Cedric Williams A.K.A. WMD looked pretty much the way she thought he’d look. There was the shaved head, the earring, the mustache and the hennaed goatee—two thin lines of fire ants trickling down either side of his mouth, looping down to net his jaw. Very GQ. His suit was a cross between tan and buff in color, his shirt cream-colored. The kerchief folded to a perfect triangle in his suit pocket was pastel salmon. Diamond-encrusted rings, a watch that had to cost in the tens of thousands. Yet it was understated enough not to be ostentatious.

He led them down a short hallway past a supply room that looked as ugly as any auto supply room—fluorescent lighting, rows and rows of parts, the smell of rubber and grease. They reached a closed door at the end of the hallway. He slid a card in the door alarm and they stepped into a wonderland. The first thing Laura noticed was a fountain in the center of the room. The place looked a little like Caesar’s Palace if Caesar’s Palace had a low ceiling. There were statues and palm trees growing in pots, and a desk that you could command the Starship Enterprise from.

“Plush,” Anthony said. Laura knew he was seeing a stage set for one of his screenplays.

Cedric Williams sat down behind his desk and nodded for them to sit. The chairs were gorgeous like the rest of the place, and comfortable besides.

“You want to know about Aurora?” He picked up a gold letter opener and ran it around in his fingers. His manicure was perfect. Laura didn’t bother with manicures, but she knew it was perfect anyway.

“That girl is a sad case. I told her she had a problem, but she didn’t listen to me.” He shook his head, his face a monument to regret. “But she couldn’t kick it.”

“She did your books?”

“She had the title, but I kept her around mostly because she was hot. People come here, they like something good to look at.” He smoothed his goatee, looked thoughtful. Laura suspected he did this a lot. “Where you find her?”

“In Arizona.”

“Arizona? Went to see Delmar, then, that it?”

“Delmar?”

“She had herself what you’d call a hot and heavy relationship. Before she came out here. That was a long time ago.” He looked up at the ceiling. “Five, six maybe? I bet she got homesick. How she doing?”

“She’s dead.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” His smile turned upside down. Laura could tell it was just for show. Aurora didn’t mean anything to him, and he was letting her know that. He added, “Now that’s a shame.”

“Aren’t you curious what happened to her?”

He shrugged, and Laura couldn’t help but be impressed by the cut of the shoulders on that suit. “I would guess she came to a bad end.”

“She did.”

He sat back in his expensive leather chair, tapping the tip of the letter opener against the expensive wood of his desk. He looked thoughtful. “How did she shuffle off this mortal coil?” he asked.

“Violently.”

His eyes widened, but his face remained immobile. “Someone killed her?”

“You think someone wanted to kill her?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me. Girl could get under your skin. I bet you know the kind. Who was she with again?”

“I didn’t say she was with anybody.”

“I bet I know. It was that white guy, am I right?”

“White guy?”

“After she quit here, I ran into her on the Strip—she was with this white guy, looked like a pussy faggot to me, you know what I mean? She said he was an accountant.” Shook his head sadly. “Man, what a suckup. He wanted to impress me. Maybe she told him stories about some of the good times. Looked to me like he was comparing shoe sizes, right there. You know what I’m sayin’?” His smile suddenly went away, and his face was hard. “She messed up, that’s all you need to know. An’ now look where she’s at. Six feet under.”

Laura called Detective Greg Wyland in Winslow. “Do you know of anyone named Delmar, last name unknown. He might have been a friend of Aurora Johnson’s—the reason she went to Winslow.”

“That name sounds familiar. Let me check my records and get back to you.”

It didn’t take long. “Delmar Jones was a small-time drug dealer who got himself killed eight months ago.”

“How did he die? Was it a drug deal?”

“Nope. It was an accidental death. He was drunk and on a ton of drugs and walked right into the path of a train coming through.”

“You’re sure it was an accident?”

“The guy who investigated is pretty damn sure.”

Good enough for her.

From Cedric’s palatial office they plied the other side of the street—Sean Perrin’s place of work. He was an accountant for a swimming pool supply company. He had nothing to do with the casinos.

They spoke to the manager Ahmad Zohar, a soft-looking man who appeared to be in shock. “I couldn’t believe when he left. He didn’t say anything, just didn’t come in one day. I called his house, I called his cell. It was like he vanished.”

“He never let you know why?”

“A couple of days later he called. He said he was ‘on the run’. He was always talking that way about stuff—his nickname around here was Secret Agent Man—but this time he did sound scared.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“Said he was helping ‘a damsel in distress’. Yeah, I know. But that’s how he talked some times. Kind of . . . courtly. He told a lot of stories. So he’s really dead? Maybe he actually was on the run.”

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, except he gave me the place to send his last paycheck to. In Arizona.” He dug through the files. “Ah, here it is. 14509 Candelaria Way, Tucson, Arizona.”

Laura looked at Anthony. “You think this is his sister’s house?”

“Could be.”

“So maybe he planned to go see her after all.”

Laura asked Mr. Zohar if Sean Perrin had ever mentioned a sister.

“Yeah, he told me she was loaded.”

“Loaded?”

“He told me she had a lot of money and a deadbeat husband.”

“Anything else?”

“He said he was worried because he tried to kill her once.”

“The husband?”

“Yeah. On a cruise, he said. Poisoned her food.”

Anthony cleared his throat. Laura knew what he was thinking: Another lie from Sean Perrin. Considering the problems cruise ships had been having of late, it was far more likely Ruby would have succumbed to a bad case of food poisoning.

“Did he say why?” Laura asked.

“I got the impression the husband didn’t want to wait around for her to die so he could inherit all her money.”

Laura pictured Ruby Ballantine at her store on 4th Avenue. She didn’t look rich to her. She wore clothes you’d buy at Kohl's. Laura knew, because she bought at Kohl's.

“Yeah,” Mr. Zohar was saying. “I would’ve loved to get a load of a sister of his. He said she was very athletic. If she looks anything like his wife and children . . . Are they all right?”

“Yes,” Laura deadpanned. She assumed they were alive and well, but of course they weren’t his wife and they weren’t his children. No need to tell Mr. Zohar that. She did ask, “Did you ever meet them?”

“Sadly, no. But I saw photos.”

Oh, yes. The photos. Laura smiled and thanked him.

From the look of his apartment, Sean Perrin seemed to be living on a very frayed edge. Most of the other residents were college students living in their first home away from home. The place dated to the seventies, hanging on by its fingernails to the forgotten part of town, several blocks from the Strip. The area was a jumble of pawn stores, dollar stores, and auto repair shops.