She put a strong hand on his elbow and drew him into a corner.
'That's what we want to talk to you about, your mother and I,' she said, quietly.
'What do you mean?' As he spoke, he realised that Maggie was no longer by his side; Aunt Sophia had taken her off to meet the two boys, who were dressed, inevitably, in Manchester United shirts. As he glanced across at them, his mother moved towards him, as if answering a private summons by Nana. Christina McGuire was tal and handsome, like her mother, and like her she was a one-man woman, who regarded her widowhood as a period not of mourning, but of waiting.
'I mean,' Nana continued, reclaiming his attention, 'that there's family business to be talked about.'
'Such as?'
'Such as your part in it,' his mother answered, pausing for a moment to let her words sink in.
'I've made a decision, Mario; I'm retiring. I'm selling my share of the business to Rachel and Bert.'
Christina McGuire was an Edinburgh player in her own right; she had trained as a personnel manager after leaving university, and had worked in industry, until, two years after Mario's birth, and with backing from her father, she had set up a recruitment consultancy. She had begun by specialising in finding staff for the financial services industry, and she had shared in its success and expansion. Over the years the scope of her business had broadened, taking in new sectors, including law and accountancy, and adding on a training division. Christina had refused several offers for the company, preferring to control her own destiny with the support of the two partners who had joined her in the eighties, Rachel Dawson and Robert Ironside.
Her son stared at her in surprise; through all of his life, her consultancy had been part of her. When his father, big Eamon, had died of cancer ten years earlier, it, more than anything or anyone else, had helped her deal with the tragedy.
'You serious?' he exclaimed.
'Never more so,' she assured him.
'You realise that as soon as you're gone those two'll sell out?'
'Good luck to them if they do. I'm happy with my deal.'
He put his hands on her shoulders and kissed her on the cheek. 'In that case, good for you. Mum. If it's what you want to do, I couldn't be more pleased for you.' He frowned, suddenly. 'But what the hell's it got to do with me?'
'I'm not just retiring from the consultancy, son,' Christina answered.
'I'm going away. I've bought a house in Florence, and I'm going to live there. I want to study fine art, I want to paint, and I want to listen to music till my head's completely filled with it. I'm selling my flat in Northumberland Street; whenever I come back I'l stay with Mama or with you and Maggie.'
He blew out his cheeks. 'You're taking my breath away; but again, if this is what you really want, then go for it.'
Christina had never been a demonstrative woman, but she pul ed her son to her, and hugged him. 'I'm so glad you feel that way, all things considered.'
Gradual y, the rest of the truth began to dawn on him, and he understood the real reason for the family gathering. 'Wait a minute . . .'
he exclaimed. On either side of him, the two women smiled.
'You've got it,' said his mother. 'I'm retiring from all my business, including the family trust. And in that event, my place as a trustee passes to you.'
'Oh bloody hell. Mum,' he protested. 'I can't take that on, not now.
I've just been given a division to run. Surely to Christ, you can still do that from Italy.'
'No,' she answered, adamantly. 'I want my life back, Mario. I'm sixty two years old, and I stil have things to do. I've been a trustee since Papa died, and I've run my own business at the same time. Now it's your turn.'
'But . .. Come on, the paperwork can be couriered out to you, you can fly back for trustee meetings.'
'No!' Nana Viareggio snapped. It was the first time she had spoken sharply to him in thirty years. 'Your mother has made her decision,' the old woman declared, in a judicial tone. 'You've always known this day would come, lad. Just you be thankful it hasn't been forced on you by Him upstairs. And anyway, I know quite well that you've been keeping an eye on things al along. I told you, you've got your papa's blood in you.
'He needs you, I need you; it's time.'
Backed into a corner, Mario looked from one to the other. 'What the hell is this?' he grunted. 'There might be only two witches here, but I still feel like bloody Macbeth!'
'You can't avoid what's for you,' said his grandmother. 'Besides, there's a job needs doing that only you can do; it's beyond Beppe. He's not a bad man; but he's a fool to himself and he's not up to this on his own.'
'What's that?'
The old lady nodded, almost imperceptibly, across the room. Maggie and Aunt Sophia had been joined by another striking Viareggio woman; she was only an inch or two shy of six feet tall, olive-skinned, with dark eyes and lustrous hair which had turned silver, prematurely. She wore it undisguised, with pride, and to some it made her look around forty, although in fact she was only thirty-two.
'That one there,' murmured Nana. 'You have to keep a very close eye on your cousin Paula. She's my granddaughter, as much of my blood as you are, so it pains me to say it, but I do not trust that girl.'
She patted him on the shoulder. 'Now, Mario, son; you cal everyone to attention. Your mother has her announcement to make.'
Bob Skinner looked at Bradford Dekker and thought of his own chief.
Where Sir James Proud was silver-haired, massive and statesmanlike in his uniform, a man of gravitas, his counterpart in Buffalo was sleek, sharp-suited, around his own age, and looked more like a stereotypical car salesman than a policeman.
This was not unnatural since he was a politician first and foremost.
On Skinner's first visit to Buffalo, Leo Grace had told him about a former sheriff of Erie County, Grover Cleveland, who had gone on to become president of the United States. As he appraised Dekker, he tried to imagine him taking the oath of office on the Capitol steps; he tried, but he failed.
Whether it was prompted by the murdered Leo Grace's standing in his home town, or by courtesy to a fellow police officer, the Sheriff had come to the house on Stanford Avenue without the faintest sign of annoyance at the summons. He stood in the hal , at the foot of the broad flight of stairs which led to the upper floor, with Skinner, Brand and Kosinski, Kelly Lance having been sent back to her office to check how often her company's computer had been accessed within the last few weeks, and whether all of these searches had been authorised. The two uniformed officers who had brought him to the scene were on guard at the open front door, staring grimly at the few neighbours who had been attracted out by their car to see what might be going on.
'How wel did you know my father-in-law, Mr Dekker?' Skinner asked.
'I knew him very well,' the Sheriff replied. 'I was an intern in Mr Grace's law firm twenty years ago. He took an interest in me, and directed me towards criminal work. Then when my intemship was over, he pul ed a couple of strings to get me a post in the state attorney's office.'
'You must have impressed him.'
Dekker gave him a slightly sheepish look. 'Maybe, but I had clout with him too. He and my father were colleagues in the Democratic Party; as a matter of fact, my dad nominated Mr Grace for the State senate. Of course, he wouldn't have gone to bat for me if he hadn't 78
thought I was up to it, but he reached out to the people in Albany because of their history.'
'He still had contacts twenty years ago?'
Dekker glanced at him from beneath a raised eyebrow. 'Bob, your father-in-law stil had contacts last week. Mr Grace told everyone that he gave up politics a long time ago, but that wasn't exactly true; shit, it wasn't at al true. He was a kingmaker among Democrats, and privately, through his contacts, he raised a lot of money for the Party. When the new US senator started angling after the nomination, he was the second person she came to see, straight after she saw the incumbent. He must have approved of her, because without the suppor
t of Leopold Grace . . .
well, to say the least, she'd have found things a whole lot more difficult.'
'Mmm,' Skinner murmured. 'That's a side of the man that I never knew at all. Mind you, I have a natural antipathy towards politicians; maybe he read that and kept it from me.'
'That would have been just like him,' Dekker agreed. 'Other than in the courtroom, or in negotiation, he never forced his views in anyone's face. He was a very considerate, very polite man; and you won't find anyone in Buffalo to disagree with that opinion . . . not even our Republicans.' The Sheriff's jaw set in a firm line. 'That's what makes what happened to him and Mrs Grace so hard to take. Be sure, my friend, the kil ings might have taken place outside my jurisdiction, but I'm leaning pretty hard on the State police to get results.'
'In that case,' said Skinner, slowly, 'you won't be unhappy if I bring the investigation on to your doorstep.'
'Uhh? How you gonna do that?'
He glanced around the hall. 'Someone's been in this house, Sheriff; after Leo and Susannah were killed. The cabin by the lake was trashed, and the usual money, cards and valuables were taken to make it look like a robbery. But... the keys to this place were taken too.
'When I opened the house with the woman from the security firm, the alarm had been de-activated.' He paused for a second. 'Let me ask you something. Knowing Leo as you did, would you agree that it would have been unlike him to call the company to tell them he was leaving town, then forget to set the thing?'
The Sheriff nodded, vigorously. 'I sure would. He was just about the neatest man I ever met. And he didn't just phone the security people when he left; he always phoned the precinct office as well, to tell the desk sergeant there.'
'Could you cal him to confirm that he did the same this time?'
'Sure.' He moved towards the hall table. 'I'll use this phone.'
'No,' said Skinner sharply. 'Use this one.' He took out his cellphone and gave it to the police chief. Dekker gave him a puzzled look, but took the phone and dial ed, turning his back to the three others as the call was answered.
After a couple of minutes, he rang off and handed the phone back to the Scot. 'Not only did he speak to the precinct,' he told him heavily, 'he told the sergeant not to worry, that he was about to set the alarm. That tears it; you're right, someone's been in here.'
'I knew that for sure anyway,' Skinner confessed. 'We had a quick look round before you got here. Don't worry, we touched nothing, just looked. The house looks immaculate, but it's been searched. Look at that hal table, and at the dining table, and you'l find thick layers of dust on them both. Then go into Leo's den and look at his desk, and his filing cabinet. There's hardly any to be seen. Someone's given it an expert going over. But God knows what he was looking for; as far as I can see, nothing's been taken.'
'Shit,' Dekker hissed. 'In that case we better get the hell out of here and cal in a scene-of-crime team.'
'Yes,' said Skinner, 'your people, certainly, but also, of necessity, the same team who went over the cabin inthe Adirondacks. They need to look for forensic matches. You might waend for the State detectives too, Schultz and Smal ; this thing has to be coordinated.'
'Shit again. A territorial war with the State cops is just what I do not need.'
'That may be over-ridden,' said Skinner.
'What do you mean?'
As if in reply, the big DCC handed him back the cellphone. 'First you give those orders, then we'l take it back to your office and I'l explain.'
The Sheriff nodded and made two calls; one short, to his own specialist unit, the other longer, to the head of the State Police Bureau of Criminal Investigation. Returning the phone to Skinner, he retrieved the key to his car from one of the patrolmen on the door then headed towards it, beckoning the three to fol ow him.
The journey into the centre of Buffalo took no more than twenty minutes. The Graces' house was in an eastern suburb of the smal lakeside city, and as they drove westward the surroundings became first more industrial, then, as they passed the footbal ground, more commercial.
The day was clear and cool; sitting in the back of the car that the FBI men had hired. Skinner wound down the window to enjoy the fresh air, 80
and to listen to the universally familiar sound of the Lake Erie gulls.
Dekker's office was on the top floor of the low-rise headquarters building on Delaware Avenue, in the business heart of Buffalo; the city had always reminded him of Edinburgh, inasmuch as it appeared to be a tight-knit community, where everyone probably knew everyone else.
'No cal s,' the Sheriff barked, brusquely, to his secretary as he ushered his three companions into his spacious room. He pointed them at a smal conference table, and took a seat at its head. 'Okay, Bob, I ought to call the chief of my criminal investigation unit, but something tells me I should hold on that. Let's hear what you've got to say first,' he said.
Skinner laid his big silver document case on the table, opened it and took out a pile of computer print-outs, which Brand had given him when they had met at JFK, and which he had begun to study on the flight upstate. He separated them into two bundles, then looked Dekker straight in the eye. 'Do you know how many burglary homicides we have in Scotland in a year, Brad?'
'I have no idea.'
'None. Don't get me wrong, we have an endemic burglary problem, and we have our share of murders. Sometimes, in fact, it seems to me that in Edinburgh, we have more than our share . . .' he flashed an ironic grin '... at least when I'm around. But our thieves just do not break into people's homes, not even rich people's homes, with the intention of kil ing then robbing. Is it al that much different here?'
The Erie County Sheriff shook his head. 'No, I can't say as it is. Our homicides tend to be gang things, or family things.' He paused. 'But we're not talking about Buffalo here; we're talking about the Adirondacks.
That's a whole different country.'
'Maybe so; but rural New York State actually has a lower homicide rate than you do. In fact it hardly has any. It also has a very low incidence of burglary. The place where Leo and Susannah were killed is remote, in terms of this part of the eastern United States at any rate; and that's true of most of the communities like it. From what I've been told by the BCI chief many of them barely are communities, just a collection of cabins gathered around lakesides, many of them empty for much of the year, furnished sparsely, with no valuables left there. Who's going to travel upstate to rip off a TV set and a few cheap knives and forks?
'Answer, no one. So let's get real, the guy who killed my in-laws went there to do just that.' He tapped the larger of the bundles before him.
'This stuff's from the FBI computer,' he said. 'Country-wide, in the last three years there have been fewer than ten genuine burglary homicides which match this one even remotely. So let's forget that theory. This was murder; first and foremost.
'If you want me to convince you, let's look at the way Leo and Susannah were kil ed. They weren't completely in the back of beyond, out there. The nearest cabin is half a mile away, and that lake is fished from dawn till midnight; there's always some bugger out in a boat.
Sound travels, especially over water; the guy couldn't exactly have walked in with a sawn-off and blown them al over the rucking place. So he didn't: instead he strangled them with a wire garrotte. Why? Because he was a pro, and because that was his method of choice. I'd guess he watched them for a couple of days, saw Leo sit on the por.ch around suppertime, and chose that as his moment. The old man was taken completely by surprise, and so, I guess, was Susannah, since she was still in the kitchen when she was killed.
'Let's go on. How many murders have there been in the entire United States in the same three-year period in which the victims have been garrotted in the same way; that is, in which the kil er has used a wire ligature?'
Dekker shook his head.
Skinner ruffled the smal er bundle on the desk. 'The answer, according to the great big computer, is twenty-five. Of these, twelve took p
lace in Miami, Florida, and were the traMBLrk of a gang called the Toledos, who chose to use lengths of razor-wire and to strangle their victims slowly. They were distinguished by the amount of blood at the scene; most of the poor bastards bled to death, in fact.
'Of the remaining thirteen, nine were domestic crimes, in which the victims... as it happens, they included five wives, one grandfather and three mothers-in-law . . . were related to the murderer. Al of the perpetrators are now in jail, other than one who refused to appeal his death sentence and was executed three months ago.
'That leaves four, not counting Leo and Susannah. In every one of those cases the victim was murdered at home; two of them were Italians, known to have been involved in organised crime, and two of them were Colombians, a husband and wife, drug dealers who had been ripping off their suppliers.'
'Okay, I agree,' said the Sheriff. 'But how does that tie in with what you said back at the house, about jurisdiction over the investigation?'
Finally, Skinner smiled, the big broad smile of a card-player laying down a winning hand. 'On the journey upstate, and in my waking hours in the hotel, I've been through al of these burglary homicide reports.
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They're very detailed; it says a lot for the FBI computer, ask it a specific question and you'l get an answer. It took a while, but eventual y, I found two files which, set together, make interesting reading.
'One homicide took place in a suburb of Las Vegas two weeks ago.
The victim's name was Sander Garrett; he lived alone in a big new luxury development on the outskirts of the city. He was found dead in his kitchen, cause of death a single gunshot wound to the head. His house had a security system, which Garrett normal y set at night, but when the cops arrived they realised that it wasn't activated. There were no signs of forced entry.
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