Elizabeth Lowell - Blue Smoke and Murder

“Do you still have the record of the arrest?” Zach asked.

“It turned out to be more than D amp; D,” Purcell said. “Justine had a.22 rifle. Said her lover was threatening her, so she shot him. He claims that she was the one doing the threatening. She was too drunk to aim good, thank the Lord. Sure did take the starch out of him, though. Bullet burns do that to a man.” He set down the soda. “Anything else? I’m busy.”

“Were charges brought?” Zach asked.

“Darn right they were,” Purcell said. “Can’t have a woman shooting a man right on the main street of Blessing.”

“Might give the other women ideas,” Jill said sweetly.

Zach quickly asked, “Was Justine Breck kept in the jail here?”

“The old jail, actually,” the sheriff said. One-handed he crushed the soda can and tossed it into the wastebasket. “We used it for females after the new jail was built. Didn’t have but one or two of them. Women were too busy taking care of families to get into trouble.”

Jill said something under her breath.

“What kind of booking procedure was used in those days?” Zach asked, ignoring her comment about sister-wives with the fertility of rabbits and the intelligence of dirt.

“The best available at the time,” Purcell said. “The men in my family have always been forward thinkers. Photographs, fingerprints, defense lawyers, speedy trials, everything they have back East, we have in Blessing. We might be at the end of the map, but we’re not stupid about the law.”

Zach nodded and squeezed Jill’s shoulder in warning. They needed the records and the sheriff was the gatekeeper.

“Yes,” Zach agreed. “I’ve heard good things about this county. Probably comes from having a long line of sheriffs who were raised to do the job right.”

Jill bit her tongue hard enough to leave skid marks.

Purcell nodded. His posture relaxed. “We take our obligations seriously. That’s not something a lot of city folks understand.”

“Did Justine Breck go on trial?” Zach asked.

The sheriff grimaced. “Breck’s lawyer was too smart to go for a jury trial. The judge was an outsider, new to the job. He felt sorry for Justine, because her lover up and hung himself, so he went against my father’s advice and let the Breck woman go after a few weeks. But the judge did tell her if he ever saw her in court again, he’d throw the book at her. For a wonder, she listened. We never had trouble with her again.”

“We’d like to see the booking records,” Zach said.

“Why?”

“Zach’s boss was once a federal judge and is now a high-powered lawyer,” Jill said. “She assured me that such records are public. If you don’t agree with her, she’ll have a warrant here before you can say Mormon tea.”

“She?” Purcell said, sighing.

“Yeah, what’s the world coming to,” Zach said sympathetically. “Women lawyers and judges. Next thing you know, process servers and sheriffs will be women.”

“Want to place a bet on the gender of the person who shows up with a warrant for the records?” Jill asked.

“Slow down, darling,” Zach said. “The sheriff is just doing his job. It’s not an easy one. Some days the citizens are worse than the crooks.”

Purcell looked at Zach for the space of a long breath. Whatever he saw tipped the balance. Zach wasn’t bluffing and he wasn’t insulting a small-town sheriff.

Best of all, Zach was keeping the pushy Breck woman in line.

“Hope you do better with her than other men have done with Breck women,” Purcell said as he reached for the telephone and hit the intercom to the receptionist. “Call the records department and tell them two people are coming by to get dusty.”

HOLLYWOOD

SEPTEMBER 16

2:25 P.M.

As soon as the outer door opened, Amy leaped to her feet. “It’s about time you got back from lunch.”

“My office, now,” Score said.

He was in a pisser of a mood.

The way this case keeps eating up my time, you’d think I had only one client.

A really important one.

“Shut the door,” Score said. He sat down at his desk and fought against the kind of burp that made his eyes water.

Goat cheese. Who decided that men should eat that stuff on a pizza and be polite about it?

But what really had given him indigestion was the client, a Hollywood mover and shaker who was getting shaken down by someone and wanted to kick some ass in return.

When will they learn to leave underage boys alone?

Not that Score was complaining. Much. When people turned into saints, he’d be out of a job.

“Well?” he said to Amy.

“She’s on the move again. Back to good old Blessing, Arizona.”

“Huh.” He found a roll of stomach mints and crunched up three of them. “What for?”

“She’s talking to the sheriff.”

“About what?”

“Her grandmother’s arrest.”

What does that have to do with the paintings? Score thought. “So?”

“Well, except for one call, she wasn’t close to the bug, so I couldn’t hear anything until they left for the airport from Taos.” Absently Amy tested the holding power of her hair gel with her fingertips. Starting to droop. So was she. She’d worked through lunch.

“What call?” Score demanded.

She flipped to the next page of the printout. “The op reported in to St. Kilda, using the subject’s sat phone.”

“What’d he say?”

“Asked for the same cargo handlers as yesterday and-”

“I told you to get in touch with me ASAP if paintings were mentioned,” Score cut in.

The bite in his voice made Amy flinch.

“Nobody said anything about paintings,” she said quickly. “Is that what the cargo was?”

Score didn’t know the answer to that question, but was afraid that the word “cargo” would cover twelve paintings quite nicely.

They must have been in the house, not the car.

There was nothing he could do about it right now. Except swallow hard, keep his temper, and chew up some more stomach mints.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

Amy winced. When Score got that tone in his voice, pink slips started arriving on desks. She didn’t want hers to be one of them.

“The conversation took place at 9:42,” she said.

“Any talk about where the cargo is going?” Score asked.

“No.”

Score went still. His stomach clenched, sending goat cheese on a burning return trip. “Anything else?”

“The subject has already landed in Blessing, Arizona. The bug must be close because it’s real clear.”

“What about the cargo? Is it with them?”

“No. All the op said to her was that it was in a safe place.”

Damn St. Kilda anyway. What are they doing involved in a totally domestic op?

Goat cheese kept trying to claw its way back up Score’s throat. He fought it to a draw and snarled, “Cut to the chase.”

“They went to see the Canyon County sheriff in Blessing,” Amy said, summarizing the transcript of the bug. “Wanted to look at Justine Breck’s arrest report.”

“Huh. Why would they care? It happened a long time ago.”

Amy shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently the grandmother and some dude had the kind of drunken shouting match that ended up with him being shot and both of them in jail.”

“Him who? Did they say?”

“Not by name. All I know is that he was her lover. And he hung himself in jail.”

Score drummed his fingers on his desk and wondered what St. Kilda was up to now. This case had been nothing but one screw-up after another. He was getting real close to losing his temper and beating the crap out of the first person he got his hands on.

It would feel so good.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“They’re going to look at the records. And the bug is working real clear.”

“No mention of paintings?”

“No. Just some comments about the Frost guy and the fact that he won’t be talking to anyone for a few days. Something about a coma.”

Well, at least that worked, Score consoled himself. About time I caught a break. Now if only I could be certain that those paintings had burned.

Or certain that they hadn’t.

Worst case scenario: They didn’t burn and St. Kilda has them now. Which means this op is well and truly in the shitter.

I should have shot the bitch instead of the old man. She’s the one causing all the trouble.

Score belched and swore never to eat goat cheese again, no matter who the client was. “I want to know where they go after Blessing. Stay with it until Steve gets here.”

“When will that be?”

“When he taps you on the shoulder. If you hear anything about paintings-”

“Tell you ASAP,” Amy cut in. “Got it the first ten times you told me.”

She made it out the door before Score lost it and started kicking the desk.

SAN DIEGO

SEPTEMBER 16

2:29 P.M.

Grace picked up the phone. “Zach? Faroe’s tied up.”

“How about you?” Zach said.

“Make it quick.”

“Can St. Kilda have a warrant for public records regarding the arrest of Justine Breck and Thomas Dunstan in Canyon County, Arizona in…”

Grace shifted the baby to her other arm and started writing. “Did you get photos of the thumbprints on Jill’s paintings?”

“Yeah, but only for insurance. A fingerprint expert will need better photos. The thumbprint is hard to see except with black light. Dunstan used a lot of texture, plus the frames on Frost’s paintings added a certain amount of wear.”

“But the thumbprints on each canvas looked the same to you?”

“Sure did. That makes it damn near certain that Dunstan painted Jill’s canvases.”

“Then they’re worth a lot of money.”

“Multimillions, according to the estimates in the auction catalogue. But if all her paintings come on the market at the same time, it could lower the price,” Zach said. “Or maybe it would create a feeding frenzy. Who knows? Collectors are a screwy lot.”

“We’ll be real careful to get good photos of her paintings,” Grace said. “Any idea how much paper we’re talking about for the warrant?”

“I’ll tell you as soon as we know.” At the other end of the line, Zach heard a very young baby’s fretful cry. “Feeding time at the zoo?”

“She’ll last another few seconds. When do you want the records picked up?”

“Yesterday. Too many things have burned, if you know what I mean.”

“Just make sure Jill isn’t one of them.”

“She’s within reach at all times,” Zach assured her.

Grace smiled. “All times?”

He cleared his throat. “I’ll call when we need something else.”

“How’s the new sat/cell working?”

“So far so good.”

Faroe hung up just as Grace did.

“Anything wrong?” Faroe asked.

“Not with the new phone. So far.”

“That man has a weird electrical field. Goes through batteries-even the rechargeable kind-like grass through a goose. What did he want?”

“A warrant for public records.”

Faroe’s eyebrows lifted. “If they’re public, why bother?”

“Zach says too many things have burned so far.”

“He has a point.”

The fretful cries became more urgent.

Faroe said, “Give her to me. I’ll change her while you do the legal stuff.”

“You can change her after she eats.” Grace opened her blouse and began nursing the baby. “I can write one-handed. Has anybody heard from Ambassador Steele on the Brazilian money-laundering payoff?”

“Accounting is depositing our percentage of the finder’s fee as we speak.”

“Good. At the rate Zach’s spending money, we’ll need an infusion of cash. Where is our closest fingerprint expert?”

Faroe bent over his computer, punched keys, waited. “She’s in L.A.”

“Put her on standby notice as of now.”

HOLLYWOOD

SEPTEMBER 16

2:31 P.M.

Score picked up the phone with a snarled “Yeah?”