“Oh, my God.” She followed him back to the living room, sat in one of the rattan chairs.
“After losing his wife and son, I doubt he’ll be doing much police work.” Gordon sat in the other. Then, “It’s too much coincidence. Someone wants the police off the Fujimori case, somebody with a lot of connections.”
“They’ll just give it to someone else.” Maggie gripped her hands together, squeezed tightly. “That’s what Norton said.”
“What else did he say?” Gordon was looking at her with an intense look she’d never seen before.
“He said it would be given a low priority. As far as they’re concerned, Frankie Fujimori got what was coming to him. Wolfe would’ve tried to sort it out, but no one else will. He was clear about that.”
“It’s incredible,” Gordon said. “Somebody wants a detective taken off a case, so he kills a family member and the cop takes time off. Not once, but twice, if it works with Wolfe.”
“We don’t know for sure that’s what happened.” Maggie didn’t want to believe what she was hearing. “Besides, they couldn’t be sure it would work. And even if Norton or Wolfe took leave, they might come back and pick up where they left off.”
“Maybe, but probably not,” he said. “People get murdered all the time. A homicide detective takes a couple weeks away from his desk and a whole new batch of murders are waiting for him when he gets back.”
“But it’s so uncertain, why not just kill the cops if you want them off the case?” Maggie said.
“Killing cops is a big no no,” Gordon said. “Police get very upset about that. But an old woman commits suicide, who knows why, maybe she was depressed. A kid falls off a balcony, a tragic accident. His mother kills herself, more tragedy. But not crimes, nothing for the police to look into.”
“This is crazy talk,” Maggie said. “You’re making this sound like some kind of conspiracy or something.”
“It sounds like one to me,” he said.
“Come on, listen to yourself. This kind of stuff doesn’t happen!”
“I spent twenty years in the FBI and I’m here to say that it has and it does,” Gordon said.
Maggie didn’t answer.
“I spent a good part of my life wondering who killed Kennedy,” he went on. “I believe in conspiracies.”
“I don’t. I can’t,” she whispered.
“Maggie,” he said, “you were followed from the store, chased on the beach, followed from the police station by the black BMW, your car was run into the bay, this Nighthyde character came at you with a gun and the black BMW came after us again last night. Add all that to the fact Margo was killed and her body dumped behind a bar you’d left only a couple hours before and that ought to tell you the person after you is a little more connected than some crazy who walked into a convenience store and blew away a little shit like Frankie Fujimori.”
He got out of the chair, stood over her.
“And you put all that together with the one cop’s transfer and the bad things that happened to the families of the other two and you have a serious looking conspiracy.”
“Then we should call the FBI,” Maggie said. “They’d put a stop to this right away.”
“Yes, they would,” Gordon said. “If they believed you.”
“Why wouldn’t they?”
“Who’d go to the FBI, Maggie Nesbitt or Margo Kenyon?” he said.
“Oh.”
“Yeah.” He sat back down. “You’d have to come clean. And that means you go back to being Maggie Nesbitt and that little girl goes to live with her father and you said you didn’t want that. And I wouldn’t be surprised if they found some way to implicate you in Margo’s murder.”
“How could they?”
“Lots of motive,” he said. “Margo’s money for example.”
“And I get to keep the baby,” she said.
“What baby?” Gordon said.
Maggie told him. It had been the one part of the story she’d left out.
“I had no idea.” He picked up his cup from the coffee table, took a deep drink. “So, I guess we have to solve this ourselves if you’re going to keep on being Margo.”
“I guess.”
“The first thing we have to do is find somewhere else for you to live in case this guy Nighthyde comes after you again.”
“He’s not going to come,” Maggie said. “I shot him, remember?”
“Let me call Nick and find out about that.” Gordon got out of his chair again.
“No,” Maggie said. “I don’t want to involve him.”
“Okay, I got a friend who’s a cop in Long Beach. I’ll call him.”
She followed him back to the kitchen, back to the phone. She listened while he called the Long Beach Police Department, asked for his friend, then identified himself. He lied, saying he was away last night and when he returned home one of his neighbors had told him there was a shooting. He listened for about a minute, thanked his friend and hung up.
“You did shoot someone,” he told Maggie.
“Of course I did.”
“But you didn’t kill him. The police rolled on a shots fired complaint. When they got to the duplex, the neighbors were up, but nobody knew where the shots had come from. When Nick came home, he saw the blood and called the police. There was no body, so whoever you shot either got up and walked away or somebody carried him.”
“I fired off seven rounds at him,” Maggie said.
“So, you’re not a very good shot.”
“I am a good shot. Besides, I saw blood.”
“That doesn’t mean he’s dead.” Gordon set his coffee down. “I’m going to see an old friend and find out what I can about Congressman Nishikawa. I’ll be back before noon. Till then I want you to stay inside with the door locked. Shoot anyone who tries to break in or pick the lock.” He was serious.
“You won’t get an argument out of me on that,” she said.
“I mean it,” he said.
“What kind of friend?”
“One who won’t talk in front of you, otherwise I’d bring you along.”
“He got up, started for the door, opened it, turned back toward her. “When I get back, we’ll have to find someplace for Jasmine to stay till this is over.”
“What about me? I thought you wanted me to move out, too.”
“I changed my mind. You’re staying here.”
“Why? I don’t get it.”
“We’re after a big fish. We need bait.”
“I don’t think I like the sound of that.”
“I hate it,” he said. “But we don’t have much choice if we want to put an end to this without involving the police.” And all of a sudden, Maggie knew what Gordon was going to do.
“You’re going to kill him, aren’t you?”
“Yes I am.” Then Gordon closed the door and she was alone.
Horace went straight to the motel, got his gun, then drove to the Taco Bell on Fourth Street. Coffee and toast didn’t cut it for breakfast. He ordered five tacos and a large coke, then went to the pay phone in the back to call Striker. He dropped a quarter into the phone.
“Did you mean what you said yesterday?” he said when Striker picked up.
“If I said it, I meant it, but what specifically are you talking about?”
“Having more money than I can count.” Horace felt his knuckles turning white as he gripped the phone. He relaxed his hand.
“Maybe not more than you can count, but you do the woman before tomorrow at this time and I’ll have a briefcase for you with a hundred and fifty large in it. Twenty-five for the woman in Catalina, twenty-five for the kid and a hundred for the Kenyon woman.”
“I already did the Kenyon woman.”
“She’s still walking around.”
“She won’t be tomorrow.” Horace grit his teeth. Striker was paying a lot, but it wasn’t right about the bitch in the alley. He’d done the job, he deserved to be paid. Besides, he didn’t like thinking Virgil died for nothing.