Strangled - Brian McGrory [106]
Fuck him. Anyway, he’d have to have a Nevada sheriff serve it, and I doubt that was going to happen, mostly because he wouldn’t have any idea where I was — at least that was a key part of the plan.
Speaking of which, the plan called for me to parachute into Las Vegas, though not literally, drive immediately to the home of the newly late Bob Walters, meet his daughter, Deirdre, analyze and possibly retrieve whatever it was that was in that locker, and catch a four o’clock flight that would get me back to Boston by half past midnight. One added benefit of this trip was that it would get me out of the firing range that Boston had become, at least for a few hours.
Of course, I can’t remember the last time anything in my life went according to plan, so why should this day have been any different.
The last time I had pulled up to Bob Walters’s house on Rodeo Road, the county coroner was parked out front and Bob was already zipped up in a shiny black body bag and getting wheeled out the front door. That was not a good day, but then again, not many of them had been lately.
This time, no coroner, no body bags, no police cars, all of which was good news. Just desert serenity, with chirping birds, the distant sound of a gurgling fountain, and the dry, superheated air. I strode up the Walterses’ walkway and knocked on the front door.
I wasn’t exactly prepared for what happened next, but then again, preparation had hardly been my calling card of late. A woman answered, I don’t know, somewhere in her thirties, maybe about five feet six, 110 pounds, dressed in a miniskirt and a skintight white tank top that could just about make a man — especially this man — buckle at the knees.
Beyond that, she wore heavy eyeliner and bright lipstick, and her wavy auburn hair was bunched back in a ponytail. She said, “You must be Jack. I’m Deirdre Hayes.”
Now, Deirdre is one of those names I associate with navy blue pantsuits and white silk shirts that button to the neck — a conservative name for a conservative woman who, because of that, has probably achieved some modicum of financial success. It’s like Alice or Patricia or Ruth. You don’t expect to see a Deirdre dressed like this.
On the flip side, throw the name Tiffany around and that’s a woman I want to meet, or for that matter Alex or Andi or Jen. Kate can go either way, as can Liz or Anne.
Back to Deirdre. She must have sensed my, um, surprise, because she said, “Forgive my appearance; I’m just getting off the overnight shift. I’m a waitress on the Strip.”
I said, “I’d like to spend a few hours with my good friend Jimmy Beam in that bar.”
Just kidding. What I really said was, “I’m so sorry to intrude like this. Things are crazy back in Boston, and the sooner we did this, the better.”
“No apology necessary.”
She invited me inside. The place smelled strongly of cleaning fluids, which, given what had gone on in there over so many years, was probably a good thing. All the blinds and drapes were pulled open, allowing sunshine to flow inside. Classical music poured through a central speaker system — Mozart’s Piano Concerto Number 19 in F, if I’m not mistaken. All right, I’m bluffing here, but someone was tickling the ivories, and it sounded pretty damned good, even if it didn’t seem to go with the woman before me.
Deirdre led me back into the big kitchen and offered me a cup of coffee, which I declined, and then a bottle of water, which I gladly accepted. Last time I was in this room, her mother was flinging a glass against a wall and killing herself slowly with booze. This time, there was no hint of her, so I asked, “Is Mrs. Walters home?”
“My mom’s in rehab,” Deirdre replied, leaning back on a countertop, holding a mug of coffee in both her hands. She paused, then added, “And not by her choice. You saw her. She was a mess. Her whole life had fallen apart. I had to get an appointment by the court to be her guardian, and the first thing I did was send her into a clinic to dry out. She needs the kind of help that I can’t give her.”