Dark Places Read online

Fortunately, Billy Joe Naughty Boy wasn’t looking at my hatchet scar. He was looking at my Grapette legs with more than a little concern on his face. He had lots of dirty-blond hair everywhere except on top of his head, and a bushy beard with a little piece of Big Mac lettuce crusted in it. Wilted, maybe with a little Special Sauce, too. Dinner, I presumed. I resisted the urge to pluck it out as an act of goodwill and wondered if his gold nose ring made his nostril freeze in these cold climes. My kind of man, all right.

  The driver leaned around and got into the act. My, he was so attractive, too. Mohawk haircut all spiked up with Dippity-do and tattooed race cars with flames coming out the back decorating his grimy hands. Also a suave charmer, he said with such self-confidence, “Wanna go party with us? We got lots of beer and Funyuns in back.”

  Jeez Louise, my dreams have surely come true—twin gourmands willing to share their stash of oniony snacks. Then I thought of the great party going on in the motel rooms just behind me, where more friendly deputies than you could shake a stick at were babysitting all my other eager suitors of the evening. I guess you can call that a party; half of them were having fun.

  “You bet, I do, sweetie. What do you guys have in mind?”

  Mr. Dreamboat at the passenger window chortled with lots of feeling, or maybe he was just embarrassed at my endearment. Or maybe he was a choking wildebeest in heat. I waited for him to regain his composure and draw breath and wondered if Nose Ring’s burning, Christmasy leer could warm up my frozen kneecaps.

  Mohawk behind the wheel had his visor down and was spitting on his palms and slicking up his mussed coiffure. I bring out that primping thing in the men I meet. Nose Ring probably would’ve primped, too, if he knew how. The latter finally figured out how to answer my question.

  “Well, both of us are horny as hell, that tell you anything, darlin’?”

  I didn’t mention what that told me. But just think about bulls in heat, you know, barnyard creatures, scruffy coats, manure smell, and all that.

  “Tell you what, sugar. I gotta nice warm room right back there in that motel.” I tossed my head toward our makeshift incarceration units, chock-full of armed and gleeful cops humming “Getting To Know You.”

  NASCAR Hands backed up into a parking spot so fast he almost hit the trash receptacle on the corner. The boys were excited, I guess. Maybe I’m a regular Pamela Anderson with a Glock 9mm hidden in my gold lamé purse. Maybe I’m a woman who isn’t unconscious, and that’s the extent of their requirements. On second thought, consciousness in a woman probably didn’t factor in their love life.

  I strutted toward him as best I could. Truth is, I strut better in wool socks and hightop Nikes than in fishnets and black-patent stiletto heels. Nose Ring opened the door and stepped out under the streetlight to meet me, obviously an eager beaver. “Just how much’s that nice warm room and hot little bod gonna cost us?”

  Let me see, what am I gonna cost these two yokels? Donald Trump’s entire wealth added to all Queen Elizabeth’s palaces, with Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles and his best polo pony thrown in. Not nearly enough. I observed them critically. They weren’t exactly the aforementioned The Donald. Cash was not bulging from their pockets with nowhere else to go. They were hoarding Big Mac crumbs for minisnacks. Not wanting to scare them off, I said, “Twenty bucks each? How ’bout that?”

  They both looked shocked, and the driver had not turned off the ignition. Uh-oh, maybe I had overrated my appeal. But I knew all was well when Billy Goat One beamed and squealed like Howard Dean at the Iowa caucus. “Hell, yeah! That’s what I’m talkin’ about!”

  Hell, yeah, and get out your lawyer’s telephone number. I presented my pearly whites in a sexy, sly smile and jutted my right hip out of my white fur, to clench the great deal they’d just made. Actually I was smiling because I was going to get to go inside and sit on the radiator where four happy-go-lucky, grinning deputies were gathered in the bathroom, guns drawn and all excited. It wasn’t fair, they got all the fun of frisking and gloating and watching the looks of horror when they burst into the room. I just got to strut. I motioned at the motel. “You follow me, boys. Heaven’s right next door, and I’m taking both of you with me.”

  The guy’s doubled fist came so quick and hard against my cheekbone that it caught me off guard. My knees buckled and white stars exploded behind my eyes as he grabbed the front of my coat and heaved me headfirst into the front seat. He jumped in after me and slammed the door.

  The driver yelled, “What the hell you doin’, Leroy?”

  Leroy said, “Shut up and floor it, Ethan!” He grabbed me by the hair and said, “You goin’ with us, baby, and you ain’t never gonna forget us.”

  That brought me to my senses real quick, and I began to fight and kick as Ethan stomped the gas pedal and screeched off, laying rubber on the pavement. Halfway down the block, Leroy got me by the throat and slapped my face, but I fought harder, desperately trying to get to the weapon in my purse. Ethan was swerving around and yelling, “Why you doin’ this, Leroy? Don’t hurt her too bad! She ain’t done nothin’ !”

  I got Leroy a good one in the mouth with my fist. He cursed and tried to ram the top of my head against the dashboard, and that’s when I saw the stiletto that had come off my foot in the fight. I grabbed it and drove the four-inch spiked heel down into the driver’s crotch as hard as I could. Ethan’s scream was as high pitched and girly as Beverly Sills in Aida. Then he lost control of the truck, screaming and writhing in pain until we slammed headfirst into a parked car. The impact threw me to the floor and Leroy against the windshield, bloodying his forehead. He fell back against the seat, and I had my weapon out and between his bleary eyes before he could blink.

  “You aren’t gonna forget me either, dirtbag,” I gritted out, but then both doors flew open and about twelve of my fellow officers were there jerking my two assailants out and spread-eagling them on the ground.

  Then Bud was beside me. “You okay, Claire? Man, that happened so fast.”

  I shoved my weapon back into my purse. “He sucker punched me in the side of the head, stunned me a little.”

  As I climbed down out of the cab, Bud examined the side of my face. “Yeah, your cheekbone’s already startin’ to bruise up. It’s not bleedin’ much, though. What happened?”

  “I bought their Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber impersonation is what happened. Let down my guard a second, but that’s all it took. Won’t do that again.”

  I sat down on the curb and watched my friends flip the two hicks onto their stomachs, cuff them, and manhandle them across the street. The one with the stiletto wound was still crying and yelling that he was bleeding and something about fathering children. I touched my cheek and winced but found only a couple of drops of blood. “These spike heels come in pretty handy, Bud. Maybe I oughta wear them all the time.”

  Bud said, “Yeah. Maybe I’ll get me a pair, too.”

  We grinned, and then he sobered. “Sure you’re all right?”

  I stood up. “I’m fine. He barely clipped me. Come on, this’s been a barrel of laughs but let’s get outta here and find our missing citizen, whoever it is.”

  TWO

  “Hey, baby, bail me out and we can still get it on!”

  I ignored that tempting invitation from Judy the Lesbian, who was sitting handcuffed in the back of our sheriff’s van but I smiled politely so I wouldn’t hurt her feelings. Dabbing at the small cut on my cheekbone with a Kleenex, I sat down in the passenger seat of Bud’s white Bronco and clunked the door shut, glad to get in out of the cold. A minute later he slid in the driver’s seat across from me.

  “You gonna bail that Judy gal out, or would Black get jealous?”

  That Bud. What a riot. “I think not. I’ll put in a good word for you, though, if you wanna give it a whirl.”

  Bud grinned and fired up the engine. The car was so cold, our breaths plumed and hung around awhile for us to admire. It had to be down to twenty degrees and still dropping. “How abo
ut getting some heat on in here, man?”

  Bud flipped the heater on high and the freezing blast hit me full in the face. I turned the vents toward him and pulled my fur collar up around my ears. The radio crackled with static, and Bud snatched the handset off the dashboard.

  “Yeah. Davis here.”

  Jacqee, the sheriff’s beloved airhead daughter, home for Christmas break from UCLA said, “You guys gonna take that missing-person report, or what?”

  Bud let up on the button and turned his big, pleading gray eyes on me. “Claire, we’ve been out here working this whole freakin’ night. You just got knocked up the side of the head. Let somebody else handle this one.”

  “I said I was okay. Now tell her we’re on it.”

  “It’ll make you late for your date with Nick.”

  I gave him a stare that bespoke hellfire.

  Bud frowned and thumbed down the button. “Okay, Morgan and I are on our way. Let’s hear it.”

  Miss Valley Girl crackled back, obviously put-upon. “Well, like, take forever to make up your minds. I’m right in the middle of my Pilates and I’m gonna go all stiff if I don’t get back to it soon.”

  Bud and I rolled our eyes in tandem, a team in every way, but we made no clever retort. Jacqee was the sheriff’s daughter, after all, and he did love her too much to fire her, stupid-speak and all.

  “Well, see, this neighbor lady called in and said this guy named Simon something or other’s front door’s standing wide open, even with it snowing outside, and everything. Can you believe that we’re supposed to have a foot of snow tonight? I sure wish I was back out in L.A. I could be down at Venice Beach everyday working on my tan and watching the guys play volleyball. Oh yeah, she said she thought she saw some blood, too.”

  “Have you notified patrol?” We always encouraged Jacqee with procedure. If we didn’t, she would forget. She would forget her name, too, if she didn’t have a driver’s license with her picture on it and a bunch of Daddy’s charge cards to look at.

  “Well, duh? Daddy taught me how to do this police kinda stuff. There’s a guy already out there, I forget his name, and he says it looks like there was a struggle.”

  “Roger. We got it,” Bud said into the mike, then mumbled something under his breath that sounded like idiot moron. “I’ll be glad when Dude-ette’s vacation’s over and she goes back into twenty-four-hour-a-day tannin’ mode.”

  I said, “Yeah, you and me both. And thanks.”

  “Yeah, and you’re gonna get my ass canned. You know what Charlie said. You’re supposed to be on light duty ’til the doctor gives you a clean bill.”

  “You call hooking outside for hours at night in this getup light duty? Not to mention getting slapped around and thrown into a truck by a couple of yahoos. Hey, I’ll bite the bullet and take a missing-person case any day.”

  “Know why people say ‘bite the bullet,’ Morgan?”

  Bud’s birthday was the first day of December, and I had made the horrible, horrible mistake of getting him a book about the origins of popular sayings. I decided to play nice since he took the missing-person case against his will. “No, but I bet a pretty penny you do.”

  “ ‘Bet a pretty penny’s’ even more interestin’.”

  “Jeez, Bud. I’m taking that book back for a refund.”

  “The sayin’ doesn’t come from an American penny but an English penny coined way back in 1257, or sometime, by King Henry III, or one of those kings back then. It wasn’t a good coin for regular day-to-day business in those days because it was gold, so they quit makin’ it. So it got all rare and stuff, and then people thought it was shiny and pretty, and everybody wanted one for a good-luck piece.”

  “Fascinating. Oh boy, look out there, the snow’s really starting to come down now.” My valiant attempt to change the subject, uttered with great feeling, I might add.

  “It’s not stickin’ yet.” Bud switched on the windshield wipers and they made wet, sluicing, poor-me-I’m-trying-my-best sounds. “ ‘Bite the bullet’ is from the Civil War. When they ran outta whiskey and painkillers, the army doctors would give the wounded guys a soft-lead bullet to put between their teeth while they were amputatin’ their legs.”

  “Double fascinating. I bet you’re a big hit nowadays at comedy clubs.”

  “All thanks to that cool book you gave me.”

  The snow had threatened all day but now it was really coming down with a vengeance, swirling and hitting the windshield in big, soppy splotches as we took Highway 54 and drove up toward the town of Eldon. The bridge spans were decorated in twinkling Christmas lights, red and blue and green and white, and the outlet mall near the lake was bustling with bundled-up people carrying most of their year’s income in shopping bags. I wasn’t much of a shopper, but I did have to buy gifts for a few people. Black was my major problem. Hell, what do you buy for a multimillionaire? The man’s loaded and doesn’t mind throwing it around, either.

  “Bud, what’d you think Donald Trump’s wife gives him for Christmas?”

  Bud glanced at me. “Viagra?”

  I laughed but that was one thing that Black definitely did not need. Donald probably didn’t either. Thoughts came to mind of last night at Cedar Bend Lodge, in Black’s penthouse living quarters with its palatial, black-marble bathroom. A certain little episode involving warm, soapy water and a great big bathtub made me shiver all over. Embarrassed, I blamed the cold chills on Bud’s heater. “How long’s it gonna take for this heater to warm up?”

  Bud put his hand in front of the blasting air. “It feels hot to me.” He tipped the vents back in my direction. “Why’d you ask about Trump? Havin’ trouble buyin’ for the guru?”

  Bud persisted in calling Black that because of that renowned-psychiatrist thing. “How about a brand-spankin’-new couch? Maybe all those rich patients have worn the cushions threadbare.”

  “Right. Sorry I asked.”

  Bud braked at a stoplight and wiped some fog off the inside of the window. He punched the defrost button. “Give him that book you gave me. It’s awesome.”

  I already had a book for Black. For some reason, I liked to give books to people. Not that I was that big of a reader myself, but I wasn’t good at knowing their tastes and needs because I wasn’t good at getting close to people. Bud and Black, and my good friend Harve were the only ones I had to buy for, except my Aunt Helen, who really wasn’t my aunt but I thought of her that way. And I guess I’d have to get O’Hara something, too, since she was the only other woman in the department. Maybe something for the new baby.

  “There’s the turn, up ahead on the left.”

  After about ten minutes on a slick gravel road out in the middle of nowhere, we saw one of our dark brown sheriff’s cruisers ahead, its lights still flashing in the darkness. It gave the falling snow an odd halo effect that was all golden and pulsating. And the snow was beginning to stick, frosting the roads and trees.

  We pulled up behind the deputy’s car and got out. The officer who’d secured the scene walked back to meet us. His name was Al Pennington, and he was fairly new to the department. He was dressed like Bud, in a brown department hooded parka, leather boots, and a black sock cap with a sheriff logo on the front. I coveted his outfit as I clicked toward him on my newly respected, slightly bloodstained stiletto heels. His military-cut blond hair was hidden under the cap, along with an impressive scar from a head wound he’d sustained while in the Air Force. His blue eyes that always seemed secretly amused gave me an up-and-down appraisal. This time they seemed amused by me.

  He said, “Nice outfit. I hate to think what you’re wearing under that coat.”

  “Yeah, I hate to think about it, too.”

  “Got one in the eye?”

  “Yeah, not bad, though. What’s up here?”

  Pennington glanced up at the house. “Possible missing person. Name of Simon Classon. The neighbor down thataway called it in.” I ran the name through my memory bank without much luck as I followed Pennington
’s pointed finger to a house about fifty yards down the road.

  “Who’s the neighbor?”

  “Lady named Edith Talbott. She lives alone and has trouble walking ’cause of a bad back so she stays inside most of the time. Says that when she went out to get her mail, she noticed newspapers hadn’t been picked up from Classon’s box for a while, so she opened the mailbox and saw Classon hadn’t been getting his mail, either, so she rode up here in her golf cart to see if anything was wrong. That’s when she saw Classon’s front door was open. She couldn’t get up on the porch but she thought she saw some blood on the floor. That scared her, so she went home and called us.”

  “Is it blood?”

  “Looks like it. I’ve called crime scene and put them on alert. They’re ready when and if you need them.”

  “You go in?”

  “Yeah, checked to make sure nobody was injured but didn’t find anything out of the ordinary, other than what’s in the front hall.”

  “Anybody else live here with him?”

  “Neighbor said he lives alone.”

  “Okay, we’ll take it from here. Good job, Pennington.”

  Bud pulled on his brown leather gloves and preceded me up the snowy sidewalk. We left footprints in the light powder. Mine looked like some kind of two-toed whooping crane scratching around. Bud’s looked like Sasquatch. “Too bad snow wasn’t already on the ground. Might’ve gotten some footprints.”

  “Yeah. Might anyway, if we’re lucky.”

  The house was a two-story gray brick Colonial with lots of white latticework covering the banisters on the front porch. It looked like winter ivy was frozen solid but trying its best not to die before spring. Four steps led up to a long, wraparound front porch. We stopped at the bottom and switched on our flashlights. There was nothing visible on the treads of the stairs, but we edged up close to the banisters, just in case somebody had been nice enough to leave us a footprint.

  The hall light was on, slanting a warm yellow glow across the porch. There was a clean welcome mat with a white angel blowing a long gold trumpet on a black background. It said “Merry Christmas” underneath the angel in flowing scarlet script. There was also a brass angel door knocker. I sidestepped the mat, took off my stilettos, put on the paper booties, and snapped on the rubber gloves that Bud handed to me.