A Dangerous Talent (An Alix London Mystery)

by Elkins, Aaron

  “Yeah, but—”

  “And number three and most important—” his middle finger was bent way back for emphasis, “—we got the Rio Arriba County Sheriff’s report. Skid marks and vehicle damage patterns back her up to a T. The pickup and the semi tried to box her in and force her off the road, all right, and damned if she didn’t outmaneuver the two of them. She almost got away clean, too, but the semi skidded and the back end fishtailed into them. The Lamborghini totaled, but somehow she managed to keep it on the road and get it stopped without killing the two of them. Let me tell you, not only can that lady handle a car, she’s gotta have nerves of steel.”

  “Sounds as if you’re becoming quite a fan,” Ted said.

  “I’m impressed, yeah.” He turned the hat right way around and leaned back in his chair, hands clasped behind his head.

  “So are you bringing her in to talk to you about it?”

  “About this? No, not officially; it’s in Rio Arriba’s jurisdiction, Denny Ortiz’s baby. But she called me yesterday to let me know that picture’s a fake. Absolutely, definitely, categorically. She’s coming in to talk about that when she gets back, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we get into the Lamborghini thing too.”

  Absolutely, definitely, categorically, Ted thought. A bit more definite than she was the other day. “I’d appreciate it if you’d fill me in on what she’s got to say about it. About the painting, I mean.”

  “You bet.”

  “What about the drivers of those trucks?” Ted asked. “Has the sheriff gotten anything from them?”

  “From one of them, the semi driver, and it’s the clincher. Denny talked to him, and he claims that all he knows is that the other kid, Eddie Sierra, paid him two thousand dollars to do it and he took him up on it, no questions asked, which Denny believes, because this guy is just dumb enough to do it. He also said it was just a practical joke, that they were just trying to scare them, not harm them, which Denny doesn’t believe, and neither do I.

  “What about Sierra? What’s his story?”

  “We’ll probably never know. He’s still unconscious. They don’t think he’s going to wake up.”

  Ted nodded. “So what do you think this was all about, Eduardo?”

  Mendoza shrugged. “No idea, but I think we can make a couple of starting assumptions. First, this turkey, Sierra, didn’t come up with it on his own. Both these guys are losers, as dumb as doorknobs. What’s more, where would Sierra get two thousand bucks? No, somebody put him up to it—paid him enough for him to give two thousand dollars to his good buddy.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “And then, I think it’s safe to assume it was London they were after, not LeMay.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, because of the other attempt on her life.”

  “Other attempt…?” Ted leaned forward, his hands on the desk. “Wait a minute, you think the casita explosion wasn’t an accident?”

  “I don’t think so, I know so. Sorry, Ted, I meant to tell you; guess I forgot.”

  “No apology necessary. Homicides are your affair; I’m just interested in the art. That was the deal. But as long as you’ve brought it up…” An inquisitive lift of the eyebrows.

  “Well, we figured it was at least worth checking the explosion out, so we did some poking around and we found out that LeMay originally booked a room in the main building for London. Then, according to their records, the day before they showed up she called to change it and put London in that casita instead—that specific casita, as a special surprise.”

  Ted frowned. “So you think LeMay set her up? But—”

  “No, LeMay didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  “But you just said—”

  “No, I said their records showed it was LeMay. Someone claiming to be LeMay. Pay attention.”

  Ted sighed and sat back. “You’re losing me here.”

  “Ted, just because someone claims to be someone doesn’t prove he’s who he says he is. As you should be very well aware, Rollie, old pal.”

  “True enough,” Ted agreed with a smile.

  “Nope, it was Liz Coane who made that call.”

  Ted was genuinely startled. “How the hell did you come up with that?”

  Mendoza’s lips parted in a toothy grin. “Superior policework, my man. See, the hotel’s log book shows the call coming in at two thirty-five Thursday, but no telephone number to go with it. So that tells us nothing. But…now switch to our investigation into the Coane homicide. We are there doing the painstaking information-gathering for which we are so justly famous, and of course, one of the things we’re examining is the call log in her cell phone—made and received. And lo and behold, we find that on Thursday, September 9, at two thirty-four in the afternoon, she placed a one-minute call to—”

  “The Hacienda Encantada,” Ted said. “Sonofagun.”

  “Yup. It was Liz who set her up.”

  “But how would she have gotten into the casita to rig the propane? And when? Or did she get somebody else to do it?”

  Another shrug from Mendoza. “Oh, it probably wasn’t that hard. Of course, that particular casita doesn’t exist anymore, but we brought in a propane stove guy, and he looked at the way the casitas are hooked up in general, and he says he could have done it easy—that just about anybody could have—from the outside, in back, where the tank feeds in. To make it even simpler, none of the casitas have windows in back.”

  Ted took this in soberly. “Two attempts to kill London inside of three days,” he mused.

  “Looks like it. By two different people, too, since Coane wasn’t around anymore to arrange the second one.” He shook his head. “I sure wish I had some idea of what the hell is going on.”

  “Well, whatever it is, it proves she’s in it up to her ears. I knew she had to be, right from the start. A chip off the old…What?” he asked, aware that Mendoza was staring quizzically at him. “What?”

  “Ted, let me get this straight. Here’s this girl—this woman—who, by the skin of her teeth and her considerable daring and abilities, manages—barely manages—to escape two attempts to kill her…and your conclusion is she’s gotta be guilty of something? What am I missing?”

  “A lot of things,” Ted said warmly. “The fact that her father is who he is; the fact that she followed right after him into the art world; the fact that she got this job with LeMay only through his kind assistance; the fact that—”

  “The fact that you’ve got some kind of a thing about her.”

  “I have—?” But in the midst of taking umbrage he found himself laughing and suddenly relaxing. Even to his own ears his rationale was full of holes. “Yeah,” he said, sighing, “you’re right, Eduardo. I’m not exactly being objective, am I? Okay, what can I say? I guess there was just something about her that rubbed me the wrong way.”

  Such as the fact that she had been utterly, supremely unsmitten by his charms? he speculated. But this particular fact he thought it best to leave unreported.

  “Well, I wondered about her at first too, but now I’ve come around to thinking she’s straight-arrow. You need to give her a fair chance, Ted.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” he said, meaning it, but very much ready to change the subject. “You said they’re up in Española now? Neither of them seriously hurt?”

  “Right, last I heard. They’re keeping LeMay in the hospital for observation at least overnight, though. London, I don’t know where she is now. They looked her over and let her go, but she’s probably still there at the hospital with LeMay would be my guess. This all happened just a few hours ago.”

  “Well, would you have any objection if I drove up there to ask her a few things?”

  “No objection at all, but you can get there faster than that. LeMay’s pilot, her old boyfriend, is worried about her. He’s taking their plane up to the Española airport. If you went with him you’d be there in fifteen minutes instead of an hour and a half. Want me to call the airport here in Sa
nta Fe? Maybe he hasn’t left yet.”

  “Yes, please, I’d appreciate that. I’ve got some questions I need answers to.”

  Oh, yeah, like what? he asked himself during the brief drive to the airport a few miles south of the city. What was so important that he had to fly up there right now, this minute, to see her? Exactly what were these questions that were so urgent they couldn’t wait a day or two until she returned to Santa Fe?

  Could Mendoza have inadvertently hit the nail on the head? he wondered uneasily. Did he have “some kind of a thing” for her?

  CHAPTER 17

  She’d been sitting at Chris’s bedside for two hours now, chatting with her when Chris wasn’t dozing, and simply thinking when she was. There was certainly no shortage of things to think about. She’d wondered for a while if today’s bizarre chase meant that she’d been wrong about Liz’s having being responsible for the casita explosion. Because, with Liz having been dead for a couple of days, that would mean that someone else had tried to kill her this morning. And, surely, it was stretching credulity to imagine that two different people had been trying to murder her, wasn’t it? But no, that startled “What are you doing here?” remained in her mind, as convincing as ever; the casita had been Liz’s doing, all right—or at the very least she’d been party to it.

  So who was behind this latest attempt? Not the two dimwits in the trucks, that was for sure. But aside from the now-departed Liz, who else was there? Well, whoever had killed Liz (presumably the big, bearded guy running from Liz’s office) was a good bet, but what reason would he have for wanting to kill her? It had to do with the painting, she was as sure of that as ever, but what was the why? To stop her from deducing and revealing that it was a fake? That was the most obvious thing that came to mind, yes, but where was the rationale for murder? Whoever was trying to unload it could simply pack the thing up whenever the police released it, hold it for a few years, and take it elsewhere—Idaho, Montana, Georgia—someplace far out of the art mainstream, where it could be sold without raising any eyebrows. Inconvenient, yes, but not as inconvenient or risky as murder. Or he could have—

  Almost without realizing it, she had gotten up and wandered over to the window, where she stood absently gazing down on the parking lot from the second floor, and now she became aware that she was looking at a medium-sized U-Haul truck that had just pulled into the lot and disgorged two men. She did a double take and looked harder.

  “Chris, are you awake?” she asked over her shoulder.

  “Awake?” came the drowsy answer. “Mm, I’m not sure, I have to think about it. Why?”

  “Because if I were you, what I’d think about is putting on a little lipstick.”

  “Lipstick? Why?”

  “Because you’re getting company.”

  “Company?” She giggled—very un-Chris-like. “I keep repeating you, did you notice? Sorry, I’m still kind of dopey from whatever they gave me. Anyway, what kind of company am I getting?”

  “Well, I’m looking at a couple of men who just got out of a U-Haul truck—”

  “A—” She stopped herself.

  “A U-Haul truck and are heading this way. And one of them is either your pilot or his twin brother.”

  “My…do you mean, my…you mean CRAIG? Craig is HERE?” Abruptly, the dopiness was gone. She sat bolt-upright. “Where’s my mirror?” she asked desperately. “Where’s my comb, where’s my lipstick, where’s—Alix, I don’t know what they did with my things. Quick, give me yours, this is an emergency!”

  “I wish I could, but my bag is probably twenty miles downstream by now.” It reminded her she’d better get on the phone as soon as she could and do something about her driver’s license, ATM card, and all the rest. Aside from everything else, what a hassle all that would be. While she spoke, she went to the closet of the private room, and there was Chris’s bag on the shelf. “Here we go,” she said, tossing it onto the bed.

  Chris groped inside, seized a small mirror, and stared at herself, shocked. “Oh my God, two black eyes? I look like a raccoon! And look at my nose! It’s all, all—”

  “Well, you can’t do anything about the black eyes, but the nose isn’t really that bad—”

  “Not that bad? It looks like a, like a…rutabaga!”

  “Mm, more like a turnip, I’d say,” Alix couldn’t help saying. “Because of the purple.”

  “Alix!” Chris wailed.

  “Look, Chris, really, it isn’t all that awful. If you neaten up your hair a little, put on some lipstick…”

  Chris was already dabbing on the lipstick. “Oh, and this horrible gown they put me in! Nobody could look good in this. Can’t you keep him out of here?”

  “Chris, if he was concerned enough about you to come all the way here, I doubt if there’s much I can do about keeping him out of the room.”

  “My God, these eyes,” Chris groaned. She looked plaintively at Alix. “That’ll go away, won’t it?”

  “I’m sure it will, but I doubt if it’ll be before Craig gets here.”

  “This is no laughing matter,” Chris said, laughing in spite of herself. “Oh, what am I doing, it’s hopeless.” She threw down the mirror and fell back against the pillow. “All I can say is, I hope he likes raccoons. Crank up the bed for me, will you? And if you wouldn’t mind giving us some time alone…”

  “You bet. I’ll leave now,” Alix said, having used the remote control to raise the head of the bed so that Chris was sitting up. “And try to look on the bright side.”

  “And that is?”

  “If he’s still interested after he sees you today, you’ll know he’s serious.”

  “Oh, thanks, that’s reassuring. Wait, you said two of them, didn’t you? Who’s the other one?”

  “Never saw him before,” Alix said. “Bye, now.”

  But even before the door closed behind her, she realized she had seen him before. He’d looked vaguely familiar, as if he reminded her of an actor or of someone she’d once known. But now it clicked; it was de Beauvais, Mr. Flimflam himself. It hadn’t registered before, probably because she was looking down on him from a new angle, and because the sight of him was so unexpected. What was he doing here at the hospital? And how did he know Craig? And why did he keep showing up every time she turned around—Liz’s gallery, the police station, here…

  The two men came hurrying down the corridor, Craig a little in front. Seeing Alix standing outside the closed door alarmed him. “Is she all right? Has something gone wrong?”

  “No, she’s banged up a little, but I’m sure she’ll be all right.”

  “Um—is it okay if I just go in?” he asked.

  “Sure. I saw you from the window, so she knows you’re coming. She’s looking forward to seeing you.” She considered telling him about the raccoon eyes (even the emergency-room doctor had called them that) but then decided it was better to let things play out on their own.

  He reached for the doorknob, then suddenly turned and surprised her with a bear hug. She hadn’t realized how tall he was: six-three, at least; a good fit for Chris. The thought made her smile; she was doing something she hated when others did it for her: matchmaking.

  “They tell me you saved her life,” he breathed into her ear. “Thank you.”

  “All I did—” But he was already in the room. She heard him say, “Hello, Chris, I hope I’m not—” before the door closed and she was left alone with de Beauvais, who stood a couple of yards away, smiling his smooth, superior, just-look-how-sexy-I-am smile at her.

  “Did you want something?” she asked coldly.

  “Yes. First, I want to say I’m glad you’re all right. I understand you put on quite a performance on the road this morning.”

  “Thank you.” She waited for the rest.

  “And second, I have something to confess.”

  “I already know what it is. You’re a phony.”

  He looked levelly at her, giving nothing away. “Now why exactly would you think something like t
hat?”

  “That overdone Boston Brahmin shtick,” she said, which was a lie. It was overdone, all right, but still she’d bought it, right up until the moment she’d overheard him through Mendoza’s open door, speaking naturally. “Give me a break. No one’s talked like that since—” Since Paynton Whipple-Pruitt, she might have said. “Since I don’t know when.”

  He looked at her a moment longer—sternly, she thought, but then, almost like movie magic, his face transformed itself, relaxing into a grin. A pretty engaging grin, she had to admit, open and direct, with not even a tinge of fakery. His whole body seemed to stand more squarely, and when he smiled, the skin at the corners of those remarkable blue eyes crinkled appealingly. He was a charming bastard, damn him, and it made her uneasy. Whatever his game was, she had no interest in getting interested in him. She already had a charming, ethically challenged old bastard in her life, and the last thing she needed was a charming, ethically challenged young one.

  “Ah, but you have to remember, in undercover work it’s not veracity we’re after,” he said, “it’s verisimilitude. The idea is to act the way other people think you’re supposed to act.”

  He’d dropped the phony accent, but she was so surprised by what he’d said that she’d barely noticed. Undercover work? She stared at him. It was all she could do to keep her jaw from dropping. “You’re going to tell me you’re some kind of detective?”

  Silently, he took a leather card case from his hip pocket, opened it, and held it up to her eyes, not snapping it closed after a second they way they do on TV, but leaving it up there for her to read. In the lower compartment was an eagle-topped gold shield that might have been authentic, or might just as likely have been the kind of thing you used to be able to get for two cereal box tops and a buck—“junior secret agent.” But the one in the top compartment struck her as the real thing: an ID card with “Department of Investigation FBI Special Agent” printed on it in bold blue letters, along with an imprint of the agency’s seal and a small, clear picture of de Beauvais—except that the signature beneath it said “Theodore Ellesworth.”