Private Dick Casefile 01 - Lily White Rose Red

Martin about this.

    78

    CATT FORD

    “I know him well—” she exclaimed.
    “Of course you do,” I interrupted rudely.
    “If you need me to, I can call him, get him to come over here right now—I wonder why he never mentioned—”
    “No! No thanks. I’m sure I can get in to see him. I’ve met him…
    once… but I didn’t know then what I know now,” I said.
    “He runs several other clubs. Topaz on Fremont. That’s the hottest and most popular in Vegas right now. That’s where he’ll be tonight, most likely. We could go over there—”
    “Lily, you can’t come with me,” I said firmly.
    “Madame,” Celestine started. “You must not—” Lily drooped in her seat, her excitement wearing away. “Of course, it was silly of me. Thank him for me, would you? For giving her a job. And she got it on her own. It must have made her feel… safe to work for him.”
    I wasn’t sure she was aware of the irony of that statement. That was one of the reasons I didn’t want her along, besides the obvious.
    Any man would lie to spare her pain, and who would want to say,
    “Yeah, I hired your daughter to work in a dangerous area where she was killed”?
    “What did the police tell you about the… uh, circumstances .”
    “The murder,” Lily said. She sure didn’t flinch when it came to facing unpleasant truths. “She was strangled by someone taller and stronger than she was, almost certainly a man. She was not raped. She tried to defend herself.”
    “How did they know that? Defensive wounds on her arms?” The smile Lily gave me was almost demonic. She scared me in that moment. Implacable, ruthless hatred glowed in her eyes, and I was glad it wasn’t me that would have to face her with her daughter’s death on my conscience.
    “Yes. And they mentioned the heel of her right shoe had blood on it.”

    Lily White, Rose Red: Grey Randall, Private Dick Casefile #1
    79

    I remembered her performance in my office when she came to hire me. “You mean….”
    “At least she hurt him before he killed her.” I didn’t want to mention that pulling that maneuver might also have pushed him over the edge and made him angry enough to kill her even if he hadn’t planned on it. Lily didn’t need to dwell on that, especially when she was clinging to the minor comfort of thinking she’d taught her daughter to defend herself.
    “What sort of nightclub is this place?” Lily said.
    I took a breath. I was going to have to tell her at some point. “It’s an after-hours club. Illegal. For queers.” Of course, she took it completely in stride. “Then presumably her killer didn’t come from there.”
    I wasn’t going to get into the issue of jealous T-girls right then.
    “I’m not ruling anyone out on that basis.”
    “Of course,” Lily said, patting my arm soothingly. “You’re a very good dick.” She looked at her diamond wristwatch and said, “I’d better let you go if you’re going to interview Phil Martin. Let’s hope he can give you some kind of lead.”
    “Thank you, Lily. I guess I’d better go right over there,” I said, hoping she couldn’t tell how uneasy the thought made me.
    She smiled at me brightly and resumed her society manner with a suddenness that took my breath away. “Thank you so much for coming, Grey, darling.”
    Like she was giving a party or something.
    Lily picked up the photographs and ran a gentle hand over them.
    Her voice went soft with pain again when she murmured, “I can never thank you enough for these.”
    “You’re welcome.”
    Celestine escorted me out and shut the door behind me. The porch light went out as soon as I reached my car, and I looked back, watching through the sidelight by the front door as her dark form moved toward the morning room, and I was glad Lily would not be alone that night.
    Those were two very tough women.

    80

    CATT FORD

    AS MUCH as I didn’t want to, I knew I had to start at Lambda. It was only nine o’clock. That’s practically daybreak in Vegas; if Mr. Martin, AKA Mr. Big, AKA Mr. Beautiful, had to make the rounds of his clubs, it stood to reason he’d make the early call at the smallest one.
    The secret one where he wouldn’t want to be seen.
    If I was in luck, maybe I could catch him there. That sentence had all kinds of wrong in it, but what I had in mind for questioning him was better done there than at a busier club.
    I wondered if a man known as Mr. Big in some circles would start to think of himself as Big,