Ink Flamingos (26 page)

Jeff shook his head. “Not me.” He looked at Sylvia, who’d puffed up her chest proudly.

“It was a nice tattoo,” she said, “but it needed that color.”

Sylvia did it. I took a deep breath and counted to ten.

“Didn’t she tell you she was allergic?” I finally asked.

Sylvia made a face at me. “Look at me, a hundred tattoos and I never keeled over, did I?”

It stung a little that Sylvia had been able to talk Daisy into the color, and I hadn’t even been successful in the discussion about organic inks. I turned to Jeff. “Didn’t you know about this?”

“Don’t go blaming him for any of this,” Sylvia admonished. “He went away for a weekend, remember that?” She turned to Jeff. “You and that nice girl, you said you needed a weekend away. So I opened the shop while you were gone. No big deal.”

I had never seen Jeff Coleman blush before. I should take note of the date and time, so I could tease him about it occasionally. In fact, it would be very nice ammunition for when he decided to pick on me.

And then I wondered who the “nice girl” was.

I shook the thought aside. Sylvia had done Daisy’s color. Without asking about her allergy. But she was right, at least about this one. Daisy didn’t keel over from it.

“She came to your shop?” I asked.

Sylvia nodded. “She said you’d done the flamingo, but she’d seen the koi that Jeff did on your arm and she loved the colors and the design. She was disappointed he wasn’t there, but I convinced her that an old lady could do just as good a job.”

Looking at the picture, I had to agree. The color was impeccable.

“So you didn’t know about this?” I asked Jeff.

“Not till right this moment,” he said. “Not till I saw the initials. I hadn’t looked that closely before.”

I remembered how Flanigan had asked if I could ask around to see if anyone I knew would know anything about Daisy’s tattoos. And how I hadn’t, because I’d been too distracted by my own problems.

“We should tell Tim and Flanigan about this,” I said, turning to Sylvia. “You’ve got paperwork, right, to prove when you did this?”

The look on her face made me realize that maybe they weren’t exactly up to date on their paperwork over at Murder Ink. And the look on Jeff’s face told me that he’d been having issues with that.

“Let’s go,” I said, not wanting to get into it.

Jeff logged off the computer, and the three of us went back through the glass doors.

A flash blinded me as we rounded the corner.

I
had a flashback from the other night with Harry, when all those flashes kept going off. My heart leaped into my throat as I blinked, trying to see who had the camera. Jeff was one step ahead of me, though. He grabbed a woman’s arm and whirled her around.

I couldn’t believe it.

“Melanie?” It was Melanie Black, Daisy’s bandmate, the one who’d invited me to the concert last night.

She held a small camera, and she did not look happy with Jeff.

“Let go of me,” she demanded; then she saw me and tried an awkward smile on for size. “Brett, can you tell him to let go of me, tell him who I am?”

“Did you just take my picture?” I asked, ignoring her question.

Melanie seemed surprised to see she was holding a camera. “I was taking pictures,” she admitted. “I don’t think I took one of you.” But her blush told a different story.

“Let’s see,” Jeff held out his hand for the camera, and she frowned, but she handed it over.

He had to let her go to look at the last picture she took, but she stayed put. Probably because she didn’t want him to keep her camera. Jeff studied the camera screen and then held it up for me to see.

It was a picture of me. Jeff and Sylvia flanked me, but they were partially cut off.

I looked up at Melanie. “Why did you take my picture?” She couldn’t deny that she had now.

Her face clouded over for a second; then she forced a smile. “I didn’t realize. But it’s a good picture.”

“Good enough for your blog?” I sneered.

Melanie frowned. “What are you talking about?”

This could not be a coincidence. Melanie had been the one to invite me to the arena last night. She had invited me backstage. I had wanted answers about Daisy, and then Jeff and I found ourselves locked out. She had fed me the story about Sherman Potter and Daisy. Maybe it was to deflect any possible suspicion from her.

Although I hadn’t thought any of the girls in the band would be suspect. Daisy was their bread and butter. Why would any of them kill her?

And then I knew. Because Daisy wanted out. Because she was leaving the band. Because she
was
their bread and butter, that wouldn’t set well.

Melanie knew about me. Knew about the tattoos. Knew Daisy was allergic. Anyone could get a tattoo machine and all the equipment online for a do-it-yourselfer. The picture of the tattoo that Flanigan had showed me indicated it was the work of a scratcher, someone who didn’t know what she was doing. It would be easy to set up a real tattooist, too.

Melanie was almost as tall as me. With a wig, she could impersonate me. She could be the woman who’d left that hotel room. She could be the woman Jeff met in the bar.

Now she was here. At the Golden Palace. Where Sherman Potter’s body lay upstairs. And she was taking pictures of me.

Maybe she killed Sherman Potter because he figured it out.

Like me.

Jeff was toying with the camera. “There aren’t any other pictures,” he said, then looked at Melanie. “If you were being a tourist and taking pictures, then why is this one of Brett the only one you’ve got in the camera? And why are you taking pictures here? It’s a hotel front desk. Not exactly something for the photo album, is it?”

She looked decidedly uncomfortable. Good. But before she could respond, I heard a familiar voice.

“Brett?”

I turned to see Tim walking toward us, confusion crossing his face. He had a couple of uniforms and crime scene investigators behind him. They all stopped when he did.

I went over to him, knowing Jeff would hold on to Melanie so she couldn’t get away.

“I think this is her,” I said softly to Tim when I reached him. I told him about the picture and my theories about her.

“Did Jeff ID her as the woman he met?” Tim asked as he checked Melanie out.

Like I said, she was almost as tall as me, and her hair was short, too, but it had been dyed midnight black and the ends were purple. Her face was round and she had an upturned nose and pouty lips. Her eyes were on the small side, but she attempted to make them look larger with dark eye shadow and thick mascara and black eyeliner. It was a sort of goth look but fit the Flamingos’ updated punk look to a T.

“She’s not exactly incognito,” Tim pointed out, and I grudgingly agreed. She would be noticeable in a crowd. But maybe she didn’t wear all that makeup all the time. I said as much.

“If her purpose was to come here, kill Sherman Potter, then take your picture, why would she make herself up like that? And how did she even know you’d be here?” Tim was playing devil’s advocate, and I couldn’t blame him. He had unraveled my theory with that last question. “How did you come to be here and find Sherman Potter, anyway?” he asked.

I told him how Jeff had followed Potter and how the room had been reserved in the name Wainwright.

“But she’s dead,” Tim said, his expression telling me he thought I might have gone over the deep end on this one.

“It’s got to be her twin sister, Ann.” It was like on those soap operas, when someone ended up having an evil twin.

“How do you know her sister’s name?” Tim’s face grew dark.

I quickly explained how the woman at the hotel desk had said that the Flamingos’ new lead singer’s name was Ann Wainwright, not Ainsley, as she’d presented herself.

Tim’s frown deepened, but he turned and approached Melanie. Jeff wasn’t holding on to her, and she hadn’t tried to take off.

“My sister says you took her picture. What for?”

I could now see Melanie assessing Tim, deciding what she should say.

“Someone asked me to.”

She could’ve just told me that before. At least she was coming clean with the cops.

“Who?” Tim prompted.

Melanie shrugged. “She asked me for an autograph, I gave it to her, and then she gave me her camera, asked if I could do her a favor. She said Brett Kavanaugh was in the business center, could I get a picture of her. When I said she should do it herself, she said because I knew her, it would be better if I did it. She said she wanted a candid shot, so I should be discreet, not let on what I was doing.”

Sounded plausible, but I still wasn’t willing to give her the benefit of the doubt. Neither was Jeff.

“How did she know you knew Brett?” he asked before Tim could. “Did you ask her how she knew Brett?”

Melanie seemed confused by the questions, by the fact that someone other than Tim was asking.

“What did she look like?” I asked, throwing her off a little more.

But she recovered enough to say, “She looked a little like you. Red hair, tall. Maybe not as thin as you, though.”

My impostor strikes again. And the description could easily fit Ann Wainwright.

“Where did she go?” I asked, looking around and not seeing anyone matching the description.

Melanie shrugged.

“Maybe you should come with me and answer some questions,” Tim said to her.

“Kavanaugh?”

Tim and I both turned to see Detective Kevin Flanigan coming toward us. The uniforms and CSIs parted like the Red Sea to let him through.

“What’s going on?” Flanigan asked.

Tim gave it to him in a nutshell. Flanigan was nodding. “You take her and talk to her,” he said, meaning Melanie. “Get a description of the woman who asked her to take the picture. I’ll go upstairs.”

“Where should we go?” I asked.

All eyes landed on me. It was not a comfortable feeling.

“You found the body?” Flanigan asked.

Jeff and I both nodded.

“Then you come with me.”

Sylvia stepped forward, her cheetah-print bag swinging from her shoulder. “And where do I go?”

Flanigan’s mouth twitched, as if he wanted to smile. “Mrs. Coleman. I remember you.” From a couple of months before. “You might as well come with us, too.”

I was glad we didn’t have to leave Sylvia behind again, and Tim looked relieved that she wasn’t going to be his responsibility.

Flanigan took me, Jeff, and Sylvia up in the elevator with him, along with the hotel manager, who had to let us in the room, and sent the others up in a separate elevator. No one said anything as we went up.

We arrived at the same time the uniforms and CSIs did. Guess there wasn’t too much elevator traffic today.

We all made our way down the hallway maze to Sherman Potter’s room.

We watched as the manager slipped the key card into the door, and it swung open. Flanigan went in first.

I knew we were in trouble by the look on his face when he came back out right away.

“There’s no body in here. Can someone tell me what’s going on?”

N
o body? I craned my neck to see between Flanigan and one of the uniforms. Flanigan noticed and stepped aside, waving his hand and giving permission for me to enter. Jeff was right behind me.

The bed was made. The pillows plumped. At least as much as they could be. There were no clothes scattered on the floor. The room was tidy. A glance in the bathroom told me the wet towels were gone.

Jeff and I looked like the boy who cried wolf.

“He was here,” I insisted.

Jeff was nodding. “We both saw him.”

We heard a squeaking sound in the hall and turned to see a maid’s cart making its way past the room. Jeff sidled past me and asked the maid pushing the cart: “Did you just make up this room?”

The little Hispanic woman in the ill-fitting white uniform got a deer-in-the-headlights look about her.

Flanigan stepped forward, flashing his badge. “It’s all right, ma’am,” he said politely. “Did you just make up the room?”

Not sure the badge was a good idea, because she looked even more scared. She probably thought she was going to get deported.

“Did you see anyone in the room?” I asked softly.

A quick shake of her head and then, “The sign was gone.” She indicated the doorknob.

The DO NOT DISTURB Sign. It had been there when Jeff and I left. Someone had taken Sherman Potter out of here, taken the sign, and the maid had cleaned up. All while we were downstairs in the business center checking out that blog and then talking to Melanie, who had taken my picture. A great distraction.

If Melanie were the one behind all this, then she would have to have an accomplice.

Ann Wainwright.

It seemed as though it was all falling into place.

I told Flanigan about Ann and how the woman Melanie claimed had asked her to take my picture fit her description. Jeff added that he’d seen a woman with red hair go into Sherman Potter’s room with him. Flanigan listened, to his credit, and then folded his arms across his chest and stood with his feet apart. He wasn’t sold.

“Do you think a woman could carry a big guy like Sherman Potter out of here undetected?” he asked.

“Maybe,” I said. “She’s tall, too, like me, and bigger than me. Maybe she lifts weights or something. Lots of women do.” I didn’t, but I did hike and swim. He probably didn’t care about that, though.

“What about cameras?” Jeff asked, his voice piercing the long silence as Flanigan thought about what I’d said.

The hotel manager’s face turned red. He was obviously embarrassed. “No cameras in the halls here,” he said apologetically. “This isn’t the Bellagio.”