Vicky opened the door. “Buenas tardes.” Vicky and I spoke Spanish when we were alone or with family.
I wore khakis, boat shoes, and a silk shirt. I’d expected “business casual” from Vicky, but she surprised me. More like shocked me. She wore a short turquoise skirt topped by a sheer cream silk blouse with a low scoop neck. The only women I knew that would wear that blouse in public were working girls. It wasn’t transparent, but it was translucent. I figured we weren’t going out to dinner. She also wasn’t wearing a bra. As a trained investigator, I notice such things. Hmm.
“Something to drink?”
“I’d be a fool not to.”
Vicky took my hand and led me into her kitchen. She had never held my hand before. A clue?
“Chicken Marsala okay?” She pulled out a bottle of wine. “You like Merlot, don’t you?”
“I never met a wine I didn’t like.” I opened the Merlot while Vicky turned her attention to cooking. She studied the recipe lying on the counter; I studied her. Her breasts beneath the translucent fabric put on a mesmerizing show as she reached and turned and did magical things at the stove.
I stood. “Can I make the salad?”
“Bowls in that cabinet over there. The other stuff is in the fridge.”
I pulled the French chef’s knife from the wooden knife block. I chopped the lettuce, sliced the tomatoes, and tossed the salad.
Vicky covered the skillet, took a sip of Merlot, and set a timer. “Ten minutes until the chicken is ready.”
I grabbed my glass and followed her into the living room.
Vicky sat on one end of the leather couch; I sat on the other.
Vicky turned toward me and her skirt hiked up her thighs. She looked over the rim of her glass and took a deep breath, which caused wonderful things to happen under her blouse. “Hank says you were a good cop.” Hidalgo “Hank” Ramirez was a Port City police lieutenant. He was also Vicky’s brother. “He was disappointed when you left the force. He can’t figure out why you left.”
“No big secret. I never intended to be a career cop. I was there to get the experience required for a PI license.”
“That was all?”
I nodded. “I told the recruiting officer that at my interview. She said maybe I’d change my mind later.” I finished my wine.
“What made you decide to be a PI?” she asked.
“You promise not to laugh?”
“Go ahead.”
In for a penny, in for a pound. “Hero worship.”
“Hero worship?”
“My dad had a shelf full of classic detective stories. They’d always been there, but I never paid attention to them until high school.”
“What happened?”
“One day I read one of the books and got hooked. I read Sam Spade, Mike Hammer, and Spenser, he-with-no-first-name. Then I discovered Lee Child and the Jack Reacher novels for myself.”
“Did you see yourself in them, my hero?”
I studied her face to see if she was being sarcastic. She wasn’t, so I answered truthfully. “Those men were like knights of old. They did the right thing, whether or not it was legal. I wanted to be like them.” I felt embarrassed. I looked at my empty glass, considered a refill, then rejected the idea. I seldom had any personal conversation with a woman. I may not be able to take the lead with women, but I know how to follow.
“You’re an idealist.”
When in doubt, crack a joke. “Someone has to make the world safe for democracy.” I grinned to let her know I was kidding. I think.
Vicky looked at me with wide eyes. “I never knew that you were a romantic.”
“Romantic? Moi?” In the candlelight her brown eyes glittered with gold flecks I’d never noticed before. Of course we’d never been this close before.
“Did you ever tell this to Hank?”
“I never told it to anybody.”
“You mean I’m the first?”
I didn’t know what to say, so I nodded.
The awkward silence was mercifully broken when the timer dinged.
We walked back to the kitchen. Vicky gestured to the big salad bowl. “Why don’t you bring the salad?” She turned off the lights over the island, leaving the dining area lit by candles. She carried our plates to the table and leaned across me to set my plate on the woven-straw place mat.
I felt a spark pass through my silk shirt between her breast and my shoulder.
Throughout dinner, her long candle-lit legs shone golden through the glass table. As we finished eating, she put down her fork and leaned forward. The front of her blouse gaped open. “Would you like more breast?”
I usually react to awkward situations with humor. This time I could only stare, transfixed by her cleavage. “That’s plenty for now,” I managed to say.
“You want dessert now, or would you rather wait a bit?” She saw my expression and laughed. “I made a chocolate mousse.”
“I could eat or wait—your choice.”
“Let’s go to the living room.” She glided to the liquor cabinet, placed two snifters on the bar, and poured Calvados.
Vicky settled back on the couch and pointed her knees at me. Her skirt hiked up higher this time.
“Chuck, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure. Although I reserve the right to ask for an attorney.”
She laughed politely; it wasn’t that funny. “How long have we known each other?”
Why ask a question when she already knows the answer? “Seven years. Hank and I came home from Landstuhl Medical Center on the same plane, and you came to meet him at Dover Air Force base.”
“That meeting doesn’t count. You went to college, and I didn’t see you again for four years. I meant how long have we known each other well?”
But you don’t know me well, Vicky. At least, not yet. “Since I moved to Port City and started hanging out with Hank, three years ago.”
“In three years, why haven’t you asked me out?”
Somehow I knew she’d planned that question all evening. I thought, Vicky, I’ve never asked any woman out—at least, not the first time. But I couldn’t say that, so I told a little white lie. “Vicky, until tonight, I never thought about you romantically.” Okay, so that was actually a big white lie.
“Does that mean that you think of me romantically now?”
I grinned. “I’d be a fool not to. But the first time we met at Dover, you were my commanding officer’s older sister.” Hank was a Captain in Afghanistan; I was a grunt.
Her eyes sparkled. “Do you think that it’s okay for a man to date a younger woman?”
“Of course. Happens all the time.”
“Then shouldn’t a woman be able to date a younger man? After all, this is a democracy.”
I lifted my glass. “To democracy.”
After we toasted, I said, “Vicky, in the spirit of gender fairness and making the world safe for democracy, I could also ask why you never asked me out.”
“But I did ask you out, when I texted you.” For a mature woman, she looked coquettish.
“I figured this for an update on the Simonetti case. After all, I got the retainer check and fee agreement you sent me by messenger this morning. Either that or you wanted to call in my marker for that foot massage.”
She laughed. “You noticed that remark, did you?”
I took the leap of faith. “I was kinda looking forward to rubbing your feet.”
She lifted her feet and stretched them across my lap. “Now’s your chance.”
I pondered the double meaning of her remark when her skirt finished its climb to the top of her thighs. I placed my snifter on the coaster and massaged her feet with both hands.
Vicky closed her eyes. “Umm.” She opened her eyes a little. “Chuck, I don’t need a serious relationship right now. I just want some fun with a man I admire. You know, ‘friends with benefits.’ How would you feel about that?”
In truth, I had mixed emotions. I wanted a family of my own. Last Chris
tmas, Dad reminded me that he and Mom already had two children when he was my age. And Mom told me that their friends were starting to have grandchildren. She only had one, my niece Rebecca. No pressure there.
On the other hand, my profession made it difficult to have a normal relationship that could blossom into love and a lifetime commitment. My Asian girlfriend was just one failed example. We had met in the mystery section of a used book store when she asked me out for coffee to discuss the finer points of Robert B. Parker’s Sunny Randall series. But it hadn’t lasted long. I wanted to find a wife and mother of my children. I just didn’t know how to do it.
Even if she wasn’t interested in marriage, Vicky was a strong, smart, beautiful woman. After all, I am a normal human, sort of. I kept rubbing her feet as I answered. “You mean no commitments?”
“None, either way.”
“What about Thanksgiving and Christmas? I always go back to Texas for those.”
“Nope.”
“What about exclusivity?”
“Definitely not.” She grinned. “You won’t always be available.”
“What if later on you or I find a real romance with someone else?”
“We go on professionally as before, no problem. I’d expect the same from you if I got involved with someone else.”
I grinned. “What’s not to like?”
Vicky eased her feet from my lap and stood. I stood also.
She set her Calvados on the table and took both my hands as she stepped toward me. “Then let’s have dessert.”
The silence somehow got quieter. I felt her breath on my lips as she turned her face to me. She wrapped her arms around my neck and I felt her body from my chest to my knees. I inhaled the fragrance of her perfume.
She guided my face into a warm, slow kiss. After she released the kiss, she leaned her head back. “Let’s leave the mousse for later. I suddenly want a different dessert.”
We ate the mousse for breakfast.
Chapter 6
The parking garage was almost empty on Saturday, so I didn’t feel guilty hogging two spaces for my Avanti.
I checked with the guard in the lobby, and he made a short phone call. “You know where Mr. Simonetti’s office is?”
“No.”
“Thirty-eighth floor. Take a left off the elevator. Mr. Simonetti said to take the door to the right of the reception desk. He’ll hear you.”
As I approached the elevators, I glimpsed familiar red hair—Renate Crowell, a reporter with the Port City Press-Journal. I turned my face away; I didn’t want her to see me. She could smell a story like a hog rooting for truffles. And I was smack in the middle of a front-page story.
The elevator door opened and I stood face-to-face with an upright grizzly bear. Make that face-to-paw, since he was frozen with his paws out in attack position. He had to have been eight feet tall. I presumed Simonetti didn’t do much business with animal lovers.
He greeted me in a blue golf shirt and gray slacks with scuffed boat shoes. Casual Saturday. “Morning, Chuck. Lorraine’s in my office.”
“Am I late?”
“No, Lorraine and I were early. I made coffee. Want some?”
“Sure.”
As we left the office kitchen carrying our coffees, I stopped Simonetti in the hall. “Ike, did you bag all these animals?” The walls were lined with the heads of a variety of deer, antelope, and even a moose.
He raised both arms as if sighting a rifle. “Every single one. I nailed that elk in Canada two years ago. Hit him in the heart from three hundred yards with that Ruger Hawkeye with a Leupold scope.” He pointed to the rifle displayed in a locked case on the wall beside the elk trophy. “Wait ‘til you see my office.”
I followed Ike to his private reception area. A gigantic mounted sailfish on the left wall behind an empty secretary’s desk faced an equally impressive mounted hammerhead shark on the right wall above a green leather visitors’ couch. “Wow. I guess you caught both of those too?”
“The hammerhead off the coast of Baja.” He looked at the fish with approval. “I went down there to decide whether to move to Port City to join my father in business. I often go fishing or hunting when I need to clear my head or make a big decision.”
“I usually go for a long run when I need to think things over.”
He nodded. “To each his own.” He led me through another set of double doors into his actual office.
Coffee in hand, I greeted Wallace, who looked like she had stepped from an ad in a yachting magazine. Once we were seated, Simonetti raised his eyebrows. “Where should I begin?”
“Tell me about Sam’s first three wives.”
I booted up my laptop as Simonetti began. “I was adopted by Dad and Willamina Warner, his first wife. She died of cancer when I was two; I don’t even remember her. Then Dad married Yvette Forsythe. Yvette is the only mother I ever knew.”
Again I felt lucky to have had my normal middle-class family in small town Texas.
“What happened to their marriage?”
“They were not a good match.”
“How so?”
“Dad and I liked to hunt and fish. Yvette thought hunting and fishing were cruel.”
“I can relate. My mother’s a veterinarian.” I’d been hunting a few times for deer in Texas. But we always ate what we killed. Mom would’ve killed me if I ever hunted just for a trophy. Something about Ike’s row of stuffed heads in his hallway was off-putting for me.
Simonetti continued. “Anyway, Yvette loved opera and Dad thought those huge halls with comfortable seats were a great place to take a nap. She loved art museums and Dad supported them by writing large checks. But he refused to go to gallery shows and pretend to like what he called ‘pretentious grifters who have bamboozled the public.’ He and Yvette were great friends, but they didn’t have much in common other than me.”
“So Yvette and your Dad were on good terms after their divorce?”
“Oh, yeah. At our wedding, Yvette sat with Dad as mother of the groom.”
At least Ike had enjoyed that much normalcy.
Wallace nodded. “Yvette always came to Houston for Thanksgiving with Ike and me. Usually Pop would join us. After we moved to Port City, she came for Thanksgiving with Pop and us until Pop married Ramona.”
“Yvette ever adopt you?”
“Not that I know of.” A frown. “What’s that got to do with anything?”
“I don’t know. Sometimes things connect with other things; sometimes they don’t. My motto is Nothing succeeds like excess. I collect lots of information, even though most will be useless. Otherwise I might miss something that turns out to be important.”
Simonetti shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”
“Did Yvette and your father divorce while you were at the University of Texas?”
“I never told you I went to UT.”
“I looked you up on the Internet.”
“If you already knew, why ask?”
I shrugged. “It’s the way I work. Just pretend I didn’t know. Did they divorce while you attended UT?”
“Yes.”
“What did you study?”
“Didn’t you look that up too?”
“Ike, let’s make a side-deal. I won’t tell you how to explore for oil and gas, and you don’t tell me how to run an investigation. Okay?”
He rolled his eyes. “Okay. I studied petroleum engineering.”
“Got it.” I entered that on my laptop. “And that’s how you wound up in Houston?”
He nodded. “It’s a big oil center. Also my mother was from Houston, so I have family there too.”
“The Warners?”
He nodded.
I noted that and signaled him to continue.
“After he divorced Mom—“
”You’re referring now to Yvette Forsythe?”
“Yeah. After he divorced her, Dad dated different women from the Port City Social Register every month or so. After a couple of years he settled down
and chose a trophy wife from an old-money family in Cleveland.”
“Wife number three,” I confirmed.
Simonetti nodded. “Allison Montrose. The Montrose family money was so old it was becoming extinct.”
“Becoming extinct?”
Wallace answered. “The Montrose family had lived off their capital for decades.” She said “lived off their capital” like it was an STD. “Their core principal was almost gone. Of course, Pop didn’t know that until after they were married.”
Simonetti frowned at Wallace. “Do you tell this or do I?”
She made an “after you” gesture, then she walked over to the window wall and faced Seetiweekifenokee Bay—shortened to Seeti Bay by us locals. She turned her back to us.
Simonetti continued. “Allison inherited some money from her father, but she wanted to marry someone disgustingly rich, like Dad.”
Over her shoulder, Wallace interjected, “A classic gold digger.”
Simonetti winked in her direction. “I called Allison the sports model to piss her off. Dad was fifty and Allison was only a few years older than I was.”
“What about her daughters?”
“Allison wanted children. For reasons I couldn’t understand, so did Dad. She had the two daughters pretty quick.”
“Did you and the daughters get along?”
“Nah. Remember that they were a generation younger—and they were real ball-busting bitches. I lived in Houston and they lived here in Port City, so we didn’t see each other much. But, when we gathered at Christmas or Thanksgiving, they were spoiled brats. It was Dad’s fault; he let them get away with murder. Then Dad caught Allison cheating and divorced her. He didn’t mind paying child support, but Allison nailed him for sixty-five million dollars in a property settlement. No prenup.”
“What happened to her money when she died?”
“I don’t have a clue. I guess she has other family.”
“What happened to Allison and the girls after the divorce?”
“They moved back to the Montrose family home in Cleveland.”
“She moved in with her mother?”
Simonetti sighed like I was boring him. “No, Allison’s mother died while she and Dad were still married, and the house was still empty. So she and her daughters moved in there.”
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