Tail Spin ft-12

by Catherine Coulter

  “And the three Turners,” Rachael went on. “Jimmy did like those paintings. I remember him telling me about them. They belonged to his mother.” She looked around the reception area, lust in her eyes. “To have a huge budget to decorate a space like this—wouldn’t that be something? I decorated a half-dozen commercial spaces in and around Richmond. I had to work my butt off to be both creative and cheap.”

  “Did your clients appreciate what you did?”

  “They all did, and that’s nice. Actually I prefer being in on the design process itself, though, creating a space for a specific look and a specific function. My client list was growing nicely before I went to meet Jimmy.”

  They heard a throat clear and looked over at two young women and two young men seated behind a huge swath of highly polished mahogany, each seated at an individual computer station, all nicely dressed, all working industriously on keyboards or speaking in hushed voices on phones. Except for one young woman, who had a raised eyebrow and beautiful fingernails.

  Jack smiled at Rachael, nodded toward the young woman. “Let’s go hassle that bright-eyed young lass at reception, see where our prey is.”

  The young lass—her tag read Julia—looked suspicious at first, then fell victim to Jack’s smile, a phenomenon Rachael had already observed a couple of times. It seemed Julia couldn’t help herself, she loosened up, smiled back at him. “Good afternoon. How may I help you?”

  Jack opened his wallet, showed her his creds.

  Julia’s smiled wavered.

  “We’d like to see Ms. Kostas, Julia.”

  “Ah, well, yes, may I tell her what it’s about?”

  “No,” he said. Then he smiled that lethal smile again, lowered his voice. “National security.”

  Julia immediately rang a number and spoke quietly.

  “I’ll show you to her office,” she said. They followed her down a wide hallway with Stubbs horse paintings on the walls. There were half a dozen niches along the way holding antique vases filled with lush trailing ivy, warmed by small circular overhead lights.

  Julia knocked lightly on a set of mahogany double doors, opened t hem, and they stepped into a large rectangular room furnished with spare, plain blond Scandinavian furniture, not a single antique in the place. Lots of windows filled the room with afternoon sunlight and views to die for, but still the office felt cold.

  “Ms. Kostas, this is Special Agent Crowne and, ah ...” Julia turned brick red because she’d neglected to ask Rachael her name.

  “I know who she is, Julia. You may leave us now.”

  Jack had read all about Laurel Abbott Kostas on the drive over to Abbott Enterprises International headquarters in Baltimore. He’d studied several unflattering photos of her. She wasn’t by any stretch a beauty. Still, given the wealth factor, he’d expected her to have at least a hint of glam, designer everything, but there wasn’t a scintilla of pizzazz in this woman. Her eyes never left Rachael as she slowly walked toward them. Her hair was neither short nor long, salt-and-pepper, not a sophisticated salt-and-pepper like his mom’s, whose hair was cut in a swinging bob, but flat, drab, and coarse. She wore no earrings, no makeup to soften the sharp angles of her face. Her eyes beneath thick black brows were cold stone gray, her mouth pinched and small. She was wearing a plain gray suit and low-heeled pumps, her sole jewelry a wedding band. She didn’t look fat or thin; what she looked like was a cold and hard matron, or a prison warden. She wasn’t smiling. She looked older than her fifty-one years. He wondered what she’d looked like at twenty-one, what she’d looked like when she married Stefanos Kostas at age thirty-five.

  “Hello, Aunt Laurel.”

  Laurel Abbott Kostas looked at Rachael with a combination of distaste and indifference, and there was something else, something feral in those stone cold eyes of hers. “You are a bastard, Ms. Janes. It’s very possible you are not even my brother’s unfortunate mistake. I am not your aunt, nor are you and I on a first-name basis.”

  Rachael said, “Actually, I’m no longer a bastard, which means you are indeed my aunt. Didn’t Jimmy tell you and Quincy that he adopted me? I became his legal daughter five days before his death. His lawyer, Mr. Cullifer, said the entire process took only five weeks, less time than it took the mechanic to fix his Jag, and then he smiled and said money and influence are very fine things.”

  “A fine tale, Ms. Janes. You will not call the senator by that ridiculous low-class name. His name was John James Abbott Junior.”

  “He told me until I could get used to the idea of calling him Dad, I was to call him Jimmy. And now I’ll never have that chance.”

  Laurel Kostas’s hands clenched at her sides. “He did that to get back at us.” She sucked in a breath, calmed herself. Jack saw the take-no-prisoners iron in her, the formidable opponent who’d tear your heart out before breakfast, or, like Rachael had said, he could easily see her sucking the blood from your jugular. Old Man Abbott must have been proud of her. She looked briefly at Jack, dismissed him, then back at Rachael. “All right, you bullied your way in here. What’s this nonsense about national security? What do you really want?”

  “We’re here about Jimmy’s death.”

  Her eyes turned colder, if possible, and her mouth seamed as she said in her very precise voice, “What about his unfortunate death?”

  “He didn’t just die, he was murdered.”

  “That is absolute nonsense. Senator Abbott’s death was a tragic accident. It was ruled an accident by the police.”

  “Greg Nichols, his senior staffer, knew it wasn’t an accident.”

  “Everyone spoke to Greg Nichols. He was shocked and saddened by the tragedy. He believed it an accident, as well.

  “It has nothing to do with you, Ms. Janes—yes, I will call you that until I have proof you have told me the truth. Brady Cullifer would have called both Quincy and me if you had been legally adopted; he would have warned us. But he did not.”

  “Perhaps,” Rachael said, “Mr. Cullifer didn’t call you because he considered it a confidential matter.”

  “There are no confidences in a family, Ms. Janes. However, regardless of any legalities, I will never recognize you as an Abbott. I want you to get out of here. I never want to look at your face after today. You managed to bilk my brother out of his money and his property, that wonderful house in Chevy Chase where we all grew up. It’s in your hands, a stranger’s hands. Bastard or not, you have won. Get out of here before I call security.”

  Rachael said easily, “I brought security with me, Mrs. Kostas. Don’t you remember? This is Special Agent Jackson Crowne, with the FBI.”

  Laurel put out her hand. Short buffed nails, clear polish, but the thumbnails were chewed to the quick. Jack handed her his shield, watched her study it for an aeon before handing it back. “So,” she said, “this pathetic girl managed to talk the FBI into revisiting this national tragedy. Has she accused us of murdering Senator Abbott?”

  “Actually, ma’am, we have a lot of questions, not only about Senator Abbott’s death.”

  “You won’t for much longer,” Laurel said, reaching for her phone, and she turned her back to them. Jack hoped she wasn’t calling her lawyer. He really didn’t want to have to deal with that.

  Jack had faced down monsters during his years in the FBI’s Elite Crime Unit, and remembered every single one of them with utter clarity, but in this woman’s presence, listening to her low, clipped voice, he felt a sort of black coldness in her.

  He purposefully turned away and led Rachael to the huge windows that looked toward the Inner Harbor, lined with shops filled with tourists, the blue water of the harbor dotted with pleasure craft, ferries, and fishing boats. It looked intensely alive, very different from this frozen world so high above it. He was losing it.

  He said, “I know a little restaurant right on the Inner Harbor where I’d like to take you for dinner.”

  Rachael nodded.

  Jack couldn’t wait to get away from this cold, driven woman. It
was very likely she wouldn’t talk to them. Had she held the family’s reputation so dear, had she believed her brother’s confession to the world would not only destroy her brother but cause irreparable damage to the family and to the Abbott holdings so much that she murdered her own brother? He couldn’t imagine it himself, it was too over the top.

  They heard Laurel Kostas hang up the phone, and turned.

  By the look on her face, she hadn’t gotten what she wanted. Jack was tempted to applaud, but he didn’t. He watched her face smooth out, and he knew to his gut that when this woman managed that slick-as-glass expression, she was in full control again.

  She radiated power and malice.

  “I spoke to my lawyer. He said he would call your superiors, who would deal with you, Agent Crowne. You will leave now. I will not speak to you.”

  Rachael said, “But Mrs. Kostas, don’t you want to know if your brother’s death really was an accident? Don’t you care that someone might have murdered him and gotten away with it? Didn’t you love your brother?”

  Jack saw feral rage on her face. She leaned forward, her palms splayed on the long expanse of smooth blond birch. “My brother’s drinking was unfortunate. Quincy and I told him many times to stop—at least not to drive when he drank too much—but he never listened to us, or to anyone. Quincy and I have wondered why he would drink to such an extent when his supposed precious daughter had magically returned to him. Both of us have wondered if he didn’t change his mind about you, if he was about to demand DNA tests, but didn’t have the chance—he died. Greg Nichols agrees it is strange, all of it, your appearance, my brother’s death.

  “You should be thanking me that we didn’t push the police to investigate you, particularly since you are the only one to gain by his death. Why have you involved the FBI? You think they wouldn’t consider you a prime suspect?”

  TWENTY-FIVE

  She was good, Jack thought, very good, a deft manipulator. She’d managed to turn it all around, and what she said made sense. It was obvious to Jack that Rachael had never considered this. She looked poleaxed.

  Jack said, “Ms. Kostas, I understand your father was quite the autocrat, that Rachael’s mother was so afraid of him she didn’t tell Rachael who her real father was until after Carter Blaine Abbott died.”

  “That is nonsense. Absolute nonsense. My father was a great man, a brilliant man, a man with extraordinary vision. Look around you—he founded Abbott Enterprises fifty years ago with a small strip mall, and look what it is today: a power not only in the U.S. but in the world. Abbott is both respected and admired, and that is because of my father’s legacy.

  “To his family he was kindness itself. But I will tell you this—he couldn’t abide fools or liars; he protected his children, took care of them. When he saw your mother, young as she was, he knew what she was, and so he saved his son from her.

  “Did you show up on my brother’s doorstep because that scheming mother of yours needed money and you were the one who was to get it for her?”

  Rachael wanted to kill her on the spot, to put her hands around her neck and ... but she said, her voice calm, even pleasant, “That was very well done, Mrs. Kostas. You put me on the defensive, a skill Jimmy said you have in spades. I would not like to own a company you wanted to acquire.

  “But finding out about my father’s death isn’t about your spite, isn’t about your dislike for me. It’s about getting justice for a very fine man.”

  Laurel slammed her fist on the desktop. “I know the truth, and it’s quite horrible and needless enough, without implying anyone else was involved. If you didn’t kill him, then the senator was drunk and he lost control of his car.”

  “Surely you knew your brother didn’t have a single drink since he killed that little girl, Melissa Parks, in Delancey Park eighteen months ago, nor did he drive a car after that evening.

  “You had meals with him, saw him in social settings. Surely you noticed he no longer drank, never drove? This is the truth. I know it to be the truth. Actually, he always drank club soda. Therefore, he couldn’t have been drunk, nor could he have been driving. Someone else was.”

  “I will not speak further about this.”

  “I know Jimmy told you and your husband, and Quincy, about what happened eighteen months ago. Moreover, he told you he couldn’t stand living with the guilt anymore and that he was going public with all of it. He said you and Quincy were both furious when he told you what he planned to do, that even though he would be the one ruined by his confession, you and Quincy didn’t agree. You felt it would blacken the family name, call into question the family honor, make business partners question the Abbott honesty. He said you and Quincy were enraged. He was disappointed because he wanted you both to understand, to support his decision to go public.”

  Laurel drew herself up to her full five-nine height. She looked faintly bored. “Whatever aberrations my poor brother suffered from at the end of his life, they are no longer of any concern to anyone. I loved my brother very much. I admired him, but he wasn’t a strong man.”

  “Not strong? I didn’t know him very long, ma’am, but I’d say he was one of the strongest people I ever met.”

  “I want you to go now. I have nothing more to say to either of you.”

  Rachael said, “There is something else, Mrs. Kostas. Did you and your brother, perhaps that lecherous husband of yours, drug me and tie my feet to a block of concrete and throw me in Black Rock Lake because you knew I was going to tell the world what my father had done?”

  “You leave my husband out of this, you little bitch! You claim someone tried to kill you? Threw you into a lake?” She laughed, tossed her hands. “How very melodramatic you are. Who would possibly believe someone like you? You are nothing more than a temporary annoyance. Get out.”

  Rachael said as she turned, “Actually, I’m far more than a temporary annoyance, Mrs. Kostas. I own Jimmy’s house. I have a third of his money, a third of his stock. I hope you contest the will. I hope you demand DNA testing. Yes, let’s do it, as publicly as you like. It will give me a chance to announce to the world what vipers you and your brother are.”

  Laurel leaned forward on her desk, her hands fisted on the desktop. “Get out of here now!”

  “I know why you’re trying to kill me. You’re afraid I’ll make Jimmy’s announcement for him. You’ve had three tries—three!—and yet here I am, standing in your office. Jimmy’s death was no accident, and you well know it. Just think about the reporters sleeping in your front yard, Mrs. Kostas, once everyone knows the truth.

  “Enjoy this cold, soulless office while you can, ma’am, because you’re not going to be in here much longer.”

  “What is going on here, Laurel? Julia told me the FBI was in your office. Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here, Ms. Janes?”

  “She looks a bit red in the face, Quincy,” Stefanos Kostas said, stepping around his brother-in-law.

  Jack and Rachael turned to see Quincy Abbott and Stefanos Kostas. Quincy was what Jack expected an Abbott to look like—very expensive Italian suit, black with very thin red stripes, a white shirt, a red tie. He was elegant, polished, and at that moment he looked more bewildered than angry. But there was one thing that was off— it was the toupee he wore. The color was perfect, but the style didn’t quite fit the shape of his head.

  As for Kostas, Jack thought he looked like a dissipated playboy, a man who lived only for his own pleasure, for his own whims. He was handsome, Jack supposed, fit, well-dressed, but there was something off about him, too, and it wasn’t a toupee. He didn’t know at that moment what it was.

  Rachael turned and said pleasantly, “Uncle Quincy, this is Special Agent Jackson Crowne. He’s here to find out what happened to my father and who tried to kill me last Friday night, Monday, and— goodness—yesterday, as well. But I’m sure you know all about that, don’t you?”

  Quincy Abbott laughed, then looked sideways at his sister and said, “Sounds to me like a boyfrien
d gone nasty. Who have you been sleeping with?”

  Rachael thought about her one-time fiancé from Richmond. What a fiasco that had been.

  Stefanos waved his question away. “What’s this about killing you?”

  Jack said pleasantly, “Perhaps you, sir, Mrs. Kostas, and Mr. Abbott could tell me where you were on Friday night.”

  Quincy raised a brow. “I was at Mrs. Muriel Longworth’s welcome party for the new Italian ambassador. Stefanos, you came in later, as I recall.”

  Stefanos nodded and looked at Rachael’s breasts.

  “I will not dignify your question with a reply,” Laurel said.

  Rachael said, “Uncle Quincy, Jimmy told you about killing that little girl.”

  “Perhaps he did. I wasn’t much interested, to tell you the truth. Oh well, who cares now? The senator is dead and buried. I just wish he hadn’t left you our house. As for the stock, at least you don’t have enough to cause trouble.” He brightened. “You said someone is trying to kill you? Well then, have this FBI agent go find him and throw him in jail.” Quincy Abbott nodded to both of them, gave his sister a long look, turned on his designer heel, and left Laurel Kostas’s office.

  Stefanos leaned against the door, arms across his chest, and said to his wife, “I’ve been shopping. Guido called me about this very lightweight wool I’m wearing. What do you think?” He looked at Rachael’s breasts again, knowing his wife was watching. If she’d been Laurel, she’d have shot him dead. But Laurel said nothing, didn’t appear to notice anything amiss.

  The three of them, Rachael thought, didn’t appear to live on the same planet.

  Rachael walked out, Jack right behind her.

  Jack’s last memory of Laurel Abbott Kostas was of the cold, ripe malice in her eyes, her husband leaning against the door, like a beautifully suited lizard. He thought about Jukie Hayes, owner of a junkyard in Marlin, Kentucky a good ole boy who visited neighboring towns. He killed people and buried them under ancient wrecks of cars, between stacked tires, stuffed inside car trunks. He told Jack he liked the smell of the decaying bodies. Jack still had nightmares about Jukie, and the stack of bones he’d uncovered beneath a tarp thrown over a dozen steering wheels. Odd that a wealthy Greek playboy would remind him of Jukie, but he did.