by Joseph Flynn
Both Emily and Arcelia immediately wanted to know what was in the envelope.
“I’ll show you when we get back to the office,” Rebecca said. Being the boss, she could make that kind of decision. “You want to go in this evening or wait until tomorrow?”
Emily and Arcelia voted for that evening.
Emily took the wheel of her Audi and they made the trip in fifteen minutes.
The three women convened in Rebecca’s office.
“Okay,” she said, “we have photographic evidence that Jack Murtagh can forge a signature. That was an essential step in building a case that he could have done the same thing for Angelo Renzi: forge the signature of our client, Keith Perry. Now, Walt Wooten puts Murtagh together with Angelo Renzi for us, but I wanted to see if there’s photographic evidence of a relationship between the two of them.”
Emily nodded. “So you called my dad, having gotten the idea that he’s well connected in this town.”
“And has a staff that knows how to do research. I was counting on that.”
“Did he give you a family-discount rate?” Arcelia asked.
“Or did he comp it?” Emily said, feeling uneasy about accepting a favor from her father’s law firm.
“Neither,” Rebecca said. “I told him we’d pay the going rate and charge the expense to our client. He said, and I quote, ‘Hooray!’ This office will be run strictly on a professional basis.”
“Good to know,” Emily said.
“Let’s see the dirt,” Arcelia told Rebecca.
Rebecca pulled the 8x10 color photographic prints from the envelope, an even dozen of them, nicely divisible by three. Each woman studied her own batch and then passed it along. They didn’t do glance-and-shuffle inspections. Each print got a careful scan, top to bottom and side to side. One shot was a simple buddy picture: Renzi and Murtagh, arms around each other’s shoulders. Eight exposures showed the two men standing in front of various Murtagh paintings. Three more were prints of Murtagh’s paintings with neither man in the frame.
A note from Lee Proctor said all the shots were used in a magazine layout of Renzi’s home. The publication’s name, Coastal California, was stamped on the backs of all of the prints. On the nine prints that included the two men in the shot another line of stamped information indicated: Photos taken May 14, 2016.
On the three exposures showing only the paintings themselves, the second line on the back of the prints said: Photos taken June 7, 2016.
None of the three women missed the discrepancy.
Rebecca, Emily and Arcelia all searched for some significance. Had the photos featuring only Murtagh’s paintings also been shot in May with the others? Had they been out of focus or poorly lit, requiring a reshoot? That didn’t seem likely. All of the images were crisply defined and well composed. A pro, someone whose work was consistently top-notch, had taken them.
So what was the need for a reshoot? A magazine editor had simply wanted some stand-alone shots of the paintings? Or had Murtagh asked for them to emphasize his work?
The women asked themselves those and other questions.
Then Rebecca came up with the question they’d yet to consider.
“What if Angelo Renzi asked for the re-shoot?”
“Why would he do that?” Emily said.
None of them had an answer, at first.
Then it hit Rebecca. She smiled tentatively and then reviewed all the photos again, pulling three of them with the two men in frame and put one down above each shot of the paintings-only images.
“Tell me the difference you see between each of these pairs of photographs, other than the two guys not being in the bottom row of shots.”
She moved aside so Emily and Arcelia could lean in for close inspection.
Emily caught the discrepancies a heartbeat before Arcelia did.
She said, “The stand-alone paintings have been altered.”
“Right,” Arcelia agreed. “Something in each of them has been removed.”
Rebecca nodded. “Those perverse visual jokes that Murtagh likes to put in all his work — having a child molester watch kids dancing — somebody painted them out.”
Emily said, “You can bet it wasn’t Murtagh himself.”
“So you know he’s going to be one pissed-off painter,” Arcelia said, “somebody screwing with his work.”
Rebecca smiled. “Yeah. Up until now, we’ve had evidence that Murtagh can do a terrific job forging a signature and he has a close professional relationship with Angelo Renzi. That should be good enough to get a favorable ruling for Keith Perry in civil court. So our client should be free to pursue his own new business and we chalk up a win in our first case, but…”
Emily knew where Rebecca was going, “If we get Murtagh pissed-off enough, which shouldn’t be hard, he might be willing to testify that Renzi used him to perpetrate a fraud.”
“I like that,” Arcelia said, “but wouldn’t Murtagh do some time, too?”
“Depends on the deal he cuts with the D.A.,” Emily replied. “Renzi is the big fish; Murtagh’s the marginal ‘artist of the moment.’”
Rebecca came up with another important consideration. “You know what? With all of us being new to the private investigations business, I think we’d better check with our big boss and see how he wants us to play this situation.”
She called the home office in Washington, DC, even though it was getting late back east.
McGill was in. He listened to their story and said, “Go for it.”
Farnam Street — Omaha, Nebraska
John was standing in front of the building where Brice Benard had his offices when Marlene’s stretch limo pulled up to the curb. A chauffeur got out and walked briskly around the rear of the colossus to open the door for Marlene. He extended a hand to help her out, but she waved it off and exited with a dancer’s grace.
Without bothering to say hello to John, she asked him, “Do you have your own transportation, Tall Wolf?”
John nodded. “A Chevy.”
She addressed her driver, “Find somewhere nearby to park. I’ll call when I need you.”
The man only nodded and handed her a card with his phone number on it.
As the limo pulled away, Marlene stared at John for several seconds.
He broke the silence by telling her, “The President wants me to take your place as Secretary of the Interior.”
“And?” she asked.
“I don’t want the job. I’ve been trying to think of a way to bow out gracefully, but I haven’t come up with anything good. Any suggestions?”
Marlene said, “Pretend it’s me asking you, or even telling you, to do something.”
John laughed. Then he said, “Had a good time with Mom and Dad, did you?”
Marlene’s eyes flashed. “We’ll talk about that later.”
“Okay, I’ve got a proposition for you, but we can discuss that later, too.”
John opened the door to the building for her.
She looked at Tall Wolf as she passed by. “I was thinking on the flight here that you and I have a few things in common.”
John joined her in the building’s lobby. “We’re both sly devils?”
That brought Marlene up short. Made her wonder if Tall Wolf understood her too well.
Before that idea could be discussed, a man’s voice called out, “Help you, folks?”
They both saw a uniformed security guard addressing them from his perch behind a highboy desk adjacent to an elevator bank. His name tag said he was Eugene.
John walked over to him with Marlene at his side. He showed his BIA identification and said, “Federal officer.”
Gene read the particulars of John’s ID. Then he asked, “And the lady?”
“My boss. I’m just the muscle.”
“Well, you’re big enough. How can I help?”
“We’re looking for Mr. Brice Benard. Would you know if he’s still on the premises?”
Eugene said, “Just a minute.�
� He checked the laptop on his desk. “His car’s still in the building, so I imagine he is, too.”
“He never leaves the building on foot?” John asked.
“Goes to lunch at some restaurants nearby. At the end of the day, he takes his car.”
“How about other people in the office? They stay late when the boss is putting in long hours?”
“That’s a pretty smart question for a guy who’s just muscle,” Eugene said.
John told him, “I work at self-improvement. I bet you do, too.”
“I’m taking a couple of community college classes,” Eugene admitted.
“So are there other people up there with Mr. Benard?” John asked.
Eugene shook his head. “The whole place cleared out early. Never saw that before. As far as I know, it’s just Mr. Benard. You going to arrest him?”
“I think so,” John said. “Can’t say for sure yet, but it looks that way. You don’t know if he carries a weapon, do you?”
“Never heard that he does. Never saw any bulges in his suit coat.” A thought flashed across Eugene’s mind as plainly as a neon sign. Only he didn’t like the message. With great reluctance, he asked, “You want me to give you some back-up?”
John pointed a thumb at Marlene.
“The boss takes care of that.”
“What if things get rough?” Eugene asked.
“That’s how she likes it,” John told him.
Eugene told them Benard had his office on the top floor.
John and Marlene got in an elevator and exited two floors short of their destination.
The building had 40 stories according to the numbers in the elevator; John and Marlene got out on the 38th floor.
John said, “Don’t want Benard to hear the elevator ring and know someone’s coming.”
Marlene responded, “Two questions: Do you think a two-floor cushion is enough to keep someone from hearing a bell?”
John looked at her. “Not for you. For most people, yes. What’s your other question?”
He opened the door to a stairwell and they headed upward.
Marlene said, “You think a white man would have thought of this precaution?”
“You mean are they as naturally sneaky as us Injuns?”
“Exactly.”
John grinned. “Yeah, some of them are. The ones who had their own reasons to learn misdirection young. Like when they picked gooseberries in a rough neighborhood.”
They came to the door to the 40th floor. It was locked, as an adjacent sign advised. They’d have to go down ten flights to find a door that opened from inside the stairwell. John said, “I can pick the lock. Took a class at Glynco.”
The Federal Law Enforcement Training Center at Glynco, Georgia.
“Don’t bother,” Marlene said.
She took hold of the doorknob and turned it easily, as if it was unlocked.
Only John heard metal shearing and pieces falling.
He didn’t say anything as Marlene opened the door and held it for him. Smiling wide enough to show her killer incisors. He’d have had to admit he was impressed, if she’d asked him, but she didn’t.
What he wondered, though, was if Benard heard the lock assembly deconstruct. Maybe, but unlike an arriving elevator, the sound would be hard to identify and characterize as a threat. Still, a paranoid personality, or someone who’d stolen a computer from a federally funded research facility, might investigate any unexpected sound he heard.
John turned to whisper a warning to Marlene. Only she was no longer standing next to him. Or anywhere else he could see. He understood she was showing off for him, defeating the door and then disappearing, but it was still impressive.
The darkened office space had an open floor-plan, except for a few small, dark offices to John’s left and an enclosed area that had two perpendicular walls separating it from the rows of desks, sans cubicle partitions, which filled the large majority of the square footage. The large enclosed space had a thin line of light showing at the bottom of its door. That had to be Benard’s corner office. John had to decide how to approach it.
He could move along the outer rows of desks to his right, but that border area was dimly lit by the ambient light from downtown Omaha filtering through the windows. Taking that path might reveal him as a silhouette, if Benard stepped out of his office. He could eliminate that problem by dropping down beneath desktop level and do a combat crawl, but that felt wrong to him. He was a senior federal officer with good reason to suspect Brice Benard had committed a crime. He had to take charge.
John decided the way to go was to take the most direct route, the central dividing line between the rows of desks that was wider than all the other spaces between workstations. Bestride Main Street to arrest the big shot. That was the way to go, and just what he did.
To be careful, though, he took his Beretta in hand and clicked off the safety. Keeping his mental focus on the center of his visual field, John let his peripheral vision and subconscious mind take in less immediate surroundings. None of the desks he passed had so much as a paperclip on it. The boss had to be a neat freak. It was always good to know the other guy’s personality type.
The other thing that struck John was that he saw no sign whatsoever of Marlene. He knew Coyote was capable of many things but he hadn’t ever heard invisibility was one of them. Then, as he reached a point just short of the closed door to Benard’s office, she was standing beside him again.
Without having made a sound. Without a visual cue to her approach. She was just there.
Marlene pointed to her ear and then at the closed door.
Taking her cue, John heard voices, plural. Two of them spoke casually as if not worried about being overheard. One spoke English in flat Midwestern tones; the other spoke accented but understandable English. Eastern European, John thought. Slavic. Russian?
A third voice, again Midwestern, this one loud enough to hear every word clearly, said, “You bastards are not getting my gold! Break every damn finger I’ve got. Go ahead and shoot me. I don’t care. I’ve got a bad heart. It’s gonna pop any second now anyway.”
Before he even turned to look at her, John could feel Marlene’s sudden interest.
Coyote, it seemed, was numbered among the legions who lusted for gold.
He caught her eye and pointed to himself and then the door. He was going in, and he was going first. He made his move before she could either object or disappear again.
John threw the door open. He was lucky nobody had thought to lock it. His misfortune was Wilbur Rosewell had a gun in his hand and the one who’d been working on the man he took to be Brice Benard with a pair of pliers, and definitely looked Russian to John, put his tool down and stuck his now free hand inside his coat.
From the gruesome look of things, the Russian had already broken four of Benard’s fingers.
Rosewell was definitely the jerk Great-grandfather had tripped in DC, and his eyes bugged out at the sight of John. He froze for the moment, possibly thinking other feds might start pouring into the room. Even so, he managed to yell, “Petrovich!”
The Russian started to pull his weapon out.
John intuitively said to him, "Порфирий Петрович, нет?”
Porfiry Petrovich, no?
John had taken another college course: Russian Literature — Two Semesters of Hard Labor.
The Russian went rigid, stood motionless. How could this tall stranger not only correctly infer the literary reference of his pseudonym but also voice it in his native language? Certainly, he had to be an agent of fate. His unexpected appearance had to be a development of fatal consequence. Petrovich felt he could do no more than stare at the man and await his inevitable demise.
Dostoevsky could not have written a more fitting end to his life.
By now, Rosewell had other feelings about the prick who’d already had him locked up once. He took Elmore Leonard’s approach to how a bad guy should act and shot John while he had his eyes on th
e Russian.
All of which happened just as Marlene entered the room. She saw John fall and blood spurt from his chest. The two men with guns might have shot her, too, only they waited a heartbeat too long and Marlene was gone.
Replaced by Coyote.
Huge enough to make the two of them try to crowd behind Benard for cover. The real estate mogul could only close his eyes, hoping that his end would be swift, and come after those of the two bastards who’d been torturing him.
Benard heard the monster’s jaws snap twice, followed by what sounded to him like bones being crushed. He knew he’d be next and he braced himself for the end, but it didn’t come. Instead, a hand slapped his face, resounding with a loud crack.
Benard’s eyes popped open, blurred for a second before they cleared. That fucker Rosewell and the bastard Russian were gone. There wasn’t a trace of either of them anywhere. The monster had vanished, too. In its place was a gorgeous woman who looked like she might murder him.
Instead, she handed him a business card and said, “Call my driver. Tell him to have my car out front by the time we reach the street. And bring the computer you stole from Dr. Lisle with you.”
She picked up the bloody big guy like he was a baby and stormed out of the room, leaving Benard alone. Nonetheless, he didn’t hesitate to do exactly as he was told. Who the hell knew where the monster was? Maybe it’d take its time with him.
Linger over the third course of its hellish meal.
Benard, carrying the laptop, caught up to Marlene as the elevator came.
Leaving behind the bar of gold on his desk.
Tall Wolf was still breathing as Marlene got him and Benard into the back of her limo.
The nearest hospital, the limo driver told her, was only three blocks away.
He’d get them there in under a minute.
Even so, Marlene snarled into John’s ear: “Don’t you dare die on me, Tall Wolf. I don’t want to live under your mother’s curse forever.”
Los Angeles, California
Jack Murtagh, perhaps thinking no one would either desire or dare to call on him at home, let his address be listed online. Apparently, he’d done well enough online to live in a neatly renovated home in the Silver Lake neighborhood, not far from Chavez Ravine where the Dodgers played baseball.
