Chapter 31
After Tad left, I sat in my office, trying to decide what to do about what Tad had just told me. Suzanne Collier wore Opium perfume. But then, hundreds, maybe thousands of women in and around Milwaukee probably wore it, as well. What possible motive would a rich woman like Suzanne have for taunting me? Then I recalled Tad saying that Suzanne suspected him of having an affair. Did she think I was Tad’s mistress? But that didn’t make any sense, either. If she was having Tad followed, she would know that he and I rarely saw one another. Plus, I’d been plenty visible courting around with Mal lately.
I convinced myself that Suzanne’s choice of perfume was nothing more than a coincidence, and left my office. Business had picked up, and the bar was bustling. Billy looked a little frazzled, something I almost never saw, so I chipped in for the next few hours and helped out, propping myself up on my crutches and mixing drinks behind the bar. Mal settled in on one of the barstools and watched for a while, and then he headed upstairs to the Capone Club room. The customers were all hepped up on holiday cheer, and a group of people in the dance floor room started singing Christmas carols. More folks joined in, and at one point nearly the entire first floor was singing. It should have lifted my soul and put me in the holiday spirit, but I had too much on my mind.
By one o’clock things had slowed down enough that I was able to head upstairs to the Capone Club room. The group had dwindled some. The Signoriello brothers had gone home, and Holly and Alicia had left, too. The remaining group was huddled around some tables that had been pushed together, and on top of the tables were dozens of papers with Carter’s drawing on the top half and different lower facial features drawn on the bottom half.
“Hey, Mack,” Carter said. “We’ve been playing around with the facial characteristics, and it’s interesting, but we’re all a little confused as to just what it is we’re supposed to be looking for.”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I thought maybe you’d get lucky and come up with something that looked familiar.”
“We haven’t,” he said.
“Well, save them all. I’ll show them to Clay later and see if any of them resemble anyone he might have seen at the trial.” Thinking about Tiffany’s mystery lover from her senior year in high school, I decided I should probably show them to Teddy Bear, too. He knew a lot of the same people Tiffany would have known, and maybe he’d recognize someone.
Tyrese said, “You might even take them up to the prison and run them by Ben Middleton. See if he can identify the shooter.”
“Good idea.”
Carter gathered up all the sheets and handed them to Mal. “Why don’t you guys hang on to these for now. I’m going to call it a night.”
“Me too,” Sam said. And then, as if by some unspoken agreement, everyone in the room got up, gathered up their belongings, bid one another good night, and headed out.
“I think I’m going to head home, too,” Mal said. He held up the drawings in his hand. “I’ll walk you downstairs and drop these in your office.”
Half an hour later, I was upstairs in my apartment. Mal had gone home, and Billy was closing up shop for me downstairs. I readied myself for bed and climbed in, feeling exhausted and certain I’d fall asleep quickly and easily. But I kept staring at the phone beside my bed, willing it to ring, hoping that Melanie Smithson would rethink her willingness to talk.
It was well past four before I finally drifted off, and my phone remained silent throughout the night.
* * *
I awoke at ten the next morning, and after a quick shower I went downstairs. Pete was in already, readying the bar for the eleven o’clock opening time, and Jon arrived at ten thirty and fired up the kitchen. Debra and Teddy both came in shortly after Jon, and Missy showed up just prior to opening time. I unlocked the door at eleven, and Cora, Frank, and Joe all arrived minutes later. Other customers quickly followed, so I invited Cora and the brothers upstairs to the Capone Club room and filled the brothers in on the latest letter and my planned trip to the casino today. I barely had time to tell them everything before other members of the group began arriving.
I went downstairs to wait for Mal, who arrived at quarter to twelve. I told Pete and Debra we were heading out to do some shopping for a few hours, and without further ado, we left.
It had snowed some during the night—not a lot, but enough that everything outside was covered with a fresh, clean layer of white. The sun was out, and the new snow sparkled in its light. With only two more shopping days left until Christmas, the downtown traffic was heavy and the sidewalks were crowded. That plus the newly fallen snow made maneuvering with my crutches that much more difficult. Mal held my arm as we walked to his car, and then he helped me get inside.
“I don’t suppose our gal called you last night,” he said as soon as we were under way.
I shook my head. “I fear that’s a dead end. When we get back from the casino, I want to take those drawings Carter did last night and run them by Clay and Teddy, to see if either of them recognizes anyone.”
Mal shot me a questioning look. “Why Teddy?”
The burden of my promise to Kelly was a heavy one, and I desperately wanted someone to help me shoulder it. After giving it a millisecond of thought, I decided I could trust Mal to keep the secret along with me. I told him about Tiffany’s senior year, the pregnancy, and the mystery man. “I can’t help but wonder if whoever got her pregnant might have come back into her life around the time she was killed,” I concluded. “And if so, there’s a good chance he’s someone who hung with that social circle. Since Teddy knew the same group, I’m thinking it’s worth a shot to have him look at the pictures and see if he recognizes anyone.”
“Wow. That poor girl had a time of it, didn’t she?” Mal said.
“Yes, she did,” I agreed. “It makes me wonder if the reason she didn’t try to escape from the car was that she didn’t care if she died.”
We fell silent for the rest of the trip, and I imagined Mal was thinking along the same lines as I was, about how tragic, lonely, and desperate Tiffany Gallagher’s life might have been. It made me grateful for what I had, and determined not to lose any of it.
That was a good mind-set for our arrival at the casino, but as soon as we were inside, I felt myself resenting my synesthesia. We were surrounded by flashing lights of all types and colors; loud noises that roared, rang, banged, clanged, wheedled, and whistled; the smell of people, food, booze, and cigarette smoke. The place was a cavernous open room with a high raftered ceiling, and there were gaming tables and slot machines as far as the eye could see. My brain went into a synesthetic overload similar to what I often experienced when I went to a mall or to the Public Market, but this was ten times worse than anything I’d ever experienced. I couldn’t help but wonder if the letter writer had planned it that way in an attempt to throw me off.
“I need a minute,” I told Mal. “This is overwhelming.”
Mal nodded, and we stepped off to one side. I closed my eyes and focused on trying to shut down the synesthetic side of my brain, parsing through the things I could still smell and hear, relegating each one to real or synesthetic. As soon as I felt I had those senses under control, I opened my eyes and tried to do the same with the smells and sensations triggered by all the colorful flashing lights, which were everywhere I looked. When I felt as if I could function normally, I examined our surroundings more closely.
“I have no idea where to even begin,” I told Mal. “This place is huge.”
“Let’s just survey it for now, walk around it all. Maybe something will come to us.”
We did so, meandering our way past large card tables and down aisles that ran between rows of slot machines. It was a busy place, which made maneuvering on my crutches that much more difficult.
“I’m surprised this place is so packed,” I told Mal at one point. “You’d think with the holidays coming, people would have better things to do.”
“Don’t underestimate the lure of Lady Luck,” he said.
After traipsing up and down dozens of aisles without seeing anything that might be a clue, Mal stopped and said, “You have a picture of the last letter on your phone, don’t you?”
“I do.”
He gestured toward a seating area and a coffee shop near the front entrance. “Let’s sit for a few minutes and take another look at it. Maybe there’s a clue in there that we overlooked.”
We wandered into the coffee shop, ordered up some drinks, and settled in at a table. I took out my phone, pulled up the picture of the letter, and then set my phone on the table between us. We huddled together, both of us reading.
“Tell me again which words were written in the different-colored ink,” Mal said after a few minutes.
I didn’t need to look at the letter to answer him. “The key words were lucky, wager, game, bet, risk, and buffalo stampede.”
Mal looked thoughtful for a moment, and then his face lit up. “All those words are general gambling terms except for the words buffalo stampede. I thought at first it was a reference to the Native American casino ownership, but what if it means something else?”
“Like what?”
He turned on his stool and studied our immediate surroundings. “Look at these slot machines,” he said. “They all have themes of some sort. What if buffalo stampede is the name of a particular game?”
I considered this, and it made as much sense as our first interpretation. “Let’s give it a whirl.”
We slid off our stools and continued our meandering, weaving between rows of slot machines and tables filled with card players. It was a constant and somewhat exhausting effort to shut out all the synesthetic reactions; there was a never-ending stream of sounds, tastes, smells, and visual manifestations. My head throbbed, and I wasn’t sure if it was a headache from the strain of trying to deal with all the sensory input, or a synesthetic reaction of some kind. Either way, I wished it would go away.
After another fifteen minutes or so, we had made our way to the opposite end of the casino and an exit that led out onto Canal Street. My frustration level was through the roof, both from the irritating environment and my anger over our lack of success. My spirits tanked, and as I turned to ask Mal what he thought we should do next, I felt his hand grip my arm. He was staring off to my right, and when I looked that way, I saw what he saw: a bank of slot machines along the wall. There were ten machines all together, and six of them were called Buffalo Stampede. All of them had someone seated in front of them, playing.
Mal and I walked over to the area and stood behind the players, scanning the machines for any envelopes or packages that were lying around. All I saw were plastic drink cups and several ashtrays crammed into the narrow spaces between the machines.
“Do you think we need to play one of them?” I asked Mal.
Mal leaned close to my ear and spoke in a low voice, though how anyone could overhear what we said amid all that clamor was beyond me. “I don’t think you can rig one of these machines that easily, and even if you could, how would the letter writer know when we’d be here or when we’d play it? There’s the same problem if it’s been set up so that someone who works here is supposed to look for you playing this machine. This place is open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. There would have to be several shifts of workers looking for you.” He paused and shook his head. “It makes no sense. I think we need to check out the area around the machines more thoroughly.”
The slots sat atop a credenza-type structure that was flush with the carpeted floor. That eliminated anything getting stashed beneath them. There was a small amount of space between each machine—eight inches or so—but it was easy to see into each of these spaces all the way back to the wall. However, the Buffalo Stampede slots were made in such a way that the face of each machine extended out beyond the main body, creating a small hidden spot along the top and around the perimeter of each one, behind the bright neon edge. It wasn’t a large enough space to hide a full-size envelope, though, and since the main body of the machines was black, a white, gold, or manila envelope would be painfully obvious. Still, I sidled my way down the bank of players, scanning what I could see around and on top of each machine. I saw nothing and said as much to Mal.
“I suppose there could be something taped beneath the seats,” he said, “though that would be risky since they can easily be moved.” He looked above us and then scanned the room. “This place is monitored all the time, so if there is something attached behind the face of any of these machines, it would have to be small and not easily seen.”
Just then, a woman playing one of the Buffalo Stampede machines got up from her seat. Mal quickly moved in and motioned for me to sit down. He fished out his wallet and handed me a twenty-dollar bill.
“Here. Play it,” he said.
“I don’t know how.”
“Stick the money in here.” He pointed to a slot, and I slid the twenty in until the machine sucked it up. “Now push this button labeled MAX BET.”
“Max bet? Isn’t that a bit reckless?”
“It’s a penny slot,” he said. “The max bet isn’t that much.”
I put my finger on the button Mal had indicated and pushed it. Things on the screen in front of me spun and shifted, triggering a cacophony of synesthetic smells. The sounds of bells, whistles, snorting buffalo, and Lord knew what else made my mouth burst with fleeting tastes. I had no idea what I was doing, so I just kept hitting the button. Mal sidled up next to me on my right—it wasn’t easy, because the person at the next machine was mere inches away—and ran his hand around the back side of the front flange on my machine. Then he switched sides and did the same thing on my left. When that produced nothing, he turned his back to me and faked a stumble, using it as an excuse to run his hand around the back side of the flange of the machine to my left.
I hit the button for the umpteenth time, and the machine started clanging away, triggering a metallic taste in my mouth. “What happened?” I said, staring at the screen. Strobes were flashing, highlighting card faces, cartoonish wolves and eagles, and lines that crisscrossed the screen.
“You just won two hundred bucks, that’s what happened,” Mal said with a smile.
The woman on my left glowered at my machine and muttered a cussword under her breath. Then she hit a button, took the paper receipt the machine spat out, and got up. “Come on, Fred,” she said to the man beside her. “These machines are a waste of time.” The man cashed out, as well, and followed her.
Mal quickly moved in on the machines, settled in the farthest seat, and patted the one next to me. “Cash out and switch over here,” he said.
“Cash out?” I stared at the machine’s flashing screen. Mal stood and hit a button in front of me. A paper receipt spat out.
“Grab that and move over here to play. Slide it in the same slot where you put the twenty earlier.”
I did what he said, and as soon as I was settled in front of the new machine, I slid my paper receipt in the appropriate slot and started hitting the MAX BET button Mal had shown me before. Mal, in the meantime, checked out the hidden space on the left side of my machine and on both sides of the one he sat at. I knew from the look on his face that he’d struck out. Now I was the one cursing under my breath. I’d hoped my little win on the other machine was a sign of good luck for us. Maybe it was, and I’d used it all up.
Undaunted, Mal got up, turned to the woman on his left, and started chatting with her about how the machines were rigged and what terrible luck he had. As he talked, his hand ran around the back side of the flange on her machine. When I saw his hand stop near the top, I held my breath. A moment later he turned to me, his right hand cupped around something. He slid it into his pocket.
“Let’s get out of here while you’re ahead,” he said. “Cash out.”
I pushed the button I had watched him push when he cashed me out on the first machine, and a moment later the machine spat out a paper receipt. I glanced at it, shocked to see that it was for just over 230 dollars. I handed it to Mal and then followed him to a cash machine so we could redeem it. Ten minutes later I was standing out in front of the casino, propped on my crutches, waiting for Mal to bring the car around to pick me up. My curiosity was killing me. When he finally pulled up, I nearly leapt into the front seat and almost hit Mal with my crutches as I tried to toss them behind me.
“Show me,” I said.
He stuck his hand in his pocket, and when he pulled it out and opened it, I saw a small black envelope—the size a hotel keycard would come in—sitting in his palm. Its flap was sealed, and stuck to the outside of it was a small piece of Velcro.
“It was stuck to another piece of Velcro, which was glued to the back side of the front flange on the machine,” he said. “I tried to peel that other piece off, thinking it might contain some DNA evidence, but it must have been applied using some sort of industrial-strength glue, rather than the adhesive these things typically come with, because it wouldn’t budge.”
I eyed the tiny envelope and then gave Mal a questioning look.
He smiled at me but shook his head. “We should take it back to your place to open it.” He ran his thumb over the top surface of it and added, “Though I can tell you there’s a key in it.”
“A key? You mean like a house key or a car key?”
“Smaller than that. We’ll get a better idea once we open it.” He raised his hand closer to his face and scrutinized the tiny envelope. “Smart,” he said. “I was thinking that a black envelope this small might be hard to find and therefore easy to trace. But the envelope was white to start with. It looks like it’s been colored over with a felt-tipped marker.”
“Maybe not so smart,” I said, and Mal shot me a curious look. “Let’s get back to the bar and open this thing. Then I’ll tell you why you’re wrong.”