Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

sun rises. Same for Mandel Inc. Save your energy for a fight you can win.”
    “My stepfather owns Mandel Inc.”
    “There. That didn’t hurt, did it?”
    She gave Sam a look that could have blistered paint.
    He smiled thinly. “You’re not stupid, Ms. Chandler. Don’t act like it and I won’t act like you are.” He took a sip of his cooling coffee. “Lee Mandel, son of your stepfather and your mother…” He waited, silently asking a question.
    “Yes,” Kate said tightly. “He’s my brother. Half brother, actually, but Mom was helping Dad begin Mandel Inc., so I practically raised him. He was such a fun baby, always laughing and making sweet sounds.”
    “How old were you?”
    “Eight when he was born.”
    Sam nodded, trying to think of a gentle way to tell Kate that her sweet little half brother had grown up into something sour.
    To hell with it. There isn’t a kind and gentle way to say it.
    “From what I remember of the file,” Sam said, “Lee Mandel is believed to be living the high life in Aruba with his big-boobed blonde squeeze.”
    Kate’s face tightened until she looked like she felt—hard and angry. “So the FBI says. I don’t believe it. I know him. He wouldn’t do that to his family!”
    “Local law enforcement disagrees.”
    “Local law enforcement couldn’t find a clue unless it was in a box of doughnuts.”
    “Ouch. You’re really down on cops, aren’t you?”
    “For good reason.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “Why?” she asked bitterly. “They didn’t.”
    “They didn’t see you make a switch under a lecher’s twitching nose.”
    She laughed without meaning to. “It did twitch, didn’t it?”
    “Like a rabbit’s.”
    Her smiled faded. “Even if Lee has some issues with Dad—and what son doesn’t?—Lee and I are very close. He’d never just disappear without saying anything to me. He’d call or write or e-mail or—something.”
    “Has he?”
    “No.”
    “What do you think happened?”
    She closed her eyes and said in a raw voice what she really didn’t want to believe. “I’m afraid Lee’s dead.”
    “Robbery?”
    She nodded jerkily.
    “Then why was his rental car turned in at the airport?” Sam asked.
    “If the keys and the papers were in it, anybody could have turned it in instead of him. You’ve seen the lines of cars waiting to be checked in. Lots of people leave the keys and the rental contract, and run for their planes without the check-in drones ever seeing their face.”
    “Okay,” Sam said, watching her intently, “someone else could have turned in Lee’s rental. Why would they?”
    “To frame him and throw everyone off the trail. And it sure did the job. No one is really working on the case. Everyone believes Lee is a crook who got away with it. End of story.”
    Carefully, Sam took a sip of coffee. The stubborn look on Kate’s face was at odds with her tousled hair, but he didn’t doubt her determination. Tread carefully, boy, or you’ll blow every bit of the progress you’ve made.
    But tiptoeing around things was also a good way to blow a case. People revealed more when they were off balance than when they were relaxed.
    “Assuming a frame job and murder, where is Lee’s body?” Sam asked neutrally.
    “Have you ever been to Sanibel Island?” Kate asked. “It’s on the way to Captiva, one of Lee’s favorite places. If he stopped anywhere, he stopped there.”
    “I don’t know either island, but I’ve done time in Florida.”
    “Most of Sanibel is a mangrove wildlife preserve. It wouldn’t be hard to…” She gestured futilely.
    “Hide a body?” Sam finished.
    Kate flinched but didn’t disagree. “At low tide a lot of Sanibel is a maze of mangrove roots sticking up from the mudflats and branches coming down. It looks like small caves made of twisted wood. If someone anchored a…body out of sight, the crabs would take care of the rest. Or the alligators in the swamps. Or chain and weights wrapped around the body. Or…hell, you’re the federal cop. Fill in your own blanks.”
    “So, we have a returned rental car and a missing, possibly murdered, Mandel Inc. courier who was carrying something valuable and portable. Go on.”
    She grimaced. “There’s no place to go.”
    “How close were you and Lee?”
    “As close as siblings can get. Maybe closer. I really was more like a mother to him than a sister, especially when he became an obnoxious teenage male.”
    Sam hesitated, sipped coffee, and asked,