Nothing disrupts a burglary plan like the owner of the house coming home. So, when the aircar landed on the roof of Joseph Morgan’s sixtieth-floor penthouse, I started packing up and getting ready to leave, thinking that my plan would have to wait until another night.
But a short time later, the aircar rose from the roof and headed in the direction of the St. Lawrence River. That surprised me, and when I thought about it, I decided that someone going out an hour before midnight probably wouldn’t be coming back anytime soon. Shouldering my bag, I crossed the street and entered the high-rise apartment building through the door used to haul away trash.
Joseph Morgan was the largest dealer of fine gemstones in Canada. His main office in Montreal was a fortress, and his penthouse on the sixtieth floor of the fanciest apartment complex in the city was secured almost as well as his business locations. His shops in Montreal, Quebec City, Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, Detroit, Seattle and San Francisco were wonders to behold. He employed the finest craftsmen and catered to the wealthiest clientele.
Morgan was only forty-six years old. His father left him a single jewelry shop, a list of connections, and as much knowledge as the old man could pour into the head of a stubborn, willful, entitled party boy. Then his father had a heart attack at the age of fifty.
From that modest beginning, Morgan built an empire. His instincts were incredible, and his tastes were impeccable. Every society gathering and charity had him on their mailing lists. Every woman of any means knew his name, and every corporate executive needing to placate his trophy wife and mistresses had his local store on speed dial.
Joseph Morgan was a golden boy, and he had made only two mistakes in his meteoric career.
Morgan asked for bids on a security system for his apartment. I spent six months working on that bid and got screwed. I was pissed. My bid would have cost him less, provided more security, and I never burglarized my customers.
One of the things about sending out a request for design on a security contract was that the company had to identify all the places and things they wanted secured in excruciating detail. That also meant that those who didn’t win the contract knew the facilities to the same extent as the company that won the contract. And if the winning contract didn’t cover all the weaknesses, there could be trouble. Of course, all Chamber of Commerce certified security contractors were squeaky clean and would never do anything illegal.
And the tooth fairy is real.
When I first entered Morgan’s apartment, I did an infrared scan, just to double-check that no one was home. Then I started exploring. A lot of the lights were on, which seemed odd. Normally, when no one was at home, a program would turn off all but emergency lighting to save energy.
I identified and packaged three small paintings for travel. Artwork wasn’t my primary target, but those were so valuable, and so tempting, that I couldn’t resist. I also found a terracotta clay plaque, small enough to hold in my hand, depicting a man standing and penetrating a woman from behind. No big deal, except three-thousand-year-old Babylonian pornography, with the provenance attached, would probably go for a few million at auction.
But my main objective was the safe in Morgan’s home office. His crack-proof, indestructible vault had an electric keypad. Since I was a mutant who short-circuited such keypads when I touched them, I didn’t have much faith in them. But most people preferred the ease and convenience compared to an old-fashioned, but more secure, dial lock.
The vault opened, and I stood there admiring the sparkling array of treasures lined up in front of me. An oval-cut ruby the size of my thumbnail. A brilliant-cut blue diamond almost as large. Both were worth a king’s ransom but were virtually impossible to sell. The whole world knew that Morgan had them.
Half-kilogram bags of cut diamonds, on the other hand, sorted by size and grade, were very difficult to trace. Morgan had thousands of diamonds in the safe, but I was interested only in flawless diamonds of color codes D through F, plus a small bag of blue diamonds. After all, I had to be able to carry the loot to make it out of the place. So, I took stones I knew my dad could move without too much trouble. As he always told me, don’t get greedy.
I tucked away five bags of diamonds ranging from half-carat to two-carat stones. I figured the take would be roughly sixty million, and I would get half of that. Not a bad night.
Closing the safe, I decided to check the rooms I hadn’t entered yet, thinking I might find something else of interest that would fit in my pocket. That’s when I discovered Morgan’s second mistake. In addition to trusting the wrong security company, he had also invited the wrong person into his home. Flipping on the light in a room decorated with African art and artifacts, I about jumped out of my skin as I came face to face with Joseph Morgan. A long, nasty-looking African tribal spear pinned him to the wall. The expression on his face indicated that he was as shocked as I was at how his evening turned out.
Based on how dry the blood was, and how cool his skin was when I touched him, he hadn’t been dead long. Was he in the aircar that arrived earlier? Or did his killer arrive by aircar, kill him, and then leave? Obviously, the aircar I saw taking off earlier carried someone else away.
Someone who had the codes to engage the security system when he or she left. Someone who probably didn’t have the combination to the vault with diamonds. But I considered that assumption to be unconfirmed. I had no idea what was in that vault prior to me opening it. Morgan’s murderer could have carried off the crown jewels of Antarctica for all I knew. But someone who wasn’t interested in stealing any of the millions in art or jewelry?
What I did know was that I didn’t want his murder to be linked to a burglary that in any way might be linked to me. I rehung the three paintings and replaced the terracotta engraving. The diamonds I kept. Before anyone knew they were missing, Morgan’s corporation and the insurance company would have to do a complete audit of his entire inventory. Assuming, of course, the stones I took were listed in that inventory. Why would he keep them at home instead of the corporate vault?
I slipped out the way I came in. I couldn’t reset the security code because I didn’t know it, so I programmed another one based on the date when Morgan made his first million. I always picked up trivia when researching a mark.
I did wonder who else had the original code. Morgan was a bachelor, with a rake’s reputation, and didn’t currently have a paramour—girlfriend or boyfriend. He employed a chauffeur and three domestics to keep his sixteen-thousand square foot apartment, plus rooftop pool house and terrace, sparkling clean—but none of them lived on the premises. Oddly, he didn’t employ a bodyguard.
Every sign pointed to his killer being a friend, a lover, or a trusted associate. Motive? Completely unknown.
