Diamonds and Blood (Chameleon Assassin Book 5) Read online

  Gerard turned to Wil. “Director Wilberforce. I assume this is connected to an ongoing investigation? Or did you just happen to be in the neighborhood?”

  “The Joseph Morgan murder,” Wil said. “There are a number of issues surrounding J. Morgan Jewelers that the Chamber is interested in.”

  “And these people?” she said, sweeping her arm toward the hallway to indicate all the bodies.

  “Jacques Savatier, executive at a local computer firm. This is his apartment. Leslie Desroches, jewelry designer at J. Morgan, Geraldine Parker, employment unknown, and Alysia Capozzi, housewife.”

  “Capozzi?” Gerard’s head whipped around.

  “Yes,” I said, “the short woman with long black-and-blonde hair. I believe she’s married to Benito’s son, but I can never remember his name.”

  Gerard rolled her eyes, then took a deep breath. “Only twenty more years to retirement,” she muttered to herself. Then she asked, “Any idea why someone wanted all these people dead? Or maybe I should ask, which one did someone want dead?”

  Wil and I looked at each other, and I gave a weak shrug.

  “No idea,” Wil said, “but this is Savatier’s apartment. We interviewed Savatier and Desroches in conjunction with the Morgan case. But neither of them was considered a suspect or someone with material evidence. They were simply a couple of the last people to see him alive.”

  “So, Savatier was the target, or at least a target, and these women were simply collateral damage?” Gerard said.

  I took the question as being rhetorical and didn’t try to answer.

  “Any idea what the relationship is between these women and Savatier?” Gerard asked next.

  Wil showed her the bag of diamonds. “I need to check this against the inventory we have from Morgan’s apartment and with his corporate inventories, but someone here was carrying it.” He turned to me, holding the bag up. “Libby, rough estimate?”

  “Assuming the label is accurate, between two-and-a-half and ten million credits, depending on how and where the gems are sold. If Desroches set the stones in jewelry, possibly a lot more over time.”

  I saw Gerard’s eyes widen, but only slightly. The woman would be formidable at a poker table.

  “Do you think this bombing is connected to Morgan’s murder? Or to your investigation?” Gerard asked.

  “If so, the connections escape me,” Wil said. “But very little about his murder or this incident makes much sense.”

  Wil drove me back to my hotel. On the way, he asked me, “Do you think this was a corporate assassination?”

  “Not a chance. That was amateurish as hell. Number one, too many collateral deaths. There are a number of reasons for avoiding collateral damage, but no pro wants someone like Carmine Capozzi to be pissed off. Number two, that bomb was far more powerful than necessary. That indicates ignorance of how much explosive was needed to do the job. No, I don’t think this was a commissioned killing.”

  “Morgan’s murder didn’t fit a professional profile either,” Wil said.

  “You’re asking if they could be linked by the amateurish nature of the crimes?” I asked. “That doesn’t make any sense. A spear through the gut, a weapon of convenience, is a lot different than rigging up a bomb. Savatier’s killer might not have known much about explosives, but obviously he was able to rig it so that Savatier didn’t notice it.”

  “Suppose it wasn’t connected to the door. Suppose it was set off by someone standing at the end of the hall by the stairwell.”

  I thought about it. “Possible. Open the stairwell door, push a button, let the door close and head down the stairs. But I wouldn’t be shocked if your bomb-squad boys don’t find how it was detonated, considering the strength of the blast.”

  Chapter 12

  The Capozzi clan turned up in force at the police station that afternoon, and to her credit, Gerard called Wil in. Benito and David Capozzi, accompanied by a dozen thugs, filled the lobby when Wil and I arrived.

  As I understood it, the godfather was Carmine Capozzi, old and in ill health but still the power in the family. His elder son Benito was the one in charge, and Benito’s son David was being groomed as the future. David’s marriage to Alysia was supposed to cement an alliance between the strongest crime families in Toronto and Montreal.

  Benito Capozzi was in his fifties, fat, balding, and sweaty. He was also loud. I couldn’t imagine letting him touch me, but money had a way of overriding some people’s aversion to that sort of thing.

  “What are you doing about this?” he half-shouted at Gerard as Wil and I came into the station. “A bomb? Terrorists are setting off bombs in Montreal now? Is this the kind of protection we pay the police for?”

  David Capozzi stood to the side and behind his father, a stoic, long-suffering expression on his face. He was in his late twenties, taller than Benito, square-shouldered and athletic looking. His dark hair was slicked back and fell past his collar. Whereas Benito wore a poorly fitted business suit, David looked as though he had just come in from the golf course, wearing a polo shirt and khakis.

  “Mr. Capozzi?” Wil said, approaching David. “I’m Director Wilberforce of the Chamber. I’m sorry for your loss. I’d like to ask you some questions. I’m hoping you might help us find whoever was responsible for this terrible crime.”

  Both David and Benito gave Wil startled looks. Of course, every mobster on the continent knew who Wil was. Benito immediately tried to shoulder his way past his son.

  “What can we know about terrorists?” Benito asked.

  “That’s what we’re hoping to clarify,” Wil said. Turning to David, he said, “If you can please come this way.” Wil motioned toward a hallway.

  “Yes, the sooner you get started looking for the murderers the better,” Benito said, starting forward.

  Wil blocked his way. “I shall be wanting to speak with you, also, but right now I need to talk with the husband of the deceased. Alone.” He turned back to David. “This way, please.”

  Once we had David in a room alone, Wil introduced me and said, “Mr. Capozzi, who would want your wife dead?”

  “No one. Surely you don’t think this is about Alysia? She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Well,” Wil said, “that is possible. Do you know Jacques Savatier?”

  “Yes, we know him.”

  “In what capacity?”

  David shook his head. “Socially. Alysia and I attended a couple of his parties. We met him through Joseph Morgan.”

  “And how do you know Morgan?”

  David gave a bit of a shrug. “Socially. He throws a lot of parties. I see him out at some of the clubs sometimes. He gave me a good deal on a present for Alysia once. You know, we run into each other at various charity and Chamber events. What does this have to do with Alysia being killed? We were told there was a bombing. Terrorists.”

  “We don’t think it was a terrorist act,” Wil said. “The bomb was set at Jacques Savatier’s apartment. In addition to him and Alysia, a woman named Geraldine Parker and another woman named Leslie Desroches were also killed. Did you know either of them?”

  David was very nonchalant at hearing the other women’s names. Either he had already heard they were dead, or they meant nothing to him.

  “Sure, Gerry is a friend of my dad. I might have met the other woman, but I can’t say I know her.”

  Wil questioned him for another half an hour without learning anything that could help us.

  When David left, Wil asked, “What do you think?”

  “Doesn’t seem terribly upset that his wife died. Doesn’t even seem very curious as to why.”

  “My feelings exactly.” Wil stood and stretched. “Shall we have a shot at Benito?”

  Wil took a different tack with David’s father, making it clear he thought the bombing was a mob hit and trying to dislodge any information concerning Benito’s relationship with Savatier.

  “Well?” Wil asked when he finally let the older
mobster go.

  “He’s a lot more upset about Geraldine Parker than his son is about Alysia,” I said. “And I actually believe him when he says he didn’t know Savatier. But did you notice his reaction that one time when you mentioned Morgan? He definitely knew Morgan, and Morgan’s death spooks him a little.”

  After returning to the hotel, I spoke with several of Entertaincorp’s corporate security guys and learned that Alysia had a bit of a wild reputation. One guy told me she was a regular at Le Sommet—without her husband. Contributing to that were rumors that David Capozzi was gay, which provided some explanation as to why Alysia was childless after six years of marriage. Mob families tended to view wives the same way corporate society did—as baby factories. None of that was relevant to finding the bomber. The Capozzis would pull out all the stops to identify and punish someone who killed one of their own.

  That evening, I found myself sitting three tables away from Sonia Morgan at Le Sommet. The man escorting her was older, probably in his sixties, wearing a very expensive suit, and showing no qualms about ordering expensive French champagne and pate. He was balding, with gray hair and a full beard. A port-wine birthmark showed above the beard, covering his left cheekbone and curving around his eye onto his forehead.

  As I was mulling all that had happened that day and listening to Nellie sing, I saw a good-looking young man stop at Sonia’s table. Although I couldn’t hear the conversation, the young man’s angry expression gave me an idea of what was being said as Sonia’s smile faded and I could tell she was growing angry. Then the guy reached down, grabbed her by the arm, and pulled her up out of her seat.

  Even as Sonia’s companion tried to stand, alarm evident in his expression, Sonia balled her fist and punched her attacker in the chest. He folded like a cheap tent and fell backwards to the floor. He flopped and writhed around a little bit, finally curling up in a fetal position. I thought that was very interesting, seeing that Sonia was half his size.

  A couple of bouncers immediately pounced on the guy lying on the ground, then they seemed to express some alarm and called for an ambulance. By the time the paramedics arrived, checked the guy over, and hauled him away half an hour later, Sonia and her escort had long departed the scene.

  “What’s wrong with him?” I asked one of the paramedics as they were leaving.

  “His chest is partially caved in,” the paramedic said. “I think his sternum is cracked, probably some cartilage damage, but we need an x-ray to tell for sure. He has an arrhythmia consistent with a bruised heart. What happened to him, anyway? Did he fall on something real hard?”

  “Yeah, I guess you could say that.”

  I watched them haul the guy out, then rejoined Nellie and Tom at our table.

  “What did the medics say?” Nellie asked.

  “Said the guy looked like he was hit in the chest with a sledge hammer.”

  Tom looked surprised. “No kidding? I thought you said that little blonde broad punched him.”

  “That’s what happened. I didn’t see anything in her hand.”

  “Mutie,” Tom declared.

  “Yeah,” I said, “that was my thought. She didn’t look that strong, though.”

  Usually an over-muscled mutie stood out. Of course, there was a wide range of phenotypes and behaviors attributed to mutations. With the depletion of the ozone layer in the atmosphere, all the radiation from the wars, and the chemical pollutants in the air and water, a particular trait could be a true mutation, a genetic break, or a congenital condition.

  Then there were the descendants of the genetic experiments in the late twenty-first and early twenty-second centuries. Vampires, more technically called sanguinarians or hematophages, were a result of scientists playing with some mutants’ DNA. The same thing with lycanthropes and the mer people of the Pacific Ocean.

  I had no idea whether my particular issues with electricity and my chameleon talent came from natural mutations, or some madman in a lab somewhere. I did know the electrical talent or problem was hereditary. Thanks, Mom.

  I also knew that if I punched that guy in the chest the way Sonia did, he wouldn’t have fallen down and tried to die.

  Wil called me the following morning, less than an hour after we had finished breakfast and I kissed him goodbye.

  “Libby, we have another one.”

  “Another what?”

  “Murder. One of Morgan’s friends, Pau Ricard.” He gave me an address that wasn’t Ricard’s restaurant and was a long walk from the nearest metro station. Rain and fifty-mile-per-hour winds convinced me to call an autotaxi.

  Ricard’s house was a small bungalow in what looked like a nice neighborhood of similar homes. The cops and crime tape around the place made it easy to identify. The map told me we were less than two miles from the duplex shared by Leslie and Eileen Desroches.

  I showed my Chamber ID to get past the cops, and Wil met me at the front door.

  “Ricard and a half-lycan woman,” he said. “We identified her as Eileen Desroches.”

  He led me through a neat sitting room. I could see a kitchen beyond. Ricard and Eileen were in the bedroom. They lay nude on the bed, partially covered by a sheet, and both had been shot. Something was weird about one of Eileen’s hands, but I didn’t get close enough to figure out what. Other than the bloody bed and the victims’ clothing strewn across the floor, it didn’t appear that anything was out of order.

  “Was the place tossed? Any of the rooms messed up?” I asked.

  Wil shook his head. “I don’t know if Ricard was super neat, or he had a housekeeper, but to all appearances, nothing was disturbed.”

  I picked up Eileen’s purse sitting on a nightstand next to the bed and looked inside.

  “I don’t think robbery was the motive,” I said, holding up an emerald and gold ring with a ten-carat stone.

  Wil whistled. “Wow. Is that thing real?”

  “Yeah, and worth a lot more than a simple roll in the hay. Probably worth half a year’s revenue at his restaurant. I wonder why she was carrying it.”

  “Her sister was a jeweler,” Wil said. “Come in here,” he beckoned me into the walk-in closet. In the back was a small wall safe with its door open. I looked inside, and it was empty.

  “Maybe the motive was robbery,” Wil said.

  It suddenly struck me that with both Leslie and Eileen dead, my statue was sitting in their house unprotected. I bolted out of the closet and took a good look at Eileen’s left hand. Her thumb had been cut off.

  “Wil, I need you to take me over to the Desroches’s house. Now.”

  We rushed through the storm to Wil’s car. I jumped into it and thought I caught sight of a familiar face as the scene was illuminated by a lightning flash. Wil started the motor and turned on the headlights, but when they swung in that direction, the face I thought I had seen was gone. I chalked it up to my imagination playing tricks. Why would David Capozzi be out at Ricard’s house in that weather?

  The grand majority of the world’s population worked for large corporations, which provided housing with electricity, safe running water, maintained streets, and police and fire protection. Everyone else was on their own for those simple amenities of civilization. In Toronto, I paid a neighborhood association to contract such services for me. Considering the state of their neighborhoods, I assumed Ricard and Leslie Desroches did the same.

  We arrived at the Desroches’s duplex at about the same time the cops did. Someone had battered down the door of Leslie’s workshop, and the audible alarm was screaming.

  Leaving Wil to deal with the cops, I leaped out of the car and sprinted toward the duplex. Passing through the doorway, I immediately looked for my statue and saw it sitting on the table. I breathed a sigh of relief, and then something heavy hit me on the head, and the lights went out.

  “Libby?” Wil’s voice sounded very far away.

  I struggled to open my eyes, and when I did, I saw two Wils. That was very disconcerting, and my treacherous mind fla
shed an image of me in bed with two Wils. I closed my eyes.

  “You don’t have a twin brother, do you?” I mumbled.

  “Huh? No. Libby? Are you all right?”

  I opened my eyes again, and the two images merged into one, leaning over me. I sat up, my head spinning, but everything around me was coming back into proper focus.

  “Yeah, I’m okay.”

  I looked over at the table. The empty table. The statue was gone. The back door stood wide open. And my head hurt like crazy.

  “What in the hell did he hit me with? Did you catch him?” I asked as Wil helped me to my feet.

  “No, we didn’t catch her,” he said. “I have men out scouring the neighborhood, but so far, no luck.”

  “Her? Are you sure? How long was I out?”

  “About a minute. Yeah, short, wearing a hoodie, so I couldn’t see her face, but I’m pretty sure that was a woman’s ass I saw disappear through that door.”

  Not willing to argue his expertise in evaluating women’s buttocks, I surveyed the place. My statue was gone, as were several other finished pieces of jewelry I had seen on my previous visit. No way to know if the thief took them, or Leslie put them somewhere else. A tray of gemstones I had seen on her workbench was empty, and a woman’s bloody thumb lay on the floor. I was willing to bet that the thief threatened Eileen for the alarm code, then killed her anyway and cut off her thumb. It didn’t do her any good, since the alarm also needed a retinal scan. So, our thief used a little brute force to open the door.

  “What kind of odds will you give me that the thief killed both sisters?” I asked.

  “I know you think I’m slow sometimes,” Wil said, shaking his head, “but I’m not fool enough to take that bet. I’m even willing to go out on a limb and suggest the thief might have killed Morgan.”

  We looked around the place, and I wracked my brain to try and recall what I had seen on my previous visit. The statuette had dominated my attention, and most of the details I looked at were things I hadn’t noticed before.