Blue Smoke and Murder

58

SEPTEMBER 16

2:25 P.M.

As soon as the outer door opened, Amy leaped to her feet. “It’s about time you got back from lunch.”

“My office, now,” Score said.

He was in a pisser of a mood.

The way this case keeps eating up my time, you’d think I had only one client.

A really important one.

“Shut the door,” Score said. He sat down at his desk and fought against the kind of burp that made his eyes water.

Goat cheese. Who decided that men should eat that stuff on a pizza and be polite about it?

But what really had given him indigestion was the client, a Hollywood mover and shaker who was getting shaken down by someone and wanted to kick some ass in return.

When will they learn to leave underage boys alone?

Not that Score was complaining. Much. When people turned into saints, he’d be out of a job.

“Well?” he said to Amy.

“She’s on the move again. Back to good old Blessing, Arizona.”

“Huh.” He found a roll of stomach mints and crunched up three of them. “What for?”

“She’s talking to the sheriff.”

“About what?”

“Her grandmother’s arrest.”

What does that have to do with the paintings? Score thought. “So?”

“Well, except for one call, she wasn’t close to the bug, so I couldn’t hear anything until they left for the airport from Taos.” Absently Amy tested the holding power of her hair gel with her fingertips. Starting to droop. So was she. She’d worked through lunch.

“What call?” Score demanded.

She flipped to the next page of the printout. “The op reported in to St. Kilda, using the subject’s sat phone.”

“What’d he say?”

“Asked for the same cargo handlers as yesterday and-”

“I told you to get in touch with me ASAP if paintings were mentioned,” Score cut in.

The bite in his voice made Amy flinch.

“Nobody said anything about paintings,” she said quickly. “Is that what the cargo was?”

Score didn’t know the answer to that question, but was afraid that the word “cargo” would cover twelve paintings quite nicely.

They must have been in the house, not the car.

There was nothing he could do about it right now. Except swallow hard, keep his temper, and chew up some more stomach mints.

“When did this happen?” he asked.

Amy winced. When Score got that tone in his voice, pink slips started arriving on desks. She didn’t want hers to be one of them.

“The conversation took place at 9:42,” she said.

“Any talk about where the cargo is going?” Score asked.

“No.”

Score went still. His stomach clenched, sending goat cheese on a burning return trip. “Anything else?”

“The subject has already landed in Blessing, Arizona. The bug must be close because it’s real clear.”

“What about the cargo? Is it with them?”

“No. All the op said to her was that it was in a safe place.”

Damn St. Kilda anyway. What are they doing involved in a totally domestic op?

Goat cheese kept trying to claw its way back up Score’s throat. He fought it to a draw and snarled, “Cut to the chase.”

“They went to see the Canyon County sheriff in Blessing,” Amy said, summarizing the transcript of the bug. “Wanted to look at Justine Breck’s arrest report.”

“Huh. Why would they care? It happened a long time ago.”

Amy shrugged. “I don’t know. Apparently the grandmother and some dude had the kind of drunken shouting match that ended up with him being shot and both of them in jail.”

“Him who? Did they say?”

“Not by name. All I know is that he was her lover. And he hung himself in jail.”

Score drummed his fingers on his desk and wondered what St. Kilda was up to now. This case had been nothing but one screw-up after another. He was getting real close to losing his temper and beating the crap out of the first person he got his hands on.

It would feel so good.

“Anything else?” he asked.

“They’re going to look at the records. And the bug is working real clear.”

“No mention of paintings?”

“No. Just some comments about the Frost guy and the fact that he won’t be talking to anyone for a few days. Something about a coma.”

Well, at least that worked, Score consoled himself. About time I caught a break. Now if only I could be certain that those paintings had burned.

Or certain that they hadn’t.

Worst case scenario: They didn’t burn and St. Kilda has them now. Which means this op is well and truly in the shitter.

I should have shot the bitch instead of the old man. She’s the one causing all the trouble.

Score belched and swore never to eat goat cheese again, no matter who the client was. “I want to know where they go after Blessing. Stay with it until Steve gets here.”

“When will that be?”

“When he taps you on the shoulder. If you hear anything about paintings-”

“Tell you ASAP,” Amy cut in. “Got it the first ten times you told me.”

She made it out the door before Score lost it and started kicking the desk.