Lucky Break (5 page)

I nodded, but the trouble was, I had no idea who to call.
 
We had the requisite team of corporate pitbulls, but none of us had a personal defense attorney.

“Your mother will know,” he added, as if reading my thoughts.

“Mother!”
 
I’d better find her before the news of this mess did. “Am I free to go?” I asked Romeo, unsure exactly why he wanted me to see the scene in the kitchen—he knew how much I hated dealing with dead people.
 
Holt Box wasn’t a personal friend.
 
Hell, he wasn’t even an acquaintance.
 
We’d met a couple of times but that had been years ago.
 
I’d met his wife then, too, but could barely remember her.
 
A slip of a thing, practically mute, but stunning.
 
And I had no idea if he’d kept her or tossed her back, or vice versa.
 
As I turned to go, I stopped, then whirled back around, scanning he room and the small crowd gathered there.
 
My eyes searching, cataloguing.

Holt Box.
 
Years ago.
 
When I’d been Irv Gittings’ arm candy.

“What is it?”
 
Romeo watched me.

My lips pinched into a thin line as I took my time, taking in every detail.
 
Nothing seemed amiss—well, except for poor Mr. Box.
 
“Let me think on it.
 
I don’t know exactly.
 
Not yet.”

He nodded like that was a normal thing.
 
“
That’s
why I wanted you here,” he said, in answer to my unspoken question.
 
Lucky me.
 
“Any idea why somebody would want to kill Holt Box?” He directed the question to me, but his gaze encompassed my little posse of Teddie and the Big Boss.

Nobody said anything.

Even I clammed up despite being privy to a very damning motive Teddie had, including his admission that he’d like to kill Holt Box.
 
Said in the heat of anger, he hadn’t meant it literally.
 
At least that’s what I chose to believe.
 
It’d come out.
 
But later.
 
Not with an audience who I’m sure was videoing the whole thing on their phones and salivating over being the first to upload it to YouTube.
 
Maybe they’d even cash out with an exclusive to one of the gossip rags.

Satisfied no one felt compelled to blurt out an ill-advised comment, I left them to Romeo.
 
Pushing back through the swinging doors, I knew how Dorothy must’ve felt going to bed in Kansas and waking up in Oz.
 
On this side, everyone partied on, oblivious to homicide in the kitchen only steps away.
 
I snagged two flutes of Champagne from a passing waiter and slugged one, depositing the empty on his tray.
 
The other I clutched so tight I risked breaking the stem.

My mother held a group of men under her spell.
 
I shouldered my way through until I got her attention—it took squeezing her arm.

“Oh, Lucky.
 
How nice.
 
Perhaps you’d care to weigh in on whether we all should admit that sixteen thousand hookers and nine vice cops is the equivalent to non-enforcement of the archaic law that makes prostitution a crime in Clark County.
 
Wouldn’t it be better to legalize what’s already happening here?
 
Collect taxes and protect not only the johns but the girls as well?”
 

Prostitution.
 
A divisive topic even in Vegas, especially in Vegas.
 
From the clenched jaws and hard eyes of some of the men ringing her, Mona was working on a homicide of her own.

All eyes turned in my direction.
 
I felt a drop of sweat trickle down the side of my face.
 
Holding my Champagne, I swiped at the drop with the back of my hand.
 
“Sex.
 
A potent drug, with the argument for legalization equally as unclear.”
 
I grabbed Mona’s elbow as I forced a smile.
 
“But someone once told me that sex and politics were not topics meant for a cocktail party.”
 
I pulled mother away from her fans.

“Lucky, really.
 
If I’m to make any changes in this town, I need to bend some ears, get people to listen.”
 

“Not here.
 
Not right now.”

“What’s all this about?”
 
Curiously, she didn’t adopt her normal huffy tone; in fact, she sounded amused.
 
Maybe her running for office wasn’t a bad thing on top of the whole late-in-life twin thing.
 
Dealing with Mother was like handling a two-year-old: keep them busy, keep them tired, and they can’t do you any harm.

I held a chair for her at a table off to the side in a corner by the window, then joined her.
 
“It’s Father and Teddie.”
 
I lowered my voice and made sure no one was listening.
 
Then I explained the scene in the kitchen.
 
“Father said you’d know who to call.”

Mona sat like a statue, immobile, her smile fixed by fear.
 
“Of course, Squash Trenton.”

I blinked a few times, looking for the punch line.
 
There wasn’t one.

“He’s in the book.”
 
The color drained from Mona’s face.
 
“You don’t think your father …”

“Of course not.
 
Knowing him, he was trying to help.
 
Unfortunately, someone had already permanently retired Mr. Box.”
 
I could say the words, couldn’t admit the possibility.
 
Instead, I gave Mother a pointed look that even she was clever enough to read.
 

A hand snaked to her throat.
 
“Teddie,” she whispered.

I leaned back and drained most of my Champagne as I looked at the Strip through the windows, the lights painting the night sky with bright, fun come-ons promising loose slots, cheap food, and fun.
 
None of that here.
 
“I don’t know.
 
Something’s not right.”
 
I chewed on my lip as I tried to find the way out of the maze without success.
 
Murder didn’t mesh with the Teddie I knew.
 
Of course, neither had duplicity and cheating, yet, he’d proven both were part of his skill set.

“I wonder what Teddie has to say for himself?”

The large atrium-style vestibule of the Clark County Detention Center was virtually empty, which seemed odd for a Saturday night, especially with Christmas so close I could feel it breathing down my neck.
 
Decorated in early institutional, the space held little warmth and hints of fear.
 
A few lonely decorations hung from a string of lights over the intake desk, a token effort in rather bad taste.
 
Even the few plants bent under the weight of hopelessness.
 
My footfalls echoed eerily, like the last walk of the accused.

The evening had taken a bit to unravel, but unravel it had.
 
Questioning by the police has such a chilling effect on frivolity.
 
The police worked through the guests, taking statements, trying to get a handle on who exactly had come and gone from the kitchen.
 
Not an easy task, and it took time.
 
But, with alcohol plentiful and flowing freely, the mood had remained calm and even a bit excited—it’s not everyday the average upper-crust denizen was invited to a murder, even in Vegas.
 

So I was later than I’d thought I’d be.
 
I’m sure Squash Trenton had the meter running while he waited.
 
But, never having met him, I didn’t know what kind of man he was; but he was a lawyer, enough said.

I assumed the man chatting up the night staff as he leaned on the counter, his butt toward me, was the lawyer I was looking for.
 
Something he said got a rousing chuckle from his rapt audience.

I cleared my throat.

Squash finished his joke before he rose and turned.
 
Younger than I thought—I figured he’d be my father’s contemporary—he lazily took me in, focusing on parts below my chin, which I’d thrust out in challenge.

Red hair, longish, seductively curly.
 
Blue eyes—I was expecting green.
 
Warm, with a laugh lurking.
 
No freckles—they wouldn’t dare.
 
A whittled face supported by a strong jaw.
 

By the time he’d finished his visual assessment, I was more than a little steamed, which I think might have been his point.
 
So I tamped it down.
 
“You done?”

His eyes rose to meet mine.
 
He didn’t apologize.
 
“That is some dress.”

“So I’ve been told.”

Dressed in jeans so old and soft that, excepting the seams and stitch lines, they were hardly blue anymore, a pair of Topsiders minus the laces, and a T-shirt a tad too tight for his toned and buffed torso, no belt, no socks, no ring, Mr. Trenton didn’t seem too upset about being called out on a Saturday night.
 
Nor did he seem to be in much of a hurry.

“Who am I here to see?” he asked, shrugging into his lawyer manner with the ease of donning a comfortable sweater.
 

Good question.
 
“I guess it depends on who they arrested.”
 
Romeo had been hip-deep when I’d left what was left of the party.
 
As I’d calmed Mother, keeping her from clawing her way through the cops to get to her husband, and directed Miss P, Brandy, and every staff member I could corral as to how to handle the mushroom cloud of impending publicity fallout, I’d seen him escorting Teddie and my father out through the back entrance.
 
Jean-Charles had been doing damage control as well.
 
I’d wanted to join him, rush to help, but I had my hands full with my own responsibilities.
 
Such was our life.
 
We both got it, not that we liked it.
 

I felt so alone.
 
More alone than I’d ever been when on my own.
 
Used to being two, his absence cut deeply.
 

As Squash grabbed his jacket, suede, worn to old-shoe comfort, with tattered fringe, he gave the officer behind the counter a quick nod.
 
Apparently, that was the magic signal to unlock the doors.

Stepping to the side and sweeping his arm in front of him, he ushered me through the door, then fell into step at my shoulder.
 
I knew where I was going.

Romeo met us at Interrogation Room One, his shoulders slumped under the weight of the murder of a country-music icon.
 
I didn’t have the heart to tell him the vultures were just beginning to circle.
 
“Your father is free to go.”
 
The young detective, with eyes far older than his years, raked a hand through his hair, standing his cowlick at attention.
 
Then he wiped tired eyes.
 
“God, what a shit-storm.”

Romeo had been a bright-eyed kid when we’d first met, not too long ago.
 
I didn’t even want to count the days, mere months, I thought.
 
I knew they shouldn’t have been sufficient to age him as they had.

“Has Mr. Rothstein been charged with anything?” Squash asked.

“No, not yet.”
 
At my look, he hastily added, “Most likely not at all.
 
We’ll give the evidence to the DA.
 
He’ll decide what to take to the Grand Jury.
 
But I don’t see any reason to hold him right now.
 
It’s not like he’s a huge flight risk.”

“And Teddie?”

“He’s going to stay at the insistence of the great State of Nevada.
 
Lucky, I don’t need to tell you, it looks bad.”

“We’ll see about that,” Squash said.

Romeo grew into his boots as he stared down the attorney.
 
“Take your best shot, counselor.
 
And, for the record, we’re on the same team.
 
I want to find who killed Holt Box, perhaps even more than you do, but right now, things are pointing to Mr. Kowalski.”
 

Squash shifted to all-business mode, a tic in his cheek the only hint of the intensity running underneath the surface.
 
“We’ll see.”

Romeo gestured down the hall.
 
“I’ve had them bring Teddie into one of the attorney conference rooms.
 
He wants to see you,” he said to me.

Teddie, a turtle without his shell in an orange jail jumpsuit, sat in one of the metal chairs cozied up to the metal table.
 
Exposed, unprotected, he stared down at his hands.
 
Romeo had been kind enough to forego the handcuffs.
 
Looking up, he gave me a slight tick-up of one corner of his mouth when I walked in.
 
“I knew you’d come.”
 
His smile, if that’s what it was, fled when he caught sight of Squash Trenton behind me.