“Definitely outside the bell curve,” Ken mused.
But the account received deposits. Two of them coincided with the murders in Belize, and many others spaced out over several years. Deposits by whom?
He kept checking the biography on Martin German. Then he found that they had a beautiful brownstone in Manhattan which an only child inherited—a daughter named Claire German.
Manshu got up and walked over to the microwave to take out his still half-frozen pizza. He set it for another 40 seconds.
“Why does that name seem familiar?” he asked himself.
Ken typed the name “Claire German” into the search bar. Several articles came up. Half of them were listed as “Claire German-Clemp.” Then more labeled as “Claire Clemp, tragic widow of Charles Clemp.”
It dawned on him that only a week or ten days earlier, there was a story about Clemp from Italy. He scanned the article from Cloudnews—they were based in Europe and would have the best coverage.
“Let’s see.” Ken read. “The multi-millionaire C.E.O. of Rangolenk Industries disappeared in an apparent sailing accident off of southern Italy. His new bride, Claire German, daughter of the late Martin German, was not sailing at the time.”
The news item went on to say that the Sicilian police had ceased searching for Mr. Clemp, and his wife returned to New York approximately ten days after the incident. Three tragic deaths all connected to this poor woman. Curiouser and curiouser, Detective Manshu thought.
He clicked on “images,” and several came up. Almost all of them were taken near a hotel in Sicily. Claire was about mid-thirties, maybe younger. She had straight dark hair above her shoulders, and she was attractive but not exotic. He kept searching. One news outlet caught her in Barcelona at the airport. This one was a pretty good shot considering that she was moving through the airport in a crowd. There was a close-up also.
Detective Manshu studied her face trying to imagine her with a long, blond wig. Martin German wasn’t making any deposits; it was logical to assume it was his daughter. He would ask Kimmy to dig into the file and check for a power of attorney naming Mrs. Clemp as the account holder. Ken carefully scanned the few shots of the woman.
Almost immediately, the bandage on her ear stood out like a sore thumb. He squinted. “Now, what the hell is that?” he said. It was clear as day that she had a rather ornate serpent-like earring in the pics from Sicily. The thing looked pretty unique—gold, diamond, and emerald. But in Barcelona, several days later, her ear was bandaged. Very odd, Detective Ken Manshu thought. Exceedingly so.
Chapter 16
Casper sealed his agony into a box in the corner of his brain. Time was of the essence, so he grabbed the backpack and drew on all of his street smarts to stay calm. A taxi took him to the Calabria airport, and the flight out to Milan was smooth with no trace of odd glances or suspicion. The Milan to Barcelona leg was equally trouble-free; that made Mike nervous, but the passport with his new name worked like a charm.
As much as he tried to suppress it, the image of Cassie kept resurfacing, despite compartmentalizing. Staring at the ground from 30,000 feet didn’t help.
First, Mike pictured the beautiful love of his life, smiling, then the dead Cassie taped to a chair. The images alternated in his head. He wanted to scream and cry at the same time, but he tamped it down and focused on random clouds from his window seat. It got him through the flight.
Barcelona was busy. He paid for his ticket with cash which cost him $510 for the non-stop. The cashier looked at the passport to check the picture. They were instructed to do that when passengers used cash. Mike stared off into space, trying to look as conventional as possible.
“Mr. Jones? Collin Jones?” she tried to get his attention.
Mike awoke from his daydream. “Yes, sorry.”
“Here’s your change.” She handed him a ten. “You don’t have a British accent.”
He’d practiced this. “Oh. I get that all the time. I spent twenty years in the states from when I was a baby. Too late to change the accent now.”
She smiled. “I could never change my Spanish accent. Have a nice flight. Boarding at Gate B-26 in one hour.”
He smiled back and flipped his backpack onto his shoulder. The gate was a short walk, so he decided to pick up a paper. Something was gnawing at him to search the news despite a louder voice reverberating in his head that told him to buy a sudoku book and walk away. Mike eased up to the variety store called Relay. There was a giant column loaded with newspapers in front of the shop. He picked two of them in English, bought a candy bar, a bottle of cola, and a small book of logic puzzles.
Gate B-26 was crowded, but he found a plastic seat next to a large woman. She looked at him as if he could be an afternoon snack. Casper pulled out one of the papers. It was all international news stories about bickering between the Chinese and the U.S.A., the Eurocup (front and center on the first page), problems in parliament; it went on with random reports.
A minute later, an even larger woman sat down to his right. She smiled at him. He smiled weakly back at her, and she raised her eyebrows, then turned to study her nail polish.
Casper flipped to pages two and three. Two had weather and business. A photo caught his eye on page three—a couple of photos. The first was of a starched-looking guy in a suit and tie. The caption read, Business leader Charles Clemp still missing after his boat disappears in the Straits of Messina.
Mike looked at the adjacent picture. He began to tremble. It was her. Underneath the photo, it said, Recently wed widow, Claire German-Clemp returns to New York.
She was wearing the earring in the photo. Embedded in the same picture was a small frame with another photo—it was the same woman, same brown hair, same attractive but not striking appearance—there was a bandage covering her ear.
Casper was gripped with anxiety and overwhelming emotions. Claire German-Clemp. He read the article, which contained a timeline and a biography on both Mr. Clemp and the woman. They’d only been married for a short time. The couple was traveling on their honeymoon, but sailing didn’t agree with Clemp’s bride. She rented a car and was scheduled to meet Charles in Syracusa, Sicily—but he never showed. The man’s boat, the Won Again, vanished along with a crewman name Tony Reacher. There was no picture of that guy; perhaps the name was bullshit.
The involuntary shaking wore off, and Mike proceeded to read the article three times. Things began to gel towards an obvious conclusion—Claire German must have hired someone to sink the boat. Tony Reacher must have been the man he’d seen on the Won Again when they cruised past in the Messina Straits.
Piece by piece, it all fit together. Claire was too “sick” to go sailing. She must have set up the Tony guy to be crew on Clemp’s boat. That was when Mike saw them heading south. Then he saw the motorboat pass him going south with a man and a woman—Claire Clemp. The scene was playing like a movie in his mind.
“What the hell happens next?” he mumbled out loud.
The large woman to his right snorted and spoke to him with a thick Dutch accent. “You get on the plane and go on vacation.”
“Huh?” He looked up from the newspaper to see the woman grinning at him.
“You asked vaht the hell happens next. I said you get on da plane.”
“Thanks, I was just talking to myself.”
“Yes,” She pointed to gate B-26. “They are boarding, so you can go get on now.”
Sure enough, the seniors were lined up by the gate.
“Danke, eine Minute.”
The woman chuckled, and her whole body chuckled with her. “You said that right in German, but I am Dutch.”
“Right. Okay. Thanks.” It felt like she was hitting on him. “I’m just going to finish reading and then go.”
He replayed the movie. They must have motored south to make sure the Won Again went under and then picked up the hired crewman. And he must have killed Charles Clemp. Then, they head back north and—. “They saw me!” Casper turned an
d shrugged at the fat Dutch woman. “Sorry. Just talking to myself again.”
He went back into his thoughts. The crewman recognized him. That’s when they turned to sink my boat and kill me; to get rid of the witness. But then Reacher is also missing. That means they killed him too. That would leave just Claire Clemp and the other guy—the same guy who killed Cassie—the guy whose neck Casper broke.
Mike stuffed the paper into his bag. The only one left was that psychotic bitch with the earring. Walking to the gate, Mike realized the one stupid thing he’d glossed right over. The mob wasn’t in on this. It was Claire German-Clemp, widow to a guy worth a crapload of money. Bruner and the drug boss weren’t an immediate threat.
He stopped to lean on a pillar and pulled out the article again. Charles was worth at least $150 or so million dollars, but then it said that the money was going into a charitable trust. He pondered that. Did she murder the man for a couple of properties? Granted, they were in New York and were probably worth a fair amount. But, no, she went through a lot of planning, so it had to be another big asset. Maybe Clemp had a fat insurance policy.
He turned toward the line of people boarding. The large Dutch woman slipped up beside him and whispered in his ear, “You can relax on your flight to Belize, and don’t worry, no one is tailing you.”
Casper started to panic. She gripped his arm. “Augustino asked me to keep an eye on you. You’re okay.”
He relaxed a little. “Who are you?” he stammered quietly.
“No one of consequence.” Then she added, “I always wanted to use that line.” The fat woman spun around and left. Casper watched her go while wondering just how big Augustino’s reach really was.
Mike shoved the paper back into his bag and approached the gate while tossing his unopened drink into the trash. At least he could take the candy bar on the flight. As dismal and miserable as his life was, he’d also gotten a gift, and he was that much closer to settling the score with Cassie’s murderer.
Chapter 17
“How long, Ted?”
Martin German’s former partner recognized the clear dramatic impatience in Claire’s tone. Thirty years of practicing law gave competent attorneys insight into human quirks, follies, and idiosyncrasies.
“It takes time to process these things. We aren’t talking about a ten-thousand-dollar policy. The insurance companies don’t like to write checks for $30 million; it bothers them.”
“I want to make sure they don’t try to make this into a long, drawn-out lawsuit that will drain me. Isn’t it bad enough that I lost my husband?”
Ted Greeley had known Martin’s daughter since she was a little girl. He didn’t like her then, and he disliked her more every time they talked. Fortunately, that was a rare event.
“I understand, but they must investigate. They have an obligation to their shareholders, and it is expected that you will have an interview.”
“That’s reasonable.” He sensed a subtle change in her tone.
“The company may ask you to take a polygraph.”
“Mr. Greeley. We both know that that is just a game to make me nervous and trip me up using silly semantics.”
“That’s true, and it isn’t a requirement under the law or under the contract. As your lawyer, I will politely tell them that you are too distraught to endure an intrusive and lengthy interview. In the end, they will pay.”
“How soon?”
“Maybe three months,” said Greeley.
“The contract says 45 days.”
“Let’s not create a tempest in a teapot.”
Claire stared around the German family brownstone. It was comforting to be back home and away from Chuck’s penthouse.
“The law says they have to fulfill the contract, correct?”
“Always.”
“Then tell them if they get obnoxious about this, I will go to the press and tell my story—including the part about the insurance company that won’t honor its contract promptly.”
“They won’t close it until you speak with them and without the final report by the Italian and Sicilian police.”
“Set it up. The investigator can meet me at my late husband’s home. Tell them one week from today in the afternoon. Have them call me that morning to confirm.”
Claire hung up. She walked over to the one mirror hanging on her bedroom wall and stared at herself. Turning to look at her ear, she cursed using a string of four-letter words. The plastic surgeon did a good job, but the delay caused a permanent scar. Claire wanted to scream and contemplated smashing the mirror.
Johnny’s effort to find out the fisherman's identity was a complete screwup, and he paid for it with his life. Claire returned to her computer and read the Italian news article about two murders in Pellaro. The police in Italy had loose lips, so the details were not underwhelming.
The report said that a woman was found taped to a chair with multiple stab wounds. There was a man’s body found in the same upstairs room of a pub. He was not yet identified, but he was found with a broom handle protruding from his body, and the immediate cause of death was a broken neck.
The police confirmed the woman as a British citizen name Cassie Clark, daughter of Sir Reginald Clark, a businessman from London.
“Well, well, the frustrating dead bitch was a rich daddy’s girl. What the hell was she doing in a pub in an armpit of a town like Pellaro, Italy?”
Claire read on. The report quoted a spokesman for the Clark family saying that Cassie had left the U.K. to start a business in Italy. From all reports, the business was functional and was profitable.
“It was a bar, you assholes,” Claire practically spit out the words. She wondered why rich people always got good press in Britain when it came to things like their scummy children engaging in adventures abroad. Ms. Clark obviously had some problems with her life of luxury, but to answer her life’s riddles, the woman opened up a pub? And finally, who was the fisherman. Not Italian. She read on with the English translation.
Local inquiries confirmed that Ms. Clark operated her restaurant and had a long list of loyal patrons. As far as anyone knew, she was neither married nor involved in a relationship. The man found dead near her had never been seen in Pellaro previously.
A local 12- year- old boy, whose identity is undisclosed (other than calling him “A”), stated that he knew both Cassie and her male suitor. The boy was emphatic that the dead man found near Ms. Clark was not Cassie’s boyfriend. The police did not release any more details about the boy or the potential adult male person of interest. One of the community's leading members, Augustino Fortecelli, merely stated that the whole town was in shock, but he had no further information.
Claire stared at the picture of the overweight man who’d been outside the clinic. She read on.
When asked about his being seen with Cassie Clark outside a health clinic with the fisherman who survived his boat’s sinking, Augustino replied that he just happened to have been nearby and offered the injured man a ride.
Nevertheless, the news media outlets are struggling to discover the fisherman's identity, and the police are equally in the dark. Mr. Augustino stated that the man kept his face covered the entire time he was in the car.
“Now, that is such a pack of lies. I could get the truth out of that fat bastard in one minute,” she muttered. Claire wondered if sending someone to question the young Italian teen might reveal anything useful. But Johnny was now a corpse, so she’d have to use some less reliable assets. The idea was a bust. To protect herself, Claire had always kept her list of “helpers” short. None were as good as Demarco, and now it appeared that the mother F-er who ripped her ear also put down Johnny with malice and not a lot of wasted effort. Whoever he was, the guy was dangerous. He still had to die—no doubt about that—but she would have to be careful.
The widow Clemp put her feet up on her late father’s ornate desk. He would have paddled her if he was alive, but alas, she laughed to herself; daddy Martin fell on a pair of scisso
rs. Perhaps one of the most fortunate “accidents” that a girl could wish for.
The memory of the fisherman yanking her earring riled her. Anger was welling up inside, and Claire had an urge to just go out and find a victim to satiate the need to deal out punishment. A ravenous desire to murder someone at random shot through her like electricity.
“What the hell is happening to me?” she blurted out.
It was that mother f-ing beast that hurt her—it was making her unstable, uncontrolled—she had to rein it in. Claire German was always sedate and calculating. She was never rash or impulsive because that was how people like her got found out. Calm it down. Calm it down. But she wanted him dead. Not just dead, the guy had to suffer as no one had in the past. Chuck Clemp was a masterpiece, but the sea took him. No, the man who stole her earring was going to be up close and personal. Her fantasies evolved into visions of prolonging the fisherman’s suffering for days—bringing him to crescendos of agony and then easing it only to repeat other tortures. The thought of it aroused her. She ran her hands over her body.
On the left side of the desk, there were three drawers. Claire opened the bottom drawer and withdrew a shoebox. Inside were plastic zip bags, each with a coded index card, codes for her to re-live a particular kill. The bags also held clippings of various body hair. She picked up one and rubbed it against her. The memory of that murder flooded back into her thoughts. That one was a woman who’d thought that Claire was the love of her life. Her death was sweet and financially rewarding.
When her needs had been fulfilled, she arose and looked at her reflection in the mirror. One desire was her sole focus and became her raison d’etre. She was going to murder with no monetary reward, purely for the value of revenge and blood lust.
Claire reached up to massage her earlobe between her fingers. Fantastic images played within her imagination. Tape, knives, scissors, and screaming. She stared at the mirror, her full length, visualizing herself standing naked over the squirming body of the man.
Cold Dead Hands (A Mike Casper Thriller Book 1) Page 14
