by R. J. Jagger
Then she shook her head at her own gullibility and said, “Got me.”
DURAND TURNED, ran back across the street and pulled Anton to the side. “Hey,” he said, “I just thought of something. If they need help figuring out who this guy is, I’d be happy to assist. That’s what I do, remember.”
Anton nodded.
“I’ll mention it.”
“You do that.”
He watched Anton pull off, walked down to the Seine, crossed the bridge to the Right Bank, and took a spot on a bench. Eight or ten pigeons flew over and strutted their tail feathers until they got no food. Durand studied the houseboat moored on the opposite side of the river.
It was a nice unit.
Pricey.
Clearly the tattoo woman wasn’t hurting for money.
So why was she down at De Luna, stretched out on a rack, getting felt up and tickled for a few measly euros?
There was only one possible explanation.
She liked it.
Little Miss Kinky.
DURAND LOOKED AT HIS WATCH and found it was later than he thought. He went home, sketched the face of the man who turned the boxer’s head into hamburger last night, and faxed the sketch to his client.
The client called two minutes later.
“Is this pretty accurate?”
“Within reason,” Durand said. “Do you know him?”
“No.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Day Three—July 14
Wednesday Afternoon
______________
THE BAIT WAS SET, like it or not. The most important thing in the world right now, at least from Teffinger’s point of view, was that Fallon not be hurt or killed. So they fired up the coffee maker and spent a solid hour on the boat, going over vantage points, movements and plans of defense. At the end, Teffinger should have felt better, but didn’t because Fallon was insistent that she be the one to kill the man if it came to it.
“I’m positioned to handle the fallout, you’re not,” she said.
He grunted.
“Screw fallout, but that’s not the issue,” he said. “The issue is, we need him alive. He’s our only link to Michelle Berri.”
Fallon wrinkled her forehead.
“I forgot all about that.” She studied him and asked, “Have you ever killed anyone?”
Memories flashed.
“Yes,” he said. “Have you?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“It’s more serious than you think,” he said, “even when you’re in the right.”
She picked a lighter off the counter, flicked a flame and looked at him through it. Then she shut it down and said, “I won’t lose any sleep if he makes me do it. Trust me.”
Teffinger heard the words but didn’t process them.
Instead he picked her up, carried her downstairs, threw her on the bed and pulled her pants and panties off. Nothing else, just her pants and panties.
Then he took her.
Hard.
Passionate.
Like a caveman.
THEY HEADED TO THE OFFICE to see if any phone tips had come in. On the way, Teffinger had a wild idea, got the number for Les Taxis Bleus and dialed.
A woman answered.
Teffinger explained that a cab driver with a gold tooth picked him up at the airport Monday morning, a talkative man named Baptiste. Teffinger wanted to know if there was a way to get in touch with the man. He needed to talk to him about something.
The woman on the other end took Teffinger’s phone number.
“I’ll give him a message,” she said. “No guarantees he’ll call.”
“Thanks.”
Teffinger hung up, looked at Fallon and said, “He’ll call.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I gave him a good tip.”
Two minutes later, Baptiste called.
“You’re the American,” he said. “I remember you. You were the scared one.”
“Not scared,” Teffinger said, “just not used to Paris driving.”
Baptiste chuckled.
“Scared,” he repeated.
Teffinger grunted.
“Okay, maybe a little.”
Then he explained that he was looking for a favor. “Check out page 5 of yesterday’s paper. You’ll see a sketch of a man. Someone said he might be a taxi driver. I’m trying to find out if that’s true or not and wondered if you knew him.”
Five minutes later, Baptiste dialed back.
“That could be Anton Fornier,” he said.
Anton Fornier?
Right.
Anton Fornier.
“Thanks, I owe you one.”
“You already gave me ten,” Baptiste said, referring to euros. “Now we’re even. You take care, American.”
“You too, Frenchman.”
Baptiste laughed, then hung up.
AT FALLON’S OFFICE, the coffee was hot but the news was bad. No more calls had come in on the sketch. Fallon ran a background check on their new cabbie friend, Anton Fornier.
A couple of minor things, that’s all he had.
She looked at Teffinger and said, “So now what?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Day Three—July 14
Wednesday Night
______________
THE PARIS SKY GOT CLOUDY WEDNESDAY EVENING and then dropped rain shortly after dark—nothing heavy, but constant. Deja and Alexandra made a slow pass by the looters’ house, which came in and out of focus through sweeping wipers.
The interior was dark.
No cars were in the driveway.
“We might be in luck,” Deja said.
She expected Alexandra to agree but no agreement came.
Instead the woman said, “It smells like a trap.”
Trap.
The word made Deja shiver, so much so that she jumped when her cell phone rang. It turned out to be Nicholas Ringer. “I just thought I’d give you a call and let you know I haven’t forgotten about you,” he said.
“Anything new?”
“No,” Ringer said. “Unfortunately, the P.I. got sidetracked onto some urgent matter for another client.”
“When is he going to get back on it?”
Ringer exhaled.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I tried to light a fire but he warned me that this other matter was really urgent. So we’ll see. I’ll keep the pressure on.”
Okay.
Thanks again.
WHEN DEJA HUNG UP, Alexandra asked, “Who was that?”
Deja debated whether to tell the woman or not.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m going to tell you something, but don’t freak out.”
Freak out?
Why would she freak out?
What’s going on?
“That was a man named Nicholas Ringer. He owns a shipyard and is a client of the law firm I work at,” Deja said. “We got to talking a couple of days ago when he was at the firm getting some work done. It came up that Remy got murdered. It turns out that Mr. Ringer had an archeological class with Remy ten or twelve years ago, when he was going to the university. He offered to hire a P.I. to investigate Remy’s murder if the police didn’t make progress. Later that day my apartment got broken into and you showed up out of the blue. I thought that was a pretty big coincidence.”
Okay.
“Anyway, I called Mr. Ringer up and asked if he could put a P.I. on you, just to see if you were legit,” Deja said.
“On me?”
“Right.”
“You had me investigated?”
“Like I said, don’t freak out,” Deja said. “You checked out and it’s a done deal.”
Alexandra grunted.
“I can’t believe you did that.”
“Like I said, it’s a done deal.”
“Didn’t you trust me?”
“I did and I do,” Deja said. “It was just so weird that Remy got killed, my place got trashed and you showed up at the doo
r, eager to protect me. I didn’t know if the whole thing was a charade to get my confidence to see if I had the map and would give it to you.”
Silence.
“I didn’t know you then like I do now,” Deja added. “We didn’t have any history together yet.”
More silence.
Then Alexandra said, “Who was the P.I. that got hired? Do you know?”
Yes.
She did.
“Someone named Marcel Durand.”
Durand, huh?
Right.
“Tell me about Nicholas Ringer.”
Deja told her what she knew, which drew a lot of questions. Then she asked, “Are you mad at me?”
Alexandra exhaled.
“I would be, except for that little incident where you saved my life.”
Deja grinned.
THEY MADE ANOTHER PASS BY THE HOUSE.
Then another.
Nothing changed.
The structure was dark and creepy, exactly the way it would be if someone was laying a trap, or if no one was home. They parked several streets over, more than a kilometer away, doubled back on foot, and took a position in the shadows across the street.
The plan was simple.
They would get in phone contact. Alexandra would go in and keep her ear to the phone. Deja would stay outside and be the lookout.
“See you in hell,” Alexandra said.
Then she headed for the structure, looked in the side windows, and disappeared around the back corner. “I’m at the back door,” she said. “Nothing suspicious so far. I’m going to shine the flashlight in.”
Silence.
“It looks clear,” she said. “I’m going in.”
Glass busted.
“Okay, I’m in.” A moment passed. “There’s something wrong.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. It just doesn’t feel right.”
“Get out of there,” Deja said.
Silence.
“Alexandra?”
Silence.
“Alexandra, are you there?”
Chapter Thirty
Day Three—July 14
Wednesday Night
______________
AFTER DARK, DURAND stuffed cuffs, rope, duct tape, latex gloves, a mask, a ball gag and a pair of binoculars in a black nylon backpack. He dressed in his best stalking clothes, all dark, and sheathed an 8-inch serrated knife on his belt. Then he headed to his car and drove through a light but persistent drizzle as the Stone’s “Paint it Black” spilled from the radio. Twenty minutes later, he parked on a side street, got out, and walked for a kilometer through a wet Paris night.
That brought him to the Seine, on the opposite side of the river from the houseboat, a hundred meters down.
The weather worked through his clothes and chilled his brain, but it also kept the Parisians off the streets. He looked around, saw no one, and slipped into the deeper shadows of a clump of trees next to a retaining wall. The binoculars came out and pulled the houseboat in. The window coverings were all closed but the lights were on. An occasional shadowy movement indicated that the woman was home.
Good.
Durand pulled up an image of her body.
Her tattoo.
Her face.
He sat down, leaned against the wall and felt the rain start to seep through the hood. Minute after drizzly minute passed. An hour later, the lights inside the boat went out. He studied the vessel through the binoculars for another thirty minutes and saw nothing to indicate that the woman had done anything except go to bed.
He stood up, hunched against the weather, and headed that way.
Game time.
HE GOT TO THE BRIDGE, crossed the river and inched his way towards the target, one silent step at a time.
Slowly.
Watching.
Listening.
He stopped next to the boat with a racing heart as he looked for the best place to step aboard.
Do it carefully.
Don’t rock the stupid thing.
Don’t wake her up.
Suddenly his cell phone rang. At that second, he remembered he had forgotten to mute it. Damn it! He flicked it open before it could ring again, but didn’t answer. Instead, he punched the power off and watched the display fade to black.
He stood there, frozen.
If the woman heard it, she would suspect something. It had been too close to the boat. No one should be there this late at night, especially in the rain.
He stood still, waiting to see if a light turned on or if a window cover pulled back.
Nothing happened and the pounding in his heart dialed down just a touch.
HE ALMOST STEPPED ABOARD but his instincts brought his foot to a standstill.
They told him to leave.
To watch the boat from across the river.
To play it safe.
To come back in an hour.
He headed down the walkway, briskly but silently, already knowing he had made the right decision. Thirty steps later, he turned and looked over his shoulder, just to make sure everything was okay. To his shock a man was behind him, a large man, charging full speed on silent feet.
Durand got the knife in hand and stabbed with all his might as the man lunged through the air at him.
Chapter Thirty-One
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
______________
TEFFINGER WOKE THURSDAY MORNING with a headache, a dry mouth and an empty feeling. The first two were the product of too much beer. The empty part came from the fact that the guy got away last night and because of that Michelle Berri was still out there somewhere in the world.
It was Teffinger’s fault.
He shook his head and still couldn’t believe it.
He had the guy right there in his sights but he lunged too early and planted his face in the ground.
He never even got a look at the guy.
The good news was that the man’s knife landed between Teffinger’s arm and his body. It sliced the side of his chest, but didn’t land six inches over in his heart. The wound was superficial enough that Fallon treated it. After that, they abandoned the houseboat and headed to Teffinger’s hotel room where it would be safer. They were too wound up to sleep and ended up in a bar.
Fallon drank wine.
Teffinger drank beer.
Cold beer.
Something in a brown bottle with a French label.
Beer that went down too smooth and too fast.
Beer that now pounded with little hammers inside his skull.
He popped three aspirins and took a hot shower. When he got out, Fallon the angel handed him a cup of hot coffee and asked, “How’s the cut?” He raised his arm to show her. She frowned and added, “It’s still bleeding. You need stitches.”
He raked sopping wet hair back with his fingers, took a long slurp from the cup, and checked the wound in the mirror.
True, it was bleeding, but not much.
Not enough to waste time on.
“I’m starved,” he said. “Let’s get some breakfast—my treat.”
She chuckled.
“Teffinger, you just referred to yourself and the words my treat in the same sentence. Now I really am worried about you.”
He put a puzzled look on his face.
“Are you serious? Did I just really do that?”
She nodded.
“I was hoping today would be a better one than yesterday,” he said, “but I’ve only been up fifteen minutes and I’m already making mistakes.”
THE CAB DRIVER, ANTON FORNIER, didn’t work on Thursdays and Fridays. Teffinger and Fallon sat inside a coffee bar across the street from the man’s apartment, waiting for him to wake up and make a move.
Maybe lead them to Michelle Berri.
They found out a few things about him yesterday, other than he looked like a caveman. He was a good driver with no accidents or customer complaints. He worked the day shift now,
meaning he wasn’t on duty Friday night when Tracy White got her eyes gouged out and Michelle Berri got taken.
Opportunity.
He had only been with the Les Taxis Bleus for nine months, so they had no records as to whether Fornier was in France when Amanda Peterson got her eyes gouged out in Denver.
More opportunity, possibly.
Most importantly, however, he lived above his means.
Somehow, someway, he had money in his pocket that he shouldn’t.
That’s what got Teffinger’s attention more than anything.
TEFFINGER TOOK A SIP OF COFFEE and said, “It’s too bad I didn’t at least get a punch in last night. If the DJ or our friend Mr. Cab Driver was walking around with a black eye today, that would eliminate a lot of work.”
She nodded.
“Next time, don’t spend all your energy attacking his knife with your body.”
Teffinger smiled.
“So what else are you working on, besides this?”
She shrugged.
“Investigation-wise, this is it,” she said. “Except for one cold case.”
“Cold cases are the worst,” Teffinger said. “Tell me about it.”
“There’s not that much to tell,” she said. “Some guy put a plastic bag over a woman’s head and duct-taped it around her neck. Then he sat back and watched the air run out.”
Teffinger winced.
“How long ago?”
“A year,” she said. “It was actually my first case.” She raised the coffee to her lips, took a sip and studied his eyes over the edge. “Tell me about Denver. Do you have a girlfriend waiting for you?”
No.
He didn’t.
“Five girlfriends?”
He grinned.
No.
“A dog?”
No.
“Nothing.”
Just his job.
“Then maybe you should stay in Paris,” she said. Suddenly something outside got her attention and made her put the coffee cup down. “We’re up.”
Teffinger looked across the street and saw the cab driver, Anton Fornier.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Day Four—July 15
Thursday Morning
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