Karen Olson - Ink Flamingos

The fourth book in the Tattoo Shop Mystery series, 2011

The plot of this book grew from reading tattoo blogs on the Internet. I am indebted to Bill Cohen of Tattoosday for his friendship and amazing photographs and stories of tattoos and tattooing. Ania Nowak of Aniareads gave me more insight into what it really means to be tattooed and the journey people take when they undergo body modification. Many thanks to Cheryl Violante and Angelo Pompano, my intrepid first readers, for their eagle eyes and undaunting support. Alison Gaylin, Lori Armstrong, Jeff Shelby, Patty Smiley, and Neil Smith are always just an e-mail or phone call away, ready to lend an ear. I hope I’m as helpful to them as they are to me. My agent, Jack Scovil, has stuck with me from the beginning, and I am grateful for his unwavering support and honesty. I must thank Kristen Weber, my former editor, for convincing me to write this series in the first place. When I started, I had no idea how much fun these books would be and how I would love these characters, at the same time growing as a writer, stepping out of my comfort zone and giving me more confidence. I owe that to her. And finally, to Chris and Julia, who have suffered trips to Las Vegas-dining at Thomas Keller’s Bouchon, climbing the rocks at Red Rock Canyon, solving crimes at CSI: The Experience at the MGM-and patiently allowed me the time to create this world, you are everything to me.

The picture of the flamingo tattoo was on the blog an hour before they found the body. In retrospect, I probably should’ve called the cops immediately.

I was working on an elaborate tattoo of a heart wrapped in the American flag when Joel Sloane, one of my tattooists, stuck his head in the door. At The Painted Lady, where we do only custom ink, we’ve got four private rooms for tattooing, unlike street shops that have stations out in the open.

“Brett,” Joel said, nodding to my client, “sorry, but you have to see this.”

I set my tattoo machine down on the counter and snapped off the blue gloves as I rose. “I’ll be a minute,” I told my client as I followed Joel toward the staff room. “What is it?” I asked his back.

Bitsy Hendricks, our shop manager, was standing in front of the small TV set in the corner of the staff room. When we came in, she whirled around, her eyes wide.

She pointed at the TV. Red and blue flashing lights lit up the screen, which was filled with a sea of police cruisers and at least one ambulance. Something bad had happened.

At first I was relieved it was a crime scene I wasn’t witnessing firsthand. I’d gotten into a few situations in the last several months that had me up close and personal with dead bodies, and I hoped that was all behind me now.

Then I saw the picture of Daisy Carmichael on the screen, the reporter’s voice-over telling me that her body was found in a hotel room.

My knees buckled a little, and Joel’s arm snaked around my shoulders.

“Are they sure it’s her?” I asked no one in particular. My voice sounded far away, like I was talking into a tunnel.

“Yes,” Bitsy said flatly. “It’s on every channel.” And in case I didn’t believe her, she aimed the remote at the set and clicked through all the local channels.

She was right. It was on every channel.

“Did they say what happened?” I asked.

“No, just that they found her body.”

“Who found her?” I couldn’t help myself. My curiosity was too strong.

“Think they said the room service guy.”

As Bitsy spoke, a gurney rolled into view on the screen, a white sheet over what could only be a body. I caught my breath.

Joel tightened his grip on my shoulder, and he put his other hand on Bitsy’s.

Daisy, or Dee, as she was known to her fans, was the lead singer of the band the Flamingos. They were a bit like the Go-Go’s or the Bangles but with a definite edge to their videos despite the wholesome pop sound. It wasn’t Lady Gaga edgy, but more an early 1980s punk look. Daisy, which was the name I knew her by, had come into The Painted Lady two years ago for the first time. She’d stumbled onto my shop by accident as she window-shopped at the Venetian Grand Canal Shoppes, the upscale stores that surrounded it. While tattoo shops weren’t exactly strangers to Las Vegas, aka Sin City, this location was the result of a little blackmail by the former owner, Flip Armstrong. My clientele was a little more high-class because of it, and dropping Daisy’s name now and then didn’t hurt, either. When she’d first stepped foot through the door, the Flamingos were just a dream. A YouTube video discovery and two years later, they were at the top of the charts.

None of us had ever seen Daisy Carmichael socially. We’d never had dinner or drinks or even lunch with her. She only came here for her tattoos, but since she’d been here so frequently, we felt as though we had known her forever. Despite the edgy persona she portrayed to the public, to us, Daisy was a girl from Gardiner, Maine, a quiet little town where everything was within walking distance.

“… an overnight sensation on YouTube,” the reporter was saying about the Flamingos as video of the band playing at the Bellagio on New Year’s Eve just weeks ago lit up the screen.

That’s right. They performed at the Bellagio. I frowned as I thought about that picture of the flamingo tattoo on the blog.

“She didn’t call for an appointment in December?” I asked Bitsy, who kept track of all our appointments and schedule.

She flipped back her blond bob and narrowed her eyes at me. She knew what I was after.

“She didn’t call. But we can’t expect her to get a tattoo every time she’s here,” Bitsy said.

Okay, I could buy that. But I couldn’t get that picture on the blog out of my head.

Since I’d had a little time to kill earlier, I’d been playing around on the Internet when I found the blog, called Skin Deep-not very original-by clicking on a link from another one. There were many blogs about tattoos these days. Some were very specialized, like those featuring science-related tattoos-one young woman had a DNA strand curling around her arm-and literary tattoos-images from books like Lord of the Rings and The Little Prince were popular-but some blogs, like Skin Deep, were more generic.

Skin Deep’s latest post featured a tattoo of a flamingo. It was beautiful: long, black lines with reds and pinks and oranges. It was one of the best I’d ever designed.

Except when I’d tattooed it on Daisy, there were no colors.

I had scrolled up to the “About Me” section and read that blogger Ainsley Wainwright admired body art and the history of scarification, so felt compelled to take photographs of tattoos seen on the Vegas Strip and post them so everyone could see their beauty. Most blogs would add the stories surrounding the tattoos and where the person had gotten them. Skin Deep merely showcased the art and let that tell the story. Too bad. I could’ve used the publicity. Or at least a link to The Painted Lady’s Web site.

“When was she last here?” I asked Bitsy. I thought of the last tattoo I gave her: a tree branch that wove its way around her arm from her wrist to her shoulder.

“October,” Bitsy said without consulting the appointment book. She had a memory like the proverbial steel trap.

Since I designed her first tattoo, every time she was in town, Daisy would have another one done. I’d done ten so far. The flamingo was number eight. There hadn’t been any color the last two times she’d come in.