Ink Flamingos

Chapter 35

“I wish you people would go away,” a voice said.

I turned around to see a young woman with short, spiked, bleached blond hair and wearing extremely short denim shorts and a tank top standing on the landing.

It took me a second, but I finally figured “you people” meant she thought we were cops. Right. The latex gloves.

“Didn’t you get everything already?” she continued. “And when are you going to catch her killer? I mean, on TV they catch the killers right away.” Her eyes flickered at me, narrowing slightly. I felt as though she recognized me, knew about the blog, that she, too, thought I was guilty.

“This isn’t TV,” I heard myself saying, still keeping up the charade that I really was the cops. The girl’s expression changed a little then-maybe she was having second thoughts about me, maybe she wasn’t quite so sure about me now.

Tim would totally kill me for this, and I wondered if they would cart him off to prison or decide it was justifiable homicide.

“Did you know Miss Wainwright?” Joel asked her. Sadness crossed her face. “She was amazing. So nice to everyone.”

Of course she was. All victims were saints after they were dead, weren’t they? Sister Mary Eucharista would say so.

“She was beautiful, too,” she said. “She had red hair, like yours,” she added, looking at me. “But her hair was long.”

I absently ran a hand through my short hair.

The young woman was frowning. “You sort of look like her, though. Weird.”

I knew I didn’t look like the Ainsley Wainwright I’d met in Sherman Potter’s hotel room. She was a lot more voluptuous and had that long horse face with those spectacular eyes. What had this Ainsley Wainwright looked like?

Suddenly there seemed to be an overabundance of redheads in Vegas. And at least one other who wasn’t a redhead but wore a wig to pretend to be me.

I had a real need to go inside now, see if I could find a picture or something of this Ainsley Wainwright, but I was unsure about leaving Joel out here alone with this girl. I mean, she was young, yes, but not stupid. She’d soon figure out that this large tattooed man with the long braid down his back and chains in his pockets wasn’t a cop. Unless she was more used to narcotics undercover officers. But then again, if they were undercover, she wouldn’t necessarily know they were cops.

Oh, he’d figure out how to deal with her. I nodded at Joel in what I hoped looked like a very professional way and went through the door.

The apartment was fairly Spartan but not very clean. Piles of newspapers were stacked in one corner; books spilled off shelves onto the floor. Kitschy little items lined the mantel of the faux fireplace: snow domes from the Flamingo and Caesars, shot glasses from the Bellagio, New York New York, and the MGM. You’d think because she lived here she wouldn’t buy the souvenir stuff.

I didn’t see any photographs.

Bitsy was in the bedroom, and I joined her in there. She wasn’t touching anything, just looking around.

“The cops were here,” she said, indicating the fingerprint dust.

“That’s their job,” I said, even though I didn’t have to. I was too distracted by the bed.

The sheets had been taken off it, and the mattress lay bare on the frame. I’d had no idea how Ainsley Wainwright had died-Tim hadn’t felt compelled to tell me-but I had a bit of a clue now. A large red stain was in the middle of the mattress.

“Do you think she was shot or stabbed?” Bitsy asked matter-of-factly.

I shrugged, not really wanting to speculate.

“I wish we could clean up,” Bitsy said. Sure she did. Bitsy liked everything in order, and this room was no less messy than the living room. A laundry basket was bleeding dirty clothes; the closet doors hung open to reveal scattered shoes and clothes hanging haphazardly on hangers; the two dressers were topped with stray costume jewelry.

I went over to the closet and checked out the clothes. They were plain: T-shirts and jeans and longish skirts. Nothing flashy. I wondered out loud what Ainsley Wainwright did when she wasn’t blogging.

“She worked for a dentist,” Bitsy said, holding up a piece of paper she’d taken off one of the dressers.

Looking closely, I saw it was a pay stub from a local dental group.

“Maybe we’d have better luck going there and talking to them,” Bitsy suggested. “Maybe you could get your teeth cleaned or something.”

“Or maybe you could.”

“Or maybe Joel could.”

We both started cracking up a little over that, sending Joel to a dentist just to get information.

“We’re grabbing at straws,” I said when I caught my breath. “And I’m doing exactly what I said I wouldn’t do ever again. Why did you talk me into this?”

“We have to clear your name.” She was totally serious.

“But that’s for Tim and the cops to do.”

“Well, they’re not doing a very good job of it, are they?” she asked.

No, they weren’t. Couldn’t argue with that.

I told her I was going back out to the living room. She nodded, staring at the bed.

The books on the floor bothered me for some reason. I leaned down and sifted through them. She sure liked romances, historical and contemporary. The covers were adorned with bare-chested young men who needed haircuts and thin, willowy young women with their cleavage hanging out all over the place.

I started stacking them in neat little piles next to the bookshelf. There, that looked better.

I spotted a stray book that had fallen behind another one on the shelf and pulled it out, ready to stack it along with the rest. But something was stuck inside it.

I yanked it out and turned it over.

Here was the picture I’d been looking for. But it wasn’t what I expected.

“What did you find there?” Bitsy asked, hovering over me as I sat on the floor.

I held it up and she took it, a long, slow whistle leaving her lips. “You’re kidding me. Why didn’t the cops find it?”

“It was stuck in this book.” I showed her how it had been crammed into the binding. “They might have gone through these, but maybe since it didn’t just fall out, they missed it.”

I could still hear Joel talking to that young woman outside. Hmm. That was interesting. When I got closer to the doorway, I heard him say, “You know, I could do both of you.”

Now that sounded a little too kinky for me, but I needed to talk to her, so I announced my presence by clearing my throat. They both looked up, and the girl grinned at me.

“He says he can tattoo me and my girlfriend for a discount,” she said excitedly.

The mystery of Joel’s predilection remained.

While I wasn’t sure about the discount thing, I couldn’t worry about it now. I held out the photograph to the young woman. “Is that Ainsley Wainwright?” I asked.

She stared at the picture for a second before saying, “Yes, with her twin sister.”