I’m still waiting for someone when I hear a scuffle of a shoe. I turn to see Ridgeway come around the corner.
I take a big step back.
He’s carrying a rifle.
It’s not pointed at me, but still, it gives me a jolt. There’s something very creepy and incongruent about the whole look of an LA rich dude in a pink button-up sporting a rifle outside his multimillion-dollar abode on the eastern front.
“Hello.” I force a grin. “Is that necessary?” I gesture to the gun. My nerves tingle all over. All I’ve got is a Leatherman in my pocket. “I’m a PI,” I say. “AndIdon’t even carry.”
“Not sure where you’re from, but out here, never know what’s necessary and what’s not. Never know if you’re in need of self-protection. We have grizzlies around here, and you know we have a saying out here, right?”
“What’s that?”
“SSS.”
“SSS?”
“Shoot, shovel, and shut up.”
I nod. Lick my lips, which are suddenly very dry.
“Why are you here?” he asks.
“My name is Crosbie Mitchell,” I say. “And—”
“You a reporter?”
“No. Like I told your security guy, I’m a PI from the Flathead. I’d like to speak to you. I need to ask about a former employee of yours.”
He eyes me suspiciously.
“Graham Insurance hires me occasionally to check on certain claims, that’s all.”
Finally, he walks over to me.
I step back, way back, but all he does is open the front door. Motions for me to enter. As he holds it ajar, he eyes me up and down.
My pulse pounds in my neck.
He waits, the heat of the August afternoon prickling between us, even in the shade of his massive covered entryway. I pause, sweat sliding down my back. I’m not sure I want to go in.
But I’ve come this far, so I step inside, every muscle in my body on notice. I don’t plan on turning my back to this man, so I scoot over and make sure he goes in farther than me. I stay in the foyer as he enters the main room and, thank goodness, sets his rifle on a credenza by the wall.
The interior is immense. No surprise. Giant great room and a large kitchen. Open floor plan. Humongous appliances. Blond cabinets. A long rectangular gas fireplace sits in a slate wall. Space-age lighting fixtures hover. A wide curving staircase climbs to the next floor. The lack of a railing makes me unsteady on my feet, thinking how I’d feel with nowhere to put my hands.
The place is filled with art, mostly abstracts. But next to me on the wall is a whole lot of realism, a sketch of a naked woman standing with her arms above her head and her chest stuck out in case you’re unsure that she’s proud of her assets.
“I did that,” he says when he sees me eyeing it. “You like?”
His question is more than a little creepy. “Nice,” I say. The woman’s precisely drawn nipples stare me down. She lacks mystery and complexity. There’s another on the opposite wall of a young woman sitting with her legs splayed open, one hand on her breast, the other between her thighs and below her crotch like she’s posing for a soft-porn site.
“That one, too,” he says.
A maddening tangle of images fills my head about what he might have done to, or given, these young women so they’d pose for him. My fingers curl into tight fists and I have to tell myself to relax. “So,” I say as professionally as I can muster. “Aaron Lasserio’s been working for the timber company in Columbia Falls. He’s filed a claim, and the insurance company has hired me to check on his history.”
It’s a hot lie, but I’m hoping it will become truth by the end of the week. Even as I feel the rush of excitement over being my own boss, my confidence goes to quicksand as I wonder if pulling a stunt like this is really the best choice for my first serious case as a PI. “Says he’s hurt his spine,” I add. “You know anything about that?”
“Why would I?”
