by Sarah Atwell
“And what brings you to our town? I hope you’re not going to tell me you just wanted to visit your niece?”
“Wouldn’t insult your intelligence, sir. I’ve had some business dealings with that punk’s, uh, employers, from time to time. Including Jack Flannery. Jack was going to have me to dinner with his lovely wife when I was in Chicago not long ago, and then he dropped out of sight. I got suspicious and followed him—I hoped he’d lead me to Allison. Now that her mother’s gone, I thought I should look after her. So he did find her, but by then he was dead. So I was biding my time, waiting to have a quiet word with her, and things started happening fast.”
Matt chewed that over silently. I had to admire his style—he never rushed anything, and he always thought before he spoke. Although at the moment I wished he would think a little faster. “These diamonds, who do they belong to? You?”
“Nope. Bought and paid for, thank you, so they belong to somebody in Chicago, up the ladder from Jack. I’m here purely for family reasons.”
“And where are the diamonds now?”
Aha, my cue. “Right here.” I pulled the baggie out of my jacket and tossed it on the table. Even through two layers of plastic, the diamonds glinted. For a moment I found myself wondering how I could hope to capture that effect in a glass piece . . . and then I realized my mind was wandering. God, I was tired.
We all stared at the bag. Two men dead, one burglary, and one kidnapping, all inspired by this bag full of rocks. Pretty ones, maybe, but were they worth it?
Finally Matt spoke. “All right, Mr. McCarthy, perhaps you’d like to give us your side of the story?”
I could see the poor boy was torn. Part of him was no doubt terrified by how his superiors would react, even though they were a long way away. I was pretty sure that if he spilled the beans now, his future employment prospects in Chicago were dim. But he was surrounded and outnumbered, wearing handcuffs, and a long way from home.
Matt apparently had made the same calculation. When he spoke, his voice was gentle. “Come on, son. Help us out here, and things’ll go a lot easier for you. You know you’re in a lot of trouble, don’t you?”
“I don’t rat on people,” Kevin muttered.
“That’s a very nice sentiment, but it’s not going to get you very far here. You have any idea the charges you’re facing? Murder, kidnapping, breaking and entering, aggravated assault on Ms. Dowell and her brother? Serious stuff—and Arizona’s a state that still has a death penalty.”
I knew how rarely the death penalty was implemented in Arizona, but I kept my mouth shut. I could see that Matt wanted to rattle Kevin.
It looked like he was succeeding. Turning paler, Kevin stared at the floor between his feet, and shook his head vehemently. “Wasn’t me.”
“What?”
“Wasn’t me—it was him. He’s crazy.”
“Name?”
“Sean Callahan.”
Well, this was going well. Fifteen minutes of interrogation and we had two names. Wow. At this rate, it would be January before we got any real information.
Matt must have been reading my mind, because he sent me a warning glance: Let the expert handle it. Right. I poured more coffee.
He forgot to send the same glance toward Cam. Matt was not yet acquainted with Cam’s new Defender of the Helpless Damsel incarnation. “Damn it, ask him about Allison!” Cam all but shouted.
Matt sent him a glance that would have cut steel. Frustrated, Cam got up and stalked to the kitchen, mostly to give himself the chance to move. He was an intelligent man, and he had to know that emotional eruptions weren’t going to help anything, but most of the time his heart wasn’t involved in decision making. He was lost, in more ways than one.
Matt remained focused on Kevin. “Look, what we want right now is to get the woman back. The rest we can sort out later. Where is she?”
Kevin shook his head. “I dunno.”
“Sean sent you here to collect the diamonds? What did you plan to do once you got them?”
“Take ’em back to this place he told me, and wait for him.”
“And Allison?”
“He said once he knew we had the goods, he’d let her go.”
“Where was he keeping her?”
“Someplace out in the desert.”
“Not in a motel?”
“Nah. He said that’d be too obvious, and the first place anybody would look, if things went bad.”
“Can you take us there?”
Kevin looked even more miserable than before. He shook his head again. “Nah—it was dark. Sean knows how to find it.”
Matt was looking less and less happy. “All right. When and where were you supposed to meet Sean?”
“It’s this all-night place on a highway, outside of town. We found it a couple of days ago. Usually there’s people around, even early, so nobody would notice us. I was supposed to go straight there, once I had the stones. I’m already late. He’s gonna be pissed.”
Matt ruminated. Then he stood up abruptly and said, “Em, I need to talk to you.” He strode toward the door, and I had no choice but to follow. We went outside to the landing, and he closed the door behind me.
“Jesus Christ, Em—what have you gotten into?”
“Me!” I exploded. “Nothing! I made a friend, and the friend needed help. How was I supposed to know it would end up with dead people and gangsters and missing diamonds? And where the hell were you when they kidnapped her? You said you were watching the place.”
He sighed and looked away. “I’m sorry. That was my fault. This wasn’t exactly an official investigation, so I couldn’t assign a lot of people to it. The guy I sent got pulled off for something else, so I was going to cover for him. It must have happened between the time he left and the time I arrived. Bad luck all around.”
“Tell me about it. So what do we do now?”
Matt stared out at the street, where people were beginning to stir. Morning. We had to meet Thug Number Two aka Sean as soon as possible, and we needed to come up with a plan—fast.
“Em, we need help—we need more people on this.”
I should have known he would say that, and I couldn’t blame him. “Matt, we don’t have time for that. By the time we got your guys up to speed, Sean could be anywhere—and Allison could be dead.”
“No chance she’s in on it?” he asked, with something like grim humor.
“I don’t think so. Look, it crossed my mind too, but from what I’ve seen of her, she doesn’t have the nerve to do something like that. Or else she’s one terrific actress. But can we afford to assume that?”
He didn’t answer right away. Then he said slowly, “No, we can’t.” He straightened up, and squared his shoulders. “I can see six ways from Sunday that this can go wrong, and I come out looking like an ass in most of ’em. But you’re right—we don’t have time to do this the way we should. So here’s the plan: We need to persuade Kevin to work with us, have him make the meet, and see if we can nab Sean. Sounds to me as though Sean’s the brains of the pair, which doesn’t make me too happy.”
I thought hard. “Sean knows me and Cam. On the other hand, you reek of cop. Can Frank help?”
“Does Sean know Frank?”
“I don’t think so. I think he met only with Jack, and even then, only a couple of times. Wouldn’t you guess these two are just enforcers? I don’t think they have the brains to put together diamond deals.”
“Maybe not. Tell me this—is Frank on the up-and-up?”
I chose my words carefully. “I don’t think you can arrest him for anything.”
Matt almost smiled. “And he seems to be able to handle himself well enough, if what I saw in the alley is any indication. Okay, maybe I can send him along to keep an eye on things, while I wait outside.”
“We,” I corrected him.
Matt looked blank. “We?” And then he grasped what I was saying and his expression changed. “No. You’re not getting involved any more than you a
lready are. Bad enough that I use Frank, but he’s the best I’ve got among the lot of you.”
I knew I was making this up as I went along, but no way did I trust the guys to get this right. “Look, Matt. At the moment Sean expects Kevin to show up with the diamonds, and he told Kevin that once he had them, he’d let Allison go.”
“Do you believe him?”
“Hell, I don’t know. But I don’t want to take a chance on it. Let me and Cam go with Kevin. Sean’s already seen the two of us in action, so he knows we’re not a threat to him. But it might force his hand—make him take us to Allison, rather than risk a scene at this diner. And Frank will be there to back us up, in case anything goes wrong.” I was beginning to feel desperate. “Look, Matt, if this doesn’t work, you’re no worse off than you are now. At least this way we’ve got a chance of finding Allison, before . . .” I couldn’t finish.
He still wasn’t convinced, damn him. “Em,” Matt said, straining for patience, “that means I have to worry about the safety of not only Allison, but you and Cam. Say Sean takes you out and—let’s not assume he kills you, but he dumps you somewhere in the desert—and I can’t follow. There’s a lot of desert out there. I can’t authorize that.”
“Matt, who asked you to authorize anything? We were doing fine on our own.”
“I noticed, when you were dodging bullets in the street in South Tucson. Was that part of the plan?”
“Are you planning to stop all of us? You can arrest us when it’s over, but right now we outnumber you.” That didn’t bring a response from him. I had one more card to play, and it wasn’t even a high one. “Matt, Frank says these guys have some sort of code of honor—they won’t hurt a woman. They won’t hurt Allison, because she’s one of their own. Sort of. They just want to reclaim their property and go home. I don’t think they want to kill us. And they can’t afford to kill all of us. So if we all go, we’re all probably safer.” Not the world’s greatest logic, but it was the best I could do without sleep. “Please?”
Matt stared at me for a long moment, and then he sighed. “This goes against my better judgment, but I haven’t got any other ideas, and as you say, we’re out of time. All right—we’re going to have to turn Kevin, get him to cooperate. Damn it, Em, do you know how much trouble this could get me into?” he said softly. “Losing my job’s the least of it.”
“Matt, I’m sorry. I’d have been happy to keep you out of it, but you’re the one who followed me, remember.”
“I was worried about you.”
“It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
For a moment our eyes locked. I had no idea what he was saying, or not saying, but I knew there was something. But now was definitely not the time to explore that. We had a rescue mission to accomplish, and very little time. “Matt, we can deal with that question later. Right now we need to find Allison.”
“I know. All right, we tackle Kevin, offer him the moon, anything to get him to that diner and draw out Sean. We can sort out the legalities later. Among other things.”
Chapter 20
mud: the strange mixtures of wax, oil, and solvents to coat jacks, especially the old iron ones . . . to reduce chatter and chill marks and make for smoother working. (Mike Firth, Glossary of Materials & Terms Used in Furnace Glassblowing)
Matt was not a happy camper—everyone could see that. But he was boxed in: If he went by the book, he risked losing Thug Sean and Allison, and possibly getting Allison killed (if she wasn’t already dead—but I wasn’t going to think about that); if he flew solo on this one, no backup, he still might fail and he could lose his job. And no doubt he would find a way to blame me for the mess. Not that he’d let himself off the hook either. All around, a lousy situation.
But Matt was police chief for a reason: He could make quick and intelligent decisions. He made one now.
We returned to the rest of the group, and everyone— including Fred and Gloria—looked expectantly at Matt. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to meet Sean, and he’ll take you to Allison.”
He took the seat he had occupied before, next to Kevin, who kept looking younger and younger—and more and more scared. “Kevin,” Matt began with surprising gentleness, “I’m sure you don’t want Allison to die. Do you?” He waited until Kevin had made eye contact and was shaking his head. “Then we’re going to need your help. I know you don’t want to betray Sean, but you’ve already told us that he was responsible for Jack’s death, and who knows what he might do now, if he doesn’t get what he wants. You help us now, and I won’t forget it. Can you do that?”
Kevin swallowed hard, then croaked, “What is it you’re wanting me to do?”
“Kevin, I want you to go to the diner and connect with Sean as planned. I’m going to send Frank in ahead of you—he’s going to play the innocent customer, but he’ll keep an eye on things, and he’ll be there if you need a hand. Em and Cam—you’re going in with Kevin. Sean won’t be expecting you, but he’ll just have to cope.”
“Yes, sir,” I said meekly. Cam nodded.
“Kevin, you’re going to drive your car—we’ll have to go and retrieve it from that alley on the way. Sean will be expecting to see it. You’re going to take Em and Cam in the car with you. When Sean appears, you show him the diamonds.”
When I started to protest, Matt glared at me before going on. “We want to get Sean out of the diner—we know he’s armed, and I don’t want a messy hostage situation, and I definitely don’t want any innocent bystanders to get hurt. We need Sean to think that everything is just fine, and to lead us to Allison. Kevin, do you think you can handle this?”
Kevin was pale and sweating. Of course, maybe that was his normal appearance, but I didn’t really think so. “I guess,” he mumbled.
“Son, we really need your cooperation. And don’t think we won’t remember it.” I had to admire Matt’s style—he was grave and reassuring, his tone fatherly, and Kevin was leaning toward him like a flower to the sun. Poor Kevin. The boy was certainly easily led, which might explain why he had fallen in with Sean. I had to hope that at heart he was a decent person, or this sketchy plan of ours didn’t stand a chance.
Then Matt turned back to the rest of us. “I doubt that Sean would try anything in the diner, or in the parking lot—too many people around, too many witnesses, and he won’t want to attract attention. I’m betting that once you’re all there, he’ll volunteer to take you to Allison— and he probably thinks he’ll leave you out there, wherever. But he won’t kill you—our boy Kevin will see to that, right?”
Kevin looked startled, then finally nodded. “Right. No killing.” I was not reassured.
“And Frank and I will be following, in separate cars,” Matt went on. “So you’ve got plenty of backup.”
I refused to think about how little time it took to fire a gun, how quickly it could all be over for Cam and me. How little thought Sean and Kevin had given to killing first Jack, then poor Tim, who had done nothing except to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. “And you’ll be right behind us, right?”
He nodded, then asked Kevin, “Was Allison alive when you left for the rendezvous?”
Kevin nodded. “Far as I know.”
“Would Sean kill her?”
Kevin stared at Matt like a deer caught in the headlights, but finally he said, “Nah. She’s a woman, and she’s Irish, like him. He’s got standards.”
Wonderful, I thought. He can shoot a man without giving it a second thought, but he’s kind to ladies. Chivalry is not dead.
Matt stared at the quivering Kevin for a few seconds. “If she dies—if anyone dies—it’s the death penalty for you both.”
Kevin nodded, looking miserable. If he hadn’t been holding Allison’s life in his hands, I might have felt sorry for him. It didn’t look as though he had a bright future in crime.
Apparently satisfied—he was the only one—Matt then turned to Frank. “Frank, can you ha
ndle this?”
Frank almost bounced with glee. “I’ve dealt with worse at the mines. What’re my orders?”
“You’ll take Cam’s car, and park at the diner, then go inside and order something. I don’t want you to do anything, just keep an eye on things. If it looks like it’s going wrong, then you can step in, but until then, do nothing to attract attention to yourself. Got it?”
“No worries, mate.”
“Em, you and Cam are going with Kevin here. Don’t get cute. Just show Sean the diamonds and demand to be taken to Allison. If he tries to stall, threaten to make a scene right there. He won’t want that. Stay with him, whatever you do. Kevin, you back them up. Whichever car you take, we’ll follow. Frank—that won’t be easy. There’s a lot of open land here, so they’ll be able to see you if you follow too close. Em, you distract Sean. Start an argument— you can do that, can’t you? Just keep him talking, and try to keep his eyes off the rearview.”
“No problem,” I said grimly. After all, my life kind of depended on it, right?
Finally Matt addressed Cam. “Cam, look . . . I know you have a, uh, personal stake in this, but no heroics, okay? You try to rush in and save the day, you’ll get yourself killed. And Allison. So just stay alert but don’t try anything stupid. Got it?”
Cam nodded, his jaw clenched. My poor baby brother was having a rough day here, but Matt was right. I wished we could leave all the heroics to a herd of trained professionals, but unfortunately we didn’t have the time for it. We’d just have to make do with Matt. We could do worse.
“All right. Let’s head out.”
“Um,” I said, “where are we going?”
“Oh, right. Kevin, where is this place?”
“Out on the highway, south of town.”
“Can you be a little more specific?”
Kevin reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled slip of paper, then squinted at it. “I can’t make it out.”
Matt took it from him and peered at it. “Looks like a ‘uck ter’,” he said dubiously. “I-19. Okay, it’s gotta be the truck terminal. Good choice—lots of traffic, people. Nobody’ll pay attention to your lot. You know it, Em?”
