"That’s a dead hooker, all right,” Detective Bart Schulz said, as he stood over the partially pulled out drawer in the morgue at the coroner’s office.

Officer Edwoena Carrington sometimes wondered how she'd allowed herself to become a vice detective or even a cop. She was a beautiful blonde bombshell who could've become a model, actress, successful gold-digger,  playboy bunny, or anything besides a police detective. She could've spent her time being ogled by rich men instead of enduring the sarcasm and hard heartedness of the local tough boys on the force. 

Eddie had felt compelled to not follow in the footsteps of her showgirl mother and all the heartache that came with it, so she’d chosen a completely different life. Every time she had to identify or investigate a dead body, she reconsidered her choice.

“Her name is Chenille,” Eddie snapped at the detective. “She has a name. Where did you find her?”

Detective Schulz heaved a heavy sigh. He’d worked with Eddie for a few years, and was aware of how emotional she got when something of that nature happened. Eddie had been a vice cop for seven years, and she’d become far too attached to some of the girls she worked with. Their Captain, retired Navy Seal and another tough guy, Horace Clayton thought allowing a female detective to work a vice beat would bring more useful information when there were serious crimes committed in a world which typically only produced decriminalized offenses.

“I hate to give you details on these things, because I know how you get,” Bart groaned.

“How about a cause of death?” Eddie demanded. “Maybe a time of death? Anything? I have to tell Madame Wu something!”

The coroner tried to stand silently, because arguments between the two police officers never went well. It was a well known fact Bart and Eddie were once an item, and it hadn't ended well. They could barely be civil to one another on the job on the occasional case where they crossed paths. They’d both been arrested for arguing in restaurants on the strip during their time off, to the point of breach of peace and the occasional broken item for which they had to pay. Their relationship was designed, carried out, and finished in hell. Two more different people had probably never attempted an intimate relationship.

“Officer Carrington, the time of death was around midnight,” the coroner said. “She drowned. They found her in a dumpster behind Terrible’s Casino. I’m very sorry. It seems as though she was a friend of yours.”

“Thank you, Jose,” Eddie replied. She turned to Bart. “Was that so hard?”

Eddie stared at the girl lying on a cold slab in a metal drawer extended from a wall of such drawers. It was clinical, impersonal, and cold. It was both emotionally and physically cold as she shivered in the virtually refrigerated city morgue of Las Vegas, Nevada. 

Chenille was young. Eddie hadn’t known her long. Chenille had worked for Madame Wu for only a few months. She couldn’t have been more than 21 years old. Madame Wu wouldn’t have hired her if she was younger. Madame Wu had standards in a business that rarely had any standards or rules. All the girls at Madame Wu’s had fake names. Eddie hadn’t known Chenille long enough to even know her real name. She hoped Madame Wu would know how to contact a next of kin. Eddie hated when such things happened, but it sometimes got a little wild and shady in Vegas.

Eddie and Bart walked out of the morgue together. Eddie needed some air. She hated the smell of death that lingered constantly in the morgue. Death felt like a disease to her, and she couldn't tolerate the morgue for long because of it. 

Eddie had to determine what to tell Madame Wu and her girls. Chenille, or whatever her name, was the second girl murdered in three weeks. She hoped the incidents weren’t related. The other girl went by the name of Queenie, and she'd been strangled and left in a parking garage just off Fremont Street. The two girls looked nothing alike and had categorically different personalities. Logic and profiling dictated their clientele should also have been different. There was a good chance the two incidents were unrelated.

“Would you like me to go with you to tell Madame Wu?” Bart asked.

“No, she doesn’t like you,” Eddie snapped.

“You know, I’m just trying to help!” Bart exclaimed. “I hate it when you pull this independent, ain’t needin’ nobody bullshit. Why don’t you accept a little help once in a while?”

Eddie turned to face him. “Look, I appreciate your trying to help. I really do. I'm serious about Madame Wu not liking you. She did nothing but complain the whole time we dated. I don’t know why she doesn’t like you, but she really doesn’t.”

“Maybe it’s because she’s a whore,” Bart snapped. “I mean really, if this was any place else in the country, all those chicks would be in jail, and Madame Wu would be out of business forever.”

“There goes that sanctimonious attitude again,” Eddie snapped. She walked to her car. Bart followed, and she continued to lecture him. “Prostitution is decriminalized here. Deal with it. We turn a blind eye as long as they don't walk the streets! It’s every woman’s right to decide what she does with her body! Pia's girls sell it. That’s their prerogative. Why can’t you accept it? If you think you're too good for them, don't go there.”

Bart smiled as he stopped behind her at her lime green 1968 VW Beetle. She’d had the car since he’d met her at least. She refused to buy anything else. She’d had the Beetle custom painted so she wouldn’t lose it in parking garages and mall lots. He’d told her a thousand times the cars were death traps, and she should buy something safer, but she didn’t care. She continually reminded him it was her choice, and she didn't have to listen to a word he said. She told him it was none of his business. It was the only car she’d ever had, and she professed she'd keep it until the day she died.

“I can accept it. It doesn’t mean I have to like it,” Bart protested. “A woman’s body should be worshipped, not exploited. Is that such a bad belief? Why does my ideal that women should be respected make me a bad guy?”

Eddie looked him in the eye. “Your ideals aren't bad. It just doesn’t give you the right to tell everyone else what to do.” 

With that, she got into her old Beetle and took off, leaving Bart and his ideals alone on the sidewalk.

Eddie drove directly to the luxury home that wasn't what it appeared to be on Red Oak Avenue. Not far from other less than sophisticated venues, the home of Madame Wu looked like a house that should belong to a millionaire. Madame Wu said it gave the clients a feeling of privacy and comfort. Madame Wu also had off street parking in the rear, protecting clients from accidental discovery.

“Eddie dear,” Madame Wu greeted her as she walked in the door. “Jasmine is almost ready. She told me to tell you she would be right down.”

Eddie slapped her forehead with the butt of her palm. She forgot she and her best friend, Helen, AKA Jasmine, were flying that afternoon. They had their private pilot’s licenses and went flying  regularly to gain enough hours to carry paying passengers.  The two girls put in flying hours to upgrade their licenses and saved their money to start a flight seeing business of their own. They had a business plan worked out to the tiniest detail. They planned offerings of fly overs above the strip, Lake Meade, Hoover Dam, and the Grand Canyon. They also had a long list of custom trips to offer. It was Eddie and Helen’s dream to fly for a living and own their own business.

“What is it, dear?” Madam Wu asked.

Eddie hated to bring the kindly old Madame bad news. “I forgot about flying. That’s not why I’m here. I’m afraid I have bad news about Chenille.”

Madame Wu nearly fell onto a chaise. “Oh no. I hoped, when she didn't return, she had run off and gotten married. I guess that is not where she has been.”

“No, they found her a little while ago. She was murdered. I’m so sorry,” Eddie told her. It occurred to Eddie Madame Wu knew the girl was missing. She’d just said so. “What do you mean, you hoped she’d run off and got married? Did you know she was missing? Damn it, Pia, how many times do I have to tell you! If there's something wrong, call me!”

“What’s going on?” Helen, aka Jasmine, asked as she entered the room. 

Helen was Eddie’s best friend and currently an employee of Madame Wu’s Club. She was roughly Eddie’s age. Eddie was soon turning 30. Helen wasn't a young girl for the business, but only 28. She was an attractive woman. Muscular build with long dark hair and green eyes. Eddie arrested Helen six years before for working the streets, and afterward gotten her a far more accepted and safer job with Madame Wu. The gray area between crime and accepted practice which Madame Wu provided typically weeded out most of the scumbags. 

Eddie and Helen had so much in common they became fast friends. They hung out together all the time. The two talked about their wildest dreams constantly and eventually happened on the idea to get into the flight seeing business. Currently, they spent all their spare time working toward that end.

“They found Chenille in a dumpster behind Terrible’s,” Eddie told Helen.

Helen shook her head. “She was a nice girl. That’s all I have to say about that. Let’s go flying. I need to do something positive.”

Eddie decided whatever she could find out from Madame Wu would wait for a couple of hours. She could see by the look on Helen’s face she needed to get away for a little while before dealing with Chenille's death.

Flying was therapy for both Helen and Eddie. It was the one place they could both get away from it all and clear their minds. Chenille being the second recent murder didn't set well with either woman, and it didn't matter which one was on what side of the law. Being a hooker doesn't mean you should die. Jack the Ripper was a long time ago.

Two hours later, after some great air time, the two women landed and shut down their engines.  They all but ran to the drink machine in the hangar they rented flight time out of at Boulder City Airport, and downed a bottle of water apiece. It was a very hot summer day in the desert, and there wasn’t enough water ever. 

Eddie couldn’t decide whether to drink the water or pour it over her head. She loved to fly, and she loved to fly small planes, but air conditioning options on Cessnas left something to be desired. No matter how little clothing she wore, Eddie ended up sweating like a pig while flying tiny Cessna four seaters.

The women sat on the shaded cement floor of the hangar and caught their breath. After a few minutes, Helen looked at Eddie. “What happened to Chenille? Was she strangled like Queenie?”

“No, she drowned,” Eddie replied.

Helen looked at her wide eyed. “She drowned in a dumpster behind Terrible’s? Sounds like the place has a water problem. Do you know anything else? Because that’s absurd.”

“I don’t have much,” Eddie replied. “I hoped Pia could shed some light on it, but she’s still keeping things from me. That won’t help. I hope the two aren’t connected. I want you to get out of Madame Wu's. It's less safe than normal these days.”

“Two more months and we’ll be in business,” Helen told her. “That very moment, I will quit.”

“Yeah, well do me a favor,” Eddie started.

“What?” Helen asked.

“Don’t go out for a while. Work at the club until I get a bearing on this sicko. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you,” she told Helen. “I don’t make friends often. I’d like to keep you around.”

Helen’s expression softened. “Okay, I promise. Damn, you don’t judge me for being a hooker, and you still give me guilt trips. That’s amazing.”

“Whatever, come on. Let’s go back to the club and see if Pia knows anything about Chenille’s last date,” Eddie said.

“You won’t like it,” Helen warned her.

“You know something? Give,” Eddie ordered her.

“You won’t like it,” Helen replied.

“Dish.”

“I was there when Chenille left last night. She's such a blonde. She was going to meet her future husband she said. He was the perfect man. He was rich, smart, good looking, and best of all, didn’t come from Vegas.”

“Sounds typical,” Eddie noted. "Only in Vegas are the Johns rich and good looking."

“Anyway, she said she was going to meet him, and she hoped she wouldn’t be back. Chenille didn't like the business. I’m not sure what she expected. She seemed like she was looking for Prince Charming in our world. Hopeless.”

“That’s why Pia hoped she’d run off and gotten married,” Eddie commented.

“I suppose,” Helen agreed.

“That’s all you know?" Eddie asked. "That’s not much.”

“She called him Mark Twain,” Helen said.

Eddie stared at Helen for a moment and processed what she'd been told. “So I’m looking for a guy who drowned a hooker in the desert and calls himself Mark Twain? Great.”