Gone Cold

by Douglas Corleone

  “If it’s not to arrest her,” I said, “then what’s your interest?”

  He hesitated, furrowed his brow as though locked in an internal debate. Finally, he said, “I’m here to help you, Simon.”

  “Help me, huh?” I scoped the area again, certain we were being watched. “And why would you want to do that?”

  “Because we have a mutual friend.”

  The first face that popped into my head was Davignon, the French lieutenant I’d aided in Paris two years ago. No doubt he’d want to help if he knew the connection. But then, how the hell would Davignon have found out?

  “A friend?” I said, probing.

  Second face to pop into my mind was Kurt Ostermann, a private investigator I’d worked with in Berlin. We had a long history. He knew all about Hailey. He’d seen her photos, including the computer-generated likeness that Kati had sent.

  “A woman,” Ashdown said.

  At that point I was sure he was referring to Anastazja Staszak, a Warsaw lawyer who’d accompanied me through Eastern Europe during the Lindsay Sorkin investigation. At the mere thought of her I felt movement in the pit of my gut, a flutter that immediately vanished when I pictured the wanted photo of Hailey.

  Or whoever the girl in the photo might be.

  “All right,” I said. “Who is she?”

  I’d told myself on the plane that I wasn’t going to volunteer anything. I was coming to Dublin to gather information, not to relinquish it.

  Ashdown hesitated again, a growing look of discomfort on his face. “Someone I think you need to meet for yourself.”

  “If this is some kind of game—”

  “It’s no game, Simon,” he said with an air of impatience. “Let me take you to her. After that we’ll head to—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “It’s my daughter we’re searching for. My daughter, my rules. I want to see the crime scene before anything else.”

  Chapter 6

  TWELVE YEARS AGO

  As we pull up to the curb in front of my house in Georgetown the white haze returns and I feel myself falling into a faint. Terry slaps the left side of my face, gently yet firmly. The haze disappears, replaced by spinning red and blue lights. There are four—no, five—black-and-whites surrounding my house. One sitting in the driveway, three idling in front of us, and one parked around the corner, facing my backyard. All Metropolitan PD.

  In his cockney British accent, Terry says, “You want I come in with you?”

  By the time he finishes the question I’m already out the door, hurrying up the drive. A uniformed officer holds his hand up but another tells him, “No, it’s all right. This is the dad.”

  This is the dad.

  Next thing I know I’m being helped over the threshold and then suddenly without thought I’m pulling away, shoving aside a plainclothes cop standing in front of me.

  My eyes fix on Tasha. She’s being held up by another uniform. I feel an unprovoked urge to throw him through a wall but I know Tasha can’t stand on her own, so I fall into a kitchen chair sitting just a few feet in front of her. I’m hyperventilating, my knees turning to rubber, just as they did back at Dulles. I can’t seem to pull myself together and it’s killing me. In times of crisis, the strong think clearly. Yet here I am, a professional, and I’m falling apart. Crumbling like a pile of dead leaves.

  “Where is she?” I say.

  Tasha shakes her head, tears coming off her like a wet dog. She’s vomited, I can tell, puke still visible around her lips, the scent still coming off her in waves. Her whole body is shaking, like a volcano threatening to blow.

  I want to stand and hold her but know that I can’t. If I try to rise, I feel as though I’ll fall through the floor.

  A few moments of silence pass before I hear someone come up behind me. I turn and find a man with prematurely stark white hair and pale blue eyes. He’s dressed in a high-end navy suit that might as well say Bureau across the left lapel.

  “Marshal Fisk?” He extends a hand. “I’m Special Agent John Rendell.”

  Once he shakes my fingers in his, he steps aside to introduce his female partner, Special Agent Candace West, a thirtysomething brunette who looks more like a fresh-faced corporate lawyer than a cop.

  West offers her eyes instead of her hand, a gaze that reaches straight into my soul. She has children, I know it right away from the look on her face. She has children and she’s placing herself in Tasha’s shoes at this very moment. She’s looking at me and wondering where her children are right now, what they’re doing, whether someone’s out there watching them, whether they’re truly safe.

  That look makes her appear a little older than I originally thought. Now I can make out a few worry lines around the eyes, her bangs probably concealing slight creases in her forehead.

  Rendell steps forward again, suggests we take the meeting to the living room, where we can all sit.

  “We have a number of questions,” he says. “We’re hoping that the answers will help us find your daughter.”

  Find your daughter, I think, as Rendell helps me to my feet.

  No, it’s all right. This is the dad.

  It occurs to me now, as Rendell guides me through the kitchen like a Boy Scout aiding an invalid, that regardless of how this all turns out, our lives—Tasha’s and Hailey’s and mine—will never be the same again.

  Chapter 7

  Twenty minutes after leaving the airport in Ashdown’s midnight-blue Nissan crossover, we arrived in the heart of Dublin. We parked along the south bank of the River Liffey and entered a maze of cobblestone streets. Though it was biting cold and still early in the evening, nightlife in the Temple Bar area was already in full-swing, the frigid air thick with Irish ballads and the malty aroma of beer.

  “The pub where it happened is called the Stalemate,” Ashdown informed me. “Just a couple more blocks.”

  I stepped over a puddle of vomit and brushed shoulders with an intoxicated kid no older than twenty.

  “Watch where you’re going, Eurotrash,” the kid shouted at me over his shoulder.

  “Bloody Yanks,” Ashdown mumbled.

  The term bar of Temple Bar actually meant “riverside path,” but the sheer number of pubs in the area could easily throw off anyone a smidgeon less Irish than Dylan Thomas or James Joyce.

  Minutes later, Ashdown pointed at a corner structure that appeared somewhat older, definitely seedier, than most of its neighbors. “There she is,” he said. “The Stalemate. She’s been shut down since the murder, but the owner’s applying pressure to have her reopened as soon as possible.”

  “Who is the owner?” I asked.

  “I’ve no clue. I’m just passing along the information that’s been given to me.”

  Amid a sea of lights the Stalemate stood in total darkness. As we approached, a figure emerged from the shadows, a woman, middle-aged, with hair the color of fire.

  Ashdown said, “Simon Fisk, meet Detective Inspector Colleen MacAuliffe of the Gardai.”

  “Pleased,” I said, taking her proffered hand. “Do I call you Detective or Inspector or Detective Inspector?”

  “How about Colleen?” Her brogue was queerly refreshing; it reminded me of a girl I’d once known, though I couldn’t recall her name, only her face and that voice, as light as air. In a Rhode Island elementary school maybe, back when I was still grasping for my European roots.

  With a thin blade produced from her jacket pocket, Colleen sliced through the white-and-blue police tape covering the frame. She unlocked the locks, opened the door, and stepped aside, allowing first me then Ashdown to enter. From behind us she summoned the lights.

  “This is about how bright they keep the pub during business hours,” she said.

  The interior smelled like Terry’s on a Sunday morning after a particularly rough Saturday night. The bar itself, solid wood painted black, ran nearly the full length of the pub along the wall to our left. The tiled floor, not surprisingly, was modeled after a black-and-white chessb
oard, though we were spared any hint of rooks or bishops or knights. Hanging from the walls were the usual mirrors and posters and neon signs, touting this or that brand of beer or liquor, the occasional cola or energy drink.

  “It happened in the rear of the pub,” Colleen said. “Just outside the lavatories.”

  It wasn’t difficult to imagine the pub packed with merrymakers, live music emanating from the makeshift stage set off to our right. Colleen removed a manila folder from her handbag and offered it to me.

  As I accepted it, my stare froze on the human outline taped to the floor tiles in front of the gents’ then gradually shifted to an evidence marker several feet away.

  “That was where we found our murder weapon,” Colleen said. “As you’ll see from the photos, it wasn’t terribly difficult to identify.”

  I gripped the folder tightly between my fingers, apprehensive about opening it. When I looked down my hand was trembling.

  “Fingerprints?” I said.

  I suddenly had a sour taste in my mouth, an ache in the back of my throat.

  “On the murder weapon, yes,” Colleen replied. “But no match to anything in our database or the UK’s. No hits with Interpol. Nothing yet from the FBI.”

  When I finally deigned to open the file I grimaced. The photographs depicted a particularly gory scene, more blood than you’d think the human body could hold.

  From the images it appeared that the victim was a Caucasian male, between thirty-five and forty-five years old, the blood spilled from a deep cut to the left side of his throat, probably an opened carotid artery.

  “The vic is another ghost,” Colleen said. “Had false identification on him. A driver’s license issued in a suburb of Detroit. His prints aren’t in our system either. The fake name he used was Ramsey Little. But what we have right now is a John Doe.”

  I flipped through the grisly photographs. The murder weapon was a broken beer bottle. No question of the brand.

  “My goodness, my Guinness,” Colleen said as I studied the photo of the shattered black longneck. “At least we know the girl had good taste.”

  Ashdown checked my face for a reaction, but of course Detective Inspector Colleen MacAuliffe had no clue what my role was in all of this. Hell, even I wasn’t so sure anymore. I felt severely in over my head, just as I had two years earlier in Paris. We knew nearly nothing about the killer or her victim, let alone a possible motive. And, bottom line, I’d never been embroiled in a murder investigation before. My duty as a U.S. Marshal was to hunt fugitives; my job since was to locate missing children abroad. This was the first time in my life I was starting with a dead body. The bodies usually came later, after I’d become involved.

  “Do we know where John Doe lived?” I said.

  Colleen shook her head. “Just where he was staying.”

  “A hotel?”

  “The Radisson Blu St. Helen’s Hotel just outside of Dublin.”

  “You found a key on him?”

  “No, he made us work for it. We showed his picture round the entire city. He was registered at the Radisson under the name William Perry.”

  “Like the defensive lineman,” I said almost to myself.

  Ashdown appeared puzzled. “Sorry?”

  “William Perry,” I said. “They called him the Refrigerator. Played for the Chicago Bears back in the eighties.”

  Ashdown shrugged. “It’s a rather common name where I come from.”

  He was right. The Fridge notwithstanding, the name was distinctly British. As was the vic’s alternate alias, Ramsey Little.

  “What type of identification did he provide the Radisson?”

  “An older U.S. passport,” Colleen said, “issued in Philadelphia, birthplace listed as the State of New Jersey. The passport itself was real, but the name and date of birth were altered. And the man the passport number originally belonged to is dead.”

  “We know anything about his death?”

  “Only that it was likely of old age. The date of birth on the original passport was thirteen March 1927.”

  The files Kati had sent me suddenly clouded my mind.

  “Where’s the camera that captured the girl’s image?” I asked.

  “Just outside the pub.”

  “May I view the footage?”

  “I have the digital file,” Ashdown interjected. “I’ll show it to you once we’re in front of a computer.”

  Nothing since that first sip of Irish coffee at Terry’s seemed real to me. The past eleven months, they fit well in the context of my twelve-year nightmare. But this, the e-mail from Kati, the conversation with Ashdown, the flight to Ireland, the tour of the Stalemate provided by D.I. MacAuliffe, this felt like nothing more than a figment of my imagination. This entire scene seemed like a mirage, like a drug-induced hallucination, one that filled my lungs with the cancer of hope, a high from which I would inevitably have to come down, and come down hard.

  Breaking an interminable silence, Ashdown asked, “We about done here, Simon?”

  I stared down at the marble tiles, intensely, as though they could speak to me, as though they could tell me whether my daughter, Hailey, had been here just forty-eight hours ago, whether she’d really killed John Doe, why she’d broken a beer bottle and gone for a man’s throat, and where she’d run to afterward.

  “We’re about done,” I said.

  Ashdown thanked Colleen MacAuliffe, lavished her with praise, called her a saint, the whole nine. Then we followed her outside, watched her lock up, and said our good-byes.

  Once she was out of earshot, Ashdown turned to me. “Well, old boy, may I now take you to meet our mutual friend?”

  “No,” I said evenly. “Now you’re going to take me to the Radisson.”

  Chapter 8

  Only once we arrived at the Radisson Blu St. Helen’s Hotel did I realize I’d stayed here before, about ten years ago, when it went by a slightly different moniker. The main structure, which resembled a castle more than a modern hotel, sat on a sprawling green estate more than two centuries old. The gardens surrounding the castle were meticulously maintained and dotted with extravagant statues and fountains. But tonight, in the darkness, the castle appeared more ominous than opulent, like something out of a Shakespeare tragedy.

  I’d stayed here for a brief May holiday following a particularly nasty case in Saint Petersburg, a retrieval that ultimately placed me on the Kremlin’s radar. Following the job, I fled Russia and for a few days lay low in London. My allies in Washington had promptly washed their hands of me, so I didn’t dare fly back to the States until the heat died down. A nice, rainy spring vacation in Ireland seemed at the time like the perfect escape. And it was.

  Ashdown parked his crossover in the circular drive and waved off the valet. We pushed through the cold and entered the sumptuous lobby, which hadn’t changed much since my stay.

  “How may I be of service this evening?” the young man behind the front desk asked us. “Are you gentlemen checking in?”

  Leaning over the rich wooden counter, Ashdown flashed his credentials, which didn’t do much to impress the clerk. Probably less to do with the young man’s distaste for authority, and more to do with his innate disdain for the English.

  Ashdown said, “Earlier this week, you had a gentleman staying here under the name William Perry. We’d like to pay a visit to his room. The Garda have had it preserved as part of their investigation into Mr. Perry’s homicide in Temple Bar. We’re here under the authority of Detective Inspector Colleen MacAuliffe.”

  “I see. Let me speak to my manager.”

  A few minutes later we were herded into a back office. A perky young woman in an expensive gray tweed suit greeted us as we entered.

  “Dana Doyle,” she said, offering her hand.

  On the near wall hung an immense framed photo of the castle as it appeared a half century ago. As I passed it, I caught a glimpse of my reflection. Running a hand over several days of stubble, I was reminded of how Hailey would complain o
n days I didn’t shave.

  Daddy, my face gets all scratchy when I kiss you!

  Dana Doyle motioned for us to sit then took a seat behind her broad desk. “I’ve already spoken with D.I. MacAuliffe. So what can I do for you two this evening?”

  “We’d like to view your file on Mr. Perry’s stay,” Ashdown said, “and then if it’s not too much trouble, we’d love to have a quick look round his room.”

  “Shouldn’t be any trouble,” she said. “I’d only ask that when you’re upstairs you be discreet. Although it’s a light-traffic season, we do have a number of guests on that floor this evening.”

  “Of course.”

  She offered Ashdown a thin blue folder that had already been sitting front and center atop her desk. As he leaned forward to accept the folder, Ashdown’s coat opened just wide enough to reveal a holstered Glock 17, the NCA’s handgun of choice.

  The National Crime Agency, dubbed by the media as “Britain’s FBI,” was still in its infancy. With an elite force of roughly five thousand officers, the NCA’s purported mission was to take on the UK’s most serious and dangerous criminals, including drug barons, pedophile gangs, human traffickers, and other organized crime syndicates. Why Damon Ashdown had decided to insert himself in this investigation remained a mystery to me. But I was determined to figure it out, and soon, before things went sideways.

  Ashdown opened the file and handed me the photo of Perry’s passport as he studied the invoice.

  “Do you happen to have this image scanned into your computer?” I asked Dana Doyle. When she nodded, I added, “Would you mind e-mailing it to me?”

  “Not at all.”

  I provided her my e-mail address, and she forwarded the image from her desktop right away. As we waited for her to retrieve the key card to Perry’s room, I sent a message to several private investigators I kept close ties with: Kurt Ostermann in Berlin; my old friend Gustavo in Tampa; Wendy Isles in London, among others. I hoped someone would be able to dig in and identify John Doe before the Guards did.