The Color of Death (23 page)

Scottsdale

Friday

9:00
P.M
.

A cell phone rang, interrupting
Sam and Kate just as they were thinking about dragging themselves out of bed to make a late dinner.

“It’s yours,” Kate said.

“I’m trying to ignore it.”

“Is it working?”

Sam cursed and stalked into the living room where his cell phone was still attached to his belt, which was still attached to his slacks, which weren’t attached to him. When he recognized the number, his irritation vanished. He didn’t know what Lee Mandel’s godfather wanted to talk about, but he doubted it was good news. He punched the answer button.

“Special Agent Groves.”

“This is Gavin Greenfield. Sorry to bother you on a Friday night, but you told me to call if anyone questioned me about Kate or Natalie Cutter.”

Sam’s gut clenched.
So quick. Jesus, this killer is scary.
“Yes. Who called?”

“He didn’t leave a name.”

“Tell me as much of the conversation as you remember. Word for word, if possible.”

“I answered the phone,” Gavin said. “He told me he was following up on an interview with you.”

“Did he use my name?”

“Yes. He called you FBI Special Agent Sam Groves.”

Sam frowned. Most civilians were happy with less than the full title. “Go on.”

“I asked him who he was, just like you told me to.”

“And?”

“He didn’t tell me. He just asked me who Natalie Cutter was to me. I told him since he was in the FBI, he should ask you. Then I hung up. Did I do the right thing?”

“Yes. Do you remember him representing himself to you as a member of the FBI?”

Gavin hesitated. “No. When he said it was a follow up on your interview, I just assumed…” Then, anxiously, “He was FBI, wasn’t he?”

I hope not, but I’m not betting Kate’s life on it.
“Thank you, Mr. Greenfield. You did just right. If anyone else calls, please let me know immediately.”

Sam hung up, held the cell phone in his fist, and grappled with the sickening feeling that the killer was two steps ahead of everyone.

Especially Sam Groves.

“What is it?” Kate asked.

He looked at her standing in the doorway, naked and beautiful. Vulnerable. His gut clenched.

“You mentioned rain checks,” he said.

“You want one?”

“No, but I’m asking for it anyway.”

“It’s yours.”
And so am I
. But that was something Kate wasn’t ready to say aloud.

Sam reached her in three long strides and pulled her into his arms. Instead of the passion and driving strength she’d come to expect from him, she found herself held gently, rocked against his chest.

“I have to go back to the hotel and take care of some things,” he said, his voice as rough as his hands were tender. “I don’t want to. But if I spend the night here, they’ll yank me off the strike force.” He tipped her head back and looked into her eyes. “You understand?”

She nodded.

“I want you to put my cell phone number in your speed dial so that all you have to do is punch connect to get me,” he said. “Okay?”

She nodded again.

“Don’t let anyone in here except me, and only if I’m alone,” he said. “If I’m not alone, call 911 and take your gun off safety and don’t open the door. Okay?”

“Sam…”

“Promise me, love.”

She gave up. “Okay.”

“If anyone knocks or calls or does anything that makes you uneasy, dial me no matter what time it is.”

“Sam, who just called?”

He hesitated, not wanting to make her as uneasy as he was. Then he told himself he was a fool. She couldn’t protect herself if she didn’t know what was going on.

“Gavin,” Sam said. “Someone called him, asking about you.”

He watched understanding take the light from her eyes.

“I see,” she said huskily. “That was quick.”

“Kate, I’ll stay if you—” he began.

“No,” she cut in. “It’s all right. I don’t want you taken off the strike force.”
Leaving me with men I have to trust and can’t, because I’ll be wondering which one of them is hand in hand with a killer
. “I’ll do whatever I have to.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his lips. “Be safe.”

He pulled her close and held her, just held her, trying not to think about how fragile life was.

Scottsdale

Saturday

4:00
A.M
.

Sam awoke to the hotel phone ringing.
And ringing. He looked at the bedside clock, then at the other bed. Empty. Colton must have the graveyard shift tonight.

Sam grabbed the phone. “What!”

“I’m very sorry, sir,” the night clerk said quickly. “A fax just came in for you. The cover letter said it was most urgent. I—”

“I’ll be right down.”

He disconnected, rubbed his sandpaper face, and told himself to hang tough, it was only a few more years before he could dump his shaver in the trash and never look back. He went to the bathroom, splashed cold water on his eyes, and grabbed the jeans he’d dumped on the floor after he finished drawing up diagrams of who knew what and when regarding various couriers and deliveries. Then he’d looked at them and wanted to bang his head against the wall.

He had enough suspects for a dental convention—and a headache to match.

He still had one. Four hours’ sleep wasn’t enough.

I’m getting too old for this shit.

But not all of it. He smiled when he remembered how he’d spent
the best part of last night with Kate. She liked it all the ways he did, hard and fast, slow and mind-blowing, slipping and twisting and turning until there wasn’t any breath in his lungs but hers….

He splashed more water on his face and then reset the hotel’s complimentary automatic coffeepot for cook right now instead of at seven
A.M
.

Barefoot, still buttoning the shirt he hadn’t bothered to tuck in, his hair looking like it had been stirred rather than combed, and his weapon harness hanging loosely on his shoulders, Sam rode the elevator to the lobby.

The clerk took one look at the man walking out of the elevator toward the desk and glanced nervously toward the lobby guard.

Sam fished his badge holder from his rear pocket and said, “Special Agent Groves. You have a fax for me.”

The guard and the clerk relaxed.

“Yes, sir. If you’ll sign here…” The clerk pushed a form and a pen toward Sam.

He signed for the fax, wondered if the ten bucks per page charge included the fancy sealed folder with the hotel’s logo, and took the papers up to his room. The welcome smell of coffee greeted him. He tossed the folder on the bed, poured a cup of coffee, drank it, and poured another. That took care of the free coffee provided by the hotel. If he wanted more, he’d have to wait until the maid came to refill the coffee basket in maybe nine hours, or he could order from room service and watch Doug’s blood pressure spike at the expense report.

Sam reached for the phone. “This is two-twelve. Send up a pot of coffee. Black.”

He hung his weapon harness on a chair and went to the bed. Sipping on the lethal black brew, he opened the folder. The cover sheet informed him that the contents were privileged information not to be read by anyone without clearance from the FBI.

“This better be good, Mecklin,” Sam said, “or I’m going to call you at four
A.M
. tomorrow and sing every frigging verse of the ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic.’ ”

Sam scrubbed away a yawn and turned over the cover page. It lifted, slid, and came to a rest halfway to the hall door.

He ignored it.

The first sketch showed a flashy female figure with light eyes, Dolly Parton hair, and tits to match. Caucasian, if you could trust the artist’s rendition of a description given by an unhappy citizen remembering what had happened five months ago.

The second sketch showed the same busty female with dark hair and dark eyes, as Sam had requested. He studied it for several minutes, but couldn’t pin down why she looked kind of familiar. Caucasian, Hispanic, either was possible. Which meant that better than half of the female population of the United States between the ages of twenty and fifty could fit the description.

No wonder she looked familiar.

He tossed the sketch on the unmade bed. The third and fourth sketches surprised him. Each showed the same person, absent makeup and wig, with a man’s haircut and shirt. The result was a subtly effeminate man with a lean build and ordinary looks. The third sketch was of a blond male with light eyes. The fourth version was dark and dark.

Sam whistled silently.
Wonder if Lee Mandel looked like either of these.

Only Kate could help him on that, and it was too soon to wake her up. Unless he was in bed with her.

Don’t think about that. It will fuzz what’s left of your brain.

He set the sketches in a row across the foot of the bed and reached for the folder again. The remaining two pages were a summary of both interviews with Seguro Jimenez.

When Sam finished reading, he threw the papers on the bed and grabbed his cell phone. It took three separate people and a lot of attitude, but he finally tracked down Mecklin.

“The stuff arrived,” Sam said.

“You woke me up to tell me that?”

“Sorry,” Sam said. “Thought you’d be awake, having just sent me the fax and all.”

An indistinct grumble was Mecklin’s only answer.

“I just wanted to verify some facts with you,” Sam said. “Did Seguro think the person trying to pawn the sapphire was a transvestite?”

“If you read the interview summary you know he couldn’t be pinned down.”

“You were there,” Sam said. “What did you think?”

“Seguro Jimenez is a switch-hitter. He doesn’t care what gender as long as he’s not the catcher. He liked what he saw, male or female. So now we have the whole population to look at, male, female, and undecided.”

“Did Seguro say anything that would make you think the he/she act wasn’t comfortable in the costume, like maybe it was a temporary disguise?” Sam asked.

“No. In fact, he thought the tits were made-to-order, expensive drag queen stuff for a guy that didn’t want to take estrogen shots and have breast implants in order to attract straight men. That’s why the dress had a high neck—jiggle can be put in bras, but real cleavage is tough to fake close up and bare.”

“So is the rest of the equipment,” Sam said.

Mecklin gave a snort of laughter. “Yeah, can you imagine a dude who’s expecting to find pussy between his date’s legs and finds jingle bells instead?”

“I don’t want to imagine it, thanks. Did Seguro come any closer to admitting that he bought the stone?”

“That solid citizen? Hell, no. He’s a real prince. He sent the tits and the stone right back out the door. Funny thing, when we showed Seguro a photo I printed of the stone, his eyelids flinched. He recognized it. I’ll show it around to the others tomorrow, but my money is on Seguro being the fence.”

“Okay. Tell me more about his family.”

“They’re pimps, cons, thieves, and a few stone killers.”

“Sounds like part of every immigrant group I’ve ever heard of, including my ancestors. What else?”

“We’re still looking at it, but right now I’d feel good about saying
he’s kissing cousins with cousins who are kissing cousins of the Santos gang.”

“Ecuadorian?”

“Yeah, but they’re like the Chinese. They have arms of the family in all major cities in the U.S. Nothing formal. Just friends of friends of relatives. If you don’t know a homeboy, you don’t get in the front door.”

Sourly, Sam wondered if Mecklin had been talking to Sizemore. “You think it was a gang hit from the word go?”

Mecklin paused long enough to light up a cigarette and blow out a plume across the receiver. “No. I used to work L.A. I read the Mandel file after I got your request. Different MO entirely.”

“Hallelujah. Someone who understands little things like MO,” Sam said under his breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. If Seguro did fence the gem, where would he do it? Miami?”

“Too close.” Mecklin exhaled heavily. “None of his family here had the right connections. But he married a woman whose maiden name was de Santos.”

“De Santos and de los Santos? Same crew?”

“Yeah. The longer you’re here, the less likely you are to keep the full name. First to go is ‘los.’ Next is ‘de.’ We have a lot of Santos.”

“Are the ones we’re talking about from Ecuador?”

“Same country. Same rural town. The de Santos have been bringing in everybody but the village idiot. I can’t prove it, but my gut says Seguro Jimenez sent the stone to L.A. and his wife’s family.”

“Who?”

Mecklin sighed another stream of smoke. “Most likely is José de Santos, who works in the jewelry district laundering drug money through gold purchases. It could be Eduardo de Santos, who works as head cutter for Hall Jewelry International and, if street gossip is true, has a nice little sideline reworking stolen gems passed to him by his extended family.”

“How big is this sideline?”

“Nothing much. A little skimming here, a little trimming there. More like a hobby and a retirement account than a profession. It’s his way to become a respected
patrón
in his little village in Ecuador.”

“Must be my lucky day,” Sam said. “Finally.”

“Why?”

“You actually know L.A. and gangs.”

“I worked drugs in southern California with a DEA task force and some immigration guys back when it was called the INS. Same players, different merchandise.”

Sam hesitated. “Your name wasn’t in the Mandel file, but the Miami office handled it.”

“I was transferred two months ago.”

“L.A. to Miami.” Sam tried not to be jealous. He’d gone from L.A. to Seattle to Phoenix. A clear downward spiral. “Antiterrorism, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Fast track to the top.”

“Tell my wife,” Mecklin said. “She hates the Bureau.”

“You ever met a wife that didn’t? Same goes for the husbands of the female agents.”

Mecklin muttered something.

Sam hesitated. “I need someone like you, but I have to tell you up front that the only fast track I’m on has Fargo written in big letters at every station. Still interested?”

“I’m listening.”

But not committing.

Sam didn’t blame him. Nobody joined the Bureau to end up in North Dakota.

“If I call L.A. and ask for follow-up on the de Santos clan,” Sam said, “I might get it sometime this century and I might not, no matter how many priority stamps are on the request.”

“Who’d you piss off in L.A.?”

“Hurley.”

“Christ Jesus.” Mecklin coughed. “I’ll back-channel it and see what I can do.”

“Thanks.”

“No promises,” Mecklin said. “They’re all real busy covering mosques and their asses for the time when something blows up. And it will.”

“Die or fly, let me know.”

“I will. And Groves?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for sending me to my kid’s party. She had a grin when she saw me that I’ll never forget. Makes all the rest of the shit I work with not quite so ugly, if you know what I mean.”

For the second time Sam was jealous. He didn’t even have a wife to yell at him when he came home late, much less a kid to grin and be happy to see daddy.

“You’re welcome,” Sam said. “If something pops I’ll keep your name out of it.”

“Do that.” Mecklin blew out a long breath. “Hurley. Of all the people to piss off. You know he’s going to be director in a few years, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll write to you in Fargo.”