“Sure, of course, what do you want to know? The Sayers-Piccolo number was usually the opening act for Countess Allison Beth Weiss IV, better known as Jewish Royalty. Her act—get this—was called ‘Tell Mom It’s Kosher.’ You’ve probably heard of it.”
A waft of banana bread was reaching them down here. The smell was wonderful, even in this appetite-reducing atmosphere. Loren tried to get Friedman back on track. “I mean anything else about Candace Potter. Anything that can illuminate what happened to her.”
Friedman shrugged. “She and Kimmy Dale were not only dance partners but also real-life roommates. In fact, Kimmy Dale paid for the funeral to save Candi from—pardon the unintentional pun here—a potter’s grave. Candi is buried at Holy Mother in Coaldale, I think. I’ve visited the tombstone to pay my respects. It’s quite a moving experience.”
“I bet. Do you keep track of what happens to exotic dancers after they leave the business?”
“Of course,” he said, as if she’d asked a priest if he ever went to Mass. “That’s often the most interesting part. You wouldn’t believe the variety of life roads they take.”
“Right, so what happened to this Kimmy Dale?”
“She’s still in the business. A true warhorse. She no longer has the looks. She’s—again pardon the unintentional pun—slid down the pole, if you will. The headline days are over. But Kimmy still has a small following. What she loses in not being, say, toned or hard-bodied she makes up for in experience. She’s out of Vegas though.”
“Where is she?”
“Reno, last I heard.”
“Anything else?”
“Not really,” Friedman said. Then he snapped his fingers. “Hold on, I have something to show you. I’m quite proud of this.”
They waited. Len Friedman had three tall file cabinets in the corner. He opened the second drawer of the middle one and began to finger through it. “The Piccolo and Sayers act. This is a rare piece and it’s only a color reproduction off a Polaroid. I’d really like to find more.” He cleared his throat as he continued his search. “Do you think, Investigator Muse, that I could get a copy of that autopsy?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“It would really add to my studies.”
“Studies. Right.”
“Here it is.” He took out a photograph and placed it on the table in front of them. Yates looked at it and nodded. He turned to Loren and saw the expression on her face.
“What?” Yates said.
Friedman added, “Investigator Muse?”
Not in here, Loren thought. Not a word. She stared at the late Candace Potter aka Candi Cane aka Brianna Piccolo aka the Murder Victim.
“This is definitely Candace Potter?” she managed.
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Of course.”
Yates looked a question at her. Loren tried to blink it away.
Candace Potter. If this really was Candace Potter, then she wasn’t a murder victim. She wasn’t dead at all. She was alive and well and living in Irvington, New Jersey, with her ex-con husband Matt.
They’d had it all wrong. Matt Hunter wasn’t the connection here. Things were finally starting to make some sense.
Because Candace Potter had a new alias now.
She was Olivia Hunter.
Chapter 47
ADAM YATES TRIED to maintain his cool.
They were back outside now, on the Friedmans’ front lawn. That had been much too close a call. When that Friedman cuckoo had started yammering about never ever telling, well, it could have ended right there—Yates’s career, his marriage, even his freedom. Everything.
Yates needed to take control.
He waited until he and Loren Muse were back in the car. Then, calmly as he could, Yates asked, “So what was that all about?”
“Candace Potter is still alive,” Muse said.
“Pardon me?”
“She’s alive and well and married to Matt Hunter.”
Yates listened to Loren’s explanation. He felt his insides tremor. When she finished he asked to see the autopsy. She handed it to him.
“No photos of the victim?”
“It’s not the whole file,” Loren said. “It’s just the pages that concerned Max Darrow. My guess is he somehow learned the truth—that Candace Potter hadn’t been killed all these years ago. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the real victim was an AIS female.”
“Why would Darrow have checked that now? I mean, after ten years?”
“I don’t know. But we need to talk to Olivia Hunter.”
Adam Yates nodded, trying to take this in. It was impossible for him to fathom. Olivia Hunter was the dead stripper named Candace Potter. Candi Cane. She had been there that night, he was sure of it.
It was likely now, very likely, that Olivia Hunter had the videotape.
That meant he had to take Loren Muse out of the equation. Right now.
Yates glanced at the autopsy report again. Muse drove. The height, weight, and hair color matched, but the truth seemed obvious now. The real victim had been Cassandra Meadows. She’d been dead all along. He should have figured that. She wouldn’t have been smart enough to vanish.
Len Friedman had been right when he talked about the honor of thieves. Yates had counted on that, he guessed, which in hindsight was beyond stupid. People in that business respect confidentiality not out of any sense of honor but because of profit. If you get a reputation for talking, you lose your clientele. Simple as that. The only thing was, Clyde Rangor and Emma Lemay had found a way to make even more money. Ergo the “honor of thieves” nonsense went right out the window.
Yates didn’t do it a lot, but over the years, he’d cheated on Bess. Yates never really considered it a big deal. It was beyond compartmentalizing—beyond the usual “sex was one thing, making love another.” Sex with Bess was fine. Even after all these years. But a man needs more. Check all the history books—that one is a given. No great men were sexually monogamous. It was as simple and as complicated as that.
And in truth there was nothing wrong with it. Do wives really get upset if their husband occasionally watches, for example, an X-rated film? Was that a crime? An act worthy of divorce? A betrayal?
Of course not.
Hiring a prostitute was really no different. A man might use pictures or 900-lines or whatever as outside stimuli. That was all this was. Many wives understood this. Yates might even be able to explain it to Bess.