Bad Memory Read online

  “Do you know what?” she said calmly. “Michelle deserved better, and so do I. Now get the fuck out of my trailer.”

  Dylan pushed past her roughly, and Jessica jumped as he slammed the door hard behind him. She snapped the lock in place and noticed her hands were shaking, but all she felt was relief. Relief that he was gone and relief that it was over.

  She poured what was left of the opened beer down the sink and tossed the empty bottles in the trash. Opened the refrigerator door to grab a Bud for herself and saw that she was all out.

  “Asshole,” she muttered.

  Jessica sloshed two fingers of Scotch into a tumbler instead, sat at the dinette table, and fired up the laptop. She pushed all thoughts of Dylan aside and turned her focus back to Devil’s Drop.

  Either Tom Lucchese was Megan’s secret boyfriend, like Rue had said. Or the guy had simply been a Good Samaritan who’d gotten caught up in a very bad situation, as Lucchese himself had claimed.

  One thing was for sure—someone was lying.

  And, if she was as big a gambler as the folks who frequented his casino, Jessica would be placing all her chips on Tom Lucchese.

  She spent the next half hour trying to find out all she could about the man. Nothing untoward stood out, although she was surprised to discover he lived in a relatively modest house in North Las Vegas with his family and drove a fairly average car. She would have expected, as the owner of a casino, even a small one, Lucchese would have enjoyed a far more extravagant lifestyle. Maybe he had simply grown out of the fast cars and designer labels he’d clearly coveted in his youth.

  Jessica also found out the cash Tom Lucchese had used to buy the casino had been inherited following his father’s death in 1997. She began a new search, this time on Bruce Lucchese. She read the results on the screen.

  Then she sat back in the seat stunned.

  Bruce hadn’t died as a result of illness or an accident, like she’d expected. He’d put a shotgun in his mouth and blown a hole in the back of his skull. His suicide had resulted in a fair amount of coverage in the local Nevada press. She scrolled down the list of articles.

  Gambling community shocked by businessman’s sudden death

  Casino boss found dead in own home in suspected suicide

  How a Vegas shining light tragically burned out in the end

  Jessica liked that last headline best. She clicked on the link for the story and read a brief history of the life and death of Bruce Lucchese. How he had demonstrated his entrepreneurial spirit as a young man by setting up a small bookmakers’ business in his hometown of Hundred Acres, before moving to Vegas in his midtwenties, with his wife and baby son, to make his fortune. About the ill-fated casino and hotel development that apparently sparked his downward spiral into alcohol abuse and depression. The numerous expensive stints in rehab that followed. How he had finally succumbed to his demons on the Fourth of July 1997 when he went out to the garage attached to his home and shot himself dead.

  Jessica read the sentence again. Fourth of July 1997. Exactly ten years to the day since the murders of Lucas and Megan.

  Shit.

  She returned to the search results and found another article that caught her eye.

  Family and friends bid final farewell to Vegas magnate

  This story was illustrated with a bunch of candid photos of mourners leaving the church after Bruce Lucchese’s funeral service. The main image showed a younger Tom Lucchese comforting his mother, Cynthia. There were pictures of gray-haired men in sharp suits and skinny black ties who were identified as prominent movers and shakers in the gambling world. Other photos featured attractive women in their twenties dressed in black lace and huge hats with extravagant veils who were described as being the star turns in some of the big Vegas shows at the time.

  Off to one side, away from the throng, was someone Jessica wasn’t expecting to see.

  Like the other mourners, the woman was dressed in a dark suit and wore a suitably somber expression. But, to Jessica, she seemed completely out of place at Bruce Lucchese’s funeral—around ten years after he had quit Hundred Acres for good. Jessica leaned in closer to the laptop screen and squinted at the image. It was black and white and grainy, but there was definitely no mistake.

  She was looking at the face of Patty Meeks.

  37

  JESSICA

  Ed was already behind his desk when Jessica arrived at the detective agency early the next day. He was wearing a shirt adorned with palm trees and peaches that was way too pink for his ruddy complexion.

  “Peaches,” she said.

  “Yup. Do you know why?”

  “Because you’re peachy keen today?”

  Ed winked and pointed at her.

  “Got it in one.”

  The rest of Jessica’s morning was spent thinking and waiting.

  She was thinking about Rue’s revelation that Tom Lucchese was Megan’s boyfriend. Why the cops would cover up his involvement. Why Patty Meeks was at Bruce Lucchese’s funeral. What role the Luccheses had to play in the deaths of two teenagers on a summer’s night more than three decades ago.

  And while she was doing all this thinking, she was waiting for Ed to leave the office.

  Finally, sometime after noon, he picked himself up and announced he was going to Randy’s for lunch. He invited Jessica to join him.

  “I’ll pass if you don’t mind,” she said. “Dylan and I broke up last night. It might be awkward.”

  “That’s a shame. You made a cute couple. Can I bring you something back?”

  “Sure, thanks. There’s no rush, though. I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  Jessica followed Ed out of the front door and smoked a cigarette while she watched him stroll down the side of the highway. It was a hot day, and there was a smell of burning dust in the air, along with the usual roadside perfume of exhaust fumes. Once Ed disappeared inside the diner, she dropped the butt and returned to her desk. She found her picklock set in her bag and selected the tool best suited for the job. Jessica figured, when it came to affairs and family secrets in Hundred Acres, most of the sordid details could be found in one place—Ed’s files.

  His locked filing cabinets were labeled A to Z, and cases were filed by client surnames. Jessica glanced at the picture window. No sign of movement outside other than the traffic on the highway.

  Settling on the cabinet most likely to yield results, she jimmied the tiny lock in the top right corner and pulled open one of the metal drawers. Flicked through the folders nestling in the swinging file tabbed M. There were a lot of Ms, but none was labeled Meeks. Next, she tried the L file, and there it was—Lucchese.

  Jessica had another look at the picture window. Consulted her watch. Reassured herself Ed would be at Randy’s for at least another twenty minutes.

  She removed the cardboard file from its swinging pocket, flipped open to the first page, and saw the client listed was Cynthia Lucchese. She skimmed the case overview. It was a classic infidelity job. Cynthia had suspected her husband of cheating and had hired Ed to carry out some surveillance on Bruce Lucchese. The case file was dated May 1987.

  Cynthia believed Bruce had had a mistress in Hundred Acres in the late sixties, before the family left for Vegas. Now that they were back in town, she was convinced he was hiding something, had possibly rekindled an old romance. Jessica turned the page. Ed had documented Bruce Lucchese’s movements over a number of weeks, including a couple of visits to the Meeks residence and a meeting with Patty in a coffee shop outside of town. Bruce had also been spotted parked outside Hundred Acres High School on a few occasions. Ed’s typed account of the surveillance was backed up by some covert photography.

  But, when Jessica turned to the copy of the report Ed had delivered to Cynthia, there was no mention of clandestine meetings with Patty, no incriminating photos. No suspicious behavior by Bruce Lucchese had been noted anywhere in Ed’s findings at all.

  “I don’t think that belongs to you.”


  Jessica spun around, her heart pounding. Ed was standing in the doorway. She looked at the folder in her hand, and heat rushed to her cheeks.

  “I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “Clearly.” Ed held up a brown paper bag. “A sandwich. For you.”

  “Shit,” Jessica muttered. “Look, I’m sorry for breaking into your filing cabinet, but why didn’t you tell me Cynthia Lucchese was one of your clients?”

  “You know why, Jessica. Client confidentiality.”

  “Even when it’s relevant to the case I’m working on?”

  “I didn’t think it was relevant. I still don’t. Everyone has secrets. Some should stay in the past.”

  Jessica showed him the file. “I think what’s in here is relevant to Devil’s Drop. I think this is where it all began.”

  Ed sighed and sank into Jessica’s visitor’s chair. Dropped the brown paper bag on the desk. She sat in her own seat facing him and placed the Cynthia Lucchese file between them.

  “Tell me what you know, Ed. It’s important.”

  He nodded. “Cynthia first suspected Bruce was having an affair in February 1969 when she found a receipt for an expensive diamond-and-emerald bracelet in his wallet—a gift Cynthia never received. Her description of the bracelet seemed familiar to me somehow. I was sure I’d seen something just like it, but I couldn’t remember where. Anyway, the Luccheses moved to Vegas a short while later. Cynthia was pretty sure more flings followed, but she turned a blind eye for the sake of Tom and keeping the family together.

  “When they moved back to Hundred Acres in the 1980s, she was convinced Bruce was up to no good again, said he was definitely hiding something. By now, Tom was a young man, and Cynthia had had enough. She wanted a divorce, and she wanted me to find evidence of Bruce’s affairs that she could take to a lawyer. I agreed to take on the job, and I began tailing him. I saw him visit Patty Meeks’s house, meet with her out of town, and spend some time outside the high school, just watching the kids from his car. On senior prom night, he was parked on Patty’s street, watching the house, while I watched him. Then Megan stepped outside the front door, and she was wearing a diamond-and-emerald bracelet.”

  Jessica thought of Patty Meeks’s words to her.

  In a place like Hundred Acres, everyone has secrets. And Ed’s line of work means he knows most of them.

  “Megan was Bruce Lucchese’s daughter,” she said.

  Ed nodded. “I was friends with Patty, real fond of her. We’d even dated for a while between my first and second wives. I told her what I’d found out. Patty admitted Bruce was Megan’s father and begged me not to tell Cynthia. I told her Cynthia was my client, and she had a right to know what I’d discovered about her husband.”

  “What changed?” Jessica asked. “The report you gave Cynthia claimed you had witnessed no suspicious behavior by Bruce Lucchese during your extensive surveillance. There’s no mention of Patty or Megan Meeks. That’s quite an omission.”

  Ed smiled sadly. “Megan died—that’s what changed.” He shrugged. “Why cause any more hurt?”

  “His family never knew the truth? Cynthia and Tom never found out about Megan?”

  “No.”

  “What about Megan? Did she know who her father was?”

  “No.”

  “But Bruce knew?”

  Ed nodded. “He figured it out after he returned to Hundred Acres and discovered Patty had a seventeen-year-old daughter. He confronted her, and she confirmed she had been pregnant with his baby when he’d left for Vegas with his wife and kid.”

  “Shit.” Jessica rubbed her eyes. “What a fucking mess.”

  “Now do you see why Rue Hunter has to be lying, or at least mistaken, about Megan and Tom being a couple? Like I said, it’s impossible.”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, Ed. It’s unthinkable, but it’s not impossible.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Jessica’s eyes locked on his.

  “What if Rue was telling the truth? And what if someone had so much to lose they resorted to murder to keep their secrets?”

  38

  FOURTH OF JULY

  1987

  “Something on your mind, Bruce?”

  Bruce Lucchese looked up from his double bourbon and saw his wife staring at him. He had no idea how long he had been gazing into the amber liquid, how long his fingers had been tracing the cut crystal of the tumbler, paying zero attention to the conversation going on around him.

  “Rick was speaking to you,” Cynthia said in her most disapproving tone. He’d been hearing it a lot lately. “You were lost in your own little world. Again.”

  “Thinking of all that dough we’re going to be making from the new development, huh?” Rick laughed.

  Bruce smiled. “You got it, Rick.”

  Cynthia had come up with the idea of getting some friends together for a Fourth of July barbecue at the house. The only problem was the Luccheses didn’t have any friends in Hundred Acres, so business associates from out of town had been drafted in instead. Rick Wakefield was one of the main investors in the Lucky by Lucchese project and had brought his wife, Linda, to the get-together. Lonnie Strickland, another financial backer, and his girlfriend, Kathleen, had yet to show.

  It was a beautiful afternoon. The sun was warm but not too hot, and the rays glistened on the still water of the pool. The scent of roses filled the backyard, their fragrance soon to be replaced by the aroma of cooking meat once the other guests arrived. Burgers and sausages and chicken thighs were lined up next to the grill.

  The house was small compared to the place they’d owned in Vegas, but Rick was right—once the new development was up and running, it would be like printing their own money. In the meantime, Cynthia had made the most of their new surroundings by hiring a gardener and a pool guy and having a patio area built, a state-of-the-art barbecue station installed, and fairy lights strung all over the place. To Bruce, it was all a little too much for Hundred Acres, just like Cynthia herself.

  It was supposed to be an informal gathering on a holiday weekend, but his wife had had her blonde hair professionally curled and teased and back-combed at the salon. She was dressed in a gold silk blouse tucked into white tailored pants, which were belted around her tiny waist and matched her stiletto heels. She wore far too much makeup and perfume, both of which were getting heavier and more noticeable the older she got.

  Cynthia consulted the Cartier watch on her slim wrist, and her perfectly plucked eyebrows bunched into a delicate frown.

  “Lonnie and Kathleen should have been here thirty minutes ago.”

  “I’m sure they’re on their way,” Bruce said.

  Rick patted his fat belly. “I sure hope so. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole cow all to myself.”

  “Why don’t you give them a call, Bruce?” Cynthia said. “Make sure they haven’t forgotten.”

  “Sure thing.”

  Bruce was glad of the excuse to escape for five minutes. He finished his drink, placed the tumbler on a coaster on the glass dining table, and headed through the open french doors into the kitchen. Lonnie’s home and car phone numbers were both scribbled on a note stuck under a refrigerator magnet. Bruce lifted the receiver on the wall telephone and was just about to dial the car phone digits when he heard a voice on the line and realized his son was using the extension in the den. Tom was speaking in a soft voice and was calling the other person baby, and it was pretty clear he was talking to a girl. Bruce smiled and was about to hang up when he heard Tom say the girl’s name.

  Bruce’s heart stopped.

  He covered the mouthpiece with his hand so they wouldn’t hear his heavy breathing and listened to the conversation with a growing sense of horror. They were planning a rendezvous at Devil’s Drop that night at nine p.m. Bruce was familiar with the make-out spot from his own youth and knew the place meant one thing—sex. He heard them agree to arrive in separate cars so Megan’s mom wouldn’t suspect her daughter was going on
a date.

  There was a click as Tom ended the call, and Bruce quickly replaced his own handset. He just made it to the sink before throwing up. His son walked into the kitchen, helped himself to a beer from the refrigerator, then spotted Bruce hunched and retching.

  Tom laughed. “Let me guess? You let mom take charge of the barbecue again?”

  Bruce splashed cold water on his face and turned to face Tom as he dried off.

  “I’m fine.”

  “Man, you really don’t look too good. You sure you’re okay?”

  Bruce smiled weakly. “Nothing to worry about. Probably your mom’s cooking, like you said. Or too much daytime drinking.”

  Tom snorted. “Yeah, right, like that’s ever been a problem before.” He popped the top on the bottle of Coors. “I’m going to my room to chill for a while before going out later. Take it easy, Pops.”

  “Uh, big night planned? Going to a party someplace?”

  Bruce was trying to come across as nonchalant, but his voice sounded weird even to his own ears.

  Tom grinned. “Yeah, but it’s a private party, if you catch my drift?”

  “New girlfriend?”

  “Yup.”

  “Anyone I know?”

  “Nope.”

  “You’re not giving much away, are you?” Bruce laughed, and it was an odd, high-pitched sound. “You been seeing this girl for a while? Is it serious?”

  “We’ve been dating for about a month. Nothing serious, just a bit of fun. And this evening is gonna be a whole lot more fun.” Tom winked. “Let’s just say they don’t call me ‘Lucky’ for nothing. Tonight, Lucky is finally gonna get lucky with the lovely Megan.”

  Tom took a swallow of beer and walked out of the kitchen whistling a Bon Jovi song.

  Bruce watched him leave, then purged the remaining contents of his stomach into the sink.

  Bruce forgot all about the phone call to Lonnie, his thoughts occupied by the one he’d just overheard between his son and Megan Meeks. He felt like he had just gone twelve rounds with Mike Tyson.