Ultimate Concealer, A Toni Diamond Mystery: A Toni Diamond Mystery (Toni Diamond Mysteries) (13 page)

She did not believe he’d killed Grant Forstman.

He’d also not been able to shed any light on who had killed the casino owner.

She scribbled a few notes in her notebook. It was the kind of thing she sometimes did when she was searching for new ways to market Lady Bianca cosmetics. Think outside the box, she was always telling her girls.

This was a perfect example of a time to use that strategy. Dwayne had jammed himself into quite a box, but if he was innocent, then the real killer was out there and she had to look all the way outside that box to find out who it was.

She wrote the word
Sex
on a blank page and put two vertical lines through the S to make a dollar sign. Everything kept coming back to sex and money.

She retrieved her car and drove slowly back to Brent’s place, where she’d agreed to meet up with her mom and her daughter so Tiffany could pick up some more of her clothes. She’d refused to pack everything, as though by leaving traces of herself in the house where he lived, she was somehow supporting her dad.

When Toni got there, only Brent was home.

“How did it go?” he asked.

She made a face. “About as well as can be expected when you’re trying to get your cheating ex out of a murder charge.”

“Want some tea? I was just going to make some.”

“Tea would be wonderful.”

They sat at the kitchen table and she asked the question that had plagued her since she left the jail. “I wonder who gets Grant Forstman’s money?”

Brent poured boiling water over tea bags in a teapot decorated like The Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. He opened the fridge and pulled out milk, which he poured into a matching jug. The sugar pot was already on the table. “What do you mean?”

“If Dwayne didn’t kill the man, and I don’t think he did, then I have to figure out who did. Follow the money, honey.”

He poured tea for both of them, then sat down slowly. “I’m not sure there is a lot of money.”

She tapped the table top with her nails and caught the glitter of a fake diamond. “Like you said, Vegas is all about selling illusions. To the outside world he was a rich casino owner who would have been worth a fortune.”

She sipped her tea, glad of its simple comfort.

“But he wasn’t,” Brent said. “And he was in big to some bad guys.”

“I know. I mentioned that to my—” She never knew what to call Luke. “My friend who’s a cop back home. He said the LVPD are looking into it. But, I don’t see what Russian mobsters would gain by killing him.” She thought about how Grant Forstman had roughed up Dwayne and threatened him to get his money back. She pretty much thought big-time thugs would act the same with Forstman, only on a larger scale.

“Does your friend think Dwayne is innocent?”

“No. But he’s a cop. He tends to think the most obvious suspect did the deed. Usually, he’s right.”

“But not this time?”

“Maybe.” She felt frustrated and edgy.

“Are you taking this so hard because he’s Tiffany’s father or because you can’t accept that your judgment was so far off?”

She felt the sting of his words even though they were softly delivered. “Ouch. Maybe a little bit of both. Nobody wants to think they married a murderer.”

“You were sixteen. What did you know?”

She smiled ruefully. “My mother’s been talking. Hasn’t she?”

“She loves you. And she’s a very smart lady.”

Toni blinked at him.

“Linda was absolutely right, the rash is clearing up on my chest.”

She had to smile. She wasn’t sure that prescribing a hypoallergenic moisturizer qualified her mother for Mensa, but it was nice that she was helping out while she was here. Already, Sunny and the Three Chers were sporting clearer skin and much better stage makeup colors.

Which wasn’t going to get Dwayne out of trouble. She said, “Loretta was Grant Forstman’s third wife. Does she get whatever there is? Are the exes in for a chunk? I wonder if he had any kids?”

“Loretta has expensive tastes,” he said.

She nodded, recalling the diamonds and fur coat. Even her hair coloring had to cost a fortune to maintain. “Poor thing. I wonder what she’ll do when she finds out she’s broke?”

“More tea?”

“Hmm? No. I’d better not.” She traced the Mad Hatter ceramic figure with a fingertip. “I keep searching for other suspects, but Dwayne sure does look guilty. He didn’t even admit he was sleeping with Loretta. He thinks I don’t know.”

“But you don’t think he killed Grant Forstman?”

“No. No I don’t.”

“I hope not. For Tiffany’s sake. She’s a great kid.”

“She sure is.” She smiled. “She’s probably the best thing Dwayne ever did in his life, and he doesn’t even realize it.”

He made a funny noise. “He’s like a lot of men. Get a woman pregnant and they’re out of there.” He spoke with so much bitterness, she asked, “Is that what happened to you?” Then she said, “I’m sorry. I speak first and engage my brain later. It’s none of my business.”

He shook his head. “It’s okay. I never knew my father. He left my mother before I was even born. There’s no one I admire more than my mother. She was a Vegas showgirl, too. My act’s a kind of a tribute.”

“That’s wonderful. She must be so proud.”

“She died a couple of years ago, but she got a real kick out of Sunny and the Three Chers. Some of the costumes I wear are hers. That was pretty much the bulk of her estate.”

And here they were back at estates. “But you think Grant Forstman didn’t have the money he appeared to have?”

He smiled slightly. “This is Vegas, Toni. Everything is built on fakery and pretense. In my professional opinion, that man was close to bankrupt.”

“Poor Loretta.” She pulled out her smart phone. “You know what every woman needs when she’s feeling a little down?”

He looked at her with narrowed eyes. “A good friend with a bottle of scotch?”

She fluttered her lashes at him. “A new friend with unlimited makeup.”

She swiped on fresh lip gloss, pulled up her smile and positive attitude and called Loretta’s number. To her surprise, Grant Forstman’s widow answered right away. “Loretta Forstman.”

“Loretta, it’s Toni Diamond, we met the other day at . . . ” Usually she was smooth on the phone, but she had no way to finish that sentence without the words “murder” and “corpse” hanging in the air like skunk spray.

“The casino, I remember,” Loretta said, seeming a lot more smooth than Toni. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m hoping I can do something for you.” These were such familiar words that her patter unrolled ahead of her like a red carpet leading to Oscar night. “I would love to offer you a complimentary Lady Bianca makeover.”

“Oh. I’m really not—”

“Please don’t worry about wasting my time. I met you and liked you immediately. And after the horrible shock you’ve been through, you and your skin need some pampering.”

“But your husband is accused of murdering mine. Isn’t that kind of icky?”

“Please, Dwayne hasn’t been my husband for fifteen years. That’s half my lifetime.” If you weren’t very good at simple division.

“Well, I really did like Lady Bianca cosmetics when I used to wear them.”

“Trust me, you are going to love the new line. I’m bringing some extra samples of the skin creams for you. Honestly, three months of using the new line and you’ll feel like you’ve had a facelift. Without the stitches.”

“If you’re sure you don’t mind.”

“I don’t at all. What time shall I come by?”

“You do it here?”

“Absolutely. We pay house calls like doctors and priests used to.”

She was treated to a low, throaty laugh. “You’ll probably do me more good than either of those.”

They made a date for the next day. Toni would have chatted a little longer but she had another call coming in.

“Toni Diamond,” she trilled.

“Mom, you’ve got to get over here,” Tiffany yelled.

“Where are you?”

“At the Wentworth Casino.”

“The Wentworth? What are you doing there?” The Wentworth was one of the top casinos on the strip, near the Bellagio.

“Grandma wanted to come. She thought it would make us feel better.”

“I thought you were going shopping.”

“We did. There’s a huge mall here as well as the casino.”

“And why do I need to get over there, right away?”

“Because Grandma got arrested.”

Chapter Twelve

“You have to learn the rules of the game and then you have to play better than anyone else.”

— Albert Einstein

“What?” She shrieked so loud that Brent spilled hot tea on his hand. “Grandma got arrested?” She could not take much more of this.

“Well, not arrested exactly. Hauled away by the security guys.”

“Hauled away for what?”

“I don’t know.”

Toni was so stressed she grabbed at her hair, messing up the careful style she’d spent twenty minutes on this morning. “What’s she done? She didn’t get into a fight, did she?” Toni would never forget one memorable day when her usually happy mother all but ended up decking some woman who claimed that Dolly Parton could not sing a note.

“No. It wasn’t a fight. I don’t know. She was excited. She loves the casino. She was playing roulette, and I think she was winning. A waiter brought her champagne and me a Coke. Then all of a sudden these two guys in black came up and said she had to go with them. Nobody will tell me anything. I’m not old enough to be in the casino, but they let me go. They took Grandma away somewhere.”

“And where, precisely, are you at this moment?”

“I’m sitting in the ice cream parlor at the Wentworth.”

“Okay. Don’t move. I’m coming.” Then before she could say good-bye she said, “Wait, Tiff, what were you doing in the Wentworth?” There were a dozen casinos and places to shop that were closer.

“Dad gave me a couple of blue casino chips for the Wentworth before, you know, all the crap happened. He said to go and have some fun with them at the casino, but I don’t like gambling. And I’m not supposed to be in the casino anyway, so I gave them to Grandma.”

Toni closed her eyes. “I’ll be there as quick as I can.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, honey.”

“What should I do?”

Toni knew what she’d like to do. “Order a hot fudge sundae. And tell them to make it a double.”

When she got off the phone, Brent was looking at her with concern. She grabbed her bag. “Suddenly everyone in my family is a criminal.”

She recalled from her quick search of Dwayne’s room after he’d been arrested that she’d spotted a bowl of chips. She hadn’t thought anything of them at the time, now she stopped to pick them up and count them. They were blue. Nothing about them suggested what each chip was worth, but there was a W embossed on each one. She borrowed a paper lunch sack from Brent and dropped the chips in it, then headed back out to her car to try and spring her mother from casino jail.

When she arrived at the casino on the strip, she discovered that the Wentworth was to the Double Nugget what Paris, France was to Paris, Texas.

She pulled up to valet parking and a man dressed like something out of a Jane Austen movie rushed up and opened her door, holding out his hand as though he were Colin Firth himself. She took his hand and let him help her out of her car. He handed her a slip of paper and said, “Call when you’re ready and we’ll get your car for you right away, miss.”

She slipped a twenty from her wallet and handed it to the young man, giving him a dazzling smile.

“Thank you.” She squinted at his nametag, “Vernon.” And she waltzed into the grand entrance of the hotel. Two more Georgian footmen rushed to open the opulent, heavy glass doors for her. Little did they know their security people had her mother in lockup.

Having had the drive over to try and formulate some sort of strategy, she was certain of one thing. She needed Tiffany to stay put. She texted her daughter with a little white lie.
Traffic terrible. I’ll be there as soon as I can.

And then, trying not to look like a woman here to bail her own mother out of casino jail, she asked the first person in uniform where the casino security office could be found.

“Casino security?”

“Yes.”

“Go on through to the casino and ask one of the security people. They’ll escort you up.”

Toni headed for the casino. She had never in all her life seen so much crystal. Not that she’d ever had occasion to go to Paris, never mind Versailles, but she had a sense that Marie Antoinette and her court would be right at home here. The chandeliers alone were the size of small planets, sparkling and glittering above the heads of a pretty upscale looking crowd.

When she headed through all the glitz and glam, she paused at a roulette wheel. About eight people were playing and a few spectators watched idly. The chips looked exactly like the ones she’d found in Dwayne’s possession right down to the W on each chip. Players had little piles of different colored chips in front of them. She spotted a couple of blue ones.