At a press conference later in the day, a representative of the LVPD Homicide Department, Lieutenant Barry Granger, stated that preliminary tests indicated that the victim had died of suffocation. Several unanswered questions still remained about…

In other words, they knew nothing. He allowed himself a tiny smile. They didn’t know who Helen was, they didn’t know who he was, and they had no glimmer of the magnitude of what they had stumbled across. At least not most of them…

His eyes scanned the page and then the continuation on page three, searching for the information he wanted. Yes, yes, he knew O’Bannon, that blowhard was on television all the time. There were repeated references to Lieutenant Granger, who during his initial crime scene appearance seemed almost deliberately slow-witted. But what of the raven-haired beauty? Who was she? What was she doing there? Given the way she was treated by most of the other police officers, it was tempting to conclude that she was an unauthorized visitor, that she had no connection to them. But he knew that was wrong. He had seen the way she moved, the way she carried herself. She was on familiar ground. She had done this before. Had she been brought in from another jurisdiction? He had to find out.

“So I’m thinking maybe I’ll just march right up and introduce myself to ’em. What’d’ya think about that?”

“What?” He looked up. Had Harv been babbling the entire time he was reading? “Who?”

“The cops, Ernie. I’m thinking maybe I’ll tell them I’m available. Who knows? They might like the chance to work with someone who knows the lay of the land.”

“They won’t give you the time of day,” he replied. “If you had something to tell them, then maybe-”

He stopped short. That was it. If he had something to tell, something they really wanted, he could command anyone’s attention. Even hers.

“I’ll be out this afternoon,” he said, tossing down the paper. “Cover for me in the casino.”

“Sure, but-”

“Keep your eyes open and your lips sealed,” he added as he slid into his coat. “And most importantly, Harv-don’t hassle the police and don’t go near the Poe room. You never know what might happen there.”

7

The phone must’ve rung twenty times before it finally registered in my brain. Exerting all my available strength, I managed to pull my head out from under the pillow. It throbbed. More than throbbed-it felt as if someone were running an electric mixer inside my cranial case, scrambling my brains.

I grabbed the receiver, knocking over the end table in the process. The bottle fell to the floor with a bang but thank God didn’t quite break.

“ ’Lo,” I managed. My tongue felt like Velcro.

“Pulaski? Is that you?”

I stiffened. It was Chief O’Bannon. “Yes, sir.”

“Are you all right?”

“ ’M fine.”

“Took you forever to answer the phone.”

“Sorry. I was in the shower.”

He was silent for a moment. “Are you able to come out to a crime scene? As soon as possible.”

Truth was, I felt like shit. But I wasn’t going to tell him that. “You want me at a crime scene? After last night-”

“I’ve changed my mind. Decided to give you a second chance.”

“Out of the goodness of your heart?”

“Out of respect for your father. And David.”

“Bullshit.” I shifted the phone from one ear to the other and pushed my aching self up to a sitting position. “There’s been another murder, hasn’t there?”

“Yes, but-”

“Buried alive?”

Again the silence. “No. This one’s worse.”

“You’ve got a psycho on your hands.”

“Looks that way.”

“And that’s the real reason for this call. Not any charity toward me. You need my expertise.”

“Look, I don’t have time for this. Are you coming or not?”

Get a grip, I told myself. Take the job before he changes his mind. “All right, I’m in. I’ll stop by headquarters and get my badge and-”

“No badge. No gun.”

“But you said-”

“I’m willing to hire you on a part-time consulting basis with respect to this one case. That’s it.”

“No way.”

“Those are my terms. Take it or leave it.”

“You-” I pounded my fist into the pillow, biting back what I really wanted to say. “Why are you doing this to me?”

“You’re not ready to be reinstated.”

“How the hell would you-”

“You have a problem, Susan. A major problem. And until you’ve overcome it, you’re not going to play on my team. But I still need a behaviorist, at least until the Feds move in.”

“Feds?” I whistled.

“So I’m asking one last time. Will you take the consulting position or not?”

“I’ll take it.” Even though I found the whole situation offensive, I needed work if I wanted to get Rachel back.

He told me where to meet him. “I’ll be there in about an hour.”

“Twenty minutes,” he answered. “Or you’re off the case.”

“But I just got up-”

“I thought you just got out of the shower.”

I pressed my hand against my forehead. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

“See you in twenty.” He made a grunting noise, then disconnected.

My entire body ached. The head was the worst, but it was just part of the overall miserable package. I felt broken, shattered, both in body and in spirit. I looked down at the bottle rolling around on the floor-empty-and it made me sick in so many ways I couldn’t count them all.

My first night alone since the big breakdown, and I’d found a hell of a way to celebrate. I couldn’t be trusted for one night. I’d done exactly what everyone said I would do, and I was lying about it afterward, just as everyone knew I would.

Hell. I had work to do. That would be my cure-bury myself in a case. Get too busy to indulge in bad habits. I’d made one mistake, but I was determined not to let it happen again.

The hollow anxious aching in my chest reasserted itself. My wrist tingled.

I found the crime scene on the back forty of McCarran International. Out here in the desert, you could barely tell you were anywhere near a major city. The airport terminal was to the north; other than that, it was big-sky country. Hard to imagine what could’ve inspired those Mormons to settle down here all those years ago. John Fremont, now mostly remembered for the tourist trap street that bears his name, first wrote about the area he discovered in 1844 while he was out harassing Indians. But Mormon cattle ranchers set up the first settlement in these fertile plains, around 1855. By 1905, we had a train station-and casinos-and they held the first Las Vegas land auction, the event that put this city on the map.

Bugsy Siegel always gets the credit for founding Vegas-especially after they made that movie with the far-too-handsome Warren Beatty-but he was only one of several people who established Vegas as a fantasy pleasure destination. He was a gangster, for God’s sake, not a visionary. There were already a couple of hotels out here when he made the scene. If he’d been that insightful, he’d have bought all the land in the area, not just one lot, right? Meyer Lansky and a host of investors-one of whom probably had Siegel offed-were also major players. But everyone remembers Bugsy. There’s even a memorial garden shrine to him, out at the modern-day Flamingo. Lisa and I went there once, just for laughs. It was a hoot. Of course, I was snockered at the time.

After I parked my car, I stumbled down a sharp paved declivity to the recessed tarmac where the body had been found. The crime scene was in the midst of dozens of disabled aircraft. Apparently this was where the big birds came to die. One of the patrolmen on duty filled me in. The body had been stashed inside one of the retired jets. Judging from appearances, this young naked woman had already been dead before she was brought here. Why would the killer stash the corpse in an abandoned airplane? How was this connected to the woman who had been buried alive?