Tax Assassin (12 page)

“
But you’ll keep them
safe?”

“
I’ll do what I can,” Seth
said. “The easiest way to get you to give up your location is to
convince you something has happened to Éowyn or Ava. If you hear
something, call me.”

“
I don’t have a cell phone
anymore. Oh,” Vivian nodded.

“
Right. You don’t have one
so they can’t find you.”

“
I’ll call you from the
room,” Vivian said. “What are you going to do?”

“
I’ll try to find the
bastard before he finds you,” Seth said.

Vivian nodded and zipped her suitcase
closed.

“
Can you promise me one
thing?” Vivian asked.

“
Sure.”

“
If something happens,”
Vivian said. “Will you take care of Éowyn and Amelie? No matter
what. Please.”

“
I will.”

“
Good.”

The front door bell rang and Vivian adjusted
her demeanor to practiced perfect. Seth put the suitcase on the
ground, and she wheeled it to the doorway. Dale carried her
suitcase down the stairs. Seth followed Vivian to the entryway.

“
Jeb, thank you for
rescuing me from . . .” Vivian sneered at Seth.
“ . . . this.”

She kissed Jeb’s cheek. Over her shoulder,
Jeb glanced at Seth. Seth mouthed, “Mother-in-law,” and
shrugged.

“
Come on, Viv,” Sheriff Jeb
Elliot said. “Let’s get you out of here.”

Vivian hugged Amelie. With a turn of her
head, she left the house. Éowyn followed. Maresol closed the front
door.

“
What would be good for
you?” Seth put his hands on Ava’s shoulders. His eyes were soft and
kind.

“
Catch a murderer,” Ava’s
eyes shot fire. She spun in place and marched up the
stairs.

Chuckling, Maresol went back into the
kitchen.

“
Are you coming O’Malley,
or am I going to have to catch this guy myself?” Ava yelled from
his office.

He limped up the stairs.

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FOURTEEN

When the doorbell rang at 2:30 in the
morning, Seth looked up at Ava. She raised an eyebrow, smirked, and
got up from Mitch’s chair. Since her mother and sister had left,
they had been working non-stop trying to find Bella’s murderer. She
had emailed and badgered police departments across the country for
parking tickets or other violations around the time when the
murders had been committed. Seth had worked his connections to see
which property had been sold to the Army. They were definitely
making progress. He was confident they would have the killer’s name
by morning.

Seth got up from his chair and followed Ava
to the entryway. She glanced at him, before opening the door. Her
old friend, colleague, and FBI forensics mentor Robert Parrish,
also known as Blood Spatter Bob, stood in the doorway. He stepped
aside to reveal the three other members of Ava’s old laboratory
team – Nelson Weeks, Leslie McClintock, and Fran Dekay. They had
worked for Ava until she was relieved of duty because her father
had used his connections to place her in the job. Collectively,
they were also the Denver Police Department’s backup forensic
laboratory. They had just come off their shift at the lab.

One at a time, her friends held Ava and
whispered their condolences. Seth took their coats and hung them on
a nearby coat rack. Bob shook Seth’s hand.

“
Good of you to come,” Seth
said.

“
How is she?” Bob said in a
low tone.

“
Shut down,” Seth said.
“Wants to catch a killer first.”

Bob nodded. Ava looked up from her
conversation with Leslie.

“
Please, would you like to
come in?” Seth asked.

He made a vague gesture to the house. Bob
walked through the kitchen to the den area. Fran went to the
kitchen and began digging around in the refrigerator, while Nelson
sat down on the couch. Ava stopped to look at a picture of Leslie’s
six-month-old son on Leslie’s phone.

“
Maresol left dinner for
you,” Seth said to Fran. “It’s in the oven. She said it should be
warm, but to give it a few minutes at 350.”

“
Great!” Fran turned on the
oven and put things back in the refrigerator.

“
How did she know we’d be
here?” Nelson asked.

“
She’s a smart lady, but
it’s not a huge leap,” Seth said. “Did you work on the case
tonight?”

“
Cases,” Bob said. “Plus,
those marshals?”

“
Jasper and Kowalski?” Ava
asked.

“
Shot each other,” Leslie
said.

“
Or that’s what it looks
like,” Nelson said.

“
They’re dead?” Seth
asked.

“
Dead. One of
them . . . uh . . .” Leslie squinted and looked at
Bob for confirmation. “Jasper?”

“
Jasper survived the
shooting,” Bob said. “Called 911. By the time they got there, he
wasn’t able to speak. Died in the ambulance on the way to the
hospital.”

“
They have nothing?” Ava’s
rich voice cracked with fatigue.

“
We have something,” Fran
said. “Don’t worry, Ava. They don’t fool us. Not for one minute.
Now let’s eat, and we can discuss all the gory details over
dinner.”

Ava’s colleagues moved to sit at the bar
between the kitchen and the den where Fran was setting out their
dinner.

“
I’m a little surprised you
don’t know this,” Bob said.

“
Me?” Seth
asked.

“
Jasper mentioned your name
when he called,” Bob said. “Something . . . I wrote
it down.”

Bob fished around in his pockets for his
reading glasses.

“
O’Malley,” Bob said.
“
Tell
or
sell
and then it’s
garbled.”

“
I have the recording on my
phone,” Nelson held his phone out to Seth.

“
They thought he had
something to tell you,” Fran looked up from where she was plating
enchiladas. “But we think it’s something you need to let people
know.”

Seth shrugged and took the phone from
Nelson. He played the recording once, and then again.

Both times he heard: “O-mmm-lly,
f-s-t . . . eh . . . l.” He knew why
they thought it was “O’Malley, tell . . . ,” but he
didn’t think they were right. He looked up at Bob and shook his
head.

“
You’re the last person to
have had a real conversation with them,” Bob said. “The marshals
will be here early tomorrow to get you.”

“
I have a murderer to
catch,” Seth said. “I can’t really spend a day hanging out with
them.”

“
We’ll have to be on our
way then,” Ava said.

Seth’s worried eyes flicked to look at
her.

“
Chicken with no cheese for
you,” Fran took a small dish out of the oven and gave it to Nelson.
“Maresol knows how you feel about cheese.”

“
Me?” Nelson smiled. “I
love cheese. It’s just not good for my figure.”

Nelson patted his flat, bodybuilder’s
abs.

“
Are you eating?” Fran
asked Ava. She shook her head. “Seth?”

“
No thanks,” Seth
said.

“
More for us,” Bob
said.

Ava’s lab team fell silent while they ate.
When Ava ran the team, they’d eaten dinner here at least once a
week. When they were nearly done, Bob cleared his throat.

“
We should talk and get out
of here,” Bob said.

“
Right, we don’t want to
know more than we can testify too,” Fran said.

“
Exactly,” Bob said. “Have
you heard from your mother? Sister?”

“
So far, so good,” Ava
said.

“
That’s a relief,” Leslie
said.

Nelson, Fran and Bob nodded in
agreement.

“
Are you still working on
the tickets?” Nelson asked.

“
I’ve received information
from seventeen cities,” Ava said.

“
What’s this?” Bob
asked.

“
We’re testing Éowyn’s idea
that over the course of all these years, this guy might have
received a parking ticket or a speeding ticket or something,
somewhere,” Ava said. “You know, one in this city, another in that
one. It’s a real needle in a haystack.”

“
Might not pan out,” Seth
said.

“
I have all the paid and
unpaid tickets for the weeks before and the week after the
murders,” Ava said. “It’s a lot to get through.”

“
Why don’t you send me what
you have?” Nelson asked.

“
You’re sure?” Ava
asked.

“
Of course,” Nelson said.
“It’ll only take a half hour or so to see if I can find the same
person. I can start it while we talk.”

“
You should check license
plates, in case he had fake IDs,” Ava said.

“
Make and model,” Seth
said. “Even if he rents, he’s likely to get the same vehicle every
time. Something he likes and trusts.”

“
Sure,” Nelson
nodded.

“
In all the places?” Seth
asked.

“
Of course,” Nelson
smiled.

“
Nelson was my data geek,”
Ava said.

“
Is,” Nelson took his
laptop out of his backpack and turned it on. “But I won’t ruin the
surprise.”

“
What?” Ava
asked.

“
Send me the files,” Nelson
said. Ava jogged out of the room.

“
Let’s talk murder first,
and lab second,” Bob said. “I want to get Seth’s take on the
recording.”

“
I heard what you heard,”
Seth said. “And . . . I have a sense that what I
hear isn’t what he’s saying.”

“
Exactly,” Bob said. “Any
ideas?”

“
None,” Seth said. “What do
you know about Jasper and Kowalski?”

“
They were killed with
bullets from each other’s Glock 23s,” Leslie said. “U.S. Marshal’s
Service-issued weapons. Ballistics matched their service
records.”

“
Notice any beef between
them when you talked to them?” Bob asked.

“
No,” Seth said. “They
seemed like they’d been partners a long time and knew each other
well. They moved, and even talked, in sync.”

He looked up to make sure Ava was still
upstairs.

“
They didn’t like Alvin
much,” Seth said. “But I doubt they killed him.”

“
How did they seem when you
talked to them?” Fran asked.

“
Angry,” Seth
said.

“
At each other?” Bob
asked.

“
The situation,” Seth said.
“They felt bad about Bella. We all do.”

With his words, a cloud of sorrow came over
them. Leslie looked away. Nelson focused on his computer. Fran went
to the sink, and Bob cleared his throat.

“
One thing,” Seth said.
“They had no idea how Bella knew her father was going to be in
town. And I don’t think they were faking. They were freaked out
when she called and even more disturbed when she received
permission to see him. We haven’t been able to track who approved
all of that or how it went down. Jasper and Kowalski were going to
do that when they left the hospital.”

“
You think it was a hit on
both of them?” Nelson said.

“
Bella didn’t just get in
the way?” Leslie asked.

“
It was a hit,” Seth
said.

FIFTEEN

The team fell silent while they focused on
the food in front of them.

“
What did you find out?”
Ava asked as she came back into the room. “I mean, I’m gonna miss
Bella for the rest of my life. And my dad? I . . .
Anyway, I have a lifetime to feel bad and cry and beat my chest and
be mad at God. But I can only find her killer now, before he
disappears somewhere. So what can you tell me about her
murder?”

“
Self-guided bullets,” Bob
said.

“
Military,” Leslie said.
“
Very
hush, hush,
and experimental.”

“
I found a picture of a
test of them on the Internet,” Nelson said. “But when I called
Sandia National Labs, where the bullets were tested, they kind of
freaked out. I was able to find out through a military buddy of
mine that they’re missing some ammo.”

“
From Sandia?” Seth
asked.

Nelson nodded.

“
We were asked to determine
how the shooter managed to hit them with such accuracy,” Bob said.
“He shot through the curtain. There’s no evidence of cameras or
other surveillance in the room. How did he do it? Everyone assumed
he had visual access to the targets. The ammunition implies that he
knew where they would be sitting but couldn’t necessarily see
them.”

“
Which implicates Jasper or
Kowalski,” Seth said.

“
Right,” Bob
said.

Seth shook his head.

“
What?” Ava asked
him.

“
They’re way ahead of us,”
Seth said.

“
How else would he know
where they would be sitting?” Nelson asked.

“
I can think of three
ways,” Seth said. “Satellite imaging, heat, or radar.”