Faye Kellerman - Blindman’s Bluff

“It’s pretty astounding.”

“He is evil.”

“But…”

Decker took another sip of his wine. “Why do you think there’s a but?”

“You just have that look in your eyes…that you’re about to offer excuses.”

“I would never offer excuses for a man who executed six people and tried to kill me because I was involved in the case. They make very good lamb. If you want it, I’ll be happy to share my steak with you.”

“Great,” Rina said. “Let’s order a side of French fries.”

“Don’t do that. You take two and I eat the rest.”

“So control yourself.”

“I have no control.”

“So I’ll occupy your mouth with conversation so you won’t be tempted to overeat.”

Decker said, “And how are you going to do that?”

“I want your opinion of Mace Kaffey. Why did he do it?”

“I don’t think we’ll ever know, and my opinion isn’t worth anything.”

“It’s worth something to me,” Rina said.

Decker looked in the breadbasket, then pushed it away. “Why don’t you tell me your opinion. You followed the trial as closely as I did. And you have great insights.”

“Thank you.” Rina took a sip of her pinot noir. “But you have insider’s trading info.”

“You go first,” Decker said.

Rina gave her words some thought. “You think of sibling rivalry-as old as the Bible. But it wasn’t that the two of them were arguing and Mace killed Guy in a fit of passion like Cain and Abel. The murders were well-planned executions. Still, I don’t think Mace woke up one morning and decided his only solution was to kill his family. I think it was a gradual process.”

“I agree.”

“I think it was a confluence of things that led Mace to do what he did. First off, Mace took all of the blame when Kaffey was on a downswing. When the lawsuit was settled, Guy came away with a lot more than Mace.”

Decker said, “Mace was stripped of his board position, had his shares in the company taken away, and had his income reduced by half. But he was still making a hell of a lot of money.”

“Not what he was used to making,” Rina said. “We saw what happened during the trough of the recession. How the big three automakers flew to Washington on their private jets asking for billions of dollars. It’s hard to get used to a reduced lifestyle.”

Decker nodded.

Rina said, “I think Mace moved back east to prove himself with this Greenridge Project. But when the economy tanked and the project went way over budget, Mace saw his dreams of redemption being flushed down the toilet. It was pretty clear that Guy was getting ready to pull the plug.”

“Grant was involved in Greenridge, too.”

“I know. But Guy would take care of his son. No such guarantees with his brother,” Rina said. “So there goes Mace’s income and his moment of glory. His world was about to come crashing down, and he blamed Guy for everything. I think he was out to get Guy. Gilliam and Gil and the help were probably collateral damage.”

“Hmm, I’m not so sure about that,” Decker said. “I think Mace waited for a day when Gilliam, Gil, and Guy were all under one roof. Gilliam, had she lived, would have inherited a big share of Kaffey Industries. With her gone, the remaining shares would go to the boys. With Gil gone, all the shares would go to Grant. There was no way that Grant could handle the Kaffey Industries-East Coast and West Coast-by himself. Besides, Mace got along with Grant.

“I think Mace was hoping that Grant would give him the eastern division, including the Greenridge Project, and that Grant would take over the west where most of the business was.”

Rina said, “Also, I suppose with Grant alive, there’d be less focus on Mace because Grant would inherit everything.”

“You better believe it,” Decker said. “We really didn’t know who to focus on at first. Had Mace been the only man left standing, he would have been our best suspect.”

Their waiter approached. His name was Vlad and he was over six seven with black hair, blue eyes, and mouth as wide as a canyon. After he took their order, he refilled Decker’s wineglass.

“On the house,” Vlad said. “Besides, we’re at the end of the bottle.”

Decker smiled. “I’m happy to take the dregs off you.”

“What about you?” Vlad said to Rina.

“I’m fine with my one glass.” After the waiter left, Rina said, “I do have a couple of questions about the case.”

“If it’s only a couple of questions, you’re clearer than I am on it.”

“Did Mace arrange for himself to be shot?”

“I think he arranged for himself to be shot at,” Decker said. “The intended target was probably Gil, to finish off what the gangbangers had messed up at the ranch.”

“Then why did someone shoot at Grant, you, and Cindy?”

“That remains a mystery. In my mind, Grant being alive was Mace’s best excuse.” He gave the question some thought. “I will say this from a professional point of view. With all of the Kaffeys being wounded or dead, we were stumped. There was no one person who we could point a finger at. We really did begin to think of maybe an outside crime-like a robbery.”

“Who actually shot at you?”

“I don’t know. None of the thugs owned up to that one.”

“Who do you think shot at you?”

“It wasn’t Alejandro Brand: he was already in jail. Joe Pine and Julio Davis were probably in Mexico, and Martin Cruces was probably the type to delegate. That leaves Gordo Cruz, Esteban Cruz, and Miguel Mendoza. I’d say Esteban because he seems to be the smartest.”

“Esteban Cruz never confessed to doing anything.”

“Yeah, he was the only gang member who was smart enough to lawyer up. The others said he was there, but we don’t have definitive forensics. We do have a couple of fibers, a hair that’s consistent with his hair. But that’s not a fingerprint or DNA. He’ll get time, but probably not life without parole.

That’s a shame. He seems smart…smarter…and you don’t want a smart evil guy on the streets.”

“Although according to Joe Pine, Esteban messed up on Harriman.”

“Maybe yes, maybe no.”

“And he messed up by not getting Gil Kaffey the first time.”

“No, that was Joe Pine who messed up. He ran out of bullets.”

“What a fiasco!”

“We may never figure all of it out, but we have enough to put the right guys behind bars.”

Rina sipped her wine. “Mace must have been crazy with hatred to slaughter his family like that. Surely he could have found another project. It might not have been Greenridge, but he could have found something. And he was making good money. It wasn’t as if Guy was going to boot him out of the business altogether.”

“We don’t know what Guy was planning to do.”

“No one heard Guy say that he was firing Mace.”

“No one heard Guy say that he was canceling Greenridge. But almost everyone in the company knew that it was a done deal, especially once the recession hit.”

“That’s true.”

The waiter brought over the entrées. “More wine?”

“Any more and I’ll be floating home,” Decker said.

“And that’s a bad thing because…”

“I drove.”

“So give the woman your keys.”

“I’m not allowed behind the wheel of his Porsche,” Rina said.

“That’s not true,” Decker protested. “Well, it’s sort of true.”

Rina smiled. “It’s okay. I just think of him as my handsome chauffeur.”

Vlad laughed. “How about you? Another glass?”

“Sure, give her a glass,” Decker said.

“Now I really won’t be able to drive.”

“That’s the idea,” Decker said.

Rina gave him a playful hit. “I’ll take another glass.”