Pretty In Ink (35 page)

No kidding.

I remembered how I hadn’t been able to find Rusty Abbott when I Googled him, except listed on Lester Fine’s site.

“How did you get his fingerprints, then?”

“He was working for Lester Fine. All his employees are fingerprinted.”

“So he can’t really disappear then, can he?”

“As long as he stays out of trouble.”

I pondered that a few seconds; then Tim spoke again.

“The money in Ace’s account that disappeared? DeBurra did put it there, but before he could move it to his own account, it disappeared on him. We managed to trace it to another account with Abbott’s name on it. But it wasn’t there for long. Maybe a few minutes. Now it’s in the wind, just like Abbott.”

I mulled this over. I’d suspected Abbott of a lot of things, but being a ghost—a comfortably well-off ghost, thanks to Trevor’s money—was not one of them. Somehow I found it suitable justice that Abbott had taken DeBurra’s money after DeBurra had gone to all that trouble to retrieve it.

And even though Rusty Abbott did know how to make accidents happen, as Jeff Coleman so aptly put it, he’d actually tried to help me. He’d given me a clue by leaving that picture of DeBurra in drag for me in the makeup case. It was too bad he hadn’t taken out that picture of Lester Fine, because it threw me off completely. Abbott also warned me about the explosion, and he gave me that casino chip and I won all that money.

“What about Charlotte? Are you going to charge her with anything?”

“As soon as the doctor gives us the all clear on her, we’re going to be questioning her extensively. As far as I know, she didn’t do anything criminal except run, and that was to get away from DeBurra.”

“What’s going to happen to Shawna now?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Who knows?” Tim was still indifferent to her. He’d moved on. I just wish DeBurra had realized that and let his one-sided feud go.

We hung up, and I went back inside. Bitsy and Joel and Kyle were still in the same spot, only now Joel’s head was bobbing against Kyle’s shoulder as he slept. Kyle didn’t seem to mind.

I heard a swish as the frosted doors slid open across the room, and Bixby stood there, looking at me.

My Tevas felt like concrete weights. I wanted to go apologize while I had the chance, but I was uncertain how to do it.

I waited too long. He gave me a sad smile and touched his chest. Where his new Celtic knot was inked.

Then the doors were swishing closed again, with him behind them.

J
eff Coleman carefully pulled the stencil off my arm. I studied it, and even though I was looking at it upside down, it was spectacular.

Who knew?

The Japanese koi swam in a curve around my biceps; ocean waves and lotus flowers danced around it. I’d told Jeff I wanted the fish to be gold and white, the flowers yellow, red, and pink, and the waves different shades of blue and purple.

It was half a sleeve, enough to cover up the tiny scars from the windshield glass. Jeff had tried to talk me into a full sleeve, but I needed more time to think about what I wanted.

“It’s okay?”

Jeff’s hesitation made me pause. He was nervous about this. He hadn’t cracked a joke since he came to the shop, didn’t call me “Kavanaugh” once.

I made him come to The Painted Lady because, honestly, I wasn’t quite sure just how clean his shop was. I knew how clean mine was. He acted all put out at first when I said he could do my ink, only on
my
turf. But he was strangely quiet when he arrived with his case, explaining that he needed his own machine.

“It’s great,” I said, meaning it.

It wasn’t flash, either. He’d designed it. He hadn’t wanted to, but when I pointed out the brilliance of his Day of the Dead tattoo, he finally acquiesced.

“You know,” I said, “you could start doing custom designs.”

He snorted, then rolled his eyes. “I’m going to leave that to you, Kavanaugh. The drunks need a place to go at two a.m. I’m happy to provide that.”

The machine started whirring, and just before he touched it to my skin, he added, “And don’t tell anybody about this, all right? I don’t need that kind of reputation.”

I grinned. “Your secret is safe with me, Coleman.” Then I closed my eyes, feeling the first sting of the needle before it mellowed into the familiar and welcome pain.

 

The envelope arrived two days later. Bitsy handed it to me when I got in. I shoved it under my armpit as I went into the staff room. Dropping my messenger bag on a chair and taking a sip of my to-go coffee, I plucked it out from under my arm and saw there wasn’t a return address and the postmark was smudged so I couldn’t see where it had been mailed from.

It was one of those big yellow envelopes with the Bubble Wrap inside. I ripped it open and took out a sheet of paper.

“Luck didn’t have anything to do with it,” it read.

It was signed “Rusty.”

I peered into the darkness of the envelope, wondering what the note meant. Something was stuck in the bottom of the envelope, so I turned it upside down and shook it once.

A fifty-dollar casino chip dropped onto the table.

Read on for an excerpt
from Karen E. Olson’s next
Tattoo Shop Mystery,

Coming from Obsidian in Fall 2010.

W
hen Sylvia and Bernie came back from That’s Amore Drive-Through Wedding Chapel with my car, it would’ve been nice if they’d taken the body out of the trunk.

As it was, I didn’t discover it until a day later when I hit a bump and heard a thump that made me curious about what I’d forgotten to unload on my last trip to the grocery store. By that time, Sylvia Coleman and Bernie Applebaum—Sylvia said at her age she wasn’t about to take on any new names—were at the Grand Canyon on their honeymoon, and I was in my driveway staring at the corpse of a man in a tuxedo, as if he’d expected death would be a black-tie affair.

Being both the daughter and sister of police officers, I did the first thing that came to mind: I called Sylvia’s son, Jeff Coleman, to find out whether he knew anything about this.

“Murder Ink,” Jeff’s voice bellowed through my ear. Murder Ink was his business, a tattoo shop near Fremont Street, next door to Goodfellas Bail Bonds. He specialized in flash, the stock tattoos that lined the walls of his shop, even though I knew firsthand that he was an amazing artist when he put his mind to it.

Despite the flash, Jeff was one of my main competitors in Vegas. I own The Painted Lady, where we do only custom designs. We cater to a classier clientele, and my shop is in the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes on the Strip, a high-end themed mall that would never have allowed a tattoo shop to sully its image without a little blackmail by the shop’s former owner.

“It’s Brett.”

“Kavanaugh?”

“Your mother seems to have left me a little something for the use of my car yesterday.” Sylvia had asked me nicely whether she and Bernie could use my red Mustang Bullitt convertible for their drive-through wedding. She said it was preferable to Bernie’s 1989 blue Buick and her thirty-five-year-old purple Gremlin, which looked like a lizard with its tail cut off.

“What about Jeff’s Pontiac?” I’d asked her.

“It’s bright yellow. It looks like a pimp’s car.”

I couldn’t argue with that. It did look like a pimp’s car. I told Sylvia that she was welcome to use my Mustang, but she had to drive. Bernie’s cataract surgery wasn’t scheduled for another six weeks, and even though Sylvia said she “watched the road” for him, it didn’t inspire much confidence.

“What are you talking about, Kavanaugh?” Jeff asked.

“There’s a man in my trunk.”

A low chuckle told me that perhaps I hadn’t described it properly.

“A dead man. In a tuxedo.”

“And you’re sure my mother left it there for you?”

“I certainly don’t remember it being there before she borrowed my car.”

“So, let me play devil’s advocate for a minute. Maybe he climbed into your trunk and died
after
my mother and Bernie returned the car.”

Hmm. I hadn’t thought of that. I recounted where the car had been since they dropped it off for me at the Venetian, and it had been only there and here, in my driveway overnight, and then at Red Rock Canyon this morning when I went for a hike. I leaned farther in toward the body. On the right breast pocket I could see something embroidered with red thread: “That’s Amore.”

“He’s from the wedding chapel, Jeff. His tux is an advertisement. It’s got the name sewn on it.”

“Is your brother home? Has he seen the body?”

My brother, Detective Tim Kavanaugh, hadn’t been home all night. I could only surmise that either he was catching bad guys or he had a late date that spilled over into morning.

“No.”

“Have you called the cops, then?”

“Doing it now.” I punched END on my cell and sent Jeff Coleman into oblivion as I now entered 911. But just as I was about to hit SEND, I knew I should try to reach Tim first. Before he came home to a driveway full of police cruisers and the coroner’s van.

He answered on the first ring.

“What do you want, Brett?”

His tone was cold, but the fact that he’d actually answered his phone meant that he was probably doing police stuff and not with a woman. A good thing for me, but perhaps not for him.

“You remember how I let Sylvia and Bernie borrow my car for their wedding the other day?”

A heavy sigh told me he wasn’t into tripping down memory lane and I should get on with it.

“Well, they left me a body. In the trunk.”

A second of silence, then, “What are you talking about?”

I told him about Mr. That’s Amore. “He’s from the chapel. The drive-through.” I explained about the stitching on his pocket.

A heavy sigh. “Brett, how do you get yourself into these messes?” He was referring to a couple of other incidents in the past six months, incidents that were completely out of my control, thank you very much.

“I told you not to let that wacko borrow your car,” he said.

“She’s not a wacko,” I said, although not with much confidence. Sylvia had her moments. I didn’t know exactly how old Sylvia was, but I guessed she was in her seventies or early eighties. She and her former husband had owned Murder Ink before he died and she retired, handing over the business to Jeff. She spent a lot of time at the tattoo shop and had actually inked my calf—Napoleon going up the Alps. It was one of my favorite Jacques Louis David paintings, and I did the stencil. Sylvia, as far as I knew, didn’t do any original designs—and sometimes I wondered whether she didn’t have a touch of dementia. But I was happy she and Bernie had hooked up. They had started swimming together at the Henderson pool a few months back and it developed into a late-in-life romance.

“So you don’t recognize this man?” Tim asked, completely reversing the conversation and throwing me off balance for a second.

“You mean the guy in the trunk?”

“Yes, Brett, the guy in the trunk.” Exasperation had seeped into Tim’s tone, and I totally did not need that right now.

But I counted to ten as I leaned forward again and peered at Mr. That’s Amore. His face was whiter than that zinc stuff you put on your nose so you won’t get sunburn. His eyes were closed, but his mouth hung open slackly, as if he didn’t have the energy to close it. The tux was remarkably neat, considering he was stuffed in my trunk—just a few spots of dust and dirt.

He looked uncannily like Dean Martin.

But I didn’t have time to ponder that, because I could also see the side of his neck, just below his ear.

He had a tattoo of a spiderweb.

I told Tim, who made a sort of
mmm
sound. I knew what he was thinking: Spiderweb tattoos were popular in prison. And from the looks of this ink, it could’ve been a prison tat; it was sort of blue-black with rough edges that bled into the skin.

And what was that? I leaned in even farther, my finger precariously close to pulling back the white shirt collar.

Tim was warning me not to touch anything.

I yanked my hand back.

“No kidding,” I said, eager not to give myself away. “Although I did open the trunk, so my fingerprints are on that.”

“I should be there shortly,” he said, then added, “The forensics team and a cruiser are on their way. Just stay where you are and wait for them.”

Where I was was in the driveway. I was just back from Red Rock. I wanted to change out of my grubby jeans, long-sleeved T-shirt, and hiking boots, and, most of all, I wanted something to eat. I’d had some toast before I left at seven, but that was four hours ago. I also needed to get to the shop by noon, because I had a client scheduled.

“Do I have time for a shower?” I asked hopefully.

“No.” Tim hung up.

Without thinking, I leaned against the back of the car. Immediately I felt it bounce a little—not that I’m heavy; I’m actually pretty skinny—and Mr. That’s Amore shifted slightly with the movement. I jumped away from the Mustang as I stared at the body, which rocked for a second.

There it was again. It was poking out slightly through the collar of his shirt.

I couldn’t help myself. I reached in and moved the fabric so I could see it better.

It was the end of a cord.

A clip cord.

I’d recognize it anywhere.

A clip cord is used to attach a tattoo machine to its power source.