"Hell, I doubt it. I happen to know I was their only Vegas client, even in their heyday. And now, hardly anybody buys from Denton anymore…might say they're hanging on by a thread."
He seemed to be waiting for her to laugh; so Sara forced a chuckle, and said, "Please go on, Mr. Wayne."
"I doubt if there's any more of that cut-rate crap in the state, let alone the city."
"Thanks, Mr. Wayne. Would you have the Denton manufacturer's number?"
"I already gave it to that Sgt. O'Riley, and I don't have it at home. Why don't you check with him? He and I went over pretty much the same ground."
Probably including the "hanging by a thread" gag, she thought; but she said, "Well, thank you, Mr. Wayne, you've been very cooperative," which was true.
He said it was his pleasure and they said good-bye and Sara hung up, quickly dialing O'Riley's desk; she got the message machine so she tried his cell, catching him in his car on his way to the aftermath of a convenience store robbery.
"Yeah, I talked to Goldenweave in Denton," O'Riley said. "They didn't sell that carpet to anybody else in Vegas, or even in the southwest. Is that helpful?"
"Could be," she said, thinking about it, the carpet suddenly seeming to Sara like the fabric version of DNA.
Finally feeling a little spring in her step, she bounced over to Greg Sanders in his lab, but found him sitting in a chair by a countertop, not working on anything, not even goofing off with a soft drink or video game or anything…just sort of sitting morosely.
"I was kind of hoping you might have something for me," Sara said from the doorway.
But the spiky-haired lab rat just sat there, as if he hadn't heard her.
She waited for a moment, then said, "Greg? Hello?"
He didn't move.
Finally, she went to him, placing a hand on a shoulder of his blue smock. "Greg, what is it?"
Shaking his head, he looked at her. "This stripper case of yours…I hate it."
"You hate it."
"Can you believe that? A case involving exotic dancers, and I'm longing for a decomposing corpse or maybe another skinned gorilla."
Sara pulled up a chair and sat beside him. "Be specific."
His sigh lifted his whole body and set it down hard. "Okay-you bring me enough raw evidence to fill a warehouse, and yet I get nothing from the prime suspect, but a ton of stuff from all the coworkers. I mean, they've all been in that room…but Lipton? Never. And there's enough DNA in that cubicle to start an entirely new species, only none of it belongs to him."
"What about the roommate?"
Greg turned to look at her, eyes narrowing. "Yeah, I was gonna ask about her."
"Why's that?"
"Well, first understand that there's carpet fibers on the clothes of all those Dream Dolls dancers-any of them, all of them could've been in that private dance cubicle at any time."
"We knew that. What's that got to do with the roommate? Tera Jameson?"
Greg offered her a palm, to accompany the only halfway interesting information he had: "She's got the carpet fibers on her stuff too."
"Hmmm. She's our other good suspect."
Greg brightened. "She is?"
"Yes…but she used to work at Dream Dolls, herself."
"Oh. Her DNA's in the mix, too, by the way."
"Could be the same reason. You get anything from the mattress or the sex toy?"
Another sigh. "Doing that next. I believe this is the first time you've brought me a vibrator."
She smiled a little but, heading for the door, said only, "Don't go there, Greg."
Sanders managed his own little smile, before his expression turned serious as he returned to his work.
Sara, on her way to the office, had the nagging feeling she'd missed something, that the puzzle pieces were all before her now, and she wasn't quite putting them together.
Detective Erin Conroy and Pat Hensley sat on metal folding chairs in the dressing room at Dream Dolls, a few of the dancers in various stages of undress milling about, applying expensive makeup and cheap perfume. Pat's alter ego, Belinda Bountiful, didn't go on for another half hour, and she was relaxing, enjoying a cup of coffee; so was Conroy, keeping it casual, not even taking notes.
Her back to the dressing table, almost plain without makeup, the garishly redheaded Hensley wore a low-cut lime top that shared much of her ample cleavage with the world; her jeans were funkily frayed and form-fitting, and she was barefoot, her toenails blood red. But it was the Dolly Partonesque cleavage that kept attracting Conroy's attention.
Catching this, Belinda said good-naturedly, "If you got it, honey, flaunt it. I paid good money for these and I intend to get a whole lotta mileage out of 'em."
The refreshing bluntness of that made Conroy laugh. Then she said, "We were talking about Tera Jameson."
"Right. What else can I tell you?"
"Is Tera's sexual preference widely known in your circles?"
Hensley shrugged. "She don't advertise it, but she doesn't hide it, neither."
"What about Jenna?"
Hensley sipped her coffee. "She didn't advertise it."
"That she was a lesbian?"
"No. Anyway, like I told that other female dick, the other day-Jenna liked both flavors."
"She was bisexual, you mean."
"Yeah, I said that before. What are you getting at?"
Conroy chose her words carefully. "Another friend of hers claims Jenna was strictly straight."
Hensley smirked. "Couldn't have been somebody who knew Jenna very well."
Conroy sat forward conspiratorially. "What if I told you it was Tera Jameson herself who made that claim?"
"I don't care if Oprah told you: it's a crock. Tera's lying. Why, I have no idea."
"Were Tera and Jenna having an affair?"
"Well, they did have one…"
"Right up to the time of Jenna's murder?"
"No-it was over months ago. They still roomed together, but Jenna told me, in no uncertain terms, that she and Tera were history. Still friends! But history."
"Because of Ray Lipton."
Hensley nodded. "Jenna fell hard for the guy…. You mind if I start putting on my makeup?"
"Not at all."
Hensley turned her back to the detective, began applying her makeup, and talking to Conroy in the mirror. "I can see why Tera didn't like Ray, though."
"Because he stole Jenna away?"
"Well, yeah, I guess, but…"
"Because he was a hothead?"
"That, too-though Lipton was mostly talk. I saw him do stuff like grab Jenna, by the wrists, y'know? But never hit her or anything."
Conroy kept trying. "What else didn't Tera like about Ray Lipton?"
"He looked down on Tera…he was very, what's the word? Provincial in his thinking. To him, it was perversion, girls with girls."
In the dressing room mirror, Pat Hensley was turning into the garishly attractive Belinda Bountiful. Conroy asked, "Pat…Belinda-this is important. Are you sure Jenna and Tera were involved, romantically? Sexually?"
A laugh bubbled out of the stripper. "Oh, yeah-I know for a fact!"
"Are you saying…"
Now the stripper turned and looked at the detective dead on. "Don't spread this around, okay? I got a husband, and two kids. But I work in a kinda bizarre line of business, you might have noticed, and I don't always see things, or do things that…conventional society would put their stamp of approval on."
Knowing the answer, Conroy asked, "How do you know Tera and Jenna were involved, Belinda?"
And Pat was Belinda now, when she said, "'Cause one horny drunken afternoon, girlfriend, I let the two of 'em make a Belinda Bountiful sandwich…that's how I know."
Taking a long swig from her coffee, Detective Erin Conroy smiled.
"You like our Dream Dolls coffee, huh? It's not bad, for a dive."