Stilettos & Scoundrels (46 page)

Standing in t
he middle of the hotel room, I
looked around, trying to see if anything looked out of place. Everything looked normal. A
s I was a
bout to give up and leave, a thought poppe
d in my head. I
watched a Law & Order episode a while back where they found evidence between the mattress and box springs. Maybe that’s the preferred hiding place for criminal types and people in security.
It was worth a shot
I thought as I
got
down on my
knees to lift up the mattress and have a look.
Nothing on this side.
Dropping the mattress back into place
, I
walked around to the other side.
Out of luck again. Guess it was a little farfetched.

Disappointed and ready to give up, out of the
corner of my eye, I
saw the edge of a yellow envelope sticking out from behind the bed towards the floor.
Eureka!
I
pulled on the corner of the envelope, and a bunch of papers fell out
,
scattering
onto the floor
.
Crap!
I
had no idea what order they were in
, so I
had no way to put them back
. I
was sure
Cooper
would notice they
were out of place. Oh well, I
mig
ht as well look at them now. I
picked up the stack of papers and sat down on the bed to look through them. There were many news clippings - many of the Senator and Helen, some from the Las Vegas Sun of different men
. I
only recognized Garrison Pala
z
zo, but
I
assumed the other men may be involved in the same business as the Palazzo family. There were even some of Dirt, mostly from when he won the election to become sheriff. How nice.
Cooper
was interested in his friend all this time. However, that warm and fuzzy feeling quickly wa
s replaced with surprise when I
scanned the next clipping
f
rom when
Cooper
and Dirt were in the military. The author of the article discussed how Dirt was charged with running a gambling ring. It went on to say
that
Dirt,
Cooper
,
a
guy named Tom Reynolds
, and some more names I
didn’t recognize were
accused of illegal gambling. My
eyes skimmed down the rest of the article
when all of a
sudden, a name jumped out at me, and I
slowed down to read the passage. It said the gambling ring was discovered when Private Simon Palazzo came forward with the knowledge that his Sergeant, Derrick Robinson, was running an illegal gambling ring on the premises. It went on further to say that the charges weren’t substantiated and were later dropped.

Dirt was doing a great job of not letting on he knew Simon. And no wonder. What was going on here?
What had really happened?
I
had a hard time believing either of them would be involved in something like that. Maybe they weren’t
though,
since the charges were dropped. But if Dirt was totally innocent, why would Simon say that
?
E
ven more confusing to
me,
why
would Cooper
s
till be friendly enough
with him
to have Simon work for him if it was a lie
?
None of this made sense. One day Dirt was saying
Cooper
was selling drugs, and then the news clippings said it was Dirt running a gambling ring. This painted a different picture altogether
.
I wondered why Cooper would even take a job that he knew would at some point bring him back to Alkon and expose him to this.
Obviously, there was more
to this situation
than
what
met the eye.

I
bent down to put the papers back in their place and noticed something shiny sticking
partially out from under the bed. I bent down and my eyes narrowed when I
realized what it was: a
lipstick tube. Picking it up, I
tried to rationalize
that
it could have been left by the last person who stayed in th
e room. But the more I thought about it, the more I
realized that probably wasn’t the case.
Cooper
had been here over a week at least, and had the previous occupant left it, the maids would have knocked it further under the bed while vacuuming. This was right by the edge
, a
s if someone had their purse on the nightstand and the lipstick fell out and rolled slightly.
I frowned as I thought about the beautiful brunette that had just been leaving Cooper’s room when I got here.

I
felt a pain in the p
it of my stomach. I
had no right to be mad or jealous
that Cooper
may have had another girl up here in his room. Was it the Senator’s girlfriend who was just here? If so, why would she have been over by the bed
?
It was a
cross from the sitting area. I
was more upset than I
should have been, b
ut realized this was none of my
business. After all, he was a red-blooded male
,
and
before a couple of days ago, I
hadn’t seen him in years. So why would
I
think he had any more than just that old-friend
-
type feeling
s
for
me? I
didn’t know what it was, but I really felt we
had s
ome kind of connection. Maybe I was just feeding in to my
mother’s th
eory that I
needed a man.

I’m overreacting
, I thought. I
set the tube on the nightstand and walked a
way, closing the door behind me. I
was
n’t going to let this bother me
.

I
left
Cooper
’s hotel to head o
ver to the grocery store, at my
mother’s bidding
once again
, and
to
pick up a few things.
This was one of the biggest drawbacks of coming home. I was immediately turned into a go-fer. I
first decided to take a detour into Betty’s Baked Goods. It was getting easy to stop in there for mu
ffins on a regular basis. If I
didn’t go back to the city soon
, I
would weigh five hundred pounds. For some reason, there
was a feeling in the pit of my
stomach
that
something wasn’t right with
the news clippings I
found in
Cooper
’s room. There was too much hostility from Dirt toward
Cooper
when clearly,
judging from the clippings I
had read thro
ugh, the story Dirt had told me
wasn’t the truth.
And Dirt had p
retend
ed
he didn’t know Simon. It
didn’t make sense. It gave me
a headache just thinking about it. What the heck was the real story
?

Maybe things would be clearer after a muffin. A warm, fresh, oozing cream cheese muffin would be a
great snack and surely make me
feel better. And who knew? Maybe Betty would have some more information for
me
. Betty had been too busy waiting on customers to talk this morning
when
I got my
coffee and ran into Simon.
Was that only this morning? It had been a long day and it wasn’t half over. I
wanted to fill her in on what
had
happened
outside since I felt I
owed Betty
some gossip for a change. As I
sat down at the worn counter, Betty motioned to
me
with a finger
that she
would be a minute and turned back to chatting w
ith one of the regulars. I
looked up at the chalk menu board to see what the muffin of the day was. None of t
hem looked to be better than my
favorite peach cream cheese, so
I
walked ar
ound the display case to help my
self and wait for Betty to come over. This was one of the advantages to small towns. You couldn’t serve yourself like that in the city. People would think you were crazy and call the cops. At the very least, they would think you had cooties or something and be horrified at the thought
of
you
touching the muffins.

I
was happily munching away when Betty walked over and sat a g
lass of milk on the counter. I
just looked at her.
Milk? Seriously? Yuck!
I
hated mi
lk, unless it was in cereal. I wanted…no, I
needed
coffee.

“Drink it,”
Betty
barked in a friendly way, not
at all threatened by my
look
. Betty put her order pad in her apron pocket a stuck her pen in her loose bun. It must be a habit as I noticed three other pens stuck in there already.
“You young people drink way too much coffee. Besides, it’s almost expired
,
and I don’t want to throw it away. Cost too damn much and needs to be used up,” she grumbled.

Of course, that makes all kinds of sense
, I
thoug
ht sarcastically. Better I
drink
the
almost spoiled
milk than to throw it away. I grimaced since I
didn’t really like milk much anyway, much less milk too close to its due date, but
I
wasn’t about to argue with Betty. You had to pick your battles.

“So there’s been quite a ruckus here lately with the murder and all,” Betty said to
me
, giving the counter a swipe with her towel. “Who would have thought something like this would happen here in Alkon? Figures it happened to someone famous now bringing in all these outsiders.”

Betty didn’t look too happy at the mention of the
“
outsiders
,”
as she put it, but that was a pretty common thought for this small town and probably most small towns. The folks here tended to like things just the way they were and anyone not from here was viewed with suspicion.
It was a
complete cliché, but true.

“I know. Crazy isn’t it? What h
ave people been saying?” I figured this was my
opportunity to see what inf
ormation Betty had. Not that I
needed to try to be all secret agent about it
—
Betty was a huge gossip and loved to share what she had to tell.

“Most folks feel it’s a jealous husband. That man did have a roving eye. Should have been happy enough with Helen.”

“But to follow him to Alkon? Wouldn’t that make more sense if he was murdered in D.C.?”

“I’m just repeating what folks are saying. He should have been happy with what he had. Helen loved him, at least in the beginning, but men like that aren’t happy when a woman starts to reach a certain age.”

“And my mother wonders why I am still single.”

“Sweetheart, you just have to know how to pick ‘em. Not all men are bad. I did al
l
right with my Bob.”

“I could only hope to have that someday
,
Betty.”

Betty and Bob had been married for probably a hundred years. They bickered in pub
l
ic all the time, but everyone knew how devoted they were to each other. He worshiped the ground she walked on
, a
s it should be. Retired from a factory in a nearby town, he usually hung out in the bakery with the old farmers
,
k
eeping an eye out for any old man who might be
too friendly with his Betty. I
ha
dn’t seen him the entire time I
had been there
though
.