Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

“Why?” Jill asked after a minute.

Zach knew what she was asking. “It wasn’t a hot prowl gone wrong. The car was the target, which meant the shooter was after the paintings.”

“They’re in the house.”

“The shipping cartons were in the car. Add paraffin, gasoline, and light it off. Step back before it explodes in your face.”

“But why shoot Garland Frost?”

“He was home,” Zach said grimly. “And he’s a maverick. The thought of Lee Dunstan pissing all over his appraisals wouldn’t bother Frost a bit. Hell, he’d enjoy it.”

“Then you think Frost was actually the target?” Jill asked, her voice strained.

“I’ll ask the shooter just as soon as I get his neck between my hands.”

She looked at Zach’s profile. In the random illumination of streetlights and dashboard lights, he looked like a bleak stone carving. He might have argued a lot with Garland Frost, but he still cared about him.

“How did the shooter know we were here?” she asked.

“That’s the problem with flight plans and rental cars. You leave a paper or electronic trail that any decent computer hacker can follow.”

“All the way to Frost’s house?”

“That’s what I said to Faroe. He’s trying to get through to the rental company, find out if our rental had a locater beacon in it, and if so, was it active.”

“Why would they-never mind, Mexico.”

“Yeah. A short run to the border and the thief is several thousand bucks richer.”

“You think the shooter is still around here?” she asked uneasily.

She didn’t like thinking about how close Frost and Zach had come to dying a few hours ago.

“We’ve got guards on Frost. And I’m going to stay with him until his daughter gets here. I want you with me.”

He turned into the hospital parking lot and stopped close to the emergency entrance.

Jill saw two patrol cars and hoped the questions wouldn’t start all over again. She didn’t know if she had the patience for it.

When Zach saw the plainclothes unit next to the patrol cars, he wondered who had been assigned the case. The answer came as soon and he and Jill walked through the automatic doors into the hard-shelled sterile waiting room. Three uniformed officers were conferring with a tall, redheaded man in jeans, boots, and a hooded sweatshirt.

“Well, there’s a break,” Zach said under his breath. “Alton Corrigan is still in town.”

The redheaded man turned and looked at them, then shook his head wearily. He crossed the waiting room, hands in the belly pocket of his sweatshirt.

“Zach, you should have stopped by to say hello before you got yourself involved in a shooting,” Corrigan said. “It would have saved me a lot of trouble. Now I can’t even shake your hand until my men have cleared you.”

Zach nodded. “Sorry about that. How’s Frost doing?”

“Surgery,” Corrigan said. “One of the nurses came out a minute ago to tell us that the bullet nicked an artery. If you hadn’t gotten him here quick, he would have died.”

“That’s her doing,” Zach said, nodding toward Jill. He introduced her and added, “Alton used to be chief detective, but if he’s talking about ‘my men,’ I’m guessing he made chief of police.”

Corrigan looked hard at Jill, then back at Zach. “You two are both friends of Frost?”

“She’s my client,” Zach said. “We were researching some family paintings she owns. Frost was an obvious place to start.”

“First time you’re back in, what, five years?” he asked, looking at Zach.

“Something like that.”

“And Frost didn’t kick your ass right out on the street?” Corrigan shook his head. “Must be pretty special pictures you brought him.”

“That’s what we were trying to find out,” Zach said.

“Are those pictures related to the fire-bombing of your car?”

“One minute I was asleep and the next I heard a gunshot and was up and running,” Zach said. “That’s all I know for sure.”

“Why do I feel like you aren’t telling me everything?” Corrigan asked.

Zach’s smile was as weary as it was real. “Because I’m not. I’m working as an investigator for an attorney named Grace Silva Faroe. Ms. Breck is Judge Silva Faroe’s client, so there’s privilege attached to some of this.”

Corrigan grunted.

“I’ve told the cops everything I know for a fact,” Zach said.

“What do you suspect?” Corrigan shot back.

“Last time I checked, New Mexico law doesn’t require that I tell you any or all of my speculations. But I can guarantee that I want to find out who shot Garland Frost even more than you do.”

“I don’t much care for it,” Corrigan said bluntly, “any more than I care for hard-assing you or Ms. Breck. But if I have to, I will.”

“No news there.”

“Do you really think you shot the perp?” Corrigan asked.

“Not enough to send him to a hospital.”

Corrigan grunted again. Then with a curt nod to Jill, he went back to his men.

HOLLYWOOD

SEPTEMBER 16

8:00 A.M.

That’s right,” Score said into the phone. “The six shipping cartons are charcoal, and so is anything that was inside them.”

“Stay with them anyway.”

Score bit down hard on his temper. He really didn’t have the patience for stakeouts, short sleep, and twitchy clients.

“How long?” he asked through clenched teeth.

“Until after the auction.”

“It’s your money.”

“Keep that in mind.”

He looked at the dead phone and slammed it into the cradle in disgust.

“Yo, boss,” a voice said from outside his locked office door.

Score hit the button to release the lock. “Get in here.”

“You look like hell,” Amy said as she walked in. She tossed a printout on his desk.

I should fire the mouthy bitch.

“I work hard on it,” Score snapped.

But not as hard as Amy did. Today her hair was pink and silver.

Score tried not to notice. He was used to the studs and rings she wore in painful places, but the ever-changing hair colors still threw him. It was like employing a chameleon.

“I was up all night with a client.” He rubbed grainy eyes and tried not to wince. His right biceps felt like he’d been branded. Nothing burned like a kiss from a bullet.

Wish that auction was over. I haven’t had a decent night’s sleep since the bloody JPEGs went out.

He flicked a finger at the printout. “Anything good?”

“Something went down at the other end of the bug. Heard sirens, shouting, what sounded like gunfire.”

Score swallowed a yawn. “Yeah? Anyone hurt?”

“Either it’s real cold there or a dude named Frost bit the big one. The name came up a lot.”

“Huh. He die?”

Amy didn’t bother to hide her yawn. “The last time I heard anything, the female subject was on the way back from the hospital. Frost was stable, but drugged to the max. It’s all in the printout.”

Left-handed, Score flipped through the printout. “Looks like the bug is picking up more than it did before.”

“Yeah. Must have taken the phone out of whatever was wrapped around it. But it’s on and off. The subject doesn’t exactly wear her sat phone as a fashion statement.” Amy yawned again. “Oh, there was some talk about being followed.”

Score’s hand hesitated, then resumed flipping through the printout. “Who?”

“They don’t know. Or if they had any ideas, they didn’t discuss it in range of the bug. All they talked about was how easy it is to get flight plans and if the rental car had some kind of locater system since New Mexico is so close to that great chop shop south of the border.”

Score read the section, frowned, read it again, and decided that Amy was right. So far nothing had happened to the subject that couldn’t be explained by something other than a personal bug.

“Okay,” he said.

“Does that mean I get some time off?”

“I’ll let you know after I talk to the client. Until then, stay with the bug.”

“Hell.”

“It could be worse,” Score said.

“How?”

“You could be looking for a job in a traveling freak show.”

TAOS

SEPTEMBER 16

9:00 A.M.

Even though the last cops were gone, Garland Frost’s circular driveway remained off limits. The arson investigators wanted to work with a “clean” scene. Zack looked out the front door of the house and was grateful the paintings hadn’t been inside the rental car. It looked even worse in daylight.

He heard the back door open.

“Zach?” Jill called.

He shut the front door. “I’ll meet you in the kitchen. Coffee should be ready by now.”

“There is a God.”

Zach smiled and rubbed at the beard that had overtaken his face. I really should have shaved before I got in bed with Jill.

But she hadn’t complained. In fact, she’d enjoyed rubbing her palms against his cheeks. And other parts.

When he got to the kitchen, Jill was yawning and rummaging in the cupboards for coffee mugs. Her cheeks looked chapped. Her neck looked nibbled.

“Any word on Frost?” she asked.

“Same old same old.” Zach got the mugs, poured the dark, lethal brew, and handed one over to her. “I wish I knew what he was trying to tell me.”

“You can ask him when he wakes up.” She took a sip, said “Hooyah!” and took a bigger swallow. “Now, that’s coffee.”

Zach smiled slightly. “According to the procedure the docs outlined, Frost won’t wake up until the auction is over. They’re pretty much keeping him in a coma.”

“He survived a nicked artery, the random damage of a bullet in his midriff and a long surgery.” Jill said. “Not many men his age would have made it.”

“Silencer.”

“What?”

“A silencer slows down the velocity of the bullet when it leaves the muzzle,” Zach explained. “That’s why Frost survived a hit from a 9 millimeter.”

Jill shivered.

“Cold?” Zach asked. “I could light the fire.”

“This coffee is better than any fire.” She noticed the open computer on the kitchen table. “Working already?”

“Just checking in. Where’s your sat phone?”

“In the guesthouse. Did yours finally die?”

“Thinking about it,” he said. “Singh checked yesterday’s flight plans on all charters out of Salt Lake to Taos.”

“Good news?”

“Depends on your definition of good. Somebody took off from Salt Lake about an hour after we did and landed at Taos about eighty minutes after we did.”

Jill’s eyes narrowed. “Are you saying we were followed?”

“Not like a tail,” he said. “They were too far back. Our flight plan was easy enough to get. The car is on a rental agency’s computer, which sure can be hacked. Faroe’s checking to see if the rental has a locater unit aboard. This close to the border, it’s pretty common.”

“I…” Her voice died. “I’m not used to a road with this many switchbacks.”

“Yeah, some real neck twisters. And the fun would really get started if somehow, someway, we’ve been bugged. On the other hand, it could be a real break.”

“Bugged?”

“Yeah. If we have one, and we can find it, we turn it into an asset.”

“How?”

He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. “Faroe and I are arguing about that.”

“Who’s winning?”

“I am, and he’s not liking it,” Zach said.

She looked at the computer he’d been working on. The screen showed a muddy version of a Dunstan landscape.

“You need a screen with more pixels,” she said. “Like Frost’s.”

“I’m not appraising,” he said. “I’m just exploring the Dunstan art market in view of what we learned from Frost. I’d have St. Kilda do it, but they’re running an unusual number of ops right now. Research is crying. So unless it’s life-or-death urgent, I’m not kicking in their door.”

She stared at the computer screen. “So Thomas Dunstan has his own Web site?”

“Yeah, but this one belongs to Worthington’s Las Vegas auction. I’ve been looking at the online catalogue.”

“Lousy reproduction.”

“Only on my machine. Besides, the interesting thing isn’t the art, it’s the prices.”

She bent over and tilted the screen. Immediately the picture sharpened. Ruby Marsh was the name of the painting. The scene was of thrusting mountains, clean blue sky, and a marshy valley turned gold with autumn. The dimensions of the canvas were huge, definitely museum size.