we stepped inside.

The rest of the band—Cara, Tiffany, and Josie—turned around. They’d been facing a long mirror, putting on makeup and primping their hair.

“You actually felt you could show up here?” Tiffany demanded, brushing her long, dark locks that bounced back with a curl.

“I don’t know what’s going on,” I said. “I really don’t know what’s going on with my brother arresting Sherman Potter.”

“He just walked in here and read him his rights and slapped cuffs on him,” Josie said. She held two drumsticks and was absently tapping her knees to music inside her head.

“What for?” Jeff asked.

All heads turned toward him, and I noticed they were all assessing him. And then dismissing him. Guess he was too old for them. I’d have to tease him about that later.

“Daisy’s murder,” Melanie said. “They charged him with Daisy’s murder.”

“But I thought she died from that tattoo,” I said.

Melanie nodded. “That’s right. That’s what they told us, too. But I guess there were fingerprints or something. I didn’t get all of it; Sherman told us to call his lawyer and make sure we went on on time.”

The show must go on and all that, I guess.

“Where’s Ainsley?” I asked.

I didn’t think it was a trick question, but all four girls gave each other a look before Cara spoke up. “She never showed. Sherman kept calling her, but I guess she never picked up. We don’t know where she is.” Instead of concern, however, I heard relief in her voice. None of these girls wanted to share the stage with a stranger.

“You have to believe me. I had nothing to do with Sherman being arrested,” I said.

Tiffany finally put down her hairbrush. “It would be good for you to have someone else arrested, though, wouldn’t it?”

She thought I had something to do with Daisy’s death. Because of that stupid blog. “Listen, I’m a victim here, too,” I tried, noticing Jeff’s eyes get a little wider. I’d have to talk to him about that later. I proceeded to tell them about the blog and how I’d been set up. “I had nothing to do with any of that,” I concluded.

The four girls exchanged glances, as if deciding whether I was telling the truth. Finally, Cara spoke up.

“Daisy liked you, Brett. She trusted only you to do her tattoos.”

I didn’t know what to say. I’d been struggling with the same thing ever since I’d heard about Daisy. “This has been bothering me, too,” I admitted. “But if Sherman did it, well, she’d trust him, wouldn’t she?”

Another look exchanged. This one I couldn’t read.

“Daisy was quitting,” Josie said, the drumsticks now in her lap, still. “She was going out on her own.” Her tone was sharper than cut glass. She wasn’t happy with Daisy’s decision. And from the look on everyone else’s faces, neither were they. But Sherman Potter had someone lined up to take her place already; he’d even been using that as a line to pick up girls at Cleopatra’s Barge. I didn’t see why he’d have to kill Daisy. It didn’t seem he really had a motive. But these girls might.

However, Cara put that idea to rest.

“I already told everyone else tonight, after they took Sherman away, that he threatened Daisy.”

“Threatened her how?” I asked.

“She told me he said he was going to take her for everything she had. That he’d get her on breach of contract. She came out here early to tell him to go ahead—she was done as of right then.”

So maybe Daisy had confronted Sherman Potter in that room at the Golden Palace. The one that was registered to Ainsley Wainwright. And then he’d killed her and moved to the Venetian. Ainsley, his new lead singer, must have been there, too, since she was probably the woman who the police had thought was me at first.

But how did Daisy end up being tattooed? The scenario made sense until that point.

“Did you ask Sherman about that? Did Daisy confront him?” I asked.

Melanie nodded. “We talked to Sherman not long before your brother showed up. He said he didn’t threaten her, and he never saw Daisy that day. He’d been tracking down gigs for us.”

“He said we didn’t need her,” Cara added. “That she was overshadowing us.”

And it would give him a way to get his lover into the band.

“Did any of you tell my brother any of this? What Daisy told you about Sherman?” I asked, my eyes skipping from one face to the next. They all shook their heads.

“He’s our manager,” Josie said. “We need him.”

“You need to tell my brother what you know,” I said. “What if Daisy was right? You’re taking his word against hers, and the Daisy I knew wasn’t a liar. You can always get another manager.”

None of them looked as though they believed me.

“She
was
going to quit,” Josie said quietly, and by pointing out Daisy’s betrayal, I could see how hurt they were. How Daisy would never be able to make it right with them.

The big security guard stuck his head in the door. “Five,” he said, then disappeared.

I thought about Ainsley the blogger. Also dead. And I remembered what Tim had asked me.

“What’s Ainsley’s last name?” I asked.

They all looked at me as if I had three heads, but Cara said, “Wainwright. Her name is Ainsley Wainwright.”

I couldn’t breathe for a second. Okay, so that could not be a coincidence. And it probably wasn’t a coincidence that Ainsley was conveniently missing the same day another Ainsley Wainwright was found dead in her apartment across town. Since blogger Ainsley was dead, it only figured that Sherman’s Ainsley had taken her identity for some reason. But when had she taken it? Sherman Potter seemed like he’d known her longer than just a day or so, which was how long the blogger had been dead.

I needed to let Tim know what was going on, what these girls had said about Daisy and Sherman, and about Ainsley Wainwright.

Before I could take my cell phone out of my bag, though, yet another burly security guard stepped into the room and nodded at the girls. They all shuffled to their feet, Josie’s drumsticks now tapping the air.

“We’ll talk after,” Melanie promised as they left the room.

Jeff and I stared at each other a second before that first security guard came back in. “I can take you to your seats,” he said gruffly.

“I need to make a call first,” I said, now pulling my phone out and punching in Tim’s number. The guard didn’t look all that happy with me.

“You can’t stay in here,” he argued.

I shrugged at Jeff, my phone to my ear, as we allowed ourselves to be herded out. It was louder out here, though, the music blasting, and I could barely hear the phone ringing. We turned a corner, and I thought I saw someone familiar up head. Familiar in that she was a tall redhead. Walking very briskly away from us, so I only saw her back.

I dropped my phone from my ear and cocked my head toward her, asking Jeff, “Look familiar?”

He didn’t seem to hear me, since he was one step ahead of me, sprinting forward, but he didn’t get too far before the security guard stepped in front of him.

“Can’t go down there.”

If looks could kill, the guard would be so dead. But he was a lot bigger than Jeff, and it seemed that he clearly meant to keep him from going farther. Jeff’s mouth set in a grim line, his fists clenched, but he didn’t try to get past the guy.

The security guard flicked his wrist, to indicate we were to follow him. The sounds of the arena faded as we went through a side door and down a long hallway. We hadn’t come up this way, and it seemed that he was purposely leading us away from the woman we’d seen.

I felt like I was living that scene in
This Is Spinal Tap
where the band was wandering around not able to find the stage.

Just when I thought we would never see any other human being again, we turned a corner and the security guard pushed open a door.

And shoved us out into the night, slamming the door shut behind us.

J
eff and I stared at each other.

“What’s up with this?” I asked, trying to pull the door open again. It was locked tight.

“It was her,” Jeff said.

I knew whom he meant. The woman he’d met who’d been impersonating me. But I didn’t think so. Ainsley Wainwright was supposed to sing tonight. Her debut as a Flamingo. But why would she be lurking around the arena rather than out on stage with the rest of the band? Maybe she’d shown up while Jeff and I were talking to everyone. It would make sense that she’d run from us; she probably recognized me. She probably managed to get the security guard to make sure we wouldn’t see her. Having met her, I could see how she’d be able to do that. I’d seen how she behaved with Harry. She was a vixen, that one.