Die Smiling

by Linda Ladd

  “Whatever. Right now, we’ve got to get things nailed down before tomorrow’s rehearsal. I guess the pageant will still go on, or will it?”

  Black shook his head. “I don’t know. It’ll be hard to cancel things this late. Let me think about it. Good God, this is awful.”

  “Let me know what you decide. I need to get back to the office and brief Charlie in person. The newspapers haven’t sniffed this out yet, but the minute they find out it’s connected to you and this pageant, they’ll be all over us.”

  “Yeah, what a surprise.”

  “I’m taking off pretty soon. Finish up here, and I’ll tell you more of the particulars after I get the go-ahead from Charlie.”

  “I’ll be over to your place later, as soon as I can get away.”

  “See you then.”

  “Well, be careful, for God’s sake. Duck, weave, hide, whatever it takes.”

  Our private little joke, but unfortunately it was wearing a trifle thin. I wasn’t ducking nearly enough, it appeared. Today I had ducked, all right, but still got myself a sore-as-the-devil shoulder. I decided to tell him about that little detail later so he wouldn’t demand to examine and retreat the wound before I left. I exited stage right in a big hurry, more than glad Jude had disappeared into the guest room and I wouldn’t be forced to compare cheekbone structures with her.

  Six

  As it happened Charlie had been called to Jeff City, so I didn’t get a personal sit-down with him. I elected not to go into detail about the case over the phone, either. He would be back in the morning, and I would brief him then. I left word with his teensy, sparrowlike secretary to fit me in as soon as he returned, and she promised to do so. I took time to check out the lakewide BOLO bulletin I’d put in on the boat, which was unlikely to draw a lead with such a sketchy description, but hey, maybe we’d get a break for a change. Maybe the guy’s wife was suspicious of his bloody clothes and some extra lips lying around the house and would give us a call. On the other hand, the guy probably had battened down the boat far away and out of sight hours ago. Unfortunately, nobody had turned up a thing.

  Maybe Black could help me figure out what kind of monster did this to Hilde when and if he could tear himself away from Jude. His insight could trigger something I hadn’t thought of. He was a shrink, after all, and he definitely knew his stuff. He’d helped me on my cases before. Not that I depended on him or anything, but talking the case helped my imagination click. And all I could think about right now was catching this depraved pervert and the sooner the better.

  After twenty minutes fighting five o’clock traffic, I hung a left into the private graveled road that led down to my little lakeside haven. I stopped at the security gate that my friend, Harve Lester, had installed last summer to keep the press off our backs. I used my trusty little remote, drove through, and watched to make sure the gate shut all the way and locked down behind me. When I passed Harve’s place, I glanced at the house, missing him. He had gone to Michigan for a couple of weeks to visit relatives, but he’d be back soon. His Web site business had really taken off, and he had his hands full with design and implementation, not to mention his head-hunting assignments. He was top-notch at his work and the word had gotten around. But he deserved time off, if anybody did. He’d been shot in the line of duty and suffered a life sentence in a wheelchair, but he never complained about his lot. He’d been my mentor and partner when I was a rookie at the LAPD, and the best detective I’d ever met. I loved the guy.

  At the moment, however, all I could think about was Hilde Swensen. Every time I found myself alone, her butchered mouth kept popping up in my brain, and each time, my stomach flipped over like some kind of berserk gymnast. I didn’t want to think about it anymore, and I didn’t want to think about Black being cooped up at Cedar Bend with his really, really good-looking, impossibly gorgeous ex-wife, either. I wanted to find the guy who’d butchered up Hilde, and I didn’t want to wait until tomorrow to get started. I wanted to follow people home tonight and demand that they tell me everything they knew. The need to catch the guy was eating its way through my gut, and I could feel the anger and strange excitement a homicide brought up inside me, excitement that was dark and disturbing but happened anyway. I wanted this guy so bad I could taste it. He’d been in my gunsight, for God’s sake, and I’d let him get away clean.

  I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white. This had never happened to me before. I’d never interrupted a murderer at the scene, much less let him escape. I stopped the car and went with the rage, taking deep, sucking breaths the way Black had told me to. I wanted to pummel the hell out of something, anything, maybe the first thing I laid eyes on would do. I took it out on the steering wheel with a doubled fist for a second or two, then spun some gravel as I took off around the last bend that would bring me to my little A-frame house, recently remodeled as a more than extravagant Christmas present from Black.

  I realized with some personal disdain that I was hoping Black’s big Cobalt 360 would already be moored at my pitiful little dock, but it wasn’t there, and neither was he. I did notice, however, the big black Harley-Davidson motorcycle sitting at my front gate.

  Well, well, whaddaya know, Mr. Joe McKay had come to pay me a visit and was making himself at home down on my private dock. Now this was a surprise, let me tell you, and not a guest I’d ever invited to drop by and have tea. The first thing I was going to ask him was how the devil he’d gotten by my security gate, then I remembered that he’d ridden onto my property unbidden before, last Christmas, to be exact.

  I pulled into my new heated garage, another nifty little perk that dating Nicholas Black had provided, that, along with a number of awesome amenities inside my hitherto shabby little cabin. What can I say? Multimillionaire boyfriends, yep, they have a way of endearing themselves to us peons. Ex-wives not included.

  I got out, slung off my jacket, fingered my wound, which had started to throb, while I debated whether or not I should take a stroll down to the water and make sure McKay wasn’t trying to steal my old jon boat. Actually, McKay had helped me drop the hammer on a couple of bad guys once not so long ago, so I guess he deserved a quick howdy-do. Initially, I had hated the man’s guts at first sight, but then again, I hated nearly everyone’s guts at first sight. However, he had proved himself reliable in a particularly hairy situation and used his considerable expert demolition skills to my advantage, so I’d developed a new soft spot in my heart for him. I would definitely call him whenever I wanted anything blown to smithereens.

  And, hey, did I mention he purports himself to be a real live psychic? A fact I still wasn’t one hundred percent certain of to this very day, but it was hard to figure how he knew stuff before it happened. Maybe he’d come over today to tell me who killed Hilde Swensen. Great, now I could just drive over and arrest the freak and be done with it.

  Oh, another thing, McKay was a helluva good-looking guy, Mr. Stereotypical Bad Boy Type, alive and well, and I found that irksome, too, for no particular reason. He waved me down to join him like he owned the place. That’s when I realized he wasn’t alone. Elizabeth, his little daughter, was with him.

  I crunched a path across the rocky beach, then stepped onto my creaky gangplank that was built circa 1955. A couple of worn boards were loose again, and I made a mental note to fix them if I ever got the time. Or maybe Black could just build me a giant marina for my birthday.

  McKay and Elizabeth were holding long cane poles, and a white pint container of worms sat between them on the dock. The contents writhed around like crazy, no doubt screaming, Take him, take him, he’s juicier than me.

  “Hey, McKay, feel free to come out here and fish anytime you like. No need to call first and ask permission.”

  McKay presented me with his own brand of lethal weapon, a smile so slow, so deadly, so potent with dimples and charm that some women would have dropped down and bruised their kneecaps on the spot. Alas, a swooner I am not. He was so typically the aforementio
ned bad boy material that he could’ve come straight out of a Hollywood casting call. You know, Attention, please, all Colin Farrell lookalikes proceed up front ASAP. He had that studied scruffy look, you know the one, sun-bleached blond hair, too long, too shaggy, just enough unshaven beard to be a scratchy turn-on, tight black Levi’s, plain white T-shirt. The only thing he forgot to wear was his locket with Marlon Brando’s picture inside it.

  “Now, c’mon, Detective, I didn’t figure you’d mind me comin’ out here much since I saved your pretty little butt last Christmas.”

  “Not that I’m not entirely ungrateful for that, too, but if you’ll remember, I’m the one who unlocked your handcuffs so you could.”

  “Yeah? You’re the one who clamped them on me in the first place.”

  “Seemed the right thing to do at the moment.”

  He took a moment to examine me like I was a particularly succulent filet mignon that made his mouth water and his fingers itch for some A.1. Steak Sauce. That image made me hungry until I remembered Hilde and why I’d skipped lunch. Lipless corpses will do that to a person.

  McKay said, “Change your mind about runnin’ off with me, or you still got it goin’ on with the shrink?”

  “I’m still seeing Dr. Black, not that I ever considered running anywhere with you.”

  “You sure ’bout that? I’ve been sensin’ some storm clouds might be brewin’ between you and Nick. Thought maybe you got some trouble in paradise.”

  “Nope. Everything’s sunny at the moment.” I wondered, though, if he’d really seen my relationship with Black going belly-up in the near future, or if it was just another one of McKay’s come-ons.

  Actually McKay and I really are sort of friends now. I think we’d just gotten into the habit of this hateful verbal sparring and couldn’t seem to let it go.

  Little Elizabeth just stared at me. She didn’t smile, didn’t seem to recognize me at all. She was only two years old, and absolutely beautiful, blond hair, big blue eyes, and she made me think of my own child, Zachary. I’d lost him when he was two, and I looked away from her, blocking a swarm of dark memories before they could get started. I did that a lot nowadays.

  I said, “Catchin’ anything?”

  McKay shook his head. “Hoped the bluegill would bite, but we haven’t gotten a single nibble.” He looked at the torn, blood-soaked sleeve of my T-shirt. “Got yourself shot again, I see.”

  “Just a nick, you know, like in the movies.”

  “Next time it might be ‘Bang, Bang, you’re dead, lady.’ That happens in the movies, too.”

  “Thanks, McKay, make me feel better, why don’t you? So enough of the small talk. Why’d you really come out here today?”

  He searched my face the way he liked to do, the way he liked to do because it made me damn uncomfortable. Annoyed, even.

  “Been dreamin’ about you lately, detective.”

  “Oh, yeah? Who hasn’t?”

  He grinned, slow and affecting, but then he sobered and lowered his voice to show how serious he was. “You know that psychic thing I got? It’s been actin’ up lately, so I thought I’d come by and make sure you were alive and kickin’. By the looks of that arm, I’m right on, but maybe a mite late.”

  “Care to tell me what you’re talking about in plain English instead of psychic mumbo jumbo?”

  McKay decided to leave me in suspense. He squatted down beside his daughter, picked up a night crawler that had wriggled out of the paper container and thereby made itself way too conspicuous. Death wish, worm-style, I guess. McKay made a show of putting it on the hook, and I watched it wiggle like crazy, obviously aware of its impending doom.

  “There you go, baby cakes.” McKay smiled at Elizabeth as he dropped her line back into the water with a soft ker-plunk. She said nothing, just stared at the water. Then he adjusted her straw hat to shield her face from the sun, and Zach’s sunburned little face came barreling up from the depths of my heart again, with a backwash of pain so severe that I swallowed bile. The air was warm with a gentle breeze, the water smooth and green and serene, and I locked my eyes on the trees across the cove and gathered myself.

  McKay’s kid had been with us in our mutual nightmare in that godawful dark cave, and I hoped she had blocked out every detail of what had happened down there. I wished I could, too, but it hadn’t happened yet, at least not in my dreamscapes.

  When McKay decided to resume our conversation, he stood up and stepped away from the silent child. He stood very close and lowered his voice. I was not exactly unaware of his masculine appeal, but he was thinking about his daughter now. “Lizzie’s gettin’ a little better now, but still not so good. She won’t say much and gets some real bad dreams about the bogeyman and his freak of a girlfriend.”

  “Yeah, I’ve spent a few nights with them myself.”

  “That makes three of us.”

  “Okay, McKay, I’ll bite, what’d you dream about me?” I didn’t really want to ask for specifics, specifics usually didn’t bode well for me, but as mentioned, his visions sometimes turned out to be pretty dead-on. Better safe than sorry.

  “I’ve been seeing these great big smiles. No faces, mind you, except for yours, and believe me, you’re not smiling when I see you, just starin’ all glazed eyes ahead, and darlin’, I think that means you’re headed straight for some big, bad trouble.”

  I stared at him then, all glazed eyes ahead, creeped out, and fairly certain he was batting a thousand about my immediate future. On my last case, his knowledge of the crime scenes caused me to suspect him of major wrongdoing. Not this time. This time he was right on the money, and there was no way he could have known about the mutilation of Hilde’s body. “Jeez, McKay, scare the crap outta me, why don’t you?”

  “So this smile thing makes sense to you?”

  “Maybe. Anything else I might need to know?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You see anybody else in these smiley-face dreams of yours?”

  McKay shook his head. “One thing, though, that you ought to know.”

  “Yeah? What’s that?”

  “These smiles I see? They’re dripping blood. So there you go. That’s why I came out here. You know, knight in shined-up armor, trying to do the right thing, save your pretty little hide again.”

  I looked away, but I felt more than uneasy about my pretty little hide. He’d been on target enough in the past to make me want to believe him. Maybe having a psychic friend wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe they should be avoided. “I appreciate your help, I truly do. How about taking a nice long nap, see if you can see the perp and get me his address like last time?”

  “Maybe I should. Why don’t you just lie down with me somewhere, you know, to get me started? That should get my dreams smokin’ in no time.”

  He grinned again, one predominantly designed to rock me wildly about in my hightop Nikes, the same one that used to raise my hackles. Not anymore. I smiled back. He was growing on me, for sure.

  “Is that really a smile I see, Detective? Hell, you didn’t stalk off or pull your gun, or nothin’. That mean you’re considering goin’ out with me one of these days?”

  “Nope. Not at all.”

  “Can’t figure what you see in that Black guy. Doesn’t seem your type.”

  Actually, McKay was ten on the accuracy scale again, even sans the dreams. Black and I were about as different as Nicole Kidman and Rosie O’Donnell. Truth was, I was probably a lot more like McKay, T-shirt, jeans, and smartass attitude. But Black rang all my bells and blew all my whistles, yep, created one helluva sexual cacophony. That was a hard thing to ignore.

  “We’re getting along just fine. Thanks for asking.”

  “Can’t you give me one itty-bitty ray of hope?”

  “You can hope all you want, but I’m with Black, period, and end of conversation.”

  “Oh, I’m gonna hope, all right. In the meantime, you take care, you hear me? And if it’s all the same to you, Lizzie and I might hang out
a while longer. She likes it down here on the water. Calms her down, know what I mean?”

  His eyes were serious, and I could see how worried he was. I had a feeling the little girl wasn’t doing so hot at all. “Yeah, that’s why I live here, the peace and tranquility. Bring her out here any time you want. I was just kidding about the permission thing.”

  I watched Elizabeth for a moment, wondering if she really didn’t remember me from that terrible cave of horrors. She’d been through a lot of very bad stuff, even before McKay brought her to Missouri, too much for a little kid, but it was clear McKay doted on her. He’d get her through it.

  My cell phone started up with the Mexican Hat Dance song, and I said good-bye to McKay, turned, and headed back to the house. It was Black on the other end, and I actually got a bit of a sensual shiver when I heard his voice. Good thing McKay didn’t notice or he’d make a wisecrack.

  “I’m on my way.”

  “Did you get things taken care of?”

  “Yes. I took time to check in on a couple of my patients staying here at the Lodge. Everybody’s pretty shook up about the Swensen girl. Where are you?”

  “Home.” I picked up my jacket and purse, crossed the driveway, and entered the garage.

  “I should be there in about ten minutes. How’s that sound?”

  “Sounds good. By the way, just so you know, McKay and Lizzie are fishing on my dock.” Black has this little jealousy thing going on about McKay, so I thought I’d head that problem off at the bend.

  “How sweet.”

  Sarcasm. I had to grin. “I didn’t invite him. He just showed up.”

  “That’s better.”

  Maybe I knew how he felt now. Jude was not exactly chopped liver when it came to competition. “Okay, see you then.”

  I flipped my phone closed, then stopped to punch in the code to disarm my alarm system and entered the house. Not that I needed a security system, after all I was armed with two lethal weapons and was more than adept at kickboxing my way out of trouble. My fingernails were longer than usual, too, which added ten more sharp weapons to my personal arsenal. But Black was more security conscious than Donald Trump and had me rigged up with this new state-of-the-art computer system that would probably even tie my sneakers if I asked it to. Too bad it didn’t know how to cook.