Rarities Unlimited 04 - The Color of Death

leaks in such a way that he didn’t go ballistic.
    Yeah. Sure. That would happen right after Sam ate coal and shit diamonds.
    “Her life has been threatened,” Sam said, keeping his voice calm and professional. “Given the murders that have taken place already, keeping her identity a secret was SOP.”
    “Standard operating procedure, my ass.” Kennedy scrounged in the desk drawer for his last cigarette.
    Doug picked up the lighter and waited. When his boss found the cigarette, the lighter would be ready. A small thing, but maybe it would take some of the fire out of Kennedy’s temper.
    The lighter clicked. Kennedy took a hard drag.
    “Just when were you going to tell me?” Kennedy asked sarcastically. “When the case was closed?”
    “I would have told Doug if and when I got a positive DNA match on the blood in the rental car trunk and Lee Mandel.”
    “What rental car?” Sizemore and Kennedy asked as one.
    “The one Lee Mandel drove from the airport and somebody else likely returned to the airport a day late.”
    “Why wasn’t I told about this?” Kennedy asked.
    “Because I won’t know it’s true unless and until I get a DNA match.”
    “If there was blood in the trunk of the rental car, it could have come from a badly wrapped pot roast,” Sizemore said with a shrug. “Big fucking deal.”
    “It wouldn’t be the first time,” Sam agreed. “That’s why I wanted to wait for the labs.”
    Doug took a cautious breath and began to think his career might survive. The help from Sizemore was unexpected, but in this business you took aid and comfort where you found it.
    Kennedy treated himself to another steadying drag on the cigarette. “Tell me what else you have.”
    “The trunk wasn’t forced,” Sam said. “If Mandel didn’t do the jobhimself, it was done by someone sophisticated enough to record the electronic key code and make a duplicate.”
    “So what?” Sizemore said. “How does that help us in Phoenix, where we have mutts popping trunks and shooting in the parking lot?”
    “The cowboy in the parking lot had a duplicate key that he’d already made,” Sam said. “He didn’t reach for the tire iron until he thought he’d made a bad key. If the courier hadn’t run back out, the cowboy might have pulled it off. He’s a real pro. Who’s to say that the same thing didn’t happen in Florida, except that Mandel was killed, stuffed in the trunk, and hauled off for swamp burial?”
    Sizemore grunted.
    Kennedy said, “What does this have to do with a gem-swapping con artist? Is she good for it?”
    “No,” Sam said quickly. “She’s the woman who cut the Seven Sins—seven very expensive sapphires—that Mandel was carrying when he disappeared. She didn’t believe he’d stolen them, so she’s been following the gem circuit, waiting for the goods to turn up. Purcell had one of them. She swapped it for a synthetic, took the real one home, and matched it with her working photographs. No doubt about it. Purcell had a stone that had last been seen with a missing courier. She swapped the stones again, because she’d never been trying to steal, just to identify what had already been stolen. I caught her after she’d replaced the original.”
    “How did Purcell get the stone?” Kennedy asked.
    Sam had to admit that the SSA had good investigative instincts. He understood linkage in a way Colton never would. “We’re checking that out right now.”
    “What do you have, right now ?”
    “A pawnshop in Little Miami, a blonde with big fake tits, and a pawnshop owner who swears he never touched the stone. Said owner has family in L.A. who would be able to put the stone in circulation.”
    Kennedy nodded. “Nail it down. And be sure to put everything—names, dates, witnesses—in a report with a copy to Ted. He’s real well connected in L.A. Might as well save the taxpayers some money.”
    “I’ll get on it as soon as I have the report,” Sizemore said.
    “Fake tits,” Kennedy said. “Is it some kind of drag queen? A courier laying a false trail?” He flipped quickly through the file. “Here the tits are again. And here.”
    “Mandel was supposed to have left for parts unknown with a blonde with big tits on one arm and the package under the other, right?” Sam asked Kennedy.
    Kennedy looked at Sizemore, who shrugged.
    Sam flipped through the Mandel file and pulled out the sheet he had highlighted. “According to this witness—whose name, by the way, seems to be