Buried In Buttercream

it?”
    “It’s kinda ... well ... nerdy, the way you go walking around a grocery store humming that theme.”
    “It’s catchy. When I watch a Bonanza marathon, and hear it forty-eight times in twenty-four hours, it sorta sticks in your head, you know?”
    “That’s kinda my point. Also, you still have your Little Joe lunchbox.”
    “So? It’s a collectors’ item by now.”
    She sighed. How could you argue with a zealot?
    “Besides,” she said, giving it one more try. “The Ponderosa was in Nevada. We’re still in California.”
    “We’ll be in Nevada in an hour or so.”
    “I give up.”

Chapter 20
    “ O kay, so Las Vegas is ... um ... big,” Waycross said, as they stood in front of the Victoriana Hotel and looked up and down the street. “Not as spiffy as I thought it might be, but okay, I guess.”
    “Leave it to you, little brother,” Savannah said as they walked to the front door of the hotel, suitcases in hand, “to be impressed with a desert full of nothing and let down by the adult vacation capital of the US.”
    “I’m sorry. I was just expecting really big, cool hotels and casinos, and these buildings aren’t that big and most of them need a painting. I’d say, Sin City is sorta shabby looking.”
    “That’s because you haven’t seen the good parts yet,” Dirk told him. “Wait’ll you get a load of the Strip. And Fremont Street at night. That’ll knock your socks off.”
    “I’m not sure,” Tammy said, “because I’ve never been here before, but I don’t think we even got into Las Vegas proper. This is sort of out in the toolies.”
    “Yeah, it is.” Savannah looked up at the hotel façade and thought it looked more like an old haunted mansion than a hotel. And a rundown one at that. “And this place gives me the willies.”
    “Maybe that was the appeal,” Dirk said. “Undertakers’ convention. . . ?”
    “Sure, that must be it.” Waycross held the door open for the rest to enter. “Makes sense if you think about it. There’s more atmosphere in a creepy place like this than one of them fancy, newfangled places.”
    “No offense,” Tammy said before they crossed the lobby, “but I want to check in alone. I don’t want anyone to know I’m with you guys. It’ll blow my cover with the concierge.”
    With that, she prissed off, leaving them to watch her sashay and chuckle among themselves.
    “Boy howdy,” Waycross said, “she’s got a ‘cover’! She sure does take this detecting stuff serious!”
    Savannah rolled her eyes. “You’ve no idea.”
    “It’s what she lives for,” Dirk told him. “And if you make fun of her for it, she’ll call you all sorts of obscene things, like she does me.”
    Waycross’s eyes widened. “I can’t imagine a nice lady like Tammy cussin’.”
    “Like a blue streak,” Dirk replied.
    “Oh, stop it.” Savannah smacked Dirk on the arm. “She calls him Dirko. And if she’s really mad, Pee-Pee Head or Booger Brain.”
    “E www, that’s pretty bad.”
    Dirk nodded. “See. I told you so. Let’s go check in.”
    Savannah turned to Dirk. “This is going to be expensive ... four rooms. You’re coughing up the big bucks, right?”
    “Four!” Dirk was horrified. “How am I gonna explain four rooms to the captain? He’ll never okay something like that! I was thinking two.”
    “Okay,” Savannah said, walking in front of him. “Girls in one room and boys in the other.”
    “That wasn’t exactly the arrangement we boys were hoping for,” he replied. “And what about Tammy’s cover?”
    “She’ll have to come up with a new one.”
    As Savannah joined Tammy at the counter, Dirk turned to Waycross and shrugged. “Oh, well ... can’t say I didn’t try for you, good buddy.”
    “It’s just as well. Sooner or later, I’ve gotta go back and look my grandma in the eye. And she can always tell when I’ve been up to no good.”

    Half an hour later, Savannah and Tammy were settled in their “girls’ room.” Savannah was lying on the bed, resting her eyes that were weary from the desert glare. Tammy was arranging the fresh fruit she had bought on a hand towel on the desk.
    “This isn’t so bad,” Savannah said, enjoying the respite from having her hands on the wheel and her foot on the gas. “It doesn’t smell too much like the bottom of an ashtray.”
    “Third-hand smoke is so dangerous,” Tammy replied. “Waycross doesn’t smoke, does he?”
    “He did once. Then Granny bought him a big,