More Twisted: Collected Stories, Vol. II

by Jeffery Deaver

  Four months ago, while sunbathing at a pool in the United Arab Emirates, she’d gotten a phone call from a trusted contact. After some negotiation, she’d been hired, for $5 million U.S., to kill Ron Larkin and his brother and wife, the three people instrumental in overseeing the Larkin Foundation.

  Priscilla had changed her appearance: weight gain, dyed hair, colored contact lenses, strategic collagen injections. She became Catherine “Kitty” Biddle Simpson, created a credible biography and managed to get close to Larkin through some charities in Los Angeles. She’d spent plenty of time in Africa and could discuss the region intelligently. She even knew a great deal about the plight of the children, having turned a number of them into orphans.

  Kitty laid on the charm (and a few other skills, of course), they began dating and she looked for a chance to complete her contract. But it wasn’t easy. Oh, she could’ve killed him at any time, but murdering a very public and popular man like Ronald Larkin, not to mention his brother and sister-in-law too, and getting away, of course, was much harder than she’d thought.

  But then Ron Larkin himself provided a solution. Amusing her no end, he proposed to her.

  As his wife she’d have complete access to his life, without the security people around, and his brother and sister-in-law would automatically trust her.

  The first thing she said was, “Yes, dear, but I don’t want a penny of your money.”

  “Well…”

  “No, I’ve got my father’s trust fund,” she’d explained. “Besides, honey, what I like about you isn’t the dollar signs. It’s what you do for people. And, okay, you got a decent body for an old guy,” she’d joked.

  Under those circumstances, who could possibly suspect her?

  Then after a bout of marital bliss (occasional sex, many rich dinners, countless boring businesspeople), it was time to act.

  On Tuesday night they’d arrived at LaGuardia (flying on a private jet, she could bring her guns and the other accoutrements of her trade with her), driven to the town house and gone to bed. At 4:30 a.m., she’d dressed and pulled on latex gloves, screwed the suppressor onto the barrel of her favorite.32 automatic and stepped outside onto the balcony, feeling the cool, electric smell of New York City air in the morning. She’d distributed the planted evidence — the trace she scattered around to lead the police off — then rested the grappling hook on the railing, tossed the rope over the side. She’d returned to the window, cracked the pane and fired — hitting Ron three times and sending the fourth and fifth rounds into her own pillow.

  Then she called 9–1–1, hysterical, to report the attack. After hanging up she’d unscrewed the back of the television, put the gun, silencer, ammunition and gloves inside, and with her cuticle scissors, slit her arm and jammed a fragment of shattered bullet into the wound. Then she staggered downstairs to await the police. Ron’s brother and sister-in-law would arrive as soon as possible, of course, and she’d kill them too, making it look like the same man was behind their deaths.

  Planned perfectly…

  But, of course, while plans can be perfect, the execution — so to speak — never is.

  My God, a real hit man — the guy in the Jeep — had showed up, trying to take her out.

  The best she could figure was that one of her enemies — she’d made plenty over the years — had recognized her from the news about Ron, despite her effort not to be photographed in public and her changed appearance.

  Or maybe it had nothing to do with Priscilla Endicott; maybe the man’s goal was to kill Mrs. Kitty Larkin. Hired by a former mistress of Larkin’s? she wondered. Or a jilted girlfriend?

  She gave a bitter laugh at the irony. Here, the police and State Department were protecting her from a killer — just not the particular killer they believed him to be.

  Priscilla now dialed a number on her mobile (she wouldn’t trust a hotel phone).

  “Hello?” a man answered.

  “It’s me.”

  “My God, what the hell is going on? I see the stories — somebody’s after you?”

  “Relax.”

  “Who the hell is he?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I did a job in the Congo last year and one of the targets got away. Maybe him.”

  “So he has nothing to do with us?”

  “No.”

  “But what’re we going to do about it?”

  “You sound panicked,” Priscilla said.

  “Of course I’m panicking. What—”

  “Take a deep breath.”

  “What’re we going to do?” he repeated, sounding even more panicked.

  “I say we have a goddamn good laugh about it.”

  Silence. Maybe he thought she was hysterical. Then he asked, “What do you mean?”

  “Our biggest problem has always been giving the police another suspect, somebody other than you and me.”

  “Right.”

  “Well, now we’ve got one. Peter and his wife’ll be at their town house in about an hour. I’ll sneak out of where I am now, kill them and get back before I’m missed. They’ll think the guy in the Jeep did it. He’s not stupid. When he hears that they’re looking for him for the homicide, he’ll probably take off. I’ll be safe, you’ll be safe.”

  The man was quiet for a moment. Then gave a brief chuckle. “It could work,” he said.

  “It will work. What’s the status of the second installment?”

  “In your account.”

  “Good. I won’t call again. Just watch the news. Oh, one thing. I don’t know if it’s going to bother you…. It seems that Peter’s daughter just got into town from college. She’ll be with them when I get there.”

  The man didn’t hesitate before asking, “What’s the problem with that?”

  “I guess that means,” Priscilla said, “that there isn’t one.”

  * * *

  Two hours later the woman slipped out the side door of the hotel, unseen by the desk clerk. She’d taken a cab to a street corner two blocks from the town house of Peter and Sandra Larkin, then walked the rest of the way.

  The wealthy lifestyle of these particular targets, with their private homes in Manhattan, was very helpful. Getting into a doorman building unseen could be a bitch.

  She paused outside the town house and looked into her purse, checking the weapon, which she’d retrieved from the TV in the bedroom of Ron Larkin’s town house when she’d gone there to pack her suitcases earlier.

  She now climbed the stairs, looked up and down the street. No one. She pulled on latex gloves and pressed the buzzer.

  A moment later.

  “Hello?”

  “Peter, it’s Kitty. I have to see you.”

  “Oh, Kitty,” the brother said. “We weren’t expecting you till tomorrow. But we’re glad you’re here. Come on up. We’re all in the living room. Second floor. The door’s open. Come on in.”

  The buzz of the door lock echoed through the misty night.

  Priscilla pushed inside.

  She was thinking of the sequence. If they were all together, hit the most dangerous target first and fast: That would be any bodyguards. And the daughter’s boyfriend, if there was one. Then Peter Larkin. He was a large man and could be a threat. A head shot for him. Then the daughter, who’d be younger and possibly more athletic. Finally the wife.

  Then she’d leave more of the planted evidence to link this killing to Ron’s: the steroids, the dark curly hairs (stolen from a barbershop trash bin), another fleck of rubber peeled off a running shoe she later discarded, more of the sand and dirt she’d scraped up from a marina in L.A.

  Priscilla recited: Find the target, look for guards, check the backdrop, possible security systems, especially cameras. Aim, squeeze, count your rounds.

  Climbing the stairs, she was aware of the musty smell of an apartment not much used, but the place was very elegant nonetheless. Both Peter’s and Ron’s fortunes were obscene. Billions. Thinking that this much money was controlled by just two individuals re
ignited some of her latent political views about inequality in the distribution of wealth, despite their charitable efforts. Still, Priscilla Endicott couldn’t very well take the high moral ground any longer; she herself was a wealthy woman now — and it was her craft of killing that had made her one.

  Reaching into her purse, Priscilla lifted her gun, clicked the safety off.

  She walked inside the living room quickly, the gun behind her back.

  “Hello?”

  She stopped fast, staring at the empty room.

  Had she gotten the wrong room? she wondered.

  The TV was on. The stereo too. But not a single human being was here.

  Oh, no…

  She turned to flee.

  Which is when the tactical team — five officers — pushed from the two side doorways, shoving their weapons toward her, shouting, screaming, grabbing. In less than a second the.32 was out of her hands and she was on the floor, with her wrists cuffed behind her.

  * * *

  Lincoln Rhyme surveyed the town house from the sidewalk.

  “Pretty nice place,” Amelia Sachs said.

  “Seems okay.” Architecture, like décor, didn’t mean a lot to him.

  Lon Sellitto glanced up at the tall building too. “Jesus. I knew they were rich, but really.” He was standing with the lieutenant from Emergency Services, the man who’d directed the takedown.

  A moment later the door opened and the woman who’d been hired to kill Ron Larkin, his brother and sister-in-law was escorted out, cuffed. Given her ruthlessness and ingenuity, Rhyme and Sellitto had ordered her feet shackled too.

  The officers accompanying her paused, and the criminalist looked her over.

  “Miranda?” Rhyme asked one of the tactical cops.

  He nodded.

  But the killer didn’t seem to care about having her lawyer present when she spoke. She leaned toward Rhyme and whispered harshly, “How? How the hell did you do it?”

  Locard’s Principle, the criminalist thought. But his answer to her was: “The fiber. The coir fiber made me suspicious right away.”

  She shook her head.

  Rhyme explained, “Amelia found it on the balcony. I remembered seeing the Larkin Energy logo on the doormat in front of the town house when Amelia got there to search the scene. And I remembered that coir fibers are used in making rugs and mats. She checked later and found out the fiber did come from the same mat.

  “Now, how did the fiber get from the doormat to the balcony? It couldn’t’ve been when you and Ron arrived at the house together last night. You said you hadn’t been on the balcony. And obviously you hadn’t been there for a long time — otherwise you would’ve watered the houseplants. Same for any caretakers. The mysterious killer? Would he have wiped his feet on the doormat on a busy street then walked around to the back of the building, climbed the rope to the balcony? Didn’t make sense. So,” he repeated dramatically, “how did the fiber get there?

  “I’ll tell you, Kitty: You picked it up from the mat on your shoe when you got in from the airport. And you left it on the balcony early this morning when you stepped outside to kill Ron.”

  She blinked, shaking her head no, but Rhyme could see from the dismay in her face that the words struck close to home. She’d thought of almost everything. But as Locard might’ve said, Almost isn’t good enough when it comes to evidence.

  “Then the other clues on the balcony? The steroid, the rubber, the lint, sand and dirt with the diesel traces, the hairs. I suspected they were planted by you to support your story of the bodybuilding hit man. But proving it was something else. So I—”

  It was then that Kitty, or whatever her name was, stiffened. “God, no. It’s him! He’s going to—”

  Rhyme swiveled around in the chair to see a green Jeep Cherokee pull up and double-park next to them. Climbing out was a solidly built man with a crew cut, wearing a conservative suit. He snapped closed a cell phone and walked toward them.

  “No!” Kitty cried.

  “Captain,” the man said, nodding at Rhyme. The criminalist was amused that Jed Carter insisted on using Rhyme’s rank when he was with the NYPD.

  Carter was a freelance security consultant for companies doing business in Africa and the Middle East. Rhyme had met him on that Brooklyn illegal arms case a few months ago, when the former mercenary soldier had helped the FBI and the NYPD take down the principal gunrunner. Carter was humorless and stiff — and surely had a past Rhyme didn’t want to know too much about — but he’d proved invaluable in nailing the perp. (He also seemed eager to make amends for some of his own past missions in Third World countries.)

  Carter shook Sellitto’s hand, then the tactical officer’s. He nodded respectfully to Amelia Sachs.

  “What is this?” Kitty gasped.

  Sachs said, “Like Lincoln was saying, we suspected you but we ran your prints and you weren’t on file anywhere.”

  “Will be soon, though,” Sellitto pointed out cheerfully.

  “So we didn’t have enough proof to get a search warrant.”

  “Not on the basis of one fiber. So I enlisted the help of Mr. Carter here — and Agent Sedgwick.”

  Norma, from State Department security, worked regularly with Fred Dellray. He’d contacted her and explained that they’d needed someone to play bodyguard and to help them fake an assault. She’d agreed. They’d arranged the undercover set for Madison Square Park, along with an officer from Patrol, in hopes that they’d find some more of the trace that Rhyme suspected was planted. If so, it had to come from Kitty and would place her on the balcony, justifying a search warrant.

  But his idea didn’t work. Sachs searched Madison Square Park around where Kitty had lain, as well as the Lincoln, inside and out, but she could find none of the planted evidence or any trace linking her to the weapon.

  So they’d tried once more. Rhyme decided that they needed to search her suitcases. Sachs called Norma about a tracking device that the supposed killer had planted. While Norma pretended to find one under the car — it was her Olay skin cream jar — Kitty had dumped the contents of her suitcases out into the backseat to look for the device.

  After Sachs dropped them off at the hotel, she returned immediately to the sedan and searched the hell out of it. She found traces of the steroid, a bit more of the diesel-laden sand and dirt and another grain of rice. Ironically, it turned out the rice husk in the rope and the grain of rice in the State Department sedan weren’t from any shipments of food to Africa. Their source was a spoonful of dried rice in a lace ball tied with a silver ribbon, a souvenir from Kitty’s and Ron’s wedding. The woman had neglected to take it out of her suitcase.

  Rhyme added, “Detective Sellitto went to the courthouse, got a warrant and a wiretap.”

  “A tap?” Kitty whispered.

  “Yep. On your cell.”

  “Shit.” Kitty closed her eyes, a bitter grimace on her face.

  “Oh, yeah,” Sellitto muttered. “We got the asshole who hired you.”

  It wasn’t a warlord, vengeful employee, Third World dictator or corrupt CEO who wanted Ron and his brother dead. And it wasn’t the Reverend John Markel — briefly a suspect because of the fleck of leather at the Madison Square scene, possibly shed by a Bible.

  No, Robert Kelsey, the operations director of the foundation, was whom she’d called an hour ago. When he’d learned that Ron Larkin was thinking of merging with several other foundations, Kelsey knew there’d be a complete audit of the operation and it would be discovered that he’d been taking money from warlords and corrupt government officials in Africa in exchange for information about where the ship containing food and drugs would be docking.

  Oh, yeah. We lose fifteen, twenty percent a year of our African donations to theft and hijacking. Tens of millions….

  He had to kill them, he reasoned, to stop any mergers.

  Kelsey had confessed, in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. But he swore he didn’t know Kitty’s real
identity. Sachs and Sellitto believed him; Kitty wasn’t a stupid woman, and she’d have to operate through a number of anonymous identities.

  That’s why Rhyme had called Carter not long ago, to see if the former mercenary could learn more about her. The man now said, “I’ve been speaking to some of my associates in Marseilles, Bahrain and Cape Town, Captain. They’re asking about her now. They think it won’t take too long to get an ID. I mean, she’s not exactly your typical merc.”

  Amen, thought Lincoln Rhyme.

  “This is a mistake,” Kitty growled at Rhyme. Which could be interpreted to mean either he was erroneous or that stopping her was foolhardy and dangerous.

  Whatever the message, her opinion meant nothing to him.

  Lon Sellitto escorted her to a squad car and got in his own Crown Victoria. The entourage headed downtown to Central Booking.

  Soon all the tactical officers were gone. Jed Carter promised he’d call as soon as he heard about anyone who fit Kitty’s description. “Good-bye, Captain. Ma’am.” He ambled off to his green Jeep.

  Rhyme and Sachs were alone on the street. “Okay,” he said, meaning, Let’s get home. He wanted the Glenmorangie whisky Thom had denied him in anticipation of the operation here. (“It’s not like I’m going to be fighting anybody hand-to-hand.” Still, as often, the aide won.)

  He asked Sachs to call Thom now; he was parked up the street in Rhyme’s custom-made van.

  But Sachs frowned. “Oh, we can’t leave yet.”

  “Why?”

  “There’re some people who want to meet you. Ron Larkin’s brother and family.” They had been ushered into an upstairs bedroom with armed guards as soon as Kitty had arrived. She glanced at the third-floor window and waved at the faces of a middle-aged couple looking down at Rhyme and Sachs at the moment.