Mistletoe and Murder in Las Vegas (5 page)

Stung by bittersweet memories, she set the Lady on a box and looked over her new office, filled with boxes and furniture, and out the far window at the palm trees and traffic along Graces Avenue.

The last day of November, but it looked like spring with sunny skies and temperatures in the low seventies. Which was one reason Gloria called in sick to work today, the other being her “undying devotion to my bestie.” She wore navy shorts and a pink tank top as she planned to take a jog later.

Joanne, whose plans included never leaving this room, wore dirty sneakers, faded jeans, and a baggy nightshirt that read
You Snooze, You Lose
. Her other tops were all dress blouses as her casual clothes were still at Roger’s.

She looked back at the bronze figure, feeling more wistful than sad as she remembered the night he gave her Lady Justice, the personification of the ancient goddess of justice. Two years ago the public defenders threw a party for Joanne to celebrate her winning a first-degree murder case that nobody thought was winnable. Roger gave a slightly drunken speech about “his brilliant Amanda” and a future “Montgomery and Montgomery,” and handed her the Lady Justice, which turned into a kiss while everyone clapped and whistled. A testimony to their love, partnership and future as Montgomery and Montgomery.

After that Lady Justice had a permanent spot on her desk.

Who now lay half-wrapped in cheap, half-popped plastic on a battered cardboard box with
Fragile
stenciled on two sides and
Bathroom
scrawled in black marker on its top.

Not on my ranch, sister
.

Joanne gingerly picked her up and respectfully peeled off the bubble-wrap, until the foot-high, solid bronze goddess of justice emerged, the scales of justice in one hand, a sword in the other.

Gloria stopped wiping down the bookshelf and turned around, a rag in her hand. “I’ll polish the desk next.” She ran her hand over the deep-red sheen of the cherry wood. “Cool of Kimmie to loan you this beauty and its matching swivel chair.”

“There wasn’t room for them in her new home or the agency, so I lucked out.” Joanne held up the Lady, imagining it sitting on the desk. The bronze glinted dark pink and gold in sunlight from the far window.

“Ah, Jo.” Gloria shook her head sadly. “You don’t need memories of Jamoke in your new office.”

A spark of anger flared past her brain and shot straight out of her mouth. “Is that all she is? Memories of Jamoke?”

Gloria raised her eyebrows in surprise and pursed her red-slicked lips in a pronounced “no.” Then held the dramatic look to ensure Joanne got the are-you-really-gonna-dump-that-displaced-Jamoke-shit on me?

“Sorry. You didn’t deserve that. That was my inner stupid talking.”

Her friend held up her palms in a don’t-worry-about-it gesture. “It’s okay. You’re going through a lot right now.”

She looked at Lady Justice. “You’re right, she brings back some memories of Jamoke...but other times she reminds me of one of the best wins I’ve ever had as a lawyer. When I think of that, I start to believe in my ability again.”

“
Ability
?” Gloria fisted her hands on her hips. “More like your
freaking awesome talent and brilliance
. For all intensive purposes, girlfriend, let’s not forget you also did a chunk of Jamoke’s work, which is why he’s Mister High and Mighty now.”

Joanne blamed her inner stupid for that, too. Soon after Joanne and Roger started living together, he began complaining about feeling overwhelmed and desperately needed help, so she offered to write some of his briefs and motions for him in the evenings, which over the years turned into
many
briefs and motions. But she viewed her work as an investment in their future—the more Roger shined at the PD’s office, the brighter their prospects when they opened Montgomery and Montgomery.

Being a behind-the-scenes supporter was also second nature to Joanne. In high school, she was an honors student, editor of the school paper and a dork who never dated. The exact opposite of her two-years-older sister Shannon, a Blake Lively lookalike with lousy grades and a killer social life—cheerleading captain
and
homecoming queen, which was like winning the Power Ball in the high school dating scene.

But when the school counselor called their parents and warned if Shannon’s grades didn’t improve she would not graduate with her senior class, Joanne felt sorry for her sister and started doing Shannon’s homework at night. They kept the secret between them as one thing that infuriated their normally mild-mannered father was discovering one of his college students had cheated, and never told their mother because she reported everything to their father.

“Maybe you should keep her,” Gloria said. “But if she makes you think too much about that jerk, I’ll keep her at my place for a while.”

“It’s a plan.”

As she reached to place the figure on a nearby box, Gloria said, “What the hell’s with Las Vegas and Christmas decorations?” Joanne started to look over, but the sword snagged in her nightshirt, resulting in a minor skirmish of tugs before Lady Justice and Joanne went their separate ways.

“Nobody ever saw
White Christmas
?” Gloria continued, staring out the window. “Christmas lights go on
fir trees
, not palms.”

Kimmie and her husband Hal were stringing lights around the trunk of one of the palms. Kimmie wore a loose polka-dot blouse and slacks. Her husband wore jeans and a T-shirt, his dress style as sparse as his buzz cut. As she turned to say something to Hal, a breeze gusted past, lifting the hem of her top. Joanne noticed her baby bump was starting to show.

Kimmie wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and tilted her head back, smiling up into his ruggedly handsome face. He said something, which Joanne and Gloria couldn’t hear, but the couple’s tender looks said it all.

“Wouldja look at those lovebirds.” Gloria clutched her rag to her chest.

Hal cupped one hand on the back of Kimmie’s head while sliding his other arm around her and pulled her closer. She arched her body against his and they kissed.

Joanne felt a spike of yearning for the little things that she'd once taken for granted…how her hand fit in Roger’s when they walked, the bond even in long silences, lying in the dark and feeling the warmth of his foot.
How dumb, missing his foot
.

“Those two are like Allie and Noah in
The Notebook
,” Gloria murmured. “Course, he don’t look like Noah, but the way he’s cradling her head and kissing her...”

Joanne looked away. “We’re acting like a couple of voyeurs.”

“Yeah, don’t want ‘em to see us gaping at them like we have no lives--oh my God! He’s lifting her and kissing her neck...somebody get me a defibrillator...okay, she’s back on her feet...they’re stringin’ lights again.”

Gloria turned and picked up the dust rag. “That gooey stuff makes me miss Nicholas...but he couldn’t get past my working as a PI.”

“I remember.”

Nicholas, a Roulette dealer at Caesars, had swarthy good looks and an old-school charm, but struggled with Gloria being a PI. Joanne was sorry things didn’t work out, but glad, too. Gloria didn’t just work as a PI, she
was
a PI. She didn’t talk about it, but Joanne guessed it was also a way her friend stayed close to her dad.

“Could you ever leave practicing law?” Gloria asked.

“On a temporary basis, sure.”

“Like when you wanted to have a baby.” She made a face. “Sorry, Jo. Shouldn’t have mentioned that, especially this time of year. That was
my
inner stupid talking.”

Joanne shrugged it off. “Not to worry. I don’t think about it much anymore. Plus considering what happened, I should be grateful Jamoke didn’t want a child.”

True, she had rarely thought about it, but last Christmas it consumed her thoughts. Started when she saw a line of giggling, happy children waiting to visit Santa, one being a little boy with wavy hair who reminded her of Roger...and she imagined his having a sister with curly red hair and a smidgen of freckles, and her biological clock was off and ticking...

She tried to broach the topic in a non-threatening way by telling Roger this wasn’t a “right now” proposition, more like “a few years,” but as soon as Roger heard the word
baby
, he imploded.
A child would wreck our careers…the average cost to raise a child today is something like a quarter of a million dollars and that doesn’t include college…think of the debt we’d take on…

Her ticking clock stopped soon after that. Or maybe she learned to tune it out.

“You okay?” Gloria asked, looking concerned.

“Yes. No. Maybe. One of those, anyway.”

“Maybe it’s time for another cookie break.”

Earlier this morning, Kimmie had dropped off a plate of homemade Sea Salt Praline Jumbles, half of which were gone.

“Think I need to a break from cookie breaks. I’ve gained a few—” Her phone beeped twice, signaling an incoming text message. She retrieved it from her jean pocket, read the message and groaned. “Shannon’s coming over later.”

“Thought she was helping your mom get ready for a party event tonight.”

“Apparently Shannon left early after a brouhaha with my brother-in-law over her shopping.”

“
Madone
. Not trying to be rude, Jo, but when she gets here, mind if I slip out the back way?”

The back way being the connecting hallway to Fossen-Chandler Investigations. Joanne kept her side of the door locked, but they didn’t. Kimmie had told Joanne that they would always leave it unlocked in case she ever needed to pop over for anything.

Joanne understood Gloria wanting to escape. Recently Shannon seemed to star in her very own housewife-reality show, most of which centered around some silly conflict with her husband. Joanne sensed her sister created drama because deep down she felt ineffectual in her life.

On that last issue, Joanne could relate.

“Sure, go out the back way. I’ve already clocked it—from my desk, down the hallway, and out the adjoining door is ten seconds, more or less.”

Actually, she hadn’t
clocked
it, but had been counting tasks she needed to do on her fingers, a technique she sometimes used to aid her attention to details when she was feeling stressed. Afterward she realized that it had taken ten counts to walk from her desk to the adjoining door.

As they continued polishing and unpacking, Kimmie and Hal finished stringing lights, which twinkled red and green around the trunk of the palm tree. Occasional snippets of Christmas tunes were heard from cars driving down Graces Avenue.

“Ta da! Desk is finished!” As Gloria did a victory swirl with the rag, a bare-chested guy jogged past the window. “
Nice
.” She looked at Joanne. “Some of the girls at work wanted to get you that. Not a jogger, but a stripper-gram...thought it would cheer you up. I told them it wasn’t your thing, to send you an Amazon gift card instead.”

“Thank you.” Joanne picked up a box labeled
Printer paper
and set it on a small table she’d picked up at a garage sale. “About the last thing I want right now is to watch some guy with a shaved chest, wearing little more than a smile, swivel his how-ya-doin’s in my face.”

“
How ya doin’s
?” Gloria laughed. “Is that what they call boys’ parts in those cowboy movies?”

Joanne couldn’t hold back a smile. “No. Made it up.”

Knock knock knock.

“Shannon,” Joanne whispered.

Gloria picked up her studded leather shoulder bag, mouthed “Later” and speed-walked to the hallway.

Joanne headed to the door and took a fortifying breath before opening it.

But instead of her sister’s baby blues, Joanne looked into a pair of big, mocha-brown eyes that held hers for what seemed a small millennium, but was actually less than ten seconds as she just heard the faint click of the adjoining door close. Blinking, she expanded her view.

At first she thought he looked like a blonder, younger Tom Cruise. On closer inspection, though, the man standing on her doorstep had a rougher quality about him. Blunt, craggy features, an aggressive chin, and a nose whose slightly uneven alignment indicated it had likely been broken at one time.

His clothes reminded her of the private eye played by Tom Selleck in the old
Magnum, PI
TV series, which she used to watch with her dad. Hawaiian shirt, cargo pants…and flip flops? She almost laughed, but instantly sobered as her gaze dragged back up the stranger’s body, her skin prickling as she took in his wide-shouldered, and from what she could tell, hard-as-a-rock body. Factor in his bronzed arms, neck and face, and that longish sun-streaked hair, she wondered if he were a surfer.

His eyes again held her attention, sending shivers of excitement through her. It was more than their rich brown color…it was what she sensed in them. Defiance, intelligence, curiosity.

She tensed her knees, an old trick she sometimes used to ground herself when she felt out of her element and became nervous. As much as she’d love to say this guy had shown up, unannounced, because he caught her lawyer ad on Craigslist, there was the obvious question…

What was a surfer doing in Las Vegas?

On her doorstep?

She laughed. Couldn’t help herself. He responded with a smile…his teeth so big and pearly white against that deep, dark tan, that she burbled another laugh. This time at her own expense.

“I get it, Surfer Boy,” she said, shaking her head in amusement. “But let’s not waste your time or mine…pull down your pants and show me your how-ya-doin’s!”

M
ike rarely got taken aback
by things people said. But this time he did. Big time.

“You want to see my
what
?” he rasped.

“I was trying to save us time, but if you just want to do a few hip swivels or whatever you call them to earn your money, fine, just make it fast because I’m busy.” With an impatient sigh, she crossed her arms and waited.

“A few
hip swivels
?” He gave his head a shake.

He knew this was Joanne Galvin because she matched the physical description, so as a lawyer she knew better than to say this kind of kind of kinky stuff to a total stranger. This might be Las Vegas, but getting weird in public still violated all kinds of ordinances and laws.

He looked over his left shoulder at the fence that blocked a view of her front porch, then over his right at the parking lot outside of her private parking area. Unless someone drove or walked by, whatever happened on her porch wouldn’t be seen.

He pondered her cool, unfazed gaze, the off-kilter curly bun or whatever that was on her head, the freckle surplus on her face and arms, and the baggy top and jeans. Hardly the look of a sex freak.

“Whoever you hired, lady, I’m not that guy.”

She blinked. “
I
didn’t hire anyone. My friends did.”

“Well, I’m not their guy, then.”

“Aren’t you…a stripper?”

“No.”

Joanne Galvin’s face flushed to a hue nearly as red as her hair. A background report had listed her eye color as hazel but in person they were more a soft green, like a shaded wood. He glanced down at her stained, baggy shirt with the words
You Snooze, You Lose
. How apropos. A person had to stay on their toes around her or they’d lose.

He caught a flash of bright pink through a rip between
You
and
Snooze
. A lacy hot pink bra. The hint of a curvy breast.

Took him a moment to refocus on her eyes, or what he could see of them between rapid blinks. Her mouth opened and closed, seeming at a loss for words.

Joanne Galvin, speechless? The daughter of distinguished classics professor Andrew Galvin, she had graduated top of her class at Boyd School of Law, and been one of the stars at the Clark County Defenders’ office. After observing one of Joanne’s courtroom arguments, a gushy
Vegas Sun
reporter wrote that her speech had been “transcendent.”

However, at the moment she looked anything but transcendent. Red-faced, she cleared her throat while counting something with her fingers.

“I’m so sorry…I thought…well, you see I just heard some of my friends had planned to surprise me with a stripper-gram…so I thought you were here to….” She touched her tongue in the corner of her mouth.

“Strip,” he finished for her.

Her head bobbed in agreement. “Unfortunately, I’m not prepared to meet potential clients today.” She stepped back and indicated the room. “As you can see, I’m in the process of moving in.”

Packing boxes, piles of clothes and books surrounded a massive desk. He traced a sugary-sweet scent to a plate of cookies.

He recalled reading that she had co-habitated with Clark County chief deputy defender Roger Montgomery for four years before moving out of his home a month ago, a date that coincided with her job termination. Obviously she was going through some tough times.

“I’m not here as a client.” He pulled out his wallet and flashed his badge. "Steve McGill. ATF."

Only agents’ ID numbers were on their badges, so he could fudge on the name. He closed his wallet and stuck it back in his pocket.

She touched her neck. “Dressed like
that
?”

This morning he’d dressed in a Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants because he wanted to be comfortable for the five-hour drive from LA to Vegas, plus the weather forecast claimed warm temperatures, which had been true until a few minutes ago when chilly winds started moving in. He had also wanted to look non-threatening should he luck out and find Miss Galvin in her office.

She gestured to his feet. "I've never met a federal agent who wore flip flops."

"I've never met a criminal lawyer who asked me to show her my how-ya-doin’s.”

She sucked in an indignant breath. "As I explained to you, Mr. McGill, I thought you had been hired to…you know.”

He sensed Joanne Galvin was telling the truth that her pals had hired a stripper…what timing that he showed up instead.

“Who are these friends?”

A light wind blew past, scuttering twigs and leaves, and she wrapped her arms around her middle. “What does the ATF want with me and my friends?”

“Sorry, I misspoke. I’m only interested in talking to you, Miss Galvin, and asking a few questions about Dita Randisi. Just a knock and talk.”

A look of surprise, then interest, flitted across her face.

"I'm not her lawyer."

He believed her. "Did she fire you?”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“Why don’t you contact Miss Randisi and ask her?”

“I’d like to, but she’s turned off her cell phone service, and has moved out of her apartment. Any idea where she is?”

She looked genuinely puzzled. “You sure she’s moved?”

“According to her neighbor, yes.”

After learning Dita had disconnected her phone, he guessed she had “disconnected” in other ways, too, such as hiding out at a family member’s place. Before he left LA, he called one of Dita’s neighbors, an elderly woman named Beverly Kaufman, and said he had been unable to deliver a package for several days to Dita and would Mrs. Kaufman mind signing for it? She said she would do anything “for that poor girl,” who had been hounded by reporters who had the gall to camp out on her doorstep, even hide in the bushes, but unfortunately she had no idea where Dita went, but someone must have taken her because her car was still parked in its space.

“I represented her for the arraignment only,” Joanne said. “I am not in contact with her anymore.”

Walking past Joanne’s older Dodge Neon earlier, parked in one of the two spaces outside her office, he noticed it leaked a pinkish substance, probably transmission fluid. Repairs like that were expensive. And although the antique desk looked pricey, the rug was threadbare and other furniture on the shabby side. Not a stretch to see that Joanne Galvin was starting her law practice on little money and couldn’t afford to work on the cheap.

Which led him to one conclusion.

“Dita Randisi doesn’t have the money to hire a criminal lawyer, am I right? Or the kind of money this kind of case requires.”

Joanne arched an imposing eyebrow. "I’m not going to discuss her case with you, Mr. McGill.”

At that moment, a scraggly bag of gray sauntered past, its gray tail at a bent angle. Pausing, its copper eyes took them in before it cackled a mew, then continued on its way.

"I'm not trying to discuss Miss Randisi’s
case
, Miss Galvin,” he continued. “Just asking why you are no longer representing her.”

"A federal special agent should know better than to ask that. Does the term
attorney-client privilege
ring a bell?”

“No, but maybe if you hum a few bars…” He flashed his best killer smile.

Those green eyes now looked about as soft as a chunk of concrete. “Not funny.”

He dropped the smile, feeling like a dumbass. “Sorry. Shall we start over?”

“Only if you have a subpoena that obligates me to testify in front of a grand jury, which you would have served by now. Good day, Mr. McGill.”

As she started to close the door, he panicked, pressed his shoulder against it to keep it open. An impulsive move, but he’d spent too many years searching for the Timepiece Arsonist to be cut off from the only source who might be able to tell him something, anything, about Dita Randisi.

“Talk to me, Joanne. Please.”

For a long, stretched-out moment they stood there, eye-locked through the foot-wide door opening, so close he could see flecks of gold buried in the depths of those green eyes.

The seconds slowed…then froze in place.

Maybe it was the faint scent of coconut that brought back memories of a long-ago trip to Hawaii, or the way a curl of hair lay on her brow, but for a crazy instant he saw Paula. Felt the familiar stab of remorse that he’d turned his back on her when she reached out for help.

A slight, almost imperceptible, movement underneath his shoulder pulled him back to the present. Gradually it registered that Joanne was trembling against the other side of the door.

“Go away,” she whispered.

He stepped back, chastened. He’d frightened her, which shamed him. Technically, he also broke the law by forcing the door open, which she had to be thinking, too.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured.

She said nothing. Just stared at him, her hand visibly trembling on the door.

“I won’t do that again,” he said.

As if there was any hope for a second meeting. He’d blown it. Nevertheless, he stood there, holding her gaze, wondering how he could fix this mess. A chilly blast of air hit him. Particles of dust spit on his face, stung his arms.

“Close the door,” he said, hunching against the wind. “You’ll catch cold dressed like that.”

She closed it, but not all the way. Through a crack in the door, she stared at him. Couldn’t be all that frightened if she didn’t slam shut the door and lock it, right?

But in his mind’s eye, he could still hear the strain in her voice, the shaking of her hand.
Played tough guy when it wasn’t necessary. You’re a federal agent, not some low-life thug
.

He turned and walked away, his body tense, grudgingly accepting that Harley was right when he said Mike had let Paula’s ghost undermine his life.

If Joanne wanted to make a stink about his behavior, she could file a trespassing charge, a felony, against ATF. Which would confuse its lawyers as there was no Steve McGill, special agent, on their roster. Even if she described the SUV he drove, they’d still be clueless because he had leased it under a bogus ID.

But if she forwarded a description of him, and it made it to Harley’s desk, well…his boss might stay mum, or be so fed up with Mike’s rogue investigations that he turned him in to higher ups.

There was only one way to deal with this. No matter what it took, Mike had to make things right with Joanne Galvin.

Because if he didn’t, he could lose everything.

J
oanne almost closed the door
, but didn’t. Instead, through the narrow opening, she watched Steve McGill head back to his SUV, his steady, ambling gait reminiscent of John Wayne as the cowboy hero in
Stagecoach
. Oh, if only life could be like those old movies about the Wild West where the good guys wore white hats, and the bad guys wore black ones. After the drama that played itself out on her front porch, she didn’t know what color McGill wore.

White hat? ATF agents had a rep for being balls-to-the-wall, gutsy special agents who specialized in going deep undercover to infiltrate motorcycle gangs and crime syndicates to bust up gun and drug trafficking rings, even hit-man contract killings. The common joke was that Treasury agents were like store managers with walkie talkies, FBI agents like Ivy Leaguers with pistols, and ATF agents like bad-boy outlaws with sawed-off shotguns.

Or black hat? In her experience, most federal agents were self-righteous and authoritarian,
especially
ATF agents. Add bad management and dissent among the ranks, and no surprise ATF scandals kept popping up in the news: Botched stings, arrests of innocent people, stolen machine guns from agents’ unlocked cars. In comparison, an agent forcing open a citizen’s door without a warrant or probable cause almost sounded silly. But it wasn’t.
The Constitution protected citizens from unreasonable government intrusion, and she could file a big ol’ nasty case against the ATF for McGill’s actions.

But what occurred was a lot more gray than the black and white of the law.

When she told him to go away, he backed off immediately, his features collapsing into a guilty embarrassment that reminded her of a scolded puppy. Then he told her to close the door so she wouldn’t catch cold. Hardly the words of a badass agent.

Breezes rattled the last dying leaves on the ironwood trees that lined the privacy fence from prying eyes along Graces Avenue to the north, and Peterson Law to the west. The only entrance to Joanne’s two parking spaces was to the east via Peterson Law’s large asphalt parking lot.

McGill’s SUV was in the far space, the closer one taken by her Neon, which she’d jokingly told Kimmie was her “
pro bono
car” as it took up space that a paying client could use. The next day Kimmie’s husband, Hal Fossen, hung a sign on the fence:

W
here this morning
Gloria had parked her canary yellow 2002 Pontiac Firebird that she’d nicknamed Gosling because its engine had a “sweet rumble” just like the actor’s voice. Joanne’s Neon was geriatric at eleven years old, but Gloria’s thirteen-year-old Firebird remained hot and sassy because she pampered the hell out of it. “Pontiac put the Firebird out to pasture in 2002,” her friend once said. “Like, what’s with that? Did Hollywood put Meryl Streep out to pasture when she hit fifty? I tell ya, Jo, we gotta
respect
history, not pretend it don’t exist like it don’t matter no more.”

Joanne watched McGill as he halted outside the driver’s door of his monster SUV and checked something on his phone. Shafts of sunshine sparked gold in his mane of hair and slanted hazy light over the rugged planes of his face. Her gaze dropped down to his bare biceps, as muscled and tough as the gnarled trunks of the ironwood trees.

Breezes skittered past, mirroring the restlessness that stirred within her. Remembering to breathe—in, out, in, out—she raised her eyes…and locked with his. For a suspended moment, the world shrank to a space filled with his glistening brown eyes and masculine, salty scent. In that moment, she sensed their friction shift from mental to physical.