Brian Freeman - Stripped

“We heard Leo Rucci was involved in breaking up a fight in the middle of the night on the night of the murder. Did you investigate that?”

“Fight? I never heard a word about it. Rucci never mentioned it. His alibi was he was balling one of the dancers, and she confirmed it. Besides, Rucci didn’t usually break up fights-he caused them.”

“How about a lifeguard named Mickey? He was the one who called Rucci. Did you talk to him?”

“Nah. Pretty boys by the pool were a dime a dozen.” Humphrey pushed himself out of his chair. “I got to take a leak,” he said. “Prostate. What a bitch. Bet mine’s the size of a fucking orange by now.”

He left the room, and Stride got up from the sofa, shaking his head. “It’s hell getting old,” he said.

“So you tell me,” Serena said with an impish grin.

He did think about it sometimes, the age difference of almost a decade between them. He worried about a day when she might wake up and ask herself what she was doing with an old man. He didn’t feel any older or younger than his years, but he wasn’t a superman. He was in his midforties, and some of the original equipment was a little worn. He felt better physically away from the Minnesota cold, suffering from fewer of the bone-deep pains that the frigid lake winds brought.

Serena, by contrast, was physically in her prime, at least in his eyes. It was her soul that felt older, and that was what held them together. It was as if she had started bruising and weathering it at a young age. He only wished she would tell him more about it. She had begun to offer him little glimpses, like opening the windows in an Advent calendar, but there was still a lot he didn’t know about her.

He studied Humphrey’s living room, looking for clues to the man. There were sports sections littering the floor near his recliner, not just from the Las Vegas paper but also from Los Angeles, Chicago, and New York. Sports book , Stride thought. Humphrey probably spent a lot of time trying to beat the spread.

The recliner itself reeked of menthol. The whole house was dank, as if the windows had been closed for too long. He also picked up a remnant of Cajun smells in the air, as if someone had been spicing up a pot of jambalaya.

“Look at this,” Serena called to him.

She was looking at several framed photographs on the wall. They were publicity shots of old Vegas stars, similar to the ones that Stride had seen at Battista’s. He recognized Dean Martin, Elvis, and Marilyn Monroe.

“All of these are autographed,” Serena said.

Stride shrugged. “So he collects memorabilia. He told us as much.”

“No, they’re autographed to him,” Serena said.

Stride joined her at the wall and realized she was right. Each photograph bore Nick’s name and a personal message in addition to the star’s signature. “Helen said he did private security gigs,” Stride said.

“Yeah, but look at Marilyn’s message,” Serena told him.

Stride leaned closer to the smiling photograph of the platinum blonde. Across one bare shoulder, in black marker, a feminine hand had written: Nicky-What a night. I needed you, and you were there. Love and kisses, MM.

“She was a hell of a girl,” Humphrey said as he reentered the living room behind them. He held a lowball glass with a large shot of what looked like whiskey.

“Come on, Nick,” Stride told him. “Maybe you could get by with Willie Mays and Dean Martin, but not Marilyn. I’m not buying it.”

Humphrey was smug. He put down his whiskey and rummaged through a pile of paperbacks on an end table. He pulled one out and tossed it across the room to Stride. It was a biography of Marilyn Monroe.

“There are some photographs after page seventy-two,” he said. “One of them shows a letter she wrote to DiMaggio. Now you tell me if that’s not the same handwriting.”

Stride and Serena found the page and held up the image of Marilyn’s old letter to the photograph on the wall. Humphrey laughed as their faces fell. Stride had to admit that the handwriting looked like a dead-on match.

Humphrey sat back down in his recliner, picked up the whiskey, and grinned at them, enormously pleased with himself.

“So you guys want to tell me why you’re really here?” he asked. “I don’t imagine Metro has the resources to be digging up forty-year-old murders.”

Stride and Serena sat back down. He found himself stealing glances at Marilyn’s photograph and still thought Humphrey was pulling one over on them.

’Two close relatives of people who were mentioned in Rex Terrell’s article have been murdered in the last two weeks,” Serena said. “Same perp. We want to know if these murders somehow are tied back to the death of Amira Luz.”

“Forty years is a long time to wait to start a vendetta,” Humphrey replied.

“Even so, you might want to take precautions,” Stride suggested. ‘Tell your family to do the same.”

Humphrey shrugged. “Never married, no kids. I’m the end of the blood line.”

“Do you have any idea who might be doing this or why?” Serena asked.

“None at all,” Humphrey said. “I hope you don’t think it’s me. A geriatric serial killer, now that would be a new twist They could show that one on Law & Order: Nursing Home Unit”

“Then what do you think is going on?” Stride asked.

“Look, you already mentioned his name,” Humphrey said. “Boni Fisso. He’s got a big new project going up, right? Couple billion dollars in play?”

Stride nodded. “That was our first thought, too. Boni might be afraid that the truth about Amira’s death would come out. We thought he might be sending a signal to people who were involved back then. Keep your mouths shut.”

“Boni wouldn’t bother with relatives and signals,” Humphrey said. “He’d simply take them out.”

The old detective shook his head, as if he had already figured it out Stride realized, watching the man’s mind work, that Humphrey had been a smart cop-which made the gaps in the investigation of Amira’s death smell even worse.

’Turn it the other way around,” Humphrey said. “Maybe someone wants to derail Boni’s big new casino as a kind of weird justice for Amira. So he starts killing people. Leaving bread crumbs for you guys to follow. All of it leading into the past.”

Bread crumbs , Stride thought Like fingerprints. “Did Amira have relatives?”

“None that I ever found. She was an only child, parents both dead. But it wouldn’t have to be someone who was related to Amira. Boni made plenty of enemies in his day.”

“The question is, where do the bread crumbs lead?” Stride asked. “If you’re right about this guy, he seems to think there’s more to Amira’s death than ever came out.”

“He’s wrong,” Humphrey insisted. “We closed the case.”

“Listen, Nick,” Serena said cautiously. “Don’t take this the wrong way. Word is you were a regular at the Sheherezade. You did a lot of private security gigs there.” She gestured at the photographs on the wall. “Looks like you’ve got the pictures to prove it, too.”

Humphrey’s eyes got as cold as the ice in his drink. “So?”

“So it was another time. Different rules. This was an outlaw town. What we’re wondering is-”

“You’re wondering whether I was paid off,” Humphrey said, his voice rising sharply. “Right? Fuck, you’re as bad as Rex Terrell.”

“No one said that,” Serena replied. “But there are a lot of questions, and you seem too smart to have missed them. We want to know whether you got pressure from somewhere to go easy on the investigation.”

Humphrey stared at them, and Stride thought he saw the pain of a compromised man. The retired cop looked down into his drink and drained the last of the whiskey in a single swallow. “There was no pressure,” he croaked, his throat constricted.