Swift Edge

by Laura Disilverio

  “Have you heard from her?” I asked with a nod at the room’s decor.

  “Oh, hi,” she said absently, buckling the bag and shoving her reading glasses atop her head. “Walk with me—I’m running late for class.”

  I stood aside, and she exited past me, the tail of her royal blue cardigan snagging on the door’s handle momentarily. She twitched it free and kept going. I fell into step beside her. An overachieving heater made the halls stuffy, and students of varying ages and ethnic backgrounds bumped us as they headed for their classes.

  “She called this morning,” Sally said. “Said she was fine. Wanted to know if we’d found Dmitri yet.” She gave me a questioning look.

  “Found and lost again.” I gave her the details of my encounter with the elusive skater. “I wanted to make sure you knew that a friend of his was murdered Saturday—”

  “A skater?” Sally looked horrified that it might be someone she knew.

  “No, a co-worker from the catering company. Someone shot at his mother and me, too.” I hesitated, not sure how she would take what I needed to say next. “Dara might be in real danger. She should contact the police—they’re looking for Dmitri now. You probably need to accept that he’s not going to be back in a skating rink anytime soon. He’s admitted to credit card theft and seems to be mixed up in something worse and definitely more dangerous. If the police catch up with him, he may end up in jail, and if they don’t…” I trailed off, not wanting to spell out that a dead partner wouldn’t enhance Dara’s chances for a gold medal.

  “Then you’d better find him first,” Sally Peterson said in a steely voice. “That’s what I’m paying you for—to find him. If there’s someone threatening him, find out who and get them off his back. Turn them in to the police … whatever it takes. Wherever Dara is, she’s safe, and I’m not going to advise her to contact the police and get involved in the publicity storm that would generate. The Olympic Committee doesn’t like adverse publicity for its athletes.”

  Did an obituary count as adverse publicity? I didn’t ask.

  We stopped at a classroom door, and the hubbub of chatting students drifted into the hall. “My class,” Sally Peterson said. “Look, you find Dmitri and set it up so I can talk to him. I’m sure I can persuade him to do the right thing.”

  As I watched her stride into the classroom, announcing a pop quiz to a chorus of groans, I wondered what her definition of “the right thing” was. I had a sneaking suspicion it had more to do with ice-skating than with crime and justice.

  * * *

  Returning to the parking lot to find my car unticketed—yes!—I slotted the key into the ignition as my phone rang. Montgomery.

  “What’ve you got?” I answered.

  “Interesting news. I reached out to the feds, and no one admits to running Dmitri Fane.”

  “He lied to me.”

  “Yes. But the guy I talked to at the FBI, who happens to be a poker buddy, mentioned that a week ago Friday they got a call from a man who claimed to have knowledge of an identity theft ring operating from Colorado. A ring that provides new identities to wanted criminals and sometimes illegals. You can guess why the fibbies were interested.”

  I whistled softly. “Terrorists?”

  “That possibility made them eager to talk to the guy. He promised to send them proof that he had the goods, and they set up a meet for this past Saturday. They got the package—my buddy was pretty cagey about the contents—but the informant never showed and hasn’t called back.”

  “They couldn’t track him down? Surely they use caller ID.”

  “Disposable cell. They recorded the call, of course.”

  “Do you think it was Dmitri?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Did you tell your FBI friend about him?”

  “Of course,” Montgomery said, a hint of impatience in his voice. “I had no choice.”

  Of course he didn’t. If Dmitri was the FBI’s mystery caller, and if he knew anything about terrorist identities, the FBI could bring a lot more resources to hunting him than the CSPD could. My mind wiggled its way back to last night’s conversation with Aaron Wong. He’d said someone at Dellert House had pointed him toward Tattoo4U as the source of fake IDs. Could there be a connection? There had to be several groups, gangs, or individuals providing fake IDs in the Colorado Springs area—our population of illegal immigrants from Mexico and points south would provide a solid customer base, I figured. I knew of nothing that connected Dmitri Fane to Dellert House or Tattoo4U.

  “Charlie? You still there?”

  “Just thinking,” I told Montgomery.

  “Anything I should know about?”

  “I don’t want to waste your time with speculation,” I hedged. “Let me poke around. If I come up with something concrete, you’ll be the first to know.”

  “I’d better be.” Montgomery hung up.

  25

  Irena Fane paced the long, narrow length of Gigi’s Broadmoor living room, stopping only momentarily to look out the wall of picture windows before resuming her pacing. She was giving Gigi a headache. The woman was like a caged cat, Gigi thought, eyeing her nervously from the camel-colored leather sofa in front of the fifty-inch television. Not a big cat like a lion but something smaller and sleeker. An ocelot, Gigi decided. She’d warned the woman, as Charlie had suggested, about exposing herself at the windows, but Irena had paid no attention, saying she got claustrophobic in a room with no natural light.

  “We should go out and look for Dmitri,” Irena said for the sixteenth time since they’d entered the house forty-five minutes earlier. Kendall had run up to her bedroom as soon as they’d arrived. “Sitting here … we are wasting time.”

  “Your son was worried about your safety,” Gigi said. “You’re safest here. Charlie’s looking for Dmitri. She’s the best.”

  “How long have you been a bodyguard?” Irena demanded, hands balled on her hips. “Where did you go to bodyguard school?”

  “I don’t think there is a bodyguard school,” Gigi said, considering it. “It’s something you learn on the job.” She didn’t admit that her learning had just started.

  “Then how do you know I’m safer here?”

  “That’s pure common sense. Why don’t we bake cookies? I’ve been meaning to make a batch and take them to our new neighbors at Domenica’s.”

  “Cookies! My son’s life is in danger and you want to make cookies?” Irena snorted contemptuously. When Gigi rose from the sofa and headed for the kitchen, the smaller woman followed reluctantly, looking around. “The private investigator business must pay well,” she observed, gaze lighting on the designer stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.

  “Your son probably pays more for a skating costume than I make in a month,” Gigi said, pulling flour from a cabinet. She didn’t want to go into the whole situation about Les running off with Heather-Anne, leaving her and the kids to fend for themselves with nothing except the house, the Hummer, and the half interest in Swift Investigations to keep them off the street. He’d emptied all their checking accounts and cashed out their investments. None of that was Irena Fane’s business.

  Seemingly resigned to inactivity, Irena hoisted herself onto the bar stool at the kitchen island and watched as Gigi sifted flour, baking soda, and salt together. “Do you like being an investigator?” she asked.

  “Most of the time,” Gigi said. “It’s not at all what I thought it would be, but I enjoy it. There’s something new every day—it never gets boring.”

  “You do not seem like the investigator type,” Irena said, eyeing her.

  “I don’t think there is a ‘type.’”

  “Of course there is. It’s a man’s career, really. You need to be tough, strong.” She flexed a bicep.

  “I can be tough,” Gigi said, half offended. She stroked her upper arm surreptitiously, pretty sure a bicep lurked under the coral-colored angora sweater she wore. Why, she’d made it halfway through her Arms of Steel DVD y
esterday, using the pink three-pound dumbbells Les had bought her four Christmases ago—and she’d only gained four pounds during the holidays, a personal best.

  Irena laughed. “You are soft and kind. Not like that Charlie Swift. Now, she’s tough. You should have seen her yesterday. Before I even realized someone was shooting at me, she slammed the door closed, dragged me up the staircase, and helped me get onto the roof.”

  “Then you deserted her,” Gigi put in tartly.

  “These things happen,” Irena said obscurely. She pulled a cookie tin toward her and began rolling dough into balls and smushing them on the sheet. Within ten minutes, the cookie sheets were in the oven, giving off a tantalizing aroma of warm sugar and vanilla.

  Gigi considered her uninvited guest, wondering what to do with her now. The blinds needed dusting and the bathrooms needed scrubbing—now that she could no longer afford a maid service, the basic household tasks went neglected for weeks—but she couldn’t see inviting Irena to pick up a toilet bowl brush and start scrubbing. A phone rang, and Gigi looked around, confused. With a start, Irena pulled a cell phone from her jacket pocket, looked at the display, and said, “Yes?”

  Gigi berated herself inwardly for not having considered the possibility that Irena might have acquired a new phone after handing hers over to Charlie at Dmitri’s condo. She knew Charlie would confiscate this phone, saying it was for the client’s safety, but Gigi didn’t feel comfortable snatching it from the woman’s hand. What would she do if Irena mentioned that she was at Gigi’s house? She fidgeted from foot to foot as Irena talked.

  The thirty-second conversation from Irena’s side consisted of yeses, nos, and a few ums, accompanied by sidelong looks at Gigi. “You, too,” she said in a wrapping-it-up tone, adding, “I’m at—”

  “No!” Gigi yelled, leaning across the counter to swipe at the phone.

  Irena reared back, astonished, as the timer on the oven went off with a loud, droning beep. She swayed on the stool. The phone clattered to the floor.

  “You can’t tell anyone where you are,” Gigi said over the beeping. She hurried to the oven and punched at the timer button. Sliding a mitt over her hand, she pulled the cookie tin out.

  Irena slid gracefully off the stool and retrieved the phone. “He’s gone,” she said, snapping it shut. “I can tell my son where I am, I think. He does not pose a threat to me.”

  “That was Dmitri?” Gigi’s eyes widened. “Do you know where he is?”

  “He is taking care of a few things,” Irena said, lids half-shuttering her eyes. “He says we will not have to worry anymore after tonight.”

  Gigi thought about trying to wrest the cell phone from Irena to check the phone number of the last incoming call. She couldn’t quite work up the nerve to tackle the smaller woman, especially since she was a guest in her home. Flinging one’s guests to the floor and forcibly removing their communications devices didn’t fit the southern notion of hospitality Gigi had grown up with.

  “Since it seems like I’m going to be stuck here most of the day, what will we do?” Irena looked at Gigi as if expecting her to produce a first-run movie or a chamber ensemble for her entertainment.

  Gigi disappeared into the walk-in pantry, emerging a moment later with a mop and a feather duster. “Mop or dust?” she asked.

  26

  I flipped a mental coin to decide whether I should revisit Czarina Catering first or head for Dellert House to check it out. Czarina Catering won, so I headed downtown, planning to swing by Dellert House afterward. Parking in the lot behind the champagne-colored Victorian, I entered Czarina Catering by way of the kitchen and found Gary Chemerkin pouring ingredients into an industrial-sized floor mixer that was almost as tall as I was. The door closed behind me with a quiet snick.

  “Be with you in a moment,” he said, not looking around. He coughed as the huge bag of flour he was spilling into the bowl poofed up a white cloud.

  “That’s one heap big mixer,” I said.

  He turned to look at me. His round glasses showed a hint of condensation, and sweat sheened his forehead. “Sixty quarts. What can I do for you now, Ms. Swift? I’m shorthanded and busy, so I don’t have a lot of time.” He wiped his hands on the white apron he wore over tan slacks and a pale green shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Shiny cordovan-colored loafers showed a film of flour. He didn’t look like he’d come to work planning to slave in the kitchen.

  “I’m still looking for Dmitri,” I said, leaning back against one of the stainless steel counters. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen or heard from him?”

  “No,” Chemerkin said shortly, “and I don’t expect to. I’ve had it with that prima donna. He’s fired.” He flipped a switch, and the mixer started doing its thing.

  “Dmitri being gone and Edgerton being dead must put quite a hole in your lineup.”

  He shot me a sharp look. “Boyce’s death is a tragedy. We’ll miss him here at Czarina. We’re donating a cake for the postfuneral reception. Very tasteful. White cake and icing with real lilies for decoration. The family is still deciding on the text they want—probably his name and the dates.”

  Like a headstone. I shuddered at the thought of cutting into such a cake. “I suppose the publicity about Boyce’s drug dealing hasn’t done your business a lot of good.”

  “No one can convince me that Boyce was a dealer,” Chemerkin said. He passed a hand over his neat beard. “He smoked a little weed now and then, sure, but dealing? No way. The police told me, of course, that they found a stash in Boyce’s apartment, but that doesn’t prove Boyce put it there.”

  “You think he was framed?” I considered the idea. “By whom?”

  “How would I know that?” he asked testily.

  “Dmitri?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  The idea intrigued me, and I was silent for a moment, thinking. Maybe Dmitri wasn’t the victim here. Hell, he’d admitted to credit card fraud. Could he and Edgerton also have been in the drug business together? Had he disappeared because he thought Chemerkin or the police were on to them? That didn’t explain the exploding cabin, though, or a shooter raining bullets on Irena and me. A few stolen credit card numbers or a drug stash small enough to hide in a toilet tank wasn’t worth murdering over. I scrambled some of my assumptions. Maybe the drugs were a sideline or, as Chemerkin suggested, for personal use only. Perhaps Dmitri and Edgerton were part of a more sophisticated theft ring, one that used the catering business as a cover to systematically steal credit card data and used the stolen numbers to buy valuables that were later sold via eBay or Craigslist. I knew a lot of stolen merchandise got fenced on those sites. Or, since Dmitri had copped to transporting fake IDs … I thought about it: What kinds of data might be available in someone’s kitchen, easily snatchable by a crooked caterer? I kept my bills and bank statements in a tray by the phone on the kitchen counter, and I had friends who kept all their paperwork on built-in kitchen desks. Some people even kept laptops there. Was it possible that Dmitri and Boyce could’ve carried out such thefts over the long term without Chemerkin noticing? I studied the man with his graying blond hair and slight paunch.

  “I suppose Dmitri’s credit card thefts would be even worse for business, if word got around.”

  His face flushed a brick red. “If you dare even hint at such a thing, I’ll have you in court so fast your head will spin.”

  I found it interesting that he didn’t outright deny Dmitri was a thief. I held up a placating hand. “I’m not planning to mention it to anyone, even though Dmitri told me he’s been stealing credit card data from your clients for several months.”

  “You talked to Dmitri? Recently?” Interest sharpened Chemerkin’s tone.

  “Last night.” Chemerkin’s reaction seemed too intense, and I tried to read his expression, a mix of surprise, avidity, and something else I couldn’t define.

  As if aware that he’d aroused my suspicions, the man made a disgusted noise, turned back to study the mixing bowl’s
contents, and said, “If you see him again, tell him he’s fired.”

  “Sure,” I said, still trying to figure out his reaction. “Do you have a copy of your client list from the last year?” I thought it might be worth checking to see if any of Czarina’s clients had reported being victims of identity theft.

  He gave me a “fat chance” look. “Of course, but I’m not sharing it with you. My clients have a right to their privacy.”

  “Oh, come on,” I said. “It’s not like you’re a lawyer or a therapist.”

  “Nevertheless.”

  Recognizing a stone wall when I ran into one, I shrugged. “Thanks for your time. If Dmitri does show up here”—I didn’t think it likely—“will you give me a call?” I handed him my business card.

  He took it reluctantly. “I don’t expect him.” An undertone of hurt colored the words, and I wondered suddenly if Chemerkin was in love with Dmitri. He was reacting more like a spurned lover than an irate boss.

  “Nevertheless.”

  He expelled a sharp “heh” that might have been a laugh and tucked the card into his apron pocket. Wending my way around the steel counters, I had almost reached the door when a thought occurred to me. “Is Fiona around?”

  A scowl corrugated his brow. “She’s the reason I’m shorthanded. She didn’t come in this morning.”

  His words made me catch my breath. Fiona had described Dmitri as her best friend. Had she become a target for whoever was intent on teaching Dmitri a lesson, the people who had attacked Bobrova, killed Boyce, and shot at me and Irena? Fiona had a young daughter … “Where does she live?” I asked sharply.

  “Beats me,” Chemerkin said. “She moved apartments a few weeks ago, and I don’t have the new address.”