The Laura Cardinal Novels (91 page)

Melissa Stevens worked for the Arizona Copier Company. Arizona Copier prided itself on its customer service. Melissa Stevens visited every one of her accounts weekly, dropping by to ask how things were going, to perform simple maintenance on the machines under her care, and once a year, to talk her customers into upgrading.

Melissa stopped off to see one client, Gerald Grady Insurance, more often.

The sole occupant of the Gerald Grady Insurance satellite office was Sean Grady, Gerald Grady's only son. Sean Grady was in his mid-thirties, good-looking in a meaty, athlete-gone-to-seed kind of way, and had arresting blue eyes that made you feel as if you were the most fascinating person in the world.

Sean Grady was a sociopath.

According to Melissa, Grady had been in love with her even though he was engaged to the daughter of a prominent Tucson attorney. He had indeed loved Melissa—on the desk, on the office chairs, on her copy machine, and over the bathroom sink. Each incident had held a special place in Melissa's heart, and the day she talked to Laura, she’d been in a mood to share.

On one of her regular visits, Melissa had spotted a woman buttoning her blouse through the tinted plate glass windows of the insurance company. The woman's crew cut had stood up on her head like a bleached, stiff brush.

When Melissa had entered the office, the woman had pushed past her as if she were a turnstile. Melissa could have sworn she smelled sex. But Sean, a smooth and inventive liar, had put her mind at ease. Even so, she wouldn't forget Flattop's mannish clothes and open-air jeep.

Sean had denied flatly that they'd had sex. The lady had offered, but he'd turned her down. She'd undone the buttons of her khaki shirt and given him a peek—that was all. “I didn't bite,” he had told Melissa, a trifle wickedly.

Melissa had believed him. Especially when he’d shown her the check for a thousand dollars.

“Not bad for a day's work.” He had waved it at her, the air conditioner kiting it upward so it flew out of his hands and drifted down, briefly touching Melissa's cheek before it landed on the dark gray carpet. “How'd you like to go to Vegas?”

“Vegas?”

“A thousand bucks would go a long way in Vegas. You and I both need a vacation. We can stay at the Bellagio, see some shows, eat some fancy dinners, and you know . . .”

“But that check's for an insurance policy.”

“Well, it
was
,” he’d said, deliberately picking up the two copies of the life insurance policy and tearing them down the middle.

So they’d gone to Vegas.

A month later, he’d broken it off with her. He'd looked through her as if she didn't exist, just the way Flattop had on that terrible day Melissa had walked into Sean Grady's insurance office and caught her buttoning her shirt.

Melissa had then contacted DPS. She’d briefly told Laura about Sean Grady's trip to Vegas at Flattop's expense, neglecting to mention that she had gone with him.

Laura would have considered Melissa a scorned woman, but she was sensitive about categorizations like that. She could have been called a scorned woman herself a few times.

Flattop was easy to find, thanks to the vanity plate identification Melissa had given Laura—ARABLVR. Laura was pretty certain Flattop wasn't enamored with the men of the Middle East, but with Arabian horses. This was borne out later, when Laura finally met her. Doris Spitzer-Malveaux drove a canvas-topped, open-air jeep with a horse head logo on the door. The horse logo belonged to Bahar Shumaal Arabian Horse Farm, where she worked as a horse trainer.

Before contacting Ms. Spitzer-Malveaux, though, the first thing Laura did was to call a Texas Ranger pal of hers who worked out of Houston, where the policy was issued. He reached the company that was supposed to have underwritten the life insurance policy, a company called Sam Houston Fidelity. They had no such policy on file.

Laura got a grand jury subpoena for all Gerald Grady Insurance Company records for that office, including the business checking account, and flagged several policies. She looked for withdrawals in round numbers on the days he deposited insurance policy checks. In the same transaction, he would deposit a check in the amount of $1,242.33 and make a withdrawal of $1,200.00. The juxtaposition of deposits and withdrawals were easy to spot; Grady had made these kinds of transactions eight times in the last six months.

Laura went over all the bank statements, looking at the amounts and thinking of his office expenditures. There shouldn't be many of those. Sean Grady was the sole proprietor of the midtown office. His overhead was low: bottled water, paper, toner, ink cartridges, miscellaneous office supplies, phone, electric.

Pursuant to the subpoena, Laura requested copies of the suspicious checks. She also explored Grady's cash machine transactions and made sure she had photos of him at the ATM machines, so he couldn't claim later that someone had stolen his ATM card and made the withdrawals.

Fraud was a lot of work. Tracking numbers, looking at bank accounts. Some of her fellow squad members lived for it. It worked their little gray cells like nothing else. But as far as Laura was concerned, they could have it.

She loved the hunt. She loved homicide.

After investigating Grady for several weeks, Laura had a list of thirteen victims.

She interviewed Doris Spitzer-Malveaux, the first victim. At the end of the interview Laura had been wrung out. She would never want to make an enemy of Ms. Spitzer-Malveaux.

Laura visited Sean Grady and asked him about the specific policies. He gave her a song and dance—a very good one. He'd recently moved offices; there was upheaval in both the insurance industry in general and in his own office. That they had to sever connections with one policy underwriter, and regarding a new Texas-based company, Sam Houston Fidelity, there had been some anomalies they were currently working out. He was sure it could be cleared up.

Laura needed to make sure she had enough evidence against him before interviewing him a second time; he still had some wiggle room.

That was how she'd left it until today. Until this most recent phone call from Melissa Stevens. Melissa had gone to Sean's office because she still had to service the account. She hadn’t seen Grady, but she’d heard him. Or rather, she’d heard noises from the bathroom. Laura wondered if Sean's new inamorata was enjoying her turn over the bathroom sink.

That was when Melissa had spotted the airplane tickets on Grady's desk.

Tickets for two to Canada. One way.

Gerald Grady Insurance anchored one end of a strip mall on Speedway Blvd. It was like any other strip mall in Tucson: beige stucco with glass store fronts, plastic letters spelling out the names of each business across the top. A black Hummer was backed into the slot immediately in front of the door.

After driving through the back alley and checking the doors out to the rear parking area (there were three—not every store had one, and Gerald Grady Insurance was one that did not) Laura made another pass before parking on the street around the corner. Even with white-collar offenders, she was careful. She didn't want to tip him off into running.

She walked inside, hit by a sour-smelling current of humid air coming from a vent somewhere above. Lurking underneath was an even worse odor—mildew.

The office was empty. For a moment, Laura wondered if Grady had taken off already. It was possible he had taken a taxi and left the Hummer.

She took in the spatial dimensions of the room, looking for three things: cover, concealment, and an escape route.

At first blush, the only way in or out of the store was through the door she'd entered.

Melissa had mentioned a bathroom, but Laura didn't see one. The door to a walk-in storage closet on the right side of the shop was ajar. She peeked inside. Shelves lined one wall above a counter with a coffee maker and a stack of cups. The room went only ten feet back, and most of the space was taken up by the copy machine—Melissa's copy machine. The door was hollow-core; bullets would go right through it. No cover here.

She stepped back toward the entrance, turned, and scanned the room. The Gerald Grady Insurance office was a narrow oblong going back forty or so feet: filing cabinets along the left-hand wall, one desk, one business chair, one cheap rolling chair. Two-thirds of the way back, the desk came out like a peninsula, perpendicular to the wall and the row of file cabinets. The desk was particle-board with a wood grain veneer and had the usual detritus on it—in and out boxes, a computer. No airline tickets in plain sight—just a framed portrait of Sean Grady and his fiancée looking meaningfully into each other's eyes against a sunset.

Laura ticked off designations. The desk would offer concealment, but not cover. The file cabinets were too tight into the wall to offer concealment or cover.

She heard the rumbling of a paper towel dispenser and three quick, violent rips. Muffled footsteps came from the other side of the wall on the right. A few moments later, the front door opened and Sean Grady stepped inside, still fiddling with his cuffs. He looked up, saw her, and his face broke into a friendly grin.

“Detective Cardinal. To what do I owe this pleasure?”

Coming at her, holding out a hand, his smile predatory. Automatically, Laura shifted her body slightly so that her right hand crossed her body when they shook. This put her duty weapon a little farther away from Grady, just in case he was entertaining grabbing for it.

His hand was still damp. Laura thought about Melissa and the bathroom sink. “I came in to take a look at those files you had and see if we could clear it up right now. If you have a minute.” She purposely added this last to see how he would react.

He didn't disappoint her. “Hey,” he said, spreading his hands, “my files are your files. Why don't you sit down?”

He pulled his chair away from behind the desk and rolled the customer's chair around so she could use the desk's surface. The chair wobbled on its three casters. It was short and squat, the orange cloth soiled from use. She noticed his own chair was leather and expensive.

He flicked his eyes to the chair. “Let me clear a space for you.” He shuffled some papers, made a clear spot on the desk, looked back at her as if for approval. “Would you like some coffee? Water?”

“No thanks.”

“Sorry it's such a mess, but dealing with Sam Houston Fidelity . . .” He shook his head—deep disappointment. “You wouldn't believe it. I made a
lot
of phone calls, but I think . . .” He opened the second drawer of the file cabinet. “I think I've figured out what's happened.”

She wondered what he'd come up with. Knew it would be good. She watched him rummage through the drawer, his white shirt pulling up as he reached into the cabinet. The mildew smell much stronger here. Laura wondered how he stood it. She breathed through her mouth.

The file cabinets were ranged to the immediate right of the desk, so when Grady found the file he wanted, all he had to do was lean slightly to the right and drop it on the desk. He did this now. “Childers? That's Sam Houston, too, as I recall.”

Laura found herself staring at his back. Thinking how normal he looked. He epitomized a young businessman on his way up. Dark trousers, well cut. A tad ample at the waist, but he could still turn heads. Brown hair topping his collar just enough to give him that slightly-bad-boy-who-won't-follow-rules look. Considering his father owned the place, it didn't seem like much of a statement.

“Any more?” he asked. Flashing her a smile that was friendly and lazy. The smile made her think of a snake sunning itself on a rock.

She gave him the rest of the list. He held it in front of him, his face a picture of concentration, rocking back and forth on his heels.

One drawer slammed shut, another slid open. His manicured thumb snapped another file down. Close to her, almost crowding her out of the space between himself and the chair. Laura took the path of least resistance and sat down, her eye immediately going to the top page of the file.

He was talking again, but she was doing a pretty good job of tuning him out. She knew he was telling her lies. Right now he was talking about his coming wedding. “Up to me, it would be just the two of us on a beach, and Moby could be my best man.”

Laura said, “Moby?”

“My dog.”

Laura knew Grady was talking to keep her mind off the files. He thought he was smarter than her, that he could fool her. He was supremely confident in that belief.

“Now this lady here, I know I sent the check in,” he was saying. Standing above her, looking at the file, then placing it open-faced in front of her. Her eye going to the name.

“I'm going to need copies,” she said.

“No prob.” Opening the top file drawer again. Crowding her some more.

She smelled his aftershave as he leaned closer. Her mind registering the stealthy whicker of the casters as she moved the chair back to put more space between them.

She heard him step away to the file cabinet, and then there was quiet. There should have been another file. The hair stood up on her arms.

Suddenly, the stillness erupted—-a lightning bolt from left field.

A knife arcing through space, white heat at the edge of her vision.

Her palm flew up to ward him off—pure reflex—and she shoved her chair backwards. It tipped—
go ahead and let it
—just as the big knife slashed through the air past her face.

Instinct taking over, everything in slow motion. Her sight narrowing to a very small space surrounded by darkness. He was yelling something, but she couldn't hear it. She saw the fluorescents barring the ceiling, the tilt of dark gray carpet, falling in slow motion, toppling onto her right side and something—the cheap wooden armrest?—walloping her arm a few inches below her elbow, all her body weight coming down, banging it hard.

The shock running all the way up her arm and into her jaw.

Her hand, trapped. Sticky, pulsing.

She'd been cut.

She saw the capering glee in Grady's eyes as he took a step back to take another run at her, the hunting knife with the seven-inch blade gleaming in his fist, a drip of blood ending in an exclamation point on the handle, smearing his hand.