Tax Assassin (6 page)

“
We’re going to have to
sterilize the hot tub,” Maresol said. “Detectives are such
pigs.”

“
They are,” he
said.

Seth put his arm over her shoulder. They
watched the party for a moment.

“
You think I should make a
run to the drug store?” Seth nodded toward the room. “Looks like
they could use a box or two of condoms.”

“
Maybe a case,” Maresol
laughed.

She kissed his cheek and left him to fend
for himself. Seth’s eyes cast about the room for Ava. She was
trapped in a corner by an intense detective. Seth tried to rescue
her, but was waylaid by a woman looking for a charger for her
phone. He’d just set her up with a charger when he saw that Ava had
shaken off the detective. She winked at Seth and he moved in her
direction.

He was stopped by an old Army friend. The
detective was drunk and weeping. With the help of Dale, Seth
navigated the man to one of the downstairs bedrooms and sat with
him while he cried for all he’d done and all he’d lost. By the time
Seth got him settled, the crowd had thinned and the hard drinkers
were setting up a game of poker.

He took Ava’s hand and slipped down the back
stairs to the basement.

SIX

When Ava ducked into the bathroom, Seth
unlocked his piano sanctuary, lit the fire, and sat down at his
upright piano. His fingers were moving across the keyboard, when he
heard someone at the door. He looked up to see Bella.

“
I heard the music
and . . . everyone’s mostly gone to bed.” She took a
step into the room. “Where’s Amelie?”

“
She’s soaking in the
bath,” Seth nodded his head in the direction of the bathroom.
“There’s a big bathroom down here. She can soak for
hours.”

Bella nodded and took another step into the
room. She was twenty-one years old, and almost done with college.
Tonight, Ava’s little sister looked very young and very
frightened.

“
Have a seat,” Seth said.
“I can get Amelie or . . .”

“
No, that’s okay,” Bella
said.

“
Would you like some
Scotch?”

She looked disgusted. Seth laughed.

“
My thoughts exactly,” Seth
said. “I think there’s some wine down here. I bet Ava would like
some too.”

He went to the storage room where Maresol
kept the wine and found a Shiraz that Ava liked. When he came back
into his sanctuary, Ava’s sister was standing by the fireplace. She
jerked with surprise when he came in.

“
Sorry,” he
said.

“
Oh,” she said. “That’s all
right. I’m a little . . .”

“
Upset,” Seth
said.

The girl nodded. Seth found a pair of wine
glasses and poured her a glass of the Shiraz. Bella took her glass
and sat down in the old leather chair. She seemed lost in thought,
so Seth began to play. He’d almost forgotten she was there when she
spoke.

“
We used to be so close,”
Bella said. “Really close. My sisters and I.  . . .
Éowyn . . . And Amelie. I didn’t
know . . . about you. This. I look
around . . . and this is Amelie’s dream life. It’s
what she always wanted. I mean, not exactly this,
but . . . a hot, smart guy who is comfortable with
himself; a big, old house; a cozy life on a nice street; even the
dog . . .”

“
And you?” Seth asked.
“What do you want?”

“
I . . .”
Bella shook her head. “Dad and I were close. I was his
favorite.”

Seth stopped playing. He turned around to
look at Bella.

“
You knew
about . . . everything,” Seth said.

Bella nodded. As if it held fascinating
detail, she focused her attention on her wine glass.

“
I didn’t know it was a
secret,” Bella said. “I mean, I didn’t like it
but . . . I thought Mom knew. I thought she knew. I
thought . . . And now Dad’s gone to who knows where,
and Mom . . . and . . .”

Bella broke down. He looked up to see his
nine-month old chocolate Labrador puppy, Clara, fly into the room
with Ava, clad in a light blue fluffy robe, on her tail. Ava
stopped short when she saw her sister crying. She looked at Seth,
and then kneeled down to hug the girl. Clara looked at the women,
and then at Seth. The dog hopped onto the leather couch in the
corner just behind him.

He played the piano while the sisters talked
and the dog slept. He looked up when Ava leaned down to kiss him.
She poured herself a glass of wine, refilled her sister’s glass,
and sat down on the arm of Bella’s chair.

“
This is Seth’s inner
sanctuary,” Ava said. “Not many people have been here.”

“
I feel honored,” Bella
said. “Um, you asked what I wanted?”

Still playing the piano, Seth nodded.

“
I want everything back the
way it was,” Bella said. “But, not back the way it was.”

“
Change is hard,” Seth
said. He kept playing because he wanted to, and because it helped
keep the mood in the room light.

“
Yeah,” Bella said. “Three
months ago, I was thinking about doing a semester abroad. You know,
going to Ireland or France or somewhere cool. I’d come back only to
graduate. Then this happened and . . .”

“
I lost my job,” Ava said.
“Éowyn too.”

“
And Mom,” Bella said. “I
used to read
People
magazine and stuff like that online. Now that we’re in those
magazines and . . . They’re
like . . . vultures.”

“
Maggots,” Ava said.
“Feeding off dead things.”

“
Dead,” Bella said. “Like
us.”

“
They’re feeding off your
old life,” Seth said. “Not you.”

“
Let them have it,” Ava put
her arm around her sister. “While they’re feasting on the ruins,
we’ll build a new one.”

“
Like what?” Bella smiled
at her sister.

“
Like what do you want?”
Ava smiled.

Bella looked at her sister, and then at
Seth.

“
You guys are really
perfect for each other,” she said.

“
We think so,” Ava
said.

Seth stopped playing and turned around.

“
Just because you knew
about your dad and his activities, doesn’t mean there was anything
you could have done about it,” Seth said.

Shocked, Bella’s mouth fell open. She stared
at Seth.

“
But . . .”

“
He told you because he
knew you couldn’t do anything,” Ava said. “He arranged the
forensics lab for me, and the DA’s position for Éowyn, so if we
ever learned about his business, we’d have too much to lose to tell
anyone.”

Surprised, Bella stared at Ava and then
glanced at Seth. Seth nodded.

“
I feel awful,” Bella
said.

“
Don’t,” Ava shrugged.
“We’re young, smart, and well educated. Lots of people start over
from worse spots. We can do anything we want to in this life. What
do you want to do?”

“
I’d like to go to France,
or maybe Ireland,” Bella smiled. “But how can I do
that?”

“
We can send you there,”
Seth said. “We planned on helping your mother, you, and Éowyn get
back on track. Why don’t you research what and where?”

“
Good idea,” Ava said.
“Present it like a project: where you want to go; why you want to
go there; and what you think you’ll learn.”

“
I know a few people who
work at the Sorbonne,” Seth said. “You could go in
January.”

“
How would I pay you
back?”

“
I like that you want to,”
Seth said. “But you don’t have to.”

“
Figure it out in your
project,” Ava said. “Let us know.”

“
Why would you do that,
when I didn’t even . . .?”

“
Because we can,” Seth
said. “Because we’re family.”

Ava glanced at him. He smiled to assure
her.

“
We all need help
sometimes,” Seth said.

“
I hope to get Mom settled
somewhere,” Ava turned to her sister and smiled. “Looks like it
might be Rapid City. Didn’t she seem . . .?”

“
Do you think they . . .?”
Bella giggled.

“
I don’t want to know,” Ava
laughed.

Seth turned around to play the piano again.
After a while, Bella got up to take a bath, and sometime later she
leaned in the door to say she was off to bed. When she was gone, he
closed the door to the piano room.

He joined Ava in the nest of blankets and
pillows by the fire. She rolled over to him when he touched her
back, but didn’t wake. He kissed the top of her head and fell
asleep.

When he woke, she and the puppy were gone
again. He took a shower and wandered upstairs to see who had
survived the previous night’s party. He found Ava sitting in the
kitchen drinking coffee and looking at the case files. He watched
the puppy, Clara, chase a ball in the backyard.

“
Hey,” he leaned over to
kiss her.

“
Hey.”

“
I hope you don’t mind,”
Ava gestured toward the files. “I had to look.”

“
Of course you did,” Seth
smirked at her.

“
You know I trained in
forensics at the FBI, right?”

“
I remember.”

“
Right,” Ava said. “When I
came back to Denver, I did a couple of weeks at the CBI before
going to Denver PD.”

“
Okay.” Not sure what she
was talking about, he poured and drank a cup of coffee.

“
There’s a case just like
what you’re working on,” Ava said. “Brady, Bosley, Bradley
something like that. Male; twenty-nine years old.”

“
In Timbuktu?” He poured
the last cup of coffee and made another pot of coffee.

“
Southeastern Colorado,”
Ava said. “Small town outside of Trinidad.”

“
Really?” Seth shrugged.
“Why didn’t the PD come to the party last night? I
feel . . . slighted.”

He held his heart, and Ava smiled at his
antics.

“
It happened in 1913,” Ava
said. “Tax agent gunned down while making the rounds. Never
solved.”

“
Sounds fascinating,” Seth
raised his eyebrows.

“
Sounds crazy,” Ava said.
“We got that grant from the Feds to solve old cases with new
science. I was on a team that worked the tax agent’s case. I’m sure
our report is in the system.”

“
What’d you
find?”

“
What you have – reloaded
round, firearm,” Ava said. “If there was brass, which is unlikely,
it didn’t survive the years in the evidence warehouse.”

“
Basically
nothing.”

“
Except . . .” She gave him
a coy smile.

“
Except?”

“
The gunpowder was
unusual,” Ava said. “Made with cottonwood charcoal. We figured the
killer made it himself because that’s what most people did in 1913.
Cottonwood charcoal gunpowder was also a favorite of the
Confederate States. The tax agent was from Massachusetts, a Union
state. We postulated that maybe the killing was about some
unresolved business from the war.”

“
Colorado was a Union
territory,” Seth said. “So was New Mexico.”

“
Yes, but Texas was a part
of the Confederacy,” Ava said. “Texas isn’t very far from where the
tax agent was killed, especially if you have unresolved
business.”

He smiled at the interest and intelligence
in her face. She took his smile as encouragement to continue.

“
It’s about a thousand
miles from Palmito Beach, where the last battle of the Civil War
was fought, to where this agent was killed,” Ava said.

“
A thousand miles isn’t
much ground to cover in forty-eight years,” Seth said. When he fell
silent, she waited for him to finish thinking. He looked up at her
and said, “That’s interesting.”

“
Of course, most gunpowder
is manufactured now and, surprisingly, or at least I was surprised
to learn that the method hasn’t changed much since gunpowder was
invented.”

“
Sulfur, charcoal and
potassium nitrate or salt peter,” Seth said.

“
Right,” Ava smiled. “How
did you know?”

“
My elder brother Saul used
to make it when we were kids,” Seth said. “Made his own fireworks.
Very dangerous. Very fun. Used to scare my little brother Silas to
death.”

“
I bet,” Ava
smiled.

He smiled at her smile. It was nice, if even
just for a moment, that things felt normal. He touched her back to
encourage her to continue.

“
I used the spect on the
sample we had from 1913.”

“
Oh yea?” Seth poured a cup
of coffee from the new pot and offered some to her. She shook her
head.

“
That’s how we found the
cottonwood char,” Ava said. “From the spect readout. Well, and the
sulfur. But sulfur’s pretty easy to come by here in Colorado.
There’s a lot at any hot springs. Pagosa’s not too far from there
and . . .”

The way Seth nodded, she knew he was ready
for her to get to the point.

“
There’s a spect scan in
one of your files upstairs,” Ava said. “Your friend McGinty had it
done a few years ago. Probably begged or bartered for someone to do
it.”