Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion

by Joseph Flynn

  “Yes. I’ve worked hard for a long time. I’ve earned that right.”

  “You have, indeed.” McGill wondered if his other two children would use the same strategy. He asked Abbie if she thought they would.

  She laughed. “Kenny is going to ask Patti for a presidential appointment to West Point, and Caitie’s too busy planning her future in show biz to think about college.”

  McGill told Abbie, “Okay, honey. Use your mom’s maiden name. You could call yourself ZaSu Pitts and you’d still be my girl.”

  Couldn’t make it any easier on her than that.

  “I love you, Dad.”

  “I love you, too, Abbie.” He said goodbye, knowing Abbie was already Googling ZaSu Pitts to see who she was.

  After he clicked off, Gabbi asked, “Problem?”

  “Complication. Easily resolved.”

  “We’re here.” She nodded to a well-kept low rise office building. “The lair of Pruet.”

  McGill blinked. He’d wanted to pay attention to the city, so he could start to find his way around. But they might have driven through Oz for all he knew. Oh, well, he thought, he’d have other opportunities to learn the Left Bank from the Right.

  Better start learning the language, too, he told himself.

  Winfield House—London

  7

  The president was continuing to work her way through the endless line of briefing books when Galia Mindel entered the suite the president would be using as her residence in London. Patti was glad to have a respite from her studies. Done right, the presidency was a real post-doc grind.

  “Well, Galia, what did Sir Robert have to say, and what’s your impression of him?”

  “May I sit, Madam President?”

  “Of course.”

  As her chief of staff sat in an armchair, the president saw that Galia was preoccupied, and misattributed the reason.

  “Is the Queen really dying?” Patti asked.

  When the request had first come from the British ambassador for the president to spend an additional day in London, Galia had immediately speculated that Her Majesty was dying, renouncing the throne or both. The chief of staff, and Jim, had pointed out correctly that the Royal Family wasn’t known for acting impulsively and wouldn’t bother the President of the United States with a triviality. Something was up, something big.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Galia said.

  “What changed your mind?”

  “Her Majesty has invited you to a private lunch.” Galia filled in the details. “I don’t think she’d ask you to join her for tea and crumpets if she lay on her deathbed.”

  “That would be a bit macabre,” the president said. “Still leaves stepping down.”

  “That’s the way I’m leaning.”

  “Sir Robert gave you no clue.”

  “None. He’s…”

  The chief of staff’s attention drifted away, and this time the president saw what was in Galia’s eyes. Sir Robert had set her heart aflutter. More power to him, Patti thought. Galia had been a widow for five years. In the manner of some professional women, the chief of staff had thrown herself into her work, doing her best to leave no time for grieving. But Patricia Darden Grant, herself a widow, if only briefly, knew there were times the heart would not be denied. It needed to mourn, even if the world at large would never be permitted to see.

  “Galia?” the president said. “Is there anything you’d like to tell me, woman to woman?”

  The chief of staff reddened, almost as if she were ashamed of what she’d been thinking.

  Then her normal hard-charging persona reasserted itself. “I think, Madam President, someone in Her Majesty’s government, though probably not the Queen herself, is trying to cultivate an asset close to the Oval Office.”

  “Meaning you,” the president said, sitting forward. “Well, that would certainly be a serious matter. It’s a good thing you can see through such machinations.”

  “Yes, it is.” Galia stood up. She had work to do—and silly thoughts to disperse. “If you’ll let me know when you decide to respond to Her Majesty’s invitation, I’ll pass the word along.”

  “I can tell you now. I wouldn’t think of disappointing the Queen. Please let Sir Robert know I’ll be happy to have lunch at the palace.”

  Galia nodded and turned to go.

  The president stopped her. “Maybe Sir Robert just likes you, Galia.”

  Galia had decided not to accept that possibility, as the president could see.

  “Of course,” Patti said, “you could turn the tables on whoever is behind this nefarious plot and cultivate Sir Robert as an asset for us.”

  As a rationale for further contact with the man, the idea had appeal to Galia.

  “I suppose I could do that,” she said.

  “Do your country proud,” the president said.

  Patti picked up her briefing book before Galia could see the smile on her face.

  Paris

  8

  Gabbi parked the Peugeot in a lot adjacent to the Seine, across the Quai d’Orsay from the building housing Pruet’s office.

  Having had a moment to examine the edifice, McGill said, “Place looks more commercial rather than governmental.”

  Gabbi nodded. “Good eye. It’s mostly filled with law firms.”

  McGill gave her an inquisitive look.

  “M’sieur le magistrat is not your everyday juge d’instruction,” Gabbi told him.

  “Okay,” McGill said, “I’m going to need help with the language, and probably a lot of other things. But do we have time for that now?”

  “Our meeting is set for any time you find convenient. Within reason, the French can be more relaxed about punctuality than Americans. So let me give you the primer on what we’re facing.”

  McGill said, “Go ahead.”

  “The French have an inquisitorial system of criminal justice. Ours is—”

  “Adversarial.” He knew all about that.

  “Right. A principal figure in the French system is the juge d’instruction, which usually gets translated as the examining magistrate. He’s the guy who handles the big cases.”

  “Like the death of a national sports hero,” McGill said.

  “Right. Something like that … or politically sensitive cases.”

  McGill wagged his finger and put on a Southern drawl. “I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Whateverhernamewas.”

  Gabbi smiled. “Nice impression. Yeah, like that, except no French politician would ever make such a denial. He or she would say, ‘It’s none of your damn business who shares my bed.’”

  McGill laughed. “I’d love to see someone try something like that at home.”

  “Anyway, the examining magistrate conducts investigations in the hot cases. He’s an independent player. Prosecutors in routine cases answer to the Minister of Justice. Guys like Yves Pruet wear no shackles.”

  “But?” McGill asked.

  “Well, they are expected to observe certain proprieties. Understand that some things just aren’t done.”

  “Pruet did one of them anyway?”

  “I don’t want to give too much away,” Gabbi told him.

  McGill gave her a look. “Heaven forbid I should be fully informed.”

  “I’ll give you the file on Pruet to read if you want. But it might be more useful, initially, if you draw your own conclusions.”

  McGill studied Ms. Casale.

  “You want to see how smart I am. How much I can figure out for myself.”

  “It’d be good to know if you’re more than just a handsome face.”

  That one slowed him down for a second. Nah, he decided, the RSO wasn’t coming on to him. She was giving him another kind of test.

  “Okay,” he said, “let’s see how smart I am. Is there anything else I should know?”

  “Magistrates used to have the power of remand. Now, if they want someone locked up pending trial, they need the approval of another judge.”

&n
bsp; “Shouldn’t have been hard to get in this case.”

  “It wasn’t. But the interesting thing is, Pruet got to determine the place of custody.”

  McGill said, “Can’t put Kinnard where France’s felonious soccer fans can get at him.”

  “From what I’m told nobody but Pruet can get at him.”

  McGill thought about that. Isolation, he knew, was a double-edged sword: saved the body, destroyed the mind. Not that he was going to have a lot of time anyway, but he might need to move fast to save Kinnard from going crazy. Or confessing to a crime he didn’t—

  Well, he did kill the guy. He’d admitted that. But he might say his missing blonde was really a figment of his imagination, just to get better living conditions.

  “One other thing,” Gabbi told him. “The magistrate’s job isn’t to be either a prosecutor or a public defender. His obligation is to determine the truth. He’s supposed to find the evidence of what happened whether it’s incriminating or exculpating.”

  McGill had to smile. The law always sounded majestic in theory.

  Theory residing over the hill and far away from reality.

  9

  Investigating Magistrate Yves Pruet wasn’t exactly what McGill was expecting.

  In fact, Pruet inspired a thought that had never occurred to McGill before: This guy could use a makeover. Maybe a couple weeks relaxing in the sun, too. The magistrate was pale and haggard. His suit needed to be pressed and his shoes needed to be shined.

  But his eyes were clear, bright and blue.

  Signposts for a good mind hiding behind a down-at-the-heels exterior.

  McGill drew all the obvious inferences. The guy was having trouble at home. He’d been told he didn’t have long to live. Somebody was stealing his copies of GQ.

  Pruet’s police bodyguard, Odo Sacripant, was as meticulous in his appearance as his boss was rumpled. Looked like he carried a lot of lean muscle, and the cast of his eyes let you know he wouldn’t be afraid to use it.

  The building may have been a commercial structure, but Pruet’s office furnishings were governmental, and minimalist even on that scale. The magistrate worked behind an unadorned table made of polished oak. He sat on a matching chair. Two more wooden chairs were positioned opposite Pruet for visitors. Or suspects. Odo had a tiny metal desk with an upholstered office chair in a corner to the magistrate’s left. In the corner to his right was a three-drawer file cabinet. Two large casement windows flooded the room with light, shining directly on McGill and Gabbi.

  McGill put on his sunglasses. Gabbi contented herself to squint.

  Introductions were made and Pruet said to McGill, “I must compliment you on your bodyguard, M’sieur McGill; she’s far more charming than my own.”

  Gabbi gave Pruet a smile. McGill let Gabbi’s looks speak for themselves.

  Pruet asked McGill, “Do you speak French, m’sieur?”

  “Sorry,” McGill said. “I took four years of Latin in school. The priests pushed it. Told me it wasn’t a dead language until they said it was.”

  Pruet smiled thinly.

  He then gave McGill a quick précis of the French legal system. It matched up with what Gabbi had told him. But the magistrate added a few details. The biggie was that in France there was no plea bargaining a felony. You did the crime, you did the time. All of it.

  After finishing his tutorial, Pruet asked McGill, “Are you a personal friend of M’sieur Kinnard?”

  “An acquaintance,” McGill said, “a former colleague. Now he’s my client.”

  Pruet took note of the distinction between those three things and friendship.

  “Do you know what interest, if any, M’sieur Kinnard might have in football?”

  “He’s a Chicago Bears fan.”

  Pruet frowned, not comprehending the response.

  Gabbi explained in a French accented cognate: “Gridiron.”

  McGill caught the word and nodded. “Gridiron not soccer.”

  “No interest in world football at all?” Pruet asked.

  “No, only the American kind,” McGill said.

  He didn’t actually know Glen Kinnard disdained soccer, but from what he remembered of the man’s Pleistocene attitudes he thought it was a pretty good bet.

  “I’ve read a copy of M’sieur Kinnard’s police record,” Pruet said. “He has quite the history of brutality.”

  McGill responded, “Being a cop in Chicago can be a tough job. None of the excessive force complaints against my client was sustained. Many of them were filed by people with criminal records. And he didn’t have any in his last three years with the department.”

  After talking with Emilie LaBelle, McGill had checked out Kinnard’s record, too.

  Pruet continued, “As you say, m’sieur, you were a colleague of M’sieur Kinnard. If you don’t mind, can you tell me how many brutality complaints were lodged against you during your career with the Chicago police?”

  “Two,” McGill said.

  “Would care to provide the details?”

  “I slapped the faces of the maestro of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and a patron of the arts—after the patron shot me.”

  Odo grinned and gave McGill a thumbs-up.

  “Yes, well,” Pruet said, “not that I would know, but I suppose being shot could shorten one’s temper.”

  “The complaints were later withdrawn,” McGill said. “But the point should be taken that a police officer in Chicago might face danger even on the stage of Orchestra Hall.”

  Pruet looked at Gabbi and she nodded in confirmation.

  The SRO had studied McGill’s bio, as much as time had permitted.

  She picked up the conversation. “May I ask where M’sieur Kinnard is being held?”

  “In a safe house. A measure taken to guarantee his well-being.”

  “Will I be able to speak with him?” McGill asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Soon?”

  “As soon as is practical.”

  McGill decided not to push it. For the moment.

  “Thank you for your time, Magistrate Pruet,” he said.

  “C’est rien.”

  “It’s nothing,” Gabbi translated.

  Exactly, McGill thought, but didn’t say so.

  “I expect we will be working together quite closely,” Pruet added.

  “Good to know.” McGill stood and shook the magistrate’s hand.

  Odo escorted the two Americans out. When he returned Pruet was looking pensive.

  “You see the opportunity here, don’t you, Yves?” he asked.

  “You refer to the opportunity to shift the blame for any unfortunate outcome?”

  “Better the Amis should shoulder the burden than you.”

  Pruet nodded, but he didn’t look greatly cheered.

  Arlington, Virginia

  10

  When Sweetie was a kid, her mother got a real estate license so her father, a firefighter, could stop moonlighting on his days off. Actually, Mom wanted Dad to keep the pickup jobs, roofing and house-painting, and stop running into burning buildings, but the city paid better and provided great health benefits and a pension plan. So, if Dad was going to risk his life, Mom figured it would be better if he were well rested when he did. In the end, things worked out for both of them. Mom sold so many houses Dad did quit the fire department and went to work for her. Said he didn’t mind her bossing him around as long as he got paid for it.

  Being the child of a crack Realtor, Sweetie learned a lot about homes and their price tags.

  When she saw the house where Musette and Deke Ky lived on Dinwiddie Street in Arlington, Virginia, her informal real estate education kicked in and she ran an appraisal in her head. A frame structure with a pale pink brick facade on a quarter-acre lot. Construction date, say 1955-1960. At least four bedrooms and maybe five. Three-to-four bathrooms. Three-car garage. Solid, stable neighborhood. Equivalent schools. Close to DC. Price: a million to a million-two.

  Maybe add anot
her hundred grand for the pocket park-and-playground directly across the street. The place the sniper had set up and shot Deke. You thought about it that way—as a risk factor—maybe it knocked the price down just under a million.

  A red light went on when Sweetie rang the doorbell. The camera looked down from just under the eaves and would catch the right profile of a visitor facing the front door. It was reassuring to see a precaution had been taken since the shooting. People ought to learn a lesson or two, Sweetie thought, after somebody tried to kill them.

  She’d been expecting Musette to open the door for her, but Deke did.

  It was the first time she’d seen him since the shooting He looked better than she’d thought he would. His color was a little less vibrant than his usual new penny hue, and his frame was a few pounds light. But his muscle tone, as displayed in a Treasury Department T-shirt, didn’t look half bad. His hygiene and grooming were as meticulous as ever, always a good sign.

  Sweetie smiled and said, “Special Agent Ky, good to see you.”

  Deke bobbed his head. “You, too, Margaret.”

  “I lit many a candle for you.”

  “Thank you. I appreciate it.”

  “Your mom home? She asked me to stop by.”

  Deke’s face clouded. “She did?”

  “Yeah. She bumped into me after mass yesterday.”

  “You go to church in Arlington?”

  Sweetie shook her head. “No, this was at St. Al’s in DC.”

  Before Deke could delve too deeply into the implications of that, his mother joined him at the door. She caressed her son’s brow and kissed his cheek.

  “Invite our guest inside, Donald,” she said.

  Deke did as his mother instructed. Ushered Sweetie inside and closed the door.

  Musette told Sweetie, “I was just fixing some refreshments for us. Have Donald show you to the kitchen when the two of your are done talking.”

  When she was gone, Deke asked, “Has my mother hired you and Holmes?”

  Using Jim McGill’s Secret Service code name.

  Sweetie nodded. “Me, anyway. Jim’s in Paris.”