Foreign Affairs (A Nick Teffinger Thriller / Read in Any Order)
Page 5
“Mr. DJ sounds interesting,” Teffinger said. “He kills Amanda Peterson in Denver, while on vacation or business or something, and then returns to Paris. Out of an abundance of caution, he grows a moustache and a goatee and lets his hair get longer. That’s exactly what I would do. Then one day, quite by accident, he sees Tracy White somewhere, maybe even at Rex. He gets enough information to find out where she lives. He’s concerned that she’ll spot him on the street someday, when he isn’t aware of it, and make a call to the cops. So to keep that from happening, he takes her out.”
Teffinger exhaled.
Then added, “In fact, that solves the issue of how he tracked Tracy White here to Paris. He didn’t. They were both here the whole time and finally bumped into each other. Unfortunately for Tracy White, the caveman saw her but she didn’t see him.”
Fallon frowned.
“But why would he do his eyes trick? It’s such a signature move, there’s no upside to it. All he does is create a risk of tying himself to the Denver murder.”
Teffinger shrugged.
“That’s how he gets his kicks. Something inside him sounds a warning to not do it that way. But something even stronger—some recessed caveman gene—tells him to take the pleasure while the pleasure’s there. After all, how many chances is he going to get?”
Fallon saw his point but added, “It could be a copycat, too.”
SHE STEPPED ON THE BRAKES to avoid running over a pedestrian who suddenly darted into the street. She honked the horn, powered down the window and gave him the finger.
“Jerk!”
Then she pulled the lighter out of her purse and flicked it as she drove. Two blocks later she said, “I wonder if this guy has ever done his signature move anywhere else besides Denver and Paris. Did you ever research it?”
No.
He hadn’t.
“Could be interesting,” Fallon said.
Teffinger chuckled and said, “I’m confused. Are you one step ahead of me or am I one step behind?”
She grinned.
Teffinger stretched and said, “We need to find out if Tracy White has been to Rex in the last week or two or three.”
“Or any of the other clubs our friend DJ’ed at,” she added.
“I was going to say that next.”
“It would also be nice to know if he was in the United States last year when Amanda Peterson got killed.”
Right.
“I was going to say that next after the first thing I was going to say next,” Teffinger said.
“How does someone even get an idea like that?” Fallon asked. “I’ve heard of killers gouging out eyes. But I’ve never heard of anyone reinserting them backwards, to make them look at their own brains. I don’t get it.”
Teffinger grunted.
“There are billions of people in the world. You got to expect a few weirdoes.”
She gave him a sideways look.
“That’s your explanation?”
He nodded.
“I’m a deep thinker,” he said. “It’s one of my curses.”
THE SECOND CALL THIS MORNING was also anonymous, from a woman. “The picture on page 5, I’m not positive, but he looks an awful lot like a taxi driver who gave me a ride about six or seven weeks ago. He was driving for Les Taxis Bleus. It was at night, about one in the morning, on the Avenue des Champs–Elysees, that’s where he picked me up. For some reason, the guy really gave me the creeps. That’s all I can remember, sorry.”
They parked outside Les Taxis Bleus, headed inside and ended up speaking to a man with a lazy eye up top and clothes that smelled like a forest fire down below.
Someone named Roland, reportedly a manager who worked there forever.
Fallon opened the paper to page 5 and tapped her finger on the sketch.
“Does this guy work here?”
Roland studied it, then shook his head.
“No, no way. That ain’t no one who works here.”
“You sure?”
“Let me put it this way, I know everyone who works here, and I ain’t never seen this man before.”
“He might have been here a couple of months ago but quit since then,” Fallon said.
“Same thing,” Roland said. “I don’t forget no faces. Especially cavemen.”
OUTSIDE, BACK IN THE CAR, Fallon said, “So what do you think? Is he covering up?”
“He didn’t strike me as someone who gets overly hung up on helping the cops, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Teffinger said. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean he was lying in this particular instance.”
Fallon rolled her eyes.
“So what you’re saying is, you don’t know.”
“Precisely,” Teffinger said. “I don’t know, but with precision.” He got serious and added, “It probably wouldn’t hurt to talk to another supervisor or two and get a second opinion.”
Fallon’s cell phone rang.
She answered and listened without talking. Then she flicked it shut and said, “That was the boss man, Targaux. He wants me back at the office.”
Right now.
This minute.
Chapter Seventeen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Afternoon
______________
NOT KNOWING IF THE MAN DIED after he got whisked away in the car last night grated more and more on Deja’s nerves as Tuesday wore on. She might have killed him and there was nothing she could do to undo it. True, he had it coming, and looking back on the event even in hindsight, she wouldn’t have done anything differently. Except maybe shoot him in the leg instead of the chest, if she’d had the presence of mind.
Lots of questions tugged at her.
Was it legally a crime or was it self-defense?
Would she go to jail if caught?
Should she report it now, today, or keep quiet?
Was failing to report it a separate crime?
How about wiping up the blood in the hall and stairs?
Who were the people in the car? Were they hell-bent on revenge? Was the man one of their brothers? Did they know that she was the one who did it? Were they hunting her at this very moment? Were they outside the tower, waiting to grab her at the first chance?
What about the gun?
Should they dispose of it?
If so, what was the best way?
She stayed at her computer as much as she could throughout the day, avoiding face-to-face contact, especially with Yves Petit. If Deja let him look into her eyes for more than five seconds, he’d be able to tell something was wrong.
He’d probe.
She wasn’t sure she’d be able to resist him.
ONE GOOD THING did come out of last night. Namely, she now had a better feeling for who Alexandra Reed was, down in her core. Her concerns about Alexandra being in a conspiracy were gone.
Late afternoon, Nicholas Ringer called.
“Okay,” he said, “my P.I. friend, Marcel Durand, has been able to dig up some preliminary background on Alexandra Reed.” Then he gave her the information.
Alexandra was an archeologist and reportedly a very good one.
She did a lot of work for the Egyptian government.
She grew up in Egypt and moved to Paris three years ago, following a traffic accident that killed her parents.
“Do you speak Egyptian?” Ringer asked.
No.
She didn’t.
Why?
“A lot of this is online, from newspaper articles and things like that,” he said. “I can email the links to you if you want, except that they won’t mean much if you don’t read Egyptian.”
“Don’t bother,” Deja said. “I can already tell we’re pointed in the wrong direction. What I’m a lot more interested in is who killed Remy.”
She paused and almost added, “Something happened last night,” but she didn’t.
No one should know about that until she could think it through.
And she wasn’t even close.
TEN MINUTES LATER, Alexandra called. “I’ve been staking out Pascal Lambert’s house all afternoon. There was a car in the driveway all day. I’m not positive, but I’m pretty sure it was the one from last night. It has four doors and it’s the same size. Three other cars have been coming and going. There are at least six different men involved, plus two women.”
Two women?
Right.
Weird.
Deja always pictured the looters as strictly male.
“I’m guessing that they haven’t figured out yet that the guy’s wallet is missing,” Alexandra added. “Otherwise, they wouldn’t be there.”
Deja nodded.
That made sense.
“Do you recognize any of them?” she asked.
“I’m too far away to make out faces,” Alexandra said. “At least a hundred meters, maybe more. Wait a minute, this isn’t good.”
What?
What wasn’t good?
“Hold on,” Alexandra said.
Deja stood up.
She bit her lower lip and paced.
Then Alexandra said, “Two men just carried something big out of the house and put it in the trunk of the car. I think it’s our friend. I’m guessing he died and they’re getting ready to dump the body.”
Deja gasped and felt a presence behind her.
She turned, to find Yves Petit standing there.
“Is something wrong?” he asked.
Chapter Eighteen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Night
______________
TUESDAY NIGHT AFTER DARK, Marcel Durand parked his P.I. ass in the shadows where he had a clear view of the house of the target, Luc Trickett, who was currently inside doing who knows what. Normally, this type of thing didn’t bother him. He’d broken into lots of houses over the years without an incident. But something about the boxer made his palms sweat and his eyes dart.
Durand couldn’t afford a confrontation.
The man would crush him.
Lights went on and off inside the house.
Then in quick succession they all flicked off. The boxer bounded out the front door, got in his car, slammed the door and squealed down the street. Durand stayed where he was for five minutes. Then he hugged the shadows as best he could while he inched his way towards the structure.
He put on latex gloves and tried the back door.
It was locked, so were all the windows.
He wanted to get in and out as quickly as possible, but resisted the urge to break a window and instead worked on the lock until he got it open.
He stepped inside and heard nothing other than his own breathing.
He left the door unlocked, turned on a flashlight and found he was in the kitchen. A quick look around showed nothing of interest.
The living room had a small office built into the front corner.
A laptop sat on a scratched wooden desk.
Durand booted it up, copied the files, and shut it down.
Just as he did, he heard a noise from somewhere at the back of the house.
He immediately turned off the flashlight, walked quietly to the stairs and took them, two at a time, to the upper level. He found a dark hallway, tiptoed to the end, entered a room and briefly flicked the flashlight to get oriented.
It was a bedroom.
The window overlooked the driveway.
He looked down.
Weird.
The boxer’s car wasn’t there.
But someone was definitely in the house.
Durand stepped behind the door and breathed as quietly as he could.
A SHORT TIME LATER, the upstairs hallway light turned on and footsteps approached. Durand looked with one eye through the crack between the door and the jam.
The man wasn’t the boxer.
Durand had never seen him before.
He wore all things black—stalking clothes—and carried a gun.
Whoever he was, he stepped inside the room for a moment, checked in the closet and under the bed, saw no one, and walked out. He did the same to the two other rooms upstairs. Then he turned out the lights and went back downstairs.
Durand’s heart raced.
He had no weapon, only fists.
Strong fists, scrappy fists, but still only fists.
From what he could tell, the man was ransacking the office. It sounded like he was emptying the desk drawers into a suitcase. Every so often, a stray bounce of flashlight punched a wall. The man walked repeatedly to the window, pulled the covering to the side and looked out.
Then the ransacking stopped.
But the man didn’t leave.
Durand pictured him sitting on the couch in the dark.
Waiting.
LUC TRICKETT DIDN’T SHOW UP for two full hours. And when he did, he was singing an old U-2 song with a terrible voice, slurring the words, and swearing because he couldn’t get the stupid key into the stupid lock.
Drunk.
Finally he got inside.
He slammed the door shut as he headed across the living room to the kitchen.
Then, Pop!
The sound of a gun.
The air in Trickett’s lungs squeezed out of his mouth and nose with a terrible noise.
A lamp crashed followed by the thud of a body hitting the floor.
Pop!
Pop!
Chapter Nineteen
Day Two—July 13
Tuesday Morning
______________
JACQUES-PIERRE TARGAUX, the head of homicide, had the eyes of a hunter and the grip of a mason. He nodded to Teffinger, gave Fallon a hug and said, “Thanks for coming in so fast.” Then he introduced a man who had been seated but was now standing to shake hands, a man named Paul Sabater.
He wore a wool-blend suit.
A silk tie.
A gold watch.
He seemed vaguely familiar.
He was an attorney from the law firm of Bertrand, Roux & Blanc, Ltd.
“We’re here on sort of a delicate political matter,” Targaux told Fallon. “As you may or may not be aware, the law firm that Mr. Sabater is associated with represented a lot of the developers and groundbreakers for La Defense. As a result, the firm has made more than a few enemies along the way.”
Fallon nodded, understanding.
She must have seen the confusion on Teffinger’s face because she said, “La Defense is a business district just west of here. It’s been a hotbed of controversy ever since it started going up, because it doesn’t retain the historic architectural lines of Paris.”
Targaux opened today’s paper to page 5 and tapped his finger on the sketch. “The problem is that Mr. Sabater has somewhat of a resemblance to the person you’re looking for.”
Teffinger shook his head and now realized why the guy seemed familiar.
“No one has called his name in,” Targaux added. “But it’s only a matter of time. Mr. Sabater wants to be sure we nip this in the bud, so the firm’s enemies can’t use it to smear their reputation.” He looked at Fallon and added, “I told him that any bud-nipping would have to come from you, since you’re the person in charge of the investigation.”
Sabater looked at Fallon, cleared his throat and said, “The article says that this crime happened Friday evening. Is that true?”
Fallon nodded.
“It is.”
Sabater exhaled, visibly relieved.
“I was in Madrid all weekend at a law conference,” Sabater said. “My wife and I, and two other couples, flew out of Paris on Thursday afternoon and didn’t get back until Sunday afternoon. I was actually one of the speakers on Friday afternoon. My lecture went to approximately five o’clock. Afterwards, all six of us, and about a hundred other people, attended a dinner reception that lasted until midnight. We took a limousine back to the hotel.”
HE OPENED A LEATHER BRIEFCASE, pulled out a pile of papers and handed them to Fallon. “It’s all here,” he said. “Airline tickets, hotel re
servations, confirmations, cab receipts, credit card receipts with my signature, you name it.” He pulled a piece of paper out of his suit coat pocket, unfolded it and handed it to her. “This is a list of the people who can verify my presence.”
Fallon studied it.
Teffinger looked over her shoulder. There were six or eight names on the paper, together with titles, addresses and phone numbers. “I have to be honest with you,” he said. “If you don’t see the need to call them, or only one of them, that would be fine with me. I really don’t want anyone to think there’s smoke and therefore fire.”
“I understand,” Fallon said. “We’ll be discrete.”
“Please check it out to your total satisfaction,” Sabater said. “All I’m looking for is the ability to tell reporters or anyone else who may raise an eyebrow that I wasn’t involved in any way and that I voluntarily provided you with everything I had, so you could direct your investigation in a more productive direction.”
“We’ll check it out,” Fallon said. “Just out of curiosity, who were the two other couples you and your wife were with?”
“One was Xavier and Anne Cannel,” he said. “Anne is actually an attorney with one of our competitive law firms, Girard & David, Ltd. Her address and number are on the paper I just gave you. The other couple was Leroy and Monique Lacan.”
Targaux leaned forward.
“Are you referring to Leroy Lacan, the judge?”
Yes.
He was.
“Leroy and I go way back,” Targaux said. He looked at Fallon and said, “Why don’t you let me give him a call? It’ll give me a chance to see what he’s been up to.”
“Fine,” Fallon said. Then she looked at Sabater and said, “You’ve gone to an awful lot of trouble to show you’re not involved.”
He nodded.
“I know it looks weird, but there are good reasons,” he said. “First, someone will call my name in sooner or later, if they haven’t already.”
“No one has yet.”
“Still, someone will,” Sabater said. “I’d rather talk to you down here than have you show up at the firm. Second, clients operate on emotion as much as intelligence, and perception is everything. If they even think that something’s amiss, there are a dozen other firms in town just as capable as ours who could handle their work. If any of them make the connection and start raising eyebrows, the firm needs to be in a position to immediately say that I’ve already been cleared. Third, my reputation is on the line. If the firm associates me with a loss of clients, or if some of the lawyers in the firm wonder if I might actually be involved, well, that’s not a good thing for me. I’ve worked my entire life to get where I am. I can’t afford to fall down some slippery slope just because some idiot killer looks like me.”