Free Keepsake by Linda Barlow Page B

fingerprints, and other
     crap to fill an entire evidence room with little glass jars and paper bags. At the end of it, we got zip. This is one case
     that won’t be solved by physical evidence.”
    “And the gun hasn’t turned up, right?”
    “No. He probably used it then broke it down, took the pieces up to LA, and dumped ‘em into the ocean. We won’t find it. In
     these cases they either leave it on the scene—the untraceable ones of course—or they hide them. I suspect they go into the
     same black hole with odd socks that vanish in the dryer.”
    “You figure he picked up the piece in California?”
    “Couldn’t fly in with it, that’s for sure.”
    “On the other hand, maybe the doer is from California—they got hit men in LA.”
    “You’re absolutely right. He could be from anywhere, that’s the trouble.”
    “Maybe this case isn’t going to be solved at all.”
    “Yeah, it will. Somebody wanted Rina de Sevigny dead. And when I find out why, I’ll know who. The long-lost daughter’s the
     obvious suspect, of course. Especially now that she’s turned out to be Rina’s heiress.”
    “That reminds me,” said Carla, “is it true that you were a beneficiary, too?”
    “Yeah, she left me a painting. That was a surprise.”
    “I didn’t know you knew her that well.”
    “Jessie and I both knew her, during Jessie’s illness.”
    “Jeez, Boss, next the cops’ll be investigating you.”
    “Yeah, right.” Blackthorn brushed this aside. “Okay, I want to know everything there is to know about the Harrington woman—her
     business, her sex life, her friends, her life with her mother, assuming they ever had a life together. I’ve ordered Jonas
     to do one of his infamous computersearches on her. I want to know which side of the bed she sleeps on, her astrological sign, her blood type, her grades in
     high school, her first boyfriend, her last boyfriend, and what she had for lunch last Tuesday. Think you can handle that?”
    “Think you’re obsessing a bit?” Carla said dryly. “So we fucked up. It happens.”
    “Just do it, Murphy,” Blackthorn growled.
    Was he obsessing? he wondered as she left his office. Maybe, but it was important to get the details right.
    Briefly, he thought back over his years with the FBI. His father had been a New York City cop, and law enforcement had been
     what he’d always wanted to do—ever since childhood.
    Vietnam had almost changed that—he’d seen too much violence, too many horrors, and lost his clarity about the difference between
     the good guys and the bad. After Nam, he’d sometimes thought that the only thing he could do well was kill…
    That was when the drinking had started. It had only been bad for a few months before he’d realized that he could either sober
     up or watch his life go down the toilet. He’d chosen the former, graduated NYU with honors, joined the FBI.
    They’d been good years, and he’d been good at his job. But you had to be an organization man to advance far up the chain of
     command, and he was forever being called on the carpet for being too damn independent.
    It had been Jessie who’d convinced him to start World Systems Security.
    It had been a good move. But losing Jessie had been bad for business. He’d been unable to focus. He’d been overwrought, and
     he’d made some bad decisions, taken some unfortunate actions…
    Now he figured he only had one chance to put things right.
    Rina de Sevigny was dead.
    And anybody could have done it. A relative. A friend. A business associate. A religious fanatic. Someone who’d been helped
     by her program. Someone who’d been harmed by her program. Someone who believed Power Perspectives was essentially full of
     shit.
    Or Rina’s long-lost daughter.
    “I still can’t understand it,” April said. “It’s been twenty-eight years since I last saw my mother. Why would she leave her
     business to me?”
    Arthur Stanley shrugged. “She did not take me into her