Nothing but Trouble (5 page)

The waitress came with the check. At the cashier’s station Kerney paid the bill and left a tip. “I can’t help you, Johnny,” he said. “I’ll be in touch about the contract.”

“Make it soon.”

Kerney left Johnny on the sidewalk looking completely disgruntled. But it didn’t bother him one bit. Doted on and spoiled by his parents, Johnny had never been forced to take responsibility for his actions. A shot of reality might help him grow up.

Pissed off, Johnny watched Kerney’s unmarked police cruiser turn the corner. All he’d asked Kerney to do was vouch for him with the judge. What was the big deal with that? He’d put money in the guy’s pocket and gotten nothing in return.

Staying angry at Kerney wouldn’t help him solve the immediate problem of losing his driver’s license. The sports-channel rodeo deal had been finalized, but it would be weeks before he’d see any cash. There were cross-country business trips and client meetings that couldn’t be put off, and he didn’t have the scratch to hire a car and driver. Johnny decided his only option was to get the local lawyer he’d retained to request a continuance so he could stay behind the wheel. He walked across the street to the Plaza, sat on a park bench, flipped open his cell phone, dialed the lawyer’s number, and told him what had to be done.

“We’ve already had one continuance,” the lawyer said after hearing Johnny out.

“Get me another one.”

“Do you have any chronic medical conditions?” the lawyer asked after a pause.

“Head traumas from getting kicked and stepped on by horses when I rodeoed,” Johnny said.

“Any physical proof of it?” the lawyer asked.

“I’ve got a dent in my skull and medical records at home.”

“Go to the emergency room right now,” the lawyer said. “Tell them you feel dizzy, disoriented, and have blurred vision. I’ll call the court and reschedule your appearance.”

“Can you have it put off until November?”

“Easily. I’ll waive your right to the six-month rule. Sign a release at the ER so I can get a copy of your treatment record and forward it to the judge.”

Johnny laughed. “It’s that simple?”

“For now,” the lawyer said, “but you’ll still have to face your day in court.”

“Whatever.” Johnny disconnected, got directions to the hospital from a Hispanic cop on the Plaza, and drove to the hospital. He checked his watch. If Brenda was back at the hotel room when the docs were finished with him, maybe there would be time for a quickie before his meeting with the director of the film office.

He was about to rid himself of Brenda. Next week, while she was at work, he’d move out of her apartment into a sublet he’d rented. But until then he’d put her to good use.

In the ER Johnny faked a set of symptoms and gave the admitting clerk a history of his old rodeo injuries. After a thirty-minute wait he was screened by a nurse who took his vitals. Then a doctor examined his skull and took an X ray of the dent in the back of his head. After reviewing the X ray he shined a light in Johnny’s eyes and had him read the letters on a vision chart.

Johnny deliberately messed it up.

“I don’t see anything abnormal on the X ray,” the doctor said. “But your symptoms are worrisome. Have you been under stress recently?”

“I’ve got a lot on my plate, Doc.”

“I think we need more tests.”

“Can I get it done in Denver?” Johnny asked. “I go home tomorrow.”

“Will you make an appointment to see your physician right away?”

“I’ll call his office as soon as I get back to the hotel.”

“Are you driving?”

“My girlfriend is with me,” Johnny replied. “She can drive.”

“Okay. Make sure you see your physician.”

After paying the bill by credit card and signing a release to let his Santa Fe lawyer get a copy of his ER chart, Johnny went back to his hotel room to find Brenda trying on a new pair of red running shoes.

“I found this great designer-shoe store near the Plaza,” she said, bouncing up and down, pointing her toes so she could admire the new footwear, “and they had these in my size. How did it go in court?”

“I got another continuance.”

“Your lawyer called.”

“The guy here in Santa Fe?”

Brenda shook her head and pirouetted in front of the full mirror on the closet door, studying her shoes as she twirled. “Nope, Jim Blass in Denver. Call him back right away. He said it was important.”

Johnny flipped open the cell phone, speed-dialed the number, and got put through to Blass immediately.

“I couldn’t reach you on your cell,” Blass said. “The call kept getting dropped.”

“What’s up?” Johnny asked.

“Your wife has filed a claim against the proceeds from your sports-channel contract. That means the money will be tied up until the divorce settlement is finalized, unless we can work something out.”

“That bitch,” Johnny said. “Did you talk to her attorney?”

“Yeah, I did. Seems you borrowed money from her right before you got married.”

“Borrowed, hell. We used that money for our honeymoon trip to Europe. I paid her back.”

“That’s not what she says,” Blass said.

“Fuck her,” Johnny said. “What can you do?”

“Tell me the facts, Johnny. Did you pay her back the loan?”

Johnny’s squeezed the cell phone in frustration. Sometimes he hated telling the truth. “No.”

“How much?”

“Twenty-five thousand and change.”

“I’ll offer repayment to her from your contract proceeds,” Blass said. “But don’t expect a rapid response. Madeline is determined to make you suffer as long as she can.”

“Push it along,” Johnny said. “I need that money.” He hit the disconnect icon and threw the phone on the bed.

“Bad news, baby?” Brenda asked as she cuddled up to him.

Johnny filled her in with a sanitized version of Madeline’s latest legal maneuver.

She sighed sympathetically, shook her head, and threw her arms around his neck. “I’d never do something like that to you,” she said breathlessly. “Never, ever.”

“I know you wouldn’t, sweetie pie. But I was going to use some of that money to find us a bigger apartment. We need to get settled into our own place and see where our relationship is headed.”

Brenda smiled gleefully at the idea, wiggled her rump, and slid her hand down the front of Johnny’s trousers. “Could we get a condo downtown?”

“I don’t see why not,” Johnny said.

Looking over Brenda’s shoulder, Johnny grimaced slightly at the thought of keeping up the charade with her. His sour mood quickly evaporated when Brenda unzipped his pants and dropped to her knees.

Police headquarters sat on the outskirts of the city at the edge of a business park, in an area that had experienced explosive growth over the past decade. To the southwest residential subdivisions, strip malls, apartment complexes, town homes, fast-food franchises, and trailer parks had filled up vast tracts of once-vacant land along a four-mile stretch of road that led to the municipal airport.

For a city that touted its romantic charm, unique architecture, beautiful setting, and rich cultural and artistic traditions, the area had become Santa Fe’s version of tasteless urban sprawl, featuring ill-proportioned faux-adobe pueblo and territorial-style buildings with no character.

Fortunately, few tourists saw it, so the city’s reputation as a lovely four-hundred-year-old Spanish village at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains remained mostly intact.

In his second-floor office at headquarters Kerney read through the art-theft case files. The most recent rip-offs had occurred when two pieces, a small bronze and a miniature oil painting, had been found missing after exhibit openings. They carried a combined value of twenty thousand dollars.

Prior to that a ceramic sculpture and an unframed, signed photographic print had been taken from galleries with no security systems in place. Each item had retailed for over two thousand dollars.

But the rash of art thefts, as the morning headline reported, had all started with the theft of a woven Panamanian basket and a handblown glass vase, both valued in the thousand-dollar range. To date the total amount of the stolen loot exceeded twenty-six thousand dollars.

Kerney read the follow-up supplementals Detective Sergeant Ramona Pino and her team had prepared on the cases. Everyone in attendance at the gallery openings who could be identified on the video surveillance had been interviewed, but attempts to ID all the participants had failed. Statements taken from past and present employees, delivery persons, landlords, gallery owners, and customers who’d made purchases on the days of the thefts had yielded no creditable leads.

Pawnshops, flea markets, and art resale galleries had been visited, collectors of the various artists’ works had been contacted, art appraisers had been telephoned, and experts consulted, all to no avail. They had no suspects, no real motive, and no physical evidence.

Using the new computer system Ramona and her team had analyzed the thefts, looking for a pattern. Other than the fact that they were clustered in the downtown area there wasn’t much to go on. There was no consistency to the times and dates of the crimes, and nothing had surfaced from the fieldwork that could tie the thefts together. The detectives had checked into the possibility of insurance fraud, but all the gallery owners ran legitimate, profitable businesses. They’d visited nearby shops to learn if any suspicious persons had been seen hanging around before the thefts had occurred. Nada.

Feeling as stymied as the headline in the morning newspaper alleged his department to be, Kerney left his office and went looking for Sergeant Pino. Her office was empty and she had signed out to the field until midafternoon.

He returned to his desk and went through the paperwork again, hoping for inspiration. Were the crimes isolated incidents or connected? If the motive wasn’t money, what was it? Had six kleptomaniacs with good taste in art suddenly descended on Santa Fe all in one month? He doubted it.

What were they missing?

Andy Talbot wasn’t in love with Crystal Hurley, but he sure was having fun with her, at least most of the time. It didn’t matter that she was slightly crazy and could get real bitchy, especially when she sank into one of her bouts of depression. When she was happy, no woman he’d ever known could match her, especially when it came to sex.

She had long legs, a tight ass, perfectly proportioned tits, and hips with just the slightest bit of padding that felt like soft pillows in his hands.

Andy waited for Crystal outside the guesthouse where she lived on her father’s Santa Fe hilltop estate, hoping today she’d come home from her noon workout at the gym feeling chirpy. If she was, it usually meant he could count on a quickie before heading off to work at the hotel where he tended bar from two to ten.

Eagerly, he watched her car come up the long driveway, only to be disappointed when she parked and walked past him without a glance or a word, her silky skin glistening with sweat from her workout, her moist brown hair tied up in a loose clump.

Andy followed her inside and watched silently as she ate a bowl of yogurt sprinkled with wheat germ, drank a bottle of water, and stared out the kitchen window as though he wasn’t even there. She finished her meal, left the bowl on the counter for the housekeeper who came down from the main house to clean up every afternoon, and went off in the direction of the bathroom. Feeling sulky at being ignored, he plopped down in a living-room easy chair and listened to the sound of the shower through the closed bathroom door. With Crystal he never knew what to expect. One day she’d want him, the next day he was nothing more than an annoyance. Worse than that, her mood could change from minute to minute. Still, Andy was a complete sucker for her, would do anything she wanted.

She took some sort of prescription medication to control her mood swings, talked twice a week by telephone to a shrink who lived out of state, practiced yoga, meditated, and exercised religiously. But as far as Andy could tell, none of it made a difference when Crystal decided to tune out the world.

The sound of the shower stopped and after a few minutes Crystal padded into the living room in her bare feet with a towel wrapped around her torso. She nodded in the direction of the bedroom and dropped the towel on the floor. “Come on,” she said without a flicker of emotion on her face.

Aroused and grinning with anticipation, Andy followed her down the hallway. In her bedroom she stripped him naked where he stood, put her arms around his neck, and curled one leg around his waist. He pulled her up by the buttocks and held her firmly while she rode him, staring into his eyes, breathing heavily into his face, her wet hair tangled against his cheek, until they climaxed in unison, both of them gasping in pleasure.

They stayed locked together for a moment, then slowly he lowered her to the floor. She patted his cheek, turned, and walked out of the bedroom.

As he dressed, the thought struck Andy that Crystal had never kissed him on the lips. Not once. He shrugged it off as a meaningless curiosity. He was a twenty-three-year-old bartender from Minnesota boffing a hot young heiress who made up her own rules as she went along, and he was having the time of his life.

After Andy left, Crystal slipped on a pair of thong panties, sat at the small desk in the corner of the living room, and called Benjamin Cohen, a semiretired New York City shrink who’d been her therapist for the past ten years.

“How are you feeling, Crystal?” Cohen asked after he’d picked up.

“Tense, and I just had sex and that didn’t help at all. I’ve been taking things again.”

“Tell me about it.”

Crystal sighed. “Why? You’ll just tell me to increase my medication, and I don’t want to. It stops me from feeling horny.”

“There is that,” Cohen replied. “But let’s talk about what you’re really feeling.”