by Don Travis
“Be sure you don’t stir up a viper.”
MARGOT JOINED Ariel and me in his office—at his request. After declining an offer of either wine or coffee, I studied the two. They projected the air of people who believed things were beginning to come to a head. I wished I shared that feeling. Margot, in particular, seemed affected. She was her usual friendly self, but there were lines around her mouth I hadn’t noticed before. Concerned about someone taking to my car again, perhaps.
“Don’t worry, Margot. I’m in a rental until my car’s repaired. And this time I got something besides an Impala.”
She frowned at me across the small table where we sat. “I didn’t know it showed. I would feel very responsible if something happened to you, BJ.”
“Thank you, but I know the risks of my job, and they are accepted voluntarily.”
Margot sank back in her chair and seemed to relax. “In other words, you’re a big boy, so don’t fret over you.”
“Bluntly put, but that’s the general idea.”
“It is not a trivial matter, BJ,” Gonda said. “I did not realize I put your safety at risk when I asked you to look into this matter. Perhaps we should reconsider.”
“More importantly, we should get down to business,” I said. “I need to warn you of two things. You can expect Sgt. Roma Muñoz and some of her deputies to come around. I believe she’s going to take a more proactive approach to your son’s murder than she has to this point.”
“I see,” Ariel said. “Is that a good thing?”
“Definitely. She has more manpower than I have, and she’ll approach things differently, so that’s good. And my associate Charlie Weeks will be questioning each of your employees again.”
Gonda nodded. “Yes. He arrived earlier and is at the winery right now, talking to Hakamora and Jones.”
“This is going to be a little tougher questioning than before.”
Margot sighed. “I suppose this means you’ve narrowed the killer down to someone at the Pines.”
“Not exclusively. But everything points to that probability.” I drummed my fingers as I considered sharing something I hadn’t revealed to them before. “The night Bas was killed, Natander and Pastis were across the street in the woods, keeping watch. They reached the conclusion that Diego C de Baca moved after dark, so they set up night surveillance. They thought they’d struck gold when Bas came walking out of the Pines parking lot. We’ve remarked on how much the two men resembled one another, not just in features, but in stature. Natander was certain it was Diego, but Pastis didn’t think the man walked like their quarry. At any rate, they waited before moving so Pastis could get a better look through the sniper’s scope he carried. While they waited, someone stepped out of the trees at the edge of your property and stopped Bas. They talked a moment before Bas moved on. Then the other man pulled out a pistol and shot him.”
Gonda drew a sharp breath. “So they saw who shot my son?”
At this point, I indulged in some fantasy. “It was dark, and unfortunately Pastis didn’t have night-vision equipment. However, he gave a general description of the killer. Enough so we have a pretty good idea of how to look for the man.” Purely by instinct, I added, “Or woman,” while watching Margot. All I saw was surprise.
“Woman?” Gonda blinked. “A woman shot my son?”
“Can’t rule it out until I run down a couple of things.” Time to ease up a bit. “Charlie’s tackling the workers. My job is to handle management. Might as well start with Marc. Is he around?”
“I’m sorry, but he left not long ago for a trip back to California. He has a meeting with the CFO of Halversack Wine Distributors in Los Angeles. They are signing with us to carry the Lovely Pines brand.” Gonda frowned. “I doubt he has reached the airport as yet. Do you want me to ring his cell phone and call him back?”
“No, I imagine that’s an important meeting for you.”
“Very important,” Margot said. “It will bring us into the black ahead of schedule.”
“If you’d give me his cell phone number, I can ask him a few preliminary questions.”
“Certainly,” Gonda said.
Margot spoke up. “He has a new cell but hasn’t changed it to the old number. I have the new number in my office. You can stop by and pick it up when you leave, BJ. If you will excuse me, I’ve got to go make some phone calls to put final details on the meeting Marc’s headed to.”
She rose and left the room. I watched her go. Something about our meeting upset her. I turned back to Gonda and found him studying me.
“What are you not telling me, BJ?”
“Before I answer that, may I ask what your intentions are with the Dayton child?”
“By all rights, it should be the Zuniga child.” Bitterness hid in his voice, but he cleared it away before answering. “Uncertain at this point. I would like to claim the child and bring him into my household. Raise him and let him, along with Marc, take over the business someday. I’m afraid our son Auguste has no interest in wines.”
“What’s stopping you?”
I read indecision on his face. “There is such animosity among the Daytons against Bas that I fear they would fight me. As the elder Dayton—James, I believe it is—is likewise a grandparent, he has as great a claim on the child as I do. If he were retaining custody of the child, I would certainly fight him on the matter. But from what Del Dahlman tells me, the Forsyth family in Carlsbad would likely provide a good home for the boy.” He arched an eyebrow, silently asking a question.
“I believe that to be true. They undoubtedly care for little David and have a prosperous, stable household.”
Gonda placed both hands flat on the table. “Then, too, there is the mess we are in at the moment. I shall reserve my decision until we know who killed his father and why.”
I looked him dead in the eye and agreed that was wise.
The meeting effectively over, I took my leave and stopped by Margot’s desk, where she gave me Marc’s new phone number. Except that it wasn’t. When I dialed, I got a greengrocer on the south side of Albuquerque who had no knowledge of a Marc Juisson.
“Oh dear!” Margot’s eyes went wide like quarters, giving her a flustered look. “I must have written it down wrong.” She consulted a memo book on her desk and compared a number from there with the one she provided me. “I’m certain I wrote it down correctly, although we were hurried because he was leaving for the airport later than expected because of the excitement this morning.”
“So this is a brand-new phone?”
“Yes. He got it yesterday afternoon in Albuquerque. He wanted the latest model. It’s a monstrously big thing to carry around, but he can dictate notes to himself and do his email, and I don’t know what else.”
“How about the old number?”
She provided it without hesitation. When I dialed, the call went to voicemail. The voice was clearly Marc’s. He hadn’t terminated service on the old phone yet.
A sudden shiver ran down my back, alerting me to something. But I wasn’t sure what. I asked Margot what flight Marc was on and took my leave, saying I’d begin questioning the others tomorrow.
I MADE it to the airport without incident, although I was surprised I wasn’t pulled over during my race down I-25 all the way through Albuquerque to the Sunport. I parked in the short-term structure and ran up the stairs to the American Airlines counter to find the right gate. The TSA security post was near enough to the waiting area that I had a good view of the passengers already in the process of boarding the flight. None of those still visible was Marc Juisson.
The American Airlines ticketing desk couldn’t or wouldn’t tell me if Marc Juisson had boarded that particular aircraft, so I made the rounds of the parking structure looking for his red Miata. Eventually I located the car on the third level. He’d obviously caught a flight to… somewhere.
Surrendering to my churning gut, I thumbed through my pocket notebook and found the telephone number of Halversack Wine Distribu
tors that Gonda had given me. When they answered, I worked my way up from the receptionist to the CEO’s office to a secretary named Miss Penny who owned a nice contralto voice.
“My name is B. J. Vinson, and I need to speak to Mr. Marc Juisson of the Lovely Pines Winery. I can’t reach him by his cell phone, but I know he has a meeting tomorrow with one of your vice presidents. Can you please let him know I’m trying to reach him?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but that meeting was rescheduled for the day after tomorrow. I will be happy—”
“Rescheduled? Can you tell me who rescheduled the meeting?”
“The Lovely Pines Winery.”
“Who requested the delay?”
“I don’t have that information. Who did you say you are?”
Rather than argue with her, I thanked her for her cooperation and terminated the call. The New Mexico Airlines counter was not only closed; it was also abandoned. Signs indicated there was only one flight to and from Carlsbad a day, and the departing plane took off about thirty minutes ago.
Jim Gray was in his office at the Double Eagle Airport and agreed to fly me down to Carlsbad. An ex-military pilot now running his own charter service, Jim said that rather than have me waste time driving across town, he’d pick me up at Cutter Flying Service on the west side of the Albuquerque Sunport. I’d just finished telling Hazel where I was heading and why when Jim’s silver-and-cherry Cessna Skycatcher arrived. Within minutes we were aloft. As I stared down at Sandia Peak passing beneath our wings, I wondered what in the hell I was doing. Heading for the Cavern City Airport, that’s what. Based on nothing except one rescheduled meeting and a strong feeling of unease.
Chapter 27
JIM ELECTED to remain at the airport when he chanced upon a mechanic buddy from the Vietnam War. I rented a car and headed straight for the Forsyth house. Although it was late in the afternoon, either Hadley or Jane—or both of them—might still be at the dealership, but the boy would be at home. And it was the boy I was concerned over.
My gut eased a bit when I saw a Carlsbad police unit in front of the house, but a blue Nissan parked behind it raised the hair on my neck. Relief turned to panic when I found an officer slumped in the driver’s seat of the patrol car. He was unresponsive. I leaned in the open window, picked up his radio mike, and put in an “officer down” call. Pausing only long enough to identify myself and give the dispatcher the address, I dropped the mike on the seat and reached for the officer’s holster. It was empty. His attacker took his sidearm. Marc had traveled here by passenger jet, so he wouldn’t have been able to bring a weapon with him. I had elected not to put Jim’s pilot’s license at risk by bringing my 9mm semiautomatic. It still rested in the trunk of my car back at Cutter Flying Service.
The officer’s shotgun was locked into place, and rather than search for the key, I snatched his baton before starting up the sidewalk. The front door was locked—at least Juisson had sense enough to lock things behind him. I took the quickest way inside by punching out a pane of glass with the officer’s truncheon and reaching inside to release the deadbolt. The old gunshot wound in my right thigh began to burn as soon as I opened the door and slipped inside, moving out of the open doorway as quickly as possible.
No one was in the hallway or in the sitting room so far as I could see. Then I spotted a leg protruding from behind a sofa. I scuttled across the thick carpet, keeping my eyes peeled for the intruder. Jane Forsyth lay on her back out of sight of most of the room. I found a pulse. She was alive. The ugly gash on her forehead told me Marc struck her with something, probably the weapon he carried.
Then the sound of a childish “No!” from somewhere upstairs drew me to the stairway. Marble, not wood. The steps wouldn’t creak and give me away. Nor would they betray Marc if he was on his way down.
“We’re just going for an ice cream cone” came a male voice. Marc’s voice? “You like ice cream, don’t you?”
As I started to ascend, a scrap of paper on a table beside the stairway caught my attention. A note in crude, obviously disguised lettering said to bring $500,000 to the Bat Cave at 8:00 p.m. that night if they wanted their son back. Yeah, right. Forsyth would be left waiting at the Carlsbad National Park forever for the little boy who would never return.
But the note told me one useful thing. Marc intended to leave this house with the child, probably alive since he wouldn’t want blood or body fluids to give away his game. That was why he’d dragged Mrs. Forsyth out of sight behind the sofa. He didn’t want the boy to see her and panic. Even so, he seemed to be having trouble with the child. I was halfway up the stairs when Marc appeared at the top, his attention distracted by having to drag along a distressed two-year-old child. Except it wasn’t Marc. That is, it was and it wasn’t. The voice I’d heard before I saw him on the stairway seemed to be his, and this man resembled him… strongly. Yet there was something amiss about him.
The sound of multiple sirens caught the kidnapper’s attention. He glanced down, his eyes going wide as he spotted me. I didn’t even get a warning out of my mouth before he reacted. He jerked the little boy by the arm and slung him straight at me.
I managed to catch the squealing child, but little David’s weight threw me off balance, sending me backward down the stairs. I heard a roar and understood the would-be-kidnapper had shot at me. Probably at both of us. By the time I bounced my way to the bottom of the stairs and regained my senses, he had disappeared. I heard cars screeching to a halt outside as I scrambled to my feet. Ignoring the pain of a wrenched right knee, I shoved the weeping boy toward the door—yelling for him to let the police into the house—and hobbled upstairs, using the banister to haul myself up each step.
The intruder was gone, of course. Nowhere in sight. He’d have made his way to the back stairs and escaped the house. But it wasn’t something I could count on. I checked each room as I came to it until I heard a harsh voice.
“Freeze! Put down your weapon. On your knees.”
I immediately obeyed the voice. One of their own was down, and the cops would be on the prod.
I waited until strong arms hoisted me roughly to my feet and steel bracelets circled my wrists before speaking. “My name is B. J. Vinson, and I’m the guy who radioed in the ‘officer down’ call. How is he, by the way?”
They turned me around so that I faced two uniformed officers. The younger one fished my wallet out of my pocket. “Yep. Vinson. Driver’s license and a PI license.”
Of course, that didn’t mean I hadn’t injured their buddy and then called it in to cover my tracks. If they reasoned that out, they’d wonder why I was still in the house if that were the case. But this wasn’t the time for rational thought.
I nodded to the billy club lying on the floor. “That’s your officer’s weapon. I took it off him after I found him unconscious and called in to get him help. His sidearm was missing. Presumably the kidnapper has it.”
The older officer gave me a blank stare. His breast tag read Roger Pillars. “How’d you find our officer?”
“I was on the way to the house because I feared a kidnapping was taking place. I’m the reason you had an officer on the premises. I called Lt. Ray Yardley at the state police and told him of my suspicions. He called your office and requested a guard. Is your officer okay?” I asked. “I only took time to make certain he was alive before I broke into the house to find Mrs. Forsyth unconscious behind the sofa and a kidnapping taking place. You’ll find a note on the table at the bottom of the stairs asking for half a million dollars.”
Pillars nodded to his partner, who headed back downstairs. Then he ignored my question for a second time. “Do you know who the kidnapper was?” he asked.
I hedged. A man doesn’t accuse a member of a wealthy and prominent family of such a crime unless there’s proof. And I didn’t have any proof. Not yet, anyway. “He was familiar, but I can’t identify him absolutely.”
At Pillars’ prompting, I gave a spot-on description of Marc. “Five ten, one seventy, da
rk brown hair, green eyes, athletic build. I traced him to the New Mexico Airlines flight that arrived here earlier today. That Nissan is a rental, probably in his name.” I took the gamble. “His name might be Marc Juisson.” Pillars asked me to spell both names.
As we went downstairs—me still in cuffs—a human dynamo burst through the front door. Hadley Forsyth was furious that despite clear warnings, the police allowed his wife to be bludgeoned and his son nearly stolen. I heard a different sort of siren that told me the injured officer, Mrs. Forsyth, and little David were on their way to the hospital. I didn’t think the child suffered any injury when we fell down the stairs, but the police would want to make certain. Forsyth remained only long enough to get a sketchy idea of what happened before rushing out to go be with his family at the hospital.
Pillars released me from the handcuffs and settled in to hear the entire story. In the meantime, two other officers searched the house, returning later to indicate they’d found no one. After putting a guard on the place—and the rented Nissan—the sergeant invited me downtown to make a full report. I declined his offer of a ride and agreed to meet him at the station. Pausing beside my rental, I phoned the office and brought Hazel up-to-date on events.
“And you’re okay?” she pressed.
“Wrenched my knee when I fell down the stairs, but it feels better already. I assume Charlie’s out at the Pines questioning staff?”
“Yes. You’re certain it was Marc Juisson?”
“I’m pretty sure it was. He’d added a fake beard and did something to make his face seem fatter, but it was him.”
“Then I’ll call Charlie back in.”
“No, have him go to the chateau. Hang around the vicinity of the office. I want him to judge reactions when word reaches them of what’s happened.”
“Anyone in particular?”
“Everyone.”
“So you’re assuming the nephew is the killer but don’t know if anyone else is involved.”
