Vartann smirked at Sara. This was going just the way they wanted. “No promises,” he told Santana, “but any cooperation at this point will count in your favor.” He got down to brass tacks. “You sell a coral snake to anyone recently?”
Santana wavered. “Maybe,” he said weakly. “I can’t remember.”
“Time’s running out,” Vartann warned. “Give us a name.”
Santana caved. “Never got his name. Just his money. He wanted a coral snake, no questions asked. Said he’d heard I was the guy who could hook him up.”
“And did you?” Sara asked.
“Sure,” he confessed. “But I swear, I didn’t know what he wanted it for. I figured he was just a collector or something. How was I supposed to know about that crazy shit at the spa?”
Obviously, Santana had been keeping up with current events. Sara imagined the story was spreading pretty quickly through the reptile trade. A smarter perp might have disposed of the evidence by now, but obviously Santana had been too cocky—or greedy—to get rid of his scaly wares.
“Describe him,” Vartann ordered.
“Okay, okay.” Santana closed his eyes to concentrate. “He was this prissy little dude. Tubby. Losing his hair. Kind of straight-laced.” A sneer conveyed his scorn. “Not the kind of guy who looked like he was into hot snakes, but his money was good. Said it was a gift for a friend.”
Some friend, Sara thought. But it was looking like Heather Gilroy, not to mention Chip LaReue, were off the hook. “Give us more. Height? Age? Race?”
“In his forties maybe,” Santana said. “White. Shorter than me. Nervous, like he couldn’t wait to get out of here. Kind of spooked by the snake, too, which was weird.” Santana was throwing out everything he could think of now in hopes of finding a get-out-of-jail-free card. “I offered him a beer, but he turned up his nose at it. Asked for an iced tea instead. Like I had any of that stuff around.”
A bell went off in Sara’s head. “Is it just me,” she whispered to Vartann, “or does that sound like Brian Yun?” The Nile’s overworked assistant manager fit Santana’s description to a tee.
“I was just thinking that,” Vartann said. His ordinarily saturnine face showed unusual animation. “Brian Yun drinks iced tea. He offered Langston and I some Snapples.”
Makes sense, Sara thought. Yun sometimes worked late at The Nile. He could have easily slipped the coral snake into the vivarium when no one was around, then sat back and waited for all hell to break loose in the morning. But why?
They still needed a motive—and some conclusive evidence. They could hardly convict Yun on the testimony of a snake like Santana.
“We need more proof,” she told Vartann. “But it’s a start.”
The detective nodded. He took Santana by the arm and dragged him back toward the car. Raucous neighbors, including the two trailer-park Lolitas he had been chatting up before, jeered his departure. Santana ducked his head, just in case somebody threw something at him. “So now what?” he whined. “You going to put in a good word for me or what?”
“We’re going to show you some pictures first,” Vartann said. He called for back-up to secure the trailer until Animal Control showed up. “Then we’ll talk.”
One way or another, Sara figured, Santana wasn’t going to be selling any more snakes out of his mobile home for awhile. He was going to be lucky to stay out of a cage himself.
She recalled his sleazy come-ons earlier. “So much for the Serpent,” she told him. “How about them apples?”
21
“THANK YOU FOR coming in, Ms. Wooten.”
Brass and Catherine greeted Jill in his office at police headquarters. The clean, professional environment was less intimidating than the interrogation suites down the hall. Framed commendations and medals hung upon the walls. A painted blue bookcase loomed behind a tidy desk. An American flag hung on a pole in one corner. A bronze statuette of Blind Justice occupied a position of honor on the desktop. A gray vinyl couch rested against the western wall. The door was closed to keep out the hubbub in the halls. The personable atmosphere often helped to put nervous witnesses at ease, making it easier to get them to open up. Brass hoped the office would have the same effect on Jill Wooten. A box of tissues waited atop the desk, in case she broke down again.
“No problem. Trust me, I want to get this whole mess straightened out more than anyone.” Jill occupied a comfortable chair across from Brass. Five days later, she did not appear quite as shell-shocked as she had been on the night of the shooting, but she was still visibly under strain. Dark circles under her eyes hinted that she had not been sleeping well. A loose white cardigan and mid-length green dress were less sexy than the outfit she had worn to her interview at WaxWorkZ. She looked like she was dressed for jury duty, not a hostess job. “Besides, you said you might be able to help me out on the gun charges.”
“I can’t make any promises,” he said. “But your cooperation will definitely be taken into account.”
Jill nodded. “I guess that’s the best I can hope for, under the circumstances. I know I should have gotten the gun registered and all, but it just seemed easier and faster to skip all the paperwork and checks. I was scared of Craig, you know? I didn’t feel safe.”
“We’ve met Mr. Gonch,” Catherine told her. She sat next to Jill, in one of the guest chairs. “We understand.”
“But you know,” Jill said defensively, “I tried to be a responsible gun owner. I kept it locked up under my bed. In a metal lockbox.”
“Except for the night in question,” Brass observed.
“Yeah,” she admitted glumly. She braced herself to go over the traumatic experience one more time. “What else do you need to know?”
“We’re still looking into the events leading up to the shooting,” Brass began. Jill flinched at the word shooting, and he felt another twinge of sympathy for the poor girl. Not a day went by that he didn’t think of Officer Martin Bell. He suspected that Jill would never forget Matt Novak’s dying moments, even if it really had been a case of mistaken self-defense.
“Events?” she asked. “Like what?”
Brass clamped down on his emotions. He couldn’t permit himself to identify with Jill too much, not while she was still a suspect in a possible case of premeditated murder. “You know, how you ended up on the show, those suspicious phone calls, etcetera.”
“But I told you,” Jill said, “I’m pretty sure Craig made those phone calls.”
“Actually, it looks like Mr. Gonch is in the clear,” Brass informed her. The manager at Headlights had confirmed that Gonch had been on the phone to him at the same time that Jill had received that last call. Seems Gonch had been trying to scrounge up some more work handing out flyers on the Strip, and had pestered the manager about it for nearly twenty minutes. “We looked into it, and it appears he didn’t make those calls to you.”
He didn’t mention Gonch’s new girlfriend.
“Really?” Jill appeared puzzled by the revelation. “Are you sure?”
Catherine backed Brass up. “The evidence suggests that Craig had nothing to do with it.”
“But . . . who else could it be?”
“That’s what we’re trying to find out.” Brass pushed the interview in another direction. “What about Roger Park, the producer of the TV show? Did you have any contact with him prior to the other night?” After thinking it over, they had decided to postpone interrogating Park for the time being. Until they had a better case against him, it was probably best not to let the producer know he was under suspicion. Tipping their hand too early would just encourage him to lawyer up.
“No,” Jill insisted. “I’d never met any of those people before. I thought I was going to a job interview, remember? Not an audition.”
“Are you certain?” Catherine asked gently, woman to woman. “If there was something going on between you and Park, we really need to know about it.”
Brass regretted having to go down this road, especially if Jill really was a
n innocent pawn in all of this, but the question needed to be asked. An aspiring model, a sleazy Hollywood producer, he mused. I’d be slipping if I didn’t check to see if those pieces fit together.
“Are you kidding? How can you even think that?” Her voice grew shrill. “I didn’t even know Park’s name until I heard it on the news later on. I keep telling you, I didn’t know anything about that goddamn show. That was all Debra’s idea. She’s the one who got me into this mess, that sneaky, two-faced cow.”
It was obvious that Jill was still holding a grudge against her former roommate. Brass wanted to know just how deep the bad blood between them ran. “And why would she do a thing like that?”
“Because she’s a jealous little bitch,” Jill said bitterly. She shook her head in disgust. “Damn it, I knew it was a mistake letting her back into my life.”
“I don’t understand,” Catherine said. “I thought you were friends.” Like sisters, Debra had said.
“Maybe at first,” Jill conceded. “Back when we started out as roommates. But things went sour pretty fast.”
“What was the problem?” Catherine asked.
“Honestly, I think she just couldn’t get over the fact that guys always liked me better. I mean, you’ve met her, right? She’s cute enough, I guess, in a nerdy sort of way, but when we were out together, I naturally got more attention than her.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t deliberately trying to up-stage her or anything, but you know how guys are. A girl like Debra’s not going to be their first choice. And I think it really got to her after a while.”
Brass could see it. Jill was a statuesque redheaded model. Debra was a brainy type who wrote ad copy for a living. He could guess which woman had her pick of the guys.
“So what happened?” he prompted.
“It just got to be too much,” Jill said. “We had a big falling-out and I asked her to find someplace else to live. We didn’t see each other at all for nearly a year. Then, a few weeks ago, she friended me on Facebook. Stupid me, I figured why not? I thought she was ready to make up.” Her face and voice hardened. “I should have known better than to trust her again. She’s still the same backstabbing jerk she always was, even with her phony new smile.”
Catherine’s eyes widened slightly. She leaned in toward Jill. “New smile?”
“Yeah. Deb used to have some seriously crooked teeth, before she got them fixed.” Jill snickered derisively. “You should have seen her before. She looked like an overgrown chipmunk.”
Catherine nodded. Brass could tell she was onto something. “She got braces? With elastics?”
“The whole nine yards,” Jill said. “Which didn’t exactly help her mood, you know. If anything, they just made her bitchier and more touchy about her looks. And those elastics . . .” Jill rolled her eyes. “They used to get everywhere.”
“So I hear,” Catherine said dryly.
Brass was curious to hear what the CSI was up to. Clearly, there was some significance to Debra’s orthodontic improvements, beyond them being one more reason for Debra to resent Jill’s photogenic smile. He looked forward to picking Catherine’s brain in private.
But he wasn’t done with Jill yet.
“Did Debra know about the gun?” he asked.
“I guess so,” Jill said. “She was around for some of that bullshit with Craig.” Her face flushed with anger as she put two and two together. “Oh my God, that bitch! She knew I had the gun, but she still set me up for that show!” Her fists clenched at her sides; if Jill had been bitter about the hoax before, she was positively livid now. “I’m going to kill her!”
Brass remembered the way she had lunged at Debra outside the makeup trailer. The redhead’s fiery temper clearly lived up to the cliché.
“A word of advice,” he counseled her. “That’s probably not the kind of thing you want to say in front of a police officer.”
Remembering where she was, and who she was talking to, Jill stopped and clapped a hand over her mouth. Her florid complexion subsided as she got her temper under control. “Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly. “You know I wasn’t serious, right? About killing her?” She tried to dig herself out of trouble. “You’ve got to understand, I’m just so angry about this whole thing. And the more I think about it, the more pissed off I get. I mean, how could she put me in that position, knowing everything I’ve been through? Do you think she did it on purpose? Seriously?”
“That remains to be determined,” Brass said, declining to fan the flames of Jill’s suspicions. Instead he issued her a stern warning. “You probably ought to stay away from Ms. Lusky for the time being. Don’t reach out to her, don’t talk to her, and don’t even think about trying to get even. Let us handle this, okay?”
Jill seemed to get the message. “All right.” She glanced at the door, like she was having second thoughts about coming in for this interview. “Are we almost through here? I’m not sure what else I can tell you that you don’t already know.”
“We’re not quite done yet,” Brass told her. He moved on to the next topic. “About those threatening calls, have you gotten any more of them since the incident?”
To spare her feelings, he avoided the word shooting this time.
“No, actually,” she said with a touch of surprise in her voice, as though it hadn’t occurred to her before. “In all this awfulness, I hadn’t realized . . . there hasn’t been a call since that night.” Confused, she searched Brass’s stony face for answers. “Does that mean something?”
“Maybe,” he admitted. The fact that the calls had ceased after the Shock Treatment tragedy suggested a connection between the two events. Perhaps the mystery calls had stopped because they’d served their purpose?
Now that Matt Novak was dead . . .
“Of course, now I’m being pestered night and day by TV reporters and the tabloids,” Jill said glumly. “All wanting the inside scoop on what happened that night. Like I really want to talk about that twenty-four hours a day.”
The thought crossed Brass’s mind briefly that Jill might have conspired to take part in the shooting for the publicity, perhaps as part of a crazed plan to boost her stalled modeling career, but that struck him as a long shot even for Vegas. At least so far, Jill didn’t seem to be in any hurry to capitalize on her newfound notoriety. If anything, she sounded like she just wanted the whole scandal to go away.
I’ve been there, he thought.
“I think we’re almost done here,” he informed her. He glanced across the desk at Catherine to see if she had any more questions. “Catherine?”
“Just one more thing.” A sly smile came over the CSI’s face. She turned to face Jill. “What’s your Facebook password?”
“‘TopModel#1’?” Brass scratched his head. “Seriously, that’s her password?”
“Don’t complain,” Catherine said. “Just be glad that she coughed it up readily enough, and that she hasn’t gotten around to unfriending Debra Lusky yet.”
Jill had been sent on her way, leaving Catherine and Brass alone in her office. The cop looked over Catherine’s shoulder as she commandeered his seat and laptop to pursue a hunch. Logging in as Jill, she quickly made her way to Debra’s Facebook profile– and a gallery of old photos.
“Bingo,” Catherine murmured.
Sure enough, a number of old vacation photos depicted Debra wearing a full set of braces. There was even a shot of Debra and Jill together, posing atop the Stratosphere Tower at the north end of the Strip. The metal braces glinted in the bright desert sunlight. Catherine could barely make out the accompanying elastics, but she was sure they were there. A pair of glasses implied that Debra had not yet resorted to contact lenses or laser surgery. Premakeover, she definitely came in second to Jill where looks were concerned. Catherine wondered if that had really bothered Debra as much as Jill had maintained. The two women certainly looked like friends in the snapshot.
“Taken during happier times,” Brass assumed.
“Appa
rently,” Catherine agreed. “But check out those braces on Debra. Greg and I found the same kind of elastics scattered around Roger Park’s luxury trailer-slash-love nest. I’m guessing that Debra and Park have known each other for much longer than they have let on.”
“Long enough to conspire to kill Matt Novak?”
“And get back at Jill at the same time,” Catherine speculated. “Settling two scores with one unfortunate ‘misunderstanding.’”
“Possible,” Brass said. “Nasty, but possible.”
Was Debra capable of such a heartless stunt? Catherine decided Jill’s number-one frenemy deserved a closer look. Noting a link to Debra’s personal web page, she clicked over to check it out.
A dark violet background, adorned with black orchids, betrayed a more gothic side to the seemingly innocuous copywriter, as well as more literary ambitions. Catherine skimmed the website, surfing through pages and pages of purple poetry and prose written in flowery cursive type. “Looks like Debra fancies herself an author of sorts . . . of more than advertising copy, that is.”
“What?” Brass asked sarcastically. “Hyping new brands of toothpaste doesn’t satisfy her creatively?”
“Yeah. Imagine that.” Catherine scrolled through Debra’s online literary output. “Hmm. She seems to have a distinct taste for the macabre. Get a load of some of these titles. Ode to a Demon Lover. Graveyard Tryst. Deliver Me to Evil. . . .”
Brass rolled his eyes. “Slasher movies. Shock Treatment. Creepy poetry. Doesn’t anybody just watch sports anymore?”
“Debra doesn’t look like much of an ESPN fan to me,” Catherine said. “But, judging from this, she might be the kind of girl who would be into playing trick-or-treat in bed.”
She mentally compared Debra’s photos to the unnamed zombie girl in the sex video. A biometric comparison of the Shock Treatment footage and the sex tape, conducted by Archie, had confirmed that Jill was not the woman in the zombie mask, but Debra . . . ? It could be her, Catherine thought. Under the mask.
Brass nodded. “I think we need to have another talk with Ms. Lusky.”