Prosecco Pink (36 page)

I led Jeff to his usual chair in the far corner, where it was quiet enough to talk. The couches and bigger chairs were more comfortable for lounging, but Jeff knew better. Like a lot of regulars, he preferred a chair narrow enough to allow me to swing my legs around his middle to straddle him completely. I would get to that in a minute. I began the tease by pushing Jeff gently into the chair. I stood facing him and leaned over to rub his neck and shoulders while he inevitably gaped at my chest. As usual, he was smiling like a little boy on Christmas morning. While I rubbed his shoulders, I leaned slowly into his face. As I rubbed deeper I could feel his hot breath on my chest. I figured it was the perfect time to get some straight answers.

"Before we get too hot and heavy," I said softly, "can I ask you a couple of questions?"

He reluctantly came up for air. "Uh, of course." He would have said anything at that point. I eased his forehead back into my chest.

I continued rubbing his neck while I whispered in his ear, "How do you know Rachel Hannity?"

His head resurfaced again, his hair now slightly mussed. "What? I know her, yes. I do some estate work for her. Why?" He was babbling.

"She wants me to do a job for her. Something involving Cody Masterson."

Jeff had been skeptical about my becoming a private detective. He shot me a quizzical look.

 "Anyway, Rachel is in trouble. She says you're going to help her sue Cody, but you need someone to dig up some new dirt. Something the cops didn't have the first time around during the murder trial. Is that about the gist of it?"

"You hit the high points, yeah."

"So is there anything you haven't told Rachel about this?" I asked.

He frowned. "Like what?"

"Well, you and I both get paid by the hour. Sometimes we tell people only the things they want to hear. It's only natural."

Jeff's eyes had found my chest again, but he did his best to answer my question. "You probably know that nobody's ever done well for themselves by taking on an old line casino family like those people."

I shrugged. I remembered that Cody Masterson was Rachel's brother-in-law for a short time. Like Rachel, he had married into the Hannity clan, owners of an outdated Strip casino called The Outpost.

"I'm not too worried about that," I said. "If things don't work out, I have a pretty lucrative gig to fall back on."

Jeff gestured to my bikini, which was still clinging to my chest. "Speaking of which…"

I held up one finger. "So you think she can win?"

"Anything can happen," he said. "Look, if you're asking if I'm just stringing her along to get some billable hours, it's not like that. She hasn't even paid me yet, now that I think about it. With some new evidence, we can convince a jury that the guy did it, and that he owes your friend about fifty million bucks for killing her husband."

That was good enough for me. I leaned in to whisper in Jeff's ear. "Enough talk." I undid the Velcro on my bikini top. As usual, he watched me as though he'd never seen a naked woman before. I enjoyed that about Jeff: his lust was unconditional.

CHAPTER THREE

The next day I slept in until one and made myself a tuna melt, which was about the most complicated meal I ever allowed myself to prepare. My women's magazines were always prattling on about the need to add more fish to my diet, and I tried hard to ignore a nagging doubt that the combination of mayonnaise and cheddar cheese would counteract any health benefits coming from the tuna. I decided I didn't care.

With the morning officially shot, I elected to spend the afternoon enjoying the cool re-circulated air in my condo and diving into the details of how the Cody Masterson murder case had played out in court. Apart from what Rachel and Jeff had told me, which was almost nothing, I remembered exactly two things about the case: Masterson was guilty as hell, and he was better looking than any man should be allowed to be. I had recently discovered that for twenty dollars a year, the
Las Vegas
Review-Journal
lets you search and browse through old stories on its website, and I figured that would provide a good start. Too good, it turned out. My initial search for the name Cody Masterson turned up 189 hits, which was too much for me to read in this lifetime. I scrolled past several pre-murder society page stories and focused in on reports about the murder, Cody's indictment, and the lead-up to trial.

There wasn't a lot to it. Three summers ago, George Hannity had been shot through the head at close range in what appeared to be a botched carjacking near a posh suburb ten miles east of downtown Las Vegas. All signs suggested that Hannity had been driving his convertible Mercedes SL-55 to his home when, at a deserted stoplight, someone pulled up, either in a car or on foot, and tried to wrest control of his car. Hannity was shot and killed, but the police speculated that something had spooked the carjacker and caused him to flee the scene without taking the Mercedes. No immediate suspects emerged, and the case looked destined to remain unsolved.

The murder of a young casino owner like George Hannity generated a slew of news stories, most of them under the byline of a writer named Leslie Trondheim. Her early reports focused on the increase in violent crime that had accompanied the area's rampant population growth in recent years. Other stories focused on the family tragedy. Hannity was only in his mid-thirties, had been married to Rachel (who was artfully described by the reporter as a "former entertainer") for three years, and he controlled thirty percent of an old, yet profitable, casino. All signs pointed to a long career as a wealthy businessman and community leader. One article mentioned him as part of a syndicate that was trying to bring a Major League Baseball franchise to town.

As I was scrolling through the stories, my computer flashed a warning that the website would log me out in another five minutes. I hadn't realized it, but I had been online for almost two hours. I was getting antsy, anyway. I was quickly learning that I wasn't cut out for this part of the job. I wanted to be on my feet and talking to people, not staring at a bunch of electrons on a screen in a lonely apartment. I logged out and pulled up the newspaper's public homepage, where I clicked on the contacts link.

I dialed the city desk number and the receptionist put me right through to Leslie Trondheim herself. She sounded polite but impatient. I introduced myself as a private investigator and asked whether she remembered working on the Masterson murder case.

"Of course," she said shortly. Stupid question. It was like asking Dan Rather if he remembered covering the Kennedy assassination.

"I wonder if you'd have a half hour sometime to talk about the case with me," I said.

"Um hmm," she murmured. "Well, I'm on my way out the door right now, but maybe some time next week I could give you that half hour." Next week was not going to do me any good. I thought for a moment.

"Could I buy you a drink tonight?" I asked. "Or dinner?" I'd read or heard somewhere that journalists are notorious cheapskates, and I hoped the offer of free food might do the trick.

She paused. I didn't know if she was really thinking about my offer, or if she just wanted me to think she was thinking about it. "That might work," she said coyly. "Your treat, you said?"

I smiled. "Naturally. You pick the place."

She thought for about four nanoseconds before she said we'd meet up at Hugo's, a spot downtown near the newspaper's main offices. We agreed to meet there in an hour. On the way over, I wondered whether talking to a member of the media was such a great idea, but I decided I could probably learn more from her in an hour than I could from an entire week of reading through her old stories. Money and time well spent.

Hugo's Cellar is a joint famous with locals but all but unknown to the millions of visitors who pour into Las Vegas and never leave the area between the Strip and the airport. Hugo's caters to the kind of people who don't have any use for dancing fountains, wine stewards, or martinis that have anything in them besides gin and vermouth.

For a Tuesday night, Hugo's was surprisingly crowded. To the left of the entrance a large woman sat hunched over the bar, clutching a glass of pink wine. She was reading a worn paperback book through reading glasses that were attached to a chain around her neck.

"Ms. Trondheim?" I asked.

She twisted back to me and frowned—I was obviously not what she was expecting.

"Who in the world are you?" she asked.

"Raven McShane. We just spoke on the…"

"The PI?" She practically spit out her pink wine. Her eyes dropped to my heels and made their way up to my chest, where they lingered a moment too long. "You're so…" She let the phrase hang in the air.

"Sorry," I said stupidly, not knowing what I was apologizing for. Who did she expect, Nancy Drew? I self-consciously adjusted my top to cover up some cleavage. It was mostly a waste of energy.

Leslie scooted the bar stool back a few inches and struggled a bit to get up. She stuck out her hand. "Call me Les," she said and gave my hand a firm shake. She was all smiles and neck fat now. Apparently she had forgiven me.

"Are we eating or drinking?" I asked.

"Both," she said and winked. She slurped down what looked like a half-glass of wine. So that's how it was. Les smiled apologetically and whispered something to the bartender. She stood only about five-two and looked like she ran a good two-hundred pounds, although instead of appearing wide and bulky she somehow carried the narrow, tubular frame of a juvenile walrus. A prominent quadruple chin gave her face a lumpy appearance, and it was framed by straight hair that used to be dark but was now streaked heavily with white and various shades of gray. With her reading glasses on, she could have passed for Benjamin Franklin.

I gestured toward the dining room, and we made our way to a small table near the door. For some reason I pulled the chair out for her and helped her into the seat. She seemed to like that.

"You're a cute one," she said, looking me over as I sat down. I couldn't tell if she was being flirtatious or grandmotherly.

"Thanks." I hoped I wasn't blushing. A compliment was a compliment.

"So why in the world are you looking at that boring old case?" she asked, her eyes fixing on me over the reading glasses she still wore.

"Just idle curiosity, really."

She arched her left eyebrow up at me as though I'd just told the whopper of the century. Another glass of pink wine suddenly appeared in front of her, and I told the waiter to bring me a glass of Prosecco, champagne's budget-friendly cousin.

"So how can I help?" she asked.

"Well, to put it bluntly," I said, "how the hell was Cody found not guilty?"

She smiled broadly. "Isn't it obvious? You have to remember that the jury had eight women on it, okay?" Her voice had the kind of rehearsed self-assurance shared by celebrities on talk shows who have answered the same few questions a million times. I hadn't known about the jury's heavy female slant, but I nodded anyway.

"And any woman would find it very difficult to send that man to prison. His face, his eyes—" She sighed dramatically, like a character in an Austen novel.

"Okay, okay," I laughed, cutting her off.

 "It's true," she insisted. "No other explanation for it."

"So you think he was actually guilty?" My drink arrived. We had forgotten to study the menu, so we perused it quickly while the waiter stood by. Les ordered a lobster bisque to start and an entree of prime rib with a side of garlic potatoes. I got the bone-in rib eye with a house salad.

Les picked up where we'd left off. "I didn't say I thought he was guilty," she said carefully, "but I think any other man would probably have gone away for a long time. There was a lot of evidence, of course. When they find the murder weapon buried in your backyard, it's not a good thing. There was the motive to help his wife take over the casino. And Cody was known to not get along with George Hannity. And no one believed the alibi," she added confidently.

"The wife, you mean?" I vaguely recalled reading that Cody's wife Amy had backed up Cody's story that the two of them were in bed together the night of the murder.

 She snorted softly. "Amy Masterson," she said, making a face. "Nice looking girl, but not on par with Cody. Thinks she's a princess of some sort, I'm convinced. Let me tell you, though, she played well with the jury. She's as sweet as they come. Anyway, she did a number with that alibi. Cody took the stand first and said they were together the night of the murder. In bed. Then Amy comes on the stand and says, not only were they in bed together, they were making passionate love most of the night. She explained that her sweet husband was just too polite and gallant to mention those details to the jury."

I laughed. "Nice touch."

She continued. "And it helped that she was the victim's sister—no one would stick up for her own brother's killer, right? But I think she lied about the alibi business. Overall, Cody seemed pretty believable to me, but since I want to snuggle his brains out I might be a little biased," she admitted with a devilish smile.

I grinned. Leslie was not a shy woman to begin with, I figured, and the wine had her pretty well lubricated. I decided to let her take the conversation in whatever direction she wanted. "So what else?" I asked.

She paused to consider the question. "I've covered hundreds of trials, okay? And it's almost always an obvious case of guilt—a slam dunk or whatever man-invented metaphor you want to use." She slurped down a healthy glug of wine. "But this wasn't like that. There was a ton of evidence—the murder weapon being found in his backyard, for example. But it was like, why is this here, you know? Why kill a guy and clean the weapon of prints but then bury the gun in your own backyard?"

"Hmm," I murmured. She had a point. "I'd at least drive it out to the desert or something."

"Right. Not exactly original, but it works. But I've seen so many of these cases that I'm always a little skeptical. And when you see these prosecutors and cops on a daily basis, you know they're not always the brightest bulbs."