Tail Spin

Laurel leaned forward on her desk, her hands fisted on the desktop. “Get out of here now!”

“I know why you’re trying to kill me. You’re afraid I’ll make Jimmy’s announcement for him. You’ve had three tries—three!—and yet here I am, standing in your office. Jimmy’s death was no accident, and you well know it. Just think about the reporters sleeping in your front yard, Mrs. Kostas, once everyone knows the truth.

“Enjoy this cold, soulless office while you can, ma’am, because you’re not going to be in here much longer.”

“What is going on here, Laurel? Julia told me the FBI was in your office. Oh, it’s you. What are you doing here, Ms. Janes?”

“She looks a bit red in the face, Quincy,” Stefanos Kostas said, stepping around his brother-in-law.

Jack and Rachael turned to see Quincy Abbott and Stefanos Kostas. Quincy was what Jack expected an Abbott to look like—very expensive Italian suit, black with very thin red stripes, a white shirt, a red tie. He was elegant, polished, and at that moment he looked more bewildered than angry. But there was one thing that was off—it was the toupee he wore. The color was perfect, but the style didn’t quite fit the shape of his head.

As for Kostas, Jack thought he looked like a dissipated playboy, a man who lived only for his own pleasure, for his own whims. He was handsome, Jack supposed, fit, well-dressed, but there was something off about him, too, and it wasn’t a toupee. He didn’t know at that moment what it was.

Rachael turned and said pleasantly, “Uncle Quincy, this is Special Agent Jackson Crowne. He’s here to find out what happened to my father and who tried to kill me last Friday night, Monday, and—goodness—yesterday, as well. But I’m sure you know all about that, don’t you?”

Quincy Abbott laughed, then looked sideways at his sister and said, “Sounds to me like a boyfriend gone nasty. Who have you been sleeping with?”

Rachael thought about her one-time fiancé from Richmond. What a fiasco that had been.

Stefanos waved his question away. “What’s this about killing you?”

Jack said pleasantly, “Perhaps you, sir, Mrs. Kostas, and Mr. Abbott could tell me where you were on Friday night.”

Quincy raised a brow. “I was at Mrs. Muriel Longworth’s welcome party for the new Italian ambassador. Stefanos, you came in later, as I recall.”

Stefanos nodded and looked at Rachael’s breasts.

“I will not dignify your question with a reply,” Laurel said.

Rachael said, “Uncle Quincy, Jimmy told you about killing that little girl.”

“Perhaps he did. I wasn’t much interested, to tell you the truth. Oh well, who cares now? The senator is dead and buried. I just wish he hadn’t left you our house. As for the stock, at least you don’t have enough to cause trouble.” He brightened. “You said someone is trying to kill you? Well then, have this FBI agent go find him and throw him in jail.” Quincy Abbott nodded to both of them, gave his sister a long look, turned on his designer heel, and left Laurel Kostas’s office.

Stefanos leaned against the door, arms across his chest, and said to his wife, “I’ve been shopping. Guido called me about this very lightweight wool I’m wearing. What do you think?” He looked at Rachael’s breasts again, knowing his wife was watching. If she’d been Laurel, she’d have shot him dead. But Laurel said nothing, didn’t appear to notice anything amiss.

The three of them, Rachael thought, didn’t appear to live on the same planet.

Rachael walked out, Jack right behind her.

Jack’s last memory of Laurel Abbott Kostas was of the cold, ripe malice in her eyes, her husband leaning against the door, like a beautifully suited lizard. He thought about Jukie Hayes, owner of a junkyard in Marlin, Kentucky, a good ole boy who visited neighboring towns. He killed people and buried them under ancient wrecks of cars, between stacked tires, stuffed inside car trunks. He told Jack he liked the smell of the decaying bodies. Jack still had nightmares about Jukie, and the stack of bones he’d uncovered beneath a tarp thrown over a dozen steering wheels. Odd that a wealthy Greek playboy would remind him of Jukie, but he did.

Both of them breathed in the sea air as they walked down Calvert Street to the Inner Harbor. Jack laughed. “She’s a terror, Rachael, scares the crap out of me. Quincy doesn’t like her, but he knows she has the power. Is he afraid of her? I wonder.”

“I need to take a shower,” Rachael said. “That Stefanos Kostas is a dreadful man. And she didn’t appear to even notice he was eyeing me.”

Jack stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, put his hands on her shoulders, and said, “You held it together. You went after her. That was well done. I’m proud of you.”

Rachael stood very still, aware of people moving around them, aware that she felt good about herself too, and pleased at what he’d said. “Thank you. You said Quincy is afraid of his sister. Why?”

Jack dropped his hands and he and Rachael moved back into rhythm with the crowds of tourists. “He’s smooth as silk, terrified someone won’t believe he’s God’s gift to the world, and weak. He’s not in his sister’s league. As for the toupee, nothing said is too much. This was only the first salvo, Rachael.”

Madonna’s voice blared out “Like a Virgin.”

Rachael’s eyebrow went up when Jack pulled out his cell. “Yeah?”

He listened. His hand tightened on the phone. He listened for a very long time.

When he slipped his cell back into his jacket pocket, he said, “That was Savich. The guy I shot in the shoulder yesterday in Gillette’s kitchen—the woman on the walkie-talkie called him Donley—they ID’ed him from a blood sample from the kitchen floor. His name is Everett, Donley Everett. Turns out he showed up in Clapperville, Virginia, went to a local doctor’s house and forced the doctor to treat him. He didn’t kill the guy, thank God. Evidently Donley thought the doctor lived alone, and so he left him bound and gagged in the basement. Turns out the doctor’s wife had been on a business trip. She arrived home an hour after Everett left. They called the police, who put out an APB on him.”

“What’s Donley Everett’s physical status?”

“The doctor said he was running a fever when he showed up, that if he’d had that bullet in his shoulder for another day or so without treatment, he might very well have died. Everett forced him to remove the bullet with only a local anesthetic, which he did. He told Savich the guy didn’t make a sound.