“Give me thirty minutes. Gosh Dev, this is really nice of you,” she said sounding genuinely surprised.
I already had the wine and steaks in the car, right next to my overnight bag with Da’nita’s laptop, and now I had thirty minutes to kill. I decided to swing by the Spot, pop in for just a minute.
The stools at the bar were barely half full, then again it was just a little after five on a weeknight. Jimmy was tending bar.
“Dev,” he called, then by way of greeting poured a Leinenkugel’s for me. He had it waiting by the time I’d given a couple of perfunctory hellos making my way down the bar.
“Good to see you, been awhile,” Jimmy said.
I nodded as I sipped.
“Yeah, been a crazy week.”
“Man you must have some sort of special power. Last time you were in here you ended up leaving with that gorgeous blond, remember?”
“I’m trying not to, that didn’t exactly work out for me,” I said shaking my head.
“Well, you must have done something right, she was in here asking for you last night, and then again this afternoon. Man, looks like she can’t get enough of you. No accounting for some people’s taste, right?” he laughed again.
“She was in here? Looking for me?”
“Yup.”
“Anyone with her?” I asked, suddenly not that intent on finishing my beer.
“You mean like those three weight-lifter guys and her husband?” He chuckled at his own joke for a moment, “Oh, God you should see your face. Naw, no one was with her.”
“What’d you tell her?”
Jimmy looked at me for a long moment, serious.
“You know how many homicides and domestic disputes I’d be responsible for if I gave any sort of information out? Come on Dev, I’m a professional. If you’re gonna get some action, all I ask is that you take pictures and share ‘em with me,” he laughed.
I didn’t want to waste the beer, but I wasn’t going to hang there any longer than necessary so I quickly gulped down half of it.
“What’s the deal, she some sort of nutcase or something? God, it figures, the good-looking ones are always crazy.”
“She’s okay, I guess. Just a little more baggage than I need right now.”
Jimmy nodded in agreement.
“I hear ya, kids in the way, a jealous ex-husband lurking around, upside down mortgage, and nowadays you gotta buy them dinner before they’ll climb in bed. Who needs it? Remember that chick I used to date from Minneapolis? I thought, great, a kinky, sexually repressed Lutheran babe and she just…”
I drained the remainder of my beer, tossed a five-dollar bill on the bar, didn’t want to wait for the end of the story or my change.
“Jimmy, you working tonight?”
“Yeah, you coming back to link up with that sweetie?”
“No, I got something else I gotta deal with. Look if she comes in again, tell her I was here and I’ll be back tomorrow night. Tell her I’m usually here around nine.”
“Not a problem, Dev. Hot one tonight?”
“Hopefully. Sorry Jim, but I gotta run, see you.”
“You’re a player, Dev, an honest-to-God player, man. Don’t forget to mention my name when you get back together with her,” he called as I ran out the side door.
I took a roundabout way to Heidi’s. Drove past the scenic overlook where I spoke to Kerri yesterday and apparently some guy lost his head, literally. You wouldn’t know it to look at it now, although there were remnants of yellow-plastic crime-scene tape still tied around some trees that had roped the area off from curious onlookers.
I pulled into the lot, stopped approximately where I had spoken with Kerri yesterday. I could still see the telltale indentations where I’d jumped the curb and driven across the grass to get out of there. Just looking around, there were easily a thousand different places where a shooter could have hidden. Someone who really knew what they were doing, make it a million hiding places.
Whoever it was and wherever they had been, they must have been in position when I was talking to Kerri and had an easy shot at me. What did that mean? Why shoot someone in Braco’s LX11? They’d only just arrived. Just more questions I didn’t have answers for.
Chapter 41
Heidi answered the door barefoot, in cutoffs, a T-shirt, and no bra. No complaint on my part. I guessed she was just out of the shower. The pink hair was gone, replaced by a blond so white it was almost see-through. Based on the stains cupping across the front of her t-shit I guessed she was just reaching for the towel to dry off when I rang her doorbell.
“Well, what do you think?” she asked, raising her eyes up toward her hair.
“They’re fantastic, I think you should toss out all your bras.”
“Not my boobs you perv, my hair,” she said hitting me in the shoulder.
“Hair, oh, it’s not pink anymore. Harold do that?”
“It wasn’t pink, it was Atomic Magenta, and not my idea. That creep Harold, the big dope. Don’t even mention his name in this house.”
“Hey, it looks great, what’s the new color?”
“Albino snow blond, like it?”
“Different. But in a good way,” I quickly added.
She looked at me like she wasn’t sure.
“Here,” I said lifting the grocery bag. “Let me get these steaks marinating and pour you a glass of wine. Not in that order.”
I poured her a glass of wine, opened a beer for me, set the steaks to marinate in red wine with some rosemary, then started the grill. Once the coals went down I put the steaks on the grill, cooked them just the way she liked them. I had the makings for a salad, buttered carrots, and baked potatoes plus another bottle of wine for Heidi. It was maybe 10:30 before we finished dinner. I cleared the table and refilled her wine, not that she needed more.
“God, I just can’t get over how nice you’ve been tonight. Nice to be with you when you’re not you’re usual asshole self,” she said, then followed that faint praise with a major slosh of wine.
“Gee, thanks for the compliment,” I said opening another beer, my second of the night.
“Not a problem, thanks for the dinner. You know, maybe I should bail you out more often.”
“Let’s hope you don’t have to do that.”
“Can I ask you something, Dev?” She was slurring her words at this point.
“Yeah, sure,” I was loading her dishwasher, cleaning up the kitchen.
“Do you really like my hair color?” she asked, then absently shook her hair.
“Well, I like it a lot better than the pink that Har.. that you had before. You’re far too beautiful to have to stoop to that sort of thing to get anyone’s attention.”
“Do you really think I’m beautiful?” Her head was weaving back and forth ever so slightly, eyes getting glassier by the minute. She reached for the wine bottle, filled her glass almost to the rim, slopped some across the kitchen counter.
“Opps!” she said, smearing the wine across the granite countertop with the palm of her hand. I knew where this was going, I’d been here uncountable times before with her. I’m the master when it comes to giving women that one drink too many that pushes them out of the throes of nymphomania and into alcohol-induced sleep or nausea. Take your pick.
We chatted for another fifteen or twenty minutes. Heidi suddenly lurched off her kitchen stool, took an unstable step or two, then steadied herself against the counter, grabbed her glass of wine, and said, “I’ll be right back, no peeking, mister,” waving the wine glass back and forth, sloshing red wine onto the floor.
“I promise.”
I straightened up the rest of the kitchen. Mopped up the wine on the floor. Got the coffeemaker ready for the following morning. I shut down her i-pod, carried the trash bag out, wheeled the trash bin to the curb, then grabbed my overnight bag from my car.
I plugged in Da’nita’s laptop and turned it on, then went back to Heidi’s bedroom to check on her. She was asleep on the edge of the bed, feet on the floor. Passed out might have been a more accurate description. Snoring. She’d taken her T-shirt off and pulled on a neon blue, see through nightie, although she still wore her cutoffs. She’d left the faucet running in the bathroom.