Dying for the Highlife (27 page)

“One did, but I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”

I stuck my hands in my pockets. “It shouldn’t be too tough getting your car open,” I said. “We could take a cab over there.”

“Really? That’d be great. I’m Heather, by the way.”

“Dan Reno,” I said, taking her hand. “Listen, I know you’ve been through a lot, and I don’t want to impose. But my truck’s ruined, and I need to get to South Lake Tahoe tonight. It’s about forty-five minutes away.”

“Is that where you’re staying?”

“It’s where I live.”

“Oh. You’re asking for a ride, in return for you getting my car open?”

“You don’t have to.”

“Do you think you could find me a hotel there?”

“Sure.”

She nodded, and I took off my jacket and fitted it over her shoulders. “I want to check on my buddy at the hospital first, for a minute. Then I’ll call us a taxi.”

We walked down the block toward the medical center. “I want to thank you, and your friend, for being there,” Heather said. “That man was ready to rape me.”

“I’m glad we were able to stop him.”

“Yeah, you sure did stop him.” We walked in silence, then she said, “Did you kill the other two?”

“Yes.”

“Does it…bother you?”

“No. They tried to kill me.”

“It was just so, well, violent, you know what I mean?”

“I think so. You were probably shocked, right?”

“Yes, very much.”

“It might bother you for a bit, but it will pass in time.”

“They were bad men,” she said, looking at me with teary eyes. “I’m glad they’re dead.”

It was almost nine
P.M.
when we got to the hospital. Heather waited in the hall while I went to Cody’s room. He lay propped up, dozing in his bed. A nurse told me to go ahead and wake him.

“Can’t a person get some shut-eye around this joint?” he grumbled.

“How’s your melon, man?”

“Soft. Whoever coldcocked me wasn’t playing around.”

“Well, they’re dead and you’re alive, if that’s any consolation.”

“It’ll have to do.”

“What do the doctors say?”

“They’re gonna take X-rays for a fractured skull and keep me overnight. I should be ready to split in the morning.”

“Give me the keys to your truck and call me when you’re ready. I’ll come pick you up.”

“They’re on the nightstand.”

“Get some rest,” I said, then left so he could, after taking a metal coat hanger from a peg on the door.

Fifteen minutes later a cab dropped us off at Jimmy Homestead’s house. A beat-to-shit Ford LTD was in the driveway, and it looked like every light in the house was on, as if someone were throwing a party. Heather’s silver Camaro was parked across the street. I pushed the coat hanger through the molding between the window and frame, and worked it until the door lock popped open.

“That’s pretty cool,” she said, trying to smile despite her fat lip. She found her keys in her purse and asked me to drive. I turned on the heater and made a U-turn, staring at the Ford junker. I guessed it belonged to Jimmy’s father. I couldn’t imagine a car more opposite Jimmy’s exotic ride.

I drove us out to the highway, southbound toward Tahoe. After the car became warm, she took off my coat and tucked her legs underneath her. I sensed she wanted to tell me something, but we drove on in silence.

The events of the day had left me emotionally numb. Now that the adrenalin of the battle was long spent, the violence felt unreal, and also random and pointless. But then I thought of Cody, tied to a fence post in that hidden desert basin, blood caked on his face, while Heather Sanderson was stripped naked, her face beaten, a rifle held to her head by her would-be rapist.

“What are you thinking?” Heather asked. She was staring at me.

“Things could have ended up a lot worse out there.”

She touched my arm and nodded solemnly.

We crested the summit over Spooner Pass and I steered her Chevy through the sweeping curves leading down the grade to Tahoe Valley. The lights of the city etched the south shore of the lake, the body of water a black abyss against the dark sky.

“I guess I’m a widow now,” Heather said.

“What?”

“My husband was shot and killed at Jimmy’s house. He was killed by the man you ran over.”

“Why?”

“No reason, really. We were leaving Jimmy’s house and when we opened the door, they were standing there. It was the skinny one. He didn’t say a word, just pointed his gun and shot.”

I didn’t say anything for a minute. Whatever Heather’s involvement with Jimmy Homestead was about, I didn’t care at the moment. But I also didn’t believe her husband was murdered for no reason.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally.

“We were getting a divorce anyway. He was bad news.”

“Oh. But still…were you and your husband friends with Jimmy?”

“Yes. He invited us to visit. We were just leaving when all hell broke loose.”

We came off the pass and drove around the lake, past the casinos, and crossed the state line into California. I pointed out a few hotels.

“My place is just a couple miles up the road,” I said. When we pulled into my driveway, I shut off the motor and looked at her. “Hey, you’re welcome to stay in my guest room. You should probably get some ice on that eye.”

“That’s kind of you. I’m not working now, so money is sort of tight.”

“I hear you.”

We went inside, and I threw some logs in the stove while she showered. When she came out to my living room she was wearing a loose cotton sweat suit. Her hair was still wet, and she had combed it straight. “Here,” I said, handing her a bag of frozen peas. “Fifteen minutes on your eye, then fifteen on your lip.” She sat curled on the couch, watching me stoke the fire.

“How did you get involved in all this?” she asked.

I closed the stove door and stood. “Are you hungry?”

“Yeah,” she said shyly. “What do you have?” She followed me into the kitchen.

“A couple cans of soup. Some bread. Cheese. Eggs. Cold cuts.”

“I’ll cook,” she said, but I made her go back to the couch. I heated her some soup and made a grilled-cheese sandwich.

“Do you have any booze?” she asked.

“Sure.” She sat at my kitchen table, and I brought her food and a vodka cocktail. I had originally thought she was about twenty-five, but without makeup and under bright lighting, it was clear she was in her thirties. Her nose was on the small side, and her blue eyes looked quite large and doe like. It was her eyes that made her face look so young.

“Thank you, this is very good,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

She took a bite from her sandwich. “So, what is it you do?”

“I’m a private investigator. Jimmy Homestead’s stepmother hired me to find him, after he won the Lotto.”

“Oh. Do you always carry a gun around?”

“Not always.”

“I’m sure glad you did today. It seemed like you knew those cops who showed up. Did you?”

“Yeah, one of them. There was some trouble here last year, and I got caught in the middle of it. I helped uncover some crimes committed by a county sheriff.”

“Does that mean the police like you?”

“Not exactly. But they’ll cut me some slack at times.”

“I imagine that’s convenient in your line of work.”

“Can be,” I said, mixing a drink. “Are you planning to drive home tomorrow?”

Heather stared at her glass and took a long swig. “Yes, I suppose I will. We have an apartment in San Jose—I mean, I have one, and…oh.” She tried to speak but her voice cracked, then she bowed her head and began crying. After a couple of minutes, she looked up and tried again to speak, but she was sobbing and her words were incoherent. She pounded her fists on the table and bawled until I thought she probably had no more tears left in her. It became awkward sitting there, so I went and started straightening up the kitchen.

“I’m sorry,” she said, sniffling. “I was hoping I wouldn’t do that, but it’s been a really bad day.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” I said.

“I don’t want to bore you with the details of my crummy life.”

“I’m a good listener. And no one’s life is perfect, believe me.”

She looked up at me with her vulnerable face, and I knew men could easily be smitten by her. Her eyes were her most alluring feature, but what really got me was how her heart-shaped lips moved when she talked, her teeth flashing white the few times I’d seen her smile. It was a face to kill for. As for her body—her outrageous curviness and the trimmed patch of blond hair between her legs—it could tempt and torment a man until his life was a complete shambles. I squeezed my eyes shut and actually wished I’d not seen her naked.

I chased the lustful thoughts with the remains of my drink. She had been beaten and almost raped, and this after her husband was murdered before her eyes. I felt like a creep for even thinking of trying to seduce her.

We moved to the couch, the heat from my stove warming the room, the flames dancing behind the glass.

“I like your place,” she said. “It’s cozy.”

“I like it too. I moved here about a year ago, from San Jose.”

“Really? That’s where I live. I’ve been there almost my whole life. I lived with my parents, then I lived with girl roommates, and then I met Eric. This will probably sound really stupid, but you know why I married him? The main reason was because of his looks. He just fit the mold of what I always imagined my husband would look like—tall, strong, blond, and handsome. I figured everything else would just fall into place.”

“Everything else?”

“Yes, well, financially I mean. He told me he had plans to be a real estate agent, and we’d have plenty of money. I just figured the money would be a given, I guess. Things had always worked out for me. I was very popular in high school, head of the cheerleading squad, homecoming queen. Even after high school, life came easy. My college teachers, the men anyway, gave me good grades even when I didn’t turn in assignments. I worked as a receptionist, and it was easy and fun and the pay was fine. But it all started going bad after I got married.”

“How so?”

“Eric turned out to be different than I thought. He liked to talk big, but he had issues with his temper and struggled career-wise. Every time he got a job, he would screw it up. Then he started taking steroids and things got worse—his personality got more extreme. He was always wound up, and he just had so much anger. He scared me.”

“Did he ever hurt you?”

“Not physically, no. But I knew eventually he would. After he lost his last job, I started working at a strip joint because we needed the money. But I got tired of men drooling after me, you know? All my life I’ve been attractive, and men chased me. But being a stripper meant taking advantage of my looks for money. After a while it made me feel sleazy, like I was a whore. So I quit. And Eric went crazy. I knew then I had to get away from him.”

“Sounds like he was a bad guy.”

“You’re damn right he was. You know how I feel now that he’s dead? I feel relieved. That’s it. No grief or sorrow. Just relief. I know that might make me seem like a real cold-hearted bitch, but it’s the truth.”

“I think your feelings are justified.”

“Thanks. I mean, thanks for understanding.”

“What are you going to do now?”

“Actually, I see this as a turning point for me. I’m going to get a real job and find a real man. Someone calm and level-headed and nice, someone who makes a solid, consistent living.”

“That sound like a good plan, Heather,” I said, stoically aware that my lack of a steady income precluded me from her vision of a real man.

She smiled and wiped a little tear from her eye. “My life may be upside down now, but I’m looking forward to getting things straightened out.”

“I have a question for you,” I said. “What were you and Eric really doing at Jimmy’s house?”

She paused, and I saw a tiny shift in her expression. “Why do you want to know?”

“Do you know Sheila Majorie, Jimmy’s mother?”

“No. Should I?”

“No.”

“I don’t get where you’re going with this,” she said. “What does she have to do with anything?”

“She hired me to do some investigative work involving Jimmy. I have reason to believe she was somehow involved with the men who killed your husband and abducted you.”

“Wow. That’s interesting. But I have no idea who Jimmy’s mom is.”

“That’s good,” I said, more to myself than to her.

“I’m pretty tired,” she said. “I better get some sleep.”

She said good night and went to the guest bedroom. I sat for a minute and considered her life and where it was going. I had the same questions about my own. After turning the lights off, I thought about mixing a final drink, but I was exhausted. I felt sure Heather’s visit to Jimmy Homestead was more than an innocent social call, but I reminded myself that my interest in the case had expired, save for whatever effort, most likely futile, I would expend to get paid by Sheila. I walked to my room like a zombie, wondering what I’d do now that my truck was out of commission and would probably cost thousands of dollars to repair. Pine needles rattled against my window, and when I looked outside, tiny snow flurries were blowing in all directions, as if the laws of gravity no longer applied, and each flake was left to find its own way.

F
rom the back seat of the cruiser, Jimmy watched the cops sort out the mess. They covered the dead bodies, took pictures, strung yellow crime-scene tape all over the place, and finally loaded the living into squad cars: Sanzini in one, Debbie in another, and the two dudes who were Sheila’s hired muscle into a third.

Jimmy stared hard at the second man, who had mysteriously shown up. Was he responsible for the death of the three men who kidnapped him? It appeared he was. The longer Jimmy looked at his face, the more he felt sure he recognized him from some time in his distant past. He could actually hear a crackling sound as the neurons in his brain kicked into overdrive, trying to dredge up a clue from who knows how many years ago. But he finally conceded he’d cooked too many brain cells.

He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, trying to keep the cuffs from digging into his wrists. Why the asshole cop had cuffed him, Jimmy didn’t know. He leaned forward and his eyes settled dully on the carpet below him. And then, in a quiet and brief moment of revelation, it hit him: the guy’s name was Dan Reno.