Cactus Heart - [24]
The room was dominated by a sleek boardroom table big enough to accommodate a minor-league hockey game. Then there was the Indian art, large, intricately carved kachinas. Luminous Acoma pottery on dark pedestals. Basketwork that looked old enough to be very pricey. And two walls of glass.
From up here, Phoenix looked like the exotic capital of an imagined land of sun and prosperity. Glittery towers, a sea of green treetops, the mountains bare and rough and purple-black, witnesses to their volcanic heritage. Maybe this was what Coronado was after when he roamed the Southwest in search of the Seven Cities of Cibola. Only he was four hundred years too early. I could easily see my house three blocks away on Cypress.
I broke out of my reverie when a tall man strode into the room and gave my hand a peremptory but solid handshake. He had his grandfather’s long nose and full head of hair, but his hair was the color of lead and his face was tan and handsomely lined more from sailing the Greek islands and golfing at Pebble Beach than from driving cattle to the High Country. I’d seen this face all my life, among the top donors profiled in the programs of the Phoenix Symphony and Herberger Theater Center, smiling like a desert lord from a decorating article in Phoenix Magazine, discussing a huge new development or copper mine in the business section of the Republic. It was the face of the West’s moneyed establishment. It wasn’t smiling.
“I’ve already talked to a policeman named Hawkins,” Max Yarnell said. “My brother and I agreed to help with this DNA fingerprinting. So I don’t really know how I can help you.”
His voice was Toastmasters, with a dash of executive-suite impatience. His athletic frame mirrored it: practiced and toned, but a little coiled, a little tense, packed nicely into a monogrammed French blue dress shirt, and a tie with a tight pattern of gold and blue that looked a little like deranged DNA. Maybe I had DNA on the mind. I told him my job for the Sheriff’s Office.
“I never did well in school,” he said. “And I never lived in the past. Quickest way to waste your life away.”
“I get that,” I said. “Do you remember anything about the kidnapping?”
Men who reach the heights of the Yarneco Tower are accustomed to giving quick orders and moving on. Short attention spans are as important as MBAs. And they expect their minions to get the shorthand, take the hint. I pulled out a chair and sat. He really focused on me for the first time, as if a lamp had talked back to him. His eyes were a fierce light blue. “I was five years old when that happened. How much do you remember from when you were five?”
Quite a lot, actually. But I just sat there silently.
“Andy and Woodrow were my brothers. We played together. Sometimes they drove me crazy. We fought over who got to sit in the front seat with dad. I’ve tried not to dwell on what happened.”
“You know we found them in a building that’s owned by Yarneco?”
He sighed and pulled out a chair, compressing himself into it. “Yarneco owns a lot of property,” he said. “Actually, no, I didn’t know that.”
“One of the things I’m trying to figure out is how they got into the tunnel in that old building.”
“Only the man who kidnapped them would know that.”
“There was never any speculation in the family about what happened?”
I could see the cords in his neck tighten, but his face and voice stayed calm. “What happened? What happened was that my father and grandfather died within a few years of that awful crime. My brother and I were raised by relatives back East. The family was nearly destroyed.”
“Do you remember the night your brothers disappeared, Thanksgiving night?”
“I already told you no. My brother James is older, so maybe he does.” He crossed his arms and bore those light blue eyes into me. “This is just an academic exercise for you.”
“Not at all,” I said. “I’m not trying to revive your pain. I am trying to wrap up an open kidnapping and homicide case, and there aren’t many people still living who can give the information I need.”
Whether that satisfied him or not, I don’t know. He stared at the doors, maybe wishing Megan would appear in her nicely cut powder-blue suit and elegant legs. Hell, I did, too. I asked, “Did your father carry a pocket watch?”
“No, he wore wristwatches.”
I showed him the photo of the pocket watch with the HY brand. “That’s grandfather’s brand,” he said. “But I’ve never seen that watch. What does it mean?”
“We found it with the remains.”
He shook his head a couple of millimeters. “What can any of this mean?” he said. “They caught the man and executed him. This is all history.”
“They caught a woman with him, too,” I said. “I talked to her yesterday.”
He sat back, stared out the window toward Camelback Mountain and gave the top of his right hand a savage scratching. Then he stopped and regarded me again.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Frances Richie is still in prison.”
He raised his hands as if to let the information slip through.
“She’s nearly senile,” I said. “She wasn’t much help.”
A handsome young New York professor comes to Phoenix to research his new book. But when he's brutally murdered, police connect him to one of the world's most deadly drug cartels. This shouldn't be a case for historian-turned-deputy David Mapstone – except the victim has been dating David's sister-in-law Robin and now she's a target, too. David's wife Lindsey is in Washington with an elite anti-cyber terror unit and she makes one demand of him: protect Robin.This won't be an easy job with the city police suspicious of Robin and trying to pressure her.
A cache of diamonds is stolen in Phoenix. The prime suspect is former Maricopa County Sheriff Mike Peralta, now a private investigator. Disappearing into Arizona's mountainous High Country, Peralta leaves his business partner and longtime friend David Mapstone with a stark choice. He can cooperate with the FBI, or strike out on his own to find Peralta and what really happened. Mapstone knows he can count on his wife Lindsey, one of the top "good hackers" in law enforcement. But what if they've both been betrayed? Mapstone is tested further when the new sheriff wants him back as a deputy, putting to use his historian's expertise to solve a very special cold case.
Cincinnati homicide Detective Will Borders now walks with a cane and lives alone with constant discomfort. He's lucky to be alive. He's lucky to have a job, as public information officer for the department. But when a star cop is brutally murdered, he's assigned to find her killer. The crime bears a chilling similarity to killings on the peaceful college campus nearby, where his friend Cheryl Beth Wilson is teaching nursing. The two young victims were her students. Most homicides are routine, the suspects readily apparent.
Cheryl Beth Wilson is an elite nurse at Cincinnati Memorial Hospital who finds a doctor brutally murdered in a secluded office. Wilson had been having an affair with the doctoras husband, a surgeon, and this makes her a aperson of interesta to the police, if not at outright suspect. But someone other than the cops is watching Cheryl Beth.The killing comes as former homicide detective Will Borders is just hours out of surgery. But as his stretcher is wheeled past the crime scene, he knows this is no random act of violence.
The private-detective business starts out badly for former Phoenix Deputy David Mapstone, who has teamed up with his old friend and boss, Sheriff Mike Peralta. Their first client is gunned down just after hiring them. The case: A suspicious death investigation involving a young Arizona woman who fell from a condo tower in San Diego. The police call Grace Hunter's death a suicide, but the client doesn't buy it. He's her brother. Or is he? After his murder, police find multiple driver's licenses and his real identity is a mystery.
Будущее Джимми Кьюсака, талантливого молодого финансиста и основателя преуспевающего хедж-фонда «Кьюсак Кэпитал», рисовалось безоблачным. Однако грянул финансовый кризис 2008 года, и его дело потерпело крах. Дошло до того, что Джимми нечем стало выплачивать ипотеку за свою нью-йоркскую квартиру. Чтобы вылезти из долговой ямы и обеспечить более-менее приличную жизнь своей семье, Кьюсак пошел на работу в хедж-фонд «ЛиУэлл Кэпитал». Поговаривали, что благодаря финансовому гению его управляющего клиенты фонда «никогда не теряют свои деньги».
Очнувшись на полу в луже крови, Роузи Руссо из Бронкса никак не могла вспомнить — как она оказалась на полу номера мотеля в Нью-Джерси в обнимку с мертвецом?
Действие романа происходит в нулевых или конце девяностых годов. В книге рассказывается о расследовании убийства известного московского ювелира и его жены. В связи с вступлением наследника в права наследства активизируются люди, считающие себя обделенными. Совершено еще два убийства. В центре всех событий каким-то образом оказывается соседка покойных – молодой врач Наталья Голицына. Расследование всех убийств – дело чести майора Пронина, который считает Наталью не причастной к преступлению. Параллельно в романе прослеживается несколько линий – быт отделения реанимации, ювелирное дело, воспоминания о прошедших годах и, конечно, любовь.
Егор Кремнев — специальный агент российской разведки. Во время секретного боевого задания в Аргентине, которое обещало быть простым и безопасным, он потерял всех своих товарищей.Но в его руках оказался секретарь беглого олигарха Соркина — Михаил Шеринг. У Шеринга есть секретные бумаги, за которыми охотится не только российская разведка, но и могущественный преступный синдикат Запада. Теперь Кремневу предстоит сложная задача — доставить Шеринга в Россию. Он намерен сделать это в одиночку, не прибегая к помощи коллег.
Опорск вырос на берегу полноводной реки, по синему руслу которой во время оно ходили купеческие ладьи с восточным товаром к западным и северным торжищам и возвращались опять на Восток. Историки утверждали, что название городу дала древняя порубежная застава, небольшая крепость, именованная Опорой. В злую годину она первой встречала вражьи рати со стороны степи. Во дни же затишья принимала застава за дубовые стены торговых гостей с их товарами, дабы могли спокойно передохнуть они на своих долгих и опасных путях.
Из экспозиции крымского художественного музея выкрадены шесть полотен немецкого художника Кингсховера-Гютлайна. Но самый продвинутый сыщик не догадается, кто заказчик и с какой целью совершено похищение. Грабители прошли мимо золотого фонда музея — бесценной иконы «Рождество Христово» работы учеников Рублёва и других, не менее ценных картин и взяли полотна малоизвестного автора, попавшие в музей после войны. Читателя ждёт захватывающий сюжет с тщательно выписанными нюансами людских отношений и судеб героев трёх поколений.