Just Deserts in Las Vegas Read online

  “What is that?” I called up to him.

  “Birds’ nest. Murdering little feathered monsters must have stuffed the chimney up.”

  “A birds’ nest? Really?”

  The fire marshal stepped down to the edge of the roof and then, using only one, hand climbed down the ladder set up against it. Finally, he stood beside me, the blackened mess of twigs in hand.

  He was a young man, probably only a couple of years older than Sally and her friends.

  “Look.”

  I stared at the bundle in his hand. It very well could have been a birds’ nest.

  “I don’t believe it.”

  “What are you thinking?” he asked.

  “Look around. Do you see many birds around here? And I can’t believe the bird would’ve built the nest in just one day. She’s been living here for ages now. She would have been making fires every day.”

  “Is that so?” The firefighter looked down at the bundle again. He didn’t seem completely wedded to the theory that it was a natural occurrence. In fact, he seemed open to any theories I might have.

  “Yes. And you’ve got to admit, the way she was up and about, with the door unlocked, and she didn’t leave the cabin… Something funny was going on, right?”

  He raised and lowered his right hand, still clutching the bundle of twigs as if weighing up the evidence.

  “Tragic accident?” asked the sheriff, sidling up beside us.

  “It’s some kind of tragedy all right.” The fire marshal held out the sticks for the sheriff to examine. “But maybe not an accident.”

  “No?” The sheriff sounded disappointed. Annoyed, even. “Y’all sure about that?”

  “There needs to be an investigation. Forensics. All of it.”

  The sheriff turned to me, snapping gum in his mouth while giving me a solid once-over.

  “And you’re a detective, huh?”

  “I’m a private investigator in Las Vegas.”

  “Is that so?” He continued to stare at me, chewing hard on his gum as he did so. I had a feeling he wasn’t pleased there was going to be an investigation.

  “Who all do you think climbed up on the roof and stuffed up the chimney then, investigator?”

  “I’m afraid I have no idea. I only got here last night myself.”

  He gave me another long, slow, lingering look.

  “Come with me. We’ll interview you next.”

  I trailed after the sheriff for my turn to be questioned. Usually, I was on the other side of the table in these circumstances, but not this time.

  The rest of our unhappy group was hanging around outside the cabins, trying to comfort Pepper, who was now wallowing in grief. While I felt sorry for her, I couldn’t help but wonder how much of her sorrow was for the camera—she had Dylan filming almost every moment of her supposed despair. While Sally had a point about people dealing with loss in different ways, it seemed to me that Pepper was taking advantage of the situation to make more videos for her influencer accounts. But maybe that was how she did deal with loss—by sharing it with everyone.

  “Ma’am?”

  I realized the sheriff was waiting for me to enter a formerly empty cabin with him for my interview. Inside, I could see his partner, a woman about my age, waiting for us. It was time to get this over with.

  Chapter Nine

  My interview was uneventful. They weren’t even interested in the fact that Bridget had woken us in the night barking. They simply recorded everything I told them without asking any insightful questions at all.

  By the time the sheriffs had finished interviewing everyone else, their rides out of there started to arrive.

  Pepper’s dad pulled up in a dusty old white pickup truck. Her father was a leathery man in his fifties, with an expression as solemn as could be expected.

  Pepper immediately ran over to her dad, letting him wrap his arms around her as he lifted her up and held her tight.

  “It’s okay, Patty,” he said, his voice wavering slightly. It wasn’t okay, but he would pretend it was for her sake.

  “Patty’s her real name,” Sally said quietly to Ian and me. “She chose Pepper for her influencer name because she thought it was spicier.”

  I’m not sure what it was about me that drew his attention, but Pepper’s father began to make a beeline for me once he’d finished hugging his daughter.

  “Carl Watson.” He stuck out his hand and I shook it. On his belt, I noticed he had a holster and sticking out of it was the handle of a revolver. A Colt Single Action Army if I wasn’t mistaken—a real cowboy classic.

  “Tiffany Black. I’m sorry for your loss, sir."

  “What in tarnation happened out here? Mom’s been working so hard to get everything ready and now…” He looked around at the cabins and the emergency service vehicles. “…It was all for nothing.”

  “Not nothing, sir,” Ian said, showing a sudden maturity I’d never witnessed before. “She was a wonderful hostess and we had a great time. She’s built something special here, and perhaps someone else can carry it on as her legacy.”

  Carl stuck out his hand and shook Ian’s, giving him a manly but grateful nod for the kind words. He ran his eye over my partner, still in his cowboy getup complete with oversized Nevada belt buckle. Carl gave him another little nod, this one of approval. Like two men cut from the same cloth.

  Kindred cowboy spirits.

  If only he knew.

  “It was a terrible accident,” Sally said quietly, looking down at Carl’s burnished brown leather boots instead of meeting his gaze.

  “If it was an accident,” Ian said.

  “Birds’ nest in the chimney, wasn’t it?” Carl asked. “That’s what the sheriff told me.”

  “Yes, but did a bird put it there?” Ian asked.

  I gave him a little nudge to tell him to cool it. The poor guy had only just found out his mother was dead. But the cat was already out of the bag. I decided to try and put the news as professionally as I could.

  “I believe the fire marshal is not entirely convinced that the blockage they found in the chimney was necessarily put there by birds. And there’s evidence inside that she tried to escape the cabin.”

  “You’re saying Ma was killed deliberately?” Carl surveyed the scene again. His eyes narrowed as they ran over the sheriff. “They told me it was a tragic accident.”

  “I don’t think any conclusions have been reached yet. They’ve only just started the investigation. I’m sure we’ll hear more in the coming days.”

  Carl put his hands on his hips and gave another scan of the situation. “We’ve got Nevada State Police, the sheriff’s office, and a fire crew here. Looks like too many cooks to me.”

  “I’m sure they’ve all got their roles to play,” I said somewhat optimistically.

  I was more familiar with the LVMPD than I was with the various agencies that operated out in the counties. However, he did have a point about things getting confused when multiple agencies were involved.

  Behind Carl, Rachel and Hunter as well as Simone and Antonio were waiting to offer their condolences.

  “Nice to meet you, sir,” I said to him again by way of farewell.

  I wanted to get Bridget from our cabin and see if I couldn’t start heading home. The rest of the weekend in the ghost town had been called off.

  “Mr. Watson? It’s Rachel, from Pepper—Patty’s high school…”

  I left them to it and went back to my cabin.

  Ian and Sally rode back with me, Nanna, and Bridget. The rest were being driven home in either Mr. Watson’s truck, or Simone’s stretch limo SUV. Her driver had eventually pulled up after the police patched her through to her father’s office and let her put in her request.

  We’d stocked up on cold drinks at the rest stop near the exit to Silver Bend, and were all traveling in a subdued, contemplative silence.

  “So,” Ian said, interrupting the peace. “Who do we think did it?”

  I was focusing on the
road, but from the intake of breath I heard from Sally I knew Ian had said the wrong thing.

  “Did what?” she asked sharply.

  “Killed Pepper’s grandmother. There’s no way that birds’ nest was put there by a bird. I didn’t even see a bird small enough to fit down a chimney.”

  “The sheriff said it was a tragic accident,” Sally said firmly.

  “Yeah but the fire guy didn’t seem convinced. And anyway, Tiffany and I saw suspicious handprints inside the cabin, didn’t we?”

  I don’t think Ian realized that he was being drawn into an argument—or at least a major disagreement—with Sally. He was completely oblivious. And so of course he didn’t realize he was dragging me into it as well. It didn’t look like I had a choice now.

  “There was some evidence that Pepper’s Nanna tried to escape,” I admitted.

  Ian nodded vehemently. “Loads of evidence! Tons! It was definitely someone who was with us, too. Has to be. So who do you think it was, huh?”

  “We don’t necessarily know it was someone who was with us,” Nanna said. “It was very dark out there. Anyone could have snuck up on us.”

  “Exactly,” Sally said. “I think it was an accident, and if it wasn’t, it couldn’t have been any of my friends. No way. If it was anyone it was a stranger. Or that old Abner guy, he was weird.”

  “Oh, Abner’s not weird,” Nanna said. “He just likes the peace and quiet out there. He’s certainly no killer.”

  “We only just met him,” I reminded Nanna, even though I secretly agreed with her. “We can’t discount anyone.”

  “Well you can discount my friends,” Sally said. “I’ve known them all for years.”

  “Nope,” Ian said chirpily. “That doesn’t matter. It could have been any of them. Pepper, for example, could—”

  “Ian! Don’t you dare! She just lost her grandmother! There’s no way—”

  “But she would inherit—”

  “Ian!” Sally’s final shout was so loud, and so heartfelt, that it stopped him in his tracks.

  I think it was then that he finally realized how deep of a hole he’d dug himself. So much for spending the entirety of the night before up talking with Sally. Whatever problems he thought they’d solved were clearly now surging back to the surface.

  “Sorry, I was just saying—”

  “Well, don’t! Don’t say anything else. I won’t have you accusing my friends of being murderers just because of this tragic accident. Okay?”

  It took a while for Ian to get the word out. He really didn’t want to say it. But, finally, through strained lips and with impressive self-control, he managed an, “Okay.”

  “Tiffany? Can you drop me off at my home?”

  “Sure.”

  The original plan had been for her to come up with us and spend the afternoon with Ian. She’d said she wanted the company after all that had happened. But thanks to Ian’s attempts at conversation, she wasn’t keen on the company anymore. At least not his.

  “I think we all need a rest, after the shock of it,” Nanna said. “And do you know what else is good for shock?”

  “What?” I asked her.

  “Cupcakes. And if I’m not mistaken, I think we left three behind, didn’t we?”

  That put a smile on my face for the rest of the journey. The thought of the cupcakes made me feel much better, even though I wondered who among Sally’s friends might have wanted to see Horrible Nanna dead.

  Ian was completely right, even if Sally didn’t want to hear it.

  Chapter Ten

  I’d actually been hoping for the call when it came. It had been a few weeks since my last case, and I was ready to sink my teeth into something new. And this was one I was already a part of, something that had piqued my curiosity.

  Carl Watson called me up at nine o’clock sharp on Monday morning. I had the feeling he’d been sitting by the phone since about six, waiting until the moment business hours officially started to make the call.

  Unfortunately, I was still half-asleep when I spoke to him. This was due to the fact that I was fully asleep when the phone rang, and only about half my brain had kicked into gear by the time I sat up and croaked out a greeting.

  He’d been polite, but terse and insistent. I was to meet him right away—or the very soonest I could—at some diner called the Brockley Family Restaurant about a dozen miles outside of town.

  I got showered and dressed, poured some coffee into a travel mug, and headed out. I hesitated outside Ian’s door, before deciding not to knock. Even if he were awake already, which he wouldn’t be, but if he were he’d take too long to get ready. I’d fill him in later. Carl had been under the impression I was going to meet him alone anyway.

  Thirty minutes later, I pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. I spotted Carl’s truck almost immediately. It was still covered in dust from the journey out to Silver Bend, and it looked even more tired and worn now than it had out there. In the ghost town, it had seemed to fit in. In this parking lot just outside of Las Vegas, it stood out as an outlier, parked between two shiny new red Ford trucks that gleamed like a pair of polished red apples beside it.

  Carl Watson was sitting on a stool at the counter when I walked in, but he spotted me in the mirror immediately, spun around, and hopped off.

  He looked older than he had the day before. It was the bags under his eyes. Or maybe the fluorescent lighting of the restaurant that highlighted the cragginess and lines of his skin in a way that the natural light of Silver Bend hadn’t. Or maybe it was just the weight of the death of his mother that had been pressing down on him.

  “Ms. Black,” he said with a jerk of his chin that was almost a nod. It served as both a greeting and a gesture to move to one of the booths up against the window.

  We sat down and ordered a refill on his coffee and a fresh one for me.

  “I was out there ‘til seven o’clock last night,” he said.

  “Mmhmm?”

  “Yep.” He rubbed a hand over his unshaven chin. “It’s a mess. Sheriff wants to record it as an accident. I think he browbeat everyone else into agreeing with him.”

  “But you don’t buy it.”

  “I don’t buy it because you don’t buy it. What kind of bird is going to build a nest in one day, in an occupied cabin, and do such a fine job of it that it completely blocks up the chimney? I ain’t no bird expert, but it smells like bull to me.”

  “Do you think your mother was murdered, Mr. Watson?”

  “Call me Carl. And yes, I think I do, sorry to say. Unless someone shows me a video of the bird flying in that chimney and blocking it up, I don’t believe it was a bird. And there ain’t no video.”

  While there had been plenty of videos taken during our brief time there thanks to Carl’s daughter, I didn’t think any of them would show birds doing what the sheriff was accusing them of doing.

  “I was thinking of investigating myself,” he went on. “You know, talking to everyone who was there. Trying to figure it out. But Patty tells me you’re a real detective and you’ve even solved murders before. I looked you up. You’re legit.”

  It took me a moment to remember who “Patty” was. “That’s right. I think if you’re going to hire someone to investigate, I’m your best bet. I was there, and I’ve met all the suspects already.”

  Normally, I wasn’t itching to take on a murder investigation. But the fact that I’d been there, that I was one of the witnesses myself, was something that was weighing on me. It bothered me that a woman had managed to get killed while I was right there, and I wanted to know who among the group had done it and why.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  I went over my pay rate and arranged for him to make a first payment. Then it was time to really get down to business.

  “Mr. Watson—”

  “Carl.”

  I knew now that he was a tough, straight-shooting kind of guy and this meant I had the luxury of being able to be direct with him. With some clients,
you have to tiptoe around their sensibilities, or couch your questions in vagueness to avoid upsetting them. But others, like Carl, you could just ask them direct questions.

  “Carl. Let’s start with the basics. Do you know anyone who may have wanted your mother dead?”

  He took a big gulp of his coffee before he responded. “No. She was one of the sweetest old ladies you could ever meet.”

  Sweet? I could think of a few adjectives to describe her, but sweet wasn’t one of the first that popped into my head. Sweet was somewhere near the end of the list.

  “Right. But she did have a little bit of a, err, tougher side, too, didn’t she?”

  “I suppose you could say she didn’t suffer fools. And she didn’t like it when someone tried to get one over on her. But apart from that…”

  Carl clearly had a somewhat rose-tinted view of his mother’s personality.

  “The way I see it, if your mother was killed—which I believe she was—then it was most likely someone who was staying with us that night. It’s remote enough that we would have heard any vehicles approaching, and while it’s not impossible, it doesn’t seem reasonable to suspect it was a stranger who crept up in the night. Unless my investigation throws up other leads, I’m going to be focusing on the people who were staying there that night. Does that sound reasonable to you?”

  “I drew up a list.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise as he pulled out a piece of letter paper that had neatly been folded into quarters and placed inside his denim jacket. He handed it over to me and I set it on the plastic tabletop and unfolded it.

  My eyes went wide. It wasn’t just a list of the people present; it also had their phone numbers and addresses.

  “Patty helped me make the list. Thought it would be useful for you.”

  “It will be, it is, thank you very much. So. Let’s go through this list and see if anything comes to mind.”

  “You’re the boss.”

  I liked that, being called the boss. It made me feel more important.