The Color of Death

by Elizabeth Lowell

  “Does the garbage disposal count as ‘in the kitchen’?”

  “How about some chips?”

  “How about some fruit, cheese, crackers, and a nap before dinner?”

  Sam didn’t answer, because Kate had thrown the last question over her shoulder before she disappeared in the direction of the kitchen. He picked his cell phone up from beside the computer and punched in the number for Jeremy Baxter’s hotel room. Sooner or later he’d get lucky and catch the man changing clothes or using the john.

  “Hello?”

  “Jeremy Baxter?” Sam asked.

  “Yes.”

  Sam pulled a big yellow pad closer and picked up a pen. “This is Special Agent Sam Groves of the FBI,” he said. “I have some questions about seven blue sapphires called the Seven Sins.”

  “What’s this about?”

  “I’m not free to say at this time.”

  Silence, a sigh, and a soft curse. “They were stolen, weren’t they.”

  “I’m not free to say.”

  Baxter hesitated.

  “If you have any doubt about my identity,” Sam said, “go to the big black motor coach in the employee parking lot, knock on the door, and ask for Doug Smith. He’ll show you credentials and vouch for me.”

  The sound of ice rattling against a glass came over the line. Sam could visualize Baxter thinking and swirling the contents of a near-empty drink.

  “Okay,” Baxter said. “But I don’t know how I can help you. I don’t know anything about the stones besides the name and the fact that Art McCloud owns them. I never got to see them once they were cut.”

  “Do you know anyone who did?”

  “Art and whoever appraised them for insurance purposes. And the woman who cut the stones, of course.”

  The FBI had already vetted the insurance appraiser back to the sixth grade and come up with nothing, but Baxter didn’t need to know that.

  Kate’s vetting had been even more thorough.

  “What about fellow collectors,” Sam said, “friends, girlfriends, anyone?”

  Ice rattled against glass again. “Art has friendly competitors, not friends. As for family, I never met any outside of the newspapers. Girlfriends? I’ve never heard any gossip about any,”

  The FBI had, but none lately and certainly none who’d had hard feelings about their severance pay.

  “How about unfriendly competitors?” Sam asked.

  “Oh, he pissed people off by having more money than a Saudi prince. But no one was laying for him that I know of. It just irritated us that he could outbid us without really thinking about the bank account. Thank God all he liked were sapphires and occasional rubies.”

  “Did you bid against him for the rough that was cut into the Seven Sins?” Sam asked.

  “Yes, for all the good it did me.”

  “Who else was in the bidding?”

  Kate walked in as Sam started writing quickly on the legal pad she used to make notes about whatever piece of rough she was working on. She set food and coffee near the pad.

  He reached for the coffee. Phone tucked between shoulder and ear, he sipped coffee and wrote and asked questions. “Who handled the rough?”

  “CGSI. Colored Gem Specialties International. Anything else? I have an appointment in a few minutes.”

  “I’m trying to pin down a show that was held the second week in November.”

  “There were several. Cut gems or rough?”

  “Which ones did you attend?” Sam asked without missing a beat.

  “Only the one in Fort Worth that featured Russian estate jewelry. Amazing goods. Really amazing. Of course, they knew what they had. I only bought a few old emeralds. Basilov cleaned up.”

  “He was there?”

  “Hell, he put the thing together and got some guys in from Singapore and Hong Kong who still had money. Like I say, he cleaned up. The Asians are finally getting into colored stones for investment, as well as their traditional pearls and jade.”

  “Any of the other regulars there too?” Sam asked. A moment later he began writing quickly. Then he stopped writing and started putting checks next to names Baxter had already given him. “And that was from the eighth through the ninth of November?”

  “Yes, but everyone who knew ruby from spinel left after the first day. There were no previews, so it was nonstop from eight in the morning until nine that night. After that, the good stuff was gone. Excuse me, but I really have to go now. I’ll be late.”

  “Thank you for your help,” Sam said. Then added quickly, “Someone might be calling you on a follow-up.”

  “Whatever, just not now.”

  Baxter hung up.

  Sam finished his cup of coffee and reached for the pot.

  Kate put a plate of cheese, fruit, and crackers underneath his hand and looked at him.

  He took the hint and started eating. Once he got past the first few crackers and some really prime red grapes, he began to realize just how hungry he was. He ate faster, with real interest. When he discovered salami hidden under the cheese he grinned.

  “Did you get anything from Baxter?” Kate asked.

  “A lot more than I got from the tight-ass citizens at CGSI.” Sam swallowed salami and chased it with cheese and a swallow of coffee. “I’m going to enjoy dropping a warrant on them. Any of these names familiar to you?”

  She scooted her work chair closer to him and looked at the names. “The names, yes. The people, no. They’re collectors and traders. I’ve cut stones for two of them.”

  “Are they clean, dirty, crazy, what?”

  “You mean would they kill for the Seven Sins?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t know them well enough to say.”

  “Guess.” Sam crunched into a grape and reached for some cheese. “If you had to start, which name would you draw out of the hat?”

  Kate frowned over the list. “Basilov, I guess. He came on the scene five years ago out of nowhere.”

  “In his case, nowhere was Georgia, former Soviet Union.”

  “He has a lot of cash to spend. He’s not like Art—he doesn’t buy what he falls in love with and to hell with ‘value’—but Basilov’s a real force when it comes to buying choice material.”

  Sam swallowed some coffee and said, “I’ll tell the boys to start with him.”

  “Did you talk to Art?” Kate asked curiously.

  “Yeah, while you were on the phone with your mom.”

  “Was Basilov one of the names you got?”

  “I got zip from McCloud. He said if he felt like talking to anyone in the Bureau, he’d get in touch with the director.”

  “Ouch,” Kate said.

  “Yeah. Nothing personal, from all I know about the man. He’s just a prick with money and connections.”

  “I suppose it would be tactful for me to disagree with your description of Art, seeing as how I’ve worked for him in the past.”

  Sam smiled as he snagged some more cheese and grapes. “Only if you want to cut more stones for him in the future.”

  “Arthur McCloud is a fine, upstanding—”

  “Yada yada yada,” Sam cut in. “If I’m ever privileged enough to talk to him, I’ll be sure to tell him you defended him to the last gasp of hypocrisy.”

  Kate looked at the dates Sam had circled. “Eighth?”

  “November.”

  “When Lee…”

  “When Lee was murdered,” Sam said evenly. “Yes.”

  Kate flinched.

  Sam knew he sounded cold. He also knew from experience that dancing around the reality of death didn’t do anything except draw out the painful process of acceptance.

  “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded,” he said, standing up and drawing her close.

  “I know.”

  Her breath was warm against his neck. Her body was warm against his. And if he didn’t let go of her right now, he wasn’t going to let go of her until it was way too late.

  “Anyway,” he
said, stepping back and grabbing a handful of grapes, “according to Baxter, the same people who were likely to know about the Seven Sins, the same people who bid for the rough, were all in Fort Worth on the day Lee was killed.”

  “Convenient,” Kate said bitterly.

  “Maybe, maybe not. I get the feeling a lot of these people go to a lot of the same sales.”

  She sighed. “Yes, they do. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply…. It’s just that I’m…”

  “Yeah.” He looked away because it was that or reach for her. If he did that, he’d be making love to her instead of trying to save her life. As much as he wanted her, it was no contest. The cop won by a mile. “I’ll check out every name, but I’m not counting on it going anywhere. Whoever killed Lee wasn’t buying stones in Fort Worth on the eighth.”

  “The car wasn’t turned in until the ninth.”

  “The car didn’t kill him. Someone who was on Sanibel Island before noon on the eighth did, someone who knew Lee’s habits, someone who either called Lee away from his lunch or screwed up popping the trunk so that Lee saw or heard, came running, and got killed.”

  “Why?” Kate asked starkly. “Why not just rob him or beat him up like the other couriers?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” Sam agreed. “Of all the couriers, his is the only one whose body was hidden. Why? The answer is our killer.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He fiddled with his coffee cup, thought about not telling her, and decided she’d do better with the truth than with well-meaning evasions.

  “I think whoever killed your half brother is part of a group I call the Teflon gang. I think they’re American. I think they have someone on the inside of the gem trade. Way inside. I think Lee must have recognized whoever robbed him in Florida. I think that’s why Lee died.” Sam looked up. His eyes were as grim as the line of his mouth. “And I’m afraid the gang has someone on the inside of the crime strike force too.”

  “You don’t mean just someone with ambition and media contacts and loose lips?”

  “I mean someone who knows just what he’s saying and just what the results will be.”

  Kate closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them. They looked the way she felt—angry and afraid and determined. “What can we do?”

  “First I’m going to put you in a safe place.”

  “Already taken care of. Look around you, Special Agent. Dead-bolts and locks and alarms everywhere. What’s second?”

  “I want to move you to another place.”

  “I don’t want to go. I’m safer here than I would be in a motel room going nuts staring at bad art and wondering if the next guy coming through the door will be you or a killer with a badge. I mean it, Sam. I’m staying. I’m safer here.”

  “I’m just one man. I can’t protect you twenty-four-seven.”

  “I’m just one woman who can put bullets into man-shaped targets at twenty-three feet with either hand.”

  Sam lifted his eyebrows. “Did the targets have guns?”

  “Our instructor said that came under the heading of postgraduate work, and she hoped to hell we never had to do that dance.”

  “So do I.” Sam looked at his watch without really seeing it. Whatever the readout said, it didn’t matter.

  There wasn’t enough time.

  But whatever it was, it was all they had. “Okay, we’ll do it your way until that doesn’t work anymore. Then we’ll do it mine.”

  Kate ignored the chill that was gathering under her skin. “Sounds good.”

  He almost laughed. Nothing sounded good to him but grabbing her and running like hell. Too bad that being on the run wouldn’t get the job done.

  “We’re going to make a list of everyone Lee knew in the jewelry trade,” Sam said. “Then we’re going to make a list of everyone on the strike force. Then we’ll see how much the lists overlap.”

  “What if they don’t?”

  “Then we make a list of friends of friends. Somewhere, somehow, there’s a link between Lee and the FBI.”

  “There’s always a pattern, is that it? Like cutting rough?”

  He smiled slightly. “That’s one way of putting it.”

  “So all we have to do is throw away the facts that don’t matter.”

  “All.” Sam laughed wearily. “Yeah, that’s all. Hope you weren’t planning on much sleep. It’s going to be a long night.”

  “Sleep? What’s that?”

  Kate took the yellow pad, flipped to a new page, and drew a stark black line down the center of the page. In neat block letters, she started writing down the name of everyone Lee knew in the jewelry business. Sam was right. It was going to be a long night.

  But at least she wouldn’t be spending it alone.

  Chapter 56

  Glendale

  Saturday

  11:08 P.M.

  Kirby was driving a dark blue rental car when he closed in on Kate Chandler’s house. The Lexus wasn’t flashy, but it was a long way from an urban beater. A man in a suit driving an expensive car was assumed to be a solid citizen returning from a late flight. He was a lot less likely to be stopped and questioned by a cruising squad car than some mutt in dirty jeans driving a clapped-out Ford.

  If anyone noticed that Kirby was wearing a black turtleneck under the suit coat, that his pants were black jeans instead of true slacks, and that he was sporting black running shoes instead of loafers, it still wouldn’t matter. Lots of middle-level workers dressed like that in the west.

  The briefcase on the seat next to Kirby was glossy leather and entirely fitting for the car and the dark suit. The fact that the case was packed with burglar’s tools didn’t show on the outside.

  Everything was looking routine until he saw the plain four-door sedan parked in front of Kate’s house. The Voice hadn’t said anything about a guard on the female, but the car might as well have great big letters on its side announcing “This turd on wheels is official property.”

  Only cops drove cheap American sedans.

  Shit.

  For a few seconds he thought about turning around, driving away, and to hell with the money, but he was revising his plans before the idea of walking out had a chance to take hold. It wasn’t just the money, although money was always useful. It was just that he’d been…anticipating.

  Warm flesh. Cold steel. Screams that never made it past duct tape. Panicked eyes. The scent of blood, the hot spill of it, the rush that told him he was still young.

  Nothing wrong with a man enjoying his work.

  He drove by the parked car. He couldn’t see anyone through the windows. Maybe the cop was stretched out in the back of the sedan, sleeping on the job. Maybe he was an off-duty cop and her boyfriend and was inside the house. Either way, no alarm would go out on the sedan’s radio. But if the guy was inside the house, that was different.

  Kirby thought about it as he scanned the surrounding houses. None of them had lights on. In neighborhoods like this, most of the people who lived there were old and went to bed early or young and had the kind of jobs that got them up at dawn. In the end, young or old, everyone went to bed before ten.

  The target house had lights on. Unlike the neighbors, somebody was up and around.

  Son of a whore. Decent people are asleep by now.

  He memorized the houses in the immediate area, their approaches, their fences. The target house had empty lots across the street. They wouldn’t be empty long because a developer’s big sign announced that apartments were on the way. Kirby didn’t care beyond the fact that the sign might provide cover for him.

  He drove on, turned right, and turned right again on the next street. The house directly behind the target was weather-beaten, unlit, and had a FOR RENT sign stuck into the dead lawn. The houses on either side were dark, with older cars parked in the driveways.

  After another drive around the block from the other direction, Kirby went to a bar he’d spotted in a small shopping center a mile away. He sat in the parki
ng lot and dialed up White’s cell phone. A little help might be smart.

  No one answered.

  He dialed again, hung up, then called a third time. It was their prearranged signal to pick up even if you were jumping the old lady.

  No answer.

  No voice mail either. Not that Kirby would have left a message even if he’d been able to. The business he and White did together wasn’t the type that you felt good about leaving voice mails.

  So it can’t look like a whack job, and she either has a guard or a boyfriend that drives a government special.

  Cursing silently, Kirby considered the possibilities. If she’d been alone, he wouldn’t have cared about the lights being on, but she wasn’t alone and he did care. He’d have to wait until the guard or boyfriend or whatever left or they got tired of screwing and fell asleep.

  And here he’d been all psyched up and ready to go.

  He got out of the car, locked his briefcase and suit coat in the trunk, and walked toward the bar. In his dark clothes, he was just one more shadow in the parking lot.

  Chapter 57

  Glendale

  Saturday

  11:35 P.M.

  The wreckage of mostly eaten pizza and too many cups of coffee lay across one of Kate’s worktables. Another table was covered with Sam’s files. A third sprouted sticky notes with information that hadn’t yet been assigned to a category. Kate sat at the fourth table with tablets labeled Prime Suspects, Persons Unknown, Last Resort, When Pigs Fly, Active, or Pipeline scattered in front of her. Sam was right next to her. Because neither of them had the skill to display complex linkages on the computer, they were working the old-fashioned way—legal tablets, pencils, and erasers.

  And sticky notes. Lots and lots of sticky notes.

  The computer was within arm’s reach for the times when Sam needed to get public—or not so public—information on the people they were discussing.

  “Okay,” Sam said, “it’s your turn to read. Take it from the beginning.”

  Again? Kate wanted to bang her head on the table, but silently reached for a yellow tablet instead. When Sam had told her that a lot of investigative work was a waste of time, Kate hadn’t really believed him. She did now.