Ink Flamingos

Chapter 47

“Ann Wainwright has red hair,” I said.“Ainsley’s twin sister. She’s been using her sister’s name. I don’t really know why. But she must be the woman who went into the hotel room with Potter. The room was in her name.”

Flanigan looked at me with a sad expression, like I was suffering from some sort of dementia. I think it was that whole evil twin cliché. But there really was an evil twin. Why didn’t he get that?

Sylvia and Jeff were still quiet. Had they become mutes when I wasn’t paying attention? When I was trying to talk my way out of this one?

My butt was on the line, and my impostor was again trying to implicate me. The fact that the Ink Flamingos blog was set up in my name and now sported a picture of Sherman Potter’s flamingo tattoo could hammer yet another nail in my own coffin.

“Brett didn’t do anything,” Jeff finally said. “I was with her the whole time.” I couldn’t help but hear the implication: If he hadn’t been with me, would I have dragged Sherman Potter down the stairwell, leaving my hair behind?

I was feeling rather paranoid. Was it justified? Maybe. Because Flanigan didn’t seem sold on my alibi.

“I have no reason to do anything to Sherman Potter,” I insisted. “I mean, I didn’t even know the guy. I met him once.” I was totally protesting too much.

Flanigan asked the hotel manager if there was a room he could use to take statements. The manager’s head bobbed up and down as if he was going for an elusive apple, and he produced a master key card, saying Flanigan could use the room next door to the one Sherman Potter had been found in. As he spoke, he opened the door.

It was identical to the one next door, except everything was reversed, a mirror image. Flanigan ushered me and Jeff and Sylvia in.

“I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Sylvia argued, forgetting that Jeff was her ride and she couldn’t get home without him.

“It shouldn’t take too long,” Flanigan said with a kind smile. I wished he’d given me that smile. Instead, he cast a narrow eye at me and asked me if I would allow one thing.

“What?”

A crime scene investigator hovered over me. I wanted to shove him aside, but figured that might not go over well.

“We’d like a strand of your hair,” Flanigan said flatly, as if he were merely asking me to sit down.

They wanted to match my hair to the hair found in the stairwell. He really didn’t believe me.

“It’s a formality,” he explained. “We need to remove you from any suspicion.”

Because until they realized my hair didn’t match the one found in the stairwell, I would most definitely be one of those persons of interest they’re always talking about. I wasn’t born yesterday.

I nodded and felt a tug. The CSI apologized and stuck the two strands he’d managed to yank out of my head into a small plastic bag.

“Is it going to take a long time to make sure it’s not a match?” I asked, my voice sounding about a million miles away. I blinked a couple of times to keep a tear from escaping. It wasn’t that it had hurt; it was just everything. The whole thing. The impostor, Daisy, Sherman Potter.

I felt a hand settle on my lower back, and Flanigan’s eyes flitted from me to Jeff as if he knew Jeff and I might have a thing after all. He was a detective.

“It shouldn’t take too long,” Flanigan said, although he wasn’t forthcoming with a specific date. “Let’s get started.”

An hour later, Jeff, Sylvia, and I were free to go. Tim had showed up about fifteen minutes in, with Melanie in tow so she could get subjected to even more questions by Detective Flanigan. She was still there when we left. Tim came into the hall with us.

“Going back to the shop?” he asked, and from his tone I could tell he didn’t want me to go home yet. Maybe my room hadn’t been completely cleaned up from the night before.

I did have another client coming in about eight, and it was already seven o’clock as it was. “That’s right,” I said. “I should be done about ten or so.”

“I’ll come by and pick you up and take you home then,” he said, giving me a quick hug. He motioned something to Jeff, but I couldn’t really see what it was. I was so pathetic.

When he’d gone back inside, I rubbed my head where they’d taken those hairs.

“You okay, Kavanaugh?” Jeff asked when we got into the elevator.

“Of course she’s not okay,” Sylvia answered for me, slapping Jeff on the arm. “Someone’s playing around with her head, pretending to be her. Be nice.”

“I thought I was being nice,” Jeff said teasingly, with a wink at me. “I’m being nice, aren’t I?” he asked me.

I rolled my eyes at him. At least some things never changed.

The elevator doors slid open to the lobby, and we stepped out.

“Am I glad that’s over,” Sylvia said loudly. “But I wonder whatever happened to that Sherman fellow.”

I’d been wondering the same thing. While I suspected Ann of being the culprit in all this, did she really have the strength to carry Sherman Potter’s body out of a room, down a hall, and down the stairs and then hide him somewhere?

We’d left the hotel and were crossing the parking lot toward our cars. I could see my bright red Mustang next to the orange metallic Pontiac. The cars piqued my memory, however, and not in a good way.

Panic bubbled up in my chest, but by now I was used to the feeling.

I stopped, grabbing onto Jeff’s arm and cocking my head toward my car. “It’s been used as a coffin before,” I said, referring to that time a couple months back when the body of a Dean Martin impersonator had been found dead in the trunk of my car. What if I’d find Sherman Potter in there, too? It had leaked to the news stations that I’d had that misfortune. If my impostor wanted to really freak me out, putting Sherman in my trunk would totally do it.

“Give me your keys.” Jeff held out his hand, and I gave them to him. “Stay here,” he said to both of us.

“What’s he doing?” Sylvia asked.

“He’s checking my car.”

“For what?”

I shrugged, not wanting to say it out loud again.

She made a face at me. “You’re much too paranoid, dear,” she said, hooking her hand around my elbow.

No kidding.

Jeff had rounded the back of my car, and the trunk hood lifted. I closed my eyes, not wanting to know. Then I heard, “Come on!”

Slowly, I opened my eyes again, and Jeff was beckoning us. Sylvia and I made our way to the car, our arms still linked.

“Nothing here,” Jeff said, showing me the empty trunk before slamming the hood down. “It’s okay.”

Was it really? I had no idea.

“I’ll follow you to the Venetian,” Jeff said as his mother climbed into the passenger seat of the Pontiac. “And if you need anything later, call me. You know where I am.”

The ride to the Venetian was uneventful, and I was thankful for that. I gave Jeff a wave as I turned in to the lane that would take me to the self-parking garage. Being back on familiar ground, I relaxed a little.

The security guard held up his hand, and I stopped, smiling at him. I leaned out my window and said, “I’m going to the shops,” anticipating his question as to whether I was a hotel guest or going to the casino. I pulled back into the car, ready to move on, but he stepped out in front of the Mustang, studying it.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but we’ve had a report.”

I moved the gearshift so I could take my foot off the clutch and it wouldn’t lurch forward and stop, then put on the parking brake. I opened the door and stepped out. “A report?” I asked. “I own The Painted Lady; it’s in the shops. You can check.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been told to detain you.”