Cash & Carry (Mayfield Cozy Mystery Book 4) (13 page)

If anything—any one little thing—had gone differently—

I crept over to a newly-empty chair and fell into it, pressed my fingertips against my eyelids.

“The what-ifs will kill you.” Tarq’s gravelly voice was accompanied by a ropy arm squeezed around my shoulders. Through the layers of fabric between his arm and my back, I could feel how emaciated his muscles were, how brittle his bones. “Let’s talk about what-nexts.”

But Matt wasn’t ready to move on yet. “We rescue kids. It’s what we do, Nora. One of the FBI’s specialties—a top priority.” His words were deathly quiet, measured, fired like bullets from across the table, and I knew he was trying not to explode at me.

I held his gaze. “I know. But it’s what we do, too—Walt and I. Usually in different contexts, but this time—she’s mine, my little girl. I’m all she has,” I finished in a whisper.

But then I gulped and added, “If we’d waited for you to assemble an extraction team, what would have happened? If she was your child, would you have had the patience for that?”

Matt stared for a long time, his hazel eyes hard, probing, his jaw muscles clenched. Finally, he sighed and slid the files across the table to me.

Violet’s mouth snapped open, and I flinched, expecting her to launch the verbal barrage that Matt had graciously refrained from. But the ringing of Matt’s phone drew her up short.

“Yeah.” Matt bent his head, phone angled against his ear, listening while we all watched him. Then he turned to me, nodding slowly. “We’re on our way.”

I rose, ready—for what, I knew not.

But Matt clicked off the call and shook his head. “Not you. You’re needed here, and you have work to do.” He tapped the files. “Kliever’s been arrested. In Tacoma. He tried to bribe a nurse, who was on her smoke break behind the hospital, to stitch him up. We’ll find out how much he’s willing to spill.”

Violet scraped back her chair, adjusted the wad at her narrow waist that had to be a handgun holstered under her body-hugging tunic sweater, skewered me with a final resentful glare, and followed Matt out.

I couldn’t thank Tarq and Loretta enough, but I wasn’t allowed to get a word in edgewise as I escorted them outside to their pickup.

Loretta latched onto my arm. “We’re here for Emmie too. Make sure she knows that. You’re not alone in this.”

I was immediately flooded with remorse. I never meant for my self-defense explanation to Matt to be interpreted as determination to exclude Skip’s mother from a relationship with the girl who might be her only grandchild.

But I needn’t have worried.

“You’re all
I
have left.” Loretta chucked me under the chin. “You and Emmie. Next time—God forbid there is one—I’m going with you, and I will stick a knife in the guy’s balls—eyeballs or otherwise. To think I delivered cinnamon rolls to that man.”

Tarq choked and had to clear his throat again—a phlegm-rattling multi-harrumpher that I was sure masked his chortles.

I enveloped Loretta in a hug. “You’re on,” I whispered. “We were far too civilized.”

Tarq creaked his body into the passenger seat as though he was following a laborious, step-by-step set of instructions. I stood lamely beside his open door, debating whether offering help would be considerate or patronizing.

But Tarq had other things on his mind. “I assume your Good Delivery bars are still in the storage unit? I’ll get ahold of my contact and start the process for converting another one.”

“Better make it two,” I said. “Just in case. And I want to repay Dwayne.”

“Nope,” Tarq growled. “I’m under strict orders. The money was to be used for exactly this kind of situation and not restored. It was useless otherwise, as he’s known for forty years. He was never going to rejoin conventional society. Not in his nature.”

“Long time to lug that loot around.”

“He’s a stubborn old goat.”

That description could apply to several people I knew. And for the most part, they were my favorite people.

I latched Tarq’s door closed and waved until their taillights faded.

CHAPTER 17

Back in the kitchen, after locking the door and wedging a chair under the handle, I called Walt.

“Hey there.” He sounded subdued, exhausted. He was the only parent figure available for twenty-two boys—the rock in their lives. I didn’t know how he did it. Obviously, I was having difficulty being a rock for one.

“You okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. Normal feels pretty good when you get a glimpse of worse.”

“The boys?”

“A little scared underneath all the questions, but they’re recovering. Several of them, at least for the moment, have decided to become police officers when they grow up. Brimming with testosterone and bravado, practice posturing. Lots of plans about what to do if something like this happens again. It’s a male thing.” Walt chuckled. “Good thing you girls have your own quarters, away from the hubbub.”

I eased into a chair, curled my arms on the tabletop and rested my head on them, the phone still pressed to my ear. I adored the sound of Walt’s voice—so even-keeled and calm. It had the same effect on my psyche as a Louis Armstrong lullaby.

“It’s not so different over here,” I said. “Except the wild ideas aren’t limited to the lone youngster. I was thinking about martial arts.” I closed my eyes, soothed by Walt’s even breathing, and leaned into the conversation. “Emmie did great today. But it might be a good idea to add to her skill set. And mine. And the boys’ too. For self-defense, and offense if needed. Do you think they would like that?”

“No question. The high school wrestling coach moonlights as a Brazilian jiu-jitsu and Krav Maga instructor. I’ll talk to him about coming out here for group training sessions.” I could hear the smile in Walt’s voice. “We might regret this. Have you ever read
The Ransom of Red Chief
by O. Henry?”

“Thank you,” I whispered. “A million times over, thank you. For everything. For being there, for all you did today. For all you do, all the time.”

Walt was so quiet, I wondered if he’d heard me.

But then he rumbled, “Always.”

And I knew, in spite of everything, that I would sleep well tonight.

oOo

Sleep would come later, however. I had more pressing matters to attend to.

I tiptoed into Emmie’s room to relieve Clarice of sentry duty. She was seated beside the bed, her hand resting lightly on Emmie’s back. Emmie was curled around a pillow like a potato bug, a bump under the blankets.

I raised my eyebrows in question.

“About half an hour ago,” Clarice answered. “We had a long talk about why people do bad things. Can’t say I enlightened her much. Six years old and she already knows all about the depths of human depravity.” She tipped her head toward the files in my arms. “Want coffee?”

“I’m still jittery from the multiple adrenaline surges I had today.”

“You ever think this lifestyle isn’t fabulous for your health?” Clarice pushed her palms into her thighs and slowly rose from her seat.

“Would you rather be sitting in a posh office, making travel arrangements and reviewing grant applications?” I countered.

“Don’t be daft,” Clarice muttered. But she gave me an understanding pat on the arm as she passed by.

I angled the shade of the bedside lamp and settled into the pool of yellow light it cast on the floor with my homework spread out around me.

Matt had really come through. And I mean in a big way. My eyeballs about popped out of my head with all the information I gleaned—and that was just from the first file I opened. And then my brain turned into an ant hill of divergent trails, all throbbing with little couriers zipping data bits this way and that. There was an overwhelming amount of intelligence to process.

I scribbled notes like crazy. The old-fashionedness of the method was killing me, but I got a bunch of interesting boxes and arrows into sequence on my notepad, started exploring the possibility of relationships between the people whose names were on the file labels. I ended up laying the files out in two separate family tree structures under the two Numeros—Cuatro (Martin Zimmermann) and Siete (Dirk Whelan).

I didn’t have Whelan’s dossier—hadn’t known he was involved when I’d requested the files—but I used a blank page to hold his spot at the top of the Numero Siete chain. Bigelow had made the connection between himself, Squeaky and Whelan abundantly clear, so I was confident in the arrangement.

Now, to figure out the operational details. I hoped it was as easy as following the money. Thanks to Dwayne, that process might already be underway.

In many cases, organized crime is a nepotistic enterprise. That’s not to say that crime families don’t adopt outsiders, but I’d lucked out in requesting the files for both Simon Ramos Senior and Simon Ramos Junior because like father, like son. Not only had Junior inherited his father’s name, he’d inherited his position with the longshoremen’s union and his criminal proclivities. So which one was Squeaky?

I remembered how disturbed I’d been when Matt had suggested that I might know Zimmermann, might have already had some kind of contact with him. The idea had creeped me out, as though my life had been smeared with a dirty stain which Skip may have intentionally exposed me to. But as I read through the fine print in the Ramos men’s files, I realized I knew them too—both of them.

And the standard six degrees of separation between us had narrowed down to just one—but a different one in this case. My dad.

Dad had told me to find Squeaky—that Squeaky had the information I needed. Well, here it was. The dates lined up.

Ramos Senior had been my father’s supervisor in the Inlandboatmen’s Union. He’d been the primary contract negotiator and organizer. Which meant, presumably, that he controlled the lists—the green list and the black list, essentially—those he favored and who received job assignments and those who didn’t. He’d also have been in a position to collect kickbacks and protection money from the major employers and to orchestrate harassment of those same companies if they didn’t provide the strongly suggested donations.

My dad and Ramos Senior had worked together for fifteen years. But Ramos Senior was also dead—three years ago. I wondered if my dad knew that.

And then I wondered if the two Ramos men also shared a nickname, as in Squeaky One and Squeaky Two. Because, by all accounts, Ramos Junior had taken up where his father had left off and voraciously expanded the rule of corruption that was his family legacy.

Bigelow had indicated that Squeaky, presumably Ramos Junior, was a current and active underling of Whelan’s. Wow.

And the numbers Bigelow had thrown out—the amounts I’d emptied out of Skip’s money laundering accounts, millions that had belonged in the Whelan funnel, some of which were presumably handled by Squeaky—had been accurate.

It wasn’t logical to be surprised by the tangle of all these connections in the criminal organizational structure, but that didn’t keep my heart from pounding like a jackhammer inside my ribcage. I glanced up at Emmie to see if she’d heard it too. I didn’t want to awaken her.

My own father and Squeaky’s father—buddies.

And then another thought froze in my belly, banished all other worries to oblivion.

Skip must have known.

Known that I had a remote family connection to one of the largest criminal organizations in the Bay Area. I was never aware that my dad had done anything illegal, but given who his associates were, he would certainly have been presented with opportunities for under-the-table transfers, for influence peddling, for greasing the cogs. How could he have avoided it?

Guilt by association? Guilt in reality?

But Dad couldn’t tell me now.

How does one deal with a conscience addled by dementia?

The papers in my hands were trembling as though a tempest was whipping through the room. I dropped them and clenched my hands into fists.

I bent over the knot in my stomach. Was this why Skip had married me?

Everything else I’d learned about him since his disappearance on our honeymoon indicated that he was an extraordinary planner. Intricate, complicated, chess to the nth degree. Was I just another pawn on his ambitious game board?

There was no denying that I was already neck-deep in his plot. And I’d involved others—many others. I couldn’t back out now. I had to hope the shortest route out of this mess was through it.

And the truth was, there wasn’t anything I could do at the moment to trail or trap Squeaky Ramos or Dirk Whelan. They were out of reach.

So I turned my attention to the Numero Cuatro tree and the Zimmermann problem. I read Angelica Temple’s file first, mainly because she fascinated me. Zimmermann had certainly brought her into the fold, treated her like progeny when it came to running his legitimate business—Roman & Bernard Men’s Clothiers.

Maybe the old man didn’t have children of his own. Maybe she’d bamboozled him. Maybe he was thinking with a body part other than the noggin on his shoulders.

Angelica had been a working-class girl up until about six years ago. She’d earned an associate degree in communication from a community college. While in school, she’d been a retail clerk at the Redwood City branch of Roman & Bernard. Obviously, things had blossomed from there. I guessed it would be fair to say she grew up in the company—just very, very fast.

The FBI didn’t appear to be big on hobbies. Angelica’s file covered her family, education, and work history in excruciating detail, but there was nothing to glean about her personal interests. However, the file did note that she slept as many nights at Zimmermann’s mansion as she did at her own condo. Maybe keeping a ninety-year-old man happy occupied all her leisure time.

Angelica took business trips. Several of her itineraries from the past couple years were included. In fact, she really got around—New York, Chicago, Miami Beach, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Dallas, even Paris, France. Some of those locations made sense from a men’s fashion product sourcing perspective, but others definitely didn’t. As far as I could tell, she went on the trips alone, so they weren’t vacations with Zimmermann.

My fingers tangled with each other, flying over the keyboard. There had to be some commonality between all the locations and the dates she stayed over. It’s easy to find event calendars for major metropolitan areas online. I started a column on my notepad, and after a few entries the pattern was clear.

Exclusive antiques shows—big ones which included fine art and jewelry. The kind that only the most sophisticated and dedicated connoisseurs were invited to. The kind where the exhibiting dealers also booked private rooms in the city’s five-star restaurants a year in advance in order to fête their favorite clients, all in the hope that they could also finagle a few spare million out of their pockets. “It’s just the thing for your dining room, dahhling” said with a sticky smile. “You know, Sheik Ahmed was looking at the same piece this morning,” etc.

This was completely different from the bragging rights acquisition by Victor Lutsenko, my Numero Dos, of the stolen paintings by Modigliani, Picasso and Matisse. Angelica had invested a lot of time and expense in her pursuit. It wasn’t a fling for her. She was a serious collector—of something.

From my memory of her appearance at the San Francisco Opera, it’d be accurate to say Angelica liked to sparkle. I wondered if Zimmermann showered her with gifts, wondered if she picked out her own gifts at these antiques shows.

Ever since he’d gone missing, my husband had also gotten into the habit of sending me odd gifts, things that were weirdly out of context. First the massive bouquet of red roses, then a Texas ruby red grapefruit gift basket, and more recently an Art Deco emerald and diamond bracelet which he’d been caught on video purchasing from a pawnshop. Skip had mailed the bracelet a few weeks later from Silt, Colorado.

Art Deco. The design aesthetic popular in the 1920s and ‘30s qualified as antique these days, right?

My stomach whirled on a roller coaster joyride, realizing a fraction of a second before my brain did that this line of reasoning might be going somewhere.

I skidded down the hall in my wool socks, slung around the door frame into my room and grabbed the padded pouch containing the bracelet, then darted back to Emmie’s room.

The angled lighting from the bedside lamp was perfect. I immediately picked out the maker’s mark imprinted on the inside of the bracelet—JHM. A quick Google search revealed that Javier Horatio Medellin was a much sought-after early Art Deco jewelry designer.

Skip had paid $15,000 for the bracelet. Matt had been able to share that juicy tidbit with me because the pawnshop owners had cooperated with the FBI and turned over their copy of the receipt. But compared to the prices I was seeing in the few online auctions of JHM’s works, it was obvious the pawnshop owners hadn’t realized what a treasure they’d had. Skip had gotten a bargain.

What did Skip know? I was willing to bet he knew more about Angelica’s tastes than I did, even though I was sitting with her FBI file on my lap. It had become evident that Skip had made a careful study of all his clients and their trusted lieutenants.