THE AMBASSADOR'S WIFE (An Inspector Samuel Tay Novel)

by Jake Needham

  “Sure you are. What the hell are you going to do here in Bangkok? Investigate Cally’s death and prove that DeSouza murdered her with the help of some Thai cops?”

  “If that’s what happened.”

  “Don’t be naive, Sam. This is the Wild West. It’s nothing like Singapore. Go around asking questions of the wrong people in a place like this and somebody rides up next to you on a motorcycle and punches your ticket with a .45.”

  “That doesn’t scare me.”

  “It sure as hell ought to. It scares the shit out of me. Unless of course you’re just too dumb to be scared. Is that it, Sam? Are you just too damned dumb to be scared?”

  “I’m staying.”

  August pushed himself to his feet.

  “Suit yourself, big man. As for me, well shit, I’m out of here.”

  August walked over to the bed, scooped up the photographs, and slid them back into the manila envelope.

  “Wait a minute,” Tay said. “I want those.”

  “No fucking chance, fellow. They’re too easy to trace to me and nobody wants to be tied to a loose cannon.”

  At the door August stopped with his hand on the knob. He looked back at Tay, who was sitting absolutely still.

  “You don’t have any contacts,” he said. “You don’t have any help at all.”

  “I have you.”

  “No,” August shook his head. “You don’t.”

  Then he opened the door and he was gone.

  THIRTY-NINE

  IT was raining when Tay flew back to Singapore, and it rained all night. The next day, a hot Saturday afternoon, Tay was sitting in the café at Borders and it was still raining.

  He watched the big fat drops splatter on the green umbrellas covered in Carlsberg logos just outside the windows and drip onto the empty tables the umbrellas were supposed to shelter and he wondered if he should have stayed in Bangkok after all. It was supposed to be the dry season in Singapore now, wasn’t it? So why wasn’t it dry? If it were the goddamned dry season, would somebody explain to him exactly how it could be raining like a motherfucker and it didn’t look like it was ever going to stop?

  A half-drunk cappuccino in a ceramic mug and an unread copy of James Lee Burke’s new novel were on the table in front of Tay, but he had lost interest in both. He was thinking instead about Bangkok, and what he was thinking had very little to do with the weather. He was thinking about Bangkok because of what happened there. He was thinking about Bangkok because of what he had now decided to do about what happened there.

  Tay sipped at his cappuccino, but it had gone cold and he put it down again. What he really wanted was a cigarette, but smoking was only allowed outside and it was raining like a son of a bitch outside, wasn’t it? How fair was that? How fair was it that he was permitted to smoke only when it wasn’t raining? And it was always raining in Singapore, goddamn it to hell, so he would probably never be permitted to smoke anywhere in Singapore again.

  “When did you get back, sir?”

  Tay looked up as Sergeant Kang pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

  “Last night.”

  “The OC said to be sure and give you his best, sir. He hopes you’ll drop in to say hello, when you have the time, of course.”

  Tay ignored the bait and went straight to the reason he had asked Kang to meet him at the café.

  “I need your help with something, Robbie.”

  “So you said on the telephone, sir.”

  “It will have to be handled completely off the books.”

  “Yes, sir. I gathered that might be the case.”

  “Are you comfortable with that?”

  “I’m ready for whatever you need me to do, sir.”

  Tay thought for a moment about how best to put the idea to Kang, and then he stopped worrying about it and just told him.

  “I may need to keep someone under around-the-clock surveillance.”

  “For how long?”

  “For as long as it takes.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “You’d need at least six men to do it. And they’d all have to work on their own time.”

  “That wouldn’t be a problem, sir. You’ve got a lot of friends.”

  “Don’t you want to know who the target is before you agree?”

  “My guess is that it’s DeSouza.”

  “That’s very astute, Sergeant.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Would you and your friends be uneasy about conducting off-the-books surveillance of an FBI agent?”

  “No, sir. Not if it’s for you.”

  Tay was pleased to hear that. He was, to be entirely honest, quite touched, but he had absolutely no intention of getting all misty-eyed about it. There might be a time for that later, but probably not.

  “Okay, Sergeant,” Tay said. “I’m going to take a crack at the boss first and see if I can get this done officially. If that doesn’t work out, you and your men have the job.”

  “We’ll be there if you need us, sir.”

  Tay wondered if he had any real chance of persuading the OC to let him continue the investigation or if he would just be going through the motions. Either way, he supposed he would have to take a shot at it. Maybe the OC would respect his doubts and let him take a run at DeSouza. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Tay supposed all he could do was ask.

  Tay felt like he ought to say something to Kang about how much his support meant, but he wasn’t sure how to do that. So he just kept it simple.

  “Thank you, Robbie.”

  “You’re welcome, sir.”

  Now Tay really did need a cigarette, but it was still raining and it still didn’t look like it was ever going to stop.

  FORTY

  “ARE you out of your mind, Sam? Are you out of your goddamn fucking mind? You want CID-SIS to put an FBI agent from the American embassy under surveillance?”

  The OC’s face had turned an arresting shade of purple, or perhaps it was closer to puce. Tay wasn’t absolutely sure he knew the difference.

  “Can you imagine…” the words stopped coming for a moment and the OC sputtered at the sheer impossibility of it, “what would happen to me if I let you do something like that and anyone found out?”

  Tay recognized that he was not being asked a question to which he was actually intended to provide an answer, so he remained silent.

  The OC abruptly stood up from behind his desk and walked over to the windows. He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand while he rested the open palm of the other against the glass and gave the city outside the once-over.

  “You remember what I said about retirement, Sam?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You think any more about that?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Well, you’re not getting any younger, you know. None of us are getting any younger.”

  “Yes, sir”

  Tay didn’t ask what the question of his retirement had to do with his suspicions concerning DeSouza. He thought he could figure it out on his own.

  The OC turned back toward Tay, leaned against the windows, and folded his arms, crossing his legs at the ankles.

  “You’re a damned good detective, Sam, but you’re getting to be more and more of a pain in the ass around here. It’s natural, I guess. People get older, that sort of thing happens. They get cranky, unhappy about everything, never satisfied. They make life hard on everyone around them.”

  “Are you saying I’m making your life difficult, sir?”

  “You damn well are right now.”

  The OC returned to his chair. He pulled out a desk drawer, rested a foot on it, and crossed his legs.

  “This case is closed, Sam. I’m sorry this woman you obviously had so much regard for was killed, but the FBI says our murderer from the Marriott was killed, too, and I believe them. So that is that.”

  “Why do you believe them, sir?”

  The OC turned his head and gazed out the window again, but he didn’t answ
er. Tay wondered for a moment what he was looking at, but then he decided he really didn’t care.

  “Will you just hear me out, sir?” Tay went on. “Will you at least do that?”

  The OC kept his eyes focused somewhere outside the windows, but he lifted one hand and gave a little wave. Tay had no idea at all what that gesture was supposed to mean, but he decided he had nothing to lose by reading it as an invitation for him to take his shot.

  “We can link DeSouza to the Marriott. We have him there on tape the week before Elizabeth Munson was murdered.”

  “It’s a hotel, for God’s sake, Sam. It sits at the busiest intersection in the whole fucking city. Thousands of people pass through the Marriott every goddamned day.”

  “May I go on, sir?”

  The OC shrugged and made that odd little wave with his hand again.

  “We can also link DeSouza to the apartment in Bangkok where Ambassador Rooney was murdered. As an FBI agent, he would have had access to it and, according to the American embassy here, he was in Bangkok on the day following the discovery of the body. My guess is that, if we push them, we’ll find out DeSouza was also there on the day she was killed.”

  Tay paused. The OC’s eyes were still focused out the window, but he didn’t interrupt again.

  “And finally, we know that DeSouza was at the scene when Cally was killed. We also know she wasn’t killed by this so-called suspect of DeSouza’s and that doesn’t leave many possibilities.”

  That caused the OC to turn away from the window and examine Tay’s face for any sign that he might be exaggerating.

  “What are you talking about?” he asked.

  Tay told him about the photographs, the blood around Cally’s body and the lack of blood around Dadi’s body in spite of the shotgun blast directly into his torso. Tay told the OC his theory that Dadi had been dead when he was brought into that room and that it had all been a setup because Cally was getting too close to something.

  “Where did these photographs come from?”

  “I have a contact at the American embassy in Bangkok.”

  “Oh, do you now?” The OC raised one eyebrow. “A contact?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And I suppose this contact just turned up out of the blue and gave you these photographs all on his own.”

  “Yes, sir. Something like that. He did.”

  “Who’s your contact?”

  Tay hesitated. He was not sure why he was so reluctant to mention John August’s name to his boss, but he was. Maybe he was still smarting over August calling him a loose cannon and didn’t want to give him too much credit, or maybe it was something else altogether. Either way, he didn’t want to bring August into it. At least, not quite yet.

  “I don’t think I should tell you, sir. Not without getting his permission first.”

  “It’s one of the American’s spooks, I suppose. That’s it, isn’t it?”

  Tay remained silent.

  The OC sighed heavily and turned back to the window.

  “I would also guess you don’t actually have copies of these photographs right now or the slightest idea what happened to the originals, do you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “He…my contact kept them.”

  Tay’s boss shook his head, then tilted back in his chair and knitted his fingers together behind his head.

  “My God, Sam, you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re into here, do you?”

  “What do you mean, sir?”

  “You said this was a setup, didn’t you?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, you might be right about that much at least.”

  “I don’t follow you, sir.”

  “You’re the one who’s being set up here, Sam. The spooks probably manufactured these photographs and showed them to you to incriminate this FBI guy for some reason.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “How the hell should I know? How the hell should I know why these people do anything? But they pull exactly that kind of shit all the time, you believe me they do. All the time.”

  Tay thought about what the Chief was saying. Yes, he had to admit it was at least theoretically possible he was being used somehow. He couldn’t prove absolutely to anyone that he wasn’t. He couldn’t even prove that to himself; but he didn’t think so. He remembered John August’s face when they had talked in his room in Bangkok, and he really didn’t think so.

  “Let me ask you this, Sam. How come you trust this source of yours so much?”

  Tay hadn’t really thought much about that up to this point and now that he was being asked to explain it to someone else, he guessed it might be a little late to start pondering the metaphysics of the question. Nevertheless, now that he did think about it, he found he had no doubt at all that he trusted August. Maybe that’s what loose cannons did, trust the wrong people; but if that was what he was doing here, then he was. All the reflection and deliberation in the world wasn’t going to change it.

  “I just trust him, sir. I know that I can.”

  “Then why didn’t he leave the pictures with you?”

  Tay didn’t know the answer to that so he didn’t try.

  “Regardless, sir, I still trust him. You’re going to have to take my word for it.”

  “And you’d bet your ass he’s not setting you up.”

  “Yes, sir. I would.”

  The OC barked a quick laugh. “Well then, Sam, you just go ahead and do that then. You go ahead and bet your ass your little spook buddy isn’t making a meal of you here. Just don’t think you can bet my ass on it, too.”

  “Look, Chief, all I want to do is put DeSouza under surveillance—”

  “Let me just get one thing absolutely straight here. You’re not saying you think DeSouza killed these women himself. You’re not saying that, are you, Sam?”

  Tay had known he would need to give the Chief a straight answer to that question and had turned it over and over in his mind since yesterday. Still, the truth of it was that he just didn’t know what the answer was, so he framed his response as carefully as he could.

  “DeSouza can be physically linked to all three crime scenes. At a very minimum, he knows what connects the three crimes and either knows, or thinks he knows, who committed them. If he didn’t commit them himself, he’s protecting whoever did. What else would explain his complicity in the murder of Ms. Parks?”

  “If there was complicity.”

  “Yes, sir. If there was.”

  “If these photographs you’re talking about aren’t just a lot of crap.”

  “Yes, sir. If they aren’t.”

  “And, even if they aren’t crap, if you might not be misinterpreting them.”

  “Yes, sir. If I’m not.”

  “A whole lot of fucking if’s, my friend.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Tay’s boss sighed heavily, then he leaned back and began studying the overhead light fixture.

  “And what is putting DeSouza under surveillance supposed to prove?” he finally asked when the silence had gone on so long that Tay was beginning to fidget.

  “If DeSouza is protecting someone, Chief, it would probably be someone he knows fairly well, someone he has a personal relationship with. By finding out where he goes and whom he sees we ought to be able at least to narrow down the possibilities.”

  “Uh-huh. And that’s it.”

  “No, sir.”

  Tay paused. He didn’t want to say it, but he supposed there was no real point in beating around the bush.

  “If DeSouza committed the crimes himself, he’s a cold-blooded serial killer. I think he’ll kill again, or try to.”

  The OC abruptly lost interest in the light fixture and shifted his attention to the top of his desk.

  “How long would all this take?”

  Tay wasn’t sure what that meant. Was the OC weakening? Was he actually on the verge of giving Tay permission to set up surveillance o
n DeSouza?

  “A couple of weeks,” Tay answered carefully. “Maybe a little more. That ought to be long enough to give us a reasonably good idea whether there’s anything there we ought to look into further.”

  The OC blew air into his cheeks and let it out again. Tay knew he was being unreasonably hopeful, but right at that moment and against all the odds his boss looked very much like a man who was about to give him the go-ahead. Tay had no doubt at all that the right thing to do was to keep his mouth shut, to sit there in silence and let the OC do his considering. Still, as he had more times in his life than he cared to remember, Tay couldn’t stop himself from saying just one more thing.

  “Nobody has to know this is being done, sir.”

  The second he spoke, Tay could see in the OC’s eyes how badly he had just blown it. If biting his tongue off could have called the words back, he would have done it gladly.

  “Oh really, Sam? You’re sure of that? What if you slip up and this man makes the surveillance? You figure we’d all just have a good laugh together and let it go?”

  “I’ll make certain that doesn’t happen, sir.”

  “Even if it doesn’t, it wouldn’t be a week before half of Singapore found out about it.”

  “It’s not necessary to tell very many—”

  “Right now you know and I know,” the OC interrupted, “and surely you’re not suggesting I agree to something like this without informing the Director of CID and God knows who he would think he ought to tell to cover his own ass. On top of that, if I actually let you do something this bloody dumb, you’d need at least a dozen men to pull it off. They’d all know. So that’s…what, maybe twenty people in all? Then it wouldn’t be long before twenty wives or girlfriends found out and then we’d really be off to the fucking races.”

  Anger rose inside Tay, but he fought it down.

  “So you won’t even consider my request, sir?”

  “I have considered it, Sam. Your request to put this man DeSouza under surveillance is denied. The murder of Elizabeth Munson has been solved. The case is closed based on information received from American law enforcement authorities. The murders of the other two women occurred in Thailand. They are none of our concern. That’s it. That’s the end. Finito.”