6 - The Eye of the Virgin: Ike Schwartz Mystery 6 (14 page)

Chapter Twenty-eight

Charlie Garland dropped the phone into its cradle and tapped his foot on the side of his desk. The varnish had been worn away from the spot from years of similar tapping, and there was a noticeable dent in the desk’s surface where a portion of the institutional desk’s oak veneer had been worn away. He reviewed what Ike and Sam Ryder told him. He’d heard the small, very small, quaver in her voice when she denied knowing anything more. She was lying. What had she found? Ike had good people. And loyal as well. She’d tell Ike and Ike, in turn, would tell him. Maybe. He might hold out for a favor. What to do?

He could tell the Director. And as much as the Director admired Ike, he wouldn’t hesitate to send a squad of interrogators down to Picketsville and extract Ryder. Then, Ike would go off like a new bomb and there’d be hell to pay. He’d need a better strategy. A clerk knocked and entered to drop off a file he’d asked for. Wainwright’s as it happened. The clerk seemed very young to work here, he thought, and she left a scent behind. Lilac, but not the lilac his maiden aunt used to wear. It reminded him of Francine…that was long time ago. Can’t go there, need to focus. He picked up the phone again this time to call his contact at the NSA. Alternatives. Life was about the correct selection of alternatives.

He liked that. He would write it down.

Life is about the correct selection of alternatives
.

***

Ike set up twenty-four-seven surveillance on Louis Dakis’ house, making it clear that the cruiser should be parked out front and in plain sight. Then he called Frank and told him about the license plate number that the Phelpses might have for him. He asked him to call on them, get the number, and trace it if possible.

If Sam was able to put a name to the credit cards, and Frank to the plate, with any luck he’d have a name or names soon. Names and a direction to go.

His next call was to an old contact in the Mossad. He didn’t know if the contact was any good any more, and even if it were whether Shmuel would or could answer his questions. Worth a try. If Wainwright wandered into their territory, Shmuel’s friends would know. An answering machine took the call. He expected that. The time difference would have his old friend at home and asleep. That is, if Shmuel ever slept. Ike had his doubts. He hesitated a moment and finally asked Shmuel to call him back and left a cell phone number. He scooped up the two pictures and headed back to the Dogwood Motel. Things were beginning to get interesting.

Harvey was in exactly the same place he’d left him two hours earlier. Only the pile of ashes in the ashtray was deeper and three more empties cluttered the counter. Ike noted the evidence techs had arrived and were busy in the two rooms at the far end of the motel. He would check with them later.

“Harvey, I have another picture for you to eyeball.” He slid the photo of Wainwright across the counter.

“That’s him. That’s the guy with the funny name, you know—wait a minute, I’ll get it.”

“Kolb, you said.”

“Yes, Kolb, that’s the guy. Tough sumavagun. At least that’s what I thought. You know he had them hard flinty eyes like you see on the bad guys on the TV. Not much of a picture, though.”

“Thanks, Harvey. You’ve been most helpful.”

“When are those people going to be done with my rooms? I gotta business to run here.”

“Harvey, those rooms stood empty and not cleaned for nearly a week. What are the chances you’re going to need them anytime soon.”

“Shoot, you never know. A bus could pull in here any minute and then where’d I be?”

“Again, what are the chances? You want busses to stop. See if you can persuade the AAA to star your motel. Before you do that, you might want to fix up this place first. God only knows what the Health Department would say about your plumbing. In the meantime, relax. They’ll be done when they’re done. If I’m right, you have a murder scene here, Harvey, so get used to the inconvenience.”

Ike phoned Sam. “Sam, another thing, did you happen to pull our friend’s fingerprints when you were snooping?”

“I wasn’t snooping, I was following orders.”

Ike chuckled. “You’re a quick study, Sam. You stick with that when the goon squad from the CIA arrives, if it does. But you haven’t answered my question.”

“Am I in trouble if I did?”

“Not with me, but maybe with the Agency. Did you?”

“Get a set of prints? Um…well, I did. I don’t know why but with everything all mixed up around the shooting and the breaking and entering, well, I guess I thought why not.”

“You’ve got good instincts, Sam. I’m going to miss you.”

“Miss me? You know something I don’t?”

“No, but Karl and you can’t keep going on this way forever. One of you will have to bolt and I’m guessing it’ll be you.”

“I love my job.”

“I know. And you’re good at it, but…listen, put the fingerprints in a folder and bury them where nobody will think to look.”

“You think someone will come after them?”

“Maybe. Then, tell you what, you have files and whatnot downloaded on your hard drive, right? Leave it there. If they know you have the file they’ll want it. It would be best to let them find it, but first, make a copy on one of those stick whatchacallems and hide that.”

“USB Flash drive.”

“That’s the thing. And stay way away from the CIA.”

“You already told me that.”

“This time it’s for emphasis.” He hung up and sauntered down the row of rooms to the crime scene tape. He nodded at the lead tech and waved to Henry Sutherlin, who had an internship with them before entering the academy and ET school.

“What have you found for me?” he asked.

“Well, you called it, Sheriff. We have blood trace in one room. Not much, but enough to sample and type. It appears that an attempt was made to clean it up, but either they were in a hurry, were careless, or plain didn’t give a hoot. It’s still early. If this room was ever cleaned, it sure wasn’t lately, so fingerprints are all over it, dozens, some of them too old to lift. Is this a murder room?”

“It is.”

“Yeah, so the other room wasn’t wiped down either and we have a lot of prints in there, as well, maybe too many. We’ll process them and shoot over what we find.”

“I have some prints I’d like you to match if you can, the victim and one other set.”

“Sure send them over. We’ll have a look-see.”

“How about the dumpster?”

“Godawful mess. Found some towels and a torn shirt. Let you know about them, too.”

Ike watched for a few more minutes and then headed back to his office. He should have some new information by now.

***

Sam watched as her computer screen flashed. Files appeared and disappeared. Its cursor swept back and forth busily opening and closing files. It would have been a normal afternoon except her hands were not touching the key board. She had a hacker. The tables had been turned and she was the hackee. Cool. She pushed the on-off switch repeatedly but the intruder somehow overrode it and kept searching. Finally, whoever was at the other end of this operation found what it/he/she was looking for—the data she’d gleaned from the CIA—and opened it. There was a brief pause and then, in less than a second, the file was deleted. It continued to search then paused again, and inspected the computer’s logger, the record of her most recent actions. Sam held her breath. It passed on, sampled her back-up files and then the screen went blank and the machine shut down with a whir and a click.

“Wow,” she muttered. “Those guys are good.” She clutched the flash drive in her hand. “But you have to get up early in the morning to nail this nerd.”

Before she’d copied the files, she’d disabled the logger. She’d copied the data to a flash drive, then shut down and rebooted and enabled the logger again. Its record would be seamless if anyone were to look. Apparently, someone had.

***

The car had been parked a block farther down the street from Dakis’ house. Amos had noticed it, jotted down its license number, and put it in his report. It would only be important if he could make a connection between it and Dakis. He couldn’t. At least not until it pulled away from the curb and followed Dakis when he left the house in the afternoon. Amos left a message for Ike with Essie.

Chapter Twenty-nine

Louis Dakis arrived at the sheriff’s office after three. He’d made a stop beforehand at the church, and delivered the first of his two newly created icons to the Reverend Fisher. The clergyman seemed very pleased with it, his wife, less so. She mentioned, by way of explanation, that she was raised a Methodist. He supposed that meant something to her. Not to him, however. He waited until the icon had been installed temporarily on a stand on the left-hand side of the church, the Gospel side, the Reverend Fisher had insisted, and left. He did not notice the car that had followed him to the church and then to the sheriff’s office. Even if he had been suspicious, the fact that the car continued south on Main Street when he turned into the town parking lot would have allayed any thoughts he might have had about it.

What he did notice was a familiar looking Volvo pulled up to the side when he’d turned in, but its full significance wasn’t apparent until he walked in the door. Lorraine glared at him as he entered.

“You bastard, you killed him.” Lorraine Dakis launched herself from her chair and charged across the room, hands high and, he supposed, nails at the ready to claw out his eyes.

“Killed who? What are you talking about?”

“Don’t play stupid with me. Franco came here to retrieve the Virgin of Tenderness that I bought in Egypt and you…what? You argued and you killed him. Sheriff, this man killed Franco Sacci. Arrest him.”

“I might do that,” Ike said, “But not right now. There are some things that need clearing up first.”

“Like what?”

“Well, like how he managed to put Sacci’s body in the urgent care waiting room without anyone seeing him. Like how he managed to do that in the presence of two or three other men at the Dogwood Motel. There are a few other problems with this, but you get the picture.”

Dakis had listened to Lorraine and then Ike. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on? Franco Sacci is dead?”

“What other men?” Lorraine said. “He had help?”

“I don’t think so,” Ike waved Frank Sutherlin and the two of them into his office. “You two take a seat and we’ll sort this business out eventually. Frank, do you have some names for me?”

Frank deposited a slip of paper on Ike’s desk and positioned himself in the corner where he could monitor the two Dakises.

“Now, Mrs. Dakis, why would your husband want to kill Sacci?

“Estranged…not husband anymore.”

“Sorry to hear that. Estranged husband, then, Why would he want to do in Franco Sacci?”

“Isn’t that obvious? We were getting a divorce. Louis didn’t like that. He was jealous. He was trying to ruin my business. He was—”

“Our business, Lorraine. No matter what was going on between us, between you and the creep, it was and for the time being remains
our
business.”

“We, Franco and I, planned to buy you out.”

“And I told you my half wasn’t for sale even if you could raise the purchase price, which you can’t.” Louis Dakis leaned forward and addressed Ike. “You see how it is. She will accuse me of anything. This Sacci guy was like having termites in the basement. Left alone, the whole business would have collapsed. I didn’t want that. There’s a right way and a wrong way to take a business down. They,” he jerked his head in Lorraine’s direction, “would have ruined it.”

“We would not. You see, Sheriff, he’s insanely jealous. For years I’m like a doormat and then, when I do something about me, he goes nuts. Besides, who else could have any reason to kill Franco?”

Ike picked up the paper Frank had placed on his desk and studied it. Lorraine Dakis opened her mouth to speak again but Ike silenced her with a raised hand. He reached for his telephone, grumbled something about buttons, selected and punched one of them on the phone’s base and picked up.

“Sam, what did you get on the credit cards?” He listened and then made a check mark on the same piece of paper. “Thanks. If he hasn’t left yet, why don’t you slip home and say goodbye to Karl.” He turned his attention back to the couple.

“To answer your question, Mrs. Dakis, the list of possible killers is as follows: Avriam Kolb; two other men, to wit, Sandor Brown and Paul Wentz; and a possible third who calls himself Bob Smith. I wouldn’t hold out much hope on the last one. It’s a phony and belongs to either Brown or Wentz, or to yet another party we don’t know about who could be complicit but not present.”

Lorraine Dakis sat with her mouth open. Then, something approaching comprehension crossed her face. She wheeled on her husband. “You hired thugs to kill Franco. You couldn’t do it yourself and so—”

Ike held up his hand. “Not likely, Mrs. Dakis. Possible, but not likely. There are things at play here we do not yet understand, but I think for the nonce your husband, irrespective of how he might have felt about Sacci and how much you might wish it to be so, did not have anything to do with his death. We might have to revisit that later, Mr. Dakis, but for now I think you are in the clear. I want some information about your gun collection and may want to see it in the future. Now, what can you both tell me about this icon?” Ike held up The Virgin of Tenderness
.

The two of them began to speak at once. Louis Dakis cut his wife a look. Thin-lipped, she nodded to Dakis.

“We were lucky with that one. I had a contact in Cairo who heard it was coming on the market and e-mailed me the catalog from the sale. Lorraine was in Rome at the time, and she hopped on a plane, flew over to Egypt, and scooped it up before the catalog was widely circulated. It was a coup, I can tell you.”

“Did you have a buyer or one in mind?”

“No, but an icon of this quality will sell quickly. There’s no doubt about it.”

“I’ve had several inquiries in the last week,” she said, and scowled at her husband. “I could have sold it a couple of times over, except he,” she pointed at Louis, “took it with him when he ran off to this jerkwater town.”

“We think it’s a very nice town. The only real problem we seem to have here has to do with strangers coming in and getting themselves murdered. It could be worse. We could be losing locals, but so far we’ve been lucky that way. Tell me, do you have any idea why someone would want to steal it, Mrs. Dakis?”

“It’s very valuable. Why wouldn’t they?”

“So how does Sacci fit into the picture?”

Louis hung his head and glowered at his wife. “Sometime before she was due to return to the states, that guy showed up and…”

“We weren’t getting along all that well, Louis and I,” she said, “he was always working or at the shop doing this and that. We never…Well, you don’t need to hear all this, but then Franco showed up and I don’t know, I…I don’t know…”

“Swept you off your feet?”

“It’s a terrible cliché, but, yes, maybe you could say that.”

“How well did you know him before you were ‘swept,’ would you say?”

“Not very, but, well you know about those things instinctively, don’t you? I mean things clicked, and, you know how those things happen.”

“It’s possible. You vouched for him to obtain a visa, is that right?”

“Yes. What has this to do with his murder? Since you insist that he,” she wagged her finger at her husband again, “didn’t have anything to do with it, have you made any progress? I mean who else would want to?”

“Well, we’re not sure about that yet, but we have some ideas. But back to Franco Sacci. Were you aware his real name was Farouk Zaki?”

“What? No. That’s not possible. I saw his passport. I had to if I wanted to obtain the visa. His name was Franco Sacci. He’s Italian, born in Milan and—”

“His name was Farouk Zaki. He was born in a small village in the Sinai near Gaza. His father was killed in the Six Days War and he has been connected to groups that are suspected of or associated with international terrorism. He was on the Homeland Security watch list. Your sponsorship provided the only way he was ever going to enter the country.”

“No!”

“Sorry, but yes. Now I have to ask you again, how well did you know this man? Were you in on his plan to slip into the country and if so, why?”

“In on, I don’t…You’re saying I was used? I don’t believe you. This is a mistake. His plan to slip into the country? What does that mean?”

“Mrs. Dakis, I know all of this is upsetting but this is important. Did you two enter the country, the US, together?”

“No. He had some mix-up with his visa or something. He flew in a week after I did.”

“But you brought in the icon, I assume. Did you have any difficulty?”

“The icon? No…well, the usual . . I had to show the bill of sale and so on. Egypt, like so many Middle Eastern countries, is pretty careful about their antiquities. But this icon was originally from Russia, so they had no problem with letting it go. I’ve done this many times before and they know me by now.”

“So, let me venture a guess, your husband was aware of your intention to split up before you arrived. Is that correct Mr. Dakis?”

“Yes, but I don’t see what this has to do with anything.”

“Possibly it is immaterial. How long after your wife arrived did you remove the icon from the store, Mr. Dakis?”

“Oh, a day or so, I think. Yes, two days later. She said she didn’t want me to…well, I don’t trust the legal system and so I took what I considered half of the assets. Not half of the stock but enough pieces to make up for my half in terms of monetary value.”

“He took all the pieces worth anything.”

“I see. And when Sacci arrived, how did he react to the icon having been taken?”

“Same as me, Sheriff. He was furious.”

“About them all or this one in particular?’

Lorraine’s lower lip began to tremble. “I don’t know what you’re implying.”

“Leave her be,” Louis said and patted Lorraine’s arm. “She didn’t know. No one did. Besides, what has this to do with us?”

***

The two men sat in the parked car three blocks from the Town Center Building, home to Picketsville’s municipal government, the Sheriff’s Office and sundry other governmental services. The driver kept the building in sight in his rear view mirror. He did not see Dakis enter the building but was sure that he’d gone to the police. What now?

“He took a flat package into that church.” His companion said. “If the icon wasn’t in his house, do you think he might have sold it to the priest?”

“But he just now took it in. If he sold it to the priest, what was he doing now?”

“They put them up in pairs, I think. At least that is what I saw in the last church job we did. They put a picture of the woman and baby on one side and the Jesus figure on the other, Sometimes there are more, I think, saints and so on. This might have been the Jesus one.”

“We will need to go back to that church and see.” He put the car in gear and drove off. “Tonight.”