“I didn’t have time to get dressed,” I said, very matter-of-factly.
Blondie stuttered a little. “Y-yes, sir. It’s—it’s understandable.” He turned his attention toward Casper. “You’re fired, Sheldon.”
Sheldon blinked his eyes a few times when the penlight was removed. “Yeah, I figured,” he grumbled.
The cop, his hands on his belt and looking very butch, asked in a bellowing voice, “Mr. Goodwin, when did you get yourself a copy of the housekeeping key cards?”
“Few weeks ago,” Sheldon muttered, mostly to the floor.
“And you’ve been pilfering valuables from guests?” Butch concluded, putting two and two together and looking very pleased with his investigative skills.
Sheldon nodded and added, “I was using 321 to store my costume and goods.”
“That’s where you were going when I caught you?” I asked.
Sheldon nodded.
“What happened?” Blondie interjected.
Sheldon shrugged, the motion limited by his cuffed hands at his back. “I guess the card got demagnetized. I couldn’t get inside, and then this psycho threw a fern at my head.”
“You stole my boyfriend’s wallet,” I snapped. “Give it back, by the way.”
Butch leaned over Sheldon and patted down his fake boobs before finding a pouch sewn into the chest of the dress. He removed Calvin’s wallet and passed it to me. “Is this it?”
I opened it and was confirming the contents when Calvin joined me, patting his back pockets as he stared at the wallet. “This is yours,” I said, handing it to him.
Calvin raised a light-colored brow. “Want to fill me in, baby?”
“Something woke me up, and I noticed the armoire—” I felt my face grow hot, and I spun toward Sheldon again. “You were in our room all night?”
He had the decency to look chagrined. “I was in there—in the armoire—when you checked in. I didn’t even have time to open the suitcase before you’d come back to drop your phone off. I don’t bother taking phones—too easy to get caught, what with GPS. But you didn’t have shit on you. Hours later, I realized I’d dropped my key card to 321, so I went to check your room for it, then you both came back… so… I hid.”
“I said a lot of things under the influence of alcohol,” I murmured.
“Yeah, you definitely did,” Sheldon agreed.
Calvin cleared his throat. “Why the getup?”
Sheldon tried to shrug again. “Ghost stories keep the tourists coming. Anything moved or missing is blamed on the ghost. And if Iwereseen… they think I’m a ghost.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “Except you.”
“Well, I’m not an idiot,” I supplied.
Boisterous Butch said to Calvin, “You don’t seem particularly surprised by this incident, Detective. I guess you see all kinds of crazy shit in New York, don’t you?”
Calvin cast a sideways look at me.
“All in a day’s work,” I told him.
