Fatal Game

by Linda Ladd

  Chapter 3

  Claire and Bud took the back elevator down to the ground level. Outside, the temperature seemed to have dropped even lower. There was a brisk, wintry wind gusting in off the lakefront, but the snow had let up. The blanket of white covering the hotel grounds lay six inches deep, with drifts forming up against the walls and mounding over bushes. The outlying heliport looked slick with a thin layer of ice, and all the outdoor pools were covered for winter. It was still beautiful.

  Inside the big glass windows of the lodge, Claire could see lots of guests using the heated indoor pools and hot tubs. The glass was partially steamed up, but everybody seemed to be having a good time, nice and warm despite the frigid weather outside. No reporters around, thank the Lord. Probably plenty of them still inside the lobby, though, busy making nuisances of themselves. Black would probably have to face them down eventually, and then he’d run them off. Truth be told, however, he was rather good at handling media types—as long as they didn’t write for the National Enquirer, at least. They seemed to love the guy, no matter how many times he threatened to sue them into bankruptcy. Right now, though? She needed to concentrate on the case.

  “The cops on scene tell you anything pertinent, Bud?”

  “Some woman found the body and called 911. Dispatch said the victim is a young female.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Patrol officers had just showed up and were securing the scene when I got the call. I don’t know much about the scene.”

  “Where’s this place?”

  “Some rich guy’s pleasure palace, believe it or not. And get this, Claire: The house where they found her? Patrol said it’s on the Christmas on the Lake house tour. And that it’s still going on as we speak.”

  “Crap. Well, that’s not good. But they’re not letting anybody else inside the house, right?”

  “I hope to hell not. A bunch of people went through the murder scene yesterday, though, as I understand it, and the day before, too.”

  “That’s not going to help forensics much.”

  “The lady who found the victim got there late, and the people on the tour were waiting out front. Before she let them in, she went in to check out the house, light the candles, and junk like that, lucky for us. That’s when she found the dead girl. Apparently, she screamed and ran out in a panic, and that freaked out the rest of them.”

  “Man, none of that sounds good.”

  “The newspapers are gonna love this. Not to mention all those media guys hanging around your lobby, trying to get snaps of you.”

  “Let’s just try to keep a lid on this. Nothing more gets out, okay?”

  “You are singin’ my song. But you usually do.” He looked down at her and grinned. Claire smiled back. She had really missed this guy. It halfway made her want to partner up again.

  After Claire had gone private, Bud bought himself a brand-new truck, a silver Toyota Tundra, no doubt aiming to match his eyes. He was inordinately proud of his new vehicle and had listed its glories to her at least fifty times since she’d come back. It was now sitting out in the driveway, right where the shoveled sidewalk ended, spotless and shiny and impressive. She suspected it had that new car scent, too. They walked swiftly toward the truck, heads down, not wanting to alert the vultures that Claire had ventured out of hiding and could be hunted down like a wild animal. She was glad for her brown leather snow boots because the weather had really gotten cold, and she wasn’t used to low temperatures. Unfortunately, her body still had a Hawaii thermostat going on.

  Claire swung open the door and stepped way up into the passenger seat. This was a big truck, all right. Bud took the driver’s side, buckled himself in, and started the motor. Claire turned the heater on full blast. Just like old times. She felt so unbelievably comfortable about being back, exhilarated, excited, the whole nine yards. The cold, fresh lake air revived her. Now that Black had settled down to a combustible simmer, she could concentrate solely on the job. Make it her total focus. Her return to homicide felt good, as if she was doing the right thing at the right time.

  Bud took off in a spray of salty slush and dirty snow. He had finally learned to drive on slick streets since he had come up from Georgia years ago. In the interim, she had become accustomed to his sliding sideways on ice and righting his car in the nick of time, sometimes even without hitting other vehicles. So today she rode just like old times: with one hand braced on the dash, just in case. Despite Christmas shoppers darting in every direction and cars crawling slowly in busy five o’clock traffic, the crowds somehow stayed out of their way, and thus remained alive.

  “Temperature’s supposed to drop below zero tonight,” she told Bud, looking at the gauge behind the steering wheel. “It’s already twenty degrees right now. Wind chill’s even worse.”

  “Yeah, we’re gonna have an arctic Christmas this year, so lucky you. I know how much you secretly pray for snowstorms.”

  “Yes, sir, I have missed the snow, and watching my breath smoke out into nice, crisp air. New Orleans and Hawaii are great places to visit, but this is home for me. This is where I belong. Snow banks and icicles and decorations everywhere. It’s paradise on earth, and you know it.”

  “Well, I’m glad you’re back. We need you. I need you. I’ve missed you like hell. Best partner I ever had.”

  “Thought you liked the new guy.”

  “I do. Brandon’s okay. He’s got a lot to learn. Luckily, we haven’t had a homicide since you left.”

  “That’s really good news.”

  “Good, but boring. I did get a domestic dispute upgraded to murder one about three months ago. Wife shot her husband while he slept in their bed. Pulled the covers up over his head and left him lying there rotting for two weeks. Pretty gross scene, let me tell you. Be glad you weren’t here to work it. Open and shut, though. She admitted everything and pleaded guilty. Actually turned herself in. Yep, things have been quiet around here since you got married and left us to fend for ourselves.”

  “Well, here I am. Who knows? Maybe Black and I will stick around. I wouldn’t mind that.”

  Bud jerked his attention to her. “No shit? You promise?”

  “Rico really likes it here at the lake. We think it’s a safe place for him to live. Schools are good. Black likes the privacy we’ve got out here, especially at my cabin. He likes that it’s hard for the paparazzi to get down here. You know, plane, train, and automobile.”

  Bud laughed. “They’ll go through barbed wire fences now that you two showed up on those magazine covers. Hey, you’re the talk of the country now. The world, even.”

  “Trust me, we are going to lay low. Black’s furious, but what good does that do? This, too, will pass. Just like our bad publicity always does. Then they’ll go elsewhere and create havoc for other unfortunate people. Who cares what those media morons have to say? They lie about everything, anyway.” Except truth was, her shrugging it off wasn’t exactly the truth. She wanted the media out of their lives as much as Black did. Being hounded by obnoxious reporters sucked, all right, and they were getting more than their share today. She was damn lucky she’d gotten by them without being chased down. There ought to be a law against hounding people to death. The tragedy of the beautiful Princess Diana came to mind.

  Bud’s phone vibrated, and he pulled it out of his pocket. “Buckeye just texted. Says he and Shaggy and their team are loading their equipment and will meet us there.”

  “Good. I haven’t seen those guys in a long time.”

  “They’ll be bummed out about catching this case right before Christmas. There go any vacation days.”

  “Is Brianna gonna be here for Christmas?”

  “Hopefully. She’s still in Milan, for some kind of holiday fashion show. Not sure she’ll get away in time to make it home for Christmas. Not sure she wants to.”

  Claire frowned. That didn’t sound like Bud.
“You guys having trouble?”

  “It’s not particularly good at the moment.”

  “Don’t be too hard on her. Modeling is what she does for a living. Maybe she’s got commitments she has to honor. Doesn’t mean she wouldn’t rather be with you.”

  “We don’t seem to have a helluva lot in common anymore. Never did, I guess.”

  Claire hated it when Bud was unhappy. She loved the guy. “That hasn’t seemed to bother either of you for the last couple of years.”

  “It’s bothered me. But who knows? Maybe she’ll make it back. I’m just not counting on it. Even if she does, you and I are gonna be tied up with this case. Sure as hell not going to have time to spend with her.”

  “Black’s not gonna like me catching this case, either. But hey, don’t worry. If she can’t make it, you can spend Christmas with us. Black’s got big plans for our first Christmas together. Harve’s coming. And Black’s going super overboard with Rico’s presents.” Harve was another of Claire’s best friends.

  “He’s crazy about that kid. Harve’s even worse. But it’s the happiest I’ve seen Harve in ages. I just might take you up on that offer. Black doles out some pretty great gifts.”

  “That he does. And if Brianna gets here, she can come, too.”

  The drive around the lake took longer than expected, because Bud was forced to slow down as cars crawled and slid around fender benders blocking intersections. The snow started up again and made visibility worse. Sleet pelted the windshield and made little pecking sounds. More inclement weather was all they needed. She shivered and was glad the body had been discovered inside a warm house. Standing around in the snow and freezing precipitation for hours working a case did not appeal to her at the moment. The radio was predicting four or five more inches tonight. Not as bad as the last blizzard she lived through at Lake of the Ozarks, but the deep snow would slow down work on her new cabin.

  Claire was eager to move back into her own place, or at least spend a lot of time out there. It was super private on its quiet inlet, completely surrounded by snowy woods. Even better, the cabin was wired with one hell of a security system, thanks again to her loving other half. No paparazzi would have a chance in hell of stepping foot anywhere near her place without her knowing, making it the place she wanted to be.

  To Claire’s relief, the murder scene was inside a gated community called Cliff Point. She’d been out there only once. It was fairly new and filled with plenty of personal surveillance cameras. All those precautions for the safety of the wealthy and famous residents were a good thing when looking for a murderer. Bad thing was the distance between residences. Not a neighbor in sight, most hidden within forested tracts and high brick walls, all owned by rich elitists who valued their ultra-expensive, private prime real estate. Not good for eyewitnesses to observe the comings and goings up and down all those long, private drives. Maybe she and Black should buy a house out there so they could fend off the jackals. Each home they passed boasted high and sturdy iron gates, all locked up tight with little lighted intercoms to announce who was good enough to step foot inside their hallowed halls. Actually, it was rather off-putting. Rich people usually sucked. Except for Black. He was one of the good ones.

  As it turned out, the estate they were searching for had a glorious, elaborate entrance gate with white brick pillars hugging both sides. They stopped in front of it. It was white iron spiked with a big guitar and music notes all over it. Massive. Eight or nine feet tall. Huge green Christmas wreathes hung on both sides. An equally high wall ran down the length of the property, and Claire surmised it probably ran the entire length and breadth of the large acreage. Hell, an elite swat team would have trouble crashing this gate. An ornate sign atop the pine wreath read: Christmas on the Lake Tour. Welcome, friends was written atop the other wreath. Lucky for Bud and Claire, however, the gate stood wide open, with no centurions guarding the royal portals. A mistake, that. Probably should have had a cop out there, blocking entrance to gawking rubberneckers. Maybe there were none available who weren’t down with the flu. Bud drove onward, and they rolled up the winding tarmac drive, his wipers in a life-and-death struggle with some sloppy snowflakes that had begun to freeze themselves to death.

  Claire had not been inside this particular property. It was an extremely ritzy enclave designed for reclusive celebrities, rich-as-Croesus folks, no doubt, who wished to put down roots in rural Missouri for reasons known only to them. That would be shallow roots, judging from the movie stars Claire had had the misfortune to meet—whom she could count on one hand, by the way. There were several B-listers and TV actors who had homes inside the development, but who they were, she couldn’t recall. There were also a couple of state politicians, along with a few wealthy brain surgeons and other doctors who could, like Black, afford the good life. Except nobody had Black’s kind of money.

  Still, this gated community was the cat’s meow to those requiring prestige and flashy layouts in House Beautiful. Like a lot of places on Lake of the Ozarks, it looked pretty much deserted at the moment, and would remain so all winter long. All these magnificent residences were summer vacation homes, elaborate and beautiful and expensive, with fancy boat docks and even fancier boats, but rarely occupied by the owners. It was a real waste of perfectly good lakefront real estate, all right.

  Claire hoped to God that the victim wasn’t a movie star or any other kind of celebrity. That’s all they needed to engender a media frenzy. She and Bud had once worked the case of a TV soap opera star who had been murdered at Black’s own Cedar Bend Lodge. That’s how she’d met her husband, and the rest was history, especially since she’d vowed never to get married again. But she liked it fine. Better than fine, so far, at least. The publicity that soap opera murder victim had revved up had been god-awful. She would never be able to forget that case, no matter how hard she tried. She pushed thoughts of it out of her mind and locked it in a mental prison with the rest of her horrible memories. This was a new case, and very well could be open and shut. Anyway, it was Christmas, damn it. She was going to be merry and bright, even if it killed her.

  Bud drove past snowy stands of pine trees, through a wooded tract that looked like a wintry-themed Christmas card, and then there were more trees, and even more trees, before the house finally appeared in its woodsy magnificence. Right in the middle of twenty acres or so, the home was absolutely beautiful. At first, neither of them could believe their eyes, and after the initial wonder at the magnitude of it all, they found that they didn’t want to believe it. In the encroaching dusk, the whole place actually glowed, sent an aura of light up into the sky, like some monstrous radioactive house. It lit up the sky like a football arena. The residence itself looked gigantic, almost as long as a Marine barracks, perhaps. Beautiful. Modern. Rustic. Expensive. It was definitely a domicile owned by some complete idiot who just loved Christmas lights. This guy seriously left both Nicholas Black and Clark Griswold in the proverbial Christmas-decorating dust. Bud and Claire sat in the truck and beheld the over-the-top holiday décor that had ratcheted up to the crazy-as-a-loon degree. Of course, the house might possibly have had one single neglected, shadowy spot somewhere, maybe out back on a deck, but Claire sincerely doubted it. The dark, quiet woods had been switched up to the wattage of the portico of the Bellagio of Las Vegas. It verged on sacrilege to disrupt such a nice peaceful night in such a blinding way.

  Bud had stopped the truck at the bottom of a long, bricked sidewalk that led up from a matching herringbone bricked driveway to the entrance. He turned off the ignition and they both climbed out, speechless under the fierce glare. Or maybe they just needed to slide on some sunglasses. They shut their doors and stood silently under five trillion lights, which outlined every eave and window and door and porch rail. It was breathtaking, but not in a good way. The December electricity bill would probably cost more than the house.

  “Wow, just wow,” Bud managed to get out. “We missed our tur
n and ended up in Vegas.” Then he looked at her. They laughed together, just like old times.

  “Tacky, tacky,” Claire said.

  “Tacky cubed.” Bud shook his head. “Why the hell would somebody want to murder somebody in an electric plant?”

  Claire didn’t answer that question, but she considered it one hell of a good investigatory one. Two uniformed Canton County Sheriff deputies stood at the front steps. Six feet above those officers, she could see the all-glass, eight-foot front door etched with a huge J in the center. Lots of jagged lightning bolts were firing out of it at all angles. Probably personally designed by the owner while inside a particularly potent pipe dream and/or terrifying nightmare. The big, fancy wreath on the door was formed out of silver pine boughs and red Christmas balls. It was covered in lights, too, multicolored and dancing around like crazy. She was beginning to get dizzy.

  It looked like the two patrol deputies were finishing up stringing yellow crime scene tape. Hell, it probably took five thousand yards of the stuff to encircle the house alone. The gargantuan size of the structure was not going to help their investigation. Neither were the dropping temperatures and the windblown snow. One of the men turned and waved at her. Claire smiled and waved back. She recognized her old friend immediately. Tim Corrigan had worked with her in Homicide. He was a nice guy. The other man, she had never seen before. The turnover at the sheriff’s office had been surprisingly high since she’d gone private. Bud headed up the path, with Claire right behind him. The snow of the sidewalk was trampled by tons of footprints, most likely left by the Christmas tour. Her own boots left two-inch-deep prints in the new layer of white stuff.

  “Hey, what do you have here?” Bud asked the two uniforms. Corrigan was smiling at Claire. He had been widowed recently, after nursing his wife through a long and horrific bout of stomach cancer. In his mid-fifties, he loved his job, and it was helping him through his wife’s death. He had five grandkids and adored them more than anything else on the face of the earth. The other officer was new, young, tall, broad-shouldered, well-built, and nice-looking. Despite the biting wind and icy conditions, he was hatless, and his ears and nose had turned red in the biting wind. His hair was a bit strange, though: stark white and cut very close to his scalp. In fact, it looked like dark hair that had been bleached to the color of bones.