Municipal Blondes
27
Homesick
I’M NOT SURE WHERE I AM. I woke up about seven and we’re still on the train. I know we changed trains someplace in Switzerland last night, so I suppose we’re in France. Angel said she booked us home from Amsterdam. Home. That’s all I care about right now. I just want to go curl up in my very own bed and sleep for about a month.
Christmas gifts
We rolled into Paris about nine to change trains to Amsterdam. I’m glad I’m traveling with Angel. She knows where everything is and where to get the best shopping deals on Christmas morning. She’s been really down. I understand… well, as much as I can. She killed Ray Hawkins.
I can’t even begin to say how thankful I am. That’s twice in two months I’ve stared down the barrel of a gun. That’s twice too often.
I wanted to get something for Angel but had no idea what. The girl either has or could get anything she wanted. The shops here sell everything from Givenchy to Valhrona. I decided to keep it simple. Then we headed for the Eurostar to Amsterdam.
We got a decent connection a Schiphol Airport. I sent a text to Jordan on the train. Short and sweet. “Jordan. I’m coming home. Hawkins lost at sea. Angel with me. Simon presumed safe. WTF with Gilliam?”
I haven’t heard back, not that I expect much.
The Eurostar is fast but not all that comfortable. The motion affected me worse than the boat in rough water across the Adriatic. Maybe I just had too much adrenalin pumping on the boat to notice. I managed to hold my bread and cheese and complimentary glass of champagne down.
“Merry Christmas, Angel,” I said, handing her the hastily purchased and wrapped gift. Her eyes lit up. I guess that’s the real secret. She can buy almost anything she wants but she likes to be spoiled. Any gift is exciting. She unwrapped the black silk scarf. It has a pattern of interlinked hands embroidered around the edge in scarlet. It’s clear they are all women’s hands.
“This is lovely, Deb,” she said. “I love it.”
“We blondes gotta stick together,” I said. She looked a little strangely at me. Yeah, it’s just a wig. Then she surprised me by handing me a package as well. I unwrapped the present and almost cried. It was a turban wrap like we’d seen many women wearing in Europe. It’s a beautiful dark blue with silver piping. If I wanted to, I could probably wear it out without wearing a wig. We haven’t talked much about it but Angel figured out that when I dressed as a bald man, I was really bald.
“I don’t know about you,” she said, “but a lot of times I don’t want to bother getting my hair all fixed just to go out for coffee. These turbans are so stylish and no one can tell if you’ve washed your hair and spent an hour drying it or if you just shaved it all off.”
“Thank you, Angel,” I said.
“Hey,” she answered, “we blondes gotta stick together.”
I stopped at Duty Free to pick up a gift for Cinnamon. Simple. I don’t want her to get any inappropriate ideas. I don’t think. Text from Jordan said, “Good work. I’ll meet you at the airport.” Hmm. Maybe I should get him a gift, too.
I called Cinnamon just before flight time. It’s a nine-hour time change, so only seven thirty in the morning there.
“Merry Christmas!” I said when she answered.
“Not unless you’re coming home,” she said. “I don’t have anyone to celebrate with.”
“Angel and I are both on our way. Can you stand having us all together?”
“As long as we’re not going to the Condo. Maybe I can get Teri to come over, too. It will be like we started the month,” she said.
“Right. You can all pay me the bets you owe me.”
“We’ll have dinner at your apartment,” she said. “I’ll take care of everything. Do you want me to meet you at the airport? I’ve got this classy Mustang polished and ready to roll.”
“I’ve got a ride,” I said. “You should plan on a couple more for dinner, which means we’ll need to eat with plates on our laps. Is anything open where you can get food? We could just order Chinese.”
“Leave it to me, Sugar,” she said. “Your dog will be here, too. She hasn’t left me alone for the past four days.”
“You have Maizie?” I exclaimed. “How’s my baby doing?”
“Oh, we get along just fine. She’s staked out her own space in the office and I went to Petco and bought her a new bed. She loves it. Mrs. Prior dropped her off Friday and said, ‘Maizie is too concerned about Deb to stay with me. She wants to be here when Deb gets home.’ Mrs. Prior is a hoot.”
“If Maizie starts talking to you, too, I want to know about it,” I laughed. “God, I’m looking forward to being home. I think this case is wrapped up.”
“Um… Don’t count on that, Sugar. I can’t tell what’s happening but something is up. There was a little article in Saturday’s paper that says Belize authorities detained an American citizen on drug charges. Reportedly from the Seattle area. Federal agents indicate they have no records of the detainee and have dispatched an agent to meet with officials in Belize City. That’s all. It’s one of those short article things on the second page of the International News. It just stuck out when I read it because you were there. It might have something to do with the case.”
“You’re going to make a detective yet,” I said. “I’m betting it was meant for a very few important people to see. I’ve got to board now. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“See you soon, Sugar. Be safe.”
I’m going to like having Cinnamon around.
Surprise at SeaTac
I slept a lot of the flight home. We were treated like royalty in First Class. Or I guess it’s called Business Class. Feels like First Class to me. We had an on-time arrival, which Angel says means we got to SeaTac within an hour of when we were supposed to. Since we were in the front of the plane, we were the first ones to Passport Control.
That’s when everything started to fall apart. The agent looked hard at my passport and asked me some strange questions about where I’d been. I only had one stamp, indicating my arrival in the European Union. Well, officially, that’s the only place I’d been.
He motioned an officer over and I knew I was well and truly busted. A line of coach class passengers behind me was getting fidgety. Next thing I knew, I was being led away from Passport Control by a man in uniform with a gun who had a firm grip on my left arm with one hand and my passport with the other. I could hear the rhythmic clicking of Angel’s heels as she was escorted behind me.
We were put in separate rooms and the officer left, telling me to please wait quietly. I was surprised he left me with my rollaboard bag, containing my computer. I looked at my cellphone to see if I could text Jordan but there was no signal in the room.
After about ten minutes of fidgeting on the cold metal chair, the door opened again and Jordan Grant walked in. I should say, hobbled in. He had a cast on one leg and moved with a crutch.
“Jordan!” I said in relief. I started to get up but he held out a hand to stop me.
“Deborah H. Riley,” he said in a monotone. I was no longer relieved to see him. “What have we here? Fleeing an arrest warrant. False identity. Forgery, theft, computer crime, concealing negotiable currency, I can’t tell you how many penalties there are for possessing a false US Passport. What else can we add? Murder? Kidnapping?”
“Jordan! You know that’s not true. You’ve known where I was all along and what I was doing. You told me that guy was there to help me, not to kill me. You said I was doing a good job!”
“Shit, Deb. That’s why I’m here instead of letting Homeland Security intercept you. I swore out warrants for both you and Angel Woodward so we could intercept you when you got off the plane instead of letting Customs find whatever you might have in your baggage. I’ve got an officer collecting your luggage and as soon as he lets me know, we’ll get you two out of here. Until then, you’re under arrest.”
“Geez, Jordan,” I gasped. “You scared me.”
“As you should be scared,” he answered. “Both for the past and the future.”
“What do you mean?”
“The best I’ve been able to put things together, you found out about a warrant for your arrest that was never actually sworn out. The only place it was mentioned was in your office, so you must have a way of listening in to what happens there without being detected. You adopted a disguise and identity—a very good one, by the way—and hid out in a place you could hack into the customs and immigration control of half a dozen different countries. You assaulted a guard at a certain condo and threw him off a roof, fortunately into a hot tub. Davy, by the way, has decided security is not really his calling. Oh, and the forged documents leasing that condo. You used your false identity to get cash cards from a less than reputable source under investigation by FinCEN. You used a forged passport to enter another country where you apparently changed identities again. You trespassed on property you had no business being near, chased down a fugitive from FinCEN in Croatia, and evaded the help I sent for you. What the hell happened in the Adriatic where Simon Barnett and Angel Woodward escaped with known felon and suspected assassin, Ray Hawkins, I have no idea. But Simon entered Italy under one of his known aliases and disappeared. But lo and behold, Deb Riley was suddenly traveling in the company of Angel. Did I miss anything?”
“Yes, but it’s not worth mentioning,” I sighed. “That’s the past. Okay, I’m scared. What’s the future?”
“Eight angry executives want your head.” I groaned. That was just what I needed. With luck, Jordan would take me to prison.
“I thought you’d arrest them! I sent you all that evidence Simon provided.”
“Do you have any idea what would happen to the local, regional, and maybe national economy if I arrested executives from eight major corporations in Seattle and accused them all of fraud and embezzlement? Think what happened when the Enron execs were arrested. Multiply it by eight!”
“You’re not going to do anything? All that was wasted effort?”
“I didn’t say we weren’t doing anything. I said I couldn’t make arrests. We’re having one on one meetings with the Committee. Some of them are remarkably forthcoming about what they were doing, as if they couldn’t believe there was anything illegal about it.”
“That sounds like Reinholdt. He figures it’s his money and he can do what he wants with it.”
“Others are reluctant to tell tales out of school, as it were. They’re still looking for ways to cover their tracks.”
“Gilliam,” I supplied. “He was covering tracks all the way to Croatia.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised about that one. If you’d stayed put in either Belize or Croatia, he’d have gotten you to safety.”
“What?!” I couldn’t believe my ears. “That sadistic playboy?”
“A rich playboy sports team owner gets bored. Being approached to do undercover work for the government is a thrill. And we didn’t even have to pay his expenses. I arranged to have him take your friend Teri with him to Belize under the mistaken opinion she’d recognize you. Geoff had his suspicions when you came up with a bug at the dinner party but Teri confirmed them when she suddenly got sick and followed you to the boat. He was quite distraught when he discovered you’d both escaped. When we found out from Teri about you going with Ray Hawkins, you sent us into a panic. Thank you for at least using your own name and passport to fly from Mexico to Croatia. I got Geoff on a plane to intercept you.”
“My head’s spinning,” I said. There was a light rap on the door and it opened to a guy in a suit.
“We’re ready.” Jordan turned to me and fastened my left wrist to his right with handcuffs.
“Time to head for the car,” he said. I still pulled my bag while he used his other hand to manipulate his cane and bum leg. In the hall, another officer was leading Angel into a network of tunnels to an underground garage. Two cars were waiting. I was a little ticked that he didn’t let Angel and me ride together but he followed me into the back seat with the cuffs still in place.
Being cuffed wrist-to-wrist doesn’t leave a lot of options open as to where you can put your hands. I didn’t really think much of it when Jordan put his hand on mine. When we were out of the airport and on the highway, however, he leaned over and whispered to me.
“I was worried about you, Deb.” He squeezed my hand and unlocked the cuffs.
WTF?
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