Lucky Catch

by Deborah Coonts

  “Noble,” I said, although he really deserved a go-direct-to-dating-jail card. “He’ll find someone who’s willing to put up with his put-downs. We pair up based on our need states.” Now, that was a can of worms, wasn’t it?

  “Thank you, Dr. Phil.” She eyed me coolly. “The whole thing was nothing but a booty call—a Champagne and Kobe steak booty call, but that didn’t make it easier to swallow. Turns out the guy has a history of dating women inappropriately younger who appeal to his hero complex. He thinks they actually like him when all they’re doing is circling, biding their time to swoop in and take a bite out of his bank account.”

  “Captain Save-A-Ho.” I chuckled. “Did you come up with that?”

  “Wish I had. Pretty brilliant, actually, but apparently the stereotype is so prevalent the moniker is in the dictionary.”

  “Seriously? The dictionary? I guess Oxford has lost some of its stuffiness. I never thought that possible.”

  “Not that dictionary—the Urban Dictionary.”

  I’d never heard of it. Not surprising—corporate executives are a cloistered lot, even in Vegas. “Apparently I need to crawl out of my hole a bit more.” Flash and her dating woes. But who was I to laugh? “Ego coupled with insecurity—a deadly combination.”

  “Aw, he wasn’t worth shootin’.” Her face sobered. “But, that’s not why I came looking for you. I got some news.”

  Banter fled as my voice turned serious. “We’ve got a killer itching to kill again, and we are no closer to his identity. If you could help make some sense of this, I’d be forever in your debt.”

  “Just hook me up with Captain America, there.” Flash mooned in the direction Agent Stokes had taken. “If you don’t have designs on him, that is. I don’t poach from my friends.”

  “I’ll make the introduction. The rest is up to you.” The combination was just so wrong, it might work.

  Flash settled back, her glass of bubbly in one hand and a satisfied look on her face. “I did some digging on Fiona Richards, as you asked,, and the more rocks I turned over, the more snakes I found.” Her face shut down into a frown. “Some of this, you won’t like.”

  I blew a short breath of air, lifting my bangs. “I don’t like any of this. Tell me about Fiona.”

  Flash flipped to recitation mode as she did a memory dump. “Most of it, you know. She kicked around as a sous chef, hit some of the TV cooking shows, worked under a lot of chefs.”

  The way she said that made me look at her.

  She gave me a knowing grin. “Sort of the casting-couch method of culinary ladder-climbing.”

  “Everybody’s looking for an easy in.” How I kept a straight face, I don’t know.

  Flash rewarded me with the hoped-for laugh—a big, bawdy one. “She got around, for sure.” Flash sobered. “I checked the Secretary of State, and Fiona’s business docs seem fine, but minimal. She’s the only listed member in her limited liability company. She’s got a moneyman, I know, but I’m still rooting that one out. Whoever it is, they’ve buried the evidence pretty deep.”

  “Makes you wonder why all the precautions,” I said, thinking out loud. I knew Flash was already way ahead of me and didn’t need my help.

  She gave me a serious, rather pained look. “How much do you know about Jean-Charles?”

  “Don’t tell me Fiona slept with Jean-Charles.”

  “Are you letting your jealousy show?” Flash chided.

  I snorted. “I’m never jealous of the past. If they had been intimate, that might just have been a bit too incestuous, don’t you think? She and Adone Giovanni were lovers. And Adone is Desiree Bouclet’s estranged husband.”

  “You know those French.” Flash shook her head. “I’m gonna need to get me one of those.”

  “Yes, a lover with a mistress. Sounds chummy.”

  “Threesomes are . . .”

  “. . . out of the question,” I said before she could horrify me with her take on it. “Now, back to Jean-Charles?”

  Flash took a sip of bubbly, then set her glass down with a bit more attention than normal. She was stalling. Finally, she looked at me. “He has the reputation of being a real cut-throat.”

  I shrugged. “The higher you climb, the more enemies you make.”

  Flash drained her bubbly, then looked at me from under her brows. “Apparently, he likes to bed the help.”

  “Back to that, are we?” My voice held the hint of a snarl. Clearly, I wasn’t the one to throw the first stone—Teddie and Jean-Charles technically both worked for me. “Not wise, but not a crime, either.” When I said it, I thought maybe that wasn’t entirely accurate. Using your position to gain sexual favors was certainly actionable. But to think I had any power when it came to the two men in my life was laughable.

  “I guess that would depend on who he slept with and why.” Flash had a point, and she made it.

  “So what’s the punch line?”

  “Chitza DeStefano. Apparently, they had quite a dustup in Paris. Word is, they had an intense affair and then it blew up.”

  I pursed my lips and nodded. “Chitza said she knew Jean-Charles. How long ago?”

  “Three years. I haven’t found anyone who had firsthand knowledge, but it was quite the topic of conversation.” Flash motioned for more Champagne, and we waited while the cocktail waitress refilled her glass. Flash took a sip, then continued. “Chitza came back here and opened her place.”

  “Interesting, but hardly condemning.”

  “Grist for the mill. But the rest of the info on your dead girl is a bit more compelling.”

  “Saving the best for last, are we?” I leaned forward, my interest piqued. “I hope it’s good.”

  “Did you know she trained at Le Cordon Bleu?”

  “You said she was a sous chef, so she must’ve trained somewhere.”

  Flash nodded.

  Two chef, one chef . . . A shiver chased up my spine. “Le Cordon Bleu here in the States?”

  “No, in Paris. Then she apprenticed with one of the important dudes, I can’t pronounce his name, but”—she dropped her voice as she glanced quickly around—“the other apprentice? Chef Wexler.”

  * * *

  The Beautiful Jeremy Whitlock, one butt cheek propped on the stenciled corner of Miss P.’s desk, jumped when I burst through the office door.

  I smiled at him benignly. “Did I scare you?”

  “I’m a man. If I wasn’t scared of you, I’d be a fool.” He shot me those damn dimples.

  The bird was the only one happy to see me. He sidestepped from one end of his perch to the other as he sang, “Fucking bitch! Fucking bitch!”

  “As greetings go, I’d say that one needs work.”

  Miss P. stared in rapt attention at Jeremy, ignoring me entirely. Mr. Livermore was nowhere to be seen. I rewarded the bird for his affection with a slice of browned apple from the dish beside his cage.

  Before he grabbed it, he rewarded me with a heartfelt expletive. “Asshole!” He delivered his best word with feeling, which helped me rediscover my smile.

  “Good bird.” I grabbed the messages in my box, then motioned for Jeremy to follow me. “Bring me up to speed.”

  Jeremy pulled out his phone as he trailed me into my office. “The guy, Livermore, struck me as a no-hopper, you know.”

  I sorted my remaining messages, discarding most of them as I took my chair. The springs groaned, which did nothing to improve my mood. “A no-hopper. There are so many meanings my imagination can attribute to that phrase. Do me a favor, save me from myself.”

  “A fool.”

  “Why didn’t you say that?”

  “I did,” Jeremy deadpanned.

  I gave him a look that had sent lesser men running.

  “Okay.” Jeremy took a spot on the sofa. Leaning back, he crossed one leg over the other, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, his hands holding his shin while his foot bounced with barely contained energy. “After you left, the guy got all twitchy, like a bucket of pra
wns in the sun. He didn’t wait long, then he made some excuse and ran.”

  I looked up. “That’s it?”

  Jeremy scrolled through his phone. When he found what he wanted, he rose and stepped to my desk. Extending the phone, he handed it to me. “The wanker made straight for that guy.” He pointed toward his phone in my hand.

  Glancing down, I came face-to-photo with Adone Giovanni. “Well, that’s certainly an interesting twist.” He was popping up enough to garner some attention.

  “You know him?” Jeremy actually sounded surprised . . . for a moment. “Silly me, of course you do.”

  I told Jeremy what I knew.

  “Families.” Jeremy’s comment begged a few questions, but I didn’t indulge. “Seems like you know a lot about the guy, but, want me to run some background stuff, see if I can dig up anything odd?”

  Personally, I’d have liked to know his definition of odd—this whole mess qualified, if you asked me. “That would be great. But concentrate on Livermore . . . we need to know his angle. If you bring me some good info, I will personally arrange a special spot in Babylon heaven with your name on it.” I crinkled my brows, unsure as to what I might have just promised . . . Vegas had a weird effect on expectations. Trust me on that one.

  “Miss P.?” I called without raising my voice—I knew she was within easy earshot.

  She stuck her head through the doorway. “Your wish . . .”

  “Could you see if you can find the UC-Berkeley guys, specifically Dr. Phelps? Last time I saw them, they were sobering up in the Sodom and Gomorrah Suite.”

  Her head disappeared—I took that as a yes. Jeremy wandered after her, hopefully to do my bidding, a hazy, lost-in-thought look on his face. She mumbled something, presumably to Jeremy, then the office door opened and closed.

  The bird sang out, “Pretty girl! Pretty girl.”

  Brandy had returned. She materialized in my doorway, then, responding to my smile, stepped inside.

  “Does that bird realize how very close to being slow-roasted on a spit he is?” I growled, half-pretending to be irritated.

  Brandy, aka Pretty Girl, gave me a thousand-candlepower grin, confirming the bird’s impeccable taste. “I checked with legal. As you suspected, they’d never talked with Mr. Livermore.” She paused for my gloat. “The insurance company is equally at sea—they’ve never heard of the guy. However—” She paused until I gave her my full attention. “Chef Gregor filed a claim on the missing truffle just this morning. Apparently, he’s making quite a stink about it.”

  “Interesting. But that’s one less problem we have to deal with—the insurance guys can take it from here. I sure would like to know what Livermore is after.” I worked through the possible angles he could be working, which didn’t take too long—with little concrete to go on, I was throwing darts in the dark.

  “What do you think he might be after?” Brandy’s eyes danced as her voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Do you think he could be the killer?”

  I pictured the nervous little man with the thick, coarse, poorly cut gray hair poking from under his hideous toupee and the bushy dark eyebrows. “If he is, then he would’ve needed help to stuff Mr. Peccorino into that oven—the good doctor wasn’t a small man.” Rehydrated, he would probably top two hundred pounds, but I kept that little tidbit to myself—Brandy still had the easily bruised sensibilities of an early-twenty-something. And she hid a big heart under that feigned toughness. So much about her reminded me of myself at that age. I wasn’t sure I appreciated that little insight—I’d always been the up-and-comer. Guess it was high time to pass that baton.

  “I wonder why he came here,” Brandy continued her musings out loud. “Since he felt the need to lie, I assume whatever his reasons were, they weren’t aboveboard.”

  “Safe assumption.” How I hated people who tried to maneuver me. Recently, there had been a lot of that going around, making manipulation my new hot button. I reached for my cockroach paperweight, then remembered it was gone—a fact that accelerated my mood’s slide. The little trinkets of life around me helped keep me centered. “We can’t do anything about him now, so let’s concentrate on things we can have an impact on. How’re all the ingredients for the rest of the week gelling?”

  Brandy got that sort of weird look that meant her focus had rolled to an internal checklist. I used to be able to keep all the balls in the air, but lately, I’d fallen in love with the note-taking app on my iPhone, which probably would’ve bothered a lesser me. The new me was trying to embrace her limitations.

  Brandy ticked off the items. “The press conference your mother had called?” She looked at me for some sign I was following. I gave her a nod. “Your mother postponed it.”

  A shot of cold adrenaline to the heart. “Why?”

  Brandy looked nervous—as well she should, sitting smack in the center of the crosshairs. “Mona wouldn’t say, exactly, but something about a bigger announcement.”

  “Which will be a bigger problem. Oh, joy.” With my plate overflowing, I refused to worry about Mona’s scheme, whatever it was. “Go on.”

  “The turkeys . . .” Brandy’s focus switched to me, probably just an instinctive bit of self-preservation. Apparently feeling that death wasn’t imminent, Brandy hit the list again. “The turkeys are caged in the motor pool, which . . .”

  “. . . is a very short-term solution,” I said, narrowing my eyes as if training a sight on an invisible Mona. “Can’t wait to see how Mother handles it.”

  That got a smirk from Pretty Girl. “The set for the cook-off is pretty much set up—the chefs have the rest of the day and tomorrow to familiarize themselves with the available equipment. I shouldn’t think there will be any complaints—they have no idea what they’ll be cooking.”

  Brandy had never dealt with the creative culinary wiz-kids, so I let her naïveté go—although I did offer a veiled warning. “Just in case, I would keep the knives locked up until the show, if I were you.”

  She looked for my smile. When she didn’t find one, she made a note—or at least, she looked like she’d file it in her mental in-box. “Chitza said she might not make it down until tomorrow—the Sodom and Gomorrah Suite hired her as their private chef.”

  “Really?”

  “I got the impression it was sort of a setup, an inside job, if you will.”

  “How so?”

  The girl looked at me like I’d been living under a rock or something. “She and Dr. Phelps are tight. When Chitza was in the chef thing on TV, every day, he was in the front row cheering her on. It was sooo great. Guys can be so wonderful.” Her smile dimmed when it ran headlong into my skepticism. “Don’t you watch TV or read the rags?” She didn’t really expect an answer—I knew that, so I just raised an eyebrow. “Oh, right. You don’t, like . . . have a life or anything.”

  “Anything else?” I asked blandly, unable to pull off huffy. Her little tidbit did explain the comfortable pull I had detected between Chitza and the young scientist.

  “Just the normal craziness.” She paused and returned from mental gyrations. A sly smile ticked up one corner of her perfect, pouty lips. “So, what’s up with the Teddie thing?”

  “There is no Teddie thing. And it would behoove you to focus on the problems you can solve.” What do you know, I could do huffy today.

  She nodded and gave me a knowing look. “Ah, not so good, then. Interesting.” With that, she tossed a pitying look at me and strolled out of the office.

  Could today get any better?

  Filled with questions and riding on a wave of unspent energy and emotion, I needed to move. When I stepped into the outer office, the bird sang out like a bo’sun whistling arrivals on deck, “Bite me! Bite me!”

  “Enough out of you. If you don’t learn some manners, I’ll pluck you one feather at a time.”

  “Asshole!”

  “I mean it!”

  The bird glared at me and stopped hurling invectives. Instead, he let loose a wolf whistle an
d shifted his charm to another. “Pretty girl, pretty girl,” he cooed, making me laugh out loud.

  Hunched over some papers on her desk, Brandy pretended to ignore both of us, but her smile gave her away.

  Miss P. was on the phone. Flinging a hand over the mouthpiece, she gave me a glare.

  I raised my arms and mouthed, “What? I just walked in here.”

  While she finished the call I waited, shifting from one foot to the other in front of her desk.

  “Yes, yes. I see. Could you give me the address again?” Holding the receiver in place with her shoulder, she jotted notes. “Got it. Thank you.” Lowering her shoulder, she let the receiver fall, catching it in a deft move, then dropping it in its cradle. She tore off the top sheet of paper and handed it to me, giving me a look over the top of her cheaters. “Here.”

  I tried to decipher her scrawl, with only marginal success. “The big what?”

  “Hole.”

  “The heavy equipment experience?” A very creative entrepreneur had bought a vacant lot way south on the Strip and leased some heavy equipment. For a fairly hefty fee, anyone could don a hard hat and move some serious dirt or dig a tunnel to China with a Caterpillar. Admittedly, that kind of mechanical power had its appeal—I’d been tempted more than once. Of course, there’d usually been a body I’d been fantasizing about tossing in a hole and covering.

  Fantasy, the alternative to life without parole.

  Miss P. nodded and gave me a look usually reserved by the insensitive for the slowest kid in the class. “Apparently, your good doctor and his friends are putting on a show for the press. It starts in forty minutes. If you hurry, you can just make it.”

  * * *

  I’d made it all the way downstairs before my phone vibrated at my hip—probably a record of some kind. Rotating it, I glanced at the caller ID. Romeo had run out of patience.

  Grabbing the thing, I confirmed it was the young detective—he’d caught me striding across the lobby. As I caressed the face of my phone with my thumb, I made a beeline toward the entrance. The noise of day was quickly escalating toward nighttime and its promises of fun, frivolity, and a dose of debauchery. The Ferrari slid to the curb as I pushed through the doors and pressed the phone to my ear, hoping I could hear. “Whatcha got?”