Dangerous Games (12 page)

“Yes, that must’ve been it.”

“I want that report on my desk by eight A.M. Not nine. Eight, and not a minute later, or your ass is on a plane back to Denver.”

He stalked off, and she looked after him, wondering if that was supposed to be a threat, when all she wanted to do was get the hell out of this town.

But no, that wasn’t true anymore. If she left, she wouldn’t get to run down the lead provided by Madeleine Grant.

She took the elevator to the seventh floor. In her room, seated at a desk, she took out the e-mails. They were arranged in chronological order. Each one had a heading that read:
This message did not originate from the address above. It was remailed by an anonymous remailing service
.

Below the heading was the text of the first message.

To Miss Madeleine Grant, Bel Air bitch—

What you need is to get fucked hard up the ass. Tone down the attitude. Learn some respect
.

Tess noted the reference to “attitude”—the same word Michaelson had used. The recognition sent a brief chill along her backbone.

Similar notes followed, several each day. After a week they became more specific.

Maddie
,

Saw you on Rodeo today. Hope you bought yourself a nice pair of shoes. Shouldn’t have stopped for that gelato. You don’t want to start putting on the pounds
.

So he’d been following her by then—and he’d wanted her to know it.

She flipped through the subsequent messages. By the third week, the threat was unambiguous.

M.G.
,

Here’s how it will happen. You’re asleep in your bed when I zap you with a stun gun. I put you in my vehicle and we take a ride. You’re cuffed and your mouth is taped shut and your ankles are taped together. I know a place in the hills where they’ll never find your body
.

Tess remembered Madeleine saying that handcuffs and tape had been found in Kolb’s apartment. She hadn’t mentioned a stun gun. Still, it seemed Kolb had been close to carrying out his plan.

The Rain Man cuffed his victims, too. And sealed their mouths with duct tape, and transported them in his vehicle, and left them in a place where the bodies, under normal circumstances, might never be found.

The following e-mail was the one that had prompted Madeleine to call the tip line. Kolb’s words weren’t exactly those used in Angela Morris’s note, but they were close.

Three more e-mails followed, all sent on the same day. Then the messages ended, without resolution. But of course there had been a resolution. Kolb had been arrested.

Arrested—thanks to Abby.

Tess didn’t trust that woman. She didn’t trust anybody who would put herself outside the law, make herself judge and jury.

It was true that she herself hadn’t always played by the book. As a field agent, she’d sometimes arranged end runs around bureaucratic obstacles. She’d avoided filing some paperwork or having some decisions vetted. She’d gotten a reputation as a maverick.

But her rebellion, if that was what it was, had been within narrow parameters. She had always been conscious of carrying a badge and acting in an official capacity. And now that she had risen to the post of SAC, she would severely discipline any agent who got involved with a freelancer using vigilante methods.

Still, while Tess might not like Abby’s approach, she had to admit she didn’t like having Kolb running around loose, either. He’d been insanely fixated on a woman he’d known only as a driver in a traffic stop. He’d explained his plans to kidnap her, and acquired most of the necessary accessories for the job. If Abby hadn’t stopped him, Madeleine Grant would be dead now.

“And if he is the Rain Man,” she murmured, “and I don’t follow up…”

She couldn’t take the chance. She had to look into Kolb. And having burned her bridges with Michaelson, she had to do it through unofficial channels.

Well, it didn’t get any more unofficial then Abby Sinclair.

She picked up her cell phone, not wanting to make the call from the hotel phone and leave a record for Michaelson. Already she was thinking like a lawbreaker.
Leave no paper trail, cover your tracks
.

She dialed the number on Abby’s business card. The phone was answered on the second ring.

“Yo.” Abby’s voice.

“All right, we’ve got a deal.”

“Of course we do.”

“You were so sure I’d say yes?”

“I know how to read people. Anyway, it only makes sense. Now I need to see the report.”

“You can see it, but you can’t have it. I’m not letting it out of my possession.”

“Fair enough. Where are you staying?”

“You’re not coming here. I don’t want to be seen with you.”

“Like you’re under surveillance or something?” Her tone was humorous.

“I’m not taking any chances.” But of course she was taking a chance—a big chance—just getting involved with Abby. “I can meet you at the Boiler Room again.”

“You don’t think it’ll seem a little odd if we go there twice in one night?”

Tess realized she wasn’t very good at this sort of thing—sneaking around, keeping to the shadows. “What do you suggest?”

“Santa Monica Pier. Twenty minutes. I’ll meet you by the carousel. I’ll wear a white carnation so you’ll know it’s me.”

“That’s funny. Really.”

“Yeah, I’m a hoot.”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

“Okeydoke, artichoke.” Click, and the call was over.

9

Tess parked on the Santa Monica Pier, finding a space without difficulty. It was nearly midnight, and the pier was occupied only by a strolling couple, a band of kids in absurdly loose-fitting pants, and the usual vagabonds. The rides were closed, the roller coaster and Ferris wheel looming in skeletal silhouette against a moon-streaked sky. A breeze gusted off the ocean, chilly and damp, making Tess glad she was wearing her trench coat.

Near the pier’s entrance she found the carousel building, a turn-of-the-century pavilion in a faux Moorish-Byzantine style. High, mullioned windows looked in on the carved, gaily painted horses. The doors were locked, the lights out.

“Good place to meet, huh? No prying eyes.”

Tess turned to face Abby, who’d somehow managed to come up behind her without a sound. “I wish you’d stop taking me by surprise.”

“You’ll get used to it.” Abby noticed the folder in Tess’s hand. “I assume that’s the goods.”

“Yes.” Tess didn’t hand over the folder just yet. “There’s a question I forgot to ask before. Why wouldn’t the police listen to Madeleine?”

“Like I told you, they’re overworked, underpaid—”

“I don’t mean last year. Madeleine said she called the police detective who put Kolb away and gave him the tip about the Rain Man. And the cop wasn’t interested. Why not?”

Abby shrugged. “You got me.”

“It doesn’t make sense. It’s a strong enough lead to be worth following up, but apparently they just gave her the brush-off.”

“The LAPD works in mysterious ways. That’s all I can tell you. Now, am I going to get my hands on those top-secret documents or not?”

With a last twinge of reluctance, Tess surrendered the report.

Abby hooked a penlight to the front pocket of her leather jacket, keeping both hands free to flip through the document. The pencil-thin beam wavered on the Xeroxed pages.

Tess turned away. She looked through the rippled glass of the pavilion windows and watched the pale blur of the horses. In the dimness they looked unreal—ghost horses, frozen phantoms on parade.

“This place looks familiar somehow,” Tess said.

Abby glanced up from her reading. “It was in
The Sting
.”

“I never saw
The Sting
. I think I saw the sequel.”

“You never saw the original
Sting
, but you saw the sequel? The one with Mac Davis and Jackie Gleason?”

“I think so.”

“That’s like saying you’ve never seen
The Godfather
, but you’ve seen
Godfather Three
.”

“I’ve never seen any of the
Godfather
films.”

Abby stared at her. “Well, that’s just bizarre.”

“I don’t like movies much.”

“Then you’re in the wrong town.”

Tess sighed. “Don’t I know it.”

Abby went back to reading. “Hmmm. Carpet fibers found in Angela Morris’s car. Short nap, burnt orange. They aren’t hers, so they could be his. That’s useful to know.”

“Useful because you’re going to check Kolb’s carpet when you break into his residence?”

“That’s the idea.” Abby turned a page. “Interesting how he gets paid, isn’t it?”

“How so?”

“Let’s say you’re going to kidnap someone for ransom. The obvious thing is to snatch a wealthy victim. No shortage of high earners in this town. You stake out a mansion in Beverly Hills, grab the hausfrau, then demand payment from her husband. But our guy doesn’t do that.”

“No. He doesn’t.”

“He snatches two relatively low-income victims. He doesn’t care about their personal assets, if any. His ransom demands are submitted to the city. He wants the municipal government to pay.”

Tess nodded. “It could be an antigovernment thing. We’ve been working that angle.”

“With no results, I take it. What other angles are you looking at?”

“Links between the victims. Somebody who would have known them both.”

“That’ll never pan out. The guy we’re after isn’t settling scores with ex-girlfriends. He’s playing a different game.”

Tess was inclined to agree. “And he’ll keep playing.”

“Sure, why wouldn’t he? He’s already two million dollars ahead. Anyway, it’ll be instructive to see if Kolb has turned antigovernment.”

“He wasn’t before?”

“Before, he
was
the government. A cop, an authority figure with a badge—like you. Now things might be different. He probably feels the government screwed him.”

“Because they wouldn’t let him kidnap and kill a woman?”

“I’m just telling you how he may see it. Getting inside his head a little. Now this is interesting.”

Tess realized that Abby had kept reading throughout the conversation. “What is?”

“The bank accounts in the Cayman Islands.”

“Does that matter?”

“It gives me something else to look for—records of Kolb traveling to the Caymans. Or, more likely, some correspondence between him and a bank there. That would be the easier way to set up the accounts. These days you can handle it all by mail. But no matter how you do it, it’s not cheap. Two or three grand, minimum. That’s the standard fee, and it’s charged for each and every account you set up. If Kolb has multiple accounts, he spent some serious cash, and he did it before he’d gotten any ransom money.”

“I take it Kolb isn’t wealthy.”

“No one gets wealthy on a cop’s salary except crooked cops. And Kolb wasn’t crooked. Besides, I’d bet he used all his liquid assets to pay for his legal counsel. So where’d he get the bucks to set up the accounts?”

Tess shrugged. “Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he’s not the one we’re after.”

“Or if he is, he could’ve pulled some small-time job to get his seed money. Knocked over a minimart or something. Or…”

“Yes?”

“Never mind. Passing thought.” Abby flipped through the pages. “Here’s another tidbit. The Rain Man left Paula Weissman’s note on the dashboard of her illegally parked car. He took the plates off, too.”

Tess saw what she was aiming at. “He knew that if the car had no tags, a cop writing a ticket would have to look at the vehicle identification number on the dash. That’s how he could be sure the note would be seen. So the Rain Man might be a cop.”

“Or an ex-cop. Like Mr. William Kolb. I assume you guys tumbled to that.”

“I, uh, I think the inference was that he took off the plates just to call attention to the vehicle, make sure it would be ticketed.”

“Oh.”

Tess was feeling a little stupid all of a sudden. She tried to rectify the situation. “He uses handcuffs to secure his victims in the storm lines—another possible cop link.”

Abby was unimpressed. “Sure, that’s obvious.”

Miffed, Tess pursued the point. “Didn’t Kolb have handcuffs in his apartment?”

“Yeah. And duct tape. And lookie here, the Rain Man’s vics get their mouths sealed with duct tape. Kolb mentioned a stun gun in his e-mail. Any burn marks on the two women?”

“None on Paula Weissman. The autopsy results on Angela Morris haven’t come in yet.”

“Oh, yeah, here’s Weissman’s postmortem. No taunting wounds. No antemortem injuries except abrasions on her wrists from the handcuffs…”

Tess wasn’t ready to change the subject. “Why did you ask about the stun gun? You didn’t find one in Kolb’s apartment, as I recall.”

“No, I didn’t…but maybe Kolb just hadn’t acquired that particular accessory yet. According to this, Weissman wasn’t raped. I take it you don’t know about Morris yet.”

“There was no obvious evidence of it.”

“If it’s Kolb, I wouldn’t expect him to commit rape. He’s not the type.”

“He was planning to rape Madeleine,” Tess objected.

“No, he wasn’t.”

This time Tess was sure she’d caught Abby in a mistake. “In several of the e-mails he made specific references—”

“Sure, sure, I know. But that was all bluster. Remember when he laid out his game plan? He said Madeleine’s ankles would be taped together. He even had the tape to do it. Pretty tough to rape a woman when you’ve trussed her legs shut.”

“Unless we’re talking about…anal abuse.”

Abby chuckled. “Nice euphemism. I need to remember that one.”

Tess simmered.

“Anyway,” Abby went on, “there wouldn’t have been any abuse, anal or otherwise. It’s not in character for him. He’s a dick, but he doesn’t
think
with his dick. Which actually puts him a cut above a lot of guys I know.”

“You’re a fairly cynical person, aren’t you?”

“You noticed?”

“Have you always been so…”

“Delightfully insouciant? Nope. I was once all earnest and Girl Scoutish like you. Events have a way of changing a person.”