Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 2) (20 page)

The next morning I impress the heck out of myself when my alarm goes off at 5:30 and I actually get up. My mother is a snoring heap of bones in the next bed. When I part the drapes and peek outside, I’m startled by how dark the Strip is. Then I realize that this just-before-sunrise hour is one of the few when you can catch Vegas without her makeup on. There’s no neon.

I throw on my Juicy Couture tracksuit and make for the Starbucks in the lobby, my laptop in tow. The hotel is so empty that I half wonder if a neutron bomb vaporized everybody but the barista and me. As she brews me a sustaining cappuccino, I note that Cassidy’s murder made the front page of the local newspaper, “above the fold,” as they say. No surprise, really. Two murders in a matter of days in a major Vegas hotel are pretty noteworthy. Not in a good way.

The barista sees me eyeing the article. “We’re all nervous wrecks around here.”

“You mean, worrying if there’ll be a third?”

“And if the hotel can survive this. It’s not exactly good for business.”

Maybe that’s why the place looks so empty. It’s not the early hour. It’s that everybody who could clear out did.

I eat my banana and boot up my computer, bypassing email for my spreadsheet on Danny and Cassidy’s murders. I have my suspects listed along with means, motive, and opportunity. Fat lot of good all that organization has done me. The only progress I can make is deleting Hans’s name. The clock is ticking down to my Sparklettes performances and subsequent departure from Vegas and yet I remain flummoxed.

I wrack my brain for a while longer, then buy coffee and a muffin for my mother and go upstairs to my room. I find my mom not only awake but preening in front of the bathroom mirror with a mascara wand in her hand. I’m so astonished I almost drop her Starbucks booty.

“I’m practicing,” she says, “because I’ll need a light makeup next week for my job interview.”

“Your
job interview
?”

“With Bennie Hana. You know. The used car guy?”

I know Bennie Hana. Everybody in the Cleveland area knows Bennie Hana. His TV ads run constantly and they all feature him executing a karate move while screaming that he chops prices.

I lean against the door jamb and find my voice. “Are you telling me you have a job interview with Bennie Hana?”

“You hard of hearing all of a sudden? Rachel helped me look through the job ads on that Internet there.”

So this is what she’s been so coy about, the “decisions” she made that she wouldn’t cop to. At least not with me. “What’s the job?”

“Office receptionist,” she declares proudly. She lays down the mascara and faces me. I’ve never once seen her wear more than a touch of lipstick but I have to admit she looks good. “Since for some mysterious reason you’ve got so much trouble believing this, I’ll prove it to you.” She leads me into the main room and hands me a sheet of paper printed from craigslist. “The girl in that business center on the mezzanine level printed this out for me.” She points to the ad circled in red ink.

Office receptionist. General office duties. Full time weekdays and occasional weekends. Must have phone experience and pleasant personality to interact with clients.

I’m thinking that last could be a problem. “Mom?” I keep my voice gentle. “Does Bennie Hana know you’ve never held a job outside the home?”

She narrows her eyes at me. “What’s your point?”

That means no, her potential employer is not aware of that fact. Before I can reply, she goes on.

“Let me tell you something, little lady. If you think that running a home and raising a child”—she pauses to glare at me—“isn’t twice as hard as most jobs, you got another guess coming. Of course, there is one exception and that is a job doing nails, which everybody knows is so easy any numbskull could do it.” She juts her chin.

I didn’t need that snarky caveat to grasp what lies behind my mother’s sudden employment urge. Hazel Przybyszewski does not want to be two down to Pop’s so-called “floozy woman,” who owns a nail salon. She’s already one down, as the Nail Lady has Pop and my mom doesn’t.

As a dutiful daughter, I feel I must manage my mother’s expectations when it comes to this job interview. I hand her the Starbucks coffee and muffin as if they were a peace offering. “You know, you might have to interview at more than one place before you land a job.”

“Maybe.” She unwraps the muffin and bites into it with uncommon delicacy, apparently wishing to preserve her lipstick.

“Do you want to come to rehearsal?” I thank the stars above that today’s is to be short. Elaine doesn’t want to tucker us out before tonight’s performance, which is good, as I, for one, am already darn close to tuckered.

“I have plans for this morning,” she informs me. “That Eddie Wozniak wants to show me Liberace’s car collection and I said yes even though I’ve seen it.” She sips her coffee. “Liberace had a car that reminds me of the one Sally Anne had at that almost wedding of hers. A Rolls Royce covered with tiny mirrors. Tasteful in Liberace’s case.” Carefully she dabs her lips with a napkin. “With the license plate 88 Keys.”

That reminds me of Danny’s designer license plate on the Cadillac Samantha gave him. 1 HOT 1.

“I’ll have you know that Eddie Wozniak may be 94 but he still has his mental function,” my mother goes on. “Not only that but Florence Dunbar tells me he has full control of his bowels.”

I gather that passes for studliness in the geriatric crowd. I kiss her cheek and head for the bathroom to change. “Have a good time but don’t let Eddie and his stupendous bowel control distract you from getting back in time to go to the Ziana matinee.”

A half hour later, it is a mercy to discover that rehearsal
—al
though still pretty intense
—
involves more stretching and icing than jumping and kicking. “I could really use cryotherapy today,” I tell Trixie as we finish by soaking our feet in an ice bath.

“I never got to try it. I am a little sad about that.”

“Let’s go past the spa when we get back to the Cosmos. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” I make the suggestion even though I’m not hopeful. I’m thinking there’s a good chance Frankie’s in the slammer. Or, as Sally Anne fears, that he’s fled.

“Get back here an hour before showtime, girls,” Elaine calls, and we are released.

“You want to join us for the spa walk-by?” I ask Shanelle.

“I got an appointment with my Jacuzzi tub. Catch you two later.”

It turns out that not only is Frank at the spa, he can squeeze both Trixie and me in for cryogenic treatments.

“This is my lucky day!” Trixie cries. “Thank you so much, Frank.”

He grunts. I waylay him en route to the chamber and keep my voice low. “Everything go okay last night with Detective Perelli?”

“She didn’t charge me with murder if that’s what you wanna know.”

“When I saw Sally Anne, she told me you were worried about that.”

“Yeah, well, maybe yesterday was
my
lucky day.”

I don’t get anything more out of him. He is monosyllabic as he runs us through the treatment. I am not surprised that Trixie gets as big a kick out of it as I do.

“My Lord!” she shrieks when it’s over. “I feel like I could do a thousand eye-high kicks now!”

That’s about the size of it. I’m jubilant as I get back in my rehearsal clothes. The fact that they reek of sweat doesn’t even faze me. I hang back as Trixie heads out. “I want to see if I can get Frank to talk to me,” I whisper.

She nods knowingly. “Good luck!”

I linger in the wide corridor outside the spa, not far from its exterior glass wall, keeping an eye on Frank at the reception desk and waiting for a quiet moment to attempt another conversational bout.

If I’m going to have any hope of finding justice for Cassidy or Danny, I can’t stop investigating. Not that I want to, anyway. I’m kind of an addict, I will tell you. I get a whiff of the stuff I love and I can’t resist it. It doesn’t hurt that I’m on a cryogenic high, pretty darn sure I could lasso the moon if I wanted.

It soon becomes clear that I needn’t attempt anything so remarkable. All I need do is follow Frank when he exits the spa and heads for the hot shimmering glare of the Strip, glancing furtively around him as he goes.