by Nora Roberts
“She lived alone?” Reece prodded.
“Yeah, but she’d bring company home pretty regular. Sorry if she’s a friend of yours, but that’s the way it was. She hadcompany most every night up until about six, eight months ago.”
“What changed?”
“Pretty sure there was a man—a particular one. I heard them up there once a week or so. Then she’d light out for a day, sometimes two. Told me she had a fish on the line—that’s how she talks. He bought her stuff, she said. New leather jacket, a necklace, lingerie. Then, I don’t know, I guess they had a falling-out.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Well, she came roaring in here early one morning. I was getting Rory in the car to take him to preschool. She was steaming. Cursing a streak. I told her to take it down, that my boy was in the car. She said how he was going to grow up to be a bastard like the rest of them.
“Can you beat that?” Marlie demanded, obviously still insulted by it. “Saying that about that sweet boy and right to my face?”
“No, I can’t. She must have been angry about something.”
“I don’t care what she was mad about, she had no cause to talk about my Rory that way. Set me off. We had a round right out there in the parking lot, but I backed off first. I had my kid, plus I heard she once smashed a guy in the face with a beer bottle at the bar. She isn’t the type I want to mess with.”
“Can’t blame you.” Reece thought of how Deena had slapped her killer, how she’d leaped at him.
“Shedidn’t back off,” Marlie continued. “Got right up in my face. She said how nobody pushes her around. Nobody screws with her. And he—must’ve been the guy she was seeing—was going to pay. When she was done with him, she’d be moving on to better.”
Marlie shrugged. “That’s the gist of it anyway. She stomped away, and I got in the car. I was pretty steamed.”
“Is that the last time you saw her?” Brody asked.
“No, I guess I saw her around a couple more times. Avoided her, to tell the truth. Heard her bike a few times.”
“Would you remember the last time you heard it?” Reece asked her.
“I sure would because last time it was the middle of the damn night. Woke me up. It would’ve been the next day the super told me she lit out. Put the keys in an envelope and split. He said he was putting the rest of her things in storage for a while.” She shrugged again. “Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t. None of my business. I’m glad she’s gone. Lupe and her husband are a lot better neighbors. Serge said I can schedule working at the salon when Rory’s in preschool, but Lupe’s watching Rory evenings when I work at the grill. I’d never have trusted Deena with my kid.”
Suddenly Marlie frowned. “Are you cops or something? She in trouble?”
“We’re not cops,” Reece replied and glanced at Brody. “But I think there may have been trouble. Do you know if the super’s home?”
“He mostly is.”
He was. Jacob Mecklanburg was a tall, lean seventy with a dapper white mustache. His apartment, a mirror image of Marlie’s in design, was crammed with books.
“Deena Black. High maintenance,” he said with a shake of his head. “Always complaining. Paid the rent on time—or nearly. Not a happy woman, the sort that likes to blame everything and everyone else for the fact her life isn’t what she imagined it would be.”
“Is this Deena?”
Reece took a copy of the sketch from her purse.
Mecklanburg changed his glasses for a pair in his pocket, pursed his lips as he studied the sketch. “Strong resemblance. I’d say it was her, or a close relation. Why are you looking for her?”
“She’s missing,” Brody said before Reece could speak. “Would you still have the note she left you?”
Mecklanburg considered a moment, studying Brody’s face, then Reece’s. “I like to keep everything in a file. Wouldn’t want her coming back to me, saying I’d rented the place out from under her. I don’t see any harm in letting you look at it.”
He moved over to the far end of one of his bookshelves, pulled up a rolling stool and sat to go through a lateral file cabinet.
“Nice collection,” Brody said easily. “The books.”
“I can imagine living without food. I cannot imagine living without books. I taught high school English for thirty-five years. When I retired, I wanted a job where I’d have plenty of time to read, but not enough I’d turn into a hermit. This provides that balance. I’m fairly handy with small repairs, and once you’ve dealt with teenagers for a few decades, handling tenants is no strain. Deena was one of the more difficult. She didn’t want to be here.”
“Here?”
“In a small, inexpensive apartment on the edge of the action. And while she paid the rent, she didn’t want to. She offered me, at various times, quite an expansive menu of sexual favors in lieu of rent.” He smiled a little as he pulled out a folder. “We’ll just say she wasn’t quite my type.”
He took the top sheet out of the folder, handed it to Brody.
Screw all of you and this dump. I’m moving on to better. Keep the junk upstairs or burn it. I don’t give a flying fuck. DB
“Succinct,” Brody commented. “This looks like it was written on a computer. Did she have one?”
Mecklanburg frowned. “Now that you mention it, I don’t believe she did. But there are any number of Internet cafés and accesses in town.”
“Seems odd,” Reece put in, “that she’d take the bother to tell you to get screwed. Why not just leave?”
“Well, she did like to bitch and to brag.”
“She was seeing someone the last several months.”
“I believe so. But she stopped…entertaining here, oh, sometime before the holidays last year.”
“Did you ever see him, the man she was involved with?”
“I may have. Once. Most of her ‘companions’ didn’t bother to be discreet. We have laundry facilities downstairs. One of the tenants had reported the washer was acting up. I went down to take a look, see if I could fiddle with it or needed to call a repairman. I was just coming up when he—her friend—was leaving. It was a Monday afternoon. I know as, at that time, all the tenants worked on Mondays.”
“A Monday,” Reece prompted. “Around the holidays.”
“Yes, just after New Year’s, I believe. I remember we’d gotten several inches of snow overnight, and I had to go out and shovel first thing. Generally I do any maintenance necessary in the morning or between four and six, barring emergencies. I like to read during lunch, then take a nap. But I’d forgotten about the machine that morning and needed to get to it.”
Brushing a finger over his mustache, Mecklanburg paused a moment, pursed his lips in thought. “I’d have to say he was surprised to see me—or be seen. He turned, angled himself away and quickened his pace. And he wasn’t parked in the lot. I was curious enough to hurry into my apartment and look out the window. He turned away from the lot.”
“Maybe he lives in town,” Reece supposed.
“Or parked elsewhere. But I do know that from that point on, Deena went out to meet him. If indeed that’s who she was meeting. As far as I know, he never came around here again.”
“HE DIDN’T WANT to be seen. Wouldn’t you say that?”
“Seems that way,” Brody agreed. “Which says married, or in a sensitive position.”
“Like a politician? A minister?”
“That’d be two.”
At his car, she turned around to study the building again. “It’s not a dump. It’s basic, but it’s clean and tended. But not good enough for Deena Black. She wanted more. Bigger, better, shinier.”
“And thought she’d hooked one who’d give it to her. Fish on the line,” Brody repeated when Reece frowned at him.
“So either he wasn’t providing her as she wanted him to, or he broke it off. I’d say he broke it off—this maybe married, maybe public figure. But, Brody, if he was afraid to be recognized here, what does that
do to the theory that he’s from Angel’s Fist? That he’s been stalking me on the home ground.”
“Doesn’t change it.” He pulled open her door, walked around to the driver’s side. “Someone who does business in Jackson Hole, for instance. Or could be recognized by someone here who does business in the Fist. Or it was just a guilt reaction.”
Like Reece, he stood and leaned on the open door for a moment. “But he didn’t kill her because she objected to being dumped. That happens it’s annoying, potentially inconvenient, but it’s still basically: ‘Too bad, sister. We’re done. Deal.’”
“Men really are bastards.”
“Your breed gets to call it off, too.”
“Yeah, but we’re usually: ‘I’m sorry. It’s not you, it’s me.’”
He made a dismissive noise as they climbed in. “Rather be stabbed in the eye with a fork than hear that one. But the point is, she had something. She threatened something. He’ll pay, that’s what she told Marlie. I’d say he didn’t want to pay.”
“So he killed her, disposed of the body, covered his tracks. Came back here in the middle of the night, on her bike. He’d already written the note.”
“He’s the one with a computer or with access to one,” Brody agreed. “Which narrows it down not a single bit.”
Still, as a puzzle she could see it coming together. They had a name, a lifestyle and, unless they were forcing in the wrong pieces, a motive.
“Took her clothes,” Reece added. “A woman doesn’t leave her clothes, her personal things behind. So he took them. Easy enough to get rid of. Left the dishes and so forth—too cumbersome. Did the note to cover his ass, too. Just to tie up the ends. Nobody would look for her because everyone would think she’d just pulled stakes.”
“He didn’t count on you. Not only seeing what you did, but caring enough to stick with it until you found her.”
“Deena Black.” Reece closed her eyes a moment. “I guess we’ve got a name now. What’s next?”
“Next? We go to a titty bar.”
REECE DIDN’T KNOW what she was expecting. A lot of leather and chains, hard looks, hard music.
In reality, there was as much denim as leather, and the looks were disinterested. Still, the music was harsh, gritty rock that pumped out over the stage, where a woman with an explosion of purple hair wore nothing but a red G-string and platform heels.
Smoke curled blue in the light over a stage-side table where a couple of hefty guys with generously tattooed arms watched the show and sucked down bottled beer.
There were a lot of tables—small, one- and two-seaters—most of them facing the stage. Only a few were occupied.
Since it seemed the thing to do, Reece sat at the bar and said nothing while Brody ordered them Coors on draft.
The bartender had a russet-colored mustache that hung to either side of his chin. And a head as bald as a peeled melon.
Brody shifted back to the bar to pick up his beer. “Seen Deena lately?” he asked the bartender.
The man swiped at spilled foam with his rag. “Nope.”
“Quit?”
“Musta. Stopped showing up.”
“When?”
“While back. What sit to ya?”
“She’s my sister.” Reece sent out a big smile. “Well, half sister. Same mother, different fathers. We’re on our way to Vegas, and I thought we could hook up with Deena for a day or two.”
She glanced briefly at Brody and noted he’d simply lifted that single eyebrow in an expression she recognized as surprised amusement.
“We went by her place,” Reece continued, “and they said she moved out last month, but this is where she worked. Haven’t heard from her in a while. Just wanted to say hey, you know?”
“Can’t help you.”
“Oh well.” Reece picked up the beer, frowned at it. “It’s not like we’re tight or anything. I just figured since we were so close and all we’d touch base with her. Maybe somebody knows where she went.”
“Didn’t tell me. Left me short a dancer.”
“Typical.” Reece shrugged, set down her beer without drinking. She wasn’t at all convinced it was the sort of place that worried about health inspections. “I guess we wasted our time,” she said to Brody. “Maybe she took off with that guy she said she was seeing.”
There was a snort from the waitress as she dumped a tray of glasses, bottles and ashtrays. “Not likely.”
“Sorry?”
“Had a bust-up. Big, bad one. Pissed her off. You remember, Coon?”
The bartender only shrugged. “Pissed off half the time, you ask me.”
“I guess that’s typical, too.” Reece rolled her eyes for effect. “But she made out like this one was serious. What the hell was his name?”
“Never told me,” the waitress replied. “Just called him Trout. He was her fish on the line, get it?”
“Yeah, I get it.”
“Two beers and bumps, Coon. Bud and the house whiskey.”
Reece bided her time as the waitress gathered the order, clipped over to the table nearest the stage. When she came back with another tray of empties, Reece tried a smile.
“Couldn’t have been that serious then.”
“Huh?”
“Deena and this guy, this Trout. Guess it wasn’t much of anything.”
“Got to be, you ask me. Her side, anyway.”
“Really?” Reece shrugged, took a very small sip of beer. “That’s not typical. Deena liked to bag ’em, but she wasn’t into tagging ’em.”
With a grin, the waitress leaned over the bar, pulled a pack of Virginia Slims from behind it. “Good one. Coon, I’m taking a break.”
“I’m Reece.” She offered a smile again. “Maybe Deena mentioned me.”
“No, not that I remember. Didn’t even know she had a sister. I’m Jade.”
“Nice to meet you. So, Deena was hooked on some guy, huh?”
“Well, she stopped picking marks to take back home with her.” She pulled a matchbook out of the pocket of her abbreviated shorts, struck flame. “Sorry, her being your sister, but that’s how she was.”
“That’s not news. I guess that’s why I was surprised she talked differently about this guy.”
“Said he had some class.” Jade tipped her head back as she blew out smoke. “Don’t see how, since she met him in here.”
“Oh.” Now Reece struggled to keep her voice casual. “You saw him then.”
“Might’ve. Can’t say. Wasn’t a regular, ’cause she’da pointed him out when he came back. Did buy her stuff though. Showed off this necklace he coughed up. Said it was eighteen-karat gold. Probably bullshit, but it was nice. Had a moon on it. Like a little white plate, I guess. Said it was like mother-of-pearl, and that the sparkles in the chain were real diamonds.”
“Diamonds? No shit.”
“Probably was shit, but she said how they were. She took to wearing it all the time, even during her act. Said there was more where that came from. Trout called her his dark side of the moon, she said. Whatever that means.”
“Maybe this Trout knows where she is.” Reece glanced at Brody as if for agreement.
He decided to keep drinking his beer and act like a man who couldn’t care less either way.
“Do you think someone else who works here might know him? Maybe one of the other dancers?”
“Deena wasn’t one to share, if you get me. Brag, sure, but she was keeping this one close. Wasn’t a biker.”
“Oh?”
“She said it was time she got one who had a straight job and knew more about life than what he saw on the back of a Hog. Anyway, they busted up, like I said. Then she took off. Greener pastures, I expect.”
“I guess you’re right.”
Brody didn’t speak until they were back in his car. “Here’s a whole new side to you, Slim. You can sit in a titty bar and lie with absolute believability.”
“It just seemed the most direct route. Saying something like ‘I saw Dee
na Black murdered a few weeks ago, but hardly anyone believes me,’ just didn’t ring. I don’t know if it did any good though.”
“Sure it did. All information points to her disappearance, which coordinates with what you saw by the river. She was involved with a man who obviously didn’t want her tossing his name around, and didn’t want to be seen with her. Regardless, he was in deep enough to spend money on her. Jewelry’s major points with your species, right?”
“It certainly is.”
“So he sprang for a bauble, which tells me she was more than a lay, at least for a while. They broke up, and she didn’t want to leave it that way. She pushed, he pushed back—and pushed back too hard.”
“She may have been serious about him, but she didn’t love him.”
“You thought she did?”
“I don’t know what I thought,” Reece said, “but now I know. A woman doesn’t talk about a man the way she did him, doesn’t call him Trout if she has any real feelings. She was just after what she was after.”
He waited a moment. “Does that change your stand on going on with this?”
“No. Bitch or not, she didn’t deserve to die that way. I think…” Abruptly she pulled up short, grabbed his arm. “Is that Lo? Is that Lo’s truck, Brody?”
He looked around as she gestured, just in time to see the back of a black pickup turn a corner. “I don’t know. Didn’t see enough of it.”
“I think it was Lo.” Had he seen them? she wondered. If he had, why hadn’t he beeped, waved? Stopped. “Why would he be in Jackson?”
“A lot of people come to Jackson for a lot of reasons. It doesn’t mean he followed us, Slim. It’d be a hell of a trick tailing us on the stretch of road from the Fist.”
“Maybe.”
“Are you sure it was him?”