Wolf in the Shadows - Marcia Muller [24]
Renshaw looked at me as if I’d taken leave of my senses. “Down there, where you never know who’s involved in what? No, we backed off and set it up. The objective was to get the victim back alive; then we’d let the authorities go after the kidnappers—that is, if we didn’t take care of them first.” He smiled grimly. “Ripinsky was to make the drop; we hoped he might be able to identify somebody. They went through the usual nonsense: go to this phone booth, wait for another call. Finally they named the location—that turnoff in San Benito County.”
“What happened down there, do you know?”
“I know. And that was the first time I had a funny feeling about Ripinsky. According to him, there was another car in the turnoff when he arrived. Its driver panicked, forced him into the boulder, and took off. Ripinsky waited, but nobody else ever showed.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“At the time I did, but like I said, I had a funny feeling. Anyway, Ripinsky came back here and we waited some more. Didn’t take the kidnappers long to reestablish contact. They wanted to move the drop south, said Ripinsky should check into a place on Hotel Circle in San Diego and they’d call him on Sunday. That gave us real cause for concern.”
“Why?”
“Because it indicated they might’ve taken Mourning into Mexico. If they reneged on setting him free once they had the L.C., there’d be no way we could recover him by force. In most foreign countries, we work either with or around the authorities, but not down there. After last year’s U.S. Supreme Court ruling that it’s okay to snatch criminals from foreign jurisdictions to stand trial here, Mexico quit cooperating completely. The political situation’s just too damned volatile for us to go in on our own. Company policy says we don’t set foot south of the border.”
“I see. So Ripinsky flew to San Diego that night?”
“Uh-huh. One of our operatives dropped him off at SFO and returned his rental car.”
“He had the letter of credit with him?”
“Damn right he did.”
“Did he contact your people in La Jolla?”
“He did not. Too risky, in case the kidnappers had him under surveillance. We know he checked into the motel, the Bali Kai, and on Sunday he sent a message through a woman friend of mine on Point Loma, saying the drop was set for eleven P.M. And that’s the last we ever heard. Ripinsky checked out of the motel with the two-million-dollar L.C. and vanished. His rental car didn’t even turn up.”
I masked my surge of concern by asking, “Has the L.C. been drawn upon?”
“No. We’re monitoring Phoenix’s bank account minute by minute.”
“Any chance Ripinsky met with foul play before he could make the drop?”
“That’s possible, but not too damn likely. Ripinsky can take care of himself. The assumption I’m acting on is that he made a deal with the kidnappers—or was in collusion with them from the first.”
“You mean since before you brought him in on the case? How could he have known Phoenix was your client?”
“Because among the materials on the firm that I sent him several weeks ago was a complete, confidential client list. Sheer stupidity on my part. I ignored what you pointed out earlier: situations change, people change.”
Renshaw paused, his face pale and drawn. “Because of my stupidity, Timothy Mourning is probably rotting in a ditch somewhere with a bullet in his brain, while Ripinsky’s sitting back and waiting until he thinks it’s safe to draw on Phoenix’s two-million-dollar L.C.” His eyes glittered against the darkness that surrounded us. “Ripinsky’s going to pay for this.”
I looked away, glad he couldn’t see me all that well. Stared at the slide of Mourning holding the June 4 Times. The laughter was gone from his face, leaving it a rigid mask of fear. The gleam in his bespectacled eyes had been replaced by a sheen of horror. Timothy Mourning had known he was going to die.
But not because of Hy’s actions. Imperfect as my understanding of him was, I knew he would never have colluded with the kidnappers or cut a deal. Would never have caused this innocent man’s death. On the surface, the circumstantial evidence against