One Tough Texan

by MJ Rodgers

  “We’re never going to know unless we first find out who he actually was, Jamie. And I have a feeling Rollo Lipicky is the one to ask.”

  Jamie willed her stomach to settle. They were currently passing over Texas and the plane was being buffeted by the strong up-currents, just as if they were sitting atop a bucking bronco.

  “I’m almost afraid to find out,” she said as the last violent air draft passed. “What if I was the cause of his death?”

  “You were not the cause of his death. The person who smashed his skull in gets that credit.”

  “But—”

  “No buts, Jamie. I should have confronted that man who was following us when I had a chance. Neither of us can undo what’s been done. All we can concentrate on is following the trail to his killer. That’s the only way we’ll be able to bring him to justice.”

  Jamie knew Matt was right. But that didn’t mean Tony’s death was weighing any less on her conscience. She stared out the window. She had been angry at Tony when she realized he had been one of the thieves who had robbed Priddy. Her anger had grown considerably when she understood he might also have been a party to Kleinman’s death and tried to blame Lester for it.

  But she still couldn’t forget what his regard had done for her all those years before. How could he be the person who had taken her to the dance and the person who had deliberately gone out to rob folks?

  All her life she wanted to be seen for whom she was. And

  yet, when it came to men, it didn’t look like she had ever

  really seen them for who they were. First Tony. Then Cade. Was she taken in because she looked for only what she wanted to find?

  Jamie felt Matt’s hand rest on hers, enveloping it in his massive bulk. Her gaze returned to his wonderfully strong, craggy face and the warm, deep lust in his eyes.

  She sighed into a smile. “I have the oddest feeling that the

  earth is cooling all around me, Matt, and your hand is the only thing that’s keeping me warm.”

  He touched her face with the brush of his knuckles, so gently, so briefly she barely felt anything at all. He spoke not one word of love, but his every look, his every touch spoke to Jamie of nothing else.

  Sweet Lord, she hoped she wasn’t seeing just what she wanted to see again!

  “Is everything okay, Jamie?”

  “No, Matt. It’s not. You wouldn’t be in any of this trouble if it weren’t for me.”

  “Jamie, rest easy. I wouldn’t trade a moment of this past week with you. I’ve battled the bad guys and shone off for my gal. Darlin’, that’s what living is all about to a Texan. Truth be told, I haven’t had such a rip-roaring good time in years.”

  Darlin’. He’d called her darlin’.

  The endearment entered her ears like music that was too fast, too sweet to catch. Please don’t let this be just a good time for him, she prayed.

  “What happens when we get to Florida?” she asked.

  “I’m going to try to catch this Rollo Lipicky at his home. His office says he’s been on vacation for the past week and isn’t expected back anytime soon. When we get to Sanibel Island, I want you to stay in the hotel.”

  “Stay in the hotel? Why?”

  “Because someone killed Tony and damned near killed us. I’m not taking a chance with your life.”

  “You’re taking a chance with yours.”

  “I can always call in help.”

  “Matt, I know that’s not true. I was close enough to hear what Keele said on the other end of that telephone line. You’re in trouble because you’ve been using FBI resources on a case that isn’t FBI. Not even Keele can help you anymore.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Jamie. I can handle myself. Remember, I’m trained for this sort of thing.”

  “I won’t be left in some hotel room, Matt, while you go into a situation that could be dangerous. If something happened to you—”

  Jamie stopped herself just in time from finishing that sentence the way she was going to. If she hoped to have a shred of pride left if it turned out he couldn’t return her feelings, then she knew she had to change her words.

  “If something happened to you, Matt Bonner, Lord knows I’d never hear the end of it from Liz, Cade, Charlene or your mama and daddy.”

  She watched the surprised recognition of her use of his earlier words swirl through the turquoise and silver in his eyes. And then, for the first time in her life, she heard him laugh. It was a wonderful laugh-deep and strong like a sudden Texas storm thundering through her heart.

  THE POUNDING OF THE nearby surf against the walls of the seaside condo was deafening. Matt and Jamie climbed the three flights of stairs to the top where end unit number thirtytwo looked over the rocky shore. Matt checked that his gun was within easy reach and then pressed the doorbell. There was no answer.

  He pressed it twice more, each time listening intently for any sounds coming from inside as his eyes simultaneously scanned the pathway around them.

  There was no sound from inside and no movement from without.

  “Now what?” Jamie asked.

  “Now, I see if there’s another way in,” Matt said.

  He walked to where the sidewalk ended on the third story. He peered around the corner, squinting into the afternoon sun. About six feet beyond the edge, a balcony bowed out over the water. Matt took a quick look around and then eased his .38 out of its holster vest and handed it to Jamie.

  “Hold this for me and be sure to use it should the need arise before I get back.”

  “Matt, that’s a forty-foot drop,” Jamie said, slipping the gun into her handbag as she, nervously eyed the sea breaking over the jagged shore below.

  “Now don’t you worry none, Jamie. I’m tough.”

  Jamie grabbed his denim vest and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “For luck, tough guy.”

  Matt picked her off her feet and crushed her to him. He kissed her hard and thoroughly, lingering to savor the softness of her lips. Then he set her back again on her feet.

  “Just figured I get some more of that luck,” he said, smiling into her flushed face.

  He took one last quick look around before climbing on the railing at the edge of the walkway. He measured the distance to the balcony, then leapt.

  He landed on top of the white wrought-iron railing circling the balcony and quickly pulled himself up and over. After one quick look around to be sure he hadn’t been seen, Matt made his way to the sliding-glass door that led into the condo from the balcony.

  He cupped his hand to the glass and looked inside. The balcony fed off a living room. No lights were on. No movement.

  He pulled a knife out of his back pocket and jimmied the lock. Then he rolled the sliding-glass door back.

  The smell of old, stale cigarettes immediately assailed Matt’s nose. The place needed a good airing. Matt left the door to the balcony open behind him. He quickly checked through the one-bedroom unit, satisfying himself that it was unoccupied. Then he went to the door and beckoned Jamie inside.

  “What do we look for?” she asked.

  “Answers. I’ll start in here. You try the bedroom.”

  As Jamie headed toward the bedroom, Matt’s eyes surveyed the beautiful antiques before him. He couldn’t help wondering how many Rollo Lipicky had stolen from his clients. He was examining a mahogany Chippendale mirror that had to be worth close to twenty thousand when he heard Jamie call out from the bedroom.

  “Matt, come look.”

  Matt walked into the bedroom to see Jamie standing by a eighteenth-century William and Mary blanket chest, holding up a framed picture of a man and woman.

  “It’s Tony’s daddy, or the man who pretended to be his daddy in Sweetspring,” Jamie said. “He’s definitely at least a decade older in this picture, but it’s him.”

  Matt took the photo from her hand. It was a close-up shot of a couple taken with a flash and showing the background of a nightclub. The woman was plain, with short red hair, a thin face and a big
, pointy nose. The man was dark-haired, slender, fortyish, familiar.

  “This is the man who was following us in Reno,” Matt said. “Do you recognize the redhead beside him?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure it’s not the woman who posed as Tony’s mama in Sweetspring? Long hair, different makeup—”

  “I’m sure, Matt. The woman in this picture has a slim, bony face. The woman who posed as Tony’s mama had a much broader look to her features.”

  “Well, at least we’ve identified Rollo Lipicky as the second one of the trio of crooks. And since he was following us in Reno, he was probably the one who found and killed Tony.”

  “You think it was a falling out among thieves?”

  “That’s what seems to be the most likely conclusion to me. We know that Tony and Rollo and probably the woman were in Woodpine in 1980, where they stole Priddy’s coin collection and locket. Then two years later, they showed up in Sweetspring and made the attempt to steal from Kleinman.”

  “Only Kleinman came home early and caught them,” Jamie said. “So they ended up killing him.”

  “And a year later, Tony appears in Reno as Timothy Palmer and establishes himself in the legitimate cleaning business with a bunch of cash, supposedly won gambling.”

  “His split of the profits from their thefts.”

  “Or maybe something more than his split,” Matt said.

  Jamie turned to him. “Yes, I see. That was the falling out. He took more than his share. Then he assumed another alias because his cohorts knew his real name, and he was hiding from them. Matt, what do we do now?”

  “We search this place to see what else we can find. It doesn’t look like Rollo’s been back here since Reno. He and the woman might have stayed there to see if Tony’s death was judged to be an acc—”

  Matt stopped in the middle of his sentence as he heard the key in the front-door lock.

  “Quick. Someone’s coming.” He grabbed Jamie and pulled her behind him as he stepped in back of the bedroom door.

  Matt peered into the living room through the slit in the door frame. He could hear the front door open, although he could not see who was opening it. One pair of shoes scraped across the entry tile. The owner of those shoes closed the door.

  A moment later the edge of a man’s sleeve came into view. Matt watched as the tall nineteenth-century case clock in the living room was moved aside. The man knelt next to it and lifted up the edge of the carpet that had been exposed. He pulled something out of a hidden compartment in the floor.

  And that was when Matt got a look at his profile. And a surprise. He stepped around the bedroom door and walked into the living room. He could feel Jamie following beside him.

  The dark-haired man spun around, the money he had in his hands falling to the carpet, his dark eyes wide in surprise.

  “Tony!” Jamie said from beside Matt.

  Tony Lagarrigue, alias Timothy Palmer, looked hopefully at the door. But when he realized that Matt was between him and it, he took what looked like a resigned breath and let it out on what actually sounded like a good-natured laugh in the face of defeat. “Well, well. You two show up at the most inopportune times.”

  “I thought you were dead!” Jamie said.

  “That was the idea, Jamie Lee,” Tony said, calmly crossing his arms over his chest.

  “Whose body did they find in that explosion?” Matt asked.

  “I’m afraid it was Uncle Rollo who bought it back in Reno.”

  “Uncle?” Jamie repeated.

  “It can’t hurt to tell you now. It’s sure to all come out anyway. You weren’t the only one cursed with a bunch of disreputable relatives, Jamie Lee. My real name is Tony Lipicky. Rollo and Val raised me when my parents died. By the time I was eighteen, they had not only taught me everything about a profitable little scam they had going, they had also recruited me as part of the operation.”

  “Robbing the clients of Heritage Antiques and Collectibles,” Matt said.

  Tony’s eyebrows went up in surprise. “If I ever need a private investigator, Mr. Bonner, I’m definitely hiring you.”

  “How old were you when you were in Sweetspring?” Jamie asked.

  “Twenty-four. Of course, I’ve never looked my age. Which is why I played the part of a teenager on most of our travels. I’d mow lawns. Get invited inside for a cool drink and a quick look around to see where the goodies were kept. Then I’d be keeping company with some teenage girl who could provide me with an alibi while Rollo and Val were busy with the robberies. No one ever suspected them, of course. They were always such a nice, timid couple.”

  “Why did you pick me to take to the dance?”

  “You were Uncle Rollo’s pick. He always said select the plainest girl, because if anything ever went wrong, she’d never give you any grief. Although, I have to tell you, Jamie Lee, there is nothing plain about you now. Stunning doesn’t even begin to come close to saying it. If I could have seen you then as I see you now, we would never have made it to that dance.”

  “Tell me how you selected your victims,” Matt cut in, not liking the look Tony was giving Jamie or the sudden turn his conversation had taken.

  Tony glanced up at Matt’s face. What he saw there wiped off the smile on his face right fast. His tone immediately sobered.

  “Rollo kept track of the really valuable pieces going through his hands at-Heritage. Val kept track of the recipients who weren’t reporting their capital gains to the IRS.”

  “How?”

  “Simple. Val works for the IRS.”

  “Handy. Go on.”

  “We’d go in under false names. Sometimes we’d use the identities of other Heritage clients. Sometimes we’d borrow identities Val got off the IRS computers. Rollo had already made it a point to know a lot about our target. Once in town, we’d pin down the daily habits at the house, the exact location of the items we’d come for and then wait until we could get the owner out of the way.”

  “Like telling Priddy Stowell a poisonous gas cloud was on the way from the Mount Saint Helens volcano,” Jamie said.

  “You two have been busy. Yeah, it was Rollo’s brainstorm to get old Priddy out with that one. Worked great. Then Val disengaged the alarm and—”

  “So it was them who broke into my office at the studio to get Jamie’s address,” Matt said.

  “Wouldn’t be surprised,” Tony said. “Val worked for an alarm-system company before getting a job at the IRS.”

  “You were after Priddy’s gold-coin collection from the first, weren’t you?” Jamie asked.

  “Yeah. We broke into a couple of other homes just to make it look like looters.”

  “And when you found Priddy’s cheap metal locket inside the box, you decided to keep it and use it on your next gullible teenage alibi,” Jamie said.

  “Actually, Jamie Lee, the next girl I made up to didn’t want that old locket. She said it was too cheap. If you hadn’t taken it, I was going to throw it away. Which reminds me. What was it you found in that secret compartment?”

  “Ten-thousand dollars,” Jamie said. Matt could see she enjoyed the wince on Tony’s face.

  “What did you do with the items you stole?” Matt asked.

  “None of the owners ever reported their specific losses because technically they couldn’t admit they owned the items. Rollo generally just contacted another one of his collectors and sold the items to him or her for a full profit.”

  “And not just a commission, which is all he ever got as a trader,” Matt said.

  “That’s right. Then we’d split the proceeds. Val always got fifty percent, being the brains of the outfit. Rollo and I had to split the other fifty. Still, we were making some serious dough there for about six years.”

  “Until you went to Sweetspring and Kyle Kleinman came home too early,” Matt said. “And it escalated into murder.”

  Tony’s brow furrowed into a frown.

  “What happened?” Jamie asked.

  �
�It was so damn stupid, Jamie Lee. Kleinman missed Rollo by a mile with that shotgun. All Val had to do was whack him good over the head and dose him in some whiskey. The Sisterns would have just thought he was drunk and put him to bed to sleep it off. By the time Kleinman came to the next morning and told his tale, we would have been long gone, with the loot and without trace. But, no. Val had to go kill him.”

  “Whose idea was it to blame it on Lester?” Jamie asked.

  “Rollo had heard Deputy Plotnik saying it had to be Lester. So Val told Rollo to bury the bloody knife out where Lester had been camping. Then we got out of town fast. I stole the cash that still hadn’t been divvied up from the last operation out of Rollo’s hole in the carpet here and took off for good. I didn’t want anything to do with murder.”

  “You murdered Rollo,” Matt said, his voice cold, cutting.

  “No, you don’t understand. That was an accident I came home to meet with Jamie Lee. Rollo jumped me. We struggled. Rollo fell against the stone fireplace in the bedroom and cracked his skull. I swear.”

  “Why did you fake your death?” Matt said.

  “When I realized he was dead, I panicked. I knew if Rollo had found me, Val wouldn’t be far behind. I could have reasoned with Rollo if he let me. I knew I could never reason with Val. So I put my watch on Rollo, cleaned out his pockets, rigged the gas to go and slipped out through a side window. I found his rental car on the next block. I thought Val would think Rollo had gotten the money I’d taken, killed me and run with it.”

  “And he did, too,” the nasal voice said from the vicinity of the balcony.

  “Val!” Tony screamed just as a muffled pop flew past Matt’s ear. Tony fell to the carpet, clutching his leg.

  Matt whirled around, unaware until now that the pounding of the surf had hidden the sounds of someone else using the balcony entrance.

  A bald man faced him with angry, dark eyes and a big black automatic with a long silver silencer screwed onto its end. He was pointing the barrel at him.

  “Matt, he’s her, Erline!” Jamie said. “I recognize his face. Only he was wearing a wig and women’s clothes in Sweetspring. Val is a he!”

  Matt looked into the unflinching black eyes of the man standing before him, the man who had just cold-bloodedly shot his own nephew. Instinctively, Matt moved right, trying to shield Jamie.