Baited by Lori Armstrong Page A

covered in sweat slapping against another body of sagging skin...Yuck. I couldn’t have sex for two days.  
    Rich sighed. “Go ahead and laugh.”
    “So this is some kind of joke?”
    He shook his head.
    “Then you’d better start at the beginning.” I unearthed a legal pad and waited, Bic pen poised, picture of PI efficiency.  
    “Four weeks ago my friend, JC Bettleyoun, disappeared. His wife claims he got in his truck and drove to Kansas City. No one has heard from him since.”
    “Why was he going to Kansas City?”
    “Supposedly he was attending the regional American Bass Anglers Association meeting and he had an appointment with a potential sponsor.”
    “Bass?” I repeated inanely. “As in fish?”
    “Yeah. JC was gonna try his luck as a professional bass fisherman.”
    Now I knew Jimmer had to be busting a gut someplace close. “Look—”  
    “You don’t believe me either.” Rich jumped up off the chair. “Never mind.”
    “Rich, sit down.” He flopped back into the chair, his breath coming as fast and shallow as an air-starved goldfish. “I’m just surprised, is all. People really get paid to fish?”
    The peculiar look on his face read; clueless female. “There’s huge money in professional fishing. JC entered a couple of bass tournaments down south a year ago last summer when he and Cindy Jo were on vacation. Shocked the hell out of everyone when he actually won a few.” He leaned forward over his spindly thighs, confiding, “See, JC is a pretty big talker, but he never follows through with anything. Know the kind of guy I mean?”
    I nodded. That pretty much described most of the men I’d dated. With one exception. “Does he have a job?”  
    “The most successful thing JC ever did was marry Cindy Jo. Once they hooked up, he’s never had to hold a regular job. He knows she’ll haul out the checkbook whenever he runs short.”
    A sugar momma. How novel. “Was he proud of that?”
    “At times.” His cheeks bloomed when he realized he’d been trash-talking his buddy, but he pressed on. “I thought bein’ at her beck and call was a high price to pay for the limited funds she doled out. Anyway, she made fun of him when he told her his plans to go pro. Said fishing was a hobby, not a job. That might’ve been the end of it, but JC has a mean streak a mile wide and the temper to match. So, during the sports show, this winter, he bought a brand new fishing boat.”
    Hardly grounds for murder, but I kept listening. “What did Cindy Jo do?” 
“Hit the roof. Told him he’d better take it back to the dealership ’cause she wasn’t paying for it.”
    “Where does Cindy Jo get her money?”
    “She owns that nail salon off of Jackson—Hot Tips. Pretty successful place, I guess. She bought thirty acres outside of Hermosa and put a brand new double wide on it just last year.”
    “They have any children?”
    “Not the normal kind.” I lifted a brow and he rushed to explain, “Cindy Jo’s twenty years older than JC. Never could have kids, but she does have them yippy damn dogs she calls her babies. Drove JC nuts, the way she pampered and fussed at them.” His thin lips made a girlish moue of distaste. “When one vanished a few months back, I thought he’d have to admit her to the psych ward, the way she carried on.”
    “Still, the fact he bought a new fishing boat wasn’t exactly reason to kill him.” I relied on the old standby in our business: marital infidelity. “Was JC screwing around?”
    Rich opened his mouth as if to laugh, but thought better of it. “No. JC was a jerk, and smart women avoided him. Truth is, he could’ve screwed any chick and Cindy Jo wouldn’t have cared.”
    My skepticism must’ve showed. 
  “Sounds strange, but she was jealous of the time he spent fishing. She whined he paid more attention to his rods and reels than he did to her.”
    “And did he?”
    “Well, yeah, especially after he bought the boat.” A gusty sigh, like one