The Pinch of Death – a mystery by Alysse Aallyn

Chapter 32. A Brass Ass

As scrub pine gave way to hot dog stands Jacquetta wondered if she should try to talk about last night. It didn’t change anything, and in the morning she had been grateful he didn’t mention it. But now she worried: wouldn’t he think it DID change things? Should she say something and if so, what?

But everything was so up in the air. Part of me was killed with Honey, Jacquetta realized. Funny that she’d never realized they were Siamese twins; mentally and physically connected. Was that true of every relationship? The force of what Nelson had said about bereavement hit her with double power. He said he’d “lost everything.” If so: what was left for her? And how to find out? She wished she’d had the emotional strength to reject his proffered body, but she never had, and she knew perfectly well that was why she had left her job.

Could Nelson be right that she’d contemplated the monastic life just to hide from men and their dangerous allure? She knew what Mother Xavier would say about it; only one way to find out. Ask God.

“Desperado,” Nelson was counting the bars. “Cotton Candy. Brass Ass. There it is.”

At this hour the neon sign depicting the backside of a naked woman aboard a kicking mule wasn’t lit, but the marquee said “Miss Roxelle Shields Appearing Nitely.” From the plethora of parking spaces Nelson chose the one nearest the door. The green vinyl padded door wasn’t locked but the bar was dark.

A bartender was setting up beneath a single spot. He barely looked at them.
“We’re closed.”

“We’re here to interview Miss Shields?” Nelson sounded tentative even to Jacquetta’s ears.

Barman couldn’t have cared less. “Around back.”

Nelson unlocked the car and opened the door.

“You’re using the car to go around back?” Jacquetta questioned.

“Who knows how safe it is back there?” Nelson shrugged.

Wow thought Jacquetta. I never would have thought of that. I need this guy.

“Around back” was a dumpster and a green Corvette. It didn’t appear unsafe.

There was a locked door labeled “Authorized Personnel Only” and “It is a State Crime to block or prop this exit.” Nelson hammered on the battered metal with his fist.

A man wearing a three piece suit a size too small stuck out his balding head. Nelson, who’d had an opportunity to get his story together, flashed his press card.

“We’re here to interview Miss Shields.”

The man took the card and held the door open. The woman behind him was short but her high-heeled boots made up for it. Her white-lace minidress was red-lit by the lights.

“TriCity News Service,” read the man.

Nelson took back his card.

Roxelle put her hands on her hips. “Woman’s Day looking for my recipe for sausage paprikash?” she asked. “Or are your readers wondering what a nice girl like me is doing in a place like this?”

“We’ve got a press release in the office,” said the man helpfully. “I’m her manager.” When he turned around Jacquetta saw he’d drawn his three strands of hair into an unkempt ponytail. He opened the door to a tiny room that seemed to double as a storage space for industrial-sized jars of marinara sauce and cleaning fluid.

Roxelle sat behind the desk, her manager perched unsafely a single buttock on the desk’s edge and Nelson gestured for Jacquetta to take the only chair. It seemed like a good idea as at least some insurance against being thrown out.

“Get me some more bute, Clint,” Roxelle asked, putting one leg up on the desk and unzipping her boot. “You can tell your readers stripping’s hell on the knees.”

“It’s the high heels,” said the manager, producing a syringe kit. “Miss Shields doesn’t get on her knees for anybody.”

“Not anymore,” said Roxelle, her teeth chattering as the needle went in. Under these lights her skin seemed strangely matte white, but her black eyes were old. Impossible mounds of blue-black hair poured down her back. It made Jacquetta’s head hurt to think of trying to hold up so much hair. The manager rummaged in a briefcase for paper.

“So what do your readers want to know?” she asked, relaxing back in the brass-studded captain’s chair. In a sing-song voice she teased, “I was born a poor little gypsy girl in a tiny town in upstate New York.”

Jacquetta had a brainwave. “Devil’s Elbow?”

The shock was palpable. The manager dropped the briefcase in his haste to open the door and usher them out.

“We’re researching the Kleinemann-Lundt case,” said Nelson. Roxelle’s eyes filled with tears.

“Have you found my baby girl?”

“Baby girl?” asked Jacquetta. “I thought you were sisters.”

The manager dumped Jacquetta out of her chair but she resisted ejection. The two women looked at each other; Jacquetta’s flushed skin facing Roxelle’s hard Chinese mask.

“I was only twelve years old,” said Roxelle. “What’s she done now?”

“She’s been sending anonymous letters to people,” said Jacquetta. Now it all made sense. “She rented a love nest in your name.”

“Out! Out!”

There was an unbecoming moment of full-body wrestling with Clint the Manager before the stage door slammed behind them.