They amputated the toe. Still, he’s a lucky guy. Don’t go wasting your time feeling bad for him. You know what he had planned for you. If he had got you to open the front door, he was going to blow your head off.”
Diane shivered. She did know that.
Detective Hanks came in and pulled up a chair. He stared at her as if looking for signs of the previous evening, or maybe signs of a nervous breakdown.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I’m fine,” said Diane. “Just bewildered. Did he say what this was about?” she asked.
Garnett snorted and nodded to Hanks, who gave her a grim smile.
“He was talkative,” said Hanks. “Said he had a contract to kill you.”
“A contract?” said Diane. “Someone put a contract out on me? Why?”
“We don’t know. He said he doesn’t know who or why.” Hanks smirked and looked at Garnett. Diane had the feeling he was trying not to laugh. “Emory said he received an envelope in the mail with two thousand dollars and your picture and address in it. He thought it was some kind of mistake until he got a call that evening. A man claiming to know his cousin, Ray-Ray, told him he’d sent it as a good faith payment. That he was looking for a good man to do some wet work for him.”
“Wet work? He actually said that?” said Diane.
“Yeah,” said Hanks, grinning. “He actually said those words.”
“The man asked him if he was up to it. If he was, he would get another fifty grand. The man said that he’d tried to use Emory’s cousin, but he was a disappointment, and he wanted to know if Emory was going to be a disappointment too.”
“Emory asked what would keep him from just holding on to the two grand and doing nothing,” said Garnett. “The man told him nothing was to stop him, but if this went well, he would use him again. That is, if he didn’t mind doing a little traveling, like to Las Vegas and places.” Garnett gave a derisive chuckle. “Las Vegas.” He shook his head.
“Emory said the caller told him that from time to time he would receive an envelope, just like the one he’d received about you, with information and money in it,” said Hanks. “If he did well—get this—the man would open him an offshore account for the money to be deposited directly. Emory thought he’d made the big time.”
“Are you saying that some kind of organized crime people have put a contract out on me?” said Diane. “Are you serious?”
“Believe me,” said Hanks, “no serious crime organization would hire this guy for anything. He was being played, big-time. No fifty grand would be sent to him after—the deed.”
“But we don’t know who hired him,” said Garnett. “His phone records show the call came from a throwaway cell. We are going to assign a couple of men to you until this is over. We do take this seriously, no matter what kind of buffoon this Emory is. Someone out there knew he would be a good fall guy. He told Emory to make it quick and violent. If you wouldn’t let him in the door, he was to, quote, ‘blow the door off its hinges.’ ”
“Emory may be a moron,” said Hanks, “but the man who hired him isn’t. He knew how to con Emory into doing what he wanted him to do.”
“How do we find this guy?” asked Diane.
“We don’t know that yet,” said Garnett. “We’re going to start with Emory’s family. There’s a chance he made all this up and it’s actually the family taking revenge because of what happened to Ray-Ray. Maybe they weren’t as estranged as they led us to believe. But if that’s the case, we still have the question, why you? Why not Hanks here, or Daughtry? They were the two officers most closely connected to Ray-Ray’s death.”
“I have to call my security,” said Diane. “The way things are, I can’t use my museum office. I won’t bring a maniac into the museum after me. Until we catch this guy, I’ll use my office in the crime lab. Analyzing the evidence from Marcella’s may be the best way to find the answer to all this.”
Garnett nodded in agreement. “It’s a reasonable course of action,” he said. “That’s all we have at the moment. We keep running into dead ends. Whoever the mastermind is behind this, the guy is good at covering his tracks.”
“Please keep me informed on