Dying for the Highlife (3 page)

“Okay, Sheila,” I said. “I’m not quite sure what you’re up to, but you sign a contract and we got a deal.”

H
eather Sanderson rubbed coconut oil on her bronze stomach, letting her fingers linger over the smooth muscle beneath the skin. Then she applied the lotion to her shoulders and arms, working it evenly around the straps of her bikini bra. Lying back on the lounge chair, she closed her eyes and breathed deeply. The shadow of the balcony would soon fall over the small porch, and she wanted to enjoy the last available sun. The porch was tiny and afforded maybe two hours of sun a day—even less now that it was September. But she couldn’t bring herself to lie out at the apartment complex pool, not among the snot-nosed, noisy brats, and their mothers with their cottage cheese thighs and saggy tits. Last time she tried, a group of middle-aged husbands were at the pool, showing off their fat, hairy bodies and sneaking glances at her, hoping to catch a good enough look so they could fantasize about her the next time they screwed their frumpy wives. It was almost enough to make her sick.

Instead, Heather lay on her chair on the small patio, eyes closed, imagining she was on a white-sand beach somewhere in the tropics, on a private stretch of coast, maybe in Hawaii or Tahiti. It was a favorite fantasy of hers, but it never lasted long because the sounds of cars in the parking lot or the neighbor’s loud TV always ruined it for her. But today she was wearing earplugs, and she was pleased with the sensation. It made her feel as if she could be anywhere, as long as she kept her eyes shut.

“I see you’re getting a lot done today, as usual,” Eric Sanderson said, his voice startling her. He stood with his hands on his hips, blocking the sunlight.

“I love you too, babe,” Heather said, resisting the urge to ask him what he was doing home so early.

“And the apartment is still a mess,” Eric said. He went back inside, opened the refrigerator, and cracked a beer.

She lifted herself from the chair and followed him in.

“I take it the job interview didn’t go well?”

“You might say that. Five minutes into it, the guy tells me I’m not what he’s looking for. Can you believe that? I get all dressed up, drive out there, and he tells me that after five fuckin’ minutes.”

She watched him chug his beer and open another one. Yeah, get drunk, she thought. That’ll fix everything.

He sat down and banged his beer bottle on the kitchen table, the loud noise startling her.

“You’re gonna need to go back to the strip club.”

“Bullshit,” she said, heat rising in her face.

Eric scowled and pushed his tongue against his lower lip, the way he always did when he was angry. He was a good-looking man, but goddamn, he was ugly when he did that.

He stood abruptly, and she could see the muscles of his chiseled physique bulge under his white button-down shirt. He yanked his tie off, balled it, and flung it across the room. Heather wanted to move away from him, but she held her ground.

“What do you suggest we do for money, then?” he hissed. Heather kept her expression blank; Eric had gotten hold of some potent steroids recently, and his behavior was getting unpredictable.

“I’m gonna take a shower,” she said, and started up the stairs.

“Yeah. Have a good time with your toys,” he said.

She locked the bathroom door, peeled off her bikini, and stood on the tub so she could see her figure full length in the mirror over the sink. Looking at herself, at her tanned, naked body, never failed to give her a sense she could have anything she wanted. Her waist was still as slender as it had been when she was a teenager, her hips curved invitingly, and her thighs were smooth and muscular. She checked her breasts, accepting the tiny difference in shape between the two after the implants. It was okay—no one noticed but her, especially after the eye was engaged by her plunging tan line, which ended right above the nipples. She turned, standing on her tiptoes, and looked over her shoulder at her ass; she always thought her ass was the sexiest part of her body. Content, she stepped into the shower. Men would still kill to have her—at thirty-five, she knew she could compete with any woman on the planet.

She adjusted the shower head and let the water caress her body. Droplets formed on her breasts as the water streamed between them, running down over her navel and into her pubic hair. She ran her soapy hands over her tanned skin, taking a familiar pleasure in the feel of her curves. She knew men, shallow as most are, were prone to consider her a bimbo, or worse, a piece of fluff, as her husband had once called her. She let them think what they may. Few of them ever realized she was intelligent. In particular, she loved to read, and not just popular magazines. She also read romance novels, and the San Jose newspaper every morning. Heather didn’t know many people who read as much as she did. Eric was certainly no reader—she was pretty sure he’d never read a book in his life.

While she showered, her mind replayed once more the brief newspaper article she had read a week ago, reporting that a San Jose native had won a $43 million lottery. The article stunned her. She knew the man—she had gone to school with him. And the memories were not fond. Jimmy Homestead was someone who had seduced her on a drunken night when she was a teenager. The result was a case of venereal warts, but that wasn’t all. Jimmy also slept with her younger sister, whom he infected as well. Then the prick bragged to all his buddies about how he had boned two sisters in the same week. She heard he had made a big deal out of comparing and contrasting their technique in bed.

When she came downstairs, in jeans, sandals, and a sleeveless white shirt, she was focused and calm. Her husband sat on the couch, one foot up on the coffee table, the clicker resting in his palm. She sat on the couch next to him with her legs together and moved her blond hair behind her ears.

“I’ve got an idea,” she said.

“Yeah, me too,” Eric said, and fingered open the first button of his slacks. Heather could smell the beer on his breath, and she closed her eyes for a long moment. She figured he’d probably been watching a porno.

“Eric, I’ve got something I want you to read,” she said, producing the neatly folded newspaper article.

“Why?”

“Read it.”

Eric’s eyes scanned the article lazily. Heather waited, watching his lips move every now and then.

“Jimmy Homestead!” he said finally. “I can’t believe that lowlife prick!”

“Yeah, Jimmy Homestead,” she said. “He—”

“Oh man, this ain’t right,” Eric interrupted.

She put her hand on his arm. “Eric, listen to my idea.”

I
woke early the next morning, to a mild hangover and a vague sense of unease. I’d driven Sheila Majorie to my house from the Rosewood Lounge to sign my contract, then offered her a drink and asked her more questions about Jimmy Homestead. She steered the conversation in other directions, and by our third drink she was snuggled next to me on my couch, her legs arranged so her skirt was situated well above her knees. I let my hand drift to the bare skin of her thigh, and she told me to behave myself, in the way women do when they really don’t want you to. Regardless, I stood and again asked about Jimmy. Within a minute I was back on the couch, and this time she put my hand on her breast for a moment and whispered, “Be patient,” in my ear.

Then she rose, signed the contract, and asked that I drop her off at Caesars. I did so, still with no good idea why she’d offered an inflated fee, payable only after I found her stepson. When I returned home, I had one last vodka and fell into bed, hoping she wouldn’t torment me in my dreams.

After brewing a pot of coffee, I logged onto the website I subscribed to, and began searching for information on Jimmy Homestead. The site tapped into databases storing mortgage information, court records, business licenses, and other data sources the US government deemed open to public access. Although far less than 100 percent reliable, it usually allowed me to find basic information on a subject, such as recent addresses, phone numbers, income level, and criminal history.

Within a half hour, I printed all I could find on Jimmy. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t much. As Sheila suggested, Jimmy lived mostly off the grid, meaning his public footprint would be less than your typical taxpaying citizen’s. Two addresses were listed: one in Fresno and a more recent one in Barstow, CA. There was a brief reference to a DUI conviction. No history of property ownership. No record of having ever married. No data available on education, occupation, or relatives. Besides his address in Barstow, the only thing useful was a listing for his cell phone number.

I sipped my second cup of coffee and stared out the window behind my desk. The sun was well above the steep, tree-lined ridges to the north, the clouds sparse against the blue sky. I took my foot off the desk and dialed Jimmy’s number. It didn’t ring, but instead connected to a generic voice mail message. I tried three more times with the same result. His phone must have been turned off. Either that, or it was an old number no longer in service.

I called the number every fifteen minutes, between doing a half-hearted job of vacuuming and a solid hour of sit-ups, curls with a ninety-pound bar, and eight sets of bench press. Then I fixed myself a turkey sandwich and brought it out to the deck. A family of deer was grazing in the meadow beyond my yard, enjoying the last of the season’s warmth. The sunlight filtered through the pines, the patterns of light shifting here and there in the breeze.

It was a fine, early fall morning in South Lake Tahoe, a day perfect for optimism and new beginnings. How tough could it be to track down a guy like Jimmy Homestead? Ideally, I could locate him without leaving town. But I wouldn’t get paid until arranging a meeting with him and Sheila, and that might not be so easy, especially if he didn’t want to be found. Although nothing Sheila said gave me reason to believe Jimmy was purposely off the air, I couldn’t rule out the possibility. Missing people are almost always hiding. Or dead.

After finishing lunch I drove my pickup truck to the sheriff’s complex off Black Bear Road. The air outside was fresh and cool in the shade of the huge old-growth redwoods in the parking lot. In contrast, the police station lobby was stuffy and cramped. I waited for Sheriff Marcus Grier, wondering how he would react to my presence. Not happily, once he learned what I wanted from him. But he owed me.

“Mr. Reno,” he said when he walked into the lobby five minutes later, his voice all bass notes. He gripped my hand and smiled, a gold molar flashing against his black skin. Marcus Grier had a way of putting people at ease—he always made me feel as if we’d known each other for longer than we had. He was also the type who remembered names, and I appreciated the fact he pronounced mine correctly.

“Good to see you, Marcus. You’re looking fit.”

“Hey, thanks for noticing. Lost twelve pounds so far.”

I followed him back through the bowels of the structure to his office. Grier was close to six feet, but his body was puffy, like an overfilled inner tube, and it made him look shorter. His sheriff’s cap barely covered his jumbo-sized head, and his beige short-sleeve shirt and green-striped pants seemed a size too small. But I’d learned long ago to not underestimate men with comic proportions. A few weeks back, I’d watched Grier wade into a drunken brawl at Zeke’s Pit and single-handedly remove half-a-dozen snowboarders who were expending their off-season energies by using the bar as their personal boxing ring. Grier threw them out of the place by the scruff of their necks, as if they were puppies. The rowdiest of the group, a young man with a Mohawk hairdo, threw a wild punch at Grier and found himself slapped into an arm lock and begging for forgiveness.

“How’s the private investigations business?” he asked from behind his desk.

“Been slow.”

“The demographics aren’t in your favor is my opinion,” he said. “Half the population up here is transient. Mostly kids, come up here for the winter, work at the resorts or casinos for a ski season or two, then move on and settle somewhere they can find a more permanent job. You also got a high population of Mexican immigrants, here to work the restaurants and other low-wage jobs. If you’re relying on lawyers to hire you, we only have a handful in town, that’s about it.”

“I probably should have considered that before I moved up here, is that what you’re saying?”

“Lake Tahoe’s a great place to live. The challenge is making a living here.”

“Tell me something I don’t know.”

The phone on his desk rang, and Grier punched a button and it went quiet. “What can I do for you, Dan?”

“I’m working a missing person case. I need to ask a favor.”

“What kind?”

I pulled myself up in my seat. “You told me once you had a connection at a credit bureau that could provide credit card transaction records.”

I heard his feet shuffle underneath his desk. “That was related to an official police investigation.”

“I know.”

Grier frowned, then said, “Did you ever hear again from Beverly?” The sympathy in his tone made me uncomfortable. My twenty-two-year-old live-in girlfriend had left me a few months back. Grier was happily married, and he and his wife had thought Beverly was a great gal. So did I, until she ran off with a waiter from a local steakhouse.

“How about it, Marcus?”

“Dan, I’m in your debt. You put your butt on the line, and I might not be here if it wasn’t for you. But doing this sort of thing creates issues for me. I’ll do it this once, but it will be the last time.”

“Fair enough,” I said. “The guy’s name is Jimmy Homestead.”

Grier told me to give him a couple of hours, then we spent a minute chatting about our shared history, a positive subject I suppose, though it damn near killed me, and left a case of frostbite on my toes that sent me reminders every time the temperature dropped below fifty.

I had visited Tahoe for a wedding last winter, while I still lived in San Jose, and was hired to investigate the murder of the groom. A corrupt county sheriff out of Placerville was impeding the case, and in the course of events, he fired Grier. During the investigation, my car was destroyed when I was run off the highway outside of Truckee, then I was handcuffed and nearly drowned. When I finally caught up with the county sheriff, I took a round from his .38 against my Kevlar flak jacket before I hit him with a cross-body tackle. I busted his nose and knocked out one of his teeth, and in my rage I might have killed him, if not for Cody Gibbons arriving and shot-putting him over a truck. The sheriff left town after his crimes were discovered, and was executed in a mob-style hit a month later. Grier was rehired as sheriff, and I came out of it with enough cash for a down payment on an upgraded A-frame cabin a mile off the lake.