3 Requiem at Christmas (13 page)

“
Right,
or Abel finds it on his own
when he’s having a break from making joyful noises. Anyhow Abel says to Cain,
golly, what a coincidence! I’m going to China next month on a musical tour
which was arranged a year ago and isn’t getting any governmental attention. I
bet I could find a buyer there.”

“And Cain listens at first?”

“Sure. After all, why should the boss be the only one to
benefit from this special thing when it is Cain who is taking all the risk of
holding it?” She paused. “It is possible that the boss was already considering
using Abel as a courier.
Or using Cain, who would have an
excuse to be in China with his beloved brother performing.
Abel may just
have borrowed an existing plan.”

“Plausible,” Raphael said.

“It’s a good strategy that Abel concocted or borrowed, but
Cain knows his boss better than Abel—and he is less devoted to the cause of
Scottish independence, which is where Abel reveals he wants to use most of the
money. Money that Cain knows they will need to hide out in—oh, Bolivia.
Forever.
If they actually steal the boss’s
special thing.
Because his boss isn’t a forgiving man and Scotland isn’t
that far away—especially if the Feds were to discover what happened and decided
that the chip really belonged in their hands. But Abel says no-no, we must go
on. We must play Robin Hood. We are not common thieves. We only rob the rich
and crooked to give to the poor and Scottish.” Raphael snorted. “Cain gets colder
and colder feet and tries to call off Abel’s campaign, but to no avail.”

“Because Abel has a kind of mania about Scotland, and maybe he
acts without his brother. When Cain discovers the chip is gone he knows who
took it and who will be blamed when it turns up missing—and it isn’t Brother
Abel. At least, he won’t be blamed for everything, and Cain is the only one
within reach who can be punished.” Raphael shook his head.

“Right.
He may have discovered it
was missing because the boss announced he was stopping by to look at his
treasure. Maybe he had a buyer or some expert who wanted to see the goods. Anyhow,
Cain panicked and rushed off to confront his brother. They quarreled,” Juliet
added.
“With the usual tragic results.”

She checked her mirror again. The car was definitely getting
closer.

“And there was the additional problem of not finding the
chip on his brother’s body after he had gone to the trouble of killing him,”
Raphael said. “You think that the death was an accident?”

“Yes and no. He didn’t mean to kill his brother with his own
knife while they were driving in a bad storm. It was a fight that got out of
hand and almost dumped both of them off a cliff. I think they were meant to
stop at that cabin and ‘meet’ someone. But even if I am wrong about the
location, I think Cain had decided that Abel was going to have to go to the
great
ceilidh
in the sky.
Even if he returned the chip.
Abel knew
too much about the boss by then and was hell-bent on finding some way to
finance the Scottish freedom movement. That was why Cain laid on extra gasoline
at the empty cottage and set up his trap where he did.”

“He probably lured the brother by promising a meeting with
someone important from Scotland.”

“That would do it. And it all would have worked out fine, the
death written off as another casualty of the storm, except for the weather
turning lethal and my stupid shortcut which left them with a witness who could
say it wasn’t an accident at all.”

Raphael grunted.

“And, in the meantime, the boss, who wanted to see his
treasure and couldn’t, got the message that his accountant had rushed off without
a word to attend his brother’s concert—and being a suspicious person, decided
to follow posthaste. He has probably been threatening his accountant since he
arrived and Cain has been insisting there is no problem, that he’ll have
everything as soon as the police release the brother’s effects.”

“Yes. And everyone is crossing fingers that the boss’s
watchdogs don’t arrive on the scene.
Which they will eventually
if he left town unexpectedly.”

“And you fear that the boss may be getting ready to be more
proactive,” Raphael suggested.

“He may not have a choice. He may have a deadline of his
own. Cain is still alive because the boss has been led to believe that Cain has
a better chance of recovering the chip among his brother’s things as the next
of kin—and they would be right in thinking this. After all, they can’t keep the
room locked up forever. The inn has other bookings. Nor would they keep
belongings that weren’t part of the crime scene—not without good reason. But
they wouldn’t hand over the dead man’s things to a stranger. This is why the
boss has waited so patiently.”

“You don’t think the boss has managed to search the room yet?”

“Only superficially.
They have
needed to be careful that they don’t alert the police that there is something
to find in there, lest Denver call in lots and lots of law enforcement and the
Feds get wind of it and discover the chip first. Instead they wait and follow.”

“And are we being followed as well?” Raphael asked.

“Yes. But it may just be a taxi for Asher and Elizabeth. The
inn arranged them for tonight and it’s the only road back to the hotel.” Juliet
took a breath and tested her inner guidance system. Not good. “But the Glock is
in the glove compartment.
If we need it.”

The wind had picked up, causing the snow to come at them
sideways. It was nowhere near as intense as it had been during the blizzard,
but it rendered the full moon’s attempts to shine completely ineffectual and
the clouds were piling under it.

“And it was the chocolate that set you off?”

“Yes—the foil.
It isn’t actually
made of metal. It’s a kind of plastic
mylarish
stuff.
Good for protecting sensitive electronic things from static as well as hiding
something in plain sight.”

“And he had these chocolates in the car as well?”

“Yes—and he gave them to Harrison and the other singers. But
even if he had eaten a box a day, he still couldn’t have consumed everything in
his order from the candy store. I am betting that they are sitting in his hotel
room, hiding in plain sight.”

A rock wall reared up out of the snow and like a conjurer’s
trick, the inn and its lights disappeared. It was as though they had driven
into the cold of outer space. Juliet’s nerves shrilled as the tailing car began
gaining on them.

So, it wasn’t a taxi. And it wasn’t just a follower trying
to see where she was going. The boss—or the brother—had decided it was time to
take an active hand and eliminate the competition.

Juliet stopped talking and began calculating odds as she
picked up momentum. The car behind her was larger, perhaps a Cadillac, and had
the advantage of being heavier, but hers had all-wheel drive and better
traction. It just might come down to who was the better driver, who knew the
road best.
And whom the gods smiled upon.
At least she
had had some recent practice driving on ice and she wouldn’t have to worry
about the tires overheating in a chase.

Raphael had already opened the glove compartment and taken
out the Glock. He checked the load. His beautiful, long-fingered hands did it
expertly, proving that he had not always wielded only a paintbrush. He was
smiling grimly, suggesting that some part of him was enjoying himself.

Men!

The car threw on its high beams and Juliet slapped down the
mirror. She didn’t need her night vision destroyed and didn’t have time to rub
the light from her eyes. She left her own headlights alone. The high beams were
an amateurish mistake. It made things brighter, but all you saw was dazzling snow
reflections and not the tarmac.

There was a slight drop coming up in the road, nothing at
all on a dry day at moderate speed. One wouldn’t even get airborne.
But in the dark and snow and at higher speeds?
They would
fly, at least briefly. There was no time to slow and she didn’t want to. Juliet
braced herself, prepared to deal with the slide when they landed on earth again.

She did not want to end up in the lake—especially not with
Raphael in the car. She recalled the lecture from her defensive driving
instructor. It was all about math—drag coefficients, engine oxygen-consumption
rates which became more critical as the temperatures went down.
And where the gas tanks were located.

And, intuition.
Always
intuition.

“Hang on.” Juliet clutched the wheel.

The world dropped out from under them. The act of flying was
so much less spectacular than in any movies—and so much more dangerous on real ice
with the cold lake waiting to swallow them up if they lost control.

They came down hard. It seemed that perhaps the undercarriage
actually hit the icy road, but the wheels answered her demand and grabbed the frozen
tarmac, pulling them straight as she accelerated.

Juliet couldn’t spare the time to look in the rearview
mirror, but Raphael was turned in his seat, watching their pursuers.

He told her later what happened. The chasing car’s landing
was not catastrophic, but the driver had overcorrected a slide and the larger car
spun out of control, bouncing off the rock wall and spinning half into the lake,
nose down and slipping in further with each second.

When her own car was under control, Juliet dropped speed and
looked in the mirror. No one was getting out of the Cadillac.

“I’m not going back,” she said, but sounded tentative. “That
wasn’t a taxi. And someone else will be along to call for help.
If there is any reason.”

Raphael nodded and then slipped the Glock back into the
glove compartment.

Twenty seconds later the rock wall was gone and the inn
popped back into view, looking like Santa’s happy workshop. Juliet slowed down even
more and pulled into the nearly empty parking lot. She shut off the ignition
and took a few deep breaths, silently chanting her yoga mantra.

“Okay. Let me get your chair out of the trunk and we’ll get
inside.”

“Juliet.” Raphael laid a hand over hers. His fingers were as
warm as hers were cold, even inside her gloves. “That was magnificent. No one
could have done better.”

“Well, I always like to show my guests a fun time.” Her
voice was surprisingly calm, but she allowed herself to enjoy the comfort of
Raphael’s warmth for a moment longer. Then she leaned forward and opened the
glove box and retrieved her gun. It made her handbag bulge but she wasn’t
leaving it behind.

The inn was quiet, all but deserted. No one challenged them
when they approached the dead man’s room though she was aware of the security
cameras.

The door to Holtz’s room was obviously locked. Juliet was
reaching into her bag for the electronic version of a master key when Raphael
said, “Allow me.”

Juliet had to move back to make room for his chair, but he
had the door open speedily. She stepped in, fiddling with an old-fashioned
compact that held powder but also a little something that was supposed to jam
listening devices just in case No-neck had left something behind. Her driving
gloves, though light, were also a nuisance.

Raphael raised a brow but said nothing when she handed the
gold compact to him. She went straight to the desk where
all
the
little bonbon boxes sat. One of them had a slightly bent ribbon. She
slid it off the box and then removed the one oddly shaped candy in red foil.
What was inside was some kind of computer chip wrapped in insulating material. It
was a small lump of miscellaneous circuitry, pretty enough to be jewelry. She
showed it to Raphael.

“So, it looks like the Holtz brothers really were going into
business for themselves. Then one of them panicked. Shall I suggest a new plot
or do we like the old one?”

“No. I think all the general outlines are here already—and
as you pointed
out,
it doesn’t matter about the particulars.
We know who did the killing and why.”

“If only everyone had such ready understanding.”

“By everyone, you mean Captain Denver?”

“Precisely.”

“We are as God made us,” Raphael said dismissively. “Lots of
competition for this little thing, I bet. Here and in China. We were lucky to
get it first.”

“Yes, competition of the cutthroat variety, and I really do
think Joshua was too much of a coward to cross his boss. That had to be
Jeremiah, not the other way around. His Scottish mania was farther advanced. But.…”
Juliet shook her head, making herself let go of the puzzle. There were too many
variables she couldn’t calculate. “Well, I think it may be time to call the
office and try this story out on them,” Juliet said and then reached for her
phone and her lipstick. She twisted off the bottom of the gold tube and pulled
out a small square of plastic which she plugged into her phone in an almost
invisible slot next to the charging port.

“You aren’t giving this back to Columbus?”

“Are you kidding? Not without orders. Besides, we don’t know
that it’s his. And if it was his, his federal watchers aren’t doing a very good
job of keeping him on a leash. Unless they ordered him to steal it—God!
Sometimes it gives me a headache. I’m so glad I left.”

“I suppose it is just possible that we have it wrong, though
it seems more than probable that Columbus is our man.
And
someone else’s man.
The Feds won’t be happy if we take their toy.” He
watched her as she played with the phone.

“Scrambler,” she said helpfully. He nodded. “Again, it
doesn’t matter. We just need this in a safe place since we don’t know what the
hell this is and we can’t be sure of the players. That is more important than
proving Joshua killed his brother, or the Feds’ possible annoyance, at least
for now. The others in the upper echelons can sort it all out later.”