“George Clooney could’ve performed ER surgery in this kitchen,” I said to Bud. “Either she hasn’t been here much or she’s not human. Or your mother does her cleaning.”
Across the room Bud made a mock hurt look. “Hey, my mother made me what I am today. Cleanliness is next to godliness. Of course, you wouldn’t know about either of those.”
“Didn’t you tell me your mom used to iron your underwear?”
“So? You got a problem with that?”
I had to grin as Bud meticulously went through every article on the desk. “She’s been here, all right. Lookee here what I found, Claire: two weeks of mail, all stacked up, nice and neat. The last two days are still unopened. And”—he held up a single sheet of expensive beige vellum between two gloved fingers—“here’s a cozy little note from the good Doctor Black, giving her grief for skippin’ out on their appointment. Dated two days ago.”
“Lovers’ spat, you think?” Interested in that particular relationship, I joined him at the desk and picked up a couple of letters written on pale blue stationery. Both were addressed in the same nearly illegible handwriting, and I did a double take at the return address.
“Well, now, guess who these are from? Gil Serna.”
“The bad boy actor Gil Serna?”
“They must’ve had a thing going on.” Frowning, I considered the implications. “That’s all we need, a big celebrity like him giving tearful, grieving interviews to Diane Sawyer.”
The second blue envelope was unsealed, and I extracted a single sheet, careful to hold it by the edges. I skimmed the handwritten message. “Looks like our bad boy’s got a little of the green-eyed monster. Take a guess whose ass he’s threatening to come down here and kick?”
“Doctor Black, I presume?”
“You got it. And Gil baby’s accusing her right here in black and white of having an affair with her shrink, not to mention cheating on Gil and ignoring his phone calls. Which might explain why her answering machine’s unplugged. Gil Serna seems a bit out of control. Wonder where he spent the last few days?”
“How ’bout I find out?” Bud whipped out his cell phone as if it were a magic wand. Sometimes I believed it was. He could obtain just about any kind of information by punching a few numbers. Which made him very handy to have around.
“Make sure Black’s assistant is telling the truth. I want verification as to exactly when Black left the premises, how he left, and where he ended up. And I want a crack at him before he has time to compare notes with his assistant, or anyone else who can brief him on what we know. If they were lovers, it’ll be interesting to see how he reacts to the details of how Sylvie died.”
“I’m on it, man. Sounds like Buckeye’s here.” Bud stood up when the front door opened and bantering voices filtered into the living room.
Buckeye Boyd was the county medical examiner, and I nodded at the motley crew of criminalists that filed into the room. Excellent technicians they were indeed, but they looked more like they’d crawled en masse out of an Ozzy Osbourne concert. Lucky for us in the Canton County Sheriff’s Department, the real estate around the lake was worth millions in taxes, which funded us as well as any big city police department. We were going to need all the forensics help we could get on this case.
“So, Bud, you headed for a wedding, or what?” Buckeye said right off. He wasted no time entering his quip war with Bud. “Man, I gotta remember from now on to wear my tuxedo when I work homicides. Keep forgetting; don’t know what the hell’s wrong with me.”
“You’re just naturally uncouth, Bucko, my soiled little friend. You can’t help it.” Bud was good-natured about Buckeye’s abuse over his meticulous attire. He’d heard it enough. “Hell, you ain’t changed that shirt in six years. Why don’t you do us all a favor and let the little woman throw that thing away before it walks off on its own legs?”
Buckeye affected hurt. “Hey, this here’s my lucky fishing shirt. My bass boat’s gassed up and ready to roar soon as I get this one bagged and tagged and downtown. This is my day off, if you remember. I’m just here ’cause Charlie called down from Jeff City and requested my personal touch before you guys screw things up.”
Bud retorted, “Screw up, us? Get real, man. We’re so good, the victims request us.”
I said, “She’s outside in the water, Buckeye. Let’s get this show on the road.”
“Got a floater, huh?” Buckeye looked at me. He had snow-white hair, bushy enough to give him a benign, Captain Kangaroo look, but his facial hair was black—eyebrows, mustache, and short, jaw-hugging beard. He’d lived on the lake all his life, and his claim to glory was his Bass Tournament trophies. He boasted to any who’d listen that his autopsy skills came from years of filleting fish.
“Not exactly. One more thing. It’s Sylvie Border, the soap opera queen.”
“No shit? She’s that gal that plays Amelia, right? The sexy one with hair like Jean Harlow’s?”
“You know who Sylvie Border is?” I was surprised Buckeye was up on daytime television.
“Sure. She’s my wife’s favorite. Brigitte’s been watching A Place in Time for goin’ on twenty years. Entertainment Tonight did a segment not long ago about Sylvie gettin’ Tinkerbell tattooed on her breast. Television crew went with her to the tattoo parlor and everything. She’s got a little bitty yellow daisy on her butt, too, but she wouldn’t let ’em show that one.”
Curiouser and curiouser, I thought. “Is that the name of Sylvie’s show? A Place in Time?”
“Yeah, it’s the hot one right now. Comes on every day at one o’clock, just after the noon news. Brigitte says they’ll win the Emmy for best soap this year.”
“Get Vicky to do a comprehensive video sweep of the place and as many stills as she can get. Then dust it top to bottom. This guy set the whole thing up for us, but he’s good, so get us anything you can. I’m hoping for footprints, so go through the woods with a fine-tooth comb.”
Buckeye turned to his crew. “Hey, Vicky, the body’s outside in the water. Get a move on; there’s a ten pounder waiting for me this side of Hurricane Deck.”
Bud was stabbing numbers into his cell phone. “Yeah, Buckeye, we’ve been hearing about that big bass for years. Maybe that ugly shirt scares him off.”
“Let’s get busy before ski boats start showing up and taking pictures of their favorite soap star,” I said, not in the mood for jokes. “Nobody’s to get wind of her name or crime scene details until I’ve questioned everyone involved. Understood?”
Bud had already gotten through to Gil Serna’s publicist. He gave me a thumbs-up as I moved into the bedroom and waited for Vicky to set up her equipment out on the deck. Bud was talking animatedly into the telephone. He’d get whatever information we needed. Bud could sweet-talk a nun out of her rosary beads.
The bedroom was a mess. Odd, considering the immaculate condition of the rest of the place. The cream-and-rose decor was splendid and expensive. The rumpled, unmade duvet was sewn from silk damask. Thousand-dollar-an-hour Nicholas Black did spend a few pennies on his bungalows.
I had to smile when Johnny Becker ambled into the room. We called him Shag because the guy looked like Shaggy in Scooby-Doo. Ancient gray T-shirt that might have been white once. Baggy, faded denim skater shorts that dropped past his scrawny knees. Orange-and-black Nikes like mine. Johnny was in his late twenties, undeniably a dude, a fact proven by about twenty earrings on his ears, not to mention his red dreadlocks sticking out in every direction. Charlie overlooked Shag’s eccentricities because he knew his way around corpses and was undisputedly