Ink Flamingos (25 page)

“She starts at eight.”

“Okay,” he said, as if he’d really show up, and then we turned toward the elevators. One was opening just as we approached, so we hopped in.

“So at least we know Ainsley’s sister’s name now,” I said. “But why not reserve the room in her own name, since that’s the one she’s using tonight? Didn’t you say the room was reserved under the name Ainsley Wainwright?”

Jeff shook his head. “I never said that. I didn’t get a first name. Just the last.”

“Losing your touch?” I teased.

He shrugged, his eyebrows rising slightly in his forehead, his lips curving into a sly smile. “What do you think?”

“Okay, so you made quite the impression on that little thing back there,” I said.

“All for the cause, all for the cause.”

The elevator doors slid open. We were on the nineteenth floor. It was shabby up here; a moldy odor hung in the air. The carpet was gray, but I couldn’t tell if that was the original color or whether it was supposed to be white but had gotten dirty. Jeff took my arm and led me to the left, pointing at the room numbers on a sign.

“Down here.”

The hallway was a maze of turns. It felt as though we were walking blocks. The odor grew stronger the farther away from the elevator we got.

“You got a little jealous back there, didn’t you?” Jeff teased.

I didn’t answer.

He stopped at a door, a DO NOT DISTURB Sign dangling from the knob. “This is it.” He reached out and put his knuckles to the door, but as he knocked, the door moved. He gave it a little push and it opened.

We exchanged a glance.

“Wasn’t closed properly,” he said, as if setting up our explanation to the police as to how we ended up breaking and entering. Tim would not be pleased, regardless.

I hung back as Jeff put his head around the door. I could see the corner of an unmade bed, sheets in a pile on the floor at the foot of it, a leg hanging over the side.

“Stay here,” Jeff whispered as he went farther around the door.

I didn’t want to be out here all by myself, so I followed him, but stopped when I saw the naked man sprawled across the bed.

And the tattoo of a flamingo on his arm.

I
t was Sherman Potter. And he wasn’t merely sleeping.

Jeff was hunched over the body, studying the flamingo tattoo, which was not nearly as colorful as Daisy’s had been when she died.

“It’s not new,” he said.

I leaned over his shoulder and studied it, too. Jeff was right: This tattoo was not new at all. It actually looked like it was a lot older than the Flamingos, because the color was faded, the lines not so sharp anymore. I wondered if Sherman Potter had given the band its name from the tattoo he sported. Daisy had never said anything about the origin of the band’s name, although I’d always assumed it had come from her.

Jeff was no longer paying attention to the tattoo, but scanning the body.

“What are you doing?” I asked, wondering if we should cover the man up. It wasn’t exactly dignified to be letting it all hang out like that.

“Looking for a cause of death,” Jeff said.

Okay. Sounded reasonable.

I thought about how Daisy had been found in a room in this very same hotel just a couple of days ago. It could not be a coincidence that now Sherman Potter was here, too.

A redheaded woman was seen leaving Daisy’s room, and Jeff had seen a redheaded woman come in this room with Sherman Potter.

That could cast doubt on whether Sherman Potter was responsible for Daisy’s death, but it was pointing every finger at Ann Wainwright. I wondered why Ann had been using her sister’s name.

I glanced back at the tattoo, then looked around the room. Sherman Potter had traveled light, since I didn’t see a suitcase or any clothes except the ones that were scattered on the floor. A hotel room key card lay on the desk. Maybe he really was staying at the Venetian and this was just some sort of afternoon delight. Well, until he died, of course.

I heard a familiar tone. My cell phone. A text message. I reached into my bag and pulled it out, reading the screen.

My hand started to shake, and Jeff gently took the phone from me, looking at the message.

It was a picture text, with a picture of Sherman Potter’s flamingo tattoo. The one we were looking at right this very moment. And a message that said, “You keep giving me good reasons to blog.”

“She put it up on the blog,” I whispered. “What else did she put there?” Was she watching us now? Did she see us come in here?

“We could go down to the lobby and see if we can use a computer in the business office to find out what’s up.” Jeff’s tone was matter of fact.

“We need to call Tim,” I said, although I wasn’t too sure how he’d take me finding yet another dead body.

Jeff knew what I was thinking. “How are you going to explain to your brother that you happened upon poor old Sherman Potter? It’s breaking and entering.”

“The door was open,” I said after a moment.

He grinned. “That’s right. But considering that you’re already on the hook for Daisy Carmichael and there’s another flamingo tattoo in the picture, maybe you’ll just want to phone this in anonymously.”

It was tempting. I didn’t need Tim telling me yet again that I shouldn’t get involved. But I couldn’t do it. I had to tell him. Because the guilt would eat me alive. Sister Mary Eucharista had taught me well.

“Didn’t think so,” Jeff teased, but I could hear something in his tone that indicated he agreed with me.

I took the phone out of Jeff’s hand and punched in Tim’s number.

“What is it now, Brett?”

His tone made me wish I hadn’t felt so guilty.

“Well, there’s a bit of a situation,” I started.

“There always is with you,” he said. “Spit it out.”

I told him about finding Sherman Potter, and he caught his breath.

“What is it with you?” he asked. “I mean, how do you do this? It’s like you’re some sort of murder magnet.”

Great. Exactly what I wanted to put on my résumé. Not.

“Just get over here, okay?”

“You haven’t touched anything, have you?”

I glanced at Sherman Potter’s naked body again and shivered. “No. Nothing.”

“Stay put.” And he hung up.

Jeff had wandered into the bathroom, and now he emerged. “On his way?” he asked.

I nodded.

“She took a shower. There are wet towels on the floor.”

“Maybe he took one,” I suggested.

“His hair’s not wet, and it doesn’t look like the sheets under him are, either.”

“Who died and made you a CSI?” I asked.

He rolled his eyes at me—something I usually did, so it was interesting the other way around—and said, “I suppose you think you’re the only one who knows her way around a crime scene.”

“Maybe we should buy those little flashlights like they’ve got on TV. Then we could look under the bed and see if there are any more clues.”

Jeff laughed out loud. “And then we’ll find out it was Mr. Plum in the dining room with a candlestick. Let’s go down to the business center and wait for your brother,” he suggested, moving toward the door.

“I told Tim I’d stay put,” I said.

“We’re not leaving the hotel—we’re just checking on something. We’ll come right back.” He didn’t wait for me, went out into the hallway.

His argument made sense, so I followed him out. He pulled the door shut tight, locking Sherman Potter inside.

We wandered the hallway maze until we found ourselves at the elevators. Jeff pushed the DOWN button. I could hear the whir of the elevator, but it didn’t stop for us.

“So, Kavanaugh,” Jeff said, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest. “Are we going to talk about it?”

I knew what he was referring to, but I played stupid. “What?”

“This thing between us.”

“What thing?”

“You know. We’ve got a thing.”

“We do not have a thing,” I said, and the elevator doors opened.

We stepped inside, and we were trapped together for the moment. I couldn’t get away.

But he didn’t say anything. Not until the elevator doors opened to the lobby. As I started out, he touched my arm and said, “We
do
have a thing.” And then we stepped into the lobby.

I totally did not need this right now. I did not need Jeff Coleman to start getting all relationship-y on me. If that was what he was doing. I couldn’t quite tell. It was so like him to dance around this, to make me start thinking about it. I shrugged it off. I didn’t have time. I had a stalker, an impersonator, I’d just found a dead body, and I had to sort all that out first.

Jeff led the way to the front desk without saying anything else, which I was grateful for. I was also glad to see that the little blonde was nowhere in our vicinity. Maybe she’d gone off shift. One could only hope.

I wasn’t paying much attention to Jeff, until I saw him slide a key card across the desk to the young man in a Mao jacket. Immediately red lights started to go off in my head. Had he taken Sherman Potter’s room key? He turned slightly and caught my eye, winking. Of course he had. He took the key card. This was so not good.

The young man was now pointing around the corner. He handed Jeff back the key with a smile.

“I can’t believe you did that,” I said in a hushed tone as we approached the glassed-in business center.

“We needed a key to get in,” he said matter-of-factly. “We couldn’t have if we didn’t have a key.”

Just as he slipped the key card into the slot on the business center door, I heard a voice from behind us.

“What are you doing?”

W
e’d forgotten all about Sylvia. We’d left her with her pie and coffee and said we’d be right back. We’d lied.

Jeff shuffled her into the room with us. “Sorry,” he said, “but something came up.”

“I would hope so, otherwise why would you leave an old lady alone?” she said.

No one else was in the business center, and Jeff ignored Sylvia as he slipped into a chair in front of an old PC and clicked on the Internet icon.

“What are we doing in here?” Sylvia asked.

“Checking a blog,” Jeff said. I was glad he kept it simple; I wasn’t quite sure just how much to tell her.

“You can’t do that at home or at the shop?” she demanded.

Jeff waved his hand to shush her as the Skin Deep blog popped up on the screen. I peered over his shoulder, but no pictures had been posted since the ones of me and Harry. I looked away. I didn’t want to be reminded.

“What were you doing, kissing that boy?” Sylvia asked me.

I shrugged. “Momentary lapse.”

“Induced by absinthe,” Jeff added.

“You were drunk?” Sylvia frowned. “My dear, never kiss a boy when you’re drunk. He’ll get the wrong idea.”

No kidding.

Jeff was typing, and then another page came up on the screen. I cringed slightly, because it was “my” blog, Ink Flamingos.

And there it was: Sherman Potter’s flamingo tattoo.

I hate it when I’m right about the wrong things.

Jeff scrolled down to see if there was any text, but there wasn’t. It was like on Skin Deep, just a picture with no title. Just like the one of Daisy’s tattoo on Skin Deep.

“At least she didn’t have pictures of us up there,” Jeff mused.

“Maybe she doesn’t know he’s dead,” I suggested. “She could’ve taken it any time.”

Jeff pointed at the time on the screen. It had been uploaded fifteen minutes ago. “And what was it the text said? That you keep giving her good reasons to blog? Like the first dead body, and now this one?”

He didn’t have to rub it in.

“Let’s go back upstairs,” I said. “We have to meet Tim.” Somehow it seemed more urgent right now.

“If he doesn’t see us up there, he’ll probably call your cell,” Jeff said absently. He was back to Skin Deep, now looking at the picture of Daisy’s flamingo. He’d clicked on the picture and it came up in a separate window, much larger than it was on the blog.

I still couldn’t figure out why Daisy agreed to have color, although from what Flanigan said, it wasn’t this particular tattoo that killed her. It was that second time she was exposed to the allergen. But it still nagged at me that she’d gone somewhere else, to another tattooist, for this work, and not to me. Yeah, it was an ego thing.

“Are you looking for something in particular?” I asked.

“This is interesting,” he said softly.

“Interesting how?” I asked.

He turned to Sylvia. “What do you know about this?”

“What do you think?” she asked belligerently.

“I didn’t notice this before. Maybe because it was smaller, but I can see it now,” Jeff said. “And maybe you should explain.” He was still talking to Sylvia.

“What didn’t you notice? What needs explaining?” I asked.

Both sets of eyes turned to me.

“Do you want to tell her?” Jeff asked Sylvia.

“Someone better tell me, and fast,” I said.

Sylvia patted my arm and smiled as though I were a moron for not picking up on whatever it was they saw.

“I started a tradition a long time ago that in every tattoo I’d hide a little ‘mi’ for the name of the shop within the tattoo. You know, my signature,” Sylvia said. “No one knows,” she added with a little smirk, “but it’s the way we can keep track of our tattoos. When I turned the shop over to Jeff, he continued with it.”

Clever.

Sylvia’s finger moved on the screen, and suddenly I saw it. The initials were there. In the pink plumes of the flamingo.

“What?” I asked, turning to Jeff. “
You
colored her flamingo?” I hadn’t seen the initials the first time because I hadn’t been looking for them, and they were so small I wouldn’t have noticed them if they hadn’t been pointed out. Like the flowers in the tips of the wings that I’d done.