I groaned. Vampires were faster and stronger than normal humans. I had taken lone vampires at times, but due to superior training rather than physical prowess.
Suddenly, a figure burst through the back door of the bar and pounded down the alley toward us. Billy opened the front door on that side, and as soon as Tom dove into the car, Billy floored the accelerator.
“Get a little hot in there?” I asked.
Tom sorted himself out and settled in the seat. Then he laughed. “The guy had a couple of buddies, and then every vamp in the place decided to come to his rescue. You shoulda seen their faces when I picked him up by the ankles and swung him around like a club. Dumb motherfuckers.”
“Miss your bouncer days now that you’ve moved up to management?” I asked.
He chuckled. “Sometimes it feels good to let off a little steam.”
I noticed that his left eye seemed a little swollen, but in the dark with his dark skin, it was hard to tell how bad he’d been tagged.
Billy drove around for a while until he figured out he was lost, then finally told the autopilot to take us back to our hotel. He pulled up in front, and I started to reach for the door handle when the backseat window next to my head spider-webbed with a crash. I threw myself down on the seat and waited for another shot, but none came.
“What the hell?” Tom breathed.
From where I lay, I couldn’t see either Tom’s or Billy’s head above the seats. Mine was the only window that showed any damage. I blurred my image, reached for the handle on the other side of the car, and slid out when the door opened, drawing my pistol as I did so.
Crouching behind the rear tire, I surveyed what I could see, gradually rising a little higher until I could see over the car. The shot had to have come from the cathedral across the street, but I didn’t see anyone over there.
“I’m going to try and circle around the shooter,” I called to Billy and Tom.
Without waiting for an acknowledgement, I slipped out from behind the car and hugged the wall of the hotel as I crept along. About fifty feet from the car, I took advantage of a break in traffic and dashed across the street to the cathedral.
I didn’t see anyone at street level, so I looked up, trying to see if a window might be open, but I wasn’t even sure if the cathedral’s windows opened. It would probably be easier to shoot at me from the roof.
After circling the building and finding nothing, I took a long way around back to the hotel and snuck up to my room. Tom and Nellie awaited me.
“Any luck?” Tom asked.
“None. I think the shooter was in the cathedral, or maybe on the roof, but too damned dark, and that building’s huge.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“Bulletproof glass?” I asked. I hadn’t known the car we were in was so special.
Tom shrugged. “Entertaincorp vehicle. Mr. O’Malley gives us only the best when we’re protecting his meal ticket.” He winked at me, and Nellie blushed.
“Well, I’m damned glad,” I said. Of course, I couldn’t tell if the bullet would have hit me, but anytime my life was saved by pure luck, I figured it counted against my nine lives.
Chapter 19
Victor called the following morning. “Theodore Smith has vanished.”
“You mean, like some sort of magician’s trick?”
He snorted. “Slipped out of the hospital sometime in the middle of the night. Took a duffle bag of whole blood with him.”
“Are you sure he left voluntarily?” I pressed.
“Pretty sure. He called one of his guards into the room and knocked him out. The other guy heard a scuffle and came in. He didn’t fare any better. Damned vamp.”
“Someone took a shot at me last night,” I said, “but not with a thirty-two. High-powered rifle.”
“The police didn’t find anything, I take it.”
“We didn’t call the police. We do have the bullet, if you want it. It’s pretty mangled after hitting a plate of bulletproof glass. You wouldn’t happen to know if the Capozzis use their own snipers or bring in contractors, would you?”
Silence from the other end.
“Victor?”
“Yeah, I’m here. I can’t really answer that question.”
“Do you know of a mutie woman named Clarissa?” I asked, not really expecting he would.
“Oh, sure. Clarissa the seer. Real name Adrienne Macron. She’ll read your palm, read your cards, but what she’s really good at is reading your credit account. Word is she’s a computer hacker, but we’ve never caught her at it.”
“Really? You wouldn’t happen to know her hacker handle, would you?”
“Seer342 is one of them.”
I smiled for the first time that morning. “Thanks.”
After he hung up, I sent a secure message to my dad asking whether the Capozzis hired outside shooters, and a query to my mom asking about Seer342. Joseph Morgan would have had the money to hire a professional assassin. Janice Boulanger was a lawyer, and lawyers knew all kinds of interesting trivia. Otherwise, I couldn’t think of anyone involved in the Morgan affair who might have the connections and credits to hire a hitman. As for Sonia, I couldn’t imagine why she would want me dead.
But I had been sniffing around about Alysia Capozzi and Geraldine Parker. David and Benito Capozzi seemed to be involved with Morgan and his friends. And the mob was notoriously fussy about people prying into their business.
The Clarissa woman seemed to think David Capozzi would know about anything Alysia was mixed up with. And what might Geraldine Parker have known about Benito? Men often failed to be as discreet as they should be around their mistresses.
I had obviously stuck a stick in someone’s hornet nest. I just needed to figure out whose before they got luckier.
Nellie and I were having a drink in the hotel bar when Sonia Morgan came in. Spotting us, she made a beeline for our table.
“Mrs. Morgan,” I said
“Ms. Nelson, isn’t it? I called the Chamber, and they said director Wilberforce is out of town. What is the status of your investigation into Joe’s death?”
She took me off guard, and I parroted what I’d always heard cops say.
“We’re making progress, but at this time, we don’t have anything concrete we can comment on.”
Her eyes narrowed, and her mouth pursed, then she flopped down in a chair.
“In other words, you don’t have a clue.”
“Oh, we have plenty of clues, but we’re still trying to put them together. Are you aware of the other murders?” I asked.
“What other murders?”
“Several of Joseph Morgan’s close friends have been killed since his death. In addition, a lot of loose gemstones and jewelry have turned up missing. The corporation and its insurance company are in the process of doing a complete inventory. There are a lot of unanswered questions.”
She was silent for a bit. A waitress came, and Sonia ordered a glass of wine. After some time, she said, “And all of this is what’s holding things up?”
“I’m sorry. Holding what things up?”
“My inheritance, of course. J. Morgan’s lawyers are stonewalling me.”
I shrugged. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about that. I’m only involved with the investigation into Mr. Morgan’s death. Your dealings with his company are a civil matter.”
Her wine came, and she took a deep drink. “I’ve been told that all matters with the inheritance and control of the company are on hold until his murder has been solved.”
“Well, as I said, I don’t know about any of that. I do know that in the case of a violent death, the courts usually want some assurance that the heirs weren’t involved.”
“They want to make sure I didn’t knock him off.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Something like that.”
She downed the rest of her wine, stood, and flounced off without a single word.
Nellie gave me a raised-eyebrow look. “She don’t
give a damn who killed him, she’s just glad they did.”
I shook my head. “Don’t think it was her?”
“Naw. If she thought of it, she woulda done it years ago.”
Wil called a couple of hours later.
“Are you all right?” he said as soon as I picked up the phone.
“I’m fine, and Victor is a tattle-tale,” I answered.
“Yeah, well, take it out on me. I’d kick his butt when I found out if he didn’t tell me. You be careful, okay?”
“Believe me, now that I know I’m not universally loved, I’ll be a lot more careful. I’m even wearing my Kevlar corset today.”
“Good. Thought you’d like to know that Sonia Morgan’s lawyers are suing J. Morgan, and the corporation’s lawyers are suing her, challenging the validity of the marriage. One of the things they’re using against her are those payments going to her maiden name. Seems she’s also mainly used her maiden name the past two decades.”
“Interesting. I did a search on Sonia Morgan and came up with almost nothing. I didn’t do a comprehensive scan for Sonia Kensington. I did do some snooping around in another direction, however, and the name Capozzi kept coming up. That was shortly before someone took a shot at me.”
I heard him suck air. “Damn.”
“Yeah, interesting, don’t you think? You don’t suppose your bright boys might ask around some other cities and see if their wise guys have been handling a lot of diamonds? Especially low-end diamonds.”
“Yeah, I can do that. What do you mean by low end, and any ideas about specifically where to look?”
“A diamond might look great to someone who doesn’t know gems,” I said. “Size isn’t nearly as important to its value as color, cut, and clarity. A stone might be sort of grayish or brownish, or have flaws, or not be cut very well. There are probably more quarter-carat diamonds sold in engagement rings than any other size, and the majority are of poor quality. The larger stones you see in chain jewelry stores are usually of medium quality at best.”
I took a sip of my drink and tried to collect my thoughts. “Look at pawn shops, local jewelers, custom goldsmiths, and especially those marketing to the middle and lower-end markets. Places where a young factory worker would go to get an engagement ring that won’t break the bank. Any jewelry manufacturing operations catering to that market. Not everyone needs a ten-carat flawless canary-yellow radiant-cut diamond set in platinum like your sweetie would.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Only ten carats?”
“I have slender fingers. When will you be back in Montreal?”
“Probably this weekend. I should have the problem here in San Francisco sorted out by tomorrow, but then I need to go to Vancouver. Try to stay out of trouble, if you can.”
I didn’t have time to look up Sonia Kensington because Victor did stop by to get the bullet and look at the window.
“Looks like a seven point six two,” he said when I handed him the bullet. “There have been a number of assassinations using this caliber bullet over the past few weeks,” Victor continued.
The sniper’s rifle was the same caliber as my own that I had hidden in the ceiling of Nellie’s closet.
“Assassinations?” I asked.
“Yes, we’re pretty sure they were contract hits.”
“Really? How many? Does that happen a lot in Montreal?” I tried to look as wide-eyed and innocent as I could. Victor was probably fifteen years older than I was, so unless Wil had warned him about me, I thought I could pull it off.
“There were two in one day,” he said. “Rival restauranteurs. Rumor on the street was, they put out hits on each other.” He acted like he was thinking. “I think five in the past five weeks.”
“Any of them piss off the Capozzis?”
“I don’t think so, but one of them was a Capozzi cousin.”
As if mob guys never whacked their sons-in-law or cousins. I made a note to check it out. Although there were a lot of rifles that fired that particular caliber, the gun I used was a particular favorite for people in my line of work. Light-weight, balanced, accurate, silenced, and it broke down to fit into a very small, thin attaché case.
Victor also spoke with Tom and Billy before he left. I didn’t stick around to hear what they told him but instead went up to my room and turned on my laptop.
The first search I set was on Montreal murders in the previous five weeks. While that was running, I took all the queries I had written for Sonia Morgan, replaced Morgan with Kensington, and set them running. By the time I finished that, the murder search displayed results.
I wasn’t entirely surprised that Kevin Hastert, the asshole who took a header out the hotel window, wasn’t listed. His father-in-law had plenty of money to cover up the circumstances of death and prevent family embarrassment.
The two restaurant magnates were easy to identify as assassinations, as were the other three shootings Victor referred to. One guy was shot through his sixth-floor office window, and one was shot coming out of a hotel. I was sure his wife wondered why he checked into a hotel in the middle of the day when he only lived a couple of miles away. Or maybe she didn’t wonder at all and had champagne already on ice when she heard the news. The third guy was killed coming out of an Italian restaurant late at night.
A quick check showed that the late-night diner was a Capozzi cousin. I set a search to give me all the information available on Donny Alderetti and checked on my other searches.
Sonia Kensington turned out to be much more interesting than Sonia Morgan. As were Sonia Johnson, Soria Leduc, Solange Ferrante, Felicia Williams, and a couple of more pseudonyms for the various scams, including marriages, she engaged in. Sonia was a con artist, and a fairly busy one. Using the payments from Joseph Morgan, she was able to pass herself off as an heiress over and over.
Her most common scams involved rich men. She conned them into investing money in real estate ventures that always seemed to fall apart before anything got built. By the time the investors and banks figured things out, she was long gone.
She also married two very rich, very old men who then proceeded to die. Whether she helped them along or not, I couldn’t tell.
Joseph Morgan paid her for twenty years. Considering Morgan’s reputation, any kind of dirty deed she might have blackmailed him for would have had to be dirty indeed. Which left me wondering if maybe he really did marry her. Or maybe she convinced him that he did in a drunken stupor. Considering her other scams, it would be in character.
Donny was much easier to figure out. He was a middle manager at the Montreal Waste Disposal Corporation, Benito Capozzi, President. About three years before, he must have received a hefty raise, because he started banking some pretty good money. A year after that, he bought a fancy new house and a hydrogen-cell sports car. Another year later, he opened a Swiss account, which sat dormant for a while.
Then the Swiss account started receiving large transfers from an unknown source. Ten thousand a week, growing to twenty thousand, then fifty thousand, and averaging a hundred thousand a week over the three months before his death. Over the same period of time that his income was rising, he started traveling a lot. Like someone would do who was carrying things from one place to another.
The conclusion was inescapable. Donny got in on a racket that paid well, but he got greedy. My hunch was Benito was using him to distribute Morgan’s diamonds, but then Donny started skimming. When he got away with it, he got greedier, until Benito or whoever was above him decided his entrepreneurial ambition was a little too ambitious. Crooks hate people who steal from them.
Although the ties were rather tenuous, I was willing to bet that if I could figure out who killed Donny, I would know who took the shot at me.
Chapter 20
I needed to run a few errands, and Nellie didn’t want to go because her hair was wet. I looked out the window at the rain and figured I should try to get what I needed in the mall under the hotel.
While passing through the l
obby, I saw Sonia going outside and getting into a limo. No travel by public transportation for that girl. After all, she planned on soon being a billionaire.
On the spur of the moment, I decided to pay Sonia’s room a visit. I took the elevator to the fifth floor, then walked down the hall to the stairs at the end. Sonia had a corner room, a suite like Nellie’s, right by the stairs on the sixth floor.
I didn’t think Sonia had anyone staying with her, or would leave anyone in her room, but I did use a listening device on her door to check for sounds inside. Hearing nothing, I bypassed the room’s lock and slipped into her suite.
Unfortunately, she hadn’t left any incriminating evidence sitting out in the open. No sniper rifle, no silver statuette, no computer program for forging marriage licenses. Not even a selfie of her with a lion spear standing next to her recently deceased husband.
About five minutes of searching turned up the papers she had shown us at the Chamber offices. I had seen them all, so no smoking guns or dripping spears there. She had added significantly to her wardrobe since arriving in Montreal. A lot of the clothes in the closet still had tags on them.
The door opened. I blurred my image and backed into the far corner of the closet behind Sonia’s clothes. Whoever came in was trying to move quietly, but I could hear drawers opening, the bathroom door squeaking, and the scuffle of shoes across the rug. Someone was going through the same progression I had, looking for something, but not being as quiet about it.
The closet door opened wider, and I held my breath. The burglar rifled through Sonia’s clothes, then went out, then came back dragging a chair. I didn’t need a chair to look on the shelves, so the person was shorter than I was.
I risked a peek between two blouses, and almost swallowed my tongue. It was Sonia, dressed similarly to how I’d seen her that day on the street. Tight black trousers, pale-blue blouse, and elf boots, with her hair gathered back in a bun.
A slimmer, somewhat younger Sonia. No, it wasn’t the real Sonia Morgan, but rather an imitation. A younger sister, or maybe a cousin. Or maybe just a complete coincidence that the woman looked like Sonia. My mind churned while faux-Sonia finished searching the room again and then let herself out.
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