Carol looked over with raised eyebrows. What did he mean telling this chick she wasn’t a possible suspect? Of course, they could lie up a storm as easily as the suspects if they wanted to-and often did. Not Ray so much, though.
“We’re up against such a wall here that I have to wonder if it isn’t something from somewhere else, from out of town.”
“What do you mean?” Erica was engaged again. The quills were laid back flat.
“Las Vegas or maybe Laughlin comes to mind. Maybe she crossed someone? There was some gambling.”
“Not a chance. Deanna didn’t gamble that much. Just slots. Lakisha and I play some cards. No…Dee just wanted to go to shows.”
“No troubles in Mexico? It can get pretty wild down there.” Ray was guessing at that. He’d never been south of the border in his life.
“Mexico was actually pretty tame. We did the beach thing a lot. We snorkeled and some of us even went scuba diving. The instructions were pretty basic. We didn’t go very deep.”
“But it’s a tourist town. No nightlife?”
“Two words, detective: cruise ships. Jesus, they’d dock in the morning and spew thousands of people out into the streets. And not just one ship at a time. The bars were so crammed at night you couldn’t turn around.”
“I see.” He paid attention to his pad for a few seconds. “Then there was LA.”
“Then there was LA,” Erika sighed. If Ray hadn’t known better he would have said he’d heard an audible click right then. He felt a dramatic change in her tone. “Some of us had more fun in LA than others.”
“Trouble?” It looked to Ray like she was trying to make up her mind to tell tales. He hoped she would.
“Shopping. Rodeo Drive. Beverly Hills. Some of us work for a living. Some of us can’t afford Hermes and Prada and fucking Gucci.”
“You were jealous of each other’s money? Of Deanna’s Visa Card?” Ray winced when Carol said that. Erika Hilgendorff turned her head in Carol’s direction slowly but she was clearly addressing Ray.
“We take these trips for different reasons. Deanna just wanted to have fun, see new things and do new things. Lakisha always seems to be on a mission to bankrupt Mr. Marland. Roxie gets to drink without having Ken on her ass about it. Karen just wants to get some breathing room. Let her hair down. Me, I just want to hang with my friends. A lot like Deanna did.” She turned back to Ray.
“I’m the only single one in the group, well…except Ally. I think LA was my last trip though. With Deanna’s death we may not ever go again anyway. It’s hard to explain.” She shot a quick glare in Carol’s direction. “It isn’t all about the money.”
Finally! Ray cheered silently…some friction!
“Since I’m the only single one, some of the ladies in the group have been taking it on themselves to get me laid. They wouldn’t dare do it themselves. Deanna was Snow White. She never pushed, but Karen and Roxie are getting to be a pain in the ass. Like, they do all this flirting and egging guys on and then turn ’em loose on me.”
Ray nodded, pretending to understand what she meant. “That could be awkward, I suppose.”
“Damn straight it is. Christ, one night…the last night in LA they roped me into going to this strip club with them.”
“Strip club?”
“In Los Angeles they have strip clubs for women, Detective Bankston. You don’t get out much, do you?”
She didn’t mean it as an insult and sort of laughed the comment off. Ray was a little stung by it though. He’d gotten out plenty, maybe not so much the last few years, but he’d been a regular at the Motown Studio in Detroit since the late 70’s. He’d spent time in the clubs in Chicago and St. Louis. He’d sung in Memphis for the gang at Stax records…not really his thing, but he knew some of the session players. What did this chick know about Rafe Bankston? He kept the emotion off his face. He was working. She was talking.
“It was disgusting. I was thinking maybe we’d see some hunky guys like the Chippendales, but noooo. They had guys on stage with their wangs out, with erections, and women would go up on stage and…it was disgusting.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “Karen almost dragged me up there. She tried to. To tell you the truth, Detective, I think she wanted to jump up there and blow one of those guys, but she was too chicken.” Ray was caught without a response to what she said. That didn’t happen often. Carol stepped right in.
“Get out! I’ve heard about those places but I never thought they were real.” Carol’s regular gig for years had been in the Sex Crimes Unit. She knew all about those places. She’d seen the videos too often, snatches of them at least.
“They’re real…real sicko.”
“What did you do?”
“I got the hell out of there. Dee and I grabbed Karen and Roxie. Rox was so shit faced I don’t think she knew what she was doing. That was it. We were out of there.”
Ray had another question. “Was Lakisha Marland there that night?”
“Sure.” Erica turned to look at him. “She was strange that night. She wasn’t one of them egging me on, she never does that, but she was taking in the whole thing like it was some kind of bizarre movie to her. That’s what she said later. It was like a surreal movie.”
“You were angry with Karen?”
“God damn right I was,” Erica huffed.
“Were you angry with Deanna?”
“Hell no.”
“Because she was helping you get out…get them out of there?”
“That’s right.”
“How’s your relationship with Karen Hewes now?”
“That doesn’t have anything to do with Deanna’s murder. I don’t have a problem with Karen. Deanna didn’t have an ongoing issue with Karen either, if that’s what you’re implying. They were best friends-best friends long before we started this running around the country on trips.”
Ray held his hands up in mock surrender to Erika’s agitation. “I’m sorry if you took it that way. I wasn’t trying to imply anything.”
“Have you met Karen yet?”
“Not yet.”
“When you do you’ll meet Gary, too. There’s a reason Karen goes a little over the top when she can.”
“Gary?”
“Karen’s husband?” Carol asked. Erika nodded, looking away…looking grim.
“What’s he like?” Ray asked. Erika barked out a harsh laugh, one of those with no humor in it.
“You’ll meet him. It’s not for me to say.”
“Could he and Mrs. Fredrickson have been involved?” There was that look again, the one that made you sorry you’d spoken. The one that would make you think twice before asking another stupid question.
“Do you want my fingerprints now?” Erika was done with them. Lakisha would have told her about the fingerprints. It was funny. She was almost eager to give them up.
“I’ve never been fingerprinted before,” she said.
Ray and Carol rode in silence for a while before Carol offered an observation. “That is one tough chick.”
Ray didn’t completely agree. “It was an interesting interview. Frankly, I’m getting a little tired of the Deanna Fredrickson admiration society.”
“C’mon, you were a little titillated, weren’t you?” Carol was driving. They were heading toward Edina and the law offices of Allyson Couts, Attorney at Law.
“Intrigued. Nobody just walks in off the street and sticks a knife in Snow White. Deanna knew her killer.” Ray reminded her.
“Which might mean the other ‘Go Girls’ know the killer too.”
“Which also might mean one of the ‘Go Girls’ is the killer.”
“Don’t you just love a mystery, Ray?” He thought about it for a while before answering. He missed his cigarettes at times like these. He was jealous of Carol and her Marlboro Lights.