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?”
I laughed. “Is that a compliment?”
“You’re a very pretty young woman,” he said.
What was I, his niece? “Thank you,” I said. “I suppose I could try wearing a sweatshirt and maybe a baseball cap. But only if I can’t find someone else to do it.”
“Sorry, Raven. Looks like you’re doing your own dirty work on this one.”
I sighed. “Thanks for coming with today, though.”
“Two and a quarter hours,” he said.
“I’ll make a note of it.”
I headed home and called Carlos Villaregosa, my bouncer friend from Cougar’s. The husband of Barbara Finley, the nervous housewife from Indiana, was arriving the next morning, and I was planning to sleep in. Carlos had tagged along with me a few times before, and he’d never turned down an easy paycheck. He didn’t disappoint. I gave Carlos the details of Finley’s arrangements and scanned one of his photos and emailed it to him. Following this guy around was somet
hing Carlos could do by himself.
“A bachelor party. Nice,” he said. “Maybe they’ll end up at Cougar’s.”
“Yeah, then you can work both jobs at the same time.”
“It’s called efficiency.”
“You have a camera?” I asked.
“Cell phone.”
“Good enough, I guess. Just let me know if he gets himself in trouble.”
Chapter 12
I danced at Cougar’s until the wee hours on Wednesday night and slept in on Thursday. I decided to take most of the day off. It wasn’t a difficult decision: I had zilch to go on and my phone hadn’t exactly been ringing off the hook with other work. And what had seemed like a nugget of useful information from Mel Block hadn’t produced any significant new leads to go on. Neither Rachel nor Amy had noticed anything unusual about George’s behavior before he was killed, and no one besides Mel seemed to think that anyone was ripping the place off. If George hadn’t found out about any kind of skim operation, there wasn’t much point in poking that hornet’s nest.
After lunch I went shopping at the Palazzo. I was drooling over a pair of Christian Louboutin leopard print pumps when one of the waifish clerks shot a death stare at me. It wasn’t completely her fault. She was new, and I was dressed like a mid-priced whore who had no business looking at a seven-hundred-dollar pair of shoes. But still, I didn’t like her. In fact, as a general rule I hated anyone that thin.
I waved at her and she reluctantly came over. Her nametag said her name was Marissa. “Do you have these in a size nine?” I asked.
She made a face. “I’ll have to check in back.” Oh, the horror.
She returned and shoved a shoebox at me. I sat down and tried them on. They looked fantastic on me. Not that Marissa would admit it. She was a big time clerk at a shoe store, after all.
“I’ll take them,” I said.
Her mask of superiority vanished for a split second, and she flashed me the briefest of smiles. A real human being was in there, somewhere. Unfortunately for her I had already decided I was going to out-bitch her.
“Just have Claire put it on my tab,” I said, handing her my driver’s license. Claire was the manager. She had sold me two dozen pairs since the store opened two years ago, and I had an open line of credit. That meant Claire would get the commission and not the witchy Marissa. I felt a pang of remorse, but it passed quickly.
I browsed around some of the other stores, but it turned out I wasn’t in a shopping mood. Something was nagging at me about Mike’s experience with Amy Masterson, and it wasn’t just misplaced jealousy. Not too long ago, Amy’s husband Cody had made women scream and throw their panties on stage when he danced. It bugged me that his wife would now be so starved for male attention that she apparently had a guy on the side and was hot to get Mike into bed as well. It didn’t make sense. It was starting to look like there might be more to Cody’s and Amy’s marriage than met the eye. I found a bench in the mall and called Rachel.
I caught her in her car. “Quick question,” I said. “How are Cody and Amy as a couple? Are they close?”
“I think so,” she said. “At least I’ve never heard otherwise. Why?”
I told her about Mike’s encounter with Amy.
“Huh. I guess I haven’t really socialized with them much since George died. They could be fighting or something for all I know.”
“Ok, thanks.”
I didn’t have anything else to go on, so I figured it might be an angle worth exploring. Amy had been Cody’s only alibi witness during the trial, corroborating his story that they’d both been at home together in bed on the night of the murder. Bad habits don’t come out of the blue. If they were cheating on each other now, I figured there was a chance they were cheating back then. It wasn’t much, but it was something. If I could show that they weren’t really happily married at the time George Hannity was murdered, it would undercut their story that they were together in bed when the murder happened.
From the scraps Mike had overheard of Amy’s telephone conversation, it sounded like she was being picked up at home by “Eddie” later that night. Mike had no idea what time.
Carlos called my cell while I was walking back from the Palazzo. He reported that the bachelor party group had checked into the Mandalay Bay hotel, and for the time being they were sunning themselves at the pool. Carlos was bored.
“You up for a change of pace?” I asked.
“I’m gonna fall asleep watching these guys,” he said. “I got class at seven, though.”
“Class?”
“I’m in summer school.”
“Getting your G.E.D.?”
He was silent for several seconds. “No. I’m six credits short of my MBA.”
Oops. Carlos and I were casual work friends, but by design I hadn’t gotten too personal with him. “Wow, you’re a regular Alex P. Keaton.”
“Who?”
I guessed that Carlos was only five or six years younger than I was, but these days that felt like an entire generation. “Never mind. Anyway, I’m going to sit outside a house in Summerlin, try to get a few photos.”
“Somehow I thought your life would be a little more exciting.”
“Come on, it’ll be fun.”
“Why you need me?”
I figured he was trying to work me for more money. I decided to call his bluff. “Yeah, you’re right. You should focus on your studies. Forget it.”
“Okay, fine. It’s just a marketing class,” he said. “I can skip it.”
I said I’d pick him up outside of Mandalay Bay around 5:30 and we’d head over to Summerlin. I hopped in the shower when I got home. When I dried off my phone was beeping at me. Change of plans. Carlos had left a message saying the bachelor party was headed over to the Red Rock Casino, and he wanted to know if he should follow them or come with me. I called him back and told him to follow them there. Red Rock was only a few miles from the Masterson house, and I said I would swing by and pick him up there around 6:15.
I reached the casino around six and used the self-park. The Red Rock was a trendy off-Strip resort geared toward people who wanted luxury in the desert but didn’t want to fight the crowds on the Strip. From what Carlos had said, the Indiana bachelor party was just looking for a change of scenery to play some craps. Nothing too risqué for a Thursday afternoon. Red Rock had five craps tables in action, and I spotted Carlos pretending to play a slot machine near one of them. He was wearing a black White Sox cap tilted sideways and baggy black jeans. An oversized baby blue UCLA basketball jersey hung loosely over a tight white t-shirt.
“Any luck?” I asked, nodding at the slot machine.
Carlos pretended to look disgusted and started shaking his head at me in disapproval. “G.E.D. my ass,” he muttered. “I was top twenty percent in business at UNLV.”
“Thanks for the résumé update.” I wondered briefly why he spent his nights working at a strip club instead of some corporate gig or something. Oh wait, I think I know.
“Anyway, no, I haven’t won anything from this stupid machine. I put a quarter in but I still haven’t pressed ‘spin,’” he said. “The math is against you, so why play?”
“Shhhh,” I hissed. “Saying things like that could get you killed in this town.”
He smiled. “I’m not afraid.”
I glanced over at the group of men standing at the craps table. “How are your boys doing?”
“How are your girls doing?” He made a show of looking down my shirt.
I sighed. “You’ve seen me buck naked a thousand times. Can’t you keep your head at eye level for two minutes?”
He shrugged. “I know what I like,” he said.
“You better behave yourself, or I’ll tell your girlfriend.”
He looked genuinely scared. “Okay, okay.” He tilted his head toward the craps table. “That fat guy is Finley.”
“Fat guy” was being kind. Richard Finley’s three hundred pounds didn’t sit very comfortably on his five-se
ven frame.
“Seems kind of like a square,” I said.
Carlos nodded. “More like a blob. But you’re right. When they got here, the whole group bought cigars. A few of them giggled like little girls when they lit up.”
“Yikes. They probably think drinking caffeinated coffee is wild and crazy. So Finley is the best man. Which one’s the groom?”
“I think it’s that guy with the sunglasses.”
“Looks like another winner,” I said. “He thinks he’s Roy Orbison?”
“Who?”
I sighed. “He’s the guy who invented wearing sunglasses indoors. Ever hear the song Pretty Woman?”
Carlos gave me a blank look, and I decided it was hopeless. We both turned discreetly to watch the group play craps.
The woman shooting the dice was a gray-haired librarian type who looked befuddled by the whole game. She was probably just being a good sport by rolling the dice for her husband’s sake, I figured. The woman managed only four rolls of the dice before crapping out. The whole table groaned in unison, but Finley and his nerdy bachelor party didn’t seem too upset by their bad luck.
“You got some pics of them?”
Carlos scrolled through a few photos he’d taken on his cell phone. “Why do you need pictures?”
“I don’t, but I like to show the client I actually did my job. They tend to get suspicious if I just tell them I didn’t see anything and then cash their check for five grand. Anyway, these guys don’t seem like they’re going to get into much trouble today. Let’s get out of here.”
Chapter 13
Although it had cooled off a little this week, the parking garage was still brutally hot when we left Red Rock. We took my car. The Mastersons’ subdivision in Summerlin was only a few miles north of the casino, and we wound our way through rush hour traffic in less than fifteen minutes. I circled around the cul-de-sac at the end of the road and did a quick drive-by of the house.
“Lights are still on,” I said.
Carlos nodded. “Somebody’s home.”
I parked on the opposite side of the street about two houses down. We were out of the way but close enough to get a clear view of the front door.
Diva Las Vegas (Book 1 in Raven McShane Series) Page 9
