Driven to Ink

Chapter 4

Now this wasn’t exactly a surprise. Sylvia Coleman didn’t always do what anyone expected of her. Which was probably why she’d gotten her first ink when she was fourteen and didn’t stop until most of her body had been covered.

“I called Bernie’s daughter, Rosalie,” Jeff was saying. “She had the same information I did. Now she’s worried.”

Something about the way he said it made me ask, “But you’re not?”

Jeff chuckled. “You know my mother. She moves to a different drummer.”

As I said.

“If they stopped somewhere else that she might have liked better, then plans would change,” Jeff continued. “My mother is the queen of spontaneity. She told me the one thing that irritated her about Bernie was how he had to plan everything months in advance.” He paused. “She said she was going to change all that.”

Seemed as though she’d already started.

“So you don’t think something happened to them. Something bad,” I added.

“My mother can take care of herself.”

Well, I had to agree with that.

“Did you tell Flanigan they’re not at their hotel?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The cop who called.”

“I talked to someone named Willis.”

Right. “Did you tell him?”

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

More silence. Uh-oh.

“You’re not going to, are you?”

“You’re not my mother, Kavanaugh. I’ll tell them when I’m ready. I figure I’ll do a little hunting around in the next couple hours and see if I can’t locate them first. I know if I tell the cops my mother isn’t where she said she’d be, then they might think she had something to do with what’s in your trunk.”

As if no one was already thinking that. But I let him have his little fantasy.

“So don’t tell anyone yet, okay?”

I bristled. “Why would you think I would?”

He laughed. “You’re one of the most law-abiding people I know, Kavanaugh.”

I almost told him I’d touched the guy’s collar, but he’d probably think I was lying, so I bit my tongue.

“I have to get to my shop,” I said. “I have to take Tim’s Jeep.”

“You could borrow my mother’s car.”

I’d driven the antique purple Gremlin a few months ago, and I totally didn’t want to get behind that wheel again.

“No, thanks. The Jeep’s fine.”

“I’ll let you know what I find out,” he said before the call ended.

As I combed my fingers through my short red hair and changed out a couple of the silver earrings that hung in rows outlining my ears, I wondered where Sylvia and Bernie could’ve gotten to.

I itched to tell Tim, but I’d promised Jeff. I hoped nothing had happened to them. Since Jeff wasn’t worried, I shouldn’t have been, but I couldn’t help it. They were an elderly couple who’d decided to drive an old Buick to the Grand Canyon instead of taking one of the bus tours that ran regularly. Granted, when Sylvia had hinted she wanted to take my car not only to the wedding chapel but also on their honeymoon, I did say no with no reservations.

Maybe I should’ve lent them the car.

I shrugged off the thought and went back outside. Nothing I could do about it now.

Flanigan let me go to work an hour later, after he had me run through each moment of the previous day, before and after Sylvia and Bernie had dropped off the car. I struggled to come up with exact times for everything, although I said if he called my shop later, I could double-check my appointments with Bitsy, who kept track of every minute. It seemed that he didn’t think I had anything to do with Mr. That’s Amore, although he did spend a bit of time questioning me about Sylvia and Bernie.

When he finally felt satisfied, or at least sated for the moment, I left the cops and the coroner in my driveway, the banana yuccas fanning the crime scene, and headed out through Henderson and onto Route 215 toward the Strip.

The good thing about leaving late was there was no traffic. When I turned off the highway, I went up Koval Lane, behind all the resorts and casinos, so I could miss all the lights on the Strip. I was convinced that some deranged traffic administrator got a lot of pleasure out of knowing that timing the lights the way they did would mean an extra fifteen minutes on my drive up to the Venetian.

I parked on the sixth level of the parking garage and took the elevator to the level for the Grand Canal Shoppes. Once the doors opened, I turned to the left and then to the left again and through the sliding doors that led into the mall.

The developers probably would take issue with me calling it a mall, but that’s what it was. Granted, there wasn’t a Sears or JCPenney like at home in New Jersey, but the high-end stores, like Barneys New York, Shooz, Kenneth Cole, and others, that lined the walkway running along the fake Venice canal and surrounding St. Mark’s Square did constitute a mall, in my opinion. So what if it had ornate gold trim and paintings of cherubs on the ceiling with fake sky and clouds, and musicians and dancers dressed in Renaissance garb who entertained the tourists and shoppers, rather than a hokey North Pole setup with cotton-ball snow and Santa at Christmastime?

I sidestepped a couple of the aforementioned tourists as I reached the end of the canal, where gondolas were waiting to pick up their next fares, and pushed open the door to The Painted Lady.

Because it was a high-end mall, we weren’t allowed to advertise that it was a tattoo shop. We looked more like an art gallery. Ace van Nes, one of my tattooists, paints comic book versions of famous works of art. Today we had da Vinci’s The Last Supper, Ingres’s The Valpinçon Bather, and David’s The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons hanging on the walls. The blond laminate flooring clashed in a good way with the dark mahogany desk at our entry-way. Four individual workrooms were divided and closed off to the public. In the back, a sleek black leather sofa and glass-top coffee table served as our waiting area. We also had a staff room with a refrigerator, microwave, and light table, as well as a small office.

Bitsy kept everything in order. That was why I kept her on when I bought the business two and a half years ago. And while we had four rooms, we had only three artists at the moment: Ace, Joel Sloane, and me.

Ace was in Bitsy’s usual seat at the front desk.

“Hey, boss lady,” he drawled. He’d been calling me that for the last month or so, and even though I kept asking him not to, he persisted.

“Where’s Bitsy?” I asked.

“I’m fine. How are you?” One of Ace’s eyebrows rose higher than the other. It gave his handsome face a comedic look, and I couldn’t help but smile.

“Fine, fine.”

“Heard you had some excitement this morning.”

I bet he did. Bitsy couldn’t keep her mouth shut about anything.

“I’m not sure I’d call it exciting,” I said. “Where’s Bitsy?”

“She’s in with Joel.” Ace cocked his head toward Joel’s room. The door was closed. Something was up. Joel never closed his door unless a client specifically asked for privacy or he was tattooing a particularly private body part. Before working here, he’d tattooed in street shops, where most of the stations are all out in the open. He doesn’t like being closed in if he doesn’t have to be.

I took a step toward the room, but Ace’s voice stopped me.

“They’d hoped they’d find it before you came in.”

My heart had jumped up into my throat, and it took me a second to ask, “Find what?”

Ace sighed. “Joel’s clip cord. It’s missing.”