The Blameless Dead

by Gary Haynes

  ‘I have a four-year-old daughter, Monize,’ she said.

  He rubbed his right eye with a thick forefinger. ‘That’s nice.’

  Thinking Hank wasn’t the most sociable person she’d met, Carla said, ‘So what do you think?’

  ‘I think the chicken killed Mrs Watson.’

  He told her that the autopsy report stated that she’d eaten chicken, probably before she went out. Carla knew that the stomach emptied its contents between four and six hours after a meal. Hank said the chicken had traces of salmonella. Mrs Watson always stayed out to about twenty-one hundred hours of a Tuesday night. But she came home early. Their housekeeper called in sick the morning after. She’d been interviewed, he added, and had run to the bathroom three times.

  ‘So, the housekeeper and Mrs Watson ate the same meal?’ Carla said.

  Hank nodded. ‘The chicken killed Mrs Watson because Mr Watson died around eighteen hundred hours. The killer would likely have been long gone three hours later. If she hadn’t eaten it, I guess she’d be eating something else today.’

  ‘You think she disturbed the murderer?’

  ‘I do.’

  Carla wondered if the murderer would’ve waited for her to come home anyway. But no one would know that unless the killer made a fulsome confession.

  ‘Do you have anything else on Hockey?’ she said.

  ‘Apart from the DVD, just the tip-off that he was involved in the murders. But the DVD and a tip-off don’t equal a conviction.’

  ‘Still no forensics?’ Carla asked.

  ‘Not a thing.’

  They discussed the case for twenty minutes or so. Hank filled her in on all the details of the arrest and search. He was present at Hockey’s initial interview and told her what to expect. He said that the disappearance of the valuables from the Watsons’ apartment meant they were either dealing with a targeted home invasion robbery that went too far, or a targeted double murder with benefits. He confirmed that none of the missing items had been recovered yet.

  ‘We’re working on the name of the informant,’ he said, referring to the individual that had been instrumental in Hockey’s arrest, the person who said he’d done it for sure. ‘I’m hopeful that’ll be a breakthrough.’

  ‘Any clues as to who he is?’ Carla asked.

  ‘He is a she. A short brunette, with an eagle tattoo covering half her back.’

  He handed Carla some photos, taken outside an upmarket Manhattan hotel. One she guessed the brunette couldn’t afford to stay in. She was wearing a washed-out Guns n’ Roses vest and part of the tattoo was visible across her upper back.

  ‘We took it yesterday. Claims she’s a girlfriend of a Hockey associate. A man that’s prone to pillow talk. He told her Hockey killed the Watsons, and she figured it was payday.’

  Carla leaned back, finding Hank a little dour. ‘The reward?’

  Hank nodded, biting his lower lip.

  Carla knew the Watson family had put up a half million dollar reward for information leading to a conviction. It’d been publicised on the TV news. She now knew that because of the brunette’s information, the Watson family had informed the FBI of Hockey’s probable involvement and told them where he lived.

  ‘But how’s she getting paid, if the Watson family don’t know her name?’

  ‘I guess they do know her name. We reckon she had a meeting with them at the hotel to discuss terms. Not revealing her name until they’re forced to, was clearly part of that deal.’

  ‘Can’t we demand it now?’

  ‘We will, but we have to tread light.’ He sucked in air. ‘Politics. It may come down to a subpoena. The mayor’s, well — ’ He clenched his jaw, as if he was stopping himself from saying something inappropriate.

  ‘And her boyfriend, the one who told her Hockey killed the Watsons?’ she said.

  ‘We don’t know his name either yet. But we will.’

  ‘Where’s the brunette now?’

  ‘We’ve put out a nationwide law enforcement blitz. But as we speak…’ He held up his hands.

  Hank said that after the meeting at the hotel, they’d apply to make the woman a material witness — once they had her name. That meant she could be arrested and detained on the grounds of securing her testimony, due to the importance of her evidence in respect of the criminal proceedings against Hockey.

  Assuming a grand jury indicts him, Carla thought.

  She screwed up her face. ‘This is great.’

  ‘You should know there were very likely two murderers.’

  ‘How’s that?’

  ‘The gloved hand impressions on Mr Watson’s neck were of a different size to ones we found on his wrists. But before you ask, there were no glove prints. They knew what they were doing.’

  Carla knew that hands were rarely of a dissimilar size, but she was puzzled. ‘I thought he was strangled with rope.’

  ‘Guess one of the murderers wanted to make sure, or maybe they got a kick out of it. The autopsy also stated that he had a heart attack, but the rope killed him.’

  ‘Could the brunette’s boyfriend be the other killer?’

  ‘Could be,’ Hank said, coughing into his substantial fist.

  ‘Thought she would get the reward without dropping him in it?’

  ‘One thing is certain: she hasn’t got it yet.’

  ‘Because we’re a long way from a conviction, right?’ Carla said.

  ‘That’s right.’

  Hank linked his fingers behind his head. He breathed out audibly through his nose, and Carla noticed a few dark hairs protruding from his nostrils.

  ‘Remember, don’t be fooled by Hockey. He looks like a moron, but he’s smart.’

  ‘Thank you for your time,’ Carla said, getting up.

  Remaining seated, Hank said, ‘Here’s the thing. Let’s say Hockey did kill the Watsons. But what if it wasn’t anything to do with anti-Semitism? What if he killed them just to get the DVD?’

  Carla had first thought that was unlikely, given its content and the fact that Hockey didn’t have a history of violent offences against women — as opposed to men — let alone murder. But the death of Mrs Watson had to be considered, and Hank had just added to her scepticism. In truth, she didn’t have a clue what Hockey’s motive was, other than payment for his abhorrent services if he was in fact responsible for the Watsons’ deaths. She felt a dull ache behind her left eye as she processed the conflicting information.

  The SAC opened the door and poked her small, immaculately groomed head in. ‘Hank, I need you for a second.’

  ‘We’re done here, ma’am,’ Carla said.

  She walked down the short corridor to the secure lift. Hockey killed the Watsons to get the DVD. OK, I’ll consider that a real possibility, she thought. But why, and did he know what was on it?

  10

  Brooklyn Heights, the same day.

  Gabriel lived alone in a house he’d once shared with his former partner, Roxana Habeed. She was from Iran, which she called ‘Persia’. Her family were Christians, former members of the Armenian Apostolic Church of Iran, and had escaped after the excesses of the 1979 revolution and the subsequent ruthless dogmatism of the Islamic jurists.

  The Heights was a quiet neighbourhood of Brooklyn, the streets lined with sturdy rowhouses and ivy-clothed mansions, with million-dollar views across the East River to Lower Manhattan. Although he lectured at Yale, it was only twice a week, only an eighty-mile drive. Roxana had worked as a marketing executive for a medium-sized firm in Upper Manhattan, near Riverside Park. It had been a joint decision to be based in the borough and, given the location of his law practice, a short walk and subway ride away, it was still a good location.

  The terraced property, constructed from Connecticut brownstone, had been built in 1892. The original floorboards had since been sanded down and were now pooled with hand-knotted rugs. Roxana had collected Iranian art and antiques. Powder-blue murals, engraved brass coffee pots, calligraphic panels and Islamic silver vases, whic
h were displayed in glass cabinets. She’d said that what her family had gone through didn’t detract from the beauty that the main religion of her country had created. The artworks and antiquity had been a reminder of her homeland, too. Gabriel had known that.

  She’d written him a note, stating that everything was now his. When he’d felt able to check the contents of the house, he’d discovered that all she’d taken with her was a selection of clothes and her collection of French films on Blu-ray. It was as if she saw it as a temporary split, but it had happened more than a year ago.

  Now he made himself black coffee in the pastel blue kitchen. Taking a sip of it, he looked out of the darkened windows. A moth fluttered about a streetlight below, its body incandescent. His thoughts began to torment him, as they often had of late. He put the mug down on the barn wood table and picked up a hardback book that lay there. A book of paintings by the post-impressionist, Paul Gaugin. He flicked through it. The Market Gardens of Vaugirard, 1879. Four Breton Women, 1886. Te aa no areois (The Seed of the Areoi), 1892.

  They gave him no solace tonight. His thoughts had rested on what was undoubtedly the cause of their split, the mystery of it — and the tragedy.

  *

  Eighteen months ago, Gabriel and his niece had held gloved hands in Central Park, and she’d swung her new bag, a pink one with a cartoon image of an emperor penguin on it.

  The park was quiet, the pools of black ice a deterrent for all but the most fervent joggers and cyclists. The cold air smelled of roasting chestnuts, the few clouds were sinuous and milk-coloured. They walked along the mall, with its bronze statues of literary figures and snow-flecked elms, the leafless branches intermingling like frigid fingers.

  He’d worn a pair of hiking boots and a scarlet rain jacket, she a padded ski jacket and knitted scarf. He heard her giggling as she blew with all her might, her breath forming thousands of tiny crystals. Dodging a reckless rollerblade enthusiast, they headed for the Bethesda Terrace, a split-level Romanesque folly made from New Brunswick sandstone. He was childless and took her out once every couple of months. They went to the movies, the zoo, a themed restaurant. He made her breakfast when she stayed over and drove her to school. They hummed along to the popular songs on the radio.

  They stopped halfway down one of the terrace’s two flights of granite steps and he pointed out the intricate carvings of birds and dogwood blossoms, told her they represented the four seasons. She let go of his hand and fingered the ears of a tawny owl, and he smiled down at her. Birds were her favourite animals, he knew. She was fifteen now. She’d been adopted by his sister and her husband when she was three, but remained a child in all but her body. Her vulnerability, a symptom of a development disorder, filled him with a deep sadness that he’d never been able to express. But his love for her was the closest he’d come to a sense of purity in his life.

  Heading across the frosted grass next to the lake, she broke free again to pat a dog, a soot-coloured Yorkshire terrier. He sat down on a wooden bench and took out his smartphone to make a call. He checked his contacts and thumbed the client’s number. He heard her laugh behind him, the dog yapping in a playful manner. The call became more involved than he’d intended and although he looked around a couple of times to check on her, he became engrossed for a few minutes.

  He pressed the phone’s red dot and allowed himself a smirk. The conversation had been productive, and he’d been promised another case from a city brokerage under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Repeat business was all-important.

  Gabriel grabbed the front of his short hair when he realized she wasn’t in sight. No dog, either. He called her name again and again, running about like a man avoiding bullets. Feeling nauseous, he rang 911, his breathy sentences high-pitched, his sense of guilt overpowering him.

  She had gone.

  11

  Berlin, 2015, ten hours later.

  The sky was without a fleck of cloud, the wind light and sporadic. It was 7.12 am Berlin time, and the black kites had left their nests. The old man watched them circling above his terracotta-roofed villa in the district of Kladow, southern Spandau, one of Berlin’s twelve boroughs. The villa was situated on the western edge of the city and was surrounded by a high, red-brick wall in a near-deserted position next to a lake. He knew the raptors liked to be close to water, and the little forest of poplar and birch trees on the southern bank made it a near perfect habitat for them.

  The villa had an elaborate security system. The doors and windows were fitted with magnetized sensors and vibration detectors, the floors covered with portable pressure mats. Outside and inside the wall were invisible microwave beams that activated cellular warning receptors. He’d always felt protected here.

  He stood still in the grassed back garden, a floppy suit with a mandarin collar on his insect-like frame. His bald head was half covered with liver spots, which gave it the appearance of tortoiseshell. He always wore thick, gold-rimmed glasses that enlarged his eyes. He spoke with no discernible accent and lacked any form of national trait. He liked to be an enigma.

  Hearing faint footsteps behind him, he turned and saw César Vezzani walking towards him from the French windows. Vezzani, a phlegmatic Corsican, was about the same height as him, but had the kind of robust physique that made for a broad neck. His nose was misshapen, his hair shaved tight to his skull, and his eyes dark and penetrating like a shark’s. He was wearing a brown suit and a pewter-coloured, open-necked shirt. Vezzani was the old man’s cook, chauffeur, and sometime bodyguard. His companion in life, too.

  Vezzani had served in the French Foreign Legion. The old man was rather proud of that. He knew Vezzani had had to change his nationality to that of another French-speaking country to comply with the declared identity rule. He’d never regretted it, he’d said, and had left a Sergent Chef, a senior sergeant. He still wore the Legion’s exploding grenade emblem as a gold signet ring. Twelve years in the 2e Rep, the elite parachute regiment, changed a man, moulded him. Vezzani had both done and seen many things, including choosing to keep his mouth shut when a young officer had shot a suspected terrorist undergoing interrogation. The old man knew that Vezzani desired only to serve in an environment that lent itself to occasional bursts of controlled violence. He suspected that he always would.

  Vezzani had informed him of the unfortunate events in the US: Hockey’s incarceration, the seizure of the DVD by the FBI, and the betrayal of Hockey by his accomplice’s girlfriend for a reward put up by the Watson family. It had troubled him. It still did.

  He sensed Vezzani behind his shoulder now. ‘What news?’ he said, without turning around.

  ‘Hockey’s accomplice is called Billy Joe Anderson. The girlfriend’s name is Charlene Rimes.’

  The old man allowed himself a grin. ‘They sound like country and western singers.’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘Walk with me,’ he said, shuffling off.

  They stopped at the far end of the well-tended lawn. The old man looked about, as if he’d suddenly forgotten where he was, or why. He mumbled something, as if he couldn’t remember what he wanted to say. But he was lucid, and his memory was excellent. He was fond of play-acting when the mood took him. It was one of the ways he’d stayed alive so long, given the danger he’d faced in his past. Facing a potentially precarious future, why change now?

  ‘Hockey could have picked better,’ he said. ‘He’s a smart, able young man after all. You told me that, didn’t you?’

  Vezzani was silent.

  The old man took a cotton handkerchief from his jacket pocket and dabbed the spittle that had dribbled from the side of his mouth. He knew that if the FBI apprehended the country and western singers first, Hockey would likely be sentenced to two consecutive life sentences. Besides, he didn’t know what they knew. He had to find out.

  ‘Can they be found?’

  ‘It’s possible,’ Vezzani said.

  ‘Find them for me. You know what they need to say. You know w
hat needs to be done. Use the Russian woman.’

  She reminded the old man of nineteenth century Comanche women. Their warriors had been fearless and cruel, but it had been the womenfolk who tortured their hostages, burning off the noses and other bodily extremities with red-hot pieces of wood and iron.

  ‘What about Hockey?’ Vezzani said.

  The old man bit a sliver of skin from the cuticle of his thumb. He bent down and picked some grass from the edge of the lawn.

  ‘He knows very little,’ he said.

  He tossed the grass into the air, as if he was checking the direction of the breeze, or lack of it.

  ‘And we owe him,’ he added.

  The old man knew Vezzani had been incarnated in a Spanish prison in Andalucía for eight years. It was how he’d heard of the Russian woman. But he’d never asked him why he’d been imprisoned — and Vezzani hadn’t told him. He knew too that the Corsican would have found it impossible to obtain a legitimate position to his liking. It was part of their bond, he liked to think. He was anxious not to give up on Hockey too easily. It could be interpreted as disloyalty.

  Vezzani said, ‘Hockey will find out about the contents of the DVD sooner or later.’

  The old man cupped his hand to his ear and moved it back and forth, as if he was oscillating a seashell there.

  ‘So, make up a story. He’ll believe anything you tell him. Can we get him out of prison?’

  Vezzani rocked on his heels. ‘No. But when he’s being transported, it might be possible.’

  ‘You think of a way. You and the Russian woman.’

  The old man scratched the back of his bald head.

  ‘Sure,’ Vezzani said.

  ‘Meet up with her in the US in a week or two. Better to have him out of there. Better to be sure,’ he said, wishing to ease Vezzani’s obvious concerns.

  Vezzani nodded.

  The old man rubbed his hands together. ‘Do you feel chilly?’ he said.

  Vezzani hesitated.

  He said, ‘No.’