“What kind of panels?”
The panel entitled “Murder and How to Get Away with It” had been top on my list of must-sees. The room had been packed—standing room only. I had also enjoyed the interview session with the author of The Poisoner’s Handbook, which turned out to be less of a how-to book and more of a history of the birth of forensic science. I attended both of those, but the thing about Bouchercon is, there’s no official sign-up sheet for any of the panels or events. They give you a list of the programs and then you attend the ones that interest you. Once you show up, if there’s enough space, you sit. Otherwise, you stand or go somewhere else. It occurred to me that, under the circumstances, I probably shouldn’t mention my having attended the panel about getting away with murder.
“I went to several panels,” I said, ticking them off one by one. “ ‘Agents: Why You Need One,’ ‘Is Traditional Publishing Dead?’ ‘How to Win the E-book Wars,’ ‘Humor and Murder Do Mix,’ that sort of thing.”
“Which hotel?”
“The convention was at the Bohemian on the far end of the Strip,” I said. “By the time I signed up, I was too late to get the convention price there, so I stayed at the Talisman a few blocks away. One of my customers had recommended it and given me a coupon for one free night.”
“Anyone with you on this trip who could verify your whereabouts on the evening in question? Girlfriend maybe, or maybe a gal pal you picked up somewhere along the way?”
I knew what he meant. Jamison was wondering if I had picked up a hooker to keep me company. I hadn’t.
“I went by myself,” I told him. “Drove up on Friday evening, came back late Sunday afternoon, with no gal pals in the mix at all.”
“You drove across Hoover Dam?”
I nodded. Ever since 9/11, they’ve installed all kinds of security on that road, along with plenty of surveillance cameras, too. If someone went to the trouble of checking the tapes, they’d be able to find me eventually, creeping along in the miserable traffic and driving back and forth in my old beater Honda all by my lonesome. Some day they’ll open up that new bridge they’re working on—a bridge that crosses the whole canyon. Until they do, crossing the Colorado River at Hoover Dam takes for-damn-ever.
“You said you stayed at the Talisman?”
Recalling the place, I cringed. My customer’s idea of “great” and mine don’t exactly jibe. The Talisman isn’t a hotel I’ll be visiting again any time soon.
“Yes,” I answered. “It’s a few blocks off the Strip, which means it’s less expensive, but it was also close enough for me to walk back and forth to the convention. That way I didn’t have to pay for parking.”
“Do you remember which room you were in?”
“Do you remember hotel numbers weeks after you check out?”
He shook his head. “No,” he said. “I suppose not.”
“Me, neither,” I told him. “Check with the desk. They’ll be able to tell you which room I was in. The Talisman is a low-rise hotel. My room was on the second floor, with the swimming pool down below.”
“How much did you lose?” Jamison asked.
“I didn’t lose,” I said. “I went to a convention. I don’t gamble in Vegas. The house always wins.”
“I mean, how much did you lose when your wife left you?”
“Oh, that,” I said. “I lost everything.”
And that was the simple truth. I’d had a restaurant off Michigan Avenue. It was called Uptown. At the time, it was a going concern. I had money in the bank, a cool condo close to downtown, and a sizable retirement account. Faith and I also had cars—a late model BMW for me and a Volvo for her. Taken altogether, it added up to more than a mil, including the equity in the condo. When Faith took off with the goods, there wasn’t ever any hope of my getting it back. If she and Rick had deposited the money in a bank somewhere, maybe I might have stood a chance of recovering some of it. Instead, it all went up in smoke—literally. It doesn’t take long to go through that kind of money when you and your druggie pals are all doing cocaine.
“So how’d it happen?” Jamison asked.
He didn’t say, How could you be so stupid? He didn’t have to. I’ve said it to myself countless times, but I never saw it coming. Not at all.
I took a deep breath before I answered, remembering back to the first day I ever laid eyes on her.