“As Ken Aldo?”

“No, no, that would take the shine off. He’d want the shine. He’d have to come back as himself at the end of it. He’d have that worked. How would you do that?” she asked Roarke.

“Transfer properties-on paper. I imagine as Ken Aldo he’d have a forged will from Ortega, with him as full beneficiary. Once that’s in his hand, some bogus sale of the properties. Aldo to Martinez.”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s all paper. It’s all just follow the dots. Lino gets his face back and comes home a rich man, with some bullshit about making a killing out West. Seven years on the down-low, and he’ll have everything he ever wanted.”

She turned to study the holo again. “His father took off when he was a kid. Eventually his mother had him declared legally dead so she could get on with her life. Lino wouldn’t have forgotten that. And seven years. Why would the cops out West sniff around Ken Aldo when there’s no body, no sign of foul play? Instead you’ve got a screwup, with an illegals record, taking off.”

“Still they’d have looked at this Aldo, wouldn’t they?” Roarke took her coffee to have some himself. “Isn’t that what you do? Suspect the spouse first?”

“Rule of thumb. They’d have run him, asked questions. He was smart, it was smart to pick Vegas for it. Gambling, sex, make sure they’re seen together. Maybe talk Ortega into some high stakes. He wins, he loses, it doesn’t matter. Money, loss or gain, it’s always a motive for taking off. He’d have played that right with them,” she considered. “Admit maybe they weren’t getting along perfectly well, having a few marital problems, but they loved each other. He’s just so worried. He just wants to know José is all right. He had to lay some groundwork for it. If the cops weren’t complete idiots, they’d check with people who knew the MP, who knew the person who reported him missing.”

“It just takes knowing the right people, and how much they cost.”

“Yeah, there’s a point. It’s earlier there, right, in Vegas. The stupid time zone crap actually works for me this time. I can get those investigators’ reports tonight.”

“And your killer’s killer?”

“Working on it. I’ve got more pressure to put on Penny now. She knew all of this. He’d have told her the details of it. And if she had a part in his murder-and she damn well did-she had a line to the Ortega money. No way she’d have given up millions just to ditch Lino. She helped kill him so she«kilt i could have it all. I’m going to need the name of that lawyer.”

“I’ll get it now.” He turned toward his office, glanced back. “That’s quite a bit from one cake, Lieutenant.”

She grinned fiercely as she went to her ’link. “It was one hell of a cake.”

In short order, she read over the initial report, the statements, the interviews. It didn’t come as much of a surprise to read one of those statements came from one Steven Jorge Chávez, identified as a longtime friend of the MP who’d come to Vegas to meet up at the MP’s request.

“Chávez, Lino’s co-captain in the Soldados, backed him on Ortega,” Eve told Roarke. “As Ken Aldo’s data stated he’d been born in Baja, and had spent his childhood in California and New Mexico, there was no reason to look for a connection between him and Chávez. He told the cops Ortega had confided in him one night that he was feeling closed in, pressured-by his marriage and his responsibilities back East. That he wished he could just ‘disappear.’ ”

“Laying it on a bit thick,” Roarke commented.

“Yeah, but they bought it. Had no reason not to. And the high stakes played through. Ortega rolled in a couple hundred thousand at the blackjack tables two days before he was reported missing.”

“Lucky streak, good or bad, depending on your point of view.”

“Yeah, could have been the springboard for getting rid of him.”

“In any case”-Roarke studied her board, crowded now with all the players-“it’s enough to buy a new face.”

“The rest of the finances wouldn’t zip straight to the spouse as, until they had a body, the MP would be considered alive and well. At least for seven years.”

He looked over at Eve. She was revving now, he noted. Juiced. Between the adrenaline and the coffee, she’d run half the night. “And Chávez goes in the wind shortly after the statement.”

“Both he and Flores. Check this. In the investigators’ notes, they mention that Aldo was so distraught, he asked if there was a priest or a chaplain he could talk to.”

“And Flores was there.”

“I think Flores was in the wrong place at the wrong time on his sabbatical. I think when Lino worked a con, he went into it deep. When he came back to check with the police the next day, he had Flores with him. The report says he identified himself as Miguel Flores, and Aldo referred to him as Father. The cop did the job, checked Flores out, ran him, and got the background, verified. He came in twice more, with Flores, then stated that he intended to return home, to Taos, and left his contact information with the investigators. He checked in weekly for three months, and every month for a full year. Then he dropped it.”

She sat back. “I think we narrow our search for Flores, for his remains to Nevada. A lot of desert around Vegas. A lot of places to bury a body. Or two. We’ll focus that on the area from Vegas to Taos, figuring if he convinced Flores to travel with him at all, he’d have stuck to the route he gave the cops.”

“You won’t be able to close this, not in your mind, until you find Flores. Or what remains of him.”

She sat back. She didn’t need the board, the photos to see Flores. She had his face in her head. “Peabody said that cases like this make her wish bad guys would just be bad guys. There are plenty of those, that’s what I said. Somebody like Flores, he never did anyone any harm. He got a big cosmic slap when bad guys took his family, but he doesn’t do any harm. Tries, in fact, to live a life that does the opposite.”

“It’s more often than not innocents, isn’t it, who get caught in the cross fire.”

“Yeah, and this one wanted to examine his life. His faith, I guess. That’s what I get from it. They took that life because he tried to help someone he thought was in need.” No, she didn’t need the board, didn’t need the photo. “I’ve got to find who killed Lino Martinez. That’s my job. But Flores deserves somebody to stand for him. He deserves that. Anyway.” She glanced at the memo cube Roarke had put on her desk. “Is that the lawyer?”

“It is, yes.”

She turned to her ’link with the memo.

“Eve, you’re in the same time zone now, and it’s closing on midnight.”

She only smiled. “Yeah, there’s this small, petty satisfaction I’m getting at the idea of waking up a lawyer. It’s wrong, but it’s there.”

20

THE LAWYER DIDN’T APPRECIATE THE MIDNIGHT call, but she snagged his interest.

“Mr. Aldo and I are in contact regularly, and have been since Mr. Ortega’s disappearance.”

“You’ve met Mr. Aldo.”

“Not in a personal sense. We correspond via e-mail most usually. He lives in New Mexico, and has a secondary residence in Cancún. He travels extensively.”

“I bet. Mr. Ortega owns a number of properties in New York, businesses, his residence, rental properties. How are those finances handled?”

“I really don’t see how that’s relevant, or how it warrants being disturbed at this time of night.”

“The investigation into Mr. Ortega’s disappearance may be cold, but it’s still open. As his spouse and only beneficiary on record, Mr. Aldo stands to inherit a big, fat bundle if and when Mr. Ortega is declared legally dead. You ever wonder about that, Mr. Feinburg?”

It was hard for a guy with a sleep crease across his cheek to look snooty, but Feinburg gave it his best shot. “Mr. Aldo has handled every aspect of this matter by means both legal and aboveboard.”