High Heels Are Murder (14 page)

They heard the rumble of a garage door. “It’s Cheryl,” Josie said. She checked her watch. “She’s leaving earlier today. It’s nine ten.”

Mrs. Mueller’s daughter was beautifully dressed in a black pantsuit with a nipped-in waist. She had a red scarf draped on one shoulder, a tiny red purse and high heels.

Cheryl buckled Ben into his seat.

“Ten to one she’s heading for the sitter,” Alyce said.

“No takers,” Josie said. “Why doesn’t Cheryl have a nanny?”

“She’s posing as a dutiful full-time wife and mother,” Alyce said. “That’s why she has to sneak the kid to the babysitter. I wonder how she hides Bonnie in her household budget?”

Cheryl’s SUV made for the sitter’s house like it was a magnet, then drove straight to Highway 40. Alyce stayed three cars behind, tracking Cheryl easily through the light traffic. “She’s going back to the Royal Duchess,” Josie said.

But she didn’t. Cheryl took the long, sweeping exit for Interstate 270, then Interstate 70.

“She’s heading for the airport,” Josie said. But Cheryl took the exit in the opposite direction.

“She’s going to Earth City?” Alyce said, disbelief in her voice. “Nobody goes there.”

That wasn’t exactly true. Nobody from Alyce’s crowd—or Cheryl’s—went there. Josie often drove that way when she mystery-shopped discount stores and franchises. Now she saw the highway was lined with billboards advertising “the loosest slots” and the big casino shows.

Alyce was right. Josie had seen those signs every week, but she’d never noticed them before. One advertised a casino gospel brunch.
FILL YOUR STOMACH, SATISFY YOUR SOUL
! it said.

“Gambling may be everywhere, but it really isn’t part of St. Louis,” Josie said. “It’s for the tourists, like the Arch. When’s the last time you were at the Arch?”

“When Jake’s aunt was in town,” Alyce said.

“Your average St. Louisan doesn’t go to the casinos, either,” Josie said. “They’re for people from small towns like Kirksville and Macon, who come to the city for a wild weekend. Most St. Louisans never think about the casinos. If we go once a year, it’s a big deal.”

“Tell that to Michelle,” Alyce said.

The shiny casino complexes rose out of the drab, flat land along the Missouri River, like a neon Oz. Cheryl’s SUV turned in their direction.

“Cheryl’s going to the boats in the moat,” Josie said.

“Another weird phenomenon created by the Missouri laws,” Alyce said.

“You know a lot about gambling laws,” Josie said.

“I should,” Alyce said. “I’ve listened to my husband Jake complain about them often enough.”

Josie didn’t think that was the entire reason. Alyce had a “there but for the grace of God” interest in Michelle’s miserable story. If Jake switched his late-night stays from work to gambling, Alyce would be selling real estate, too.

“Here’s the way Jake explained it to me,” Alyce said. “In 1992, the state legalized riverboat gambling on the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. It sounded harmless, old-fashioned, even romantic.”

“Gambling on paddle-wheel steamers,” Josie said. “Men in brocade vests and string ties, women in hoop-skirts and parasols.”

“Don’t forget the other attraction,” Alyce said. “Gambling would be on the river, where nobody would have to look at it. St. Louisans don’t like to face our problems. But the casinos started pushing for changes.

“First, the state did away with the cruising requirements. The casinos could be on big anchored barges. No cruising on the river. High rollers liked that. They weren’t stuck on a cruise with nothing to do but eat the salmonella special on the buffet.

“Next, the casinos invented boats floating in moats.

They were linked to the river by man-made channels, which technically made them riverboats. The boats in the moats kept a lot of lawyers busy suing each other. In the late 1990s, Missouri voters changed the law so casinos could be in inland basins, a thousand feet from the river’s main channel.

“The boats in the moats were legal. Casinos with high-rise hotels were now possible. The plans for the newer casinos have fixed walls and floating gaming floors.”

“Waterbed gambling,” Josie said.

“They look like regular casinos,” Alyce said. “You can’t tell the casino floors are actually on water, except they might drop an inch or so when there’s a crowd.”

They passed Harrah’s St. Louis complex. It looked like bits of Vegas abandoned in Missouri. Cheryl turned into the drive for another casino, the Prince’s Palace, a massive boat in a moat with a high-rise hotel. The entrance was landscaped with clipped shrubs. The signs were beige marble, like tasteful tombstones.

YOU’RE THE KING AT OUR PALACE
, said one.

WELCOME HOME, YOUR MAJESTY
, said another.

At nine forty-five in the morning, the parking lot was packed. Once again, Cheryl dropped her ride with a valet. Josie and Alyce hoofed it from a distant lot.

“I’m not going to need a health club while this surveillance lasts,” Alyce said, blotting her forehead. Sweat dripped from under her fake dark hair.

Josie gave her wig one last vigorous scratch with a pen. She wouldn’t be able to touch it inside the casino. “Is my hair on straight?” she asked.

Alyce nodded yes.

The Prince’s Palace looked vaguely Venetian. The inside was more like an expensive resort than a casino—cream paint and beige marble with a touch of gold.

“This looks like Cheryl,” Josie said.

They saw her in the special speeded-up high rollers’ line. Then Cheryl was swallowed by the elegant vastness. Josie and Alyce were stuck waiting with the commoners.

“We’ve lost her again,” Alyce said.

“Don’t worry,” Josie said. “We know where to find her.”

Josie and Alyce filled out the paperwork for their gaming cards with a young woman who looked like a bank loan officer. “The ten-to-noon session is just starting,” she said, with a professional smile.

Cheryl had timed her arrival almost to the minute. By the time Josie and Alyce were finished with their paperwork, Cheryl was playing the ten-dollar slots.

“Look at her pushing money into that machine,” Alyce said. “She keeps losing. Why won’t she stop?”

“Losing is just as exciting as winning,” Josie said.

Watching Cheryl lose had a sick fascination, like watching a car wreck. Josie and Alyce took seats at the nearby nickel slots and dropped some dollars in their machines. Today they weren’t worried she would spot them. Cheryl’s world had narrowed to her hungry slot.

“She’s losing even faster today,” Alyce whispered. “I’m guessing she’ll hit the five-hundred-dollar limit any moment.”

It was nearly twenty minutes before Cheryl gathered up her purse and left the casino.

“She’s giving up for the day,” Josie said.

By the time they’d hiked to Alyce’s SUV and headed toward the entrance, Cheryl had retrieved her vehicle from the valet. She whipped out her cell phone and made a call, then took off for the highway. Josie and Alyce followed at a sedate pace.

“She’s going to the airport,” Josie said.

“Maybe Tom was on a business trip and she’s picking him up,” Alyce said.

But Cheryl’s SUV turned off before the airport and bumped down a road that had been a major highway years ago before the interstate. Now it was potholed and pitted with struggling businesses.

Her SUV turned into an old motel, a one-story building with peeling white paint. The red trim looked like a disease. A battered neon sign said,
FREE LOCAL CALLS
!
FREE VCR
!
POOL
!

“Whoa,” Alyce said. “What’s a nice girl like Cheryl doing in a place like this?”

“Three guesses,” Josie said.

Alyce parked at the mini-mart next door in a shady spot. They had a good view of the motel lot and a light breeze off the Dumpster.

Cheryl stayed in her SUV. Five minutes later, a blue minivan crunched into the motel lot. A balding man about fifty climbed out. He was sweating heavily and wiping his round face with a white handkerchief. The man had a sober gray suit and a briefcase.

“I think he’s taking a meeting,” Josie said.

The man went into the motel office, then came out with a key. He opened the mottled pink door to room 117 at the far end. Cheryl joined him, red high heels pattering on the broken sidewalk.

“He isn’t exactly the last of the red-hot lovers,” Alyce said.

Josie wrote down the balding man’s license-plate number. Alyce sat in the mini-mart parking lot, silent with shock.

“I never liked her,” Josie said. “But I didn’t think she’d stoop to this.”

“How can she even go into that room?” Alyce said. “Did you see that TV show where they tested the motel bedspreads? You could see all the semen on the beds.”

“I bet the spreads in this motel look like a sperm bank,” Josie said.

“Eeuuw,” Alyce said.

That killed the conversation for a while. Finally, Josie climbed out of the SUV and went into the mini-mart. She came back with cold water, Mountain Dew, cheese-and-peanut-butter crackers and Hostess cupcakes.

“We might as well sin, too,” Josie said.

They munched, watched and waited. Two hours later, the minivan man came out of room 117. Cheryl waited until he pulled out of the lot. Then she was back on the highway. Cheryl turned off at the Prince’s Palace entrance.

“Omigod, she’s heading for the casino again,” Josie said.

“Tell me she’s not doing what I think she’s doing,” Alyce said.

“Turning tricks for cash?” Josie said. “What do you think she was doing with that guy in a hot-sheet motel—looking at his baseball cards?”

“I thought she was having an affair,” Alyce said. “I didn’t think she was a prostitute.”

“Now we know where Cheryl got the forty-eight thousand dollars,” Josie said. “I can’t tell her mother this.”

“I thought you’d enjoy it,” Alyce said.

“I thought I would, too,” Josie said. “But I don’t. I feel awful.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Talk to Cheryl,” Josie said.

“You wouldn’t,” Alyce said.

“Watch me,” Josie said.

“You guard the door while I fix myself up,” Josie said. “I have to take off this disguise.”

“First it’s nasty motels, now it’s bathroom doors,” Alyce said. “Do you do anything that doesn’t involve life-threatening bacteria?”

“Oh, come on, Alyce. This bathroom looks like a country club,” Josie said.

The casino rest room’s creamy paint and marble had the feel of a high-priced spa. A wicker basket held rolled terry towels. The toilets were hidden behind louvered doors, as if they were gateways to palm-fringed patios.

“I don’t hug the doors there, either,” Alyce said. But she dutifully pressed her body against the door so it couldn’t be opened from the other side.

Josie pulled off her blond wig and stuffed it in her purse. She winced at herself in the mirror. Her brown hair was mashed flat, except for a two-inch chunk that stuck out over her ear. Josie worked with a brush and hair spray until it was only a one-inch chunk. Her hair looked unwashed and oily.

“That’s it. That’s all I can do,” Josie said.

“You’ve got a terminal case of hat hair,” Alyce said.

“You should talk, Morticia,” Josie said.

Alyce was sweating profusely in her witchy wig. “At least no one will recognize me,” she said. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

“You hide out in the slots and watch. I’m going to confront Cheryl.”

“Then what?” Alyce said.

“If you see security take me away, call your husband, the lawyer,” Josie said.

“But—”

“Hey, why can’t I open this door?” an angry voice said. “What’s going on in there?”

“Sorry, must be stuck,” Josie called. She pulled Alyce off the door and yanked on the handle. A stick-thin woman fell into the bathroom. She gave Josie a black look.

Alyce glided off to the nickel slots. Her witch wig did not float like her own blond hair. Josie found Cheryl sitting at her same machine, the one that had swallowed five hundred dollars the last gambling session. She was still losing.

The two hours in the no-tell motel had left no mark on Cheryl. Airbrush out the slot machine and Cheryl could have been in a tea shop. Her trim suit was unwrinkled. Her legs were crossed at the ankle. One manicured finger reached for the slot machine button. Josie blocked its path.

“Why, Cheryl, what a surprise!” Josie used her phoniest suburban-lady voice.

Cheryl stared at Josie as if she was a glob of cellulite. “Nice hair,” she said sarcastically. Her eyes were harder than the casino’s beige marble.

Josie’s heart was pounding with fear. She had to break through Cheryl’s hard surface to make her talk, but she didn’t know how the woman would react if she pushed. Would Cheryl storm out or scratch out Josie’s eyes?

Nope, my eyes are safe, Josie decided. Cheryl would never do anything that would mess up her clothes.

“I never expected to see you here today,” Josie said. “But then I never expected to see you at that sleazy motel with that man. You know, Tom’s a lot younger and cuter.”

“You are making no sense, as usual,” Cheryl said. She was beyond marble now. Titanium, maybe.

“Room 117,” Josie said. “Blue minivan. License-plate number—”

“Get out of here,” Cheryl hissed. “Or I’ll call security.”

“I don’t think so,” Josie said. “Tell me why you were in that motel room or I’ll tell your mother.”

It was the ultimate threat and Cheryl knew it. She collapsed into noisy tears. It was the last reaction Josie had expected—or wanted. Tears could bring the casino security. Maybe that was what clever Cheryl had in mind.

Josie thought the tears were fake, but she dove into her purse for a wad of Kleenex. “There, there,” she said, raising her voice slightly. “I hate to bring you bad news about Mother, but I was sure you’d want to know. Let’s talk.”

She steered Cheryl to the closest coffee shop, one hand clamped on her arm like an arresting officer. Cheryl didn’t resist. Hooray for Mrs. Mueller, Josie thought. I should have thought of this sooner. Cheryl is afraid of her mother. But so am I.

Josie saw Alyce’s head pop up like a gopher in a hole. Josie shifted her head slightly toward the coffee shop. She chose a table in a deserted corner, then ordered two coffees from the waitress. Cheryl was still sniffling, but the waitress paid no attention. She was probably sick of sob stories.