Show Business is Murder

Murder at the Heartbreak Hotel by MARK TERRY

WHEN FATE BLOWS open a shamus’s office door, you can never tell who’ll walk through. It could be a hot dame in a cool silk dress or a gun-packing gangster intent on harm.

It could even be Elvis.

I WAS CONTEMPLATING my checkbook when my office door swung open and Alicia Kingston stepped through. I dropped the black hole of my checkbook into the desk drawer where I kept the bottle and smiled pleasantly at the woman. “May I help you?”

“You’re Jakob Hull, the private investigator?”

“Yes ma’am. Have a seat.”

She plopped into one of my two office chairs, tucking a lock of her short, curly blond hair behind one ear. “You… you’re confidential, right?”

“What you tell me will be private,” I said.

She was maybe in her thirties, maybe in her forties. It was kind of hard to tell. She had the kind of voluptuous figure that was no longer fashionable-it disguised her age but didn’t hurt her sex appeal. “I mean… really private,” she said.

“Really private,” I agreed.

“Really, really private?” She had a wispy voice, like a little girl’s voice, and it went with her slightly plump body and vaguely innocent blue eyes.

“Yes ma’am,” I said. “But maybe I’ll know more when you tell me what you’d like me to do.”

“Oh. Well…” She rummaged in her Nebraska-size purse and retrieved a large mailing envelope. “Do you… can you find people?”

“Yes,” I said, once again back on firm ground. “Is there someone you’d like me to find?”

“Yes,” she said.

I waited for her to tell me who she wanted me to find, but she was going to be one of those clients and it was going to be one of those days.

“Who is it you’d like me to find?” I finally asked.

“Elvis,” she said.

I first shifted my gaze to the window, which offered no inspiration, then to my framed private investigator’s license, which offered even less.

With a sigh, I said, “Elvis, uh, who?”

“Elvis Presley,” she said, which was exactly what I was afraid she’d say.

I thought that over, debating responses. The first one that came to mind was: “Have you tried Graceland?”

The second one was along the lines of: “Get out of my office,” with a colorful metaphor or two inserted somewhere in the middle of the sentence for emphasis.

Then I remembered my checking account balance and said, “Elvis Presley,” which wasn’t a question, merely a statement, and a repetitive one at that.

“Why yes,” she said.

“The Elvis Presley,” I said, cautiously narrowing it down.

“Of course,” she said. “The King.”

“That one,” I said.

I thought of the checkbook. I thought of the bottle in the bottom drawer of my desk. They were inherently related, these two thoughts.

Alicia Kingston reached into the envelope and retrieved a snapshot. “This is the man I want you to find.”

I examined it gingerly. It sure looked like Elvis Presley. “Where did you get this?” I asked.

“In Detroit. At Cobo Hall. There was a convention of Elvises.”

Ah-ha! A clue! My God! A clue! “So,” I said. “This person is an Elvis impersonator.”

“Oh no. He’s the real thing. Elvis Presley. I saw his driver’s license.”

One step forward; two steps back.

“When, uh, did you see his driver’s license?”

She faltered, her creamy complexion taking on a rosy tinge. “Well… I…”

Hmmm, I thought. There’s a story here after all.

I made a wild guess, my particular specialty. “Did you sleep with him?”

She slowly nodded.

“Why,” I said, “do you want me to find him?” And I hoped the answer wasn’t: I’m carrying Elvis’s love child.

She once again dipped into the mailing envelope and handed me the contents. There were a number of photographs of Alicia Kingston performing upon Elvis Presley what in some southern counties was referred to as an “unnatural act.” Actually, it looked pretty natural in the photographs, but I’m just a private eye in a small northern Michigan resort town.

In addition to the photographs was a neatly typed letter demanding five thousand dollars or copies would be sent to Alicia’s husband. She would be contacted and instructed on when and how to deliver the money.

I opened my top drawer and found a blank contract. I slid it across to Mrs. Kingston and handed her a pen. “I think I can help you,” I said.

Once she was gone I retrieved the bottle from the bottom drawer. Maalox, it said on the side. I took a swig and toasted my P.I.’s license. “Here’s to gainful employment.”

MAURICE WINSTON HAD a head as smooth and hairless as a solar reflector, a thin humorless mouth, and the domineering arrogance of a first-class concierge. I stepped up to his desk at the Grand Bay Resort and handed him the snapshot. “I’m looking for this man,” I said.

Maurice didn’t smile, smirk, or snicker, but he couldn’t control the gleam in his eyes. “Jakob,” he said, “I believe Mr. Presley is dead.”

“Come on. You’ve got the Elvis, uh-”

“The Amazing Elvis Extravaganza,” he completed.

“Yeah. That’s it. Starts tomorrow, right?”

“Correct. Will this gentleman be attending?”

“I hope so. Are there any reservations for Elvis Presley?”

Unblinking, Maurice said, “Several.”

“Several?”

“There are seven.”

“How do you plan on keeping them straight?” I asked.

I wouldn’t have sworn to it, but I think Maurice smiled. Just a tiny bit. Then I got the room numbers of the seven Elvises. On my way out, Maurice said, “So this is your new career, Jakob?”

“Yes,” I said. “I’m a licensed private investigator now.”

“My niece says your class on the American detective novel at the university was the most enjoyable class she took.”

“I’m much happier as a P.I.,” I said.

“Perhaps Prozac would have been easier,” Maurice said.

“WHY?” SHE DEMANDED of me, tears glistening on her cheeks. “Why is Elvis doing this to me?”

I patted her hand and said nothing. Elvis was doing this to her because she was a gullible flake, but I didn’t think that would go over well. Her check hadn’t bounced and we had a contract. Satisfying her delusions was all part of the service. In her mind Elvis was alive and well; he had not grown old and fat and addicted to over-the-counter medications. The reality of Elvis’s ignominious death never registered on her in any way, not as an ode to the dark side of fame, not even as an advisory for the positive effects of a high-fiber diet. To her Elvis was alive and well and bopping her in a Motor City motel room.

I assured her I would do my best to locate Elvis Presley and retrieve the negatives. In the meantime, she was to sit tight and wait for him to contact her.

THE NEXT DAY I paid another call to the Resort, intending to knock on the seven Elvises’ doors, looking for the man in the snapshot. I stepped into the lobby, all spacious atrium, soaring spaces, and glittering poshness. I stopped dead in my blue suede shoes. The lobby was jammed with about thirty men who were, well… Elvis. Some of them were dressed in rhinestone-studded jumpsuits, others in brown suits, jeans, and tee-shirts, you name it. But each and every one of them resembled, in some way, the man in the snapshot. Elvis had not left the building. Elvis had tripped and fallen on the Xerox machine.

I groaned. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Maurice laughing.

I fought my way through the Elvises, looking each of them closely in the face, trying to match one of them to the photograph. It was about as possible as looking fashionable in a white jumpsuit when you’re a hundred pounds overweight. These men all had black pompadours, long sideburns, and fried grits accents. I eliminated a few, trained investigator that I am: too young (twelve), female (sex change?), and Japanese… (nah!) There were two who were very overweight, doing an Elvis-late-in-his-career routine, no doubt. Finally I made it to the front desk where Maurice was calmly waiting for me.

“Hello, Jakob,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

I held up the photograph for him to re-examine. “Have you seen him?”

“Nearly a hundred times.”

I sighed. “How many are there?”

He handed me the flyer for the Amazing Elvis Extravaganza. It advertised 101 Amazing Elvises. I was looking for an Elvis in an Elvis stack. “One hundred and one,” I repeated in a stunned whisper.

“Yes,” Maurice said. “And I understand the Grand Finale is a mass chorus singing ‘Jailhouse Rock’ a capella.”

Before I could respond, Maurice patted my hand and suggested I go into his office and put my head between my knees. Instead, I went knocking on the doors of the performers who had registered under the name of Elvis Presley. The first two doors I knocked on didn’t draw a response. The third door did-it swung open. An unlocked, open door to a private eye is like steak tartare to a pit bull. I glanced cautiously up the hallway, then down, then stepped into the room.

“Hello? Elvis? You in here?”

Elvis was not present. Alicia Kingston was. She was lying in the middle of the floor with a knife through her heart.

DETECTIVE RAY CHURCH glanced at me over his reading glasses. “Why are you here, Jakob?”

“I’m a big Elvis fan,” I said.

“Let me rephrase that.” Church paused long enough to glance into the middle distance with his blue-gray eyes, then said, “Why are you here, Jakob?”

There was enough menace in the second version to count as re-phrasing, so I told him about my search for the Elvis who was blackmailing Alicia Kingston.

“Huh,” Church said, using the edge of his notebook to scratch at the silver hair at his temples. Church was a big, powerful man in his mid-forties who looked like he spent a lot of time in a fishing boat with a rod and reel in his hand. As a matter of fact, he had retired from the St. Louis P.D. and moved to Grand Bay two years ago, hoping for just that. “Well, Jakob, I guess we’ll have to round up the, uh, usual suspects.”

“Usual?” I said.

“Work with me, Jakob,” he said. “Work with me.” He shook his head and muttered, “Show business.”

IT WAS THE oddest lineup in history: six Elvis imitators leaning against a wall in an open conference room provided by Maurice Winston. It was like that old ad: short ones, fat ones, even ones with… well, no chicken pox, at least not as far as we could tell. The Elvises who had legally changed their names to Elvis Presley ranged in age from twenty-two to fifty-three and seemed to range in weight from a ninety-eight-pound weakling to a three-hundred-fifty-pounder who looked like a heart-attack-in-training. The seventh Elvis in the room was the guy who ran the Elvis Extravaganza, and his legal name was Myron Shalton. Everybody called him Big Elvis. Shalton was in his fifties and looked like what Elvis would have looked like if Elvis had lived, spent a couple months at Betty Ford, changed his diet, hooked up with a personal trainer, and aged gracefully.

“Where’s the seventh?” Church growled.

Big Elvis said, “There are only six legally named Elvi with the show.”

“Elvi?” I asked.

Big Elvis nodded.

Church turned to Maurice Winston, who was hovering like a panicky hummingbird. “There are seven registered,” he said. “I gave the list to Jakob myself. Seven.”

“Do you remember the seventh?”

Maurice eyed the six, uh, Elvi. “Yes, Detective. I checked the seventh Elvis in myself.”

“What’d he look like? Can you describe him?”

Maurice turned to blast Church with an arctic glare. “Yes, Detective. He looked like Elvis Presley.”

I thought I could hear Church’s teeth grind for a moment before he turned to me. “Any ideas, Jakob?”

“One,” I said. I withdrew the mailing envelope and its cargo of incriminating photographs, retrieved one and compared its likeness to the six men before me. I pointed at him. “You we’ll keep. The rest, take a break-”

“But don’t go too far,” Church said.

Once Elvis Presley, Church, and I were alone in the room, I held up the photograph for him to see. His face grew red. “Who took that picture?” he blurted out.

“You didn’t?” I asked.

“No sir. I did not.”

“You’re sure?”

“I was a, uh, little busy at the time,” he said.

Church, meanwhile, was examining the mailing envelope. He tapped a finger on the cancelled stamps. “Mr. Presley, where were you six days ago?”

“The third?”

“Yes.”

“Well, let’s see. That would have been Indianapolis, I think. We’re zigzagging across the country, more or less. Cleveland to Detroit to Cincinnati to Grand Rapids to Grand Bay, then we’re up to Marquette, then a long trip over to Green Bay. From there we’ve got an extended run in Branson, Missouri.”

I took the mailing envelope from Church and examined the postage. The envelope, its photographs and blackmail note had been mailed from Grand Bay, Michigan, while our Elvis Presley was in Indianapolis, Indiana.

“Huh,” I said.

“You can say that again,” Church said. “Mr. Presley, you can go now.”

Elvis nodded and left. Church said, “Any more bright ideas?”

I looked at the stamps on the mailing envelope. “Well, just one. But it’s a good one.”

RAY CHURCH AND I were watching the tide of visitors ebb and flow through the Kingston house, a neat colonial with robin’s-egg blue vinyl siding and a beautiful crop of Kentucky blue for a lawn.

“I feel guilty,” I said. “I should’ve noticed the stamp. Things might’ve been different.”

Church shrugged. “You also told her to inform you when he contacted her and she didn’t. She went and met him alone instead. If she’d listened to you in the first place-it’s what she was paying you for-she’d be alive. Of course, it’s possible you’d be dead. Frankly, I’d rather try to figure out who killed Alicia Kingston than try to figure out who killed you.”

“I’m touched,” I said.

“It’s hard to find good fishing partners,” he said.

“You say I talk too much and scare the fish.”

He smirked. “You do. It’s possible that’s what makes you a good fishing partner.”

We lapsed into silence. A couple people left the house, then another two cars arrived and a herd of people tramped to the front door and disappeared within.

Ray said, “Do other artists have imitators? I mean, are there Frank Sinatra imitators? Where’s that imitation thing come from, anyway?”

I shrugged. “I always felt like Elvis was imitating himself, there toward the end. Maybe it was a natural progression.”

“Huh. Sounds like a master’s thesis.”

“It probably already is,” I said.

We watched three more cars arrive. Church said, “Ready?”

“Sure.” I walked down the street and entered through the front door, mingling with this particular group of well-wishers. The Kingston house was crowded with mourners and family and friends. I nodded and shook hands, murmured my condolences, mingled, and kept my eyes open. John Kingston was tall and thin with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. To my mind he seemed to be handling the murder of his wife rather well. A number of attractive women were quick to drift his way whenever the weight of his grief threatened to overwhelm him, which it seemed to do at regularly timed intervals. Then his blue eyes would swell with tears and he would excuse himself, set his punch, juice, or coffee cup down and retreat to a back bedroom, the attractive ladyfriend following in his wake.

The third time this happened in the ninety minutes I was there I picked up his Styrofoam cup of juice and gracefully made an exit, walked down the street, and climbed into Ray Church’s Ford Explorer.

“Got it?” he said.

“You make sure to keep me updated,” I said.

“You bet.”

RAY DID BETTER than that. He put me in the observation room when they brought John Kingston in. Kingston refused to talk without his attorney, but his attorney showed up in an hour. It was a small town, ultimately.

“Okay,” said the attorney, a snowy-haired old smoothie who’d been practicing law ever since Clarence Darrow made his case against God. “Lay it out for us.”

“Your client’s being arrested in the murder of his wife,” Church said. “He had a private investigator in Detroit follow her to the Amazing Elvis Extravaganza in Detroit and photographed her having sex with one of the Elvis impersonators. He then took the photographs, mailed them to his wife with a blackmail note in order to get her to go to a hotel room at the Resort to meet him. He registered under the name Elvis Presley and wore a wig, glasses, and sideburns so he would blend in with the one hundred and one other Elvis impersonators. When Alicia came into the room he stabbed her in the heart and left.”

The attorney yawned, blinked, and said, “That’s the most idiotic thing I’ve ever heard. You can’t prove any of it.”

“We’ll see,” Church said. “But I can prove he sent the blackmail letter. His house is being searched now and we’ll be going through his accounts to track down the P.I.”

Church then held up a sheet of paper that looked like a blotchy barcode. “This is a copy of Mr. Kingston’s DNA fingerprint taken from a cup of juice he was drinking in his house.” He held up another sheet of paper. “It’s identical to this one. Which was taken off the postage stamps on the envelope the photographs came in.” He shook his head. “Elvis stamps, no less. Should’ve used self-adhesive, Mr. Kingston. As you’re aware, counselor, that’s probable cause. I have warrants to search his house, his office, and draw blood for an official DNA sample. Do you have anything to say, Mr. Kingston?”

Kingston looked stunned. “Why would I do that? Why would I kill my wife?”

“Having sex with an Elvis impersonator isn’t enough?” Church said.

“That’s nuts! I’d just get a divorce. I wouldn’t murder her.”

Church leaned over and inspected something else in the file next to him. He held it out to John Kingston. “Just in case you were wondering if the only thing I had so far was the DNA samples, I’ve been busy. And we’re only getting going, John. When we’re done with you, your life is going to look like a large print easy-to-read edition. The truth is, I didn’t think you’d murder her over her infidelities. But I do think you’d murder her over a half-million life insurance policy.”

He leaned toward John Kingston. “Elvis is dead, John. And so are you.”