Not Exactly Allies

by Kathryn Judson

CHAPTER 53 – THE RESULTS COME IN

  Richard was sitting quietly, being a good detainee, but his hands betrayed his distress. The blood was washed off, but it was inexplicably still there, Lady MacBeth-style. Richard couldn't help rubbing at it now and then.

  The cop had sniffed the whiff of innocent self-defense, apparently. He also seemed to believe that Richard was with the British secret services, once being shown proper credentials. At any rate, after extracting Jean from his tangle and handcuffing him to a handy, heavy, metal filigree end table as a temporary measure, he had left Richard sitting unshackled, upon his word that he would behave himself and stay where he was, while he stepped out to talk to people on the doorstep.

  After asking his carefully worded questions, the cop slipped back inside and shoved the door closed against the curious mob. "They all seem to think that the woman picked the lock and then ran in here shouting and shooting," he said, mopping his brow. "They are admittedly all crazy, but even idiots can be useful in establishing timelines."

  He turned Williams's body over and checked what was in her hands and what was in her purse and pockets. In short order, he had lock-picking tools and photographs of Jean Blondet and Leandre Durand. "So the idiots weren't all hallucinating," he mumbled, more or less to himself.

  He flashed the photo of Durand at Blondet.

  "Ah, so that explains it," Jean said. "She was after him. It's just my luck I'd be his, uh… guest at the moment."

  The hesitation wasn't lost upon the policeman. "Don't play with me. She's known to me. We are in deep water, here, no?"

  "Damned deep, since she's dead and can't tell us anything," Richard said.

  The policeman turned his attention to Richard.

  "I have a curious and almost overwhelming urge to break furniture," Richard said.

  "That's good," the policeman said. "So long as you resist."

  A phone rang. Jean used his unshackled hand to fish it out of his pocket.

  "That's mine. Don't answer it," Richard said.

  "It might be Castelneau, hitting a callback button, you know," Jean said.

  "You're right. Answer, but identify yourself," Richard said.

  "You're the boss," Jean said, to Richard, but watching the police officer.

  "Go ahead," the policeman said.

  "Jean Blondet here," Jean said into the phone, sounding like someone who knows he has the upper hand. "…Oh, I suppose you want to talk to the owner of the phone… No, no, it is no trouble at all, except to decipher your French. You speak French atrociously, you know… No, no, of course I am not stalling…" He laughed, enjoying the little game of worrying the unknown man on the other end of the line.

  Richard retrieved his phone. "Hugh here," he said.

  "Carterson here. Can you talk?"

  "Since I was a toddler."

  "You know what I mean. That was an odd answering service you have there. Do you need help?"

  "Possibly. I've just shot Pamela Williams, and the police are here."

  "I was calling about Williams, actually. We just got an avalanche of results, lab and otherwise. It's her fingerprints in the passageway between the chief's office and Orchard's, and also under Dourlein's desk where the wiretap was, and also on the coffee jar in Loomis's house. Plus, we just found out that she teaches self-defense classes in which, interestingly enough, she advocates box cutters as essential accessories for females out jogging. In short, we have a tremendous amount of leverage now, enough to make even her talk, I should say."

  "She won't be talking."

  "Sure she will. With this much evidence against her, she has a lot to gain by cooperating."

  "Move everything to past tense regarding Williams."

  "She's dead?"

  "That's right."

  "So why didn't you just tell me she was dead?"

  "Next time you shoot a woman, get back to me and tell me how easy it is to deal with."

  Richard shivered. Rather than talk to a colleague while he was shaking, he rang off. He methodically put the phone into its proper pocket. He slammed the wall with his hands. That not being sufficient, he punched a hole in it with his foot. He sat on the floor, and signaled to the policeman that he thought he was through, at least for the moment.

  "And people say that the British are cold fish," Jean said, sarcastically.

  "Shut up if you know what's good for you," the policeman said.