“That seems more like it. Not that I wouldn’t be happy to have an extra six hundred.”
“I apologize. My error.”
Mike waited while she pulled out some forms. That was very slick of her, he thought. Ms. Manshu threw out some ridiculous numbers to test him. She was a smart one, but he passed the test.
There were about five pages of forms. Mike wrote the address in England with a ton of trepidation, but it was required. The Jeffersontown Bank might not ask for addresses, but the credit card company definitely would.
“And would you like statements mailed to that address?”
He laughed. “A statement mailed there will show up in three months. Better to send it to my email.”
Kim scanned the form and checked for the email address, and looked up. “That’s your part. Tomorrow your card will be here. We can deliver it to your hotel, or if you are out and about, you can stop by when it’s convenient.” She again delivered her beautiful smile and waited serenely.
“What time?”
“After 9:30 a.m.”
“That should be fine. I’ll drop by then.”
The assistant was waived near and brought a zippered and unremarkable bag. He laid it on the table and returned to the far corner of the large hall.
“Would you like to count it?”
“What’s in there?”
“Two bundles of $10,000. We deducted the cost of converting pounds to dollars from your account. There is a statement inside as well.”
“That’s fine—no point in counting it. You’ve got a large sum of my money in your vault—I think I can trust you to count out 20k.”
Kim looked straight at him. “I appreciate your confidence. By the way, how was the coffee?”
Mike looked at the full cup, grasped the handle, and took a sip. It was lukewarm. “It’s fantastic.” He stood up and walked out.
After he was out the door, she picked up the cup and carried it over to the kitchen, wondering why rich people would always ask for coffee but never drink it.
The next day, Collin Jones returned to the bank precisely on time and received his very high limit card. He now had a passport and a credit card. Kimberly Manshu wasn’t there, but the person on duty handed him an additional card called the Elite Banking Network Card. It was an unexpected gift because the card's purpose was to link the most elite offshore banking customers. The banks must have figured out that not every customer keeps his funds in one place. The E.B.N. card wasn’t a standalone I.D., but it would help Mike to get through the Cayman bank with a little less red tape—that was assuming that he lived to get there.
With his new sense of identity, Casper/Jones walked out onto the streets of San Pedro, feeling a modicum of ease. Augustino’s people told him he was not being tracked. He breathed without fearing the bullet that could finish him at any moment.
But then the memories of Cassie swarmed his head like hornets. It was impossible to recall the good without the feeling of being destroyed by the images of her death. Mike had never been a believer in the value of therapy, even when his dad was gunned down. Now, he was older, more vulnerable even; sitting with a psychologist might help him get past the guilt. So he buried his thoughts again, determined to find joy in something. Casper decided to have pizza and spend some money, maybe on new pairs of socks.
Chapter 21
Ken Manshu got a brief, pleasant welcome from some N.Y.P.D. detectives who subsequently vanished. He didn’t know where things were going, so he waited in the conference room with donuts and coffee placed dead-center on the worn and scratched veneer table. Then, about 90 minutes later, after watching Bob Marlie clips and humming to himself, a detective walked in and asked Ken if a ride to his hotel would be helpful.
“I was hoping we could go over the case I’m working on.”
“My name is Bojowski. I read your file. Should we go straight at it? You’ve got nothing.”
“I’ve got a witness.”
Bojo, as his friends and enemies called him, scoffed, “Your witness saw someone in a wig at night. You’ve got the coincidence of two murders that happened when Claire Clemp was in Belize. That’s not a case, but the timing is disturbing—I’ll give you that one.”
“I’ve got some physical evidence.”
“Like?” asked Bojo.
“The coroner found some small particles of wood sap residue in Fioret’s wound. That would be the wood she threw into the fire on the beach.”
“Can you tie that trace in your victim to your suspect?”
Ken felt like he was falling off a cliff. “Not yet.”
“Right. So the only thing you have is an island country with a victim and a suspect who were in the same city.”
“It’s a small island.”
“Are we supposed to bring in Claire German Clemp and question her about a murder...sorry, two murders that you can’t connect to her. The woman just lost her husband.”
“She murdered him.”
“Detective Manshu. She was shopping in Sicily when he disappeared. That is quite a feat to kill someone 80 miles away while you’re shopping for jewelry. Maybe go back to Belize and try to develop your case there. There’s nothing here to look at.”
“What if she did it? What if my gut is right?” Ken was feeling utterly demoralized.
“Let’s say you are right. She’s a psychotic serial killer. How do you convict her without evidence?” Bojowski was getting impatient.
“What about a search warrant for her house?”
The New York detective sergeant stood up and stretched until he felt a small crack in his spine. It felt good. “No judge will issue a warrant on your hunches—bottom line—you should have some New York pizza and go home.”
“That’s it?”
“Pretty much. When’s your return ticket?”
“Five days.”
Bojo nodded. “Go have some fun. Avoid the hookers.”
“Thanks.” Ken masked his incredulity.
“Your welcome.”
Bojowski did his best to tell it like it is. He didn’t divulge to Manshu that they questioned Claire as part of a follow-up to the Won Again sinking. They went to her house because they convinced her that the insurance company would be easier to deal with if it looked like the police in New York went over the details and verified everything that the Sicilians had put in their files.
All that was long-winded bullshit, but it got them an interview. And she answered questions without a lawyer.
His lieutenant told him to lead the discussion around to Belize—which Bojo did. He told her that a cop was coming up from Central America with evidence, and he asked her if she’d seen anything odd or known Dr. Fioret. All that was designed to try to rock the rich bitch a little, but she barely flinched—which surprised the detectives who sat and observed. Innocent suspects always get upset when they are wrongly accused. Ms. German brushed them off like dust on her brownstone windowsills, but speculation among a handful of investigators was just fluff without evidence.
If Claire German Clemp was a cold-blooded murderer, then she was darn good at it and had nerves of ice and steel.
Ken’s frustration was intense. The San Pedro police budgeted $5,000 for him to convince the New York cops to take a hard look at his suspect. It felt like they’d already made up their minds to shut him down. It was patronizing.
He walked from 35th street and headed uptown. He did a calculation in his head; it was 35 blocks to Claire German’s house on the east side. Looking around at the dozens of people hustling in different directions, Ken got a sense that it was just him and the woman he knew to be guilty on the entire island of Manhattan. But without the backing of the largest police department in the world, Detective Manshu was just another visitor from some country in Central America.
When he reached 61st, he stopped at a bar, which coincidentally had pizza on the menu. The detective had recommended that, so Ken ordered a burger. He started with a beer. It wasn’t any better or worse
than the stuff on tap back home. Baseball was up on the bigscreen. A couple of beers and a few gin and tonics later, he got to enjoy the Mets playing extra innings. If he’d been sober, he wouldn’t have given a damn.
“Sir, I’m going to have to hold off on any more drinks.” The bartender was an exceedingly tall and heavyset woman. She had a pearl in her nose and a collection of earrings that he could see under her short, cropped hair.
“Let me ask you something,” Ken addressed her. It was a classic statement offered by drunks to every bartender in history.
The place was mostly empty. It was getting dark outside, but still early for the onslaught that usually began around nine.
“Sure. Ask away.” She leaned her beefy arms with sagging triceps onto the bar. Close enough, but not too close.
“I’m a cop and a detective.”
“Right. Sure you are.” She listened to his funny accent, and her nutcase radar was pinging, but the guy had spent some money, and he wasn’t bad to look at.
“No, really. I came here from a place called San Pedro.”
“Never heard of it,” she said.
“Here. Look at this.” The bartender stepped back a foot while Ken pulled out an I.D. He held it up. “What does that say?”
She read it. Ken Manshu. Belize National Police. It had his picture and some other stuff in Spanish and English.
“I guess you are a cop, then.” The bartender eased her bulky body closer. “I still can’t serve you any more G & T’s”
“Screw that,” he slurred. “I probably had enough.”
“Agreed.”
“Do you know why I’m here?” He was kind of cute and amusing. She raised an eyebrow and shrugged. “I’m here because—” He looked around the bar and then lowered his voice. “—I’m chasing a serial killer.”
The big woman behind the bar did a little math. Her patron had had two beers and five mixed drinks. The man was a lightweight.
“That’s a creepy story. Can I get you some french fries or a cup of coffee?”
It took Ken a moment to figure out that she was redirecting him. “No. I’m not joking with me. I mean, I’m not joking with you. There is a really evil woman in this city who killed two people in my country, so I’m investi—I’m tracking her.”
“That’s nice. Oh, look. I’ve got to go check on our peanut supply. She started to turn, and Ken reached out to touch her arm. The bartender swung back to face him and pushed his hand away. “We don’t touch the person on this side of the bar, right?”
Ken looked down at his hand. “Oh. Sorry.”
“Maybe go do some more detecting or whatever it is you do. Your bill is paid up. Time to go save the world, okay?”
“You want me to leave now?” he asked.
“Sure. Why don’t you go bring your suspect to justice? It’s your job, right? Catch the bad guys so you can keep the rest of us safe. I’ll say thank you in advance. It’s because of cops like you that the rest of us sleep soundly at night!”
Manshu slipped off his barstool. “You’re right!” He walked towards the door, and he was going to say something else, but he couldn’t remember what it was.
*
“He just walked out of the bar.” A skinny guy in jeans with greasy black hair spoke into a cheap handheld transmitter. He’d been keeping tabs on the Belizian detective with the help of Claire’s other “Employees.”
“Which way?” asked a digitally altered voice.
“Towards you.” No more needed to be said. He knew his role and crossed the street, moving briskly to get into position.
Ken was having a conversation in his own head. He was thinking about what he would say to get Claire German to confess. There was no way she could wiggle out of a real questioning. The woman had to be stopped. She’d murdered two on San Pedro. There could be others. What if she had a whole list of victims?
“Hey man! Watch where you’re walking.” A guy was in front of him, staring Ken down. “You got the whole damn sidewalk!”
“Sorry.”
“Looks like you had a few beers. Do you know where you’re going?”
“Yeah. Where am I?”
“That’s funny, man. You’re by 66th”
Manshu’s normally sharp thinking was downright sluggish. “How do I get to 70th and 1st Avenue?”
“You’re not from around here, are you? First time in the city?”
“Yeah.”
“Let me help you. There’s all kinds of construction. To get there, you gotta go down to York. It’s complicated. C’mon, I’ll show you.”
They walked east on 66th until they got to York. The building on the corner had scaffolding lining its perimeter. Corrugated sheets blocked off the sidewalk. An alert person would have recognized that York was east and not in the direction of 70th.
“I told you, construction everywhere. If you aren’t from around here, you could walk all night.”
The air and the short walk were helping Ken to regain his senses a little. “This can’t be right.”
“Are you kidding? I don’t know how much you had to drink, but we have to go through here to get onto the walkway to 1st Avenue.” The guy nudged Ken towards a gap in the steel barrier between the sidewalk and the building. It was pitch dark.
“No. This can’t be right.” Manshu tried to turn to head back toward the opening to the street. The skinny guy gripped his arm tightly.
“Shut up!. Don’t make a sound if you want to live. Do you feel that?”
A sharp pain in his back made his knees buckle for a second. “That’s my gun in your ribs. Are you going to keep quiet?”
Ken nodded and answered, “Yes. Take my wallet. It’s in my back pocket.”
“Shut up.”
In front of him, he heard shuffling. A woman’s voice said, “Are you the detective from Belize?”
“Yes.” Adrenaline was flooding his body. It overcame the alcohol, and his brain began processing on a level of fight or flight.
“Are you looking for proof on that woman you are chasing? The serial killer?”
He didn’t know what to say. She flicked a cigarette lighter. The sudden light blinded him for a second. He tried to look at the woman’s face, but she was in the shadows.
The man with the gun was surprisingly strong. He grasped Ken’s arms tightly. The urge to scream was coursing through him, but no sound emerged. In a flash, the woman plunged a long and thin letter-opener into Ken’s throat. His eyes went wide with terror, shock, and pain.
“Was it worth it?” She’d asked Fortier the same question. It was a damn good line for an unrepentant serial killer.
A quiet gurgling emanated from the detective’s lips. The guy holding him wrapped a gloved hand tightly on Ken’s face.
Claire withdrew the thin blade. Blood flowed. She expertly forced the sharp point between his ribs and into his heart. Two fatal wounds are better than one, thought the Widow Clemp.
The greasy-haired guy lowered the dying detective to the ground. He shoved the pistol back into a side pocket without speaking and headed down the covered walkway to an opening closer by 65th. Claire joined him, and they proceeded arm in arm like lovers out for a stroll. There were no nearby cameras on York. The latex gloves and the letter opener were in a plastic bag. Claire glanced at her backup man—he wasn’t reliable like Johnny. Getting rid of evidence had to be flawless. She would do it herself.
Chapter 22
Following the success of getting a credit card, and with some time on his hands, Mike went to an ice cream shop not far from the bank. The sign outside read Homemade Ice Cream. That sounded good.
Up and down Coconut Drive, there were tourists in rented golf carts. Nothing looked like a threat. He made a circuit around the building, remembering his friend Jasper always telling him that paranoia was a good thing; that was before the kid got shot dead while the two of them were taking pictures of Bruner and the drug lady.
Most customers used a glass side door imprinted with the p
hrase, “Forget about love; I’d rather fall in Ice Cream.” It must have been island humor. Mike opened the door and held it for a couple of elderly British women exiting with waffle cones full of mint chocolate chip. That sent a shiver up his spine because he could never understand mint in food—toothpaste, chewing gum; sure, but please, not food.
Inside there were four square tables, each a different color, with four matching chairs. It was exceedingly more creative than anything found in Pellaro. Casper stepped over to the line of tourists waiting to order their own waffle cones. From the looks of them, most were Americans and Brits.
There was a warm breeze from behind him as someone entered. He suppressed his urge to rescan the area. Instead, there were plenty of bins of ice cream behind the glass case, and slobbering over them seemed like a worthwhile distraction.
“Hello, Mr. Jones. I’m glad you found the best place to indulge in San Pedro.”
He turned and saw a smiling Kimberly Manshu. She was dressed in business attire—the woman radiated professionalism—which made her ideal for working with an international collection of the secretive rich.
“Good morning to you, ah—” he feigned not remembering her name.
“It’s Kimberly.”
“Right. I apologize for my memory. So, if you are coming here for ice cream, and you’re a local, then I must have chosen wisely.”
“Indeed you have, and I humbly recommend the mint chocolate chip.”
In that split second, he was lassoed and corralled into doing something that he swore he would never do. “Well, if that is your top choice, then I’ll have to try that.”
“You won’t be disappointed. I promise.”
There was a big, fat pregnant pause. Ms. Manshu had an ocean-full of poise and stood with just the right amount of pleasantness in her expression. She was waiting for him to say something.
“I want to thank you for your help the other day. It was first-rate.”
She reacted as though it was the first time a client had told her that. “You’re welcome. Our bank works very hard to live up to the expectations of our clients.”
Cold Dead Hands (A Mike Casper Thriller Book 1) Page 17
