Death On the Flop Read online

  He just smiled absently and returned to his laptop. I disappeared into my bedroom, showered quickly, thinking with a bit of regret about the cozy Jacuzzi in our room downstairs. Since Frank’s suite was much nicer, I was betting he had a pretty awesome setup in his bathroom. Hmm.

  I blow-dried my hair, but having no patience to wait for the wavy mop to be totally dry, tied it in a bun at the base of my neck. I brushed on some mascara (to hide any bags, you know) and some peach Dior lip gloss. The clothes, now that was a problem. I was again regretting my mass raping of my closet at home. I hung pieces up in a closet so big it seemed wasteful in a hotel and didn’t get to anything I was willing to wear to the morgue until I came to the end. I’d forgotten I’d thrown in a Christopher Deane sundress with a swingy calf-length skirt in stripes of deep burgundy, dark gray and light pink. Since I was a bit sensitive about all the call girl misunderstandings, I covered its strapless top with a white cotton long sleeve button down I left open, tying the tails around my waist. The Kate Spade strappy sandals with lover heels and silver braid and black pearl earrings I had at home matched the ensemble (a Houston boutique, Rouche Jovan, had given me the entire outfit as a thank you for a successful spring ad campaign), but I didn’t pack those, of course. Reviewing my slim options, I decided on some oversized plain silver hoops and flat silver jeweled slip ons that would be better than heels when fleeing down stairwells from bad guys.

  Frank looked up from his laptop when I opened my door. He shook his head. Damn, those bags were probably showing again.

  “How has Conner seen your hair? It was up like this when I saw you at the bar.”

  “I pulled it down when he saw me with Felix to hide my face. I don’t think he saw me in the stairwell, but I guess he could’ve caught a glimpse. I had it in a bun then.”

  “Then you need to wear it differently. Anything that might trigger a memory enough for him to suspect you is risking danger.”

  “I just wear it two ways—up or down.”

  “Come here,” Frank beckoned, rising from his chair. I went to him and he pushed me down where he’d been. He ran his fingers through my hair, grazing my scalp. I have to say I’d never felt a man do anything so erotic in my life. I bit my tongue to keep from moaning.

  “Am I hurting you?” he asked.

  “Uh, no.” I cleared my throat. “What are you doing?”

  “French braiding your hair.”

  “You know how to French braid hair?”

  “I have a daughter.”

  “You’re married!” I spun the swivel chair around so fast that I ended up way too close to him, eyeball to groin, my legs between his thighs. I’d noticed before he smelled of warm Dove soap. He still held my hair, and it started to burn where it was pulling at the roots. “Ow, now you are hurting me.”

  Frank released my hair, took a half step back and said, “I’m sorry but I don’t think I asked you to try to choke yourself to death with your braid.”

  “Well?” I demanded.

  He stepped forward again, and spun me back around. “No, I’m not married.”

  “Divorced?”

  Frank didn’t answer, just started combing his fingers through my hair again.

  “Had a child out of wedlock?”

  “No!” he said, offended. “Look, I don’t talk about my kids a lot.”

  “Well, I’m not the one who brought it up.”

  Frank’s fingers went motionless for a moment, then he chuckled quietly. “You’re right. Huh, I wonder how that slipped out? I’m never so careless. I suppose I owe you a small explanation then.”

  I waited while he braided. Finally, he said, “Gretchen is eight and Henry is ten.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In California.”

  Bingo, I thought.

  Holding the end of the braid in one hand, he reached with the other into a pocket of his soft leather briefcase to extract a rubber band.

  I finally asked, “In California, with their mother, maybe where you used to be a cop?”

  He paused halfway through wrapping the rubber band around the end of the braid. “You just asked three questions in one breath.”

  “Don’t feel obligated to answer in one,” I generously offered.

  “I don’t think I even need a breath. I’m done talking for now.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I just told you more about my life than I’ve told any woman in the last decade.”

  “That’s because the women you hang with are too busy having ‘vapors’ to pay attention to what you have to say.”

  Frank spun me around, stepping back to review his handiwork. Nodding once, he strode to his bedroom. Guess that was the end of the kid conversation. I wasn’t giving up there though. I’d get more out of him later.

  After a few minutes, which I used to call for any messages from my room—there were none—he emerged wearing a black leather coat. Pretty sexy, but I wasn’t letting on I thought so.

  “Don’t do that.”

  Uh-oh. He caught me staring. “Don’t what?”

  “Call from a landline for your room messages. Use my cell phone.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry.”

  “Someone could be tracing the checks on your room phone. That’s a long shot but still a possibility. Because you weren’t registered together, whoever tangled with your brother might not know about you, but they would know he was staying with a woman that wasn’t his lover. And they of course will know your bra size.”

  “Cute,” I muttered self-consciously.

  “Let’s go.”

  As we made our way through the casino to the parking garage, I watched for Conner or his whiny associate. I didn’t see either, although I did see the casino security chief I’d met with Conner. He looked at me curiously, so, on impulse I wrapped my arm around Frank’s waist and caressed the pockets of his Levi’s. Cedillo shook his head in disgust. Frank nearly jumped out of his skin at my contact.

  “What is going on?” he whispered in my ear. I could feel his muscles under the denim. Oops, I shivered.

  “The head of security who was with Conner last night is over there.” That’s all I had to say, Frank was hip to the farce. He reached over and slid his hand along my waist and gave me a kiss on the ear. The security chief turned away.

  Finally we turned the corner out of sight and I dropped my hand like Frank’s rear was on fire. Truth was, I was the one heating up and that complication certainly wasn’t going to do me any good. Well, it might do me some good, but it wouldn’t do Ben any. Frank chuckled but stayed silent as we rode the elevator to level four of the parking garage. More potential ears in the wall, I assumed. This whole fiasco was going to make me paranoid.

  “So I guess those two remember you, even in different clothes, different hair and with a different guy,” Frank observed as we exited and walked across the asphalt, me slightly behind him as I had no idea which of the dozens of cars were his. “This makes it difficult to protect you. Unless you stay completely under wraps.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t find Ben that way.”

  “No, but I could. Somehow, though, appearances notwithstanding, I don’t think you’d make much of a hothouse flower.”

  I slid to a stop, which on flats, one can do in a cool, rather dramatic way. Maybe I should start wearing flats more often. “What does that mean? I think I’ve just been insulted.”

  Frank, wearing his great stone face, dug in his pocket for his keys. “Not at all, hothouse flowers are the most beautiful, but they also are high maintenance and sit around under cover, doing nothing.

  “While you might be two of the three, I don’t think you’d do well sitting around under cover, doing nothing.”

  Ignoring the two compliments he’d given me, I went straight for the negative. “You think I’m high maintenance?”

  Frank pressed a button on his key ring and a Hummer beeped back. Security must be a good gig. Cool.

  As if he’d read my mind, Frank o
pened my door for me and said, “It’s a rental, goes with the room, so don’t get any ideas.”

  “What kind of ideas; like you might be independently wealthy, like you might be the most successful ‘security’ dude in America?”

  “No,” Frank retorted in a dry tone, as he slid into the driver’s seat and started the engine. Hubba-hubba, those cylinders sounded good. “Ideas, like you might like to drive.”

  “Oh,” I muttered, crossing my arms over my chest, completely deflated.

  We made our way through the traffic on The Strip, and I realized after a while, Frank seemed to take a lot of unnecessary backstreets. Again eerily sensing my thoughts, he said, “I just want to make sure we aren’t followed.”

  “How do you read my mind?” I asked, suddenly worried, considering where my mind had been at times today.

  Frank smiled. “It’s a good thing you don’t play poker, because your face says it all.”

  “That’s not what my brother claims.”

  “Aw, he was just trying to sell you into coming to Vegas, although why I can’t imagine, since you don’t seem like the Vegas type at all.”

  I wasn’t sure if that was a criticism or compliment, so I didn’t respond.

  A half hour later, we parked outside the Clark County morgue. All institutions give me the heebie-jeebies and the county building was the worst. At the basement, we marched up to a woman shaped like a muffin. I’m not kidding, she was big on top and small and square on the bottom. Anyhow, she led us through to where the coroner’s office was and made us wait. After about ten minutes, Frank excused himself. I don’t know what he said, but immediately upon his return we were led into a cold room full of numbered drawers. A tall, exceedingly thin man with small, washed out blue eyes walked out of an adjacent room. “Hello, I’m Dr. Vassey.”

  We shook hands all around. Dr. Vassey said in a surprisingly ultra deep baritone, “I’m sorry your brother is missing. I do hope we can’t help you.”

  I cocked my head. Frank offered no help as he was looking off with great concentration at the wall.

  Dr. Vassey walked over to drawer number forty-six and slid it open. The long mound on the flat metal panel was covered with one of those paper sheets they make us wear when we strip naked at the gynecologist. An arm slipped out from under the cover. I automatically reached out to put it back on the table. When my hand touched the cold, dead flesh I gasped. I’ve never seen or felt death before. It was startling and horrible like nothing else. Maybe because our minds expect flesh to be warm, and it isn’t when the heart hasn’t pumped in a while. Then skin seems cold enough to have been refrigerated.

  “Is the air conditioner on too high?” I asked with a gasp.

  “First timer, huh?” Dr. Vassey winked at Frank, who was looking a bit concerned at me.

  “He’s okay. A little frostbite won’t hurt him,” Dr. Vassey cackled.

  Nice. Dr. Vassey pulled the blue cloth back with a flourish, and I started shaking my head immediately. Nausea rose and I covered my mouth with my hand to stop it from getting any ideas. Frank wrapped his arm around my shoulders. I started crying.

  “He looks like he was in so much pain,” I sobbed, looking at the lips pulled back from his teeth in a horror grimace.

  “I’m so sorry, Bee,” Frank murmured onto the top of my head.

  “Me, too. I wish I could tell his relatives,” I murmured back.

  Frank pushed me back to look me in the face. “What do you mean? Isn’t this Ben?”

  I sniffed. “No.”

  Frank drew his eyebrows together, pulled in a breath and let it go. “Okay. Let’s see the next one, Doc.”

  Dr. Vassey, looking like he was one of the few Americans who enjoys his job, reviewed his list and strode over to drawer fourteen. Frank walked next to me and grabbed my arm to keep me from getting too close this time. This drawer was about as high as my forehead and at first, all I could see was the corpse’s peaceful profile.

  “Oh no!”

  Frank again came to hold my shoulders. “Is it Ben?”

  Dr. Vassey was looking hopeful. Maybe he got points toward the county Christmas party for every John Doe accounted for. Maybe he liked to see sisters of dead guys bust a gut. He offered a stool. “Here, Ms. Cooley, we want you to be sure.”

  I shook off Frank’s arm and climbed the four steps. Vassey had put me way too close to the dead dude’s face and I gasped again. Frank grabbed my calf. Hmm.

  “Nope. It’s not Ben,” I said, retreating down the steps.

  “You’re sure?” Vassey asked, disappointed no doubt, that I hadn’t thrown up my brunch.

  “As sure as a twin sister could be.”

  As Frank thanked Dr. Vassey, a door at the other end of the room slammed open. Two men in scrubs marched in, pushing a gurney. The shorter of the two apologized, “Sorry, doc, but it’s been a busy night. We gotta get rid of this one so’s we can go pick up two more.”

  Vassey motioned them on. They stopped right next to me and the short one pulled out drawer number two. They grabbed the corpse by its feet and arms and slid it onto the slab. The covering on the body slid off and I gasped. It was getting to be an irritating habit, I realized, but this time I had good reason.

  “Wait. I know this one!”

  Nine

  “I’m sorry, Ms. Cooley, but this man is slightly older than your brother,” Dr. Vassey said patiently, obviously thinking I was addled from my close encounters with the unliving.

  Tears were building in the corners of my eyes. I tried to blink them away as I looked into the face of the man who saved me. Had I doomed him to death?

  “Who is it, Bee?” Frank asked quietly. I could feel his intense focus but couldn’t look away from the face of the septaugenarian who would never return to Valentine to find a second love ever again.

  “It’s Fe—” I began, my voice breaking into hysterical sobs before I could finish his name.

  I looked apologetically at Dr. Vassey, who appeared quite pleased with his consolation prize. The two delivery men scooted out, handing the coroner a sheaf of papers.

  “How did he die?” Frank asked.

  “Felix Quinn,” Dr. Vassey read. “Age seventy-two. Found dead, fully clothed in his bed. Presence of prescription nitroglycerin in the bathroom. Apparent heart attack but some question as there were signs of small struggle in hotel room. Security officer took a report that the gentleman was in the company of a woman in the early morning hours before he was found dead.”

  My heart jumped to my throat. Were they trying to pin this on me? I looked at Frank and I could have been looking at an iguana. Iguanas don’t blink, and Frank didn’t appear to either, at least not in cop mode.

  “Now, this couldn’t be the guy you knew, honey,” Frank said. “His name was Farouk, right?”

  “Oh, right. Farouk.”

  “Too bad,” Dr. Vassey said. “You probably couldn’t have helped the detectives, although I doubt they will spend much time with this one. Old guy dead. Call girl. Likely history of heart problems. They’ll probably write this one off without visiting the room.”

  I looked down and dried my tears, feeling more threatened. I felt so guilty. “P-poor guy.”

  “I got a dozen more like them if you want to cry on their heads too,” Dr. Vassey offered like he was hosting an episode of Name that Slab.

  “Thanks, Doc, but we got to go. Her brother is still missing.”

  “Ah right, that.” Dr. Vassey said, taking Frank’s proffered hand. “Good luck.”

  We nodded our thanks and got out of the sub-zero room as fast as we could. Frank shook his head when I opened my mouth to speak in the elevator and then in the lobby. I bit my tongue all the way to the Hummer.

  “Do you think they killed Felix looking for me?”

  “Not necessarily,” Frank said, his dark eyes now almost black. “But it is a helluva coincidence.”

  “Poor Felix.” I held my hand over my mouth to keep the sobs in. “If I killed him
, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “Stop that kind of talk, Bee. It doesn’t do the old guy any good, you are the one to worry about now,” Frank said, negotiating around a bus slowing in front of us. “But this changes things. We have to operate on the assumption that Conner is hunting down his witness, and that he is pretty much ruthless. That means you have to stay in hiding.”

  “Great idea,” I agreed.

  Frank swung his head around so fast to look at me that the Hummer swerved into the neighboring lane. We heard a couple of honks. “That doesn’t sound like you. You must be really scared.”

  “Sure I’m scared, but the best place to hide is in plain sight,” I reminded him. His mouth tightened but he didn’t interrupt me at first, “So first I’ll register for the tournament—”

  “Too late, entries are closed,” Frank put in.

  “In Ben’s place,” I finished.

  Frank shook his head. “They won’t allow substitutions.”

  “I won’t have to be one. He registered as B. Cooley. I am B. Cooley. I’ll just adopt his address and phone.”

  “And you’ll sure make it easy for Conner to find you.”

  “He’ll know who I am and where I am, but what can he do about it? He is consulting on security for the tournament. Any player who is hurt or killed or disappears during the event will certainly reflect poorly on him, won’t it? He would be sabotaging his cover career to protect the undercover, illegal one. Whoever the hell it might be.”

  Frank pulled the Hummer into the parking garage without answering, swinging it into a space and killed the engine. Only then did he turn to look at me. “You’ve certainly thought this through and argued it like a pro. Are you an attorney?”

  “No, unemployed ad exec.”

  He gave me a wry grin. “Even better. You sold this one to me. Although I reserve the right to change my mind at the first sign that Conner is getting desperate enough to hurt you ‘in plain sight’.”

  I didn’t answer, but Frank must have taken it for an assent, because he nodded briskly and got out of the car. I almost reached for my door handle, but then I remembered what he’d done the last time we’d left the car, so I waited, fidgeting in my seat, unaccustomed as I was to this rather old-fashioned gallantry. He came around and opened my door. Once I was out, he touched my shoulder. “Bee, understand that I’m agreeing to it, but I don’t like it. And there’s one part of the plan you haven’t covered: how are you going to learn Texas Hold ’Em by tomorrow night?”