"Take care of yourself," she said.

"I'll call you."

"Often," she said.

We put our arms around each other and kissed each other gently. This kiss was loving but not big and smoochy. Susan never did big smoochy kisses while wearing lipstick.

"You got your ticket," I said.

She held up the ticket which she had in her left hand. Then she put her right hand on my face for a moment and turned and went through the gate. Watching her I felt the little knot in my stomach that I always felt when I left her. She walked a ways down the concourse, and looked back and waved and then turned a corner and was out of sight. I still stood for a moment, looking at the last place I had seen her, being careful not to be routine, while I became the other guy again, the one I was without her. It took a couple of minutes. And then I was him. He wasn't a bad guy; in fact sometimes I thought he had strengths that the other guy didn't have. Certainly he wasn't worse. But he was no one I wanted to be all the time. I turned back and headed for Lester and the Lincoln.

CHAPTER 20

When I got back to The Mirage there were a couple of Las Vegas detectives waiting for me with a hotel security guy in the corridor outside my room. When I put the key in my door, one of them showed me his badge.

"Your name Spenser?"

I confessed to it, and unlocked the door.

"May we come in?"

"Sure," I said.

They looked for a moment at the security guy.

"Let me know if there's anything you need," he said.

Both of the cops looked at him without speaking. The one who'd showed me his badge nodded slightly. The security guy went off down the corridor and we went into my room.

"Nice," one of the cops said.

The one who'd showed the badge was leathery and tall and gray haired with a thick gray moustache. His partner was much younger with stylish blond hair, wearing good clothes.

"This is Detective Cooper," the gray-haired one said.

"I'm Detective Sergeant Romero, Las Vegas Police Department."

"You know I'm a famous detective, and you came here looking for crime stopper tips," I said.

"Never heard of you," Romero said, "until we found your card at a crime scene."

"Pays to advertise," I said.

"Oh good," Cooper said, "a funny one."

"Yeah," Romero said.

"Makes it so much nicer when they're funny."

"Just think of me as lighthearted," I said.

"Tell me about the crime."

"Woman's been killed," Romero said.

"Couple Mex cleaning workers found her body in a vacant lot this morning when they got off work."

"You know who she is?" I said.

"No, we thought we'd bring you over, see if you knew."

"Sure," I said, "let's go."

The vacant lot was a half mile down the Strip behind an out-of business restaurant. There were half a dozen cop cars parked there, a fire department rescue truck, a vehicle from the coroner's office, and a couple of civilian vehicles. They took me to the body.

"This is how we found her," Romero said.

She was naked, lying on her back with the desert sun baking down on her. There were a couple of bruises on her face, and one eye had swollen half shut. There was bruising on her throat. And the tip of her tongue protruded slightly between her swollen lips.

But the damage didn't disguise her. It was Shirley Ventura Meeker, her white body dimpled and pudgy in the comfortless sunlight.

"Know her?" Cooper said.

"Name's Shirley Ventura. She's married to a guy named Anthony Meeker. I don't know which name she used."

"Coop," Romero said.

"Start checking the hotels. Try the MGM Grand first."

Cooper had a small notebook.

"Meeker with two e's?" Cooper said.

"Yes."

Cooper scribbled in his notebook for a moment.

"Got a next of kin?" he said.

I told him and he wrote it down and headed for the car.

"How you know her?" Romero said.

"Her father hired me to find her missing husband."

"You find him?"

"Not yet."

"And you think he's out here?"

"Yeah."

"So you came out looking for him."

"Yeah."

"She come out here with you?"

"No."

"So what's she doing here?"

"Maybe she came out to look on her own."

"You know where she was staying?"

"No."

"Think she found her husband and he killed her?"

"I doubt it," I said.

"He doesn't seem like that type, what I hear.

And I'm pretty sure she was too dumb to find him anyway."

"You know, the husband?"

"No."

"Got a picture?"

"Yeah."

"Might want to borrow it."

"Sure."

"Got any thoughts on this?"

I shrugged.

"Maybe if you told me what you know so far."

A police photographer appeared. Romero took my arm and steered me carefully away from the crime scene, so the photographer could take pictures. We leaned against the back wall of the defunct restaurant. It was late morning and the dry heat lay hard and flat over everything.

"Couple Mex night workers, got off work at six this morning, say they were just cutting through the lot on their way home. Except home isn't in that direction. I figure they scooped a six-pack from the hotel kitchen and came out in the lot to drink it."

"Going to notify robbery?"

Romero smiled.

"Probably not," he said.

"Anyway they found her and one of them called us and here we are. You see the way she was when we found her. No clothes. No purse. Mexican could have taken it, but I don't think so. If they had, they wouldn't have called us."

I nodded.

"M.E. will want to look at her more closely but it looks like the cause of death was manual strangulation."

"She been raped?"

"Almost certainly."

"And somebody beat her up."

"Yeah. Happens a lot with rapes."

"I know," I said.

"Where'd you find my card."

"On the ground near the body. I figure it was in her clothes, maybe tucked in her bra or someplace, and it fell out when the guy made her disrobe."

"How'd you know I was at The Mirage?"

"There were two phone numbers written on the back. We called them both. One was the MGM Grand. They never heard of you.

The other was The Mirage. Bingo!"

"What happened to her clothes?"

Romero shrugged.

"Maybe it happened someplace else, maybe he brought her here."

"Why would he do that?"

Romero shrugged again.

"If she disrobed someplace else, what did my card fall out of?"

Romero shrugged again.

"You trying to make this harder than it is?" he said.

"What happened to the purse?" I said.

Romero shrugged.

"She was traveling," he said.

"She probably had cash."

"Why take the purse, which is incriminating? Why not take just the cash, which isn't?"

"Guy was in a hurry," Romero said.

"Took the purse and beat it.

Emptied it out later. We'll probably find it empty someplace. Or he emptied it where he undressed her. Left it there. Give me a little time, pal. I just got on the case."