The Color of Death (28 page)

Kate ignored the chill that was gathering under her skin. “Sounds good.”

He almost laughed. Nothing sounded good to him but grabbing her and running like hell. Too bad that being on the run wouldn’t get the job done.

“We’re going to make a list of everyone Lee knew in the jewelry trade,” Sam said. “Then we’re going to make a list of everyone on the strike force. Then we’ll see how much the lists overlap.”

“What if they don’t?”

“Then we make a list of friends of friends. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a link between Lee and the FBI.”

“There’s always a pattern, is that it? Like cutting rough?”

He smiled slightly. “That’s one way of putting it.”

“So all we have to do is throw away the facts that don’t matter.”

“All.” Sam laughed wearily. “Yeah, that’s all. Hope you weren’t planning on much sleep. It’s going to be a long night.”

“Sleep? What’s that?”

Kate took the yellow pad, flipped to a new page, and drew a stark black line down the center of the page. In neat block letters, she started writing down the name of everyone Lee knew in the jewelry business. Sam was right. It was going to be a long night.

But at least she wouldn’t be spending it alone.

Glendale

Saturday

11:08
P.M
.

Kirby was driving a dark blue
rental car when he closed in on Kate Chandler’s house. The Lexus wasn’t flashy, but it was a long way from an urban beater. A man in a suit driving an expensive car was assumed to be a solid citizen returning from a late flight. He was a lot less likely to be stopped and questioned by a cruising squad car than some mutt in dirty jeans driving a clapped-out Ford.

If anyone noticed that Kirby was wearing a black turtleneck under the suit coat, that his pants were black jeans instead of true slacks, and that he was sporting black running shoes instead of loafers, it still wouldn’t matter. Lots of middle-level workers dressed like that in the west.

The briefcase on the seat next to Kirby was glossy leather and entirely fitting for the car and the dark suit. The fact that the case was packed with burglar’s tools didn’t show on the outside.

Everything was looking routine until he saw the plain four-door sedan parked in front of Kate’s house. The Voice hadn’t said anything about a guard on the female, but the car might as well have great big letters on its side announcing “This turd on wheels is official property.”

Only cops drove cheap American sedans.

Shit.

For a few seconds he thought about turning around, driving away, and to hell with the money, but he was revising his plans before the idea of walking out had a chance to take hold. It wasn’t just the money, although money was always useful. It was just that he’d been…anticipating.

Warm flesh. Cold steel. Screams that never made it past duct tape. Panicked eyes. The scent of blood, the hot spill of it, the rush that told him he was still young.

Nothing wrong with a man enjoying his work.

He drove by the parked car. He couldn’t see anyone through the windows. Maybe the cop was stretched out in the back of the sedan, sleeping on the job. Maybe he was an off-duty cop and her boyfriend and was inside the house. Either way, no alarm would go out on the sedan’s radio. But if the guy was inside the house, that was different.

Kirby thought about it as he scanned the surrounding houses. None of them had lights on. In neighborhoods like this, most of the people who lived there were old and went to bed early or young and had the kind of jobs that got them up at dawn. In the end, young or old, everyone went to bed before ten.

The target house had lights on. Unlike the neighbors, somebody was up and around.

Son of a whore. Decent people are asleep by now.

He memorized the houses in the immediate area, their approaches, their fences. The target house had empty lots across the street. They wouldn’t be empty long because a developer’s big sign announced that apartments were on the way. Kirby didn’t care beyond the fact that the sign might provide cover for him.

He drove on, turned right, and turned right again on the next street. The house directly behind the target was weather-beaten, unlit, and had a
FOR RENT
sign stuck into the dead lawn. The houses on either side were dark, with older cars parked in the driveways.

After another drive around the block from the other direction,
Kirby went to a bar he’d spotted in a small shopping center a mile away. He sat in the parking lot and dialed up White’s cell phone. A little help might be smart.

No one answered.

He dialed again, hung up, then called a third time. It was their prearranged signal to pick up even if you were jumping the old lady.

No answer.

No voice mail either. Not that Kirby would have left a message even if he’d been able to. The business he and White did together wasn’t the type that you felt good about leaving voice mails.

So it can’t look like a whack job, and she either has a guard or a boyfriend that drives a government special.

Cursing silently, Kirby considered the possibilities. If she’d been alone, he wouldn’t have cared about the lights being on, but she wasn’t alone and he did care. He’d have to wait until the guard or boyfriend or whatever left or they got tired of screwing and fell asleep.

And here he’d been all psyched up and ready to go.

He got out of the car, locked his briefcase and suit coat in the trunk, and walked toward the bar. In his dark clothes, he was just one more shadow in the parking lot.

Glendale

Saturday

11:35
P.M
.

The wreckage of mostly eaten pizza
and too many cups of coffee lay across one of Kate’s worktables. Another table was covered with Sam’s files. A third sprouted sticky notes with information that hadn’t yet been assigned to a category. Kate sat at the fourth table with tablets labeled Prime Suspects, Persons Unknown, Last Resort, When Pigs Fly, Active, or Pipeline scattered in front of her. Sam was right next to her. Because neither of them had the skill to display complex linkages on the computer, they were working the old-fashioned way—legal tablets, pencils, and erasers.

And sticky notes. Lots and lots of sticky notes.

The computer was within arm’s reach for the times when Sam needed to get public—or not so public—information on the people they were discussing.

“Okay,” Sam said, “it’s your turn to read. Take it from the beginning.”

Again?
Kate wanted to bang her head on the table, but silently reached for a yellow tablet instead. When Sam had told her that a lot of investigative work was a waste of time, Kate hadn’t really believed him. She did now.

“June of last year,” she said in a flat voice, reading the time line they had been working on for too many hours already, with nothing to show for it but a headache and dirty coffee cups. “Arthur McCloud buys blue sapphire rough at a CGSI auction. Six bidders. Presumption is that McCloud bragged about Seven Sins to one or more of the unsuccessful bidders. Same six bidders attended a different auction in Texas on the day Lee is presumed to have been killed and the sapphires stolen.”

“Put those bidders on the Last Resort list,” Sam said, lifting a cup of cold coffee. “Even if they bailed on the morning of the Texas auction instead of the afternoon, they’d have had a hell of a time getting in place in time to pick up Lee at the airport and follow him to the SoupOr Shrimp. So far, their alibis look good. Someone in headquarters is running their financials for me. If something pops, we’ll take a look at it. Until then, forget it.”

Kate pulled pink sticky notes with six names listed and put them on a legal tablet whose heading read Last Resort. None of the notes had opportunity or means written across the bottom. The motive—greed—was represented by a big G on each note.

“In addition to McCloud, three other people were known to have information about what was in the missing courier’s packet,” Kate continued. “The cutter, the owner of Mandel Inc., and the owner’s wife. None of these four—”

“They don’t even make the Last Resort list,” Sam finished when Kate paused to turn to a new page. “McCloud has no motive except money, and he’s got plenty of that. Money isn’t a motive that flies with you or your parents. And even if it did, there’s not one clue in anyone’s financial records that hints at money from a questionable source. Yes, we have a forensic accountant working on your family in case I missed something, but my gut isn’t buying it. Without motive, opportunity and means don’t add up to spit. Put those four names on the When Pigs Fly list.”

Kate duly transferred the white sticky notes to another legal tablet with the appropriate heading.

“It’s probable, but unproved,” she continued reading, “that Norm
Gallagher knew what Lee was carrying, and when. As for motivation, so far there isn’t any. I haven’t been able to reach Norm to ask him if he knew.”
I haven’t even been able to tell him that the FBI is assuming Lee is dead.

Not that Sam would have let her. That was privileged information. Even her parents had promised to tell no one about their son’s near-certain death.

Sam peeled the note with Norm’s name off the table and pressed it onto the tablet labeled Active.

“Approximately two days after the courier’s death,” she read, “Seguro Jimenez is approached by a man or a woman who may or may not have been blonde and blue-eyed. Said unknown person had one of the Seven Sins. Seguro claims not to have purchased it.”

Sam reached out, pulled the red sticky note with Persons Unknown on it, and stuck the note to a third legal tablet, which was labeled Prime Suspects. Seguro’s name, on a pink note, went to another tablet labeled Pipeline.

With a stifled yawn, Kate went back to reading aloud. “The first investigation into the missing courier was conducted by…”

While she recited the dreary facts that had led nowhere in an investigation that had interested the various local, state, and federal cops not at all, Sam watched Kate with a gentleness and hunger he kept hidden from her. If nothing else came of the past tedious hours, at least she could now recite the facts surrounding her half brother’s death without flinching. It wasn’t much, but he’d learned through the years that a little something was a whole lot better than nothing at all.

She flipped the page without transferring any sticky notes anywhere. None of the investigations had turned up anything worth pursuing, period.

“You think the coffee is done yet?” Sam asked.

“I think you drink too much coffee.”

“You too. You want a cup?”

“What do you think?”

“I think the coffee is ready.”

Sam went to the kitchen, inspected the state of the coffeemaker, and decided it was close enough for government work. He poured two mugs and headed back to the workroom. As he did, he automatically checked the status lights on the alarm system.

All green.

“Want some pizza with it?” he asked, setting the mug in front of her.

She shook her head, frowning at something on the page in front of her.

“You sure?” he asked. “There might not be any left if you change your mind in a few minutes.”

She half smiled and waved toward the remains of their hasty dinner. “I’m sure. Knock yourself out.”

He pulled the mostly empty pizza box closer and settled in to clean up everything but the grease spots on the cardboard. While he chewed, he listened, waiting for the instant when the same facts assembled in a different way would lead to new insights, new suspects,
something
.

When Kate got to the part where she received the death threat, he tried not to think about how satisfying it would be to strangle the cowardly son of a bitch.

I have to catch him first. One fact at a time, one step at a time, go over it again and again, repeat as necessary. Something will pop. It has to.

Kate transferred another red note to the Prime Suspects tablet. This note said Person Unknown/Death Threat. When she started to recite the list of dealers who had attended the same conventions in the months since Purcell surfaced with one of the Seven Sins, Sam interrupted.

“I’ve got Mario on those,” Sam said. “Unless a name appears on another tablet heading, put them all under Long Shot.”

Both of them already knew that none of the dealer/civilian expert names appeared under any other heading, except for Peyton Hall, CGSI, Purcell, and Sizemore Security Consulting. But even after their names were stuck to the Active tablet, the tablet labeled
Long Shot still sprouted so many notes that it looked like a drunken checkerboard.

“What about Mandel Inc.?” Kate asked. “They’re civilians.”

“Your parents said no one in the organization had access to the courier routes, times, or goods.”

“Someone could have hacked into the files.”

Sam almost smiled at her determination to treat everyone as an equal suspect. When he’d told her that each time they went through the facts again, they had to treat it like the first time, he hadn’t expected the level of intensity and unrelenting concentration she’d given to the job.

“The Mandel Inc. computer that deals with routes, couriers, and so on, isn’t connected to the Internet, so it can’t be hacked into,” he reminded her. “Only your parents have the computer entry code. Same for Sizemore’s company and CGSI. Unless you tell me something new, your parents stay in the When Pigs Fly category. The jury is still out on the rest of the folks.”

“Okay.” Absently, Kate rubbed her neck. “Now we’re at the part where it gets complicated. Your turn.”

Without meaning to, both of them looked at the table that was nearly covered with sticky notes waiting to be assigned. Many of the names were duplicates, which was one way of keeping track of how many “hits” each name had in the course of the investigation, and whether the hits came under motive, opportunity, and/or means.

Sam picked up his own tablet and began reading. “Crime strike force personnel. Pending further investigation, assumed motive is money.”

Another flurry of notes were lifted from the table and put into tablets. All but one name went into the Active category. Sam’s name went on the Last Resort list.

“When Pigs Fly,” Kate said, yanking off the note and putting it on another tablet.

“What if all this is an elaborate ruse on my part to—”

“Oh, bull,” Kate interrupted. “Don’t waste my time.”

“What makes you so certain?”

She rolled her eyes, then saw that he was serious. “There are some things a man can’t fake.”

“Emotions? Darling, I hate to tell you but—”

“Erections,” she said succinctly. “You might screw me once just because I was handy and you were horny, but it takes real passion to do it four times in a row.”

“Stamina too.”

“Exactly.”

“For you too.”

“You noticed?”

He smiled and touched the corner of her mouth. “I noticed.”

She kissed his fingertip. “And you’re gentle with me. At least you are now that you don’t think I’m a crook. You weren’t very nice before that.”

“I’m not paid to be nice.”

“See? There you go. But you’re nice to me and you’re innocent.” She looked at the tablet he was holding. “How many of the people on the strike force had a previous connection to Lee or Mandel Inc.?”

“As far as we can discover from your parents’ records, no one.”

“What about Sizemore Security Consulting?” Kate said. “Lee worked for them a couple of times.”

“Sizemore’s company isn’t part of the strike force.”

“Puh-lease. Are you telling me that the Legend doesn’t know everything that jerk Kennedy knows?”

“No. I’m telling you it’s an informal rather than a formal connection.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Kate muttered. “Any more formal and they’d be married.”

Firmly she pulled up a slip with Sizemore’s name and stuck it to the Active file. Then she wrote “/Lee” on the note and looked at Sam defiantly.

He was smiling.

Then he took Kennedy’s name and wrote across the bottom of the note “/Lee?” The note went next to Sizemore’s in the Active category.

“Why?” Kate asked.

“They’ve been sharing information for thirty years. We’re better off assuming shared knowledge than burying our heads in the sand.”

“I’ve always thought that sounded way uncomfortable.”

“What?”

“All that sand in your eyes.”

Sam shook his head, picked up his tablet, and began reading again. “As much as I’d like to pin a rose on Bill Colton, so far all I have against him is his sweet personality. He’d cut my throat, and yours, to become SAC, but otherwise he’s clean.”

Kate took the note with Colton’s name and put it on the Active tablet.

“Why?” Sam asked, reaching for the note. “At best he’s a long shot.”

She pushed his hand away. “I don’t like him.”

“You’ve never met him.”

“I saw him. That was enough.”

“A woman of rare perception and taste.”

Smiling, Sam went back to reading. “On to the civilian component. Sizemore Security Consulting had the means and opportunity to take out most of the couriers. Exceptions are noted next to the courier’s name.”

Kate looked down the list of couriers. Nineteen in all. It shocked her each time she confronted it. Then she reminded herself that it was less than one percent of the jewelry courier runs in the U.S. in the same time period.

“No connection to Lee, though,” Sam said. “But the motive is there. Money. Sizemore’s company has been in a steady decline for six years. Extra cash here and there would be welcome.”

“But thanks to all these couriers getting hit when they were under Sizemore’s supposed security net, Sizemore is getting a bad reputation among its client base,” Kate said. “Whatever he got in the short run wouldn’t be worth ruining his own business, would it?”

Sam grimaced. “You’re sure about the reputation thing?”

“Very. People in the jewelry trade gossip. Sizemore Security Consulting isn’t getting any compliments.”

“Well, damn. Unless he’s gone around the bend, he doesn’t have an obvious motive. Or maybe he’s socking away the proceeds of crime for his retirement.”

“Does that fit with his personality?” Kate asked.

“I’m no shrink, but it’s not sounding real good to me. On the other hand, who knows what makes people go postal? He could see old age closing in on him and all he has to fend it off with is an FBI pension and a failing company. And beer.”

“True. And from what you said, he’s certainly arrogant enough to be a crook.”

“Yeah.” Sam looked off into a distance only he could see. “In some ways the line between cop and crook is a lot thinner than we like to think about, much less talk about.”

After a moment Sam shrugged and moved Sizemore’s name from Active to Suspect. At least it was a name rather than an unknown person or persons.

“What about the other people at Sizemore’s company?” Kate asked. “Even if he’s innocent as a baby’s smile, there could be someone inside the company using or selling information, couldn’t there?”

“We’re checking into that. So far no good. The son is a hard worker who wants to please Daddy. The daughter is a hard worker who keeps the operation together. The third in command, Jason Gallagher, is—”

“Who?” Kate cut in, surprised.

“Jason Gallagher.”

“I think—I can’t be certain—but I think Norm’s brother is a Jason. At least, his nickname is Jase.”

“You never said anything about a brother.”

“That’s because I don’t really know much about Norm, except that Lee is—” She stopped abruptly, then continued after only a brief pause, “Lee was over the moon about him. That’s all Lee
talked about when he called me. That and the fact that Norm was urging him to tell Mom and Dad. Norm’s family was very supportive of him.” Frowning, Kate pulled the clip out of her hair and rubbed her scalp as though that would stimulate her memory. “Lee said that was something he and Norm had in common. Jase supported Norm and I supported Lee. Given the context, I just assumed that Jase was Norm’s brother.”