Past Crimes (17 page)

H
OLLIS SHIFTED HEAVILY IN
the passenger seat as we drove along the shore of Lake Union. His discomfort might have come from the old springs of the pickup’s seat. Or maybe it was from his suit. When I’d pulled up to his marina, he’d come off the dock wearing a reddish sport coat that hung oddly on his top-heavy frame, with gray trousers and a wide orange tie. He looked like a circus ape escaping in the middle of the show.

“Ondine didn’t say anything else?” I asked. “Just that she was willing to meet me?”

“Her man did the talking.”

I nodded. Of course Ondine Long wouldn’t bother with setting appointments. She had people for that.

To our left, the rusted monoliths of Gas Works Park loomed in the evening dark. I had the window down, to feel the rush of air. Hollis and I had to raise our voices to hear each other above the low moan.

“When was the last time you saw her?” I said.

Hollis thought about it. “A couple of years at least. I had these items from a Lithuanian crew off a freighter—”

“Two years. And on Sunday she called you to ask what you might know about Dono’s shooting.”

“The woman herself.” He sounded a little proud.

It didn’t seem odd to me that Ondine knew Dono had been shot. She probably had information sources in Congress, much less the SPD. And Hollis would be a logical choice to call, if she wanted to know what trouble Dono might have been into. Hell, he’d been
my
first stop.

What I was really curious about was why Ondine cared.

Once I’d come to grips with reality—that my grandfather had, against almost every cautionary lesson he’d ever instilled in me, robbed the armored car—my next thought was where he might sell the diamonds. There weren’t many fences in Seattle who could handle six million dollars’ worth of anything, sticker price. Fewer still whom Dono would trust enough to share the necessary details in advance. Dono hadn’t stolen the diamonds on spec. He’d known exactly where he was going to take them.

Maybe he’d taken his business to one of the bigger markets—Los Angeles or Dallas—but I didn’t think so. Not when I remembered that Ondine Long had called Hollis the very day that Dono had been shot.

“D’you really think he managed it?” Hollis said. “That Dono stole all those pretty rocks?”

“A lot of evidence points that way.”

Hollis sat for a moment. Not fidgeting. “And do you think he picked his own team?”

I wasn’t sure. When Dono worked with others, which was rare enough, he wanted reliable guys that he knew personally. McGann and Orren hadn’t exactly proven rock solid.

“I think if he had a choice, he’d have gone with you,” I said.

Hollis nodded. “Course he would.”

Another quarter mile along the shore and we saw the golden lights of the Emerald Crown Yacht Club over the water.

The
Crown
was a ferry. Or it had been, back in the 1940s. A fat boat, maybe a hundred twenty feet with a beam about a fourth of that, standing three decks above the waterline. It had been a crappy design. Too tall to stay steady, too many windows to stay cool in summer or warm in winter.

But the very things that forced the
Crown
into early retirement made it ideal for a clever developer’s needs. It had high ceilings and enough room belowdecks for a proper kitchen, once you removed the huge diesel engines.

They picked a prime spot, overlooking the lake with the towers of the downtown skyline glinting far in the distance. Builders reinforced the hull and sunk some pilings and scuttled her, and there she sat, a bright and shiny icon, guaranteed never to rock and upset someone’s gimlet.

We pulled in and stopped by the entrance, an awning-covered gangplank leading to the main deck. A valet opened the door for me, and I handed him the keys. He looked at the truck like I’d asked him to sit on a compost heap.

Hollis and I walked up the gangplank. A pretty girl in a white suit and matching sailor’s cap came over and asked us whom we were meeting. At the mention of Ondine’s name, she almost curtsied, and she whisked us aft, to the bottom of a narrow stairwell leading upward.

At the bottom of the stairs, there was a reception desk. The girl picked up the phone on the desk and announced our names.

When she hung up, she frowned at us apologetically. “May I have your cell phones, please?” I handed her mine.

“I don’t have one,” Hollis said.

She nodded and picked up a black plastic wand from the desk. She swept it over our torsos and thighs, like a TSA screener at an airport.

“Thank you,” the girl said when she was done. Chipper as anything. “This way, please.” She led us up the stairs.

“What the hell?” Hollis whispered to me.

I didn’t think Ondine was concerned about guns. Just taking reasonable precautions against one of us wearing a wire.

We came out onto the weather deck. The club had tables and chairs set outside in the mild evening. Hurricane lamps shone on each table, and bulbs hung overhead like big strings of Christmas lights. It was after the dinner hour, and the deck was quiet. The only occupied table was at the farthest corner, where a man and a woman sat having drinks.
The man was large, blond, and dressed in a light gray suit. The woman was Ondine.

Good genes and artful surgery had crafted Ondine’s face into a semblance of forty, though she was probably two decades past that. Somewhere in her heritage, there was a healthy mix of Asian, though from what nation or nations I couldn’t guess, and maybe some West Indian blood as well.

Long wasn’t her maiden name. She had married young, to the late Hiram Long. Hiram had been the preeminent fencer of stolen goods way back when Dono had first been tearing up the town. A Seattle legend.

Hiram had wed Ondine when he was just past his prime and she was just coming into hers. Dono had made a joke once about Hiram never eating a fortune cookie because it wasn’t kosher. I’d been too young to get it.

Hiram remained on top for another twenty years, maybe because he was wise enough to listen to his trophy wife’s whispered advice. He finally died in his sleep, older and richer than anyone could guess, and by that time Ondine had stopped requiring a figurehead.

Ondine and the blond man stood as we approached. She wore a calf-length black dress with an ivory wrap over it and a strand of pearls so large they had to be real. Her straight black hair was cut to form precise square bangs.

“Hollis,” Ondine said. Her voice was low and pleasant. “Van.”

“Ondine, darlin’. Thanks for the invitation,” said Hollis, standing a little straighter.

“This is Alec,” she said, indicating the blond man. Alec nodded. He did not move to shake hands. He was handsome in a slick way, with a gold tie clasp and a matching watch that must have weighed a pound. He stood with his weight evenly distributed and his hands relaxed.

“Hollis, dear, I’d like to speak to Van in private,” Ondine said.

Hollis nodded, exhaling into his usual slouch. “I believe I saw a bar back there,” he said, and ambled toward the cabin.

“You’re certain?” Alec said to Ondine. She nodded. He turned and followed Hollis but kept his eyes on me for an extra second.

Ondine and I sat down. She removed a pair of slim silver eyeglasses from a leather case and put them on to study me. The glasses had oval lenses and magnified her stare a fraction, making it as unsettlingly direct as a falcon’s.

“I expected you to look more like your grandfather,” Ondine said. “But it’s only your eyes. And the hands, I think.”

“Did you two have any recent business?” I asked.

“Right to the point, I see. A man of action.” She waved a hand, and a waiter hurried to our table. I ordered a scotch. Seemed like the right drink for the surroundings.

“I made inquiries,” Ondine said, “after Hollis called me this afternoon. You’ve had a very busy vacation. Do the county police truly suspect that you killed that woman?”

“They’re more interested in what I might know about Dono.”

Ondine sipped at her crimson drink. “And about the diamonds. From the Talos armored-car robbery.”

“Someone bugged the murdered woman’s apartment. She worked for Talos Industrial. Dono’s house was bugged by the same man.”

One of Ondine’s carefully shaped eyebrows went up. “So,” she said, “someone knew, or believed, that Dono and this woman—”

“Cristiana Liotti.”

“That the two of them were both connected to the robbery.”

“And they aren’t satisfied with just eavesdropping anymore.”

“No,” said Ondine.

The waiter brought my drink. Neither of us moved while he set it down. The candle in the center of the table guttered and snapped in the breeze.

“What is it you want?” she asked.

“For starters? I want to know if you were Dono’s buyer.”

“Is that what you told the police?” she said.

I took a sip of the scotch. It went down smoky and honeyed. I was Ondine’s guest, and the bartender had served me the good stuff.

“Let’s stop screwing around, Ondine,” I said. “Either you give a shit about the old man getting shot and you’re willing to level with me. Or you don’t, in which case I might as well drink up and go home.”

Ondine’s lips had gone white around her sienna lipstick. “I was wrong. You’re quite a lot like Dono.”

“You
do
care.” I smiled. “You agreed to meet me. So the same question to you: What do you want?”

She continued to look at me for a long moment before answering. “Peace. And quiet.”

“Murders are loud,” I said.

“Yes.”

“It would be good if this guy is stopped before he goes after more people connected to the robbery.”

A corner of Ondine’s mouth went up a fraction. She nodded toward Alec, who I could see through the broad cabin window standing with Hollis at the bar. He was watching us.

“I’m not terribly concerned for my own safety,” Ondine said. “Alec’s service record is even more impressive than yours.”

“He’s probably housebroken, too. But even a failed run at you might draw attention from the cops.”

Out across the lake, an air horn sounded from a commercial vessel somewhere in the dark. It echoed off the city and came back to us, lower and slower, a few seconds later.

“If I’m to share information with you,” Ondine said, tapping a fingernail on the stem of her glass, “I want some assurances.”

“Go ahead.”

“My name stays out of it, completely. With police or anyone else. No using my influence to smooth your path.”

“Okay. My turn. What was your deal with Dono?”

“He approached me with the plan. I agreed to be his buyer. But when the time came, he had changed his mind.”

“He wanted more?”

“He wanted to keep the diamonds for himself instead of exchanging them for cash. After what happened, his partners killing one another, Dono could renegotiate our terms. He gave me a larger amount than I would have been owed otherwise, and he kept the rest. Perhaps four million.”

I thought about it. It made sense. Diamonds were a hell of a lot
easier to hide than cash, and industrial stones wouldn’t have any identifiable laser engraving. Dono could sell a handful whenever he needed. They might even increase in value over time.

“How did Dono meet Cristiana Liotti?” I said.

“He simply told me he had information on the shipment. I never heard her name before today. I presume he paid her directly for her information.”

Damn. That was a piece I couldn’t get the shape of. How a corporate type like Cristiana Liotti had managed to find a career crook, to take advantage of her once-in-a-lifetime inside knowledge.

“Not a bad deal for you,” I said. “More money and less work.”

Ondine tilted her head. Too refined to shrug. “Should you happen to find the diamonds—” she said.

“I’ll keep you in mind.”

“It may be out of your hands by now. There’s a police search team going through your grandfather’s house right this moment.”

Shit. Of course they were. They had enough circumstantial evidence to get a warrant, especially with Dono in the hospital. No chance of the home’s owner making a stink about it.

I stood up. “Good to see you, Ondine.”

“Van,” she said as I started to walk away. Something in her tone was different.

“You are direct. But you didn’t ask if I was behind Dono’s shooting,” she said.

Just once, when I was around nine years old, Dono had brought me along while he was collecting a payout from Hiram Long. We’d driven up north to the massive house where Hiram and Ondine lived. At the end of the meeting, Hiram had been called away to take a phone call.

Bored, I wandered out into a sunroom, where an expanse of windows looked out across a lawn big enough to host an NFL game to the waters of Possession Sound beyond. Dono had stayed behind.

After a few minutes, I came back, just in time to see Ondine walk through the room where Dono sat, her waist-length black hair swinging. She didn’t pause but reached out as she passed and trailed one long
finger from Dono’s shoulder down to his broad hand where it rested on the arm of the leather club chair.

Neither of them had seen me, and I waited another minute before noisily making an entrance.

Dono never gave me any hint that he knew Ondine as more than Hiram’s wife. And I never said anything to him about it.

Ondine looked at me across the table. The stress lines around her eyes were too deep for any amount of cosmetic surgery to hide.

“I’ll tell Dono you send your regards,” I said.

As I walked back to the stern, Alec passed me with long strides. Ondine reached out a hand, and he took it as she rose from her chair.

Hollis met me at the gangplank. His face was flushed, and he’d loosened his orange tie so much that the fat knot hung almost to his sternum.

“Let’s go get a proper drink,” Hollis said.

I shook my head. “I’ll drop you off. There’s someone I need to see.”

“You’ve a girl in mind, then.” He grinned and winked. “Calling on two ladies in one evening. Shocking.”

I had to hand it to Hollis. Even shitfaced, he knew the truth when he saw it.