Diva Las Vegas (Book 1 in Raven McShane Series) (9 page)

The morning news said we had finally been granted a reprieve from the weather, with high temperatures only expected to reach the low 90's.  The downside was that I had no more excuses for avoiding my daily jog.  I toughed it up and got my jogging clothes on.  I ran west from my apartment, away from the Strip into a maze of strip malls, warehouses and the occasional pawn shop.  The first half of the jog was a blissful escape.  I thought about everything and nothing at the same time.  But reality hit me when I turned to head back.  I was nowhere in this case.  I had learned almost nothing about the Outpost casino except that its head of security was an asshole with sharp fingernails.  The only lead I had was what Mel Block had told me at the Del Mar racetrack, but how was I supposed to learn anything about a skim operation if I couldn’t even get inside the place? 

Rachel said it might be worth talking with Amy Masterson, her former sister-in-law.  I had poured cold water on that idea.  It didn’t take a genius to guess that Amy wouldn’t be in any kind of a mood to help anyone trying to prove her husband was a murderer.  And I would be willing to bet that word had already gotten out that I had been sniffing around about Cody Masterson. 

As I cooled down from my jog, a growing temptation was building in me to pawn the problem off on Mike.  He had tried to look busy earlier in the week, but I could tell he wasn’t exactly swamped in his own work.  It was the dead of summer, and a lot of the insurance people he worked for were probably on vacation.  Plus, it might give me an opportunity to get him drunk again.

I showered quickly and hit the internet.  I had no idea where a jet-set couple like Amy and Cody Masterson might live—a palatial suburban mansion?  Lake Las Vegas?  A penthouse condo on the Strip?  I guessed that they were not listed in the phonebook, and I was right.  The two were hardly a publicity-shy couple, though, so I figured their home would have been in the newspaper at some point.

I searched the
Review-Journal
’s website for any stories mentioning their house.  Nada.  The Mastersons hadn’t hosted any charity galas or political fundraisers, apparently.  I decided I might as well pay for the information.  Rachel hadn’t said anything about money, and I hadn’t felt like bringing it up.  But I assumed if things worked out she’d pay me a small fortune without me having to ask.  I had a Westlaw account, and with that online service you could uncover all sorts of legal information about real estate—deeds, easements, title transfers, or even overdue property taxes.  Plugging in a search for AMY MASTERSON didn’t produce any hits, but when I used her maiden name, AMY HANNITY, I found three records.  The first hit showed that she had purchased a $755,000 house in the east side of town about eight years ago.  The second record, five years later, told me she sold that house for a nifty $400,000 profit, and the third hit revealed that she’d plowed that money into a property assessed at $2.6 million on Champion Hills Lane in the western suburb of Spring Valley, about ten miles away from the Strip.  I wondered how much the street’s pretentious name added to the purchase price.

I wrote down the address and phoned Mike.  He didn’t sound too thrilled with the idea.

“If anything,
you’re
supposed to be working for
me
,” he said.  I wondered if he was a little sensitive about the whole thing.  He was the one with the experience, but I was the one working the big case while he chased down small-time deadbeats who were faking neck injuries.  I decided to become a damsel in distress.

“I just don’t know where else to turn,” I said.  “I’m toxic.  They won’t let me in that casino, and everyone connected with it probably knows I’m trying to bring Cody down.”

Mike gave me his silent routine.

“I’ve already done the hard part,” I said.

“Meaning what?”

“I found out where she lives.”

He snorted.  “What exactly am I supposed to do?  Ring the doorbell and ask, ‘Did your husband do it?’”

I explained what I wanted to know, which was whether she or her brother had any idea that someone inside the casino was ripping them off.

“I guess that makes sense,” he said.  “If I come in asking whether her brother knew they were being stolen from, it’s not quite as bad as asking if her husband’s a murderer.”

“Right.  All I want to know is if George suspected any kind of embezzlement before he was killed.  She might actually be interested in finding out someone thinks they’re being ripped off.  If Cody was involved, it’s very possible that she has no idea about it.”

“And I can bill this?” Mike asked.

“Of course!”  I laughed.  That didn’t mean he’d be
paid
for it, but I didn’t mention that little detail.  “I figure she might be home right now actually.  It’s only ten.  How about it?”

“You’re driving?”

“Whatever it takes.  I’ll just hide in the car when we get there.”

I called down to the valet to get my car.  When I got downstairs, Tommy was bent over my car polishing the hood.  No one seemed to be watching, so I allowed myself ten seconds to admire the view.  At what point, I wondered, did I officially become a dirty old woman? 

I headed downtown to pick up Mike at his office, and then we headed west on Vegas Drive, which formed a T with a street called Rampart Boulevard. 

“Nice neighborhood,” Mike said.  “They don’t mess around out here.”

Rampart Boulevard lived up to its name.  An imposing twelve-foot stone wall ran the entire length of the street, basically giving the finger to the outside world and anyone who didn’t belong there.

“Nothing subtle about that wall,” I said.  “
Gotta
keep the riffraff away.”

Mike chuckled.  “Riffraff like us.”

I had worked at a few private events in homes in this neighborhood—birthday and bachelor parties, mostly—but I wasn’t about to let Mike know that.  I drove south along the wall for a few blocks and found the entrance to the subdivision.  Summerlin, as the entire community was known, was an upscale development consisting mainly of condos and mansions, and several of the neighborhoods were gated.  For some reason, this wasn’t one of them.

We wound our way around streets with annoying names like Trophy Hills Drive and found the Mastersons’ house at one end of Champion Hills Lane.  Another golf course estate.  Mel Block’s pad in La Jolla looked downright modest by comparison.

“That’s the TPC behind the house,” Mike said.

I gave him a blank stare.

“Tournament Players Club.  They have a PGA event there every year.”

“Of course.  You a golfer?”

He nodded.

I sighed.  “Well, nobody’s perfect.”

The Mastersons’ home was not the typical Mediterranean-style villa that seemed so omnipresent in the southwest.  Instead, it was a French-inspired chateau, all stone, complete with a three-story half-turret.

“Looks like the architect took the design right off the label of a bottle of French wine,” I said.

Mike smiled.  “A French chateau next to a golf course, in the middle of the desert.”

I chuckled.  “Ten miles away from a fake Eiffel Tower, a giant pyramid, and a volcano that explodes every fifteen minutes.”

“Don’t forget the pirate show,” he said.

I parked a few houses up the street, and Mike got out.  He was wearing his bible salesman outfit again: short-sleeved white shirt, red tie, gray slacks, black shoes.  I moved over to the passenger seat and watched him approach the door.  He paused a second before ringing the bell, and in that instant a blonde woman in running clothes emerged.

Amy Masterson looked startled.  She was obviously on her way out for a run and wasn’t expecting to find someone lingering at her front door.  She took the headphones out of her ears, and the two of them talked.  After a few minutes she unfolded her arms and seemed to relax a bit.  She and Mike went inside.

Mike was in the house for what seemed like an eternity.  After a half-hour, I considered sneaking up to the house myself to see what was going on.  My womanly sense was beginning to prickle, but I laughed it off.  Mike was as smooth as sandpaper, and Amy was married—to Cody Masterson, no less, reputedly the sexiest man in Las Vegas.  I convinced myself I had no reason to suspect any hanky panky.

The front door finally opened and Amy showed Mike out.  I slunk down in my seat in case she looked in my direction.  Mike looked a little unsettled when he got back to the car.

Mike backed the car up a hundred feet or so and then did a U-turn to get out of the subdivision.  I was still crouched down in my seat.

“How’d it go?” I asked.

“Well, I don’t know if she bought it or not.  But she didn’t exactly throw me out of her house, either.”

“Did she have anything useful to say?”

“Not really.  She said she didn’t notice any change in George before he was killed.  She and her brother talked business almost every day, and she doubted there was any funny business going on with their books.  George probably would have known about it, she said.”

“That’s the question, though. Did he find out about it right before being killed?  Or was he
about
to discover it?”

“Amy didn’t think so.  But like you said, who knows whether George might have been hot on the trail.  George could have started nosing around, and Cody got nervous and decided to kill him before he figured out what was going on.”

“Well it looks like another dead end,” I said.  “Cody wasn’t at home, was he?”

“No sign of him.  Actually, when I was there she got a phone call from another man, and they sounded pretty, uh, friendly.”

“How so?” I asked.

“It sounded like they were making weekend plans.  I thought that was kind of strange.”

“And it wasn’t Cody?”

“No, she called him something else.  Eddie.”

“Huh.”  In the last week I had looked at about two dozen pictures of Cody in the newspaper.  If I had a man who looked like him, I wouldn’t be spending weekends canoodling with someone else.

We hit a long stoplight heading back downtown.  “So what were you guys doing in there for so long?”  I tried not to sound accusatory, but I was dying to find out.

He started blushing.  “She’s a very friendly woman, let’s just say that.”

“What happened in there, Casanova?”

He laughed.  “Nothing happened.  She just, well, she wanted to show me her bedroom and . . .”

The light turned green and my foot overreacted on the gas pedal.  Mike’s head was thrown back into the headrest.

“Ouch,” he said.

He deserved it.  “So you went up to her bedroom, and . . .”

“She said it was just remodeled.”

“I suppose she wanted to show you her needlework too?”

“No.  Eventually she got on the bed and suggested I join her there.”

“And?”

“And that’s when I left.”

“Wow.”  That little hussy.  I took a deep breath.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to cross-examine you.  You’re a grown-up.  You can do whatever you want.”

Mike just looked at me and smiled.  I had a hard time picturing him getting angry or losing his cool.

“Oh, I did learn one other little tidbit,” Mike said.  His eyes were sparkling with amusement.  “I called her ‘Mrs. Masterson’ and she busted a gut.  She said Cody’s name is bogus.  His parents emigrated from Sweden to Minnesota, so he’s first generation.  His real name is Lars Bergstrom.”

I laughed out loud.  “Well, it’s no wonder he changed it.  Not exactly a showbiz name.” 
Lars
, I thought.  That was precious.  “But here’s what I don’t get.  Amy’s husband—Cody, Lars, whatever his name is—is supposed to be the best looking guy in Vegas.  Why would she have a guy on the side
and
then try to put the moves on you, too?”

“Maybe Cody’s got someone on the side himself,” he said.  “But why are you so surprised?  I
am
pretty irresistible.”

I decided to play along.  “Oh, I don’t blame her at all for throwing herself at you.  Especially with that sexy shirt and tie combo you’re wearing today.  That Ward Cleaver look is really making a comeback.”

He sighed.

“So are you sure it was some kind of boyfriend she was talking to on the phone?

“Pretty sure,” he said.

“When were they leaving for this weekend getaway?”

“It sounded like tomorrow.  Thursday through Sunday.”

“You’re quite the little spy,” I said admiringly.

We pulled up to Mike’s office building around noon.  I fluttered my eyelashes and smiled at him.

“Now what?” he asked.

“I’ve got another client, a guy coming in from Indiana that I’m supposed to keep an eye on.”

“I do have other work, you know,” Mike said.  “You can’t handle two things at once?”

“I can, but I’m not a very good tail.  For some reason I find it impossible to fade into the background.  One guy a few months ago asked me if I was stalking him.  And that was after only twenty minutes.”

“Can’t you, you know, cover yourself up a little?  Try to look a little less . . . noticeable?”