by Jake Needham
“I’m not suggesting anything,” Tay said.
“Calm down, Tony.” The ambassador held up one hand, palm out. “Don’t get your little pecker all knotted up. The man’s not accusing me of anything. He’s only doing his job. Isn’t that right, Inspector?”
Tay’s voice hardened more than he probably should have let it, but he was getting so sick of these buffoons he really didn’t care. “Could you just tell me exactly where you were, sir?”
If the ambassador noticed Tay’s tone, he gave no sign of it.
“I was in Washington all of last week. I didn’t get back until about two o’clock yesterday morning.”
“And precisely when did you leave Singapore, sir?”
The ambassador hesitated a beat. It was only a split second, but Tay noticed and wondered if it meant anything.
“On Monday of last week. I took the morning Singapore Airlines flight to London and then flew from there directly to Washington on United.”
Tay made a mental note to have Sergeant Kang check when the Singapore Airlines flight to London had left on Monday of last week.
“Did your wife have any enemies, sir? Was she in any particular danger you knew of?”
“All Americans in foreign countries have enemies, Inspector. We are all in danger all the time. The more prominent we are, the more danger we are in.”
“In what way was your wife prominent, sir?”
“Because she was my goddamned wife,” the ambassador snapped almost at once. Then he took a long breath and drained the irritation out of his voice. “She was the American ambassador’s wife. That was enough right there to make her a target for these bastards.”
“Have other wives of American ambassadors been murdered like this?”
“Well…”
The ambassador shifted his eyes toward DeSouza, but it was Dewey Garland who responded.
“Not that I can recall, Inspector. We can research the point for you if you like, but I’m not sure I see the relevance of historical experience here. The world has changed in the last few years and American diplomatic personnel have been thrust into the front lines of the war against terrorism. We are all at risk all of the time, as are our families. It’s something we live with every day of our lives, but it makes it no less horrible when exactly the thing we all fear actually happens.”
It was a nice speech, but Tay couldn’t see it had all that much to do with the question he had asked. Nevertheless, he gathered that hidden in it was his answer. Ambassadors’ wives were not routinely tortured and murdered by terrorists, or anyone else for that matter. In that, and perhaps in other ways, Elizabeth Munson had stood alone.
“What thing is that, sir?” Tay asked.
Garland looked puzzled.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking me,” he said.
“You said it is horrible when that thing you all fear actually happens. What is that thing that you all fear?”
“Ah, I see,” Garland said. “We all fear someday our number will come up, that we will be targeted by terrorists as their next victim.”
“And do you think that was what happened here? That Mrs. Munson was targeted by terrorists.”
“Of course, Inspector.” Garland shifted his weight on the couch and folded his arms. His face settled into an expression Tay didn’t like very much. “Do you have a different theory of the crime?”
That was exactly the problem, of course. The American obsession with terrorists aside, Tay really didn’t have a clue as to who else might have killed Elizabeth Munson.
“I’ve read the autopsy report,” Garland continued when Tay didn’t respond right away. “Mrs. Munson was killed by a single, point-blank shot from a weapon suited for very little else but killing a human being. What could that be other than a carefully planned terrorist attack?”
“I thought the ambassador said you were a commercial attaché,” Tay said. “Why would a commercial attaché be reading an autopsy report?”
To Garland’s credit, he didn’t even blink.
“Touché, Inspector. Very good. Still, you’ll excuse me if I don’t formally acknowledge I may indeed perform a few additional duties around here from time to time.”
“Look, Inspector,” the ambassador interrupted, “this is taking us a pretty long way off the reservation.”
Tay wasn’t so sure. He was just beginning to wonder how big this reservation actually was, and he was even less sure exactly what might be on or off it. Regardless, he decided not to argue the point, at least not right then.
“If that’s all the questions you have for me,” the ambassador stood up without waiting for Tay to say whether it was or was not, “I’m going to turn you back over to Ms. Parks now.”
When the ambassador offered his hand, Tay stood and took it, although he had a fleeting desire to refuse.
“If Tony needs you, he’ll be in touch,” the ambassador said as they shook hands. “Meanwhile, Cally will be your contact at the embassy. Call her if you come up with anything we ought to know.”
Tay was being dismissed like a schoolboy and it made him even angrier than he already was, but he held his tongue and mumbled something innocuous. When Cally stood up and opened the door for him, he left the ambassador’s office without another word.
Outside in the hallway Tay bit back his fury over the way the ambassador had patted him on the head and tossed him out.
Suddenly a line from an old Arnold Schwarzenegger movie popped unbidden into his head. First the marine behind the glass in the embassy lobby had made Tay think of a Clint Eastwood movie and now here he was thinking of a Schwarzenegger flick. What was it about being in the American embassy that caused Tay to keep thinking about American movies? Perhaps it was only natural, the inevitable result of the flood tide of Hollywood compost celebrating the immoderation and excesses of the American self-image in which the world was awash. Perhaps that was how the whole world saw Americans now, as if they were nothing more than characters in one of their own movies.
Tay couldn’t call to mind the name of the Schwarzenegger movie he was thinking of, but he had no trouble at all summoning up the line from it that expressed exactly how he felt now.
I’ll be back.
Yes, indeed, Tay thought. I goddamned well will be back.
NINETEEN
WHEN the door closed behind Tay there was a silence in the ambassador’s office. Tony DeSouza, who had hardly spoken the whole time Tay had been there, was the first to break it.
“I don’t think we’re going to have a problem,” he said.
The ambassador twisted his head around and gave DeSouza a look.
“He seems tame enough,” Dewey Garland agreed. “He certainly wasn’t asking any tough questions today and I didn’t see anything that suggests to me he ever will.”
Marc Reagan wasn’t so sure, but Dewey and Tony were the professionals when it came to that sort of thing so he didn’t think it was his place to contradict them.
The ambassador said nothing either. He scratched the back of his neck. He moved some files from one side of his desk to the other. But he said nothing.
The silence grew heavy. Marc fidgeted on the couch. He felt like he was the only man in the room who didn’t have a clue what the punch line to this whole story really was. He was just a staff assistant after all. Nobody told him a damn thing. Finally, when he couldn’t stand it a minute longer, Marc pushed himself to his feet.
“Will there be anything else, sir?”
The ambassador looked momentarily startled at the sound of Marc’s voice, as if he had forgotten other people were there in the room with him, but he recovered quickly.
“No, Marc. Thanks.” The ambassador came to his feet in the customary gesture of bringing a meeting to a close. “That’s it, fellows.” The other men rose as well and made their way to the door with the usual pleasantries.
“Stay for a minute, Tony,” the ambassador said. DeSouza stopped, shutting the door after the others had left.
The ambassador walked to the windows and stood with his hands clasped behind him looking out at something. DeSouza walked over and stood next to him. They inspected the trees together in complete silence for a while.
“How do you feel?” DeSouza eventually asked.
“How do I feel?” the ambassador snorted. “How the fuck do you think I feel? I feel like I’ve been gut shot.”
DeSouza nodded. There wasn’t really anything he could say to that.
“What did you really think?” the ambassador asked. “About this guy.”
“You mean the Singapore cop? Tay?”
“Yeah. Him.”
“He won’t be any problem.”
The ambassador grunted again and slipped back into silence.
“Do you have anybody yet?” the ambassador asked after a while. “Somebody you can put this on, I mean.”
Desouza said nothing.
“Just staging an investigation isn’t going to cut it, you know, Tony. We need to ID somebody and bury him. And we need to do it quickly before this gets out of hand.”
“It’s taken care of.”
The ambassador shot DeSouza a look. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Do you really want to know the details?”
“No, I just want to know what you’re…” The ambassador hesitated. “I guess not. No details, no.”
“Just take my word for it then. The matter is taken care of.”
“Goddamn it to hell, Tony, I don’t want Tay sticking his nose somewhere it doesn’t belong.”
“I’ve already told you,” DeSouza said, drawing his voice out in an exaggerated show of patience. “Tay isn’t going to be a problem. He’s a typical Singaporean. These people are scared of authority. They’re taught from the day they’re born to go along and get along. Tay will keep his nose clean at all costs. He’s not going to make waves.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“Fuckin’ A, I’m sure of that.”
DeSouza glanced at the ambassador’s face and was surprised to see there the beginnings of something that looked almost like a smile.
“What?” DeSouza asked.
“I’m not so sure.”
“You’re not?”
“No,” the ambassador said as he went back to examining the trees outside his office window. “I’m not so sure of that at all.”
TWENTY
“YOU want to take the elevator?” Cally asked Tay when they were outside the ambassador’s office. “Or the stairs.”
He looked at Cally and said nothing. Fishing through his pockets, he pulled out a box of Marlboros.
“I’m sorry, Inspector, but smoking isn’t allowed in the embassy.”
Tay tapped a cigarette out of the box anyway, briefly rotated it between his fingers, and then stuck it into his mouth without lighting it.
“How about sucking?” he asked. “Is sucking allowed?”
Cally giggled slightly and Tay, unreasonably pleased he had raised a giggle in a pretty young woman, returned the cigarette to the pack and put it away.
“What a load of politically correct crap,” he muttered. “Whatever happened to individualism?”
“Hey, don’t take it out on me,” Cally said. “I just work here.”
Cally cleared her throat. Her eyes drifted around for a moment and then met Tay’s.
“Look,” she said, “I’m probably way out of line saying this, but I thought you handled yourself well back there.”
“Why?” Tay asked. “Because I didn’t shoot the asshole? I would have, but I left my gun in my other suit.”
“What do you think of him?”
“Your ambassador? He’s an arrogant prick.”
“Well now, Inspector, don’t be coy about your feelings. Just tell me what you really think.”
Tay didn’t smile. He really didn’t feel like it.
“The man’s wife has just been murdered, Inspector. You’ve got to cut him some slack.”
He was in no mood for stupid American idioms. Cut him some slack? What in God’s name was that supposed to mean?
“And so he’s going to try and sell some ridiculous story about his wife committing suicide?” Tay snapped. “How does he think he’s going to do that? Does he expect me to just forget that a murder has been committed here and go along with him? If he thinks he can do something like that in Singapore and make it stick just because he’s the American ambassador, the man’s an idiot.”
“I’m not sure he really meant that,” Cally said. “When he thinks about it, he’ll know that’s not the way to go.”
“And what is the way to go?”
“To find out who killed Mrs. Munson as quickly as possible and get him off the streets. Then everyone can move on.”
Tay shot a glance at Cally, but her face told him nothing. “And you think your Mr. DeSouza is the man to do that.”
“I think Tony can help you a lot. Give him a chance.”
“I don’t think helping me is exactly what good old Tony has in mind.”
“Meaning what?”
“Your heard your ambassador back there. Don’t call us, we’ll call you, Inspector. That is, if we need you, which is of course very unlikely since my boy DeSouza is going to be running the whole investigation.”
“I think you took what he said the wrong way.”
“Really? And how should I have taken it?”
“As an offer to the Singaporean police of the full help and cooperation of the government of the United States in solving this murder.”
Tay folded his arms and stared at Cally.
“Are you serious?” he asked. “How can you say something like that with a straight face?”
“It’s a real talent, isn’t it?” Cally said. “Some people have it and some people don’t. I do. I really do. Actually, I think it’s why the State Department hired me.”
Then abruptly she laughed, sticking her tongue into the corner of one cheek and rolling it around.
Tay didn’t know what to say.
“You want to have lunch?” Cally asked all of a sudden. “The embassy cafeteria’s not bad. My treat. Order anything you want. Up to five dollars, of course.”
Tay glanced at his watch. It wasn’t even noon yet.
Cally could see what he was thinking.
“We eat early around here,” she said. “When you come into the office at seven, by twelve you could eat a horse.”
Tay’s first instinct, of course, was his usual one. To say he was busy, to say perhaps they could make it another day. He would say it very politely and with just the right touch of regret in his voice, but he would still say it. Dr. Hoi had him dead to rights on that. He declined invitations by reflex, even when he really wanted to accept them.
Perhaps it was thinking of what Dr. Hoi had said that caused him to bite back the words this time. When was the last time a woman had asked him to lunch anyway? He couldn’t remember. So why was he about to say no?
Tay doubted this was an entirely spontaneous social invitation on Cally’s part, of course, if there was any social aspect to it at all. Cally Parks had just been appointed as his keeper for the duration and more than likely she just wanted to get a close look at what was in store for her. Regardless, she was still an attractive and apparently intelligent young woman and she had just asked him to have lunch with her. So Tay, for once in his life, stopped and thought before he opened his mouth and said no.
THE embassy cafeteria was smaller than Tay had expected. There was a modest food service facility on one side and on the other side a dining room that held about a dozen round tables with matching chairs, all blond wood with chrome frames. It was an altogether pleasant setting, bright and airy with a collection of colorful framed children’s drawings scattered over the walls. Still, something about the place was almost too cheerful and gave the room a forced quality that didn’t feel entirely right. Tay figured it was the same sort of feeling he might get visiting the cafeteria at a school fo
r troubled children. Well, Tay thought, there you had it.
They went through the cafeteria line, but nobody else was in it so it really wasn’t much of a line. They pushed their pink plastic trays along the chromed rails and Tay selected a chef ‘s salad and tomato soup. Cally ordered a cheeseburger and fries. When they carried their trays out into the dining room Tay saw only two other tables were occupied. He let Cally lead him to a corner that was out of earshot of the other people in the room and they transferred their plates from the trays to the table.
“Do you always eat such a sensible lunch, Inspector?”
Tay sifted Cally’s remark for hidden meanings. Was this woman saying his choices for lunch had been intelligent? Or was she saying they were boring? No, he was being overly self-conscious again.Of all his many faults, the one he hated most was his tendency to overanalyze everything. That and being five or ten pounds overweight. Fifteen maybe.
“That certainly looks very healthy,” Cally went on when Tay didn’t immediately reply. “I suppose.”
“I like salads,” Tay said, and then mentally kicked himself for sounding so defensive.
“I like cheeseburgers,” Cally said. “They’re my comfort food.”
“Are you in need of comfort now?”
“Not really. But I sure am in need of a cheeseburger. I may even put some onions on this one.”
With that Cally flashed Tay a smile that seemed to him so spontaneous, so very much directed at him alone, that he felt a slow spread of warmth moving through his body and a slight buzzing sensation in his ears. Maybe this woman’s invitation to lunch had been personal after all. He could at least admit the existence of that possibility, couldn’t he? Then again, that was probably complete nonsense. It was more likely by far that he was just one more middle-aged man basking in the glow of a younger woman’s smile, desperately trying to believe that he had played some part, however small, in causing it to appear.
They made small talk for a while after that. Cally told him a few of her stories and he told her some of his. Against all the odds, Tay was feeling pretty good, comfortable even. He was chatting inconsequentially with this woman he hardly knew and it was all going just fine.
