What Happens In Vegas
CRIME SHORT STORY BY ALISON CARTER
Sam hoped she could count on Dominic when the chips were down…
I am so sorry,” Eve said. “I’ll never live this down.” Dominic shook his head.
“Eve, this was as much my dumb mistake as it was yours. I am going to look on it as something to tell my grandchildren.”
“Me, too.” She nodded. “Once I get over the embarrassment.”
“Thousands of people have done the same thing. It’s the Las Vegas effect.”
“Dominic, you live in Las Vegas. You ought to be immune.”
“It’s a strong effect.”
There was a silence.
They were standing on the pavement in front of the Rose Rhinestone Hotel, sheltering from a Nevada sun under its long awning.
Eve had called Dominic out on to what she hoped was neutral territory for their little chat.
Dominic leaned back against the outside wall of the hotel and Eve copied him, so that they were facing the street in tandem.
A silver limo cruised past.
Eve had not recovered yet from the night before, with its over-indulgence in Mexican food and tequila, and it seemed that Dominic was in a similar condition.
“I get an ache in my lower back if I don’t get enough sleep,” he mused.
“Me, too,” Eve replied. “Back home I use ice.”
“Those squashy cushions you freeze, in the freezer?”
“In the freezer, yes.” Despite it all, she giggled.
There was another silence.
“So now I know how to get married in Las Vegas,” Eve continued. “Do you know how I can get divorced?”
Dominic opened his mouth to say something, but then they were interrupted.
Out of the hotel entrance poured five noisy young Scottish women headed up by Louise, the bride.
Bringing up the rear were Louise’s mum and step-mum.
“Breakfast time!” Louise yelled.
It was 11 o’clock, but nobody had been awake for long.
They noticed Eve and all stopped.
A look of delight spread across the face of Casey, one of the hens.
“My, my, girls!” Casey exclaimed. “Eve was doubtful about coming to Las Vegas, but she’s made up for it now!”
Eve shook her head, but the girls took no notice
They launched into cat calls and whooping noises.
The truth was, though, that Eve had left Dominic at one o’clock in the morning as the enormity of what had just occurred in the Ivory Veil Wedding Chapel hit her.
All she could remember was a wave of regret.
Dominic had not tried to stop her leaving; he had been happy to accept her excuse – something about needing to phone her mum.
Then he had mumbled something about a shift at the hotel and had hurried off along the street.
There had been no blissful romance. But they were married.
Eve didn’t say anything to the hen party.
She would have to start the process of a divorce as the trip went on and hope the girls would forget in the onslaught of roulette and burgers.
Never had she regretted an evening more!
It was so out of character. Eve was the sensible one in the office. She knew everybody’s birthdays and kept the sugar bowl topped up.
Maybe Dominic the bartender was more the spontaneous type.
She looked hard at Dominic. At least she knew his surname now – Riley.
She had signed her own surname next to it last night as they stood laughing under a chiffon canopy in front of an officiant dressed in white.
Until then, she’d barely been able to recall his first name – he had just been a beautiful, kind, hilarious man who seemed willing to give her a bit of a boost.
He had joined in the fun and made her feel that life could be a blast and that she could be at the centre of something.
It was just that now she was married to a man she didn’t know.
“Will you get back to me about that?” she asked him.
Dominic looked blank, but it was too late to say more because the hens were sweeping her up and he was hurrying indoors for work.
“Blackjack!” Louise cried.
“Ever played it?” Tara asked.
Louise laughed.
“Never. Do you have to add up?”
Louise’s elegant stepmum, thirty-nine-year-old Irena, smiled.
“I’ll help you, darling,” she said in her Russian accent.
Eve knew she had to play. There was no way she could avoid the planned activities without looking like a grump.
Anyway, Louise deserved to have a good time. A person only got married once.
Well, most people do.
David Fenster, Louise’s sixty-year-old father, had notably got married twice: first time to Louise’s mum Sandra, then to Irena.
Louise and Irena were close, and Eve sometimes wondered how that went down with Sandra.
Sandra was sixty-two and a quiet, sensible woman with a career as an academic.
They piled into the hotel’s casino.
It wasn’t busy – even hardened gamblers didn’t all start before lunch.
A small, thin man in a trilby sat at what Eve assumed was a blackjack table.
He looked faintly annoyed as Louise loudly positioned her friends and relatives around him.
“Mum, you’ll play, won’t you?” she asked.
“Not me, darling,” Sandra replied with a smile.
Louise took the hand of Ella, a pretty woman that Eve had heard about at work but never met.
Ella managed to look nice in the preposterous pink and silver outfits that Louise had made them all put on for the day.
“Come on, El!” Louise exclaimed. “Play!”
Ella was the most softly spoken of the group. She was a friend of Louise’s from a previous job.
Tara had told Eve on the plane that Ella had dated Callum, the groom, for some time before Louise came on the scene.
“For maybe six months,” Tara explained. “I think Ella is a bit sorer about it than she makes out.
“She’s been single since and it makes you wonder.”
Ella didn’t want to gamble, but Irena was more amenable.
Delighted, Louise squeezed her in beside the small man, who shifted uncomfortably on his stool.
It was an incongruous sight.
The little middle-aged man was bent over the table in a checked shirt, shifting chips from hand to hand.
Beside him was beautiful Irena with her blonde plaits and ivory silk shirt, examining the table gravely.
The croupier took another hen party in her stride. Periodically she checked the one man at the table to make sure he was at ease.
He didn’t look at ease to Eve.
She saw him peer at Irena, his eyes narrowed, as though she was in his space and he didn’t like it one bit.
Irena knew how to play.
As she gathered a pile of chips, Eve gave her an enquiring look.
“I once worked in a place like this,” she said quietly, her voice masked by all the noise Louise, Tara, Casey and Imogen were making. “I had a lot of jobs.”
Irena won, not with a fanfare, but gradually, until everyone at the table was watching her.
“That’s me done,” she said with a laugh after playing for an hour.
“Nice work,” Sandra told her.
Irena turned to the man. Eve could tell he had used up everything he’d brought to the table.
“I am sorry you were disturbed,” she said with a polite smile.
She was icily but strikingly lovely.
I don’t imagine a hen weekend is what you want when you’re trying to enjoy a quiet game.
“Whatever,” he replied.
He gave her a long look and then he was gone, slipping between the tables.
The croupier collected chips.
“Mr Leonard is a regular here,” she informed them.
Imogen clapped.
“Who’s for milkshakes? It’s on the schedule.”
When Eve turned to leave the table she thought she saw Mr Leonard standing near a doorway, but then she decided it could have been a shadow.
As they set off, they passed a store selling the kind of jewellery that looked perfectly normal in Vegas but, Eve thought, would look brashly out of place in Shawlands or Scotstoun.
“I could get a souvenir,” Louise mused. “Irena, Mum, look at these bracelets!”
Both women stepped forward.
They were not chummy with each other, Eve had noticed, but they were polite.
“If you really want one,” Sandra said.
Irena looked doubtful.
“That’s a lot of dollars.”
Louise’s dad, David, did something with paper. Eve wasn’t clear exactly what, but he was a creative.
Louise had once shown them some packaging for classy art gallery souvenirs that he had designed.
It obviously brought him and Irena a decent living, but he was never referred to as a rich man.
David clearly adored his only child and Eve guessed he had gone along with her desire to go to Vegas.
Eve had made the trip reluctantly; the cost was terrifyingly high and she didn’t feel she was that close to Louise.
They shared a desk and chatted in their breaks, but the hen party invitation had been a surprise.
Just getting there had used up all Eve’s annual holiday budget, but she didn’t have any plans, so she had said yes.
And now she had gone and got herself a husband, which was as idiotic a thing to do as she could think of!
Louise was steered gently away from the jewellery store and they went on their way for milkshakes.
Eve felt sick as they set off back to the hotel.
Dominic seemed a nice guy and she felt awful for this error of judgement.
But then he’d made the same mistake.
The women dispersed to rest in their rooms.
Eve took the stairs, and as she paused on the second-floor gallery she looked down at the glitzy foyer.
There was Irena near the street doors, looking into a glass cabinet filled with hotel merchandise.
Another figure approached.
It was a long way to the ground, but Eve was fairly certain it was Mr Leonard from the casino.
She saw Irena turn and Mr Leonard engage her in conversation.
Irena backed away twice until her back was pressed against the cabinet.
Eve could not make out if there was a problem, but when Irena ducked out of the man’s way and walked off, she supposed their exchange was over.
It might, she thought, have been an attempt to chat up Irena.
She carried on upstairs.
For the next two-and-a-half hours she enjoyed a blissful nap.
She was woken by the sound of thundering feet in the corridor and shrieking.
Blinking, she opened her door and saw members of the hen party in groups, dotted along the passage.
Sandra came to Eve’s door.
She was shaking.
“It’s Irena,” she said.
“What about her?”
Sandra was struggling to speak.
“She fell, Eve. She’s . . . she’s on the poolside.”
It was like a nightmare. Irena’s body had been found splayed out on the concrete, dead instantly.
Their rooms were three floors up and there was no way she could have survived such a fall.
All the women gathered in a small lounge off the casino floor while police carried out an initial investigation.
Some of them stared at the ceiling, some chattered and speculated until Eve wanted to slap them.
“Why would she do that?” Tara whimpered.
“She wouldn’t,” Sandra snapped. “She was happy.”
Eve wondered if she heard bitterness in Sandra’s voice, but put it down to stress.
Louise cried and said she had to call her father, and a police officer escorted her to perform that miserable task.
David would be brought to Las Vegas to deal with the death of his wife.
Then, two hours later, when Louise had returned in an even worse state than before, the detective in charge entered the room.
“We have a great deal to do,” he said in a sober voice, “and it might save time and distress to let you all know this at once.
“Mrs Fenster’s death was not an accident. We can be sure of that.”
Seven tear-stained faces gaped at him.
“There is strong evidence of a scuffle on the balcony of room 307, and it is recent evidence.
“My team and I sure that Mrs Fenster was . . .” he hesitated.
“A second person was in the room and that person propelled her over the balustrade.
Footprints indicate that scenario along with disturbance in the room. But we have more work to do.
The police wanted information about the victim.
Louise had the closest relationship to Irena but was in too much of a state to provide it.
Sandra explained her relationship to the dead woman and the police felt she wasn’t a good source.
Eve could see the detective, a tall guy with a piercingly intelligent gaze, making mental notes.
He was clocking the two wives and the potential for rivalry.
Casey said that Eve was the least emotional of them, so Eve told Detective Shaw that she knew a reasonable amount about the family, having worked with Louise for some time.
“You’re Miss Dexter?” Detective Shaw asked. He gave her an intense look. “I’ll start with you.”
Eve sighed.
“Where shall I go?” she asked.
They talked in the office behind the reception area.
Eve told Detective Shaw that Irena was from Ukraine and had come to the UK as an au pair.
David had met her at a work function at some large house in Glasgow. He had been at the end of his marriage to Sandra at the time.
Detective Shaw gently enquired about the relationship between the two wives and Eve said, truthfully, that she didn’t know.
“Thank you, Miss Dexter,” he said. “I’ll let you get back.
“We will be asking the whole party to stay in the hotel, by the way, but you can use the facilities.” He gave a faint smile. “Perhaps not the pool.”
Eve made for the door.
“Have you any other comment? Any ideas about who might have had a problem with the second Mrs Fenster?” he asked.
“No,” Eve replied. “Except – this is probably nothing.”
Awkwardly, Eve described the blackjack table, Mr Leonard’s intense irritation, Irena’s success at his expense and then what she had seen in the foyer.
Everyone gave a statement and it became obvious that any of them could have knocked and entered at Irena’s door.
In fact, any hotel guest or member of staff quite possibly could have.
Later, sitting together over a desultory supper in the restaurant, they shared their versions.
Most of them had been fast asleep.
“I wish I’d taken the champagne in,” Louise wailed – the discussion had set her off again. “I wish I’d woken and remembered.”
“What champagne?” Sandra asked.
“I brought a bottle to share with Irena. She loves champagne. She never got a drop in Ukraine.”
Irena was known to have come from relative poverty.
“I can’t believe this!” Louise cried. She grasped Sandra’s hand. “She was like my second mother!”
Eve wasn’t sure that “mother” was quite the right word: Irena was only 14 years older than her stepdaughter.
But Sandra put an arm tightly around her child.
“I want Daddy!” Louise sobbed.
Sandra closed her eyes for a moment.
“He is going to be in a terrible state,” she said. “Poor David.”
Eve thought at first that Detective Shaw was going to solve the case at top speed – he seemed to have all the skills and a great team behind him.
But things stalled the next morning.
“It’s the international problem,” he told Eve. “The protocols are complex. They take time when a foreign national has died on our soil.”
“What a pain,” she replied, and he chuckled.
“Every murder case is a pain,” he told her.
In all the misery, Eve had forgotten Dominic and their regrettable wedding.
It seemed irreverent even to think of it, but she had to do something.
At least her “husband” worked at the hotel and would be nearby.
Dominic Riley made cocktails at the bar of the Rose Rhinestone Hotel.
He was extremely good at it, which had been a small part of the problem the night before.
The hen party’s evening had begun at the hotel.
When Dominic’s shift ended at nine-thirty he had accompanied them round a city he knew well.
He was exceedingly handsome, with a freckled face that made people smile when he smiled.
Eve realised now that she had been a sitting duck for just this sort of faux pas.
She had arrived in Las Vegas irritable about how much she’d spent and feeling overlooked.
She had felt that the hen party could just as well have been held back in Glasgow at a nice restaurant, with some silly gifts and a drive along Sauchiehall Street in a stretch limo.
With her bank account empty and the other girls behaving like idiots, Eve had been grumpy and then attention-seeking.
Chatting up Dominic had seemed a feeble revenge on . . . she wasn’t sure who.
Something in her had longed for the triumph of it, the little flood of the limelight.
But, Eve thought as she made her way to the staff quarters of the hotel, it took two to tango.
Both of them had been utter fools, showing off like six-year-olds, dashing off to a wedding chapel as though they wanted nothing more than to become a giant cliché.
“I blame the state of Nevada for charging less than a hundred dollars for a marriage licence,” Dominic declared.
She’d found him in the staff room, searching on his mobile phone.
“They should make it a thousand,” Eve returned.
“Ten thousand!”
They laughed and that helped to break the ice.
The only requirements at the wedding chapel had been one form of ID.
Eve couldn’t even remember now which she’d produced – possibly her driving licence.
Then she recalled that Dominic had snatched it.
“You are a lot better looking in real life, Eve Dexter,” he’d remarked.
The whole thing had been appalling.
“If they’d asked me for a blood test . . .” Dominic began.
“That might have stopped me in my tracks,” she interrupted. “I’m afraid of needles.”
“Me, too.” He nodded. “Ever since I was a kid.”
They were both avoiding talk of Irena’s death.
She reflected that when she did get married, sometime in the distant future, she’d try to find some fella like Dominic Riley, but with a better salary and not American.
Really, Nevada’s laws had to be reformed.
If two idiots could fill in a form, hand over $60 cash and photo ID and get a licence within minutes, there was something seriously wrong.
Dominic held up his phone to show her that had made some headway with arranging a divorce.
He texted her the details of a cheap lawyer they could share.
“Thanks,” she said. “I won’t be bothering you for much longer.”
“It’s no bother,” he replied in his rather adorable accent. “Is it, er, going OK? We don’t get many deaths in the hotel.”
He said it so nicely that it didn’t seem crass, so Eve chatted to him about Irena.
It was a relief – the hen party weren’t great at civilised discussion.
She described Mr Leonard and Dominic said he knew the guy.
“I’ve always thought him harmless,” he said, “but I only know him as propping up my bar.
“If he was trying to hit on Irena, that might be a different matter. He might have been humiliated both by a trouncing at blackjack and a rejection of his advances.”
“I think it’s in Detective Shaw’s mind,” Eve answered.
“Leonard’s a terrible tipper,” Dominic added. “I’m guessing he hates to lose his cash.
“A misogynist might hate losing to a woman, too, and be angrier when she won’t respond to him.”
There was something else going round in Eve’s head.
“There’s been endless talk among the girls,” she began. “Tara told me that Ella –”
“Do I know who Ella is?” he interrupted to ask.
“Short, attractive, brunette.”
“As opposed to taller, very attractive, brunette?”
Eve flushed.
“Focus, Dominic,” she told him. “It’s confusing when you pay compliments to a woman you’re divorcing.”
He laughed.
“Ella used to date Louise’s fiancé, Callum,” Eve explained.
“So there’s seething jealousy underneath?” Dominic asked. “But wouldn’t that bring Ella to the point of throwing Louise off a balcony? Why Irena.”
“I shouldn’t be thinking any of this, but Tara claims that Irena brokered the hook-up between Louise and Callum,” Eve told him.
“Irena had quite an influence over Louise,” she went on. “She encouraged them to see each other.”
“I guess a grudge from Ella against Irena might be stronger, because Irena had a position of power.”
“That’s the psychology I’m thinking of.” Eve nodded.
“You have to tell Shaw.”
As the next few days of the investigation passed, David Fenster flew in.
He moved around the hotel in a daze and sometimes huddled with his ex-wife.
Eve had to show up to meetings with the lawyer then sign a statement.
She was relieved to have her divorce to distract her.
It was no less embarrassing than before, especially now an attorney was involved, but it was something to do.
Dominic made her laugh and laughing helped.
They had things in common and not just their weakness for spur-of-the-moment weddings.
Eve sat up late in the bar and they talked.
“Let’s see: we’ve got creepy Mr Leonard in the frame,” Dominic began. “He’s not been here since. I guess the police have been interviewing him.”
“Detective Shaw says his alibi is shaky,” Eve explained. “Leonard says he spent the afternoon and evening in another casino, but can’t remember which one.”
Dominic shrugged.
“They can be a bit samey, and there are lots of them. Plus we have your friend Ella in a jealous rage.”
“She’s not my friend,” Eve reminded him.
And she seems too mild mannered to be a killer.
“Killers are often mild, my dear.”
“But why did she come if she hates Irena?” she asked.
“To throw her to her death on concrete. Wouldn’t you favour a moment when a bunch of suspects were around?” Dominic replied.
“I suppose I would.”
He looked at her with a grin.
“You have such a funny accent.”
“It’s Glaswegian. Don’t be rude.”
“Glaswegian is such a cool word. I like the accent, actually,” Dominic replied. “What about the wife? The first wife, I mean.”
“Sandra?”
“Did she resent Irena?”
Eve thought about it.
“That’s unclear. I’ve heard her say a couple of sharp things, but she’s pretty civilised, and she and David split up some time ago.
“On the other hand, being usurped by a beauty like Irena might be tough.”
Dominic nodded.
“Sandra is the obvious suspect and it’s often the most obvious person who’s committed the crime.”
“Who else? Another of the hens?”
“But who? They’re an uninteresting lot. All except you. Was it you, Eve?”
Eve gave him a look.
“Saying that could mark the end of this beautiful friendship.”
“What friendship?” he asked.
She laughed quickly.
Marriage, then. The end of this marriage.
“It’s nearly over anyway.”
Eve didn’t know what to say. She fiddled with the dishes of olives on the bar.
“OK,” Dominic said. “So did the bride do the deed?”
“Louise hasn’t got the character to be a murderer, and she thought the sun shone out of Irena,” Eve replied.
“What about a financial motive?” Dominic looked pleased with himself. “I’ve come across this before.
“The child of a broken marriage realises that all the dough will go to the new wife if Pop dies.
“So the child poisons wife number two to keep the dough in the family.”
Eve shook her head.
“There’s not much dough. He’s a good designer, I think,but I haven’t seen his name around the place. That’s no motive.”
Dominic looked disappointed.
“I’m out of theories. We’re sure that Irena didn’t chuck herself off that balcony?”
Eve shook her head.
“Not according to Detective Shaw, and he’s my hero. Have you seen him? He oozes reassurance.”
“Maybe, when you’ve divorced me, you could take Detective Shaw to the Ivory Veil Wedding Chapel.”
“He’s already married. Otherwise I would.” Eve laughed.
Dominic’s phone pinged and he tapped it.
“We’re one stop nearer to being divorcees,” he told her.
“Oh.” Eve imagined the lawyer’s e-mail – clear, efficient, time-saving. “That’s good.”
“We could keep in touch,” Dominic suggested, “but not if you don’t want –”
“No, that’d be OK,” she interrupted. “Like pen pals?”
“I guess.” He rubbed his eyes. “When you say that Detective Shaw is solving the case, is he?”
“It takes time,” Eve reasoned. “If they charge Leonard, we can go home.
“I’ll be off for a sleep now,” Eve added.
“Not many more sleeps until we say goodbye to our embarrassing mistake.”
“Great,” she said, without much enthusiasm. It had been a long day.
Louise’s father announced that he would take Louise home with him.
Their plan was to delay the wedding until the grief had abated a little.
Father and daughter made an odd contrast, Eve thought.
She had never met David before and he was a sober, quiet person.
Louise was responding to the trauma by talking a lot.
She was also shopping now that Detective Shaw had allowed them out of the hotel.
“It’s a reaction,” she told Eve, who had taken her a cup of tea one morning.
On the coffee table in her room was a row of bags with designer names.
“Stuff makes me feel better,” Louise explained. “I bought investment pieces, though, and the exchange rate is good.”
Eve smiled.
“You don’t need to justify yourself to me,” she said.
“They will find who killed Irena, won’t they?” Louise asked, wanting Eve’s reassurance. “Are the Las Vegas police good, do you think?”
“I think so,” Eve assured her. “Don’t use your energy worrying about that.”
Eve met Detective Shaw in the third floor corridor later that day. He was sending away what looked like a forensics officer.
“It took the guys a while to study the floor and balcony marks,” he explained.
He was gazing through the door into Irena’s room.
“They wanted to be sure. It was all female shoes.”
“As in small shoes?” Eve asked.
“As in shoes with heels, and narrow heels at that.”
Eve thought of the women tottering along the Las Vegas streets.
Louise and Imogen had put together outfits for the trip and that day, the day of milkshakes and gambling and death, most of them had worn kitten heels.
Detective Shaw shifted his gaze to Eve’s feet.
She was wearing sandals, the sort she always wore in hot weather, with flat soles and laces up her ankles.
“I’m not a heels wearer,” she said. “I broke a metatarsal as a teenager and heels hurt me.
“You can take a look at the ones they gave me. They’re still in the box.”
The detective smiled.
Eve thought about the shoes. Even Sandra had been given a version of the pink and silver outfit that day.
Eve recalled her cursing the heels.
Ella, too, though unwilling to join in with some things, had worn hers.
Detective Shaw tapped his notebook with his pen.
But a man can wear heels. If I was Leonard I might do that to throw us off the scent.
“You’re good, Detective.”
“Don’t say that until we get a result,” the officer warned. “I have to go more into motive.”
Eve had already told him what she and Dominic had talked about – Ella’s possible anger with Irena and Sandra’s possible hidden resentment.
It all seemed disloyal and speculative.
“That fleshes out a few things,” he said, “and I’ve taken a lot of information from Mr Fenster, too. His wife was from Ukraine.”
“Yes. She’d not been in Scotland that long when she met him.”
“He said she had very little back in the home country. I wonder how that impacts our story.”
Eve didn’t understand how it could – Irena was dead, so her own motives were unimportant.
“This Dominic,” Detective Shaw began.
“He was working, in full view of the whole hotel, when Irena died,” Eve replied.
Shaw grinned.
“I know – I’ve got a full picture of the staff. It’s just that you and he seem –”
“Seem nothing,” she interrupted again. “The night before was a crazy evening, with too much tequila –”
“You got married, didn’t you?”
Eve was startled and Detective Shaw laughed.
“I’ve seen it before,” he said. “It’s always hilarious.
“I did meet a couple once who stayed married,” he went on. “As far as I know they still are.”
“That won’t be happening here, Detective Shaw,” Eve assured him.
“If you say so,” he replied.
Eve and Dominic took a walk into some of the quieter areas of Vegas.
Eve mulled over Irena’s personality.
“She was careful with money,” she commented. “Detective Shaw was interested in that.”
Dominic put on his wise face. He had a lot of faces and this one she loved.
“Money comes into most murders,” he said.
“And how do you know?”
“I read a lot.” He stopped walking.
They had reached the end of a raised sidewalk and he jumped down and then put out a hand for Eve.
She stumbled on landing and found herself an inch from him.
“Sorry,” they said together, and for a moment they were just looking at one another, before he side-stepped.
“I think I’ve read every Agatha Christie,” he went on. “My guilty pleasure.”
“They’re pretty good books,” she agreed.
She had also read them all, but it seemed that to tell him would open some door, expose her to some risk, that she could not articulate.
They walked on in the shade of a row of trees.
“I got a message just before meeting you,” he said casually. “We are officially no longer married. You are no longer Mrs Riley.”
Eve felt light-headed. It had been much quicker than she’d imagined.
A quick appointment in a cheap attorney’s office, papers to sign – that had felt like just the start.
The breeze dropped unexpectedly and Eve felt strange, suspended in a moment and unwilling to leave it.
“Hey, pen pal,” he said. “Will you be in the bar later?”
“I’ve nowhere else to go,” Eve replied.
Sandra was sitting at the bar when Eve entered that evening.
She was nursing an orange juice and fiddling with her phone.
Sandra smiled as Eve approached.
“The sane one of the girls,” she said. “Hi.”
Eve looked at Sandra, trying to imagine this plain-spoken, intelligent woman shoving Irena over a balustrade. It seemed unlikely.
She took the stool next to Sandra’s and ordered a soda water from Dominic.
He looked so good under the golden lights of the bar, she thought, absorbed in his work.
She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to, but also she could not.
“I am worried about David,” Sandra admitted.
“Has he been allowed to book a flight home?” Eve asked.
“Yes, with Louise, though I think that detective expected to be able to tell them both more before letting them go.”
“How is David?”
“Numb, I think. He wanders about. He’s not a demonstrative person and he hides his feelings.
“I always thought that he married Irena because she was the kind of person to guide him and tell him what to do.” She placed her glass carefully on the bar. “He made a good choice.”
Dominic was giving Eve a look.
When Sandra left the room to go to the ladies’, Eve noticed her phone, its case flipped open and a column of messages visible.
She realised that Dominic had seen it, too.
“Shaw would want to know about Sandra’s state of mind,” he said.
“He’s still waiting for the go-ahead to examine our phones,” Eve agreed.
“It’s unacceptable,” Dominic said, but his eye kept straying to the message feed.
Eve saw two words, “good woman” and, glancing round to check the room, she decided to read just one message.
Dominic moved along behind the bar towards her, pretending to clear away some bar mats.
The message was to Sandra, not from her.
Yes, Sandy, honey, she was a good woman. You’ve always been magnanimous about Irena and that should make you feel less terrible about this tragedy.
Eve gave up her pretence. She read quickly and found kind messages from friends and replies from Sandra.
She saw positive comments about Irena and support for David.
I wanted him happy, Sandra wrote. This is a catastrophe for D.
Eve tapped the phone to wake up the screen and spun it round so Dominic could see.
A glass cloth hanging from his arm, he read at speed, then looked at Eve.
“Either she’s brilliant at hoaxing or she didn’t want to kill Irena,” he said.
He flung the cloth over his shoulder.
“She’s coming back.”
Eve tried to keep the rest of the hen party amused with her divorce.
They laughed a bit, but lacked the energy for more. Ella especially was low.
That evening Eve knocked on Ella’s door and asked her if she was OK.
“I just want to go home,” Ella admitted. “This is horrible.”
“I don’t suppose it will be long now,” Eve replied.
A tablet computer buzzed and Ella leaned over to touch its screen.
“Oh!” she exclaimed, and she glanced at Eve, her expression awkward.
Her focus moved from Eve to the screen and back.
“Hi, Tom,” she said quickly.
Eve had never heard of Tom.
She remembered Tara’s words on the plane: Ella had been steadfastly single since Irena and Louise had stolen Callum; Ella was more resentful than she liked to make out.
Tom was a good-looking man with a tidy beard.
He was sitting near his screen with a soppy grin.
“Hi, gorgeous,” he replied.
Eve knew she was not visible to him.
“I miss you so much that I can’t work,” Tom went on.
Ella gave him a look of yearning.
“I ca’t talk just now. I will call you back,” she said.
She shut down the tablet.
“We’re in love,” Ella said.
“For how long?”
“I met him . . . well, I met him soon after Callum.”
“That’s a long time ago.” Eve was surprised.
“I was cross when Callum was practically swiped from under my nose, but I met Tom pretty quickly after that.”
“And you didn’t mention him because you wanted Louise to feel bad?”
Ella hung her head.
“I know – you don’t have to tell me it was childish. Actually, it was Irena I was more miffed with.
“But Irena was just responding to Louise and trying to make her happy.”
Ella drew the back of her hand across her forehead.
“I liked Irena, really. The way she supported Louise, who can be flaky and selfish sometimes.” She sighed. “I mustn’t be horrid about poor Louise.”
Eve was popping with her news and just had to tell Dominic.
He was in the bar, wiping tables.
“It wasn’t Ella,” she said. “And it wasn’t Sandra, as far as we can tell.”
“We’re running out of suspects,” Dominic replied. “What about Leonard?”
Detective Shaw appeared in the doorway to the foyer.
“You read my thoughts,” the detective said.
He has an alibi. I might have to close this case with no result.
Eve shared her findings about both Sandra and Ella and Shaw nodded.
“Where was Leonard at the time?” Dominic asked.
“Playing roulette,” the detective replied. “We did a sweep of security staff at all the casinos.
“A guy at a middle-sized place out towards Spring Valley got back to me with a report of a man matching Leonard’s description, annoying female customers.
“I’ve been sent CCTV clips and it checks out. Leonard was not on the third floor of this hotel at the time Mrs Fenster died.”
The case was beginning to look unsolvable.
Detective Shaw was about to let them all disperse, so he was probably admitting defeat.
It also reminded Eve that she, too, was about to leave Las Vegas – no more laughs with Dominic, no more jokes about marriage, no more walks.
This was good news – it had been a dreadful time.
So why did she feel as though the air had been let out of her?
Dominic was in a bad mood on the morning of the Fensters’ departure.
He’d been given the early bar shift and was keeping his distance from Eve as he stabbed cherries with cocktail sticks.
A head appeared at the door to the foyer. It was a man with wisps of grey hair on a nearly-bald head and a shy expression.
“Sorry,” the man said. “There seems to be nobody on reception.”
Dominic rolled his eyes.
“That’s Gina,” he said. “She’s forever taking a break.”
“Sorry,” the man said again. “May I come in?”
“Of course, sir,” Dominic said, recovering his professional demeanour. “If you take a seat, I’ll call to trace our receptionist.”
His name was Mr Perslake, he had come from Edinburgh via Heathrow and Dallas.
He ordered a cup of tea and perched on a stool.
Dominic tried the staff room on the internal phone.
“Gina says she’s coming back soon,” he told them, “but that can mean twenty minutes.”
“That’s quite all right,” Mr Perslake said. “I don’t want to be a bother.”
“Are you staying?” Eve asked after a while.
He seemed an odd guest for a glitzy Vegas casino-hotel.
“I’ve found a motel nearby. I came to pay my respects,” he said. “This is an unusual move for me, but Mrs Fenster was a valued client and a wonderful woman.”
“Client?” Dominic prompted.
Mr Perslake grimaced.
“I am their accountant.”
“I’m sure Mr Fenster will appreciate your visit,” Eve said, surprised. “He’s due to go home soon, though.”
“Perhaps I should have waited for his return to Scotland, but I was so . . . so agitated. I barely know Mr Fenster –”
“But you managed his affairs?” Eve asked.
“Yes, but Irena took all financial affairs from her husband’s shoulders some time ago.
“She was so concerned with accuracy and so efficient! Mr Fenster was the creative force and both his wives were managers.
“Mrs Sandra Fenster oversaw only the beginnings of her husband’s success – he was a late bloomer,” Mr Perslake explained.
“During the first marriage he began to be appreciated in specialist circles; during the second he blossomed,” he added.
Eve tried to work out why the accountant had come all this way to commiserate with a client.
Clearly Irena had had a powerful effect on him.
They heard Gina stomping back behind the reception desk and then Louise’s voice greeting her.
“Dominic says there’s a Mr Perslake here for the family,” Gina told her in her bored voice.
Louise came hurrying in to the bar.
“My dear Miss Fenster, I want to —” Mr Perslake began, but Louise was upon him before he could finish the sentence.
Smiling, she took his elbow and swept him towards the foyer.
“It’s terribly kind of you to come,” she was saying. “I couldn’t believe it when the girl said your name!”
Mr Perslake twisted his body to look back at Eve and Dominic. He was confused at the hurry.
“If I could see Mr Fenster for a moment,” he said.
“He’s delicate,” Louise replied. “Terribly upset. Let me help you.”
Eve watched them vanish through the open doorway.
“I haven’t seen Louise that animated since Irena died,” she said. “She must be feeling better.”
“Let’s hope so,” Dominic replied, but he was gazing thoughtfully after the pair.
Mr Perslake spent little time at the hotel. Less than half an hour later they saw Louise in the foyer asking Gina to call him a cab.
Eve could see Mr Perslake standing beside Louise, looking muddled.
The cab would be fifteen minutes, Gina told him.
“I’ll wait with you,” Louise said.
She looked up at a giant clock on the wall.
“I can cancel a pedicure, probably.”
Mr Perslake’s pale eyes blinked repeatedly.
“Goodness, don’t wait on my account. If Mr Fenster is unable to see me, I –”
“Do you mind terribly if I nip off, then?” Louise asked. “And thank you, again.”
Louise headed out into the street and he was alone.
Ten minutes after that, Gina called out, “Cab’s caught in traffic.”
Dominic strode out to the lobby with Eve in pursuit.
Dominic had a very determined air about him, and he firmly suggested that the accountant wait in the more pleasant atmosphere of the bar.
“I am going to make you our speciality cocktail,” Dominic offered. “It’s on the house.”
Moments later he slid a tall glass towards Mr Perslake.
“I don’t drink much,” Mr Perslake said.
“It’s almost all mango juice,” Dominic explained.
He had made it specially for the accountant.
He was such a lovely guy, Eve thought.
Mr Perslake sipped and relaxed a little.
“It’s just,” the accountant began, “who will manage the investments now?”
“Is there much work involved in that?” Eve asked. She didn’t even have a savings account.
“There are decisions to be made,” Mr Perslake replied. “With such a sizeable pot, that can be an undertaking.”
Eve spoke carefully.
“I thought the Fensters were of modest means, Mr Perslake. Not that it’s any of my business.”
Dominic had his eyes fixed on the man.
“You haven’t had a chance to talk to Mr Fenster yet?”
“He’s delicate,” Mr Perslake echoed Louise’s words. “I don’t want to assume. I can go home and see him when he gets back.”
“I think I’ll ask Gina to give David a quick call in his room,” Dominic said.
David Fenster entered the room five minutes later.
He frowned at Mr Perslake, recognising him but obviously confused.
“I’m sorry,” he said, “I’m not in my best state of mind . . .”
“I am Ian Perslake of Perslake, Mentieth and Smyth. We have only met on a few occasions, Mr Fenster.
“You engaged me when you first began freelance work to complete your accounts, but very quickly the first Mrs Fenster took over the correspondence.”
He coughed.
“And following that, the second Mrs Fenster took the, er, reins.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry.” David’s brow furrowed. “I did leave it all to Irena, the money side.
“The design business ticked along, as you know.”
Mr Perslake’s eyebrows rose and then fell.
“Perhaps your wife liked that turn of phrase,” he said gently.
“She ran a joint credit card,” David Fenster said vaguely, “but I really don’t spend. Books, pencils . . . I just design things.”
Mr Perslake did not seem perturbed.
“I have several clients who leave financial matters to a partner,” he replied. “Mr Fenster, you are a wealthy man.
Your investments have done well. Your net worth is considerable.
Eve could see that money still meant nothing to him.
“Maybe money will help a little as you come to terms with things,” she said. “You and Louise can feel secure.”
“Your wife was astute,” Mr Perslake said, “and frugal. She craved security for herself and for you. She talked about you all the time.”
David looked at her.
“I know why that was. Before she came to Scotland she never knew where her next meal was coming from.”
So, Eve thought, Irena had been stashing away money for her old age and David’s.
Mr Fenster stood.
“My taxi is sure to be here. I am pleased that I could pay my respects. I’ll be in touch about future management when you are less upset.”
David shook his hand and left the room.
Mr Perslake was just setting off when he tapped his forehead.
“I quite forgot,” he said. “I have a gift for the bride.”
He drew out a small, wrapped present.
“You knew that Louise was getting married?” Eve asked.
“Oh, yes. Mrs Fenster told me about all the arrangements – that is how I knew where she was.
“I called her landline to arrange to see her on her return and the cleaning lady told me the terrible news.” He shook his head.
“Irena consulted you about Louise’s wedding?” Eve asked.
“Only about how to fund the celebration. She was fond of her stepdaughter and wanted it to be perfect, within limits.
“I had a meeting with Mrs Fenster about it in Glasgow. A wedding can involve a large spend and obviously she did not have the ready money.” He smiled. “The blushing bride was listening at the door.
“It’s funny, the way the young don’t notice the expenditure for such an event!” he continued. “Irena went to fetch coffee and Louise was upon me like a wild animal, asking questions.
“How much were her father and stepmum having to spend? Would it make a huge hole in their savings?
“I explained that she had no need to worry, that a big wedding wouldn’t make any kind of hole. I think she felt relieved.”
Mr Perslake’s cab arrived, and as soon as he’d left the hotel, Eve and Dominic began talking.
By the time Louise came back from her pedicure, laden with more shopping bags, they were waiting.
They followed her up the stairs while she took the lift.
Eve knocked on her door and Louise called out brightly, “Enter!”
“Things to cheer you up?” Eve asked, looking at the bags as she walked in.
“Definitely.” Louise nodded.
She saw Dominic behind Eve.
“Why the bartender?” she asked. “Oh, yeah, I forgot.”
She smiled.
“The late-night wedding chapel. So funny.”
“Louise,” Eve said as Dominic closed the door and took up position in front of it. “You know about your father’s money.”
“Not much,” Louise replied, her cheeks tightening.
“Mr Perslake mentioned that you joined him at a meeting to discuss funding your wedding and learned quite a bit.”
Louise looked from Eve to Dominic.
“Why is he here?” she repeated.
“If Irena had lived,” Eve went on, ignoring the question, “she would have got a share of David’s money in due course.”
Louise face was contorting into an ugly mixture of sulking and fear.
“I’ve no idea.”
“With Irena dead your inheritance was secure. It was a long game, but you knew that a young wife could keep you from getting what you knew to be a lot of money.”
Eve ran her fingers along the glossy cord handles of the row of shopping bags and they bounced into position, one at a time.
“Sometimes a person spends in anticipation of a windfall,” she went on. “We are on to you, Louise.
“You killed Irena while wearing those ridiculous shoes because most of us were wearing them.
“It was a good move; it left the police confused.”
Eve felt suddenly miserable and angry.
“All that nonsense about wishing you had taken champagne in to Irena. You cared only about money.”
Dominic spoke up.
“I never met you before this week, but I know you’re a good actress.”
It was Dominic’s comment that made Louise crumple.
Soon she was a weeping, angry, confused mess.
It was Eve who slipped out to call Detective Shaw.
They were both exhausted that evening.
Shaw’s team had left at last and the scent of Louise’s $500 perfume had begun to fade.
“Let’s get out of here,” Dominic suggested.
It was a fine, cool evening, and they set off along Las Vegas Boulevard.
“That just about wraps it up,” Dominic remarked.
“Yup,” Eve agreed.
They passed a low building made of creamy stone with a pointed spire.
Eve stopped.
“Is this where we –?”
“No.” He laughed. “The Ivory Veil is further north.”
“I still feel embarrassed about it,” she admitted.
“Do you?”
Eve listened to every note in his voice, hoping to find a hint of regret or a change of heart.
She had realised something as they stepped out of the hotel together.
She loved him. If only she hadn’t gone and married him!
They were standing looking at the chapel.
“You’re getting in a plane soon,” he reasoned, “and if I don’t say this now, I am going to regret it for ever.
“Eve, pen pals is not enough for me.”
She couldn’t breathe.
She tried to arrange her face in such a way as to make him keep talking, but he stopped talking and dropped to the pavement, down on to one knee.
“Eve Dexter,” he began,
will you marry me? Again?
“Yes, I will!” she exclaimed, and tears came to her eyes.
A woman came striding out of the building.
“We have a gap in bookings right now,” she said with a smile.
“A cancellation – you’re in luck. Got your licence?”
“Absolutely not,” Dominic replied. “This time it’s got to be somewhere that isn’t Vegas.”
The woman shrugged and went on her way, swinging her briefcase.
The divorcees kissed.
“How about Glasgow?” Eve suggested.
“Sounds as good as anywhere,” Dominic replied with a smile.
Enjoy exclusive short stories every week within the pages of “The People’s Friend”. On sale every Wednesday.
