Murder by Chance (Betty Chance Mystery) (12 page)

Rivers of black mascara created dark crevices against Lori’s once creamy foundation. Grey eye shadow caked around the edges of her lids gave her a diseased look. For a change Lori didn’t appear beautiful. In fact, she looked downright ugly. Her reflection in the bathroom mirror suggested she’d been on a bender for a solid month. And she felt worse than she looked.

She fell back against the wall and slid down onto the marble floor. Her knees folded upwards. She grabbed onto them and began to rock back and forth. Since her first panic attack in her teens, she’d always found secluded places to hide. Closets, bathrooms, the back seat of a car, were among her preferred places to isolate until she could breathe again. Small, enclosed spaces helped to make her feel protected.

A familiar voice drifted through the cracks and crevices. Lori could hear Tillie calling out her name while knocking on the hotel room’s door. “Lori?”

Tillie continued, “Lori, are you in there?”

Lori didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Not yet. She didn’t want to take the chance that Tillie would figure out what was going on with her at the moment. There was no way she’d let Tillie know she was in the midst of a full-blown panic attack. If Tillie knew, she’d run to Betty for help.

That was something Lori couldn’t let happen. Even Betty didn’t know Lori suffered from panic attacks.

If Betty had an inkling, she’d ask questions. Lori wasn’t ready to explain her anxiety. Not until she figured out a way to repay Take A Chance Tours. Besides, the attacks lasted only a few minutes. She could wait them out. She always had.

“Lori?” Tillie called out once again, as she knocked on the corridor door. When silence followed, Lori breathed a sigh of relief. Tillie must have given up.

“Thank God,” Lori uttered, as if each breath could easily be her last.

Her first panic attack had happened at eleven years of age, a few hours after her mother announced her father had disappeared without a trace. She felt her chest cave inward, shattering her heart into a million pieces as if made from cheap crystal. She knew she would never see him again.

Although young, she was mature enough to keep it a secret. Her mother was dealing with enough already. Her episodes continued sporadically and then suddenly stopped on the anniversary of her father’s disappearance. It wasn’t until her mother was diagnosed with cancer that they returned. The same pattern repeated itself until the attacks mysteriously ceased exactly one year after her mother’s death. They didn’t start again until she began “borrowing money” from Take A Chance Tours.

The petty cash box in the office normally held hundreds of dollars. The money was on hand to pay for an afternoon pizza, or to provide change to clients who paid for their trip in cash.

Whenever Lori borrowed any money she promised herself to replace it the very next morning. She was filled with good intentions, often saintly in nature. She vowed to return more money than she took.

Lori didn’t bother to tell her aunt or Gloria about the overnight loans because they were, after all, no big deal. The women wouldn’t notice the money was missing. Or if they did, Lori could easily come up with an excuse. She’d say she wanted to buy office supplies on the way home, or take a client to dinner.

It didn’t matter, really. She was confident she’d replace the borrowed cash with her winnings from gambling, or at least with a credit card advance. When her credit cards maxed out, her panic attacks returned.

Now, sitting inside a hotel room’s bathroom in the late afternoon, it felt like her worst fear was coming true. Her chest once again felt like it was collapsing under pressure. Sweat began to seep through her clothing. Her breaths arrived in quick fire succession.

But once again, the miracle occurred. The thousand pound weight slowly lifted from her chest and her tremors subsided.

She pulled herself up off the cold, tiled floor. She leaned against the vanity and stared into the mirror. Her color was coming back. Her breathing stabilized. She was fine.

She forced herself out of the bathroom and fell onto the bed. She remained prone, wondering if she could find a fix to her financial problems.

Gambling. Her real problem wasn’t that she had lost money. The real problem was that she hadn’t won any. Winning at poker was the only way she knew of to pay off her debts. Once she won enough she’d never look at a card again.

“
Damn Gillette
,” she said out loud as she stood up. She probably wouldn’t have gambled at the casino if it weren’t for him. She knew that this time,
this
particular reckless binge wasn’t her fault. She’d been an innocent by-stander.

She returned to the bathroom and picked up a jar of face cream. She unscrewed the wide cap and gently applied the cream to her face. As her fingers moved across her cheeks, she reflected upon the last hour.

Playing cards with Gillette had flipped on that switch button inside of her that was so hard to control. An hour after she left him at the poker table, she’d found herself seated in the High Limits Slots area.

Mistakenly, she’d sat in front of a twenty-five dollar slot instead of a five-dollar machine. Although she realized what she had done, she was too transfixed by the lure of winning to change machines. She slipped in a fifty-dollar bill and waited as her brain went into hyper drive.

What harm could there be in losing another fifty bucks? I’ve spent more than that on face lotion. And remember what they say, the bigger the bet, the bigger the win
.

She hit the Play Max credit button and the wheel spun around until one red seven, and one white seven appeared, followed by a blank space. Her Ulysses S. Grant was history. She threw in another fifty in case the gods were on her side and merely testing her. The wheel spun again and three single bars appeared. In a matter of seconds her second fifty-dollar investment had yielded five hundred bucks in return.

Thirty minutes later, after a roller coaster ride of spectacular ups and devastating downs, Lori lost another $1500, the same amount she’d received from cashing a check forty minutes earlier. Unless she could come up with a way to cover it, her check would bounce.

Lori could still feel the pain as that last hopeless spin registered a loss. She removed the final bit of make-up from her face and stood there, trying to let it sink into her denying skull that she didn’t have a dime to her name. If she were starving to death, Lori couldn’t afford a Happy Meal at McDonalds.

The phone’s ring startled her and she rushed into the other room and picked up the receiver.

“Hi there.” Lori answered, trying to sound cheery and upbeat. If she pulled this off she should be awarded an Oscar for Best Performance.

“I miss you,” a low, deep tone echoed. It was Gillette.

Instantly, she felt rage at the man who had led her astray earlier. She said, “Tony, I can’t see you. I ...”

He interrupted, “What about dinner? You have to eat.”

She hesitated. Gillette would be willing to stake her again. She could win it all back. Every dollar. When she did, she’d never gamble again. Her anger started to dissipate. Tony was actually an ally.

Somehow, for a brief moment, sanity returned to Lori and she knew better than to flirt with temptation.

“I have plans with Aunt Betty,” she told him, grateful it was true. Gillette was too dangerous to be around. Not only was he a sweep-any-woman-off-her-feet-while-getting-her-to-drop-her-panties handsome, his lifestyle centered on the one thing in her life she desperately needed to control.

He continued his plea. “What about dessert?”

Lori felt her resolve weaken. She said, “I can’t. Our tour has been given tickets to see Boris the Baffler’s show. I need to be there.”

“Midnight?” he suggested.

He’d never give up. Gillette was the top dog in any arena he chose to romp in.

“I …” she hesitated.

He counterattacked. “Midnight in the poker room, then. I’ll stake you five grand.”

She could actually feel her heart come to a complete stop before it started again. She managed to say, “You’re kidding?”

“I never kid about gambling.”

It would be wrong to accept. Very wrong. She didn’t even know the man. “Alright,” she answered, putting a seal on whatever deal he was proposing.

Tony hung up abruptly. There was no good bye, no fond farewell my princess. Gillette was already acting as if he were in control.

I’ll call him back. I’ll cancel
, she thought a millisecond before a floodgate of possibilities opened in her mind and rational thinking ended.

It could be fun. I need fun. Maybe I’ll even win a little. Maybe I’ll win a lot. Besides, he wants to do it. It’s not like I asked him. And if I win, that could solve a lot of problems. It was his idea. It’s not like it’s my money, or Take A Chance Tour money
…

The phone rang again and jarred her from her delusional skyrocket.

It’s probably Gillette calling back
, she decided. She’d tell him no, tell him she’d changed her mind. She picked up the receiver.

“Listen Tony, I really don’t think I ...”

“Lori, is that you?” the voice asked, wavering.

“Gloria?” Lori said, surprised to hear her employee’s voice on the other end.

“Uh-huh,” Gloria answered in a small, trembling voice.

Lori’s throat went dry. “What is it?”

Gloria said, “I can’t get ahold of your aunt. She’s not answering her phone.”

The woman was speaking in a very slow and precise manner. That fact alone told Lori something was very wrong.

Lori asked, “What happened?”

“Someone’s broke into the office. We’ve been robbed.”

Two glasses of champagne and one hour of mutual flirtation later, Betty hustled through the hotel lobby. She was still bewildered and bemused from her time spent with Boris. Her plan now was to grab a quick nap. Even a half hour would keep her going until bedtime. She only hoped that if she did sleep, she didn’t dream of The Baffler.

Betty wasn’t exactly sure why she found the flamboyant mentalist so damned charming, and, she had to admit it to herself, hot. She’d always laughed at her mom’s friends and their tales of being turned on by Liberace. Betty realized now that she should have been more understanding. The women were barely out of their teens in the1950s when the word gay only meant happy. And decades later she too was attracted to a man of questionable sexuality. Boris did act straight, but it was the word “act” that bothered her.

Maybe, her being celibate returned her to a 1950s
naeveté
again? Or maybe she’d become a refurbished virgin? After all, they refurbished computers, so why not …

A thought struck her. Did the Baffler use mind control on her? Could that be why she suddenly found herself desiring something other than an afternoon of crème-filled Ho Hos?

How could she be attracted to Boris to begin with? was at least twenty years younger than she. For another, he wore guyliner. Men in make-up did not usually tickle her sexual fancy. She grew up on South Side Chicago where a man was considered a sissy if he ate with a fork. If he needed to stir his cup of black—and only black coffee—he was expected do it with a tire iron. She was just about to press the elevator button when she heard Tillie’s voice.

“Hold the elevator!” Tillie stopped the door from closing with her outstretched hand and stepped inside. Through a wad of chewing gum, she asked, “Where have you been? I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Betty decided against mentioning she’d been drinking with Boris. Somehow, it didn’t seem right for her to take time off to indulge in bad behavior. “What’s up?” Betty asked, as the elevator rose. If Tillie wanted to chat, they could do it on the way to her room. After that, Tillie would have to leave. Only a shower and a quick nap were on her agenda.

Tillie waved three crisp hundred-dollar bills in the air before folding them into fourths. She pulled aside the neckline of her blouse and slipped the money deep inside her bra.

“I won three hundred bucks at bingo! I told you that Irish leprechauns kick Norwegian troll butts,” Tillie said proudly.

“Good for you!” Betty cheered. “By the way, has the sheriff called you with any new information?”

“Nope. And in case you’re wondering, I couldn’t find Lori either. The two of you disappeared off the face of the earth. I called both of your cells a dozen times.”

The elevator stopped and they stepped out into the corridor. Betty said, “I didn’t hear my phone ring once.”

She unzipped her bag and poked around the bottom. Then she reached into her pockets. Her phone was missing.

Tillie suggested, “Check your bra. That’s where I’ve lost mine, though once I forgot I had slipped it inside my underwear.”

Betty didn’t ask Tillie how she could forget that, or how she could sit down with a phone in her panties. Betty didn’t bother to check inside her brassiere. Unlike Tillie’s ample storage space, her bosom couldn’t hide a quarter, much less the small cans of hairspray she’d seen Tillie pull from her cleavage. To Betty, being a plus size woman with miniscule breasts was a lesson in spiritual enlightenment. It reminded her daily that life could be so unfair.

Betty said, “Damnit, losing that phone is a disaster.”

“Maybe it’s in your room?” Tillie said, gesturing down the hallway.

“Maybe,” Betty answered. It might be frozen inside the huge snow bank she’d fallen into earlier, thought Betty. Or perhaps she’d left it in Boris’ bus.

“You don’t have any idea where you left it?” Tillie asked.

“A few places,” she admitted. She knew she’d be too embarrassed to return to Boris’ place. She doubted he would think she was just looking for a phone to hold in her hands.

“Let’s look in your room, first. I’ll help you search,” Tillie offered.

As soon as they opened Betty’s door, she had an idea. “Call my cell.”

Tillie flipped opened her cell phone and hit speed dial. The phone started ringing on Tillie’s end, but neither heard a ring coming from anywhere in the hotel room.

“I’m not hearing ...” Tillie paused, and then sang the words, “
First I was afraid, I was petrified
...
” Betty’s ring tone was the Gloria Gaynor hit.

Betty said, “Start looking around. It could be here with the ringer turned off. I’ll check the bathroom. Would you mind looking under the bed?”

“No problem.” Tillie headed toward the bed. Betty took an immediate right into the bathroom. Just for the heck of it, she pulled back the shower curtain and checked out the tub. She looked under the counter as well. She looked inside of the waste paper basket and the pockets of her terry cloth robe that hung on the backside of the door.

“Nothing under the bed!” Tillie yelled from the other room. “Want me to check the dresser drawers?”

“Sure, I have nothing to hide,” Betty said stepping back into the bedroom. She watched as her friend began to rummage through the top drawer.

Tillie turned around and gave her a quizzical look. “Are you sure about that?” Tillie held up a pair of sheer black thongs, embroidered with tiny red hearts.

Betty’s cheeks flushed pink. “There was a sale at the big woman’s store.”

“Big sexy woman’s store you mean.” Tillie tossed the panty back into the dresser. “Like they say, it’s always the ones you least suspect.” She closed the drawer.

Betty searched the nightstand then pulled it away from the wall. Except for electrical cords plugged into sockets, there was nothing behind it.

“I knew it!” Tillie announced proudly, holding the door to the mini-bar door wide open.

“My cell phone is inside the fridge?” Betty asked, shocked. She’d discovered missing items in a lot of places, but that seemed odd even for her.

“No, there’s no phone but there’s no chocolate either. As soon as I saw the truffles in my room, I knew you’d break down and pay the big bucks for the ones in yours!”

“My addiction’s that obvious?” Betty asked.

“Are you kidding, me? You’d stuff your Thanksgiving turkey stuffed with chocolate if you could,” Tillie admonished.

“Actually, I have,” Betty admitted. “It was called
Mole Poblano
. I had it one Thanksgiving in a casino outside of Tucson. It’s this great Mexican turkey dish made with melted chocolate and hot chilies.”

“Really? Turkey and chocolate together? I’ve never heard of that. But then, the fanciest Mexican restaurant I go to is Taco Bell,” Tillie admitted.

The two continued to search. The bed was already made. Betty could tell that nothing was lying beneath the spread. She checked underneath the four king-sized pillows. Then she did a quick peak into the armoire and announced anxiously, “I guess it’s not here.”

“Maybe you should call the cell phone company and cancel your account?” Tillie suggested, sitting down on the bed.

“You’re right. Can you look up the number on the Internet while I shower?” Betty asked, heading toward the bathroom. Her time with Tillie had eaten up any chance for a nap, but at least she could be clean for her clients, if not fully awake.

“Look it up, how?” Tillie asked, looking around the room.

“Use my laptop to ...” Betty stopped in her tracks. She swirled around and saw that her slim black laptop was no longer sitting on the desk. Her heart sank. Her computer was missing as well.

If someone had access to her computer, they had access to all of her financial records, including the Take A Chance files she’d downloaded before the trip began. Her laptop was not password protected. She’d never gotten around to entering a password although it would have taken only a few seconds to do so. Now, it was too late.

Betty picked up the room phone to dial the front desk when she heard Lori’s frantic voice calling out her name. Betty dropped the receiver and rushed to open the door.

Lori barged in, talking full speed. “Aunt Betty, I have some very bad news.”

Tillie gasped, a look of fresh horror on her face. “Don’t tell me they’ve found another body?”

“No. There’s been a robbery,” Lori said, walking to the edge the edge of the bed, her arms folded across her stomach as if she were in pain. She sat down next to Tillie. She hadn’t taken time to put on make-up or even brush her hair. Betty had never seen Lori look as frazzled or act as flustered.

“Are you talking about my laptop being stolen?” Betty asked, confused that Lori knew about the theft before she did.

It took a moment for Lori to answer. “No, I’m talking about our office being robbed.”

Dazed by Lori’s announcement, Betty plopped down onto the edge of the bed. She grabbed her niece’s hand and said, “Tell me about it.”

Lori said, “Gloria called. Someone broke into the office this afternoon.”

Betty’s immediate concern was for her employee’s safety. “Was Gloria hurt?” she asked.

Lori shook her head. “She was downstairs at the coffee shop when it happened.”

“What was taken? The cashbox?” Betty asked, wondering briefly if Gloria remembered to lock the door to the office. She’d forgotten to do so in the past.

Lori answered, “That was untouched. Only two things were taken. One was our desktop computer.”

“And the other thing?” Betty asked.

Lori paused before admitting, “A trip file.”

“Which one?” Betty asked, even though she already knew what Lori’s answer would be.

“The one we’re on.”