Lethal(67)

“Sam Marset was a…?”

“Client. I believe one of the first, if not the first.”

“How did it come about?”

“Along with his honest business, Marset was doing a brisk trade in illegal goods. Since he was legit, no one suspected. Then Marset’s trucks started getting stopped often, his drivers hassled. The increased vigilance was enough to scare him. Above all, the elder of St. Boniface didn’t want to get caught. Enter The Bookkeeper with a solution to his problem.” Coburn grinned. “Thing was, The Bookkeeper had created the problem.”

“By orchestrating the searches.”

“And probably Marset knew it. But if The Bookkeeper could put a cog in his wheels, he could see to it that the cogs were removed. It was either pay The Bookkeeper for protection, or risk getting caught with a shipment of drugs. Life as he’d known it would be history.”

“Others would be forced to do the same.”

“And did. The Bookkeeper now has an expanded client base. Some are large commercial operations like Marset’s. Others are small-time independents. Men out of work due to the oil spill who have a pickup truck and kids to feed. They drive over to south Texas, pick up a couple hundred pounds of marijuana, drive it to New Orleans, their kids eat for another week.

“They’re breaking the law, but the bigger criminal is the individual who’s making it profitable for them to become felons. The smugglers run a much greater risk of being caught, and when they are, they can’t rat out the facilitator because they rarely know who it is. They only know their contact person, and that individual is low on the totem pole.”

“If Marset was such a good customer, why was he killed? You mentioned something to Hamilton about his whining.”

“Things rocked along okay for a time. Simpatico. Then The Bookkeeper started getting greedy, started increasing his commission for the services provided. Marset didn’t need a crystal ball to tell him that without a ceiling, the cost would keep going up, and soon a large slice of his overhead was going to be The Bookkeeper’s fee. But if he refused to pay it—”

“He’d get caught, exposed, and sent to prison.”

“Right. And The Bookkeeper could make it happen, because his tentacles reach into the entire justice system. So Marset, ever the diplomat, and a little naive as it turns out, proposed that they meet last Sunday night and settle on terms that both could live with.”

“You smelled a rat.”

“The Bookkeeper is the freaking Wizard of Oz. I couldn’t see him strolling into that warehouse, shaking hands, and negotiating.”

“Did Marset know his identity?”

“If he did, he died without telling. I’ve been through his files, read every scrap of paper I could get my hands on, including the one with your husband’s name on it.”

“Surely you don’t suspect Eddie of being The Bookkeeper.”

“No, The Bookkeeper is alive and well.”

“How do you think Eddie fit in?”

“You said he had moonlighted for Marset. Maybe he was in on the illegal side of his business. Or maybe he was a dirty cop on The Bookkeeper’s payroll. Maybe he was playing both ends against the middle, or holding out for a larger take. Maybe blackmail was his angle. I don’t know.”

She stared him down until, with a trace of reluctance, he added, “Or he was a cop trying to make a case against one or both. But crooked or straight, he would have tried to protect himself by collecting hard evidence that he could use for whatever his purpose was.”

Honor was steadfast in her confidence of Eddie’s integrity, but for the time being she let the matter drop. “Royale Trucking. Are all the employees crooked?”

“Not at all. Those six who died with Marset, yes. He had a separate set of books that only he and one other guy ever saw. People in the corporate office, even members of his own family, didn’t know about his sideline.”

“How could they not?”

He shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t look too deep. They didn’t want to. All they knew was that the business continued to do extremely well in a weak economy.”

“So they’ll be okay? Mrs. Marset?”

“In terms of prosecution, yes. Won’t be easy for her when the truth about her husband is exposed.”

Honor pulled her feet up to the edge of the seat, looped her arms around her legs, and propped her chin on her knees. Quietly she said, “They’ll kill you.”

He bit into another cookie, saying nothing.

“Doral or one of the Hawkins clan. Even the honest policemen, who only see you as Sam Marset’s killer, would rather bring you in dead than alive.”

“Hamilton’s told everybody I’m already dead. Wonder how he’ll wiggle out of that one.”

“How can you joke about it? It doesn’t bother you that you could be killed?”

“Not particularly.”

“You don’t think about dying?”

“I’m only surprised that it hasn’t happened yet.”

Honor picked at a cuticle that had been torn loose while they were working on the boat. “You know how to do things.” She glanced at him. He was looking up at her curiously. “Survival things. Lots of things.”

“I don’t know how to bake cupcakes.”