Stephanie Caffrey - Raven McShane 01 - Diva Las Vegas

by Stephanie Caffrey

  “I’m Raven McShane. I’m sorry to track you down like this, but I have some information I’m sure you’d like to hear about.”

  Still nothing. I wasn’t sure if his confusion was due to the appearance of a stranger at his door, or if it was due to the appearance of this stranger in particular. After all, if Cody had ordered me killed, I could see how he might be a little confused by my presence. It was getting more and more awkward as the seconds ticked by. I smiled gingerly as I stood there while he tried to make sense of things. I tried my best to look nonthreatening.

  “iPhone,” he blurted out. After all the buildup, I had expected something a little more profound.

  “Sorry?” I wasn’t catching his drift.

  He looked sheepish. “My friend Lawrence left his iPhone here, and I thought you were him.”

  He turned and grabbed the white phone from a table next to the door and made a show of holding it up to me. At least he was speaking in complete sentences now, I thought. But there was still something of the cornered animal about him.

  “Mind if I come in for just a minute?” I asked, stepping across the threshold. I decided to take advantage of his obvious confusion before he got himself together enough to object.

  “Would you have any coffee?” I asked.

  “Um, yeah. Regular is all I have.” He was still eyeing me warily, as though I was a creature from another planet. I did my best to look like I came from a friendly one.

  “Perfect.” Regular coffee is what people from my planet drink in the mornings.

  While he went to make coffee, I insinuated myself into the center of the house and looked around. It smelled like fresh paint more than anything else. The home was sparsely furnished, but what was there looked like high quality stuff. The living room actually had a fairly masculine layout. Two oversized brown leather armchairs made an L with a massive tan couch, the focus of the room being what looked to be a sixty-inch flat screen TV and sound system.

  Cody shuffled at half speed and led me into the kitchen, where a faint smell of incense wafted through the air. The kitchen was something of a mess, with a dozen or so champagne and wine bottles clumped together in the corner of a large gray granite countertop. A few store-bought hors d’oeuvres lay uneaten on platters. I wondered whether the mess was from last night or from the party I’d stumbled upon two nights earlier.

  Cody methodically began the process of making coffee. He seemed more comfortable now that he had something familiar to do with his hands. He hadn’t said anything, and I took a seat on a stool and watched him while the coffee maker began gurgling. He was taller than I expected—I’d only seen him from a distance and half-submerged in his hot tub—and even with only sandals on he appeared about six-one. And despite being disheveled and unshowered, he still looked damned good. I had to remind myself for the hundredth time that he might be a murderer.

  Cody kept his focus on the coffee, watching it drip slowly into the pot. The brewing coffee made occasional burping sounds, but the continued silence added another dollop of awkwardness to an already weird situation. I began wondering what was wrong with him. It was one thing to be taken by surprise by an unexpected visitor, but I surprised people all the time. Usually people began acting unsurprised after about five or ten seconds. Cody was either extremely shy—a possibility I dismissed out of hand, since I didn’t know too many shy ex-exotic dancers—or something else was going on altogether. Maybe he had pressed a silent alarm and was just biding his time until his henchmen showed up to haul me away and dump me in Lake Mead. I wasn’t going to find out just sitting on a stool.

  “You’re probably wondering why I’m here,” I said. Stating the obvious seemed the best course of action. I got up from my stool.

  “A little, yeah,” he said. The coffee maker spewed out its last noisy burp of steam, and Cody poured us two cups. He turned to face me and made direct eye contact for the first time. When our eyes met, my knees almost gave out, and I grabbed onto the countertop for support. I had heard of women swooning before, but I thought that was something that only happened in Harlequin romance novels. For the second time in as many minutes, I reminded myself of his criminal past. I also remembered that he probably didn’t even like women. Even so, my hormones obviously didn’t make those kinds of distinctions. They were telling me to get him to the bedroom ASAP to begin spawning a dynasty of blond, half-Swedish supermen and women.

  When I recovered, I noticed that his deep blue irises were framed in pink rather than pure white. It was finally starting to make sense—I had just been too slow to catch on. Pink eyes, a dazed appearance, strange behavior. And incense. Cody had just smoked up. He seemed baked medium-rare or medium rather than well done, but he was definitely stoned. I was less sure of whether that was going to help me or hurt me.

  I decided to press on, but I had no idea what I was going to say. “Like I said, I have some information I’d like to run past you that I think you will be happy to hear.”

  “Okay,” he said, taking a larger gulp of piping hot coffee than was prudent. He cringed and made a face like a toddler who’d just touched the stove. “Hot,” he announced.

  “I don’t think you killed George Hannity,” I said firmly. It was from left field, but I decided to go with my instincts.

  “I didn’t,” he said immediately, fixing his pinkish eyes on me again. He continued to stand next to the countertop cupping his coffee mug in his hands while I sat on one of the rickety bar stools. I could think of more comfortable places to talk, but I didn’t say anything.

  “The problem is, I also think you lied to the jury.” I was trying to keep my voice soft and nonthreatening.

  “Oh,” was all he said. Another big gulp of coffee. “Who did you say you were with?” he asked. His first push back.

  “I’m on my own, not with anybody. Professional investigator. I’m looking into the Hannity murder, which I don’t think you committed, but I need to make sure. I need you to be honest with me.” He began focusing intently on my words, as though some red flag was going off in the deep recesses of his mind. He was willing himself to concentrate and shake himself out of his pot-induced haze.

  “I thought all that was over forever,” he said. “You know, there was a trial and everything. Not guilty.”

  “I remember. But you probably know that a lot of people still think you did it, and I think I can help you clear your name.”

  “Why do you want to help me?”

  “I’m in the business of helping people,” I replied. I hoped it didn’t sound too corny. Luckily he dropped it.

  “And why do you think I lied?”

  I paused a few seconds for effect. “I have reason to believe that you and your wife might not have been together on the night of the murder.” I hadn’t meant it to sound so cop-like and official.

  Now it was his turn to pause. He gulped his coffee again. I sipped mine. It was undoubtedly the worst coffee I’d ever had. Did he forget to use a filter?

  “Okay, but you said you know I’m innocent, right?”

  “Yes,” I agreed. I never said I knew he was innocent, but that was a small point. I wanted to stay on his good side. “It’s just that your alibi has some problems in terms of, uh, certain factual discrepancies. If you can work with me on this, we can get closer to finding the actual killer.”

  “Well I didn’t lie,” he said. He set his coffee mug down on the countertop and began pacing around the kitchen.

  “Of course it’s possible you were mistaken about certain dates or events,” I said, trying to use a soothing voice. He continued pacing. I didn’t want to trot out my photographs of him and his pool buddies because trespassing and snooping around on his property did not exactly fit with the nice-girl angle I was trying to work. I decided to make an educated bluff instead.

  “Cody,” I began, “I know you weren’t with your wife on the night of the murder. The reason I know you weren’t with her is that I know you were with…someone else.” Cody stopped pacin
g.

  “I’m hungry,” he said. He opened the refrigerator and began rummaging around. I watched. It looked pretty bare inside: several more bottles of champagne and white wine, a carton of orange juice, and what looked like more hors d’oeuvres. It didn’t look too promising, although I knew if Cody had come down with a case of the munchies he could eat just about anything. Sure enough, he pulled out a half-tray of deviled eggs. He vaguely offered me some, but I waved them off.

  He ate the first one in two bites, and licked his fingers. He was not at all self-conscious, but self-consciousness wasn’t a quality one expects to find in a former male stripper. The second deviled egg met substantially the same fate as the first.

  “It’s been like three years. Maybe I don’t remember anything at all,” he said with a half-full mouth. It wasn’t a denial, and that was all the confirmation I needed.

  “The other person you were with,” I said, looking him in the eye, “wasn’t a woman, was it?”

  He picked out another egg and returned the plastic tray to the fridge. He was still moving deliberately, but I sensed he was beginning to come out of his haze. He reprised his deviled egg routine: two bites, chewing, and licking of fingers. I cringed privately.

  “Is that against the law?” he asked.

  “No, I believe deviled eggs are legal in this state.” If Cody caught my attempt at humor, he didn’t show it.

  “Why is it anyone’s business who I was with on any night?” he asked.

  Another non-denial. “It’s not,” I assured him. “But you couldn’t tell the jury where you really were that night. You said you were with your wife.”

  “I didn’t kill George, so what does it matter where I was?”

  “It only matters because you were trying to prove you were somewhere else at the time he was killed,” I said. I think they taught that in Alibi-101.

  “But why do you care?” he asked. That was the heart of the matter, wasn’t it? If I thought he was innocent, why had I shown up at his doorstep unannounced and killed the nice little Saturday morning buzz he had going?

  “I care because I’ve had my neck gouged, had my apartment broken into, and was a few breaths short of being strangled to death. I thought there was a good chance you could have been involved in those things, which is why I’m here.” I didn’t raise my voice, but I was getting a little tired of the nice-girl approach.

  “Well I don’t know anything about that,” he said calmly. He wasn’t fidgeting or pacing anymore. I decided he was either telling the truth or an Oscar-caliber actor.

  “Supposing I believe you,” I said, “how would you like to clear your name?”

  “I thought I already did that,” he said, pouring himself another cup of coffee. “Everyone thought I was guilty, but the jury didn’t, and they spent weeks on the case. My lawyers said the state spent more than a million dollars trying to prove me guilty, but it didn’t work.”

  “I’m sure you know better than I do that a helluva lot of people still think you did it,” I said.

  He sighed. “That’s their problem, I guess. I can’t help that. Look, you seem like a nice person, but this isn’t the best time. I’ve got to clean up and stuff. Can we meet for lunch or something some time?”

  “Fair enough,” I said. He was trying to get rid of me, but he was being nice about it. “Monday work for you?”

  “I think so,” he said. Translation: forget it.

  “I’ll call you. You have a card or something?”

  After a short search he found his wallet, fished out a card and handed it to me. I scanned it quickly: “Cody A. Masterson, President, Outpost Casino and Resort.” Resort, I thought. That was rich. I tried not to guffaw. “You have a cell number?” I asked.

  He frowned. It was obvious his buzz was wearing off, and he was becoming more cagey by the minute. I didn’t want to piss him off too much. “Look, we have some serious things to talk about,” I said. “I’m not just going to go away. I’m trying to help you.”

  “Okay,” he said. He found a pen and wrote down the number on the back of his business card. We shook hands before I left, and I gave him my own card. On the whole, Cody hadn’t sounded too enthusiastic about the whole business, but I left pretty convinced that he wasn’t guilty of the murder after all. If I had to explain it to Rachel or Jeff, I probably couldn’t. It was more of a gut feeling than anything else. But it wasn’t my job to prove anything—I was just in the evidence gathering business, and the photos I’d taken were going to count for something. The fact that he might actually be innocent didn’t mean a jury wouldn’t award Rachel millions in damages. It was just money, and Cody had lots of it.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Carlos told me he was busy that weekend, so I spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon and part of Sunday morning keeping tabs on Richard Finley and his bachelor party. They were Boy Scouts. Finley and his friends gambled a little more and made it to a showing of Jubilee!, the famous topless cabaret show, except that they went to the matinee version that wasn’t topless. People had a right to be squares, I granted. But then why would they pick Las Vegas for a bachelor party? It made no sense. But I kept these thoughts to myself when I called Barbara Finley to report back around lunchtime on Sunday. She was thrilled that her husband had behaved himself during the whole trip. I headed down to the drug store and printed out a few photos of the bachelor party group, just to prove I’d actually done my job. I sent the photos and a partial refund check of $1,000 to Barbara’s work address. Richard seemed like a basically decent guy (apart from lying to his wife about going to Vegas), and I actually felt a little bad that he was going to be in the doghouse as a result of my photos.

  By Monday morning I was getting accustomed to my high-roller digs at the Flamingo. Too accustomed. Having a maid clean up every day made me understand how some people could actually live in hotels. I also understood how people got soft. After flailing around in my soft bed for the better part of an hour, I got into the tub and dumped in an entire bottle of fragranced goo that made the whole bathroom smell like a steamy flower shop. Unfortunately, I knew, I couldn’t sit in the tub forever. Jeff might have a lot of VIP points at the hotel, but I’m sure he didn’t plan on blowing them all on me.

  I was trying to hide from my growing sense of unease that Cody Masterson might actually be innocent of the murder of George Hannity. If I was right about that, it meant he wasn’t the one trying to have me killed. And that meant I now had two major problems instead of one. If things panned out as I thought they might, I’d have failed my client and endangered my own life in the process.

  My cell phone rang and forced me out of the tub. It was Mike, and my first thought was to invite him over to join me. I decided to resist. I hadn’t told him about the intruder in my apartment, and for some reason I didn’t want to admit that I’d botched the case so badly that I couldn’t even go home.

  “You’ll never guess who just left my office,” he said.

  “Elvis?”

  He laughed. “Amy Masterson.”

  “What did she want?”

  “Me.”

  “What?”

  “It’s been a curse my whole life, but some women just find me irresistible.”

  It was my turn to laugh. “I find that hard to believe,” I lied.

  “She was a little shy at first, but once I shut the door she was an animal.”

  “Seriously, Mike. She’s not your type. So what really happened?” I liked the fact that he was starting to joke around with me. It was a baby step in the right direction. I worried, though, that if Amy ever discovered the secret of tequila, she’d have Mike eating out of her hand. That was a little secret I wanted to keep to myself.

  “She was wearing a push-up bra or something, because…” He let the thought remain unspoken. “Anyway, when I left her house last week we kind of agreed to meet up again.”

  “You didn’t mention that.”

  “Well, it was just one of those things you say. You know,
‘let’s grab lunch sometime’ or whatever. I didn’t think she meant it. But she did. And she thought it would be more fun to just show up in person rather than try to schedule a lunch date.”

  “Wow, maybe you’re right. Sounds like she’s smitten with you. So what did you two lovebirds chat about? Or did you cut straight to the love scene?”

  He chuckled. “She was interested all of a sudden in the embezzlement stuff I had asked her about last week. Why was I looking into it? Who was I working for? That sort of thing. But mainly, she wanted me to take her on my desk. And yes, I resisted.”

  “Huh.” Having seen Cody with his boyfriends in the pool, I had solved the riddle of why Amy was looking elsewhere for male companionship. But still. The woman was a horny slut. A damned menace.

  I wanted to run things past Mike and get him up to speed, but I wasn’t hungry and didn’t feel like sitting at a restaurant with him. Against every fiber of my being, I suggested he could take me to a driving range. He jumped at the idea.

  I got there early after sneaking in a quick massage. I had ditched the cheap sandals I’d been wearing in favor of some generic tennis shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in. The rest of my outfit was new, too: low-slung tan Capri pants and a strapless black top. It showed off my body but actually left something to the imagination. It was what some people called “Vegas casual,” which fell somewhere in that gray area between sleek and slutty.

  As I waited for Mike at the range, I was bothered by a vague sense that I might be taking things too lightly. After all, my home had been broken into, and I was nearly killed. Yet here I was pawing through a bunch of disgusting loaner golf clubs that looked like they had been through combat. But what was I supposed to do, cower in fear? Leave town? I felt pretty confident that no one had any idea I was staying at the Flamingo, and it seemed like they hadn’t yet figured out that I danced at Cougar’s. Until I learned what was going on, I was determined to go on living my life as best as I could.