Dana cocked her head to one side and studied the DA. “Why are you being so nice?”
Pike grinned. “I owe you one from the Woodruff case. I figure we’re even now.”
It was Dana’s turn to smile. She looked Pike in the eye and said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Dana parked the Rover in front of a branch of U.S. Bank a little after six. The bank was at one end of a strip mall next to a beauty parlor. A stairway between the beauty parlor and a hardware store led up to a second-floor landing. EXECUTIVE ESCORTS was etched into a plaque next to a frosted-glass door two offices down from the stairwell. Dana walked into the small waiting room at the front of the office, and a chubby middle-aged woman with mousy brown hair looked up. She had a phone plastered to her ear and she seemed surprised to see a visitor.
“Eight o’clock at the Heathman Hotel,” she said as she held up a finger to indicate that Dana should wait. There were two chairs on either side of a cheap end table, but Dana decided to stand. There were none of the usual waiting-room magazines on the table. From the woman’s reaction and the lack of reading material, Dana guessed that the office received few visitors.
The woman responded to a question Dana could not hear. Then she said, “Yes. Yes,” and hung up.
“Can I help you?” the woman asked after making several notations on an index card.
“Are you the manager?” Dana asked with a smile.
“No, that’s Mrs. Cronin.”
“Is she in?”
“Yeah.”
Dana waited a bit. Then asked, “Can I see her?”
The woman frowned as if this type of situation was highly unusual.
“My name is Dana Cutler.” Dana offered to make the woman’s task easier. The woman thought for a moment. Then she got up and walked through the only other door in the office.
A minute later, the door opened and an attractive woman in a business suit walked out followed by the woman Dana had just talked to. The first woman gave Dana the briefest of glances before leaving.
“You can go in,” the other woman said.
Dana walked into an office that wasn’t much bigger than the reception area. An anorexic woman with peroxide-blond hair and cheap jewelry was sitting behind a scarred wooden desk counting a wad of bills. The woman’s nose was a little too perfect, her breasts were a little too large, and the skin on her face was a little too tight. A cigarette smoldered in an ashtray next to a telephone and a stack of index cards.
A man was slumped nonchalantly in a chair next to the desk. Well-defined biceps stretched the fabric of a black T-shirt that wrapped tightly around his barrel chest. The man studied Dana while the blonde put the bills in a green metal cash box and closed the lid. Dana guessed that the well-dressed woman who had just left had given Cronin the money and that the muscle-bound man was Cronin’s bodyguard.
“Mrs. Cronin?” Dana asked.
“What can I do for you?” the woman answered in a tone that let Dana know that doing anything for her was the last thing on the blonde’s to-do list.
“You can tell me how well you knew Jessica Koshani and Dorothy Crispin.”
The bodybuilder sat up, and Cronin brought the cigarette to her lips. While she inhaled, Cronin stared at Dana hard enough and long enough to make Dana feel threatened.
“What makes you think I know either of these people?” Cronin asked.
“You should. Jessica Koshani ran this escort service until she was murdered, and Dorothy Crispin turned tricks for Koshani until she was killed last night.”
Cronin didn’t give Dana anything, and Dana bet she was a terror at a poker table.
“I’m afraid you’ve been misinformed,” Cronin said.
“I don’t think so.”
“I don’t care what you think. This meeting is over.”
“I’m with Exposed, Mrs. Cronin, and I’m going to be writing a story about this escort service and the dead women’s connection to it.”
The man stood slowly, unwinding like a cat stretching after a comfortable nap.
“You fucking deaf?” he asked.
Dana ignored him and talked to Cronin. “Talking to me now will let you give our readers your side of the story.”
Cronin looked at the man and nodded toward Dana. “Jeff.”
Jeff stepped around the desk and reached for Dana’s arm. Just before his fingers touched her, Dana’s elbow shot into Jeff’s nose with enough force to break it. Blood sprayed out of both nostrils. Dana hit Jeff in the crotch. He started to crumple, but Dana grabbed a clump of the bodyguard’s hair and yanked his head up before grinding the barrel of a snub-nosed pistol into his temple.
“I’m off my meds, Mrs. Cronin, so I advise you to call off your dog before I start hallucinating that he’s someone who could actually hurt me.”
Suddenly Cronin didn’t look so tough. She showed Dana the palms of both hands.
“Let him go, please. We don’t want any trouble.”
Dana backed out of the office and hurried to her car. She didn’t think Jeff would come looking for trouble, but she didn’t wait around in case he had a gun in the office. She was frustrated by her failure to get any information from Cronin, and it looked as though her investigation was at a dead end. Then, halfway back to the hotel, Dana got a brainstorm.
The woman standing in the corridor outside Dana’s room was breathtaking. Her figure was all curves, her hair was silky blond, her eyes were bright green, and her lips were pouty and a marvelous shade of red. If Dana were a lesbian, as she had implied when she’d ordered her “escort,” she would have started panting as soon as she opened the door to her hotel room.
“Mrs. Gorman?” the woman asked with a warm smile. This was a natural mistake, as Dana had used her employer’s credit card to pay, after explaining to the woman who answered the phone that she was on a business trip without Patrick, her hubby, and was interested in hiring a female escort who wouldn’t mind being a companion for a lady.
“Come in,” Dana responded, flashing her own smile. The woman gave the room the once over. Then she did the same with Dana.
“What’s your name?” Dana asked.
“Cindy.”
“Any last name?”
“Crawford.”
“Like the model?” Dana asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Exactly.”
“What a charming coincidence.”
The woman laughed. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she said. “I understand you want me to keep you company at dinner.”
“We can cut the euphemisms, Cindy. Didn’t the service tell you that you were meeting a married woman with tastes her husband wouldn’t understand?”
Cindy laughed again. It was a great laugh, and it made Dana really regret that she was heterosexual.
“I’m an Executive employee who is employed frequently in these situations,” she answered. Then she looked at the bed. “Are we going to dinner?”
“I was thinking more of room service,” Dana said.
“Sounds good to me.”
Dana was beginning to enjoy hiring a high-class call girl. Cindy was so agreeable. Not like Jake, who always argued about where to go for dinner or what show to watch on TV.
Dana handed Cindy the room-service menu. “What would you like?” she asked.
“I’ll just have a salad.”
“Oh, come on. That won’t fill you up, and we’re going to be talking awhile. I don’t want you to be hungry.”
“Talking?” Cindy said, suddenly suspicious.
