The Color of Death

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Kennedy lit a cigarette.

  Sizemore got up, bummed a smoke, and sat down again. Usually he preferred cigars but knew better than to choke up the motor coach that way.

  The NYPD cop whose marriage had just ended looked grateful and lit up her own cigarette.

  Sam gave the room five minutes before it became uninhabitable.

  The phone stopped ringing. The message light blinked urgent red. Nothing new there. It had been blinking since dawn. Ditto for the phone in the other room, the one with a supposedly private number.

  “The courier hasn’t regained consciousness after the surgery to remove bone fragments from her brain,” Kennedy said. “She won’t be any use to us until she wakes up. Probably not even then.”

  A few murmurs around the room made it plain that none of the cops figured the courier would be good for anything in the way of information, or anything else, after that kind of brain trauma.

  “The MO was pretty much same old same old,” Kennedy said, exhaling heavily. “She was intercepted at an obvious stop and—”

  “What was she doing being so careless?” the NYPD cop asked.

  Mario said from the back of the room, “This isn’t Manhattan. If you’re driving from L.A., stopping in Quartzite isn’t a choice, it’s common sense. You’ve been through hours and miles of empty desert. The car needs gas to get to Phoenix. If you don’t do it in Quartzite, you have more hours and a lot more empty desert before you get to another gas stop. Only an idiot drives out of Quartzite without water and a gas tank at least three-quarters full.”

  “Who’d want to live like that?” the NYPD cop muttered.

  “After the thief intercepted the courier,” Kennedy said, “he drove or forced her to drive to a deserted place. Then he beat her unconscious, stole the package, and left.”

  “How did he leave the scene?” Sharon Sizemore asked.

  The telephone started ringing again.

  Everyone ignored it.

  “Either the robber had a confederate who followed the courier’s car and picked him up or he simply walked to another car he’d parked nearby. I get the impression,” Kennedy said, looking around the room for confirmation, “that Quartzite isn’t real big.”

  “Not unless it’s January,” Mario said. “Then you have a few hundred thousand swap-meet fanatics dry-camping everywhere.”

  The phone rang in the second room.

  “Dry-camping?” the NYPD woman asked.

  “No water but what you bring in yourself,” Sam explained.

  “What about toilets?” she asked.

  “Bring your own shovel.”

  “Jesus.” She shook her head and shuddered. “Give me a crack house any time.”

  The phones kept ringing.

  “Okay,” Kennedy said, speaking loudly. “The point is that the heist was easy because everybody stops in Quartzite and it’s a damn small place.”

  “He could have followed her from L.A.,” Sizemore said, looking at the burning end of his cigarette. “The desert is empty but the Interstate isn’t. That way he would know exactly where the courier stopped. He parks his car, waits for her to finish whatever she was doing, takes her, and drives her somewhere close by where they won’t be noticed.”

  Kennedy nodded. “Chances are, that’s just what happened.”

  “What about inside information?” Sam asked.

  One of the phones quit ringing. The other didn’t.

  Kennedy gave him a look that was anything but encouraging. “So, has your fancy confidential informant given you information that Branson and Sons is a front for the South Americans?”

  “Nothing like that, sir,” Sam said, keeping his voice even. “I’m simply pointing out that a variety of people had access to the courier’s schedule—Sizemore Security, hotel security, Branson and Sons, plus everyone on the strike force who reviewed the schedule of incoming couriers.”

  “Do we look like South Americans?” Sizemore asked sarcastically.

  “My college roommate married a Hungarian gypsy,” Mario said. “Does that count?”

  Muffled laughter went around the room, but everyone was careful not to be caught at it because Kennedy wasn’t even smiling.

  The SAC took his balls in his hand and stepped up. “Special Agent Groves has a point,” Doug said. “If we assume too much, we risk missing something.”

  The phone rang.

  “She-it,” Sizemore said. “What do you want, a fucking business card left at the scene by the South American gangs?”

  “Naturally, we’ll look at every possibility,” Kennedy said curtly to Doug, “but I can’t allocate resources on the basis of a wild-ass theory. I have to stick with what’s most likely according to past and present information.” He looked at Sam. “Any questions?”

  “No. Sir.”

  Kennedy gave Sam a look that had Fargo, North Dakota, written all over it.

  The phone shut up.

  “Next on the list,” Kennedy said grimly, “are the murders of Mike and Lois Purcell in the employee parking lot of the Royale, about ninety feet from the strike force’s headquarters.”

  A murmuring went through the room.

  “Yeah. Really sweet.” Kennedy’s voice was ripe with disgust. “It’s not anyone’s fault. We weren’t supposed to be guarding the gypsy brigade camped out all over the lot. But since the media picked up on our proximity to the murders, we’re going to spend too much time covering our asses and not enough time investigating. I want the murderer or murderers busted before we look like fools on the network feeds.” He paused to glare around the room. “Now, I know that everyone here has media favorites. I have a piece of advice for dealing with the media that I don’t want to have to repeat: shut the fuck up.” He waited for a long three count. “Any questions about how to handle the media?”

  No one spoke.

  The telephone started ringing again.

  Kennedy leaned over, picked it up, and hung it up an instant later. “Here’s what we have on the murders so far.”

  Everyone leaned forward a bit, not wanting to look inattentive. Kennedy was in a pisser of a mood.

  The phone rang.

  Sharon Sizemore picked it up, put the line on hold, and hung up without a word.

  “Thank you,” Kennedy muttered.

  “My pleasure, sir.”

  The phone in the second room started in.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Sharon said, standing up.

  He nodded at her, then went back to his notes. “We can’t be sure at this point, but from the evidence gathered so far, it looks like a one-man job. Any more and they’d be tripping over each other, the motor home was that small. The perp was a pro. He opened the service bay on the motor home, took out the electricity, which took out the alarm, and picked the lock on the motor home door.”

  “No other sign of forced entry?” one of the Phoenix cops asked.

  “None. Just scratches consistent with what you’d expect from rakes and picks working a lock,” Doug Smith said.

  Sharon came back to the room and sat down.

  “We’re taking fingerprints throughout,” Kennedy said, “but we don’t expect anything to come of it. Like I said, a pro. He would have worn gloves. He was in the motor home with the door shut behind him long before anyone had a chance to spot him.”

  “What about the Royale’s roving night security?” Sizemore asked.

  “Never saw anything,” Doug Smith said. “My guess is he made predictable rounds and the murderer knew it.”

  “When I had my conference with all the employees, I emphasized that the security personnel shouldn’t be predictable. Did they listen? Shit.” Sizemore took a final drag and crushed his cigarette out on a plate that had once held fried eggs and sausage and still held the fresh fruit that he hadn’t touched. “The hotel security is a bunch of square badges, dumb as they come.”

  Snickers rippled through the cops. “Square badges” was the ultimate insult. Real law-enforcement officers ha
d oval shields.

  “You get what you pay for,” Sam said. “Your breakfast probably cost twice what that poor security slob makes per hour.”

  “Square badges” was all Sizemore said.

  “Once the murderer got inside,” Kennedy said, “he went to the bedroom and tied and gagged the victims with garden-variety duct tape. No leads there. We don’t have the autopsies yet, but from the beer cans piled around, it looks like the Purcells took on a load of brew and passed out in bed. No sign of struggle. The wife’s eyes were covered with tape, but not Purcell’s.”

  “He was the target,” Sizemore said. “Guy didn’t care if Purcell saw him. Dead men don’t give descriptions.”

  Kennedy put out his cigarette. “That’s our thinking too. From the evidence of trauma to the victim’s genitals, we assume he was tortured before he died. Either that or his wife was into really kinky sex.”

  Someone laughed.

  “Was there a safe?” someone asked.

  “Just locked specimen cabinets,” Sizemore said. “The murderer opened them with a master key.”

  Smiles went around the room. “Master key” was cop slang for a crowbar.

  “So there was no reason to torture the victim?” Sam asked. “Nothing to gain by getting a bigger haul?”

  “The murderer was a South American thug sending a message,” Sizemore said. “When he was finished, he slit Purcell’s throat, reached in, and pulled down his tongue so that it came through the opening.”

  “Colombian necktie,” Mario said. “Haven’t seen one of those in a while. Nowadays they mostly just cut the genitals off and stuff them in the victim’s mouth.”

  “Ah, progress,” Sam muttered. “Ain’t it grand?”

  “All the evidence we have now points to the idea that Mr. Purcell pissed off some South Americans,” Kennedy said, “and they made an example of him.”

  “What about the wife?” Sharon asked. “What killed her?”

  Kennedy flipped to the next page. “Bad sinuses. She suffocated before she was found.”

  “Yikes.” Sharon grimaced. “Well, it was probably better than waking up in a blood-soaked bed and seeing her husband’s tongue sticking out of his throat.”

  Kennedy smiled slightly. “If I ever see her in heaven, I’ll ask. But the murderer bled Purcell out pretty well before he cut his throat, so the place wasn’t wallpapered with blood and neither was the perp.”

  Sam nodded to himself. A pro wouldn’t get so messy he’d stand out on the street.

  “As for the wife,” Kennedy said, “there was no rape, no skin under her fingernails or her husband’s, nothing indicating a defensive struggle of any kind. From blood traces in the kitchen sink, we’re assuming he washed off there before he left.”

  “Did Purcell have an inventory of his stones?” Sam asked.

  “If it was in the trailer, it’s gone,” Kennedy said. “After the perp did the magic trick with Purcell’s tongue, he ransacked the place. Even trashed the stuff in the refrigerator. Only one set of tracks in the mess. Guy wears a size ten shoe and had on clean room boots over them.”

  “Did any wear pattern show through the paper boots?” Sam asked.

  Doug shook his head. “Shoes were new. We’re trying to match treads now, but the boots are making it hard.”

  “Well,” Sizemore said, “he sure didn’t leave much for us.”

  “We’re going over the motor home for hair and fiber,” Kennedy said. “Since Purcell used the place to meet clients and other traders, we aren’t pinning our hopes on making the case that way.”

  Nobody argued. Lab work was very useful in convicting people, but it wasn’t much good at helping cops to make up a list of suspects. Having DNA was one thing. Matching it to a perp was another thing entirely.

  “Who found the bodies?” Sam asked.

  “Some local dealer who was coming to see if Purcell felt like swapping some inventory,” Kennedy said.

  “What kind of inventory?” Sam asked.

  “Gems, what else?” Sizemore said sarcastically. “Where you been, boy.”

  “Most of these dealers specialize,” Sam said to Kennedy. “Did Purcell?”

  “That will be your job,” Kennedy said with a cold smile. “Find out everyone who was Purcell’s client and interview them. Divide it up with Mario. You’re homeboys, so you handle the local media. The rest of us will stumble along on the main job without you two.”

  Several of the cops shifted uncomfortably. Everyone in the room had enough experience to know that the chances of a quick solution to a professional hit were very small.

  Kennedy had just selected Sam and Mario to take the fall when the case wasn’t solved in time for the six o’clock news.

  Chapter 26

  Royale parking lot

  Noon Thursday

  Sam had more experience with the media than Mario. When the on-scene director called for yet another makeup break, Sam didn’t even shift his feet.

  Mario tugged at his tie and said out of the side of his mouth, “I thought this was ‘live’ television news.”

  “We’re breathing, aren’t we?”

  “I won’t be much longer if that reporter’s perfume doesn’t lighten up.” Mario sneezed for the fifth time in as many minutes. “Does she swim in it before she goes on camera?”

  The corner of Sam’s mouth kicked up. “Nobody told her that TV may stink but it doesn’t smell.”

  Someone straightened the TV reporter’s suit collar, powdered her nose, and tucked in some stray blonde hair. The reporter swapped sexist jokes with one of the technicians until the director gave the signal. Instantly, grave concern replaced the humorous leer on the reporter’s face. She checked her notes and faced the camera squarely.

  “This is Tawny Dawn reporting live from the parking lot of one of Scottsdale’s most exclusive hotels, where a shocking double murder has just taken place. The terrible details are still unfolding, but we’re here to bring you what we’ve learned by questioning people close to the case.”

  She turned to Sam. “You’re Special Agent Sam Groves with the FBI.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Then to Mario, “And you’re Mario Hernandez, a detective with the Phoenix PD.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Behind the camera, the director sighed but didn’t interrupt. There was plenty of time to edit out overlaps with the other “live” interviews she’d done with the two cops.

  “You’re both part of the crime strike force that is gathering evidence against the gangs who target couriers,” Tawny said.

  Both men nodded and wondered why in hell their boss had decided to spread that fact all over the TV news. Maybe Kennedy was angling for a segment on America’s Most Wanted.

  “Were these murders part of your investigation?” Tawny asked.

  Mario struggled not to laugh at the badly worded question—Yes, ma’am. We always kill people in the course of our investigation. That’s why we’re called a crime strike force.

  Sam didn’t crack a smile or miss a beat as he fed meaningless phrases to the TV reporter. “We can’t be certain. We’re investigating all possibilities.”

  Holding the mike between herself and the two men, Tawny leaned closer and tipped her face up to them earnestly. “Mr. Groves, what can you tell us about this tragic double murder?”

  Sam didn’t even flinch at being reduced to a civilian mister. He’d learned long ago that TV was a prime example of “their marbles, their schoolyard, their rules.” He and Mario were sacrificial goats for the titillation of breaking-news junkies. Screw facts. Sensation was all that mattered.

  “We’re still gathering evidence, ma’am,” Sam said. “It would be premature for me to divulge any details of the investigation at this time.”

  “What were the names of the victims?”

  “The names of the victims are being withheld pending notification of next of kin,” Sam said.

  Mario sneezed.

  “Keep going,”
the director said. “If he sneezes again, make it a close two-shot with Tawny and the other one. We’ll clean up the sound later.”

  Mario’s sideways look at Sam said, Live, huh?

  Sam’s look said he’d done it all before.

  “But surely you’ve arrived at some conclusions as to the manner of death?” Tawny asked.

  “Unexpected,” Sam said without inflection.

  Mario turned a laugh into a sneeze.

  Tawny’s eyes narrowed. “Have you any explanation as to why the FBI agents who were less than a hundred feet away didn’t hear anything?”

  “The crime strike force motor coach is heavily soundproofed.”

  “But still, less than a hundred feet! Surely the victims screamed for help?”

  Not with duct tape over their mouths. “We’re questioning other people who might have been nearby,” Sam said.

  “Did anyone hear anything?”

  “Not so far as we know.”

  “Was robbery the motivation?” she asked.

  “We’re investigating that possibility very closely,” Sam said with a total lack of emphasis.

  “Was anything missing?”

  “We’re investigating that too.”

  With her back to the camera, Tawny rolled her eyes. This agent was about as interesting to interview as a dead fish. At this rate she’d be lucky to get twenty seconds in a network feed.

  “They’re bringing out the bodies,” one of the techs called.

  Instantly, the camera swung toward the two slack sacked up corpses being hauled out on stretchers and then put on gurneys for the short ride to the waiting ambulance.

  “Do your intro again,” the director said.

  Without being told, Tawny stepped away from the two cops so that the first camera could shoot the scene behind her while the second one would keep her in a close-up.

  “This is Tawny Dawn, reporting live from the parking lot of…”

  Sam yanked off his tie and walked away to question the crime techs who were still in the trailer. If sweet Tawny needed anything from him, she’d have to splice it together from the first five interviews.

  Chapter 27