The Fourth Perspective

by Robert Greer

  “See any cops?”

  “No.”

  “Figures.”

  “Won’t matter one way or another in a few minutes,” said Billy. “Celeste is gonna be outta here. You better haul ass.”

  “We’re hauling,” said CJ. Morgan dropped off the roadway and onto a shoulder of mud. He eased the Jeep around the loader, accelerated, kicking up a contrail of mud and gravel, and sped down the on ramp to I-25.

  Sunglasses in place and with her scarf pulled tightly over her head, Celeste hurried up the steps of Alexie’s Learjet. Clutching a cache of magazines and books in one hand, she stepped inside, nodded at the pilot, turned, and headed toward her seat.

  The plane lacked the overhead space of a commercial jetliner, and as she took her seat, Celeste felt cramped. She placed her reading materials on the desktop in front of her seat and turned on an overhead light. The plane’s interior was sterile and office-like. A computer, a printer, and a fax machine sat across from her on a desk. Four plush-looking leather chairs grouped in a quarter circle sat directly behind her. A daybed hugged the lavatory bulkhead at the rear of the plane.

  Celeste adjusted herself in her seat and prepared herself mentally for the long trip to Paris. She had always disliked flying, but she’d sleep through it, she told herself.

  She glanced out of the window, watched her bags disappear into the belly of the plane, and thought about how badly she’d muffed her chance to kill Floyd. She should’ve blown him up herself rather than count on a halfwit like Moradi-Nik, or shot him point-blank instead of hoping for a silent kill with a crossbow. But she hadn’t, and it bothered her. She wondered if she was losing her edge—that physical edge that had made her a competitive athlete; the mental edge that had always fueled her curiosity and intellect; the genetic edge that had awarded her such an advantage over her twin brother, Bobby. In the end, she knew she would have her day of reckoning with Floyd. She could sense it. But as the plane’s jet engines powered on and Alexie stepped inside and closed the door, she had the sudden sense that when that time came, her revenge would seem hollow.

  “Ready for Paris, mon cherie?” Alexie called out to Celeste before nodding at the pilot and spinning his index finger winding-clock style. As the plane engines powered up to a high-pitched whine, Alexie, grinning and close to licking his lips, plopped down in the seat next to Celeste. “You’ll enjoy the ride,” he said. Dropping a hand onto Celeste’s lap, squeezing her thigh, and eyeing the bed at the rear, he smiled, “And hopefully so will I.”

  “The plane’s movin’!” Billy screamed into his cell phone to CJ. “Where are you?”

  “Turning onto Arapahoe Road.”

  “They’re taxiing out to the runway. Don’t think you’re gonna make it.”

  “Punch it, Morgan,” CJ yelled.

  Morgan floored the accelerator as the Learjet nosed its way toward the active runway. The Jeep pulled into the airport’s parking lot as the plane, nose to the east, began its take-off roll.

  CJ was out of the Jeep before Morgan brought the vehicle to a full stop. Stumbling and off balance, he sprinted for the fence that separated the parking lot from the tarmac as Dittier and Morgan raced after him. He was halfway up the fence when Morgan screamed, “CJ, are you crazy?” and grabbed him by the right leg. He kicked out of Morgan’s grasp and watched as the jet gained runway speed. He was inches from the top of the fence when a gust of wind caught the brim of his Stetson, sending it sailing skyward. Raking his hand across the top edge of a broken chain link, CJ clenched his fist, powered his arm skyward, and screamed, “Damn!”

  Celeste looked back toward the control tower and the airport’s nearly empty parking lot as the jet neared take-off speed. She scanned the landscape for something familiar, a parting snapshot of the West that she could take with her to Paris. Crossing her legs, she smiled and moved out of Alexie’s grasp. As the plane’s nose angled upward, she noticed a Jeep hugging the tarmac’s perimeter fence, and as the wheels left the ground, she could have sworn she saw a cowboy hat swirling upward in the wind. She locked the image in her mind, deciding that it would be the Western image she would take with her to Paris.

  CHAPTER 33

  Howard Stafford rarely entered his house by the front door, but when he saw a Jeep, which he immediately recognized as CJ Floyd’s, parked in the circular driveway in front of his house, aligned perfectly with his front steps, he stopped at the driveway’s edge, got out, and slowly, never taking his eyes off the Jeep or its occupant, walked toward his house. It was a half hour before sunset, and in the fading light everything appeared slightly gray to Stafford.

  CJ had grudgingly come to terms with the fact that Celeste had sidestepped him, slipping away on a ribbon of air. He had left Centennial Airport hat in hand and emotionally spent, obsessively second-guessing his tactics, when Flora Jean had finally called to report that the cops had impounded Lenny McCabe’s trailer and that Theresa Del Mora had disappeared.

  Flora Jean’s worry over not being able to find Theresa and her concern that Sergeant Commons had come by the office to voice his “official uneasiness” over not being able to further question her client forced CJ to put his war with Celeste Deepstream aside and finish what he’d promised himself he’d do after he’d left a defeated-looking Theresa Del Mora sitting on the back steps of Ike’s Spot hours earlier.

  He had been sitting in the Jeep waiting for Stafford for over an hour, having entered the estate without protest or fanfare by virtue of having the security code for the main gate. Luis Del Mora had jotted the code on the back of an East Colfax Avenue pawnbroker’s business card.

  “No need for a gun today, I hope,” said CJ, stepping out of the Jeep.

  “How the hell did you get in here, Floyd?”

  “Through the main gate.”

  “Well, leave.” Stafford stopped a couple of paces from the Jeep and eyed CJ’s oil-stained Stetson and the bruise above his right eye. “Now. Before you end up with a knot above your other eye.”

  CJ smiled. “Can’t. At least not until I have the answers to some questions. And just so we’re on the same page, pull another gun on me and I’ll make you swallow it. I’ll just pretend like I didn’t hear your comment.”

  “I’ll call the police,” Stafford said, a tinge of nervousness in his voice.

  “Fine. I’m sure they’ll want explanations, too.”

  “What’s your game, Floyd?”

  “Don’t have one. But I know you sure as hell do, or did, a little shell game involving rare and not-so-rare stolen books. Found out just today that you had a couple of nincompoops stealing books from your library that they would then replace with rarer stolen upgrades. What I can’t figure out is whether you were running your little game to scam your insurance company, to fantasize about having someone steal from you in order to get your jollies, or whether you simply wanted to come home every day and find that your library contained another Christmas present. Whatever the reason, it was one hell of a charade. Guess everyone’s entitled to do what they have to to get their kicks.”

  “So what’s your point, Floyd?”

  “This. It turns out that an antiques dealer I know probably killed Luis Del Mora, and I’m pretty sure your pompous ass put him up to it. While I was waiting for you to come home, I had over an hour to do nothing but sit in my Jeep, smell the Rocky Mountain springtime, drink in the beauty of the grounds, and think about what it would be like to be rich. And you know what? At the end of that hour, I started to feel like I pretty much owned the world.”

  “If you’re saying I hired someone to kill Luis, you’re crazy.”

  “I didn’t say that. And I’m almost certain you didn’t—almost! You’re at least a gnat’s whisker smarter than that. Here’s what I think happened, and sooner or later Lenny McCabe, that dealer I mentioned, will come clean on the whole rotten issue. His lawyers will make him. It’s the only plea-bargaining chip they have to save his hide.”

  “It’s your show, Floyd. Tell me
what happened.”

  “Now remember, this is just a simple-minded bail bondsman’s take.” CJ flashed a broad, insightful smile. “What happened is this: you got yourself caught up in your book-replacement scam, with Arthur Vannick and Theodore Counts leading you by the nose, or you leading them by theirs, I’m not quite sure which, and you lost track of someone who was willing to steal from you for real—Luis Del Mora. You were so busy switching out your books for the more valuable replacements that Counts and Vannick were providing that you didn’t check the henhouse for the fox. And what did those two care? They’d take your book, sell it to a pawnbroker or a used-book dealer or some unscrupulous antiques dealer like Lenny McCabe, pocket the change, provide you with a much rarer stolen replacement that was probably too hot to handle, and bingo: they’ve got money, they’ve unloaded a hot potato, and you’ve got a treasure locked away. When you come down to it, the whole scam was pretty much like laundering money. Oh, and by the way, Counts is the one who ratted you out.” CJ took a deep, reflective breath. “And I’m guessing that everything was going along just dandy until Luis Del Mora showed up and somehow, either by having an insider’s knowledge about railroads and railroad history or by watching you carefully every day and figuring out what to steal or by hooking up with a Metro State professor named Oliver Lyman who gave him guidance, or maybe just by sheer luck, he stumbled across a book in your library that contained the holy grail of transcontinental railroad lore, a photograph of the 1869 driving of the Golden Spike ceremony. And not just any old photo, mind you, but a one-of-a-kind daguerreotype. And as luck would have it, Del Mora ended up selling that stolen book, minus the photograph, of course, to me. But you already knew that, didn’t you?”

  Ignoring the question, Stafford said, “And this McCabe person stole the photo from Luis and killed him. End of story.”

  “Nope. That in fact is where the story takes, as my old river-boat captain used to say during Vietnam, a variance.” CJ eyed the sudden look of confusion on Stafford’s face. Smiling, he added, “Sort of like when your patrol boat starts taking on small-arms fire that couldn’t possibly be coming from the shoreline and you realize you’ve got Vietcong shooting at you from the belly of a couple of passing sampans.” CJ stroked his chin thoughtfully. “A variance. McCabe killed the Del Mora kid, all right, and he probably killed that Metro State professor, Lyman, too. But McCabe didn’t steal the daguerreotype from either Del Mora or Lyman. He didn’t have to.” CJ smiled again. “Now, follow me on this. I’ve had most of the afternoon to think it through.” He could see that the smile touched a raw nerve in Stafford. “Lyman had been looking for that daguerreotype for years, and it turns out that like all the rest of you, Lyman was an enterprising thief who had immigrant college kids like Luis Del Mora stealing for him, and a smart capitalist who fenced his stolen goods through Lenny McCabe and others. When Luis Del Mora, fresh from plucking books out of your library, unimportant books for the most part, first turned up at McCabe’s with that daguerreotype, laced of all places to the endboard of a book on the history of Montana medicine, I’m guessing that McCabe called Lyman, one of his stolen-book suppliers and a Western history expert, to ask for authentication. Now here’s the kicker.” CJ eyed Stafford sternly. “Since both McCabe and Lyman had been in the business of stealing and selling stolen books for a good long time, they realized that something as valuable as a stolen one-of-a-kind daguerreotype of the Golden Spike ceremony would be too hot to handle, so they decided to ransom the photograph back to its owner. What they did, you see, Mr. Stafford, is sell your own photograph back to you.”

  “Bizarre story.”

  “Even more bizarre when you consider the fact that Luis Del Mora probably had no idea of the value of the photograph that he’d found in that Montana medicine book. But McCabe and Lyman clearly did. And from there things turned funky. McCabe either got greedy and tried to keep all the money you paid him to get the photograph, cutting Lyman out, or they couldn’t square up on the money. Doesn’t matter, really. Bottom line is, Lyman ended up with a hole in his chest, courtesy of McCabe, who’d already killed one person in his quest to get the photograph back to you.” CJ flashed Stafford an incisive stare. “How much did you have to pay McCabe to get your daguerreotype back, Stafford?”

  “You’ll have to ask him,” Stafford said smugly. “You’re the one telling the story.”

  CJ shook his head. “I’ve gotta give it to you, Stafford. You’re ice-water calm for a man who’s pretty much responsible for the deaths of two people. Just remember, sooner or later McCabe’s gonna tell his side of the story.”

  “And do you expect that story to carry much clout? Do you expect the tale of a murderer to possibly carry the same impact as mine?” Stafford flashed a confident grin.

  “Don’t know.” CJ stepped back and shook his head in disgust. “But I’m sure some enterprising DA with political aspirations will be willing to slap an accessory-to-murder charge on your ass. In the end you’ll answer to somebody, Stafford. The world just seems to work out its kinks that way.”

  Stafford laughed. “You’re a naive, low-end, minor-league dreamer, Floyd. Things don’t happen like that in my corner of the world. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m late for my dinner.” Stafford turned to leave. “By the time I’m inside my house, I expect you to be headed off my property. If you’re not on the other side of my entry gate within three minutes, I’ll call the police, or …”

  “Or you’ll pull your gun again, you privileged SOB? You triggered the deaths of two people, and you’ve destroyed a woman’s life. I ought to kick your privileged ass.”

  “Don’t push me, Floyd.”

  Checking his temper, CJ turned to leave, aware that five years earlier he would have made good on his threat. Boiling inside as he moved to get into the Jeep, he fired a parting salvo: “Try and keep your naked arrogant ass out of department store windows, freak.”

  Howard Stafford was already inside his house.

  Stafford walked across his entryway and took the spiral stairs leading to a second-floor landing that looked back down on the entry. The landing’s only window overlooked his driveway. He peered out the window and watched CJ drive away, wondering why no one from his staff had intercepted and removed the pesky bail bondsman. Loosening his tie, he took a deep, satisfying breath, deciding that answer would have to wait until later. Floyd was gone, McCabe had been pegged as a murderer, and above all he still had the daguerreotype.

  He took a final glance out the window, bounded back down the steps, and headed for his library. Once there, he disarmed the keypad alarm, unlocked the doors, stepped inside, and turned on the lights. He slowly surveyed the room from left to right, eyeing every countertop, display case, bookcase, picture, and artifact in a clockwise scan. Convinced that security hadn’t been breached, he walked across the room, knelt in front of a marble-topped display case, and extracted a key the size of a sewing needle from beneath the lip of the case’s recessed toe-kick. He inserted the key in the titanium-lined lock, twisted it, and watched two wooden panel doors spring open.

  He swung the doors all the way open and shook his head, telling himself that he should have kept the Covington daguerreotype under lock and key from the moment he’d chanced on it ten years earlier. He’d found it in the Montana medicine book at the bottom of a mildewed cardboard box that had been labeled, BOX 3, OFFICE CONTENTS, MEDICAL BOARD SECRETARY. He’d stumbled across the box on the final day of a Big Horn River fly-fishing trip outside Bozeman, Montana, a day when fishing had been lost to thunderstorms and torrential downpours. With nothing to do but read and wander, he had stumbled into an auction of water-damaged books and assorted office furnishings that had been salvaged from the old Helena, Montana, offices of the Montana Board of Medical Examiners. He’d paid $4 for the Montana medicine book and fifty cents for two others, never recognizing the significance of his find until several weeks later, when, after examining the photograph, recognizing the subject matter, quickly researching t
he history of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads, and devouring the Montana medicine book’s section on Jacob Covington ten times over, he’d realized that he had stumbled across the find of a lifetime. Pack rat and stickler for authenticity that he was, he still had the original purchase receipt, and he’d left the photo inside the book, even saving the fishing line.

  With McCabe on ice, he knew that eventually the Del Mora murder investigation would come full circle to him, but it didn’t matter. Wealthy, powerful, and connected, he had always found life to be primed to go his way. Even so, he’d made mistakes, like being cavalier enough to leave the Montana medicine book with the daguerreotype inside in a place where Luis Del Mora could discover it. He suspected that prior to stealing the book, Del Mora had more than likely watched his every move for months. Del Mora had probably watched him walk the halls of his home, fondling the book, and thought that the book, not the photograph inside, was what was valuable. Stafford had no idea how Del Mora could have found the key to the cabinet, but he had, and in the end he’d found the book, the photo, and a willing buyer.

  But none of that mattered any longer. It didn’t matter how Luis Del Mora had found the book, or that Del Mora and some professor named Lyman were dead, or that the photo had ever been out of his possession. He had the daguerreotype back. The cost of getting it back mattered even less. His transaction with McCabe had cost him $100,000, a small price to pay for a slice of American history worth more than a million, and in the end he’d learned something valuable from the experience. There’d be no more parlor games with the likes of Counts and Vannick, no more daily making love to the daguerreotype where someone might accidentally see him. No more, as Floyd had so aptly put it, sitting in the department-store window ass-naked. It was time to close ranks. He would stop hiring Third World castoffs like Theresa Del Mora in order to soothe a guilt-ridden rich man’s conscience and in the future would limit his game-playing to the things that titillated him: horse betting, making money, and sex.