by Davis Bunn
Storm caught the slight hesitation and asked, “You’re being hunted because of this painting?”
“No, Ms. Syrrell. I am in danger because of the other request your grandfather made. To help him identify the person seeking to destroy his reputation and his company.”
“What did you learn?”
“Almost nothing. My search took me to a lawyer who specializes in shadows. Yesterday I learned the lawyer has vanished. I have decided that I must depart as well.”
Harry asked, “Any mention where the bishop in this picture here was from?”
“I believe Cyprus was mentioned. Why?”
Harry shrugged. “Just curious.”
Storm did not believe him, but now was not the time to be asking questions. She returned her attention to the canvas. A new find like this, if it was indeed authentic, would be headline news throughout the art world. There was no telling what the painting was worth because it had been decades since another painting by Dürer had come on the open market. Besides which, medieval artists were not presently in vogue. Even so, half a million dollars would certainly be within reach. Perhaps more.
But that was not what set Storm’s heart to racing.
The bishop held his right hand in the traditional medieval form of a public blessing, two fingers touching his thumb. The other hand held a triptych.
Storm had seen that triptych before.
Selim obviously noticed Storm’s intense scrutiny, for he asked, “Was there something else, Ms. Syrrell?”
Harry interrupted Storm’s response with “Something’s going down.”
Selim glanced at where an orange light flashed in the center of the control panel. “My nephew has set off the alarm.”
On the central security screen, the limo driver ran through the illuminated garden. He held a pistol in a practiced two-arm grip. Suddenly the flatscreens were lit up by a pair of brilliant flashes. Harry said, “Your man is taking fire.”
Storm was amazed at Harry’s sudden calm. Five minutes earlier, he’d been sweating buckets over being locked inside a steel room, and now he appeared so far beyond cool he could turn steam to sleet.
Harry walked to the door, picked up the panel phone, listened briefly, then set it back. “Line’s dead. Check your cell phone.”
“There is no signal inside this room.”
Storm had never been good at chaos. The fact that she had been raised in it, that she’d had a fresh helping every morning with her breakfast cereal, had not improved things. Harry, though, had actually steadied in the face of danger. He asked Selim, “Do we go or do we stay?”
“My nephew is in danger.” Selim moved over beside Harry and pressed one of the panel buttons. An unseen drawer slid silently out from the wall. The drawer was padded like a photographer’s case and held a matte black revolver and two clips.
“Place comes equipped with everything for the modern family,” Harry said. “You keep another piece?”
“Of course. A Glock.” Selim slapped the clip into place and cocked the gun. “My nephew is presently firing it.”
“Swell.”
“You are not armed?”
“It’s back in Storm’s living room, where it’ll do us all a lot of good.”
Storm said, “You left a gun in my apartment?”
“Later, okay?” To Selim, “How do we play this?”
Selim coded the door open. The two men stepped out and listened intently. Storm thought she might have heard someone shout from outside the house. But she could not be certain.
Selim said, “Leave through the garage.”
Harry asked, “Where’s that?”
“Back to the hall. Go right. Leave through the steel door at the back of the garage.” A shot penetrated the home’s compressed silence. Then four more in rapid succession. “Two-one-five twice. You understand?”
“Another keypad,” Harry said, calm as a weatherman. “The door’s combo.”
Selim was already moving. “Go!”
Harry remained where he was, scouting through the doorway. “You follow me, but not too close. Move when I say move. I raise my hand, you freeze. Ready?”
“Wait.” Storm went back to the easel and hefted the painting. When Harry’s eyes widened, she said, “He got this for Sean. It’s coming with me. We can work out the details later.”
Harry gave her a buccaneer’s grin. “Hey. We’re out of the cage, we got the loot, and somebody else is off chasing bullets. I’d call that the makings of a good day.”
She followed him through the bedroom and on to where the side hall opened into a pristine garage. Two spaces were empty. The third was occupied by a sky blue Bentley. Harry crossed to the steel door. More gunfire sounded from outside the house.
“Small arms,” Harry said. “What was that combo again?”
“Two-one-five, two-one-five.”
“Sure hope our friends don’t shoot each other.” The door clicked and sighed open on a pneumatic lever. Lights flickered on automatically, revealing a long, empty tunnel. Harry peered down its length, asked, “What is this?”
“Most of these mansions have a tunnel under the beachside road. There’ll be a gate at the other end.”
The ocean’s salty fragrance swept in with a trace of a breeze. Harry took a tentative step inside. “I don’t like this.”
“Why not?”
Harry raised his hand. Wait.
The garage echoed from a single great boom.
“Unh-unh.” Harry backed from the tunnel. “No way.”
“What was that?”
“Shotgun. I’d say twelve gauge.” Harry stepped back into the garage. “There’s got to be a better way than running down a tunnel in the dark. Unarmed. Carrying that thing. Might as well run out carrying a sign that reads, ‘Here we are, shoot us now.’”
He checked the car door. It opened. Harry bent inside, came back out, and scouted the garage. Then he spotted the keys hanging from the hook by the house door. “Thank you, Selim.”
“You’re stealing his car?”
“You can leave the painting with me and go see if he minds.” Harry took the canvas from her hands, set it on the rear seat. He slipped behind the wheel, started the car, waited for her to shut her door, said, “Grab something and hold on tight.”
Harry flipped the switch by the rearview mirror and jammed the gas pedal down so hard, Storm could see his leg muscles bunch through his trousers. The garage pulsated with the engine’s howl. Behind them, the garage door slid up in tandem with the outer steel barrier.
Revealing a man with a rifle.
Harry slapped the car into reverse.
The man raised the gun and fired one shot. The car was spattered with the sound of metal rain. The rear window fractured with crystal tattoos.
Storm screamed. She was pretty sure it was her. Harry’s voice couldn’t possibly reach that high.
The car shrilled in tandem with Storm, a hypercharged whine from beneath the hood and another from the smoking tires. The gunner had no chance for a second shot. It was either leap aside or go down.
Harry swerved, trying to take out the gunner, but the man jumped and rolled. Harry slammed into a palm on the cul-de-sac’s other side. He shifted and hit the gas. The car drilled Storm back into her seat.
Harry shouted over the sound of the racing engine, “Houston, we have liftoff!”
THIRTEEN
EMMA WEBB FINISHED INTERVIEWING THE neighbors clustered beyond the police tape and slipped her notebook back into her purse. Despite the hour, the bystanders looked pulled from a photo shoot, everybody buffed and polished and groomed. They were also caught up in shocked incredulity. They had supposedly bought their way into a safe haven. Now this.
The patrol officer standing duty by the perimeter tape glanced at the badge hanging from her waist and smirked. “So you’re Treasury. Like in the secret service?”
“They’re one branch, I’m another.”
The cop lifted the tape. “Is that as gl
amorous as they make it in the movies?”
“Absolutely. Look where it’s brought me. To a Palm Beach crime scene.”
Emma entered Selim Arkut’s private compound just as Jack Dauer appeared in the home’s entrance. He called over, “Anything?”
“Several neighbors heard gunfire and called it in. Nobody saw anything worthwhile. Only one of them even knew the name of the man living here.”
“I hate the rich. Give me a good old-fashioned gangland slaying any day.” Dauer radiated a constant state of aggravated heat. The local cops did their best to pretend Dauer wasn’t even there. Emma envied them. “The place is stripped bare. Like your friend Syrrell tipped him off we had him under surveillance.”
“You heard her say they never met—” Emma felt her phone vibrate in her pocket. She checked the readout and said, “Interesting.”
“What?”
“Storm Syrrell.”
Dauer stared at the night. “This just keeps getting better.”
Emma walked past the policeman collecting shell casings. His clear plastic bag was half-full and glinted in the fancy lighting like poisoned gold. The house was a minifortress, the grounds perfectly manicured, the setting idyllic. That is, aside from the bullet holes punched in the house’s pastel walls. “This is Webb.”
“It’s Harry. I thought I’d better give you a heads-up.”
“You’re responsible for this mess?” Emma felt her heat rise. “Storm specifically told me she’d never met Arkut.”
“Which she hadn’t at the time. Arkut approached her last night.”
“How convenient.”
“Hey. If listening is too big a problem, I’m happy to hang up.”
She turned her back to Jack Dauer’s glare. “Go on.”
Harry fed it to her in the bullets of a pro. Terse, no unnecessary details, data centered on major items.
“Selim Arkut showed you a painting he had located for Sean Syrrell?”
“Only artwork left in the house. The man was definitely on his way out. But I guess he’s already told you that.”
“Selim Arkut has vanished.”
“What about his nephew?”
“Who?”
“A miniversion of Arkut with a major attitude problem.”
“There was no one on the premises when we arrived.”
“No bodies either?”
“Just a garden littered with ammunition casings and a few dozen bullet holes in the garden wall and the house’s exterior.” Not to mention a dozen or so highly irate and politically powerful neighbors.
“And a seriously dented palm. My bad.”
“Where…” Emma walked out the open drive gate and flashed her light across the street. “Never mind. I see it.”
“I was aiming for our guy. Missed by a frond.”
“You’re certain it was him?”
“Positive.”
Emma had seen Harry Bennett’s record. For Dauer, Harry’s presence confirmed that Storm Syrrell was perpetuating a series of felonies. “Are you telling me the truth, Harry?”
“Hard to believe, I know.”
“Where are you now?”
“Sean’s church uses what looks like an old motor court as guest quarters. I’ve stayed there on occasion. It’s located just behind the building where we met.”
“I need to speak with Storm.”
“Yeah, the pastor said the same thing when we showed up. I’m telling you what I told him. The lady was seriously shook. I put her to bed. Talk with her tomorrow.”
“I could insist.”
Harry sighed. “Just like a cop.”
“Harry—”
But the man was gone.
EMMA RETURNED TO THE GARDEN just as Dauer snapped his phone shut and ripped a page from his notebook. She said, “That was Harry Bennett.”
“All this was the pirate’s work?”
“He claims they were caught in the cross fire.”
Jack Dauer possessed the snort of a bilious dragon. “Don’t tell me you actually believe the con.”
Emma hesitated, then said, “Everything he’s told us so far has checked out, sir.”
“Then you’re not looking hard enough. Where are they now?”
“Holed up in guest quarters at the church.”
“Which one, Webb?”
“The same church where Bennett saved my life and Ms. Syrrell’s, sir.”
“I say we bring them both in.”
Emma waited.
He shook his head, as though she had voiced her disagreement. “Something’s just come over the horn. Local cops reported an incident. Think it might be tied to us. Go check it out.”
“Yes sir.”
“And keep your phone on. I could still order you to swing by and bring in the suspects.”
EMMA DROVE EMPTY MIDNIGHT STREETS and turned into an upscale development in West Palm Beach. The security joe was as wide awake as he had ever been on this job, and directed her down an oleander boulevard to the only house where all the lights blazed. A paramedic wagon was parked nose out in the driveway. Emma stepped through the open front door and met the cool wash of air-conditioning on high. She called, “Detective Duchamp?”
“In the back.”
The home’s front rooms were open plan. Emma followed vague noises through the living room. Rear windows overlooked a glowing pool where a yellow inflatable chair floated in the empty water.
A woman with a gold detective badge hanging from her jacket pocket stood in the doorway between the kitchen and the garage. She asked, “You Webb?”
“Yes.”
“Badge?” The policewoman was shaped like a carbon blade—narrow, lethal, and very black. “Am I going to have trouble with you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Because I’ll tell you straight up, that guy I talked with first, Dauer, is exactly why I got no time for feebs. You give me trouble, I’ll eat you alive, no matter what alphabet you got there beside your name.”
Emma stowed her badge back in her pocket and waited.
Duchamp asked someone Emma could not see, “How much longer?”
“All done. Okay, let’s have the gurney.”
Duchamp hit a switch by the doorjamb. Emma heard the garage door start open. An unseen man snapped, “How about taking a little more care with your end.”
“This guy weighs a ton.”
Emma entered the garage as two men fitted a stiffening body into a black sack. Duchamp noticed her grimace and asked, “You ever worked a murder scene, Agent Webb?”
“Afraid not, no. But I’ve been a federal agent for six years.”
One of the men settling the body bag onto the gurney drawled, “Homicide is homicide, honey. Either you is or you ain’t.”
The other man pushed his spectacles up his nose and grinned. “You can’t be fed. Feds don’t allow your sort of packaging.”
Duchamp said, “Roll on out of here, Harv, before that sexist chatter finds you up on departmental charges.”
He popped his gum. “Can’t take the cracker outta the good ol’ boy.”
Duchamp waited until the wagon’s rear doors slammed shut, then hit the switch. The garage door rolled down, shutting out the night. Duchamp said, “I apologize for Harv. We give coroners a lot more latitude than we probably should.”
Outside, the ambo pulled away. The smell was still strong enough to fill the garage. A young woman in a white coverall worked the vic’s car exterior, dusting for prints. Emma asked, “Can you tell me why I’m here?”
“Here’s what we know. Randall Sykes, fifty-one, former dentist, lost his practice for drinking on the job. Currently employed as sales rep for a dental supply house. That was him in the Wagoneer.”
The Jeep Cherokee was cream colored and relatively new. A bloody handprint blurred the front windshield, almost black in the fluorescents. Emma followed Duchamp around to the open passenger door. An open bottle of Russian vodka lay on the floor. The smell of spilled booze added to the mix. The
driver’s seat was punctured in several spots. Rust-colored stains covered the car’s interior. Top to bottom.
“Far as we can tell, the perp broke in through the garage side door. We found signs of tampering. We assume to steal the bike.”
Emma used that as an excuse to turn away from the car. But she could do nothing about the stench. An empty drop cloth lay stretched across the garage’s other bay. “Bike?”
“New Harley Softtail. The vic brought it back from its first service yesterday. We assume the perp picked Randy up there, followed him home. Here’s the interesting part. We checked with the dealer. They discovered a missing dealer’s tag.”
Emma cleared her throat. “So he follows the victim home, then goes back, breaks in—”
“No sign of break-in at the dealership. Probably waited for a quiet moment, slipped in and out in a flash. My guess is, the perp was hoping he’d have a few days before anyone noticed it was missing.”
The crime scene investigator was Latina, in her twenties, and respectful. “Excuse me, Detective. I need to dust this area.”
“Found anything yet?”
“Three partials. I’m not sure they’re enough to work on even if they do belong to the perp. He cleaned up really good.”
Duchamp guided Emma back toward the kitchen. “Where was I?”
“He entered to steal the bike, only the victim was seated in the Jeep. Drinking.”
“I figure the perp was caught totally off guard. He planned on slipping in and out with no problem, roll the bike down the street, be gone before anybody noticed, switch plates, hide inside a biker’s helmet, make himself invisible in plain sight. Only there was a problem. Randy and his wife had been fighting. The wife left to go stay with friends. Randy slipped into the garage with the bottle.” Duchamp stepped into the living room and took a long look around. “What kinda guy has a place like this, goes into the garage to drink?”
