The Color of Death (11 page)

“Why did you go back to Purcell with the synthetic sapphire? What was the point of the risk?”

“I wasn’t swapping the stones for fun and profit,” she said, her voice curt. “I figured that if I had proof that the stones were the same, Purcell would have to talk to me about where it came from. And if he wouldn’t talk to me, the FBI might help him change his mind. Either way, I’d be closer to what really happened to Lee between Fort Myers, where he last called in, and Captiva Island, which was his final destination.”

“So you’re not sure where Lee went missing?” Sam asked.

“No. I concentrated on McCloud first, but he never heard from Lee. At that point I worked with the assumption that Lee stopped on Sanibel for lunch at his favorite café.”

Sam remembered one of the entries in the folder he’d spent most of the afternoon memorizing. “McCloud lives on Captiva.”

She nodded. “Lee was taking the finished stones back to him.”

“Seven Sins. Were they all alike?”

“No. Each had a different cut, a different weight. It was a real challenge to maximize the rough and at the same time follow McCloud’s desire for seven sapphires of different shapes and the same extraordinary color.”

“Wonder why he wanted them.”

“He’s a collector. The point of collecting is to have something no one else has. The Seven Sins were just that—the rarest of the rare.”

“Worth killing for.”

“Somebody did.” Her voice, like her expression, was unhappy.

“Can you make up a list of collectors who would have wanted those gems?”

“Everyone.”

“Not everyone would kill for them,” Sam pointed out.
I hope
.

Kate fiddled with the dop on the table. “You have more faith in human nature than I do.” She released the rod. It rolled against another dop with a metallic sound. “The point is, who knew Lee had the stones
and
would kill for the Seven Sins?”

“When the FBI interviewed McCloud, he said he hadn’t told anyone about the stones.”

“What would you expect him to say, that he called every collector he could think of and crowed over his incoming goodies?”

“Is that what you think he did?”

“I don’t know, but I’m damn sure
I
didn’t tell anyone except Lee about the sapphires.”

“Who would Lee have told that he was carrying the Seven Sins?”

She started to say no one, then stopped. “He might have told his lover. I don’t know. Norm didn’t say anything about it when he called to tell me that Lee hadn’t come back to L.A. and hadn’t phoned to say where he was, or why.”

“Are you still in touch with Norm? Does he have a last name?”

“Norman Gallagher. He was so hurt when Lee just disappeared without a word. We both agreed to call the other if we heard anything.”

“Did Norm call again?”

“Just to talk. Not with news.”

“Where does Norm live?” Sam asked.

“Los Angeles. I’ll give you his address and phone, but it’s a waste of time. Norm knows less than I do about why Lee vanished.”

Sam wished he thought she was lying, but he didn’t. “Is it possible that Lee found another lover and just blew off the rest of his life?”

“Anything is possible. But probable? No. That would be against everything that Lee is.” Her eyes filled. “Was. If he’s dead, and I’m so afraid he is. Damn it.” She swiped at her tears with the back of her hand. “How long does it take before it stops hurting?”

“It never stops. You just get used to it.”

“God, you’re a fountain of human cheer.”

“You’ll get used to that too.”

Scottsdale

Wednesday evening

“You don’t know?”
Ted Sizemore stalked around his daughter’s hotel room, which was on the same floor as her lover’s—and that really pissed him off. “What the hell does that mean, ‘You don’t know’?”

Covertly, Sharon examined her nail polish. The right index finger was still chipped. She really had to do some touchup before she went out tonight. Like Sizemore, Peyton noticed every flaw in her appearance, no matter how small. It was like being in the frigging FBI again.

“Well?” Sizemore demanded.

“It means I don’t know.” She met her father’s furious temper. Or maybe it was alcohol rather than anger that had brought the flush to his cheeks. Either way, she was tired of being the target of his scream-and-stomp-around management style. “The courier was supposed to check in with us two hours ago. She hasn’t called. I don’t know why. I do know that she isn’t answering her cell.”

“Well, by God, find her!”

“The patrol put out a statewide alert for her car. Phoenix PD is checking parking lots at the stadium and airport and other large public areas where a car could be dumped and not noticed for a few
hours or days. Arizona Department of Public Safety has run all the traffic accidents since the courier last checked in. Her car wasn’t in any of those accidents. I’ve called hospitals and urgent care centers between here and Quartzite, where she last called in. Short of opening the window and yelling ‘Yoo hoo, where are you?’ I’ve done everything you suggested.”
And I did it before you suggested it, but you won’t mention that and I know better than to bring it up.
“No one with her name or ID has been admitted for treatment. No one with her name or ID has been involved in a traffic accident anywhere in the state. No one—”

“Don’t tell me your problems. Give me solutions!”

“As soon as I have one, sir, you’ll be the first to know.”

“Well, don’t sit on your ass waiting for something to drop out of the sky. Go make it happen!”

Before Sharon could tell her father what a useless boss he was, her cell phone rang. She answered it, listened, and disconnected.

“They found the courier in a motel parking lot in Quartzite,” Sharon said. “An ER doctor is picking pieces of skull out of her brain right now. Even if she wakes up, she won’t be any help. Concussions like that take away short-term memory.”

Sizemore grunted. “Standard operating procedure for the South American gangs. Beat the crap out of the victims, even if you don’t have to. What about her package?”

What do you think?
But all Sharon said was, “Branson and Sons will be spending a lot of time with their insurers, as they were using one of their own couriers.” She waited. “Don’t you want to know the courier’s chances for survival?”

“The only survival I’m interested in is my own. If we don’t get a handle on those South Americans real quick, I’ll start losing customers. I can’t afford that. And if you want to keep working for me, neither can you.”

Sharon kept her mouth closed. She knew more about the company’s finances than her father did.

And he was right.

Glendale

Wednesday night

Sam looked up from
the mug of coffee Kate had poured for him. Lee Mandel’s file lay open on the worktable next to the tool she called a dop.

“Okay,” he said. “The Bureau and the local cops agree that the rental car was returned late but intact. No popped trunk. No broken locks. Security system in working order.” He looked up. “None of the cars I’ve rented have security systems. Most of them don’t even have remote-controlled locks.”

“Try upgrading.”

“Try living on the government’s per diem for travel.”

“Just because the trunk lock wasn’t broken doesn’t mean Lee is a thief,” Kate said harshly. “The attacker or attackers could have taken the key from him.”

“Nobody reported a scuffle involving a man of Lee’s description and a white rental car.”

“Did anyone ask?”

Sam’s mouth flattened. “Look. We didn’t know where between the airport and Captiva Island the hijacking took place.
If
it took place. None of the locals were interested in having a hijacking reported in
their tourist paradise. Our men covered the bases, but it was uphill work. No one saw or heard, or wanted to. To be fair, no matter what happened, it was a long shot that anyone would have seen it, always assuming there was something to see in the first place.”

“That’s crap.” Kate’s own coffee mug slammed down on the table. “A man doesn’t just vanish into thin air between Fort Myers airport and Captiva Island.”

“You’d be surprised,” Sam said. “It’s easier than you want to believe, Kate. People with things to hide do it all the time.”

Her chin came up. Her mouth settled into a stubborn line. “You sound just like the other agents.”

“You want me to lie to you?”

“I want you to give me some credit for not being an idiot. Lee wouldn’t have done this to the people who love him. Period. If you start from there, maybe you’ll find different
useful
questions to ask.”

Sam opened his mouth, closed it, and nodded. “Point taken.”

She was too astonished to say anything.

It was very quiet while he drank coffee and tried to put himself in the shoes of a courier who knew he was carrying a million bucks, wholesale, in his palm.

Kate watched Sam curiously. Every time she thought she had him pigeonholed, he surprised her. Behind those startling blue eyes there was a first-class brain. Behind the hard line of his mouth there was a sense of humor. Behind his cop arrogance there was a willingness to learn.

It knocked her off balance.

He
knocked her off balance.

“What are you thinking?” he asked quietly.

“Um…” She didn’t know what to say. She sure wasn’t going to say that he appealed to her as a man.

“It’s a prosecutable offense to lie to an FBI officer.”

“Then you must be a real busy man.”

He grinned. “And while we’re on the subject, you can’t caper while you’re a CI.”

“Caper?”

“Switch more stones, if that’s what was going on in your head.”

She looked startled. “Would it help if I did?”

“I’ll let you know if it ever comes up.”

And he would make sure it didn’t.

He turned over some pages in the report. The silence made the rustling of the paper seem loud.

“Are trunks always forced in courier heists?” she asked after a few minutes.

He blinked, followed her train of thought, and said, “The South Americans do a lot of trunk popping. And sometimes they beat the crap out of a courier who doesn’t give up the goods quick enough.”

“Maybe that’s what happened with Lee. Maybe they beat him and hid the…result.”

“Their usual method is to leave the body as a warning to the next guy not to be a hero.”

“Lovely.”

“Yeah, they’re real sweethearts.” Sam flipped over another piece of paper, frowned, and shook his head.

“What?” she asked.

“You said something about Lee having a favorite stop on Sanibel. A café.”

“The SoupOr Shrimp. Best shrimp on Sanibel. And they had a server there with a great butt—or so Lee said. I never checked him out myself.”

“Did you tell the cops about the café?”

“Several times,” she said. “Why?”

“I don’t see any follow-up,” Sam said.

“Like what?”

“Like interviewing the staff at SoupOr Shrimp to find out if Lee was there, and if so, when, and was he alone. Simple stuff. Basic stuff.” As Sam spoke, he thumbed rapidly through the slim file. “Nope. Maybe the cops didn’t give it to us.”

“Maybe they didn’t bother in the first place,” she said acidly.

He pulled out a narrow spiral-bound notebook and wrote in it. “We’ll find out.”

“I’d rather you find out what Purcell knows.”

Sam looked at his watch. “Too late. They’ve already folded their tables, locked up the pretties, and are well into their second or third drink.”

“So go to his room.”

“He’s not registered at the hotel. Just picks up his messages at the desk three times a day.”

Kate made an impatient sound.

Sam smiled. “You can’t wait to see the look on his face when I drop my badge on him.”

She bit her lip but had to laugh anyway. “You’re so right. Payback for all his leers and nose twitching.”

Sam liked seeing her laugh way too much. It made him wonder if she tasted as tempting as she smelled.

Don’t go there.

He flipped to a new page in his notebook. “So Lee always ate at this SoupOr Shrimp place?”

“As far as I know.”

“Most couriers are careful not to have a pattern.”

“If you look hard enough, there’s always a pattern.”

He lifted his left eyebrow. “You sound certain.”

“I am. It’s what gives me the courage to take a million dollars in rough and transform it into at least double that value in cut and polished gems. Because if I miss the pattern, I get a handful of garbage and my client gets to explain to his backers where the million in rough went.”

“So cutting is just a matter of seeing the pattern?”

“And the guts to throw away what doesn’t fit.”

Sam thought about that for a few moments. Then he pushed the file toward her. “Read this. Tell me if there’s something that doesn’t fit.”

Scottsdale

Very early Thursday morning

While Kirby snapped on
exam gloves, he watched the golf cart with the Royale logo move slowly through the employee parking lot. The speed didn’t have anything to do with the guard’s alertness. The cart simply didn’t go much faster. A cigarette flared briefly, giving the guard’s face a ruddy glow against the sodium vapor lights that flooded the lot with an odd yellow color.

Now there’s a real sentry,
Kirby thought in disgust.
Just in case a sniper couldn’t find him driving under the lights, he sticks a cigarette in his mouth like a frigging laser tracker.

Even worse, the guard was as predictable as an atomic clock. Every twenty-four minutes he made another tour of the employee lot. And every twenty-four minutes he found the same thing—a two-thirds empty lot with small cars and light trucks crowded close to the nearest hotel employee entrance, and a handful of motor homes and travel trailers parked wherever a newly transplanted tree offered thin shade against the heat of day.

Purcell’s road-weary home on wheels was huddled next to a palm tree like a fat man trying to hide behind a telephone pole. Kirby glanced from the motor home to the FBI’s rolling strike force headquarters
parked less than a hundred feet away. He wasn’t worried about the agents noticing him, because they would stay locked inside until their shift change, which wasn’t for two more hours. As for sound alerting anyone, it would take a really loud noise, like a grenade or an unmuffled gunshot, to pull the agents’ attention from their earphones, computers, and official radios.

Kirby wasn’t going to make any loud noises.

As soon as the guard disappeared in the direction of the public parking lots, Kirby grabbed the small duffel bag from the passenger seat of his rental car, got quietly out, and went to Purcell’s motor home. It took less than a minute to open the service panel and disconnect the electrical leads from the big batteries.

The side door of the motor home was away from the parking lot light, which put the doorway in deep shadow. Kirby almost smiled, but he was too much of a pro to get overconfident. Opening the side door took a little longer than the service panel because Purcell hadn’t bothered to oil the lock. Even so, Kirby was well under the five minutes he’d given himself when he eased inside and shut the door.

The place smelled like stale hamburger, onions, and beer. Rhythmic snores came from the bedroom down the narrow hall to Kirby’s left. To his right was the passenger’s swivel chair and the driver’s butt-sprung armchair. Like everyone else camping in the desert, the Purcells had blacked out the wide windshield with a sunscreen that turned away heat during the day and gave privacy at night. The curtains between the driving compartment and the living area were partially closed.

No one on the outside could see anything of the interior.

Kirby waited and listened. There wasn’t any rush. Now that he was inside, he had all the time in the world or until dawn, whichever came first.

He didn’t think breaking Purcell would use up many minutes.

While Kirby’s eyes adjusted to the near-darkness, he listened to the snoring of two people. Twenty years ago it wouldn’t have taken this long for his eyesight to sharpen, but the older he got the longer he had to wait for his body to do what he’d once taken for granted.

Twenty years chasing assholes who shoved hundred-dollar bills up their nose. Twenty years watching them live high—best food, best booze, best pussy money could buy. Twenty years of eating shit. And for what? Assholes still shove hundred-dollar bills up their nose and I have a pension that wouldn’t keep a cockroach in crumbs. Especially after I pay the two ex-wives their share. Their “share.” What a crock. Like the two dumb bitches earned it by sitting at home watching soaps and whining for more money while I risked my butt as an undercover.

Half of the snoring stopped. After a moment it resumed in a slightly different pattern.

He smiled at the familiar spike of adrenaline that had flashed through his body when the snoring changed, as though someone had awakened. In his more honest moments, Kirby knew that this, not money, was why he’d gone from retired cop to practicing crook. It was the rush of adrenaline telling him he was alive. It was the same rush that came to a gambler placing a bet, a drinker opening a fresh bottle, or a crackhead setting up a pipe.

Now Kirby’s eyes could pick out the shape of the dinette table half surrounded by a padded booth, a tiny kitchen with pots and pans still on the stove, and a sink that couldn’t hold any more dirty dishes. Where a small living room should have been, broad cabinets with narrow drawers were bolted to the floor. A calculator and a cash box sat on the dinette table next to a tablet and pen. Apparently, Purcell hadn’t gotten around to computerizing his business.

Kirby set down his duffel. He took out paper booties like those worn by surgeons and covered his shoes. Then he pulled out a roll of duct tape and a small penlight. Following the narrow beam, he walked softly over to the cabinets. There were no obvious alarm wires and no worries in any case—the electricity to run any alarms was history.

Ghostlike, he moved toward the sound of the snores. The closer he got, the more adrenaline and anticipation lit up his blood. He didn’t know when he’d started liking to hurt people. He only knew that he had.

The bedroom door was open. Even so, the smell of stale beer rising from the two sleepers was thick enough to walk on.

This is too easy.

With a vague feeling of disappointment, he went to Purcell, put his thumbs in the man’s neck, and shut down his carotid arteries. Purcell twitched and went slack without ever waking up. Kirby taped the man’s feet and hands together behind his back and taped his mouth closed. Then he went to work on the wife. He did the same to her and added a swath of tape around her head, covering her eyes.

Although if the sound of her clogged nose was any indication, even if he left her eyes uncovered, she likely wouldn’t survive long enough to identify him. Breathing through duct tape was a pretty quick way to die.

A change in the tension of Purcell’s body told Kirby that the man was awake. Kirby shifted the penlight so that it shined in his victim’s eyes. They were wide and bugged out with fear. Kirby smiled and began speaking with the accents and rhythms of the border creole he’d learned so well in Miami.

“
Buenos dias,
Miguel. You and me, we talk. But first I hurt you so you no lie to me.”

Kirby yanked down Purcell’s underwear, grabbed his genitals, and dug in. When he finally released Purcell, the man’s body was slick with sweat and the feral smell of his fear had blotted out that of stale beer. Kirby judged his victim, gave him a final shot to the balls, and waited until he stopped whimpering.

“
Señor,
you hear me, yes?” Kirby whispered.

Purcell nodded frantically.

“
Bueno
. You move jus’ once and I rip off you cock and shove it up you fat ass.”

Purcell lay on the bed and tried to be absolutely still, but he couldn’t control the shivers of fear racking his body.

Sure that the man wouldn’t give him any trouble, Kirby went back to the cabinets in the other room. He pulled a crowbar from the duffel and systematically broke the locks on the cabinets. Moving
quickly, he flashed the penlight around in each drawer before he emptied the contents into his duffel. There was a lot of satisfying shine and glitter in the drawers, but nothing that matched the sapphire he’d been told to take. He went back to the bedroom, bent over Purcell, and whispered in his ear.

The smell of urine overwhelmed the other odors in the room.

Kirby ripped off just enough of the tape for Purcell to gasp out, “Milk—in—fridge.”

Kirby taped his victim’s mouth shut again, patted him on his bald head, and went to the kitchen. He opened the surprisingly large refrigerator. There were three cartons of milk inside. One of them had been handled so much that the carton’s cheerful black-and-white cow was mostly rubbed away. Purcell might as well have pinned a sign on his hiding place.

Taking the carton, Kirby went to the sink, put in the stopper, and poured out the white fluid. Five gemstones emerged, shining through the milk. He picked them up, rinsed them, and put all but the sapphire in his duffel. He didn’t know yet why the sapphire was important to the Voice, but he was sure it was.

That made it important to Kirby.

From the first time the Voice had called out of the blue and recited chapter and verse of Kirby’s criminal life, he hadn’t been his own man. He’d been well paid, and the jobs had been well planned out, but it just wasn’t the same as being his own boss. Maybe the sapphire would be the key to his freedom. Maybe it wouldn’t.

Either way, he was keeping it.

He pulled a pearl-handled knife out of his jeans. He’d taken the knife off a Colombian smuggler years ago. Mostly, Kirby used it to clean his fingernails. Occasionally, he put it to heavier work.

Adrenaline and anticipation hummed through him as he walked back into the bedroom and bent over Purcell.

Moments later, the smell of blood overwhelmed the odor of urine.