The Color of Death (30 page)

Scottsdale

Sunday

8:00
A.M
.

“What do you mean
Eduardo’s dead?” Peyton demanded.

Sharon looked up from the breakfast she’d been sharing with Peyton until the phone rang. Without glancing over, he gave her a gesture that told her to stay put and be quiet. She shrugged and went back to her waffle.

“Geraldo?” Peyton pressed. “Was it a heart attack?”

In Los Angeles, his uncle sighed and looked at his sister. Peyton’s mother shook her head, silently saying that she didn’t want to talk to her son right now. This was business, and Geraldo de Selva’s job was to take care of things, because the Blessed Mother knew that Peyton was too busy lifting skirts to keep his attention on business. Like father, like son.

“Regrettably,” Geraldo said, “it appears that Eduardo was involved in a little gem-cutting on the side. Family business, if street gossip can be believed.”

Peyton believed it. He just hoped that Geraldo wasn’t listening on the same street corners as his nephew.

“The de Santos…” Geraldo hesitated. “Well, people say they have many interests, few of them legal. A cousin of Eduardo’s in the
jewelry district also died last night. Rumor says that he took too much of the money he’d been laundering for the drug lords. They left their mark on his body.”

“How?”

“Colombian necktie.” Geraldo sighed. “Mother of God, they’re brutal men.”

“What about Eduardo?”

“Dead, as I told you.”

“But was he in with the Colombians too?”

“We don’t know. His throat wasn’t cut, if that’s what you mean. He was tortured, then strangled.”

Peyton grunted. “Damn it. I’ve been training him for years. How did it happen?”

“We don’t know that either. All we know is that his body was in the cutting room when the janitor came by earlier. I’m on my way now to meet with the insurance agent and assess how much was stolen.”

“Stolen.” Peyton’s voice was flat.

Sharon’s eyes narrowed but she didn’t move or say a word. If Peyton wanted her to know, he’d tell her. If she wanted to know and he wasn’t talking, she’d find out in bed. It was a simple arrangement for both of them. That was why it worked.

“I’ll take the next plane out to L.A.,” Peyton said. He was thinking hard and not liking any of the conclusions he came up with. The only good news was that none of the off-the-books gems were on the Hall headquarters cutting floor right now.

“No, no, stay there,” Geraldo said quickly. “Your mother wishes you to take care of business in Scottsdale. There’s nothing for you to do here and much to do there. You know how important it is to get more rubies at the right price for our Christmas promotions.”

Peyton thought about arguing, but didn’t. He’d never won an argument with his mother; no reason to think today would be his lucky day. “Tell me if you learn anything more. I still can’t believe Eduardo is dead.”

“Yes, it’s difficult,” Geraldo said. “But greed brings all men to death.”

“All men get there anyway,” Peyton said. “Might as well get there rich.”

Geraldo laughed in spite of his sister’s frown. There were some things only men understood.

“Call after you and the insurance agent go through the building,” Peyton said. “Give my love to Mother.”

He hung up and stared for a moment at the phone.

“Bad news?” Sharon asked, taking the last bite of waffle.

“My head cutter was murdered last night.”

Sharon’s fork hit the plate with a clatter. “Like Purcell?”

“I don’t know. I hope not. There was some valuable stuff in the cutting safe.”

“Did he have the combination?”

“Yeah.” Peyton shrugged. “I got tired of being there at six-thirty every morning to open the damn thing.”

Sharon hid a smile. Peyton hated to get up early. She didn’t love it much herself, but she didn’t fight it the way he did.

“What was that about Colombians?” she asked. “Was it a courier kind of hit?”

Peyton added more coffee to his cup, dumped in some cream and sugar, and started to pace. “Eduardo’s cousin was found with a Colombian necktie. Before that he was rumored to be laundering drug money through the Hill Street gold market.”

“Must have pissed someone off.”

“Yeah. I’m just wondering who.”

She shrugged. “Why do you care? You don’t deal with the Colombians, do you?”

“Just want to make sure that no one is trying to muscle in on the business,” Peyton said, sidestepping her question. “The way L.A. is today, you have enough ethnic gangs around to make nineteenth-century New York’s problems look like squabbles on a playground.”

Sharon shrugged. “I think of it as job security.”

“I think of it as a pain in the ass.”

She pushed away the rolling room service table and patted the bed next to her. “Come tell me all about it.”

“I thought you said you had some work to do for your father.”

“It will wait.”

He glanced at her computer on the bedside table. Before breakfast had come, she’d been following some interesting threads on various couriers. He hadn’t planned on hitting anything so soon, but after Eduardo’s death in the cutting room, he’d have some ground to make up.

He kissed Sharon with lips that tasted of coffee. “I’ll take you up on it tonight. Go ahead and work now. I’ve got some things of my own to do.”

Sharon pulled her computer into her lap, settled against the headboard, and called up a file. The mattress gave in heavily as Peyton settled next to her, his own computer in his lap. Soon she was immersed in her work, trying to connect courier thefts with the information the FBI had. She knew how much her father wanted to break the case before the Bureau did. And she wanted to be the one who gave him facts every step of the way.

From time to time Peyton glanced at her computer screen. If she noticed and looked at him, he just smiled at her, kissed her, and went back to his own computer without a word.

The companionable silence was broken only by the click of keys.

Scottsdale

Sunday

1:10
P.M
.

Kate looked at the black
motor coach with its blanked-out windows and grimaced. “Why do I feel like I’m about to be thrown in irons and grilled like a cheese sandwich?”

Sam smiled faintly. “Not you. Me.”

“What for?”

“Oh, they’ll think of something.”

The door opened before Sam could reach for it. Doug stuck his head out. “Took you long enough.”

“I wanted a doctor to look at Kate’s cheek.”

Doug glanced at the thin line across Kate’s cheekbone. “Not deep enough for stitches. Already scabbed over. Clean. Looks good to me.”

“You sound just like the doctor,” Kate said, “but if you try to give me any more shots, I’ll go for your throat.”

Doug’s smile flickered, then settled. “Sam said you were a tiger.”

Her smile turned upside down. “Was that before or after I threw up?”

Sam wanted to gather her in a comforting hug, but he couldn’t. Not in front of the boss. “You didn’t throw up.”

“I wanted to.”

“So did I.”

She gave him a look of disbelief.

“What?” Sam said. “Do you think I shoot men on a weekly basis?”

“I—I didn’t think.” She looked at him and saw the new lines around his eyes, the new shadows, the pallor beneath the strength.
Why did I assume it wouldn’t reach him the way it reached me? Because he’s an FBI agent?
She wanted to touch him, comfort him, tell him she understood and it made him all the more a man to her. She kept her hands and thoughts to herself. Doug might be a friendly boss, but he was still Sam’s boss. “I’m sorry,” she said to Sam.

“Don’t be,” Doug said, gesturing Kate inside. “Jack Kirby was a miserable piece of shit.”

“Then you have an ID?” Sam asked, following Kate up the steps.

“Oh, yeah. Kennedy will fill you in.”

“Don’t try to tell me the mutt was Ecuadorian,” Sam said under his breath.

“Nope,” Doug said with faint malice. “Pure d American, born and raised in southern California and educated by the U.S. Army, and from there to the DEA. Spent a lot of time undercover.”

“Army? Was he a Ranger?” Sam asked.

Doug paused in the act of reaching for Kennedy’s door, which was partway open.

The door opened fully. Sizemore stood there looking impatient and curious at the same time. Obviously, he’d been listening.

“Why do you think Kirby was a Ranger?” Sizemore asked Sam, closing the door after everyone was in the room.

Sam gestured Kate in and looked at Kennedy, who nodded curtly.

“Answer him,” Kennedy said.

Same old shit,
Sam thought.
Sizemore and Kennedy and to hell with the rest of us.

Sam looked at Sizemore and wondered, really wondered, if he was dirty. Or if Kennedy was. Much as the idea appealed to him on a purely personal level, on a professional one it had no appeal at all.

“Kirby fought like he’d been trained,” Sam said evenly, “and I don’t mean the usual smash and slash method they teach army grunts. He was unexpected. Quick. I was damn lucky to take him down.”

Kennedy grunted. “You always had high marks in shooting and unarmed combat, as well as in case clearances. It added up to just enough to keep your head above water with the Bureau.”

Why do you think I did it?
Sam asked silently.
You think I got off on punishing myself at the firing range and gym?

“Anyway, the mutt’s ex-Ranger,” Kennedy said. “Fingerprints just came back. Army, then DEA. Retired with pension and two ex-wives to support. He ran with another ex–Special Forces type, one John White. A SEAL. White is a sweet piece of business. Barely got an honorable discharge.”

“So he was a U.S. citizen?” Sam asked.

“Yeah. At first we thought he was South American with an alias, but it didn’t come down that way. Maybe some of his pals. We’re checking it.”

“What did he do to get bounced out of the military?” Sam asked.

“Some really expensive special-ops equipment went missing one night,” Doug said. “White was the only one who could have taken it. But considering his past good service to the country, yada yada yada.”

“They cut him loose,” Kennedy said. “He left the country and worked around the world. South America, mainly.”

“Mercenary,” Sam said.

Kennedy shrugged. “Fancy name for a thug with an automatic rifle.”

“Okay, so Kirby was American, ex–DEA, with two ex-wives to support and he hung with former special-ops men,” Sam said. “Anything else?”

“We’re checking into that right now,” Sizemore said.

“Does he have a record?” Sam asked Kennedy, ignoring Sizemore.

“Kirby is clean. White has been smacked for speeding, drunk and disorderly, beating on his girlfriends, that sort of thing,” Doug said when Kennedy just glared at Sam. “Clean for last six years, which is
interesting, because his only job is about one step above burger flipper, yet our preliminary investigations indicate he spent money on cocaine and women.”

Kate looked from face to face. Even without Sam’s terse explanations in the past, she would have known that Kennedy didn’t like Sam, and Sizemore positively despised Sam, and Doug was trying to oil the troubled waters.

“Kirby and White lived in L.A.?” Sam asked Doug.

“Santa Ana.”

“Close enough,” Sam said. “Was either of them ever hired by or connected in any way to Sizemore Security Consulting, Mandel Inc. or—”

“What the hell are you suggesting?” Sizemore snarled, shoving his face into Sam’s.

“I’m
saying
that Kirby was hired for a hit on Kate by someone who has a stake in keeping this investigation swimming around in the toilet until the department flushes it—and us.” Sam’s voice was calm, but his whole body radiated a desire to pick Sizemore up and throw him through the closed door. “Someone, by the way, who’s in a position to know every fucking thing the Bureau knows as soon as the Bureau knows it.”

Sizemore’s face turned red and his hands fisted. “Are you accusing me?”

“Should I?” Sam asked.

Doug stepped between them. “Nobody is accusing anyone. Right?”

Sam met Doug’s eyes for a long minute, then nodded. “There are several people and/or organizations that might be dirty,” Sam said. “Sizemore’s company is just one of the pack.”

“Why, you son of a bitch!” Sizemore yelled, reaching for Sam around Doug’s sturdy body.

Sam shook off Sizemore’s grip with a swift motion of his hands that could just as easily have broken the other man’s wrists.

“Back off,” Kennedy said in the kind of voice that reminded everyone the SSA had once been in the Marines.
“Both of you.”

The words penetrated Sizemore’s anger. He visibly reined in his temper.

Sam hadn’t lost his temper, but he’d really been looking forward to doing it all over Sizemore.

“Ted,” Kennedy said. “I need a few minutes, okay? I’ll call you.”

Sizemore shot a deadly look at Sam and Kate, then turned around and left the small room. The motor coach’s floor vibrated from the weight of his angry steps.

Without a word Kennedy opened his belly drawer, reached in back, and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. Doug had a lighter ready. Still saying nothing, Kennedy took a deep drag, and another. Then he pinned Sam with a steel-gray glance.

“I assume you have proof backing up your accusations,” Kennedy said with deceptive mildness.

“Courtroom proof?” Sam asked. “No.”

Kennedy’s lips flattened. “It’s too late to be coy. You better have something besides a big mouth.”

Kate reached into the oversized purse she’d brought with her. She took out a sheaf of papers and put it on his desk.

The SSA glanced down, saw the lines and handwriting, and frowned. “What’s this?”

“Special Agent Groves and I spent a lot of time trying to figure out who knew what and when,” Kate said carefully. “This is the result. It suggests some new avenues of investigation.”

“Give me the bottom line,” Kennedy said impatiently. “And it better be good, Groves, or you’re finished.”

Sam reached into his pocket, pulled out a sealed, transparent evidence holder, and put it on Kennedy’s desk.

Emerald-cut blue sapphire, as big as a man’s toenail, the gem inside the plastic drew light into its depths and returned it as blue fire.

Kennedy looked from the gem to Sam. “Is this what I think it is?”

“Yes.”

“Judas Priest.”

Kennedy picked up the papers and began to read.