Free Ashes to Dust (Las Vegas Mystery) by Rex Kusler

Snow said. “And this friendly exchange went on for how long?”
    “About a year,” he said. “For as long as I’ve been involved with Crystal.”
    “The thing I’m wondering about, Andrew, is that it looks like the vast majority of the calls from Laura to your cell phone—and vice versa—only occurred within the two weeks leading up to her murder. Before that there were hardly any. Why is that?”
    Tully sat perfectly still, staring hard at Snow with big eyes. He resembled a mime staring at a car wreck. Nothing came out of his mouth. No words. Not even his breath.
    “Andrew?” Snow pressed.
    Suddenly he flinched and started breathing again. He rubbed his chin with his fingertips. “A few weeks ago,” he began, “Crystal and I started having problems with our relationship. There were a number of disagreements between us that escalated into heated arguments. It got so bad that Crystal even called off the wedding.” He took a sip from his drink and continued. “I was devastated, of course, and confided in Laura. I had tried everything to repair the rift between us: apologies, Hallmark cards, flowers, foot massage, an expensive necklace. Nothing worked. I was desperate. I called Laura and asked for advice. And we continued on, calling back and forth, in an attempt to try and salvage the wedding plans.” He blinked several times and smiled with the lower half of his face.
    Snow stared at him for a moment and then shifted his eyes toward Alice. “Anything more you want to ask, Alice?”
    Alice met Snow’s gaze. “Nothing I can think of at the moment. I think we’ve pretty much covered everything for now.”

Snow parked the Sonata a half block down the street from Tyson Dole’s residence. The two of them split up, canvassing the neighbors. Alice took the house across the street from Dole, the home next to it on the west side, and Dole’s immediate neighbor on that same side. Snow covered the homes on the east side.
    No one answered across the street, but an elderly woman greeted Snow in the house next to Dole. She was short and plump with curly gray hair. Her smile spread from ear to ear, her eyes swimming behind the lenses of her thick, rimless glasses. “What can I do for you?” she chimed.
    Snow offered his business card. “We’re investigating a homicide, and I was wondering if I might come in for a few minutes to see if there’s anything you might know that would be helpful to us.”
    Her smile faded. “Who got killed?” she asked.
    “May I come in?” Snow said.
    The woman stared at his face as though reading a tea leaf. “Oh, sure, sure, come in. I’m sorry, my head’s not on straight.” She stepped out of the way and allowed Snow to pass in front of her.
    “Why don’t we go into the dining room. I’ve got some fresh iced tea. And the boys are in there playing cards. They might know something I don’t—although I doubt it. They don’t know much of anything these days.”
    Snow followed her through the living room into the dining room, where he noticed two identical, white-haired old men sitting across from each other at the table. They were both completely bald on top, with matching haircuts, and gold-rimmed glasses. They appeared to be playing blackjack, both of them with several uneven stacks of multicolored plastic chips. The only feature that distinguished them apart was a two-inch scar below the left eye of the one with the most chips. They seemed oblivious to Snow and the old woman.
    The one with the scar had split aces in front of him, and the other twin dealt a card for each face down. Scar-face lifted both cards and flipped one over. It was another ace. “Split ’em again,” he said.
    “You can’t. You only get one split with aces.”
    “Bullcrap,” scar-face said. “You said we were playing Boulder Highway rules, Donnie.”
    “The hell I did. I said we were playing downtown rules.”
    “No, you didn’t. And even if you did, the rules are different downtown. It