Cold Burn

by Max Allan Collins

  Brass and Nick rose as the couple walked to the sofa, the husband saying, “Dear, these are the police officers who want to talk to us.”

  Brass made the introductions, then said, “We know you and Mrs. Sherman were very close, ma’am, and we’re sorry for your loss. We will try to make this as brief and painless as possible.”

  “You’re very kind,” she said with a nod, brushing the blonde hair out of her face.

  The couple sat, Mortenson making the couch whimper in protest; in contrast, Regan perched on the edge, poised to fly at the slightest provocation.

  “What is there I can tell you?” she said, her voice tiny. Both Brass and Nick had to strain to hear. “Last year, we told that nice Hispanic detective everything we could remember.”

  “As you already know,” Brass said, his tone official yet solicitous, “Missy Sherman’s body has been found.”

  Brian said, “It was all over the news.”

  “And Alex called us, too,” Regan said.

  “The coverage was vague,” the husband said, “about where she was found. Something about Lake Mead.”

  “Yes,” Brass said. “Off the road that runs through the park.”

  “How terrible,” Regan said, shuddering. “She did love that area. We used to swim there, sometimes, Missy and I—sometimes we took midnight swims.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Under the stars. We’d even been known to, uh…this is embarrassing.”

  “Go on.”

  “We used to swim on impulse. Which means, you know…skinny-dipping?”

  Brian gave her a look. “Really?”

  She nodded, even mustered a little smile. “We didn’t invite you guys along for that.”

  Brian’s expression was distant; probably, Brass was thinking, the husband was contemplating missed opportunities.

  Now Regan appeared thoughtful. “Only…this seems like a little late in the year for that. You know…too cold?”

  “Yes it is,” Brass said. “I do need to go over some old ground.”

  “Please.”

  He took out his minicassette recorder. “And it’s best I record it.”

  “No problem.”

  “But you will need to speak up a little.” He clicked it on and asked, “How long have you known Missy?”

  She sighed, shook her head, the blonde hair shimmering; she was a lovely woman—ex-jock Brian appeared to be a lucky man.

  “Since Michigan State,” Regan said. “We were both Tri Delts. Then, it turned out that our hometowns weren’t that far apart—she grew up in Kalamazoo and I was from Battle Creek. We’d both been cheerleaders in high school and our towns played each other and…well, we were kindred spirits. So, anyway, we started riding home together for holidays and stuff. She was a year older than me, and helped me adjust to college and sorority life. We became best friends and…and have been ever since.”

  Her lower lip was trembling, her eyes moist. Nick handed her a small packet of tissues and she thanked him; but she remained composed.

  Brass asked, “You moved out here because of Missy?”

  “In part. I was looking for a new start, and Missy and Alex made it sound like such a great place to live. She’d keep talking about fun and sun, and me stuck in Michigan—anything to get the hell out of there!”

  “Not much for winter?” Nick put in, with a friendly little smile.

  She shook her head. “I just hate winter, I despise snow. Plus, I was having sinus headaches and my doctor recommended I go somewhere warm, with a more steady climate. And my best friend and her husband were here.”

  She was speaking louder now, more animated.

  Brass asked, “What can you tell us about the last time you saw her?”

  The upbeat attitude faded, her eyes clouding over. After a while she said, “It was such a typical day for us girls. Nothing special about it, but if you had to pick a representative day for what our friendship was all about, and what we did together, that day would’ve served just fine. Shopping, lunch, then…"

  Her voice broke.

  Brass paused in his questioning while Brian Mortenson put a comforting hand on his wife’s shoulder. Regan choked back a sob, digging into the tissues. She dabbed at her eyes. Her makeup did not run, however—studying her, Brass realized Regan’s eyeliner was tattooed on.

  “I…I’m…I’m sorry,” she finally managed.

  They gave her a long moment to compose herself, then Brass went at it again. “I do need more detail, Mrs. Mortenson,” he said. “Let’s start with what time you and Missy got together that day.”

  Regan thought back. “We were in separate cars. We usually didn’t pick each other up or anything, we’d meet someplace. That morning…We met at Barnes and Noble, the one out on Maryland Parkway…by the Boulevard Mall?”

  Brass and Nick both nodded.

  “Anyway,” she went on, “that was around ten. We had coffee and a scone, then browsed for a while. Alex had a birthday coming and he’s such a movie freak that Missy wanted to get him this special movie book.”

  “And did she?” Brass asked.

  Nick remembered that although the Chinese food had been found in Missy’s Lexus, no other packages remained.

  “She did,” Regan said. “Missy found just the right book for Alex—this biography of Red Skeleton.”

  Nick smiled a little; but neither he nor Brass corrected her: Skelton.

  She was saying, “Alex is into the old movie stars—but, actually…I wound up giving it to him.”

  “You gave it to him,” Brass repeated, not following.

  Twisting the tissue in her hands, she said, “We were planning to have Alex’s birthday at our house—we’ve done that before.”

  Brian nodded.

  She went on: “The store wrapped it for her and she just gave it to me to keep, till the party.” Regan’s voice shrank even more. “Of course, we never had that party, not after Missy disappeared.”

  “And you gave him the book.”

  She nodded.

  “When?”

  For a second she seemed to not understand the question, then said, “On his birthday,” as if that should have been obvious. “I stopped over and gave him the package, and told Alex it was from her.”

  “This was a month after she disappeared.”

  Another nod. “I thought he’d appreciate that. That it would seem…special.”

  “And how did he react?”

  She smirked sourly. “I guess it wasn’t the smartest thing I ever did—he really broke up. He cried and cried.”

  And then she began to cry too, muttering, “Stupid…stupid…stupid…"

  Mortenson rubbed his wife’s neck. “Don’t beat yourself up, baby. You were just trying to be nice.”

  Picking the momentum back up, Brass asked, “Okay, where to after the bookstore?”

  “Caesar’s—the Forum shops for a couple hours. It’s expensive but there’s lots of fun stuff to see.”

  “So you were just window shopping?”

  “Mostly, but Missy did buy a nice sweater at…I don’t remember which store, for sure. It was a year ago….”

  “Think, for a moment.”

  “…Saks, maybe? Only, we pretty much made the rounds that day and hit almost every store. She could have bought that anywhere. And maybe something else…But anyway, I’m positive she was carrying some bags when we went back to our cars.”

  “Okay. You get through shopping at Caesar’s. Then what?”

  “Lunch. It was after one by then and we decided to go to the China Grill at Mandalay Bay.”

  Nick, in his friendly way, asked, “That’s kind of a tourist trap, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sort of, but the food is really good. And Missy and me, we’re people watchers. We both get a kick out of watching the tourists and guessing who they are and where they’re from. It’s better than the zoo.”

  “Do you remember what you had for lunch?”

  “Grilled mahimahi. That�
��s what I always have there. It’s great.” Her grief over Missy appeared momentarily displaced by her enthusiasm for her lunch. “They grill it with pea pods, yellow squash, carrots, leeks, and shitaki mushrooms.”

  “What about Missy? Wouldn’t happen to remember what she ordered?”

  “She had a fave, too—Mongolian beef. Without fail, that’s what she’d order. Great girl, but no sense of adventure when it came to food.”

  “What did you two talk about over lunch?”

  Regan shrugged, her mood upbeat again. “Missy and I decided to get the boys to take us to see the Harry Potter movie.”

  Brian Mortenson rolled his eyes just outside his wife’s line of vision.

  “You girls talk about anything else?” Brass asked. “Was Missy having trouble at home?”

  Regan shook her head. “Not really—she thought the world of Alex, and he’s been crazy about her since college.”

  “When you say, ‘not really,’ that implies…"

  “Well…she was a little miffed about him getting on her, for spending too much on clothes. She said sometimes Alex treated her like he was the breadwinner and she was the little woman.”

  “Missy didn’t work outside of the home?”

  “No, but she managed their apartments. She had a finance degree, y’know. So I think she resented, just a little, being treated like a stay-at-home housewife. But I don’t want to give you the wrong impression. Missy wasn’t bent out of shape or anything. Every marriage has its little bumps…. Right, dear?”

  Brian nodded.

  Brass asked, “How long did lunch last?”

  “An hour, maybe two.”

  “And all the two of you talked about was going to see a movie? And that Alex had been on her lately about her shopping?”

  Shrugging, Regan said, “The rest was the same stuff we always talked about—just girl talk.”

  “Girl talk.”

  “What we’re reading, who’s getting divorced, who’s fooling around on who—the usual gossip.”

  “What was she reading?”

  “Nick Hornby.”

  “Any of the divorce or ‘fooling around’ talk have to do with Missy herself?”

  Regan’s face hardened. “Now, I’m willing to help you, but Missy wasn’t like that. She loved her husband and he loved her—a storybook marriage, the kind most people can only dream about.”

  Brian Mortenson sat forward now. “These are our friends you’re talking about, Detective. Like Regan says, we’ll help, but have a little common decency, would you?”

  “Sir, you don’t have to like the questions I ask,” Brass said. “I don’t even like them…but these are the things that have to be asked in every homicide case.”

  Fuming but saying nothing, Mortenson sat back.

  His wife put a hand on his leg just above the knee. “It’s all right, Brian.”

  Nick said, “You’re mourning the loss of a friend. But Missy didn’t just pass away—she was murdered. We don’t have the luxury of common decency, in the face of indecency like this…. Not if we want to do right by Missy.”

  Brian was still scowling, but his wife looked up at him sweetly and said, “They’re right, honey. We have to help. We have to do whatever it takes to find out who took Missy away from us.”

  Mortenson sighed heavily, then nodded. “I don’t know, baby. This is getting a little…weird.”

  Nick rose and, seemingly embarrassed, said, “My timing is lousy, I know…but I wonder if I could use your bathroom?”

  “Sure,” Regan said.

  “Down the hall, off the kitchen,” Brian said, with a dismissive gesture.

  Nick offered a chagrined smile, and said, “I’m afraid department policy requires I be accompanied by the homeowner. You know how it is—things turn up missing, lawsuits…. Could you show me there, Mr. Mortenson?”

  “Oh for Christ’s sake,” Mortenson said. “What next?”

  But he got up, reluctantly, and escorted Nick out of the room.

  Suddenly Brass felt very glad he’d allowed Nick Stokes to be his “Ride Along”—there was no such department policy as the one Nick referred to. Nick had clearly sensed Brass’s desire to speak to the wife without the husband around, and had made it happen.

  “When you were shopping, Mrs. Mortenson, did you see anyone suspicious, maybe someone following you?”

  “No! No one.”

  “What about at the restaurant?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Please think back, Mrs. Mortenson. If someone was stalking Missy, you might have noticed.”

  She chewed her lip in thought, big ice-blue eyes wide, gently filigreed with red.

  Brass tried again. “Nobody talked to you or hit on you? A couple of attractive women out shopping, could be a guy might take a run at one or both of you.”

  She smiled, almost blushing. “Well, in a town full of showgirls, a woman my age can only thank you for a compliment like that…but no. No one talked to us, other than the workers in the stores and our waiter at lunch.”

  “Did any of the clerks get overly friendly? How about the waiter? More interested in you two than usual?”

  “If so, Detective, it flew over my head. You think a stalker was watching us?”

  This was getting nowhere. “Did you actually see Missy get into her car? In the restaurant parking lot?”

  “Well, I walked Missy to her Lexus, then went on to my own car. It was parked farther out.”

  “Then you did see her get into the SUV?”

  Regan nodded, and a pearl-like tear rolled down her tanned cheek, glistening like a jewel. “She already had the door open. She set her doggy bag inside, then ducked back out and…we hugged. How was I to know we were saying good-bye, forever?”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  Regan swallowed. “I said we’d see her and Alex on Saturday, then she got in, and I walked away.”

  “That was the last thing you saw? You didn’t see her drive out?”

  “No.”

  “Did she start the engine?”

  “I don’t…don’t remember.”

  “Could there have been someone hiding in the car? In the back, maybe?”

  “She put the doggy bag in front, side and rear windows are tinted…. Maybe. But I really don’t think so.”

  “Where did you go from the restaurant?”

  “I had another appointment.”

  “With whom?”

  The onslaught of questions was clearly getting to her. “Really, Detective, is that important?”

  Brass shrugged. “Probably not. But I have to check everything.”

  Nodding, Regan said, “I serve as a fund raiser for Las Vegas Arts.”

  Alex Sherman had mentioned that.

  “Sometimes,” she was saying, “I meet with artists. I met with one that day.”

  “Which artist? What’s his name?”

  “Her name,” she corrected. “Don’t be sexist, Detective.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Sharon Pope.”

  “Where can I contact her?”

  “She’s in the book.”

  Brass was reflecting, trying to think if he had any other questions for the woman, when he heard Brian Mortenson yelling from the back of the house.

  The detective and the blonde exchanged looks, then got up and quickly followed the sound of the voice down the hall, the hostess leading the way.

  Even if it wasn’t really department policy.

  Five minutes before, when Nick had requested a guide to the bathroom, Mortenson had led the CSI past a formal dining room dominated by a huge oak table and through a hall-of-mirrors kitchen with its stainless-steel appliances. Off the kitchen to the left, Mortenson pointed toward the bathroom.

  “Knock yourself out,” the man said sourly.

  Nick had used the bathroom and took his time washing up. Joining his host in the hallway again, Nick pointed past Mortenson toward an open door that led into the empty garage.
<
br />   “You might want to shut that,” Nick said. “Letting in the cold.”

  “Hell,” Mortenson said, looking around. “Thanks…I was getting ready to put the cars into the garage when you and your partner knocked out front.”

  Mortenson moved toward the door, but before he could close it, Nick—at the man’s side—was pointing into the garage at a white appliance against the back wall. “That a chest freezer?”

  “Yeah.”

  Boldly, Nick stepped through the door out into the garage. Voice pinging off cement, he said, “I’ve been thinking about getting one…. This baby expensive?”

  Mortenson followed the CSI. “Not that much—less than $500.”

  Nick whistled. “Hey, that’s not bad at all.” He gave Mortenson the look you give a used-car dealer. “Has it been good to you?”

  Mortenson nodded, shrugged, then glanced back in the direction of the living room, mildly imposed upon, but not knowing what to do about it. “Had it three years,” he said. “Not a lick of trouble.”

  Nick stood studying the freezer, admiringly. “Doesn’t hurt it any, to be out in the garage?”

  “Naw,” Mortenson said, getting sucked into the seemingly mindless conversation. “Runs a little more, but there’s nowhere in the house for it. This works fine.” He opened the lid so Nick could peer inside.

  While proud homeowner Mortenson droned on, Nick checked out the freezer, though not for the reason the other man likely thought. Three-quarters filled with white-butcher-paper-wrapped packages with very clear dates printed in Magic Marker, the Mortensons’ freezer was better organized than Nick’s office. Beef on one side, chicken and fish to the back, pork to the right and vegetables in the front. Though only about eight or nine cubic feet—and stacked with enough food to keep a homeless shelter going for weeks—the freezer did appear big enough to hold Missy Sherman’s body. A small layer of frost coated the walls, but Nick could still see every seam and the smoothness of the surface along the back.