“Not anybody we love?”
Temple shook her head, still trying to catch her breath. “Somebody we know and don’t love, which is worse.”
Van was perplexed. “How can that be worse?”
“It’s a murder victim, and I, for one, found him a murder-deserving individual. We could be suspects.”
Van sat in her channeled white leather executive chair. “Us? All? Suspects?”
“Especially the family Fontana.”
Van shook her head and exhaled a hushed “Nooo.” She looked up. “All right, what can we do about it?”
“You don’t want to know who the victim is?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me when you sit down and catch your breath.”
“Santiago,” Temple said as she did so, “the Phoenix’s Chunnel of Crime designer, personally hired by your husband, Nicky, and suspect for the Cosimo Sparks murder in that very locale.”
“Santiago? Was he still hanging around town?”
“Evidently. That international architectural superstar seemed phony from the get-go. He and Sparks may have planned some shady scheme that kept Santiago here, even under suspicion.”
“The police didn’t have enough evidence to hold him. Oh, if only he’d skedaddled out of the country as fast as he could, Temple! We didn’t have to murder him, we fired him. Given his larger-than-life personality, I’m sure his murder would be spec-tac-u-lar.”
“It was. He’s tabloid news now.”
Van looked puzzled. “Nothing in town has been tabloid headlines lately except that loony UFO dustup on Paradise.… Oh, no!” Van thumped a fist on her glass desktop. “You’re telling me the purported ancient astronaut deposited on ground zero at that loopy UFO project on Paradise was our Santiago? How can you ID him? Wasn’t that man nude?”
“I assume Santiago was capable of that state.”
“And why was he there?”
“He was consulting on the UFO project.”
“Of course. His kind of scam.” Van rested her paler face on her pale hand. “We’ve taken his name off all the publicity for the Phoenix–Gangsters Chunnel of Crime once he was suspected of murder. Isn’t that enough?”
“I’m afraid people—and especially media people—will remember what, and who, brought him to Las Vegas. We need to create a short but sufficiently vague press release saying Santiago had consulted on remodeling projects at the Crystal Phoenix but that position is over and so was all contact with him.”
Van nodded through Temple’s presentation, still stunned.
“And, Van, luckily I’m in place to control the Phoenix link from the other end too.”
“What other end, Temple?”
“Ah, the place on Paradise.”
“You don’t have anything to do with that UFO nuttiness?”
“Don’t I wish.”
“You do! What would make you take on such a flaky client? A supposedly invisible building with a spaceship restaurant on the top?”
“I didn’t really take it on. Officially. I had just started talks with Deja View Associates when the first corpse on the site was found.”
“What?” Van was livid with shock, almost as livid as … a corpse.
“The death didn’t happen there,” Temple assured her. “The police are pretty sure. The site was just used as a body dump.”
“‘Pretty sure’? ‘Just used as a body dump’? And now a second body has been dumped, one associated with the Phoenix. I’m not at all happy about that, Temple.”
Van was amping up her Ice Queen act. She ran a Strip hotel-casino and could take the heat … and dish it out in that icy Devil Wears Prada fashion Meryl Streep had mastered for the film.
“I understand, Van. That’s why I have Plan B.”
“What was Plan A? That whizzed past me.”
“The press release. Believe me, the Area Fifty-four concept and site are so wacky that they’ll get all the ink and pixels and mass digital recordings. What I need to know is how much background research you did on Santiago after Nicky hired him.”
“Temple, you think I’d second-guess my devoted husband and the hotel owner like that?”
“Absolutely. I would. Nicky is a doll and sharp as a nail gun, but he can get overenthusiastic about over-the-top schemes. He thinks that Fontana charm will smooth all roads to Rome.”
Van leaned forward to consult her sleek computer screen. She was Apple all the way. “What do you want to know?”
“Santiago wasn’t born an international phenom. Where’d he come from?”
“This was tough to find out. My father was a European hotel manager, so I met many hotel owners as a child. They form a network through the major cities of the world. Luckily, Santiago had consulted for the Ritz-Carlton in his home city before he became internationally known.”
“His doing Vegas projects isn’t that far-fetched,” Temple said, “though I don’t understand why he was still hanging around the Strip after being tainted by the Cosimo Sparks murder.”
“A crime uncovered on our premises,” Van reminded her. “Was that another ‘body dump’ I shouldn’t worry about?”
“We’re lucky that the Crystal Phoenix is too classy to hold public attention. Silas T. Farnum with his invisible hotel and revolving spaceship restaurant makes much better copy. Ordinarily, Santiago’s working for Farnum wouldn’t be that strange. Santiago did have a strong reputation in immersive entertainment and cutting-edge technology and special effects. It was his specialty.”
“Not in the beginning.” Van looked up from her screen. “He actually had a last, middle, and first name, although he hadn’t used it in decades. Carlos MacCarthy. M-a-c, not M-c. That last name’s unusual spelling made it easier to track.”
“His father was Irish? Maybe…”
“Maybe what? There are many mixed Latino-Irish names in South America. Ireland’s always been so poor, her citizens emigrated to survive or thrive.”
“Maybe Santiago took a ‘city’ name because he wanted to hide his origins.”
“I’m sure it was a career decision,” Van said. “Look at John Denver and Rick Springfield. They needed something more memorable.”
“And those two had real last names that were a mouthful. Although ‘MacCarthy’ would be an awkward surname, given Santiago’s strong Central and South American looks.” Particularly, Temple thought to herself, if the father had been devoted to the IRA and Irish liberty. “Thanks for the info, Van, and stay cool,” Temple told her. “I have the inside track with the police on this. In fact, I’ll probably be seeing Lieutenant Molina later.”
Van sighed and kicked off her cream patent leather Cole Hans under her glass-topped desk. “Molina? That’s impressive. Go to it, then.”
Temple left, considering what had always seemed likely: Santiago may have been one of Kathleen O’Connor’s South American sources of funds for the IRA back in the day. Maybe, though, he hadn’t been the usual rich seducee. Maybe he’d been a bankroller who knew about the hidden Las Vegas stash because he’d been a political partner.
There were still people in Ireland who deserved reparations for lives lost in the Troubles. An IRA fanatic might want that money to go to them.
So … had Kitty the Cutter been the other Darth Vader at the Neon Nightmare during Temple’s inadvertent but memorable visit?
Chapter 38
Body Double
“I’ve never thought of the coroner’s office as open twenty-four/seven, like the casinos,” Temple said when she met Lieutenant Molina at the rear entrance where the bodies came in.
“Death doesn’t take a holiday,” Molina answered, looking down disapprovingly at Temple’s Jessica Simpson high heels. “Those will echo in there.”
“As if the dead would complain. We all don’t need to sneak around on moccasins and rubber soles.”
“You manage to sneak around plenty.” Molina eyed the area. The coroner’s van was parked outside the garage area. “It’s the late afternoon shift change. Let’s get inside before some paparazzo decides our visit is worth covering.”