Button Box Mystery: Hot Button Part 13

I hated to think that he knew something was wrong just by looking at me, so I answered noncommittally. "Nothing. Why would you think something is up?"

"That little crease. Right there." He tapped his index finger to the spot squarely between my eyes. "I always know when you're worried about something because that crease shows up. It's cute."

"Being worried is not cute." He should have known this, since three years of living with Kaz had left me plenty worried plenty of times. I would bet not one of those times was cute by anybody's definition.

"Then there's that little crease. Right there." This time, he touched his finger to my bottom lip and left it there just long enough for me to taste a hint of the sugar-coated shortbread cookies that had been served after lunch. "Another telltale sign that you're thinking about something and that whatever it is, you're not happy about it."

I shoved away from the alcove where the house phones were located. "It's Chase Cadell," I admitted. "I need to talk to him, and I've looked all over the place and he's not answering his phone and-"

"That's because he's at Cowboy Bob's."

This sort of out-of-left-field comment might have thrown me for a loop coming from anyone else. From Kaz, I knew better than to dismiss it out of hand. "Explain," I said.

"Chase and I talked. Last night. He said he was looking for a place he could hang out and relax. You know, a place with a sort of Western atmosphere. I remembered Cowboy Bob's, north of the city. It's a great little country-and-western place, and when I saw Chase this morning, I mentioned it, and he said that's where he was going. You know, to get away from the conference for a while and chill."

"And this Cowboy Bob's is where?"

Kaz's face lit with a grin. "No need to ask, little lady," he said, bowing and sounding a little too much like the fake Thad Wyant for my liking. "I'll just mosey on over there with you."

APPARENTLY, COWBOY BOB'S had risen from the same imagination that sp.a.w.ned Brad Wyant's skewed stereotypical view of the West. Lots of cowboy paraphernalia (like chaps and spurs and hats) hanging on the walls and from the ceiling fans that spun in slow motion overhead. Hardwood floors coated with a sprinkle of sawdust. Dance floor. Bar along the far wall, complete with bartenders wearing cowboy hats, waitresses in dance-hall-girl getups, and country music wailing from the sound system.

Oh yeah, it was a little slice of the Old West in Illinois, all right. Or at least a slice of the Old West as people like to imagine it.

As it happened, though, there was more to Cowboy Bob's than met the eye. Turns out Kaz was more than willing to mosey on over there with me because in addition to being the mother of all corny honky-tonks, the place featured offtrack betting on horse races, greyhound racing, and jai alai from around the country.

Let's be kind and just say I was less than pleased when Kaz went right into the betting room the moment we were in the front door.

I bit my tongue.

It was one way to get my mind off the way my stomach suddenly soured.

And a not-so-gentle reminder that what Kaz did was none of my business. And definitely not my problem.

Not anymore.

Chase Cadell, on the other hand, and what he might-or might not-know about the real Thad Wyant, was.

Steeling myself against the hair-raising high notes of the woman howling a song about her lost love and the rent money he'd taken with him, I squared my shoulders and did my own moseying-right up to the far end of the bar, where Chase was seated on a stool, one hand wrapped around a gla.s.s of amber liquid.

He looked up when I slid onto the stool next to him. "Fancy seeing you here. You come to apologize?"

When the bartender approached, I signaled that I wasn't interested in anything at the moment. "Apologize?" I asked Chase.

"For invitin' Wyant to be your guest of honor instead of me." Chase laughed, the sound like sandpaper on gravel. "At least I woulda lived long enough to give your banquet speech."

"You're not upset that Thad's dead." Understatement. Yeah, I got that. But sometimes people need to hear the obvious, just to nudge them toward telling the truth.

Chase was dressed in jeans and a yellow golf shirt with blue embroidery over the heart that said "Pike's Peak Mini-Golf." So much for the cowboy motif. "Come on, Josie. You know I couldn't stand the guy." He sipped his drink, glancing at me over the rim of his gla.s.s. "Now you gonna ask me if I killed him?"

"Did you?"

"I wish." He chuckled and coughed and pounded a hand against his chest, and when he was done gagging, he took another drink. "Can't imagine the whole, entire b.u.t.ton world wouldn't erect a monument in my honor. You know what I mean? Wyant was lower than a snake's belly and as nasty as a coyote with a migraine. I won't miss him, that's for sure."

It was early in the afternoon, and the bar was less than crowded. The bartender came by again and, feeling guilty for taking up s.p.a.ce and contributing nothing to his wages, I ordered an iced tea. "When was the last time you saw Thad Wyant?" I asked Chase.

He sucked on his bottom lip for a while; then, done thinking, he propped his elbows on the bar. "You mean before this conference? Dang if I can remember. Twenty, thirty years ago, maybe. It was the first time we met. The last time, too. We was at a b.u.t.ton conference in Boise and me, being the charming sort I am..." He gave me a sparkling smile that hinted at the fact that this might actually be true if the subject wasn't Thad Wyant. "I went up and introduced myself. Wyant was a legend, after all. I figured it wouldn't hurt to cultivate his friendship and maybe learn a thing or two from him."

"And Thad... ?"

"Blew me off." Chase harrumphed. "Told me there was no use me even getting into Western collecting because he had a corner on all the good b.u.t.tons and there was nothing left for an amateur like me to buy. Told me he had a Geronimo b.u.t.ton, and you can just imagine the way he said it. I..." Chase sat up and raised his chin, putting on a pretty good fake Thad Wyant accent. "I am the owner of the one, the only, the original Geeronimo b.u.t.ton, my friend. Ain't another one like it in all the world. Not one anybody can authenticate, anyway. You're just wastin' your time trying to come up with anything half as interestin'." Finished with his Thad impersonation, Chase grumbled and took another drink.

"And is that what he sounded like?" I asked.

"Thad, you mean? Sounded? You heard him yourself, Josie."

"I did. I know. But thirty years ago when you met him, was he as-"

"Rude and obnoxious?" Chase finished the sentence for me. "He was certainly no prize. But..." Thinking, he squeezed his eyes shut. "Bah!" His eyes popped open, and he brushed away my concerns. "The man was some kind of nutcase. Seems obvious, don't it, the way he got himself killed?" Thad leaned near enough for me to catch the whiff of whiskey on his breath. "You know anything about that?"

I did. But it wasn't like I was going to spill the beans, so I guess it was just as well that Kaz came racing out of the betting room, zoomed over, grabbed my hand, and yanked me off the bar stool.

"We gotta go," he said, and when I hesitated, he gave me a tug. "Now, Josie. Come on."

"I'm not done talking to Chase," I said, my teeth clenched in a way that should have told Kaz I wasn't happy.

"Doesn't matter." He gave Chase a quick smile by way of apology, and I managed to drag out a couple dollars to pay for the iced tea I'd never been served and wouldn't have a chance to drink and slap them on the bar before Kaz said, "We're leaving. Now."

I may have been caught off guard, but honestly, as we zipped past the betting room, I realized I wasn't surprised. Outside, I untangled myself from Kaz's grasp. "Let me guess, you met somebody you owe money to."

"Worse than that." Before I had time to get settled, he propelled me along the sidewalk and toward the parking lot. "Apparently, there's a few things about Amber I never knew."

"Like-?"

We were already standing next to his Jeep and he was fumbling with the keys when a woman popped out of Cowboy Bob's and looked our way. She was blonde, voluptuous, and a whole head taller than Kaz, and she was wearing a red, low-cut top that showed off her curves to their best advantage, along with jeans so tight that I wondered how she was able to sit in them, much less breathe.

I now officially knew what Kaz saw in Amber.

"Kaz! Kaz, honey, is that you?" The woman called out and waved one perfectly manicured hand, and even then, Kaz never missed a beat. But then, he was an expert at ignoring things he didn't want to hear. He pulled open the car door, hopped in, and with a gesture, urged me to do the same, and as fast as I could.

A second later, we were on our way out of the parking lot. It goes without saying that Kaz used the exit farthest from Cowboy Bob's front door.

"Amber has plenty of time to kill since you're not around, and apparently, she likes country music," I said, as casual as can be. "And Kaz, honey..." I had picked up on the lilt of a Southern accent in Amber's voice and I wasn't above echoing it, just to get Kaz's goat. "She's gonna be real disappointed to hear that the handsome guy in Cowboy Bob's wasn't really you."

He wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead. "I don't care if she's disappointed," he said. "As long as she believes it."

Chapter Thirteen.

KAZ WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WITH PROBLEMS.

The second I got back to the hotel, Helen was on me like white on rice, and it didn't take more than a heartbeat for me to realize something was very, very wrong.

Helen's usually perfectly styled hair stuck up at the top of her head, and she was wringing her hands. Her cheeks were a shade darker than the flamingo-pink sweater she wore with tailored gray pants.

"I can't explain it, Josie," she said, her voice b.u.mping along with her emotions. "No one can. But I'm telling you right now, we've got to do something, and we've got to do it fast." Just as she said this, a group of conference attendees walked past, and I don't think I was imagining it: they were grumbling. Let me go on the record here and say that b.u.t.ton collectors are-usually-the most unruffled folks in the world. That is, until something goes wrong that involves b.u.t.tons. Grumbling collectors mean b.u.t.ton trouble. And b.u.t.ton trouble late Wednesday afternoon- I swallowed hard. "The contest winners are supposed to be announced tonight," I said, even though Helen, of course, already knew that. I was hoping she'd jump right in and tell me I was on the wrong track, and when she didn't, I sucked in a breath. "Something's happened with regard to the contest."

"I'll say." A single tear slipped down Helen's cheek, and she wiped it away with a trembling hand. "I don't know how, Josie. I swear I don't. But some of the trays..." She leaned in close and whispered. "They're missing."

"What?" I staggered back. The entries had been kept in a conference room that was locked when the judges weren't in there, and they'd been monitored every day. There was no way!

A look at the ashen hue of Helen's face told me otherwise.

I groaned, and I don't know whether I was trying to console her, or myself, when I said, "It's OK. It's all right. Hotel security will help us find out what happened to them, and if this is a worst-case scenario and those trays really are missing, the conference has an insurance rider, and most of our collectors carry their own policies on their inventory. They're protected. We're protected."

"Our a.s.sets, yes." Helen sniffed. "But what about our reputation? What about yours, dear? You've worked so hard on this conference, and you've had nothing but bad luck from the start. First a guest of honor who was less than cordial, then all those mix-ups with salads and microphones, and now this. Not to mention the murder, of course."

A not-so-gentle reminder I didn't need. "We'll take care of it." I patted Helen's arm. "I'll go over to the conference room now and check things out. Any idea of how much is missing?"

She shook her head. "I didn't do a complete count. What I mean is, I just couldn't. I started to, and when I saw that something was wrong... Oh honey, I was so taken aback, I came right out to look for you. But of course, you weren't here. You were out doing other things. Not that I'm blaming you or anything," she added quickly, when I opened my mouth to defend myself. "I know you have places to go and people to talk to. Kaz tells me you're helping the police solve Thad's murder."

So far, my helping hadn't gotten us very far, and I told her as much, even if I didn't bother to point out that the Thad we knew wasn't who we thought he was.

"That's a shame, dear." It was her turn to pat my arm. "No success on the investigation and all this trouble here at the conference..." Helen sighed. "You're having a tough time of it."

I didn't need to hear that as much as I needed to know what I was in for as far as the missing trays, and when I urged Helen, she got right back to her story.

She clutched her hands at her waist. "Like I said, I went into the conference room to prepare the final list of winners to be read at this evening's dinner," she said, "and when I realized something was wrong, I was so taken by surprise... Well, I suppose I should have just kept my mouth shut." She bit her lower lip. "But I was upset. I'm sure you understand. And when I walked out of the conference room... like I said, to find you... and some of the girls from the judging committee were there...I just couldn't help myself. I suppose I might have said something. You know, about what a horrible mess we had on our hands."

"And word travels fast, which explains why people are grumbling." My stomach flipped.

Helen nodded. "A couple people have stopped me. To talk, you know, and-"

"Never had problems like this in other years." Before Helen could finish what she was saying, Gloria Winston broke into our conversation. Gloria was n.o.body's version of a shrinking violet, and there was fire in her eyes. "You owe us an explanation."

I do not need to point out that she looked square at me when she said this.

"I do." There was no use saying anything else or trying to dodge the undodgeable. "And as soon as I have a chance to look into things-"

"The sooner the better." Gloria impaled me with a look, and I knew exactly what it meant: she had no intention of keeping her mouth shut about how unhappy she was. "People are talking, and I for one can't blame them. We never had these sorts of problems when Helen was in charge."

"Now, Gloria..." Helen began, but I didn't give her a chance to finish. As much as I appreciated Helen's support, I didn't deserve it. Not if I couldn't keep things running as smoothly as our attendees expected.

"On my way over there now," I said, and I scampered toward the conference room.

Less than a half hour later, I knew for certain that Helen and Gloria were right. Our inventory list showed three hundred and forty-seven trays had been entered in the various compet.i.tion categories. My count-I did it three times just to be sure-only turned up three hundred and thirty-three trays. Fourteen had simply disappeared.

Maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment. I looked over the entries again, rechecking categories against what I knew about each of the people who'd entered.

A couple of the entries were from some of the better-known collectors, and I had no doubt the b.u.t.tons on those trays were worth a pretty penny. But a few others were relatively common b.u.t.tons with little monetary value. Whoever stole the b.u.t.tons-if, indeed, they'd been stolen-wasn't very discriminating.

Of course, that didn't matter to collectors. True collectors loved more about their b.u.t.tons than just the fact that some were worth a pretty penny. There was the history of each b.u.t.ton to consider, and the effort that went into a.s.sembling a collection of them that could satisfy the exacting standards of each judging category.

And as it turned out, one of the trays that was missing was Gloria's collection of ivory b.u.t.tons, the one that had included the bone b.u.t.ton that caused her tray to receive a measle. When I realized it, I dropped my head into my hands. If she was mad before, she would be doubly mad when she found out her tray was among the missing.

Just thinking about the scene Gloria would cause made me feel worse than ever, and I slumped against the nearest table, working through what I had to do and what I'd tell our conference attendees. Unfortunately, no matter how many times I went over it, I always came back to the same thing: there was only one thing I could do and that was talk to the entire group. And there was only one thing I could tell them.

The truth.

AT DINNER THAT night, I stepped to the podium before the salads were served and did exactly that-I told the truth about the missing trays and faced the collective wrath of the b.u.t.ton community. There were plenty of questions, and I was woefully short on answers. All I could do was promise to do my best to find the missing b.u.t.tons and get to the bottom of the mystery of how they got that way. That, and delay announcing the contest winners until all the trays were returned and could be judged all over again.

Fortunately, that was good enough for most folks.

Unfortunately, most folks doesn't mean all.

By the time I finished up at the podium, I'd been accused of fixing the contest for my own gain (though my accuser couldn't say what that gain could possibly be), stealing the b.u.t.tons so I could sell them at the b.u.t.ton Box, and even making off with the b.u.t.tons because (and follow closely here because this gets a little complicated) Thad Wyant was a government spy, I was in on his secret mission, and the b.u.t.tons on those missing trays were clues linked to a mystery that was vital to national security.

Conspiracy theories are us.

I handled all this as best I could, and honestly, I think I was cool and calm enough on the outside to fool every person in that room. My insides, though, weren't cooperating. When I sat down at the dinner table reserved for the conference committee, my knees were weak, my stomach was in knots, and I couldn't eat a bite. I excused myself on the pretext of having to use the ladies' room, but I had no intention of going back into the ballroom. One look at the baked chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans on the plate that was set in front of me, and I knew I had to get up to my room, put on my jammies, and hide under the blankets.

All that might actually have been possible if Kaz wasn't waiting just inside the door of my suite when I got there. He had a bottle of wine in one hand and two gla.s.ses in the other.

It wouldn't have been a surprise (well, except for the wine) if his wasn't one of the faces I'd just seen looking up at me from the audience in the ballroom. "You were just-"

"Watching you do your public mea culpa, yeah. I ducked out before you did. Figured you'd need a breather after going through that. b.u.t.ton people can be brutal."

I tried to shrug, but my shoulders felt as if they were weighted with lead. "They're disappointed. They have every right to be. They come to a conference with expectations, and I'm pretty sure murder and larceny aren't among them."

The wine bottle was already open, and Kaz set down the gla.s.ses on the coffee table in front of the couch, poured, and handed one to me. "Drink," he said. "You're as wired as a cat with its tail in an electrical socket."

He was right.

I tossed my purse down on the floor next to the couch and accepted the gla.s.s of wine. I didn't so much drink as I did sip, and when the fruity nip of the Riesling hit the back of my throat, I sighed.

"Better?" Kaz asked.

He was sweet to think of me, and I hated to disappoint him, but that night was all about laying the facts on the line. There was no dodging the truth, so I didn't even try to mince any words. "No."

"There's talk... you've probably heard... about replacing you as conference chair." Apparently, Kaz knew to lay it on the line, too, but he softened the blow by quickly adding, "Not from many people, of course. But some of them-"

"Maybe they're right." I dropped onto the couch. "Maybe getting the b.u.t.ton Box off the ground and running the conference at the same time gave me too much on my plate. Maybe I'm just not as capable and together as I like to think I am."