Blue Smoke and Murder

by Elizabeth Lowell

  Zach’s earphones whispered. “The client vanished. The shooter is—shit, he just dropped into some kind of hole. Watch it, Zach!”

  He kept running for a long five count, then skidded to a stop near the edge of the hidden ravine. Against the pale sand of the river bottom he saw a bulky shadow turn toward him.

  He dropped to the ground as two shots exploded out of the ravine. The shooter was no more than fifteen feet away.

  Zach didn’t aim toward the muzzle flash. Instead, he aimed for the thighs.

  Bring him down and then finish him off.

  His gun kicked.

  The shadow cursed and went to his knees.

  More shots exploded out of the ravine. Even as Zach registered the fact that one of the shots came from a Colt Woodsman, the muscular shadow in the ravine jerked, driven backward, closer to Zach.

  “You’re dead, bitch!” the man screamed, raising his pistol to send a hail of bullets toward Jill.

  Zach didn’t know he was yelling until the shadow turned toward him. He saw the twilight gleam of eyes behind the mask and shot twice, the double tap of death.

  The shooter slammed against the far wall of the narrow ravine and bumped down to sprawl in the sand.

  Prone, Zach kept his pistol pointed at the space where the man’s head should have been.

  “Jill, it’s Zach,” he called. “Stay down until I tell you to move.”

  Nothing answered him but the echo of shots careening back from the mountains.

  “Jill!”

  Zach didn’t remember jumping into the ravine, but he was there, flashlight in one hand and weapon in the other, kicking Ski Mask’s gun away.

  Not that it mattered. Even the darkness in the bottom of the dry creek couldn’t conceal what two bullets at close range had done.

  “I’m coming in, Jill. Don’t shoot me.”

  He waited for an answer.

  All he heard was the harsh sound of his own breathing and the yammer of ops in his headset, demanding information. He ripped the headset off and let it dangle around his neck as he went toward the darkness at the bend in the streambed.

  When he saw Jill sprawled facedown against the pale sand, he went to his knees beside her. Fighting to breathe slowly, he put two fingertips against the pulse point in her neck and prayed like the choirboy he once had been.

  Be alive.

  Be alive!

  His own heart was beating too fast for him to feel if there was a pulse in her neck. He drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly.

  He felt the heartbeat under his fingertips at the same instant she groaned.

  “She’s alive,” he said raggedly, replacing the headset. “Now shut up until I find out how bad she’s hurt.”

  Faroe’s snarled order stopped all communication.

  “Jill,” Zach said gently. Then more firmly. “Jill!”

  Dazed eyes opened, looking very green in the cone of the flashlight’s glare. She breathed with the gasps of someone who has had her breath knocked out. “I thought—you said—shut up.”

  “Them, not you.” He kissed her sweaty, sandy cheek. “Where do you hurt?”

  She rolled over, gasped as pain shot through her right arm, sat up, and said, “Pretty much everywhere, but it all still works after a fashion. You okay?”

  He gathered her close. “I am now.”

  92

  BEAVER TAIL RANCH

  SEPTEMBER 17

  6:46 P.M.

  Flashlight beams danced through the brush and finally came to the edge of the dry creek.

  “We’re coming in,” a male voice said through Zach’s headset.

  “Just don’t fall on us,” Zach said.

  Two St. Kilda operators jumped down the bank and landed in the sand like paratroopers.

  “Anybody need a medic?” the female op asked.

  “No,” Jill said.

  “Yes,” Zach said.

  “You told me you were okay,” Jill said instantly, running her hands over him, searching for hidden injury.

  “Not me,” he said, kissing her gritty forehead. “You.”

  “Nothing wrong with me that soap and water won’t cure.”

  Zach winced and touched his earphones. “Faroe wants me to be sure. Or it could be Lane. Their voices are getting more alike every day.”

  She leaned over the tiny mike that rested along Zach’s jaw. “I’m okay. Dirty, tired, scuffed up some, but nothing dangerous.”

  “Where’s the shooter?” one of the ops asked.

  “About forty feet up the draw,” Zach asked.

  “Dead?”

  “Oh yeah,” Zach said.

  “Know him?” the op asked.

  “No. We’ll need fingerprints. He was wearing full body armor.”

  “Gotcha. Photo ID won’t help.” The op turned and started up the dry wash.

  “Why will it take fingerprints?” Jill said.

  “Are you sure you want to know?” Zach asked.

  The sound of Velcro being stripped open told Zach that the op had found the shooter and was removing body armor.

  “That man killed Modesty,” Jill said flatly. “I have a right to know.”

  “I shot him twice in the face at pretty close range.”

  She drew a ragged breath. “Okay. A photo ID wouldn’t be much good right now. Do we know who the well-dressed dude was?”

  The remaining op switched channels, talked quietly, and turned to Jill. “The ID we ran on the DOA makes him as a Carson City lawyer.”

  Jill blinked. “What was he doing here?”

  “Good question,” the op said. “We don’t have an answer. Yet.”

  The female op’s voice carried through the darkness. “Well, hello, Harry.”

  “You recognize the shooter?” Zach called.

  “Not by his beautiful face, that’s for sure,” the op called back. “He’s got a tatt on his left pec. Susie. That was his third wife’s name.”

  “You know him?”

  “I worked for Harry ‘Score’ Glammis while I went to college. He was private eye to Hollywood’s rich and corrupt. I quit after Harry beat his wife’s lover to death and got away with it. Still has the scars on his knuckles. It wasn’t the first time he killed someone. Always in self-defense, of course.”

  “A real sweetheart,” Zach said.

  “Word was he had anger-management issues,” the female op said dryly, “aka ’roid rage. Looks like you solved his problem the old-fashioned way.”

  Zach let go of Jill and came to his feet.

  “Can you stand up?” he asked her.

  Wincing, she pushed to her feet, then swayed a bit.

  “You okay?” he said quickly, stepping close, ready to catch her.

  “As long as I don’t have to do another two-thousand-yard dash over broken country, I’m good.” She accepted his arm and leaned into him. “Not great. Just good enough.”

  “You’re way better than that.” Zach brushed a kiss over her bleeding lip. “Ready?”

  She started to say something, then stopped, remembering. “Have you searched all the cabins? Ski Mask—Score—said something about taking the paintings to be authenticated. I don’t think the lawyer was the art expert.”

  Zach looked at the remaining op.

  “We’re checking the cabins one by one,” the op said.

  “Find anyone?” Zach asked when the op switched back.

  “So far, two men. Their ID says they’re Ken and Lee Dunstan, son and father.”

  “What’s their excuse for being here?”

  “They say that they were working for the dead lawyer,” the op said. “The old man came here to look at some paintings for the lawyer’s client, who claims he was being extorted by one Jillian Breck. Ken Dunstan came along to keep his father company in—and I quote—‘a stressful situation.’”

  Zach said something bleak under his breath.

  “Now what?” Jill asked, looking at him.

  “The story is just plausible en
ough to close the case right here.”

  “I didn’t extort anyone! You know that!”

  “Yes, I know.” For all the good that does, Zach thought tiredly. “But with Glammis and that lawyer dead, we don’t have anywhere to go.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s over.”

  “But whoever hired Glammis is at least an accessory to murder,” Jill said.

  “Glammis is dead. All the dude paying the bills has to say is that Glammis exceeded his orders. Hell, it could even be true.”

  “You mean the son of a bitch who hired my great-aunt’s killer can’t be touched?” Jill demanded, her eyes narrow.

  “Legally, no. And St. Kilda doesn’t do illegal.”

  Jill just stared at him, her eyes dark.

  He pulled her close and held her, rocking slowly. “I’m sorry. Sometimes a little revenge is all you get.”

  “It’s not good enough,” she said against his chest.

  “I know. But it’s all we have.”

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Someone had called the sheriff.

  “Can St. Kilda keep us out of jail?” Jill asked.

  “The sheriff won’t like it, but yes. Self-defense is a fact.”

  Jill took a deep breath. “Good. I have an idea.”

  93

  LAS VEGAS

  SEPTEMBER 18

  2:00 P.M.

  The conference room that the Golden Fleece had turned over to St. Kilda for the afternoon looked like an important high-end business center in L.A., Boston, Houston, or Manhattan. Gleaming table, automatic digital and sound recording, computers for everyone attending, pen and paper for those who felt more in control that way, and lush leather chairs for the comfort of the important high-end assets attending the meeting.

  Twelve beautifully framed, unsigned landscape paintings stood on easels at the front of the room. Only Ramsey Worthington looked at them. Fascination and dismay fought for control of his expression.

  Grace paused in the hallway outside the open door and asked Faroe in a soft voice, “Any word yet?”

  “Incoming,” he murmured, tapping his Bluetooth earpiece.

  “With or without?” she asked.

  “With.”

  Grace’s smile was the kind that made Faroe glad she was on his side. She stepped through the open door into the room, where impatience and importance seethed. The air-filtration system was having a hard time blanking out the smell of stale bourbon that Lee Dunstan sweated with every heartbeat. His face looked like he’d slept in it for a long time.

  “I was just going to advise my clients to leave,” Carter Jenson said, looking at his ten-thousand-dollar watch.

  “They would have regretted it,” Grace said.

  She didn’t sit down. Instead she stood at the front of the table, dressed in a silk blouse, low heels, and well-cut slacks, a woman comfortable in her own power. She placed a folder within easy reach on the table.

  Faroe leaned against the wall by the doorway with the relaxed readiness of a predator. He purely loved watching Grace downsize swollen egos.

  “Do I need to summarize the events of yesterday?” Grace asked, looking around the table.

  Caitlin Crawford’s suit was much more expensive than her husband’s, but she wasn’t nearly as relaxed. She was humming like a power line.

  “I don’t see what yesterday has to do with my husband,” she said in a voice that was more clipped than gracious.

  “My clients and I have been fully briefed about the altercation at the, uh, ranch,” Jenson said, slanting Caitlin a look.

  “Bordello,” Grace corrected. “The word exists for a reason. The only thing that ‘ranch’ sold was sex.”

  Caitlin’s mouth flattened.

  “Is it still your clients’ position that none of them hired Harry ‘Score’ Glammis?” Grace asked Jenson.

  “Yes,” the lawyer.

  “Damn right,” Tal said. “Never heard of him until yesterday.”

  “Same here,” Lee Dunstan said.

  Worthington just shrugged and shook his head.

  Grace raised one eyebrow, looked at the men, and said, “If that’s the way you want it.”

  “That’s the way it is,” Jenson said.

  With unpolished nails, Grace tapped on the folder. Then she removed several sheets of paper from the folder. “For fifteen months, Tal Crawford has been trying to reach an agreement with the IRS over a matter of illegal tax shelters.”

  “Irrelevant,” Jenson snapped.

  “This isn’t a courtroom, but I’m more than happy to provide relevance,” Grace said. “The amount to be paid is still being negotiated, but both parties agree that it will end up in the neighborhood of fifty to sixty million, including penalties.”

  Caitlin gasped and stared at her husband.

  He patted her shoulder absently.

  “As I’m sure Mr. Crawford’s tax attorneys told him,” Grace said, “there are two ways to settle that debt. The first is simply to write a check. Unfortunately, Uncle Sam doesn’t like checks that bounce. Mr. Crawford’s would.”

  Tal’s face set in tight lines.

  “Because bankruptcy specifically excludes federal taxes owed,” Grace said, setting aside the sheets, “Mr. Crawford can’t use bankruptcy to get out from under Uncle Sam. He could attempt to sell assets, but once word went out that Crawford International was in a big cash bind, the financial vultures would descend and pick him clean to the marrow of his corporate bones. Ultimately the government would be paid, but Mr. Crawford would be penniless.”

  Worthington shook his head, but not in disagreement. More in pity.

  Caitlin’s hands clenched, peach nails cutting into her palms.

  “The only way Mr. Crawford can pay the government is to lower his bottom line,” Grace continued. “Wonder of wonders, a senator from the great state of Nevada attached a rider to a popular bill, permitting individuals who met certain criteria to swap regional art for outstanding federal tax debt.”

  “Perfectly legal,” Jenson said impatiently. “It’s done all the time.”

  “It’s called pork-barrel politics, and yes, it’s done all the time,” Grace said. “No one at this table will be surprised to find out that Mr. Crawford just happens to fit the criteria on the special rider on the popular bill that passed into law six months ago.”

  Worthington relaxed. It looked like his favorite cash cow was going to survive.

  Crawford just looked irritated.

  Dunstan’s expression was bewildered. Or perhaps it was just his hangover muddling his brain.

  “Mr. Crawford owns several pieces of modern art that would have more than paid his debt,” Grace said, “but various banks are keeping those paintings in their vaults as collateral on various loans.”

  “Again, perfectly legal,” Jenson said.

  Faroe shifted just enough to make the lawyer give him a wary look. Unlike Grace, Faroe hadn’t dressed up for the meeting. His dark T-shirt, jeans, and weapon harness were almost as intimidating as his eyes. If anyone asked, he was guarding the paintings.

  No one had asked.

  “Mr. Crawford has a large collection of Western art.” Grace reached into the folder and drew out more papers as she spoke. “But even the mostly friendly art appraiser wouldn’t rate it at enough to cover his taxes.”

  She glanced at Worthington.

  He didn’t disagree.

  “Auctions are notorious for yielding fat prices for the art involved,” Grace said. “They call it auction fever for a reason.”

  “Again, nothing illegal,” Jenson said.

  Faroe wondered if a tape recording couldn’t replace the lawyer.

  “Without the Thomas Dunstan paintings,” Grace said, “Crawford’s Western art collection might raise twelve million dollars if sold quietly over a period of time. If word of a pending bankruptcy got out, the collection would go at fire-sale prices.”

  The lawyer looked at Worthington, who didn’t disagree.


  Grace set more papers on the table. “Which brings us to Thomas Dunstan.”

  “An iconic, very valuable Western artist,” Worthington said promptly.

  “Yes,” she said, picking up another piece of paper. “Mr. Crawford bought one of Dunstan’s paintings last year for four million dollars. Lee Dunstan sold it to him, then donated a share of another Dunstan to Carson City’s new museum to offset the taxes.”

  “A bargain,” Tal drawled. “It was one of Dunstan’s best, and biggest.”

  Grace lifted a dark eyebrow. “Bargain or not, it raised the value of the rest of your large Dunstans by millions of dollars. But one sale of one painting wasn’t enough to convince the IRS that your entire art collection was adequate compensation for your outstanding tax bill. I believe the figure they required was eight million per Dunstan.”

  “Dunstans are worth it,” Tal said.

  “That remains to be proved in the marketplace,” Grace said.

  “It will be proved tomorrow,” Tal retorted.

  “If you believe the buzz,” Grace agreed. “Or if the auction is rigged. That, Mr. Jenson, is not legal.”

  Worthington started an indignant defense of the auction.

  “Save it for the reporters,” Grace said in a clear, cutting voice. “My question to you, Mr. Worthington, is what would happen if twelve previously unknown Dunstans came on the market at the same time?”

  Dunstan started ranting about “lying Breck bitches.”

  Jenson leaned over and said something in Dunstan’s ear that cut off the rant in midword.

  Tal said, “The only new Dunstan I heard about lately was an out-and-out fraud. Some old lady running a con. Lee set her straight.”

  “I have a copy of a letter telling Modesty Breck that her painting was essentially worthless,” Grace said, “and by the way, lost in the mail. Convenient.”

  “I object to that characterization,” Jenson said quickly.

  Grace ignored him. “A few weeks after Modesty received the letter, she died in a fire that the county coroner—an elected rather than a medical position, by the way—said was caused when she tried to refuel a hot stove.”

  Worthington winced.