The Legacy: A Kimberly & Sykes Mystery Novel (14 page)

Harrigan got straight to the point. “The OCU - Organized Crime Unit, sent us some intelligence yesterday morning. It could be a coincidence, but, I think it might be connected to Kimberly.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences. What was the intelligence, why do you think it’s connected to Mike Kimberly?”

“The Russian mafia have a stronghold here; head honcho is a nasty piece of work, a man called Volkov, Ivan Volkov. Rumour has it, Volkov is looking for buyers for a state of the art piece of machinery. Some contraption to do with diamonds.”

Sykes was stunned. “You’re kidding me right? This Volkov has the analyzer?”

“What analyzer? Does this mean something to you?”

“Kimberly was putting the finishing touches to a unique diamond analyzer he invented. It’s worth millions, and it’s missing. We’ve been keeping it under wraps. If it gets out we don’t have it, our investors will go ballistic and are shares will tank. The corporation will go under.”

Harrigan leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles. “Like you said, no such thing as a coincidence. It sounds like Volkov managed to get his hands on it. Any idea how?”

Sykes sat back, unaware his head was slightly nodding. Does your Russian have ties to gambling?”

Harrigan moved to the edge of his seat and loomed over his desk. “He does indeed. He launders his money through a couple of the loan sharks. The OCU are working with the IRS and the FBI on that angle. They have him on their radar.”

“We’ve got a guy, Frank Daniels, one of the executives. He was the point person with Kimberly He is a big time gambler, and I mean high leagues. "

Harrigan pumped his fist in the air and settled back in his chair. “Yes! Tell me everything you know about Daniels, I’ll run his name.” Harrigan’s fingers were already typing on his keyboard.

Sykes spent half an hour sharing what he knew about Daniels. After explaining the working relationship between Daniels and Kimberly, Sykes went on to tell Harrigan about the missing analyzer, but held back mention of the missing diamonds. The rumor about the analyzer was already out there, he could at least try to make sure the investors didn’t hear about the missing diamonds as well. Harrigan informed Sykes he would update the OCU straight away.

Sykes left the detective’s office lost in thought. What was the connection between Daniels and Volkov? How did Volkov get hold of the analyzer? He reached his car, turning to the sound of his name being called. Harrigan was waving madly from the door of the police station.

“Get back here!”

Sykes ran back, responding to the urgency in Harrigan’s voice.

“I just got a call from the coroner! She found scopolamine in Kimberly’s body. He died from anaphylactic shock!”

“I didn’t know Kimberly had allergies. What was he taking scopolamine for, what is it?” Sykes said frowning.

“He didn’t. Scopolamine is nasty. People have no control over what they do under the influence. Decades ago, it was used as truth serum. Based on the quantity found in his body, it was used to make him talk. The KGB used it a lot; yet another connection to the Russian Mafia. Traces of the dust were found on Kimberly’s face. Someone blew it in his face, inhaling a few specs is enough to make him powerless. The coroner also found bruising in his mouth. She believes the bottles of scotch we forced into his mouth to make him swallow. This is now a murder investigation.”

Murder. Sykes sat in his car and let the news sink in. He was disturbed by the untidy scene at Kimberly’s and taken with the empty bottles assumed Kimberly was drinking again and not looking after himself. His assumptions had caused him to focus his hunt completely in the wrong direction for the analyzer and diamonds.

Sykes sighed. “
Lauren, your dad was murdered
.” He could picture the look on her face when he delivered the bombshell. He shook the image from his mind; he wasn’t ready to face her with the news; the truth would have to wait. First, he would inform Smith.

Sykes had forgotten to charge his cell phone, so the call was brief. Smith was flabbergasted and peppered him with questions he couldn’t answer. He was relieved when his cell phone battery gave up. There were so many things he needed to think about he decided to go for a long drive, plugging the phone into the charger.

Sykes’ Audi TT, a vehicle made to manoeuvre the winding Pacific Coast Highway, purred along as he took it through its paces. He focused on double-declutching and heel & toeing through the gears, letting his hands work the soft leather steering wheel around the sharp bends and twists of the curving road. The hum of the engine filtered out brain noise and let his logical brain function more efficiently as it sorted through everything he knew about Kimberly, the project, and Daniels.

After a drive up the coast, Sykes pulled into a viewpoint and checked his phone. There was enough of a charge to make a call. Calling Smith again he finished off the earlier conversation and then headed back to town. It was time to talk to Lauren.

Lauren didn’t say anything over the intercom when she buzzed Sykes into the apartment building. Sykes started for the stairs, which would be quicker, but changed his mind and waited for the old elevator to make its way down to the first floor. He wanted to find the right words to say to Lauren, his ride in the elevator would provide him the time to do so.

However, when Sykes arrived at Lauren’s apartment, she didn’t open the door when he knocked.

“I know about my dad,” she said softly from the other side of the door. “Detective Harrigan called me earlier.”

“I’m sorry Lauren. I wanted to tell you myself, in person. I should have known he would call you.” Sykes leaned his head on the door, placing one hand flat against the heavy frame. “Do you need anything? Is there anything I can do?” He could hear Lauren’s quiet breathing and his chest tightened. “Lauren?”

“I’m not up for company. I need some time alone…please…I – ”

“I understand. Call me if you need anything. I’ll check in with you later.”

Sykes heard Lauren’s footfalls as she walked away from the door. His heart ached but he felt powerless to comfort her. He walked down the stairs.

For the next few days, Sykes had no real contact with Lauren. Though he called every day, she didn’t answer the phone, choosing instead to text him. She appreciated his calls, however, needed to be alone. Having done and said, the same thing to his friends when his wife died, Sykes forced himself to give her the space she requested.

With the news that the Russian Mafia had possession of the analyzer, Sykes got to work. He needed to find out how they knew about the analyzer, how they found out Kimberly had it, and why they needed to kill him to get it. The Russians had to have had inside knowledge. It was time to bring his full security team into the investigation.

Three days later, Sykes’ met Smith, Hart, Bertold, and St. John in the boardroom.

“Where’s Daniels? Why isn’t he here,” Smith demanded.

“Gentlemen,” Sykes said as he sat down at the table, “Daniels has disappeared. He gave the security team the slip. They are looking for him, and, rest assured, we will find him.”

“He gave them the slip? Why was he under surveillance?” Bertold demanded.

“Daniels is responsible for the theft of the analyzer and a lot more diamonds than we imagined.”

The silence was deafening. Smith and Hart, both forewarned had grim looks while St. John and Bertold looked around the table, confused.

“What on earth are you talking about?” St. John demanded.

“Once Kimberly’s death was ruled murder, it only made sense that the killer had the analyzer
and
diamonds.”

“We have the analyzer, you found it at that woman’s house,” St. John said with a frown.

Sykes turned and addressed Smith, “I spoke with the lab just a short while ago, They are finishing the last of their tests on it. It is obviously one of Kimberly’s later prototypes, not the finished analyzer. The engineers said it is highly sophisticated and they are confident they can get it fully operational, but not for another few weeks. Kimberly didn’t leave any notes, not that we found anyway, although there is enough there for them to work with. The Russians have the finished analyzer. They killed Kimberly for it.”

“What Russians?”

“What?”

“You said Daniels’ had it!”

“Sykes! Explain yourself man!” demanded Berthold.

Sykes stood up and walked around the table as he spoke.

“When I met with Detective Harrigan he told me the organized crime unit had received intelligence the Russian Mafia, lead by a character called Ivan Volkov, were looking for buyers for a specialized diamond mining machine.” Sykes paused to let the gasps subside. “I didn’t tell you because, well, frankly, I still didn’t know whom to trust. Remember, we have suspected a saboteur in our midst for months – an insider had to have told the Russians about the analyzer.”

There was a collective murmur of agreement.

“Daniels was Kimberly’s point person so it made sense to dig deeper into what Daniels was doing, and who he did it with. At the same time, Peter Bagshott, the lab director, contacted me reporting inconsistencies with the first set of core samples they inspected as part of the annual vault inventory.

“Initial investigations revealed Daniels has been in the lab frequently, often omitting to sign in, as is required. From the videos, we see him have a few words with the technicians – no particular tech, just whoever is nearby, and then he goes into the vault. We have no video coverage in the vault so we don’t know which of the samples he messed with – we are still working on that. So far, we have identified twenty three.”

Berthold leaned forward, “What’s he up to?” he asked.

“It looks like Daniels’ has removed chunks of the high yield core and replaced them with chunks of dirt from old, non-yield cores.”

St. John tipped his head to the side and scratched his chin. “Why on earth would he do that?”

“God damn it! He’s stealing the raw diamonds!” Hart exclaimed banging his fist on the table.

“Yes, that’s the only reasonable conclusion Bagshott can come up with.”

Smith stood and walked to the antique wood trolley in the corner of the room. Picking a bottle of fine Scotch, he poured himself a double. “Is he working alone?” he asked as he swirled the dark amber liquid in his glass.

“No. Each sample is tagged and logged. It would be far too great a coincidence, and I don’t believe in them, for him to know which were the high yield cores and which were the old, low yield. Somebody fed him that information, or, gave him access to the secured files. Either way it means he was working with an accomplice in the lab, that’s another reason why I am keeping things under the radar, I don’t want his accomplice to get suspicions we are on to him. Bagshott’s working with us after the staff leave for the day.”

St. John sat back in his chair, his elbow resting on the arm and his hand propping up his chin. Sykes watched him, waiting for the question he was formulating.

“Shall we assume you know who this lab rat is?”

“Yes. I will come to that shortly.” responded Sykes. “We should assume that Mike Kimberly knew something fishy was going on. The analyzer would have been providing inconsistent data. If the analyzer was as sophisticated as Kimberly said it was, Kimberly may have known for a while. Whether he shared this with Daniels, we won’t know until we talk to him.”

Sykes walked to the drinks trolley and felt all eyes follow his every step. He came back to the table with a bottle of Perrier and two ice cubes in a crystal water glass. As he poured the water over the ice, he said: “We checked the requisition Daniels gave the lab for the last batch of stones.”

“Don’t tell me it’s worse than we imagined?” Hart asked.

“I’m afraid so. The requisition was forged. Daniels’ altered the number – from fifteen to twenty five.”

Smith’s eyes bugged, his eyebrows arched, pushing the frown on his forehead up into his scalp. “How the hell could he get away with that?”

“It was done very well. Definitely a professional forger. Under an ultraviolet light, the two inks are slightly different. Daniels has twenty five million dollars worth of diamonds. I believe Daniels most likely found Kimberly dead and it worked in his favor – he kept the diamonds meant for Kimberly’s tests, as well as the extra he took for himself.”

“That doesn’t make sense,” Hart interjected. “If the Russian’s have the analyzer, and you still haven’t told us how they got it, why won’t they also have the diamonds?”

Sykes sat down and quietly laid out the events as he saw them. Sykes thought it odd that the Russians would be going to great lengths to find a buyer for the analyzer if they had twenty five million dollars worth of diamonds. He thought it more likely that Daniels told the Russians where Kimberly could be found, and the Russian’s killed Kimberly to get him to reveal where the analyzer was. They probably moved faster than Daniels expected, and so, when he went to give Kimberly the diamonds, I suspect he found him dead. I don’t think the Russians knew anything about the diamonds.

“Now we know why he didn’t show up today! He must have known you were on to him.” Bertold said softly.

Sykes agreed. “He has been playing us the last couple of weeks. He knew the Russians had the analyzer from the beginning.”

Smith stood up and began to pace. “We need to find Daniels. It will be common knowledge that you have been interviewing the lab people. He is probably trying to get out of the country as we speak. Find him before he does!”