by James, Mark
†
Garneau sat back in his favorite leather chair, the fire crackling. He rose each morning at dawn and enjoyed these lulled times, when you could hear the tiniest of sounds.
He folded the newspaper and took the empty teacup from the side table and began walking into the kitchen. He placed it in the sink and looked around for the leash. Where had he put it?
He looked down at their ten year old Norwich terrier. “Little one, do you know where it is?” He always hoped that she could hear him and, on most days, was sure that she could. His and Elise’s children were grown and little Millie, for all intents and purposes, had become their child.
He slipped on the collar and she looked up. It was their routine and she knew what was coming. It was their time together.
She bounded down the granite stairs in front of their home, pulling towards the gardens. They turned and headed down the street, looking for the spot where they crossed each morning.
He held her leash tight, looking left and right, then moved across the Rue de Medicis and entered the grounds of the Jardin du Luxembourg.
It was late autumn and the gardens were empty. Garneau had grown up in the Latin Quarter and, even with the ever-growing crowds, he and Elise had decided to stay. Earlier in life they’d considered moving farther out, but found that they couldn’t leave their antique stores, jazz clubs and well-worn cafes. Each year he waited for the chill to return his home to a semblance of its former self.
The grass was frosted as they passed the Statue of Saint-Genevieve, the patroness of Paris. Oddly, the interior gardens were Italianate in design; in 1611, the mother of King Louis XIII, Marie de Medici, had requested the style so as to remind her of the gardens of Florence, where she’d been raised. It seemed that even within bejeweled castles people still missed their homes. There were many types of prisons.
He paused, becoming lost in another thought, one that he could not quite form. It had happened to him several times over the past few days and he knew the feeling well. It was an upwelling, some deeper part trying to tell him something. Sometimes, he would awake in the mornings and it would be there, as if he’d been dreaming of the answer. At others, it would simply come to him, sliding into an unrelated circumstance; when walking leisurely to the café, while standing in front of a Van Gogh painting at the Musée d’Orsay, as he drifted into a memory.
This thought-form was round, Rothko-like, red.
The ambassador and his mistress – since identified as Chantal Eckenstein, a chocolatier’s assistant from the 5th Arrondissement – their eyes, they had stayed with him.
A truth existed in those eyes – staring, demanding to be heard.
And the red, what could possibly have caused that?
The sun was rising higher, the cars coming out as they turned the corner and headed back home. It was 7:59 a.m., but he didn’t need to look at his watch.
Climbing the stairs, he heard the telephone ring inside. Even muffled by the door, the sound was insistent. He did not alter his pace.
They entered and walked into the kitchen. He caught the phone on its last ring, Millie waiting at his feet.
It was Dr. Etienne Prevot, the coroner.
“Good morning, Etienne,” Garneau said. They had been through many investigations together and were long time friends.
“It’s the U.S. Ambassador, Henri.”
“Oui.”
“I’ve found something quite interesting…”
9
Several years before, over a rare bottle of scotch, Mac had asked, “In your mind, Jack, how do you get there?”
What makes for a good interrogator?
Empathy.
In its bare essence, empathy is the courage to become closer to another, to allow a connection to take place. Each of us feels the realness that exists within another – their pain, their purpose, our longings to be.
It is in this place where the suspect’s walls come down.
Once down that well, the final skill is to keep from falling down into their darkness. One must remain outside of the base interaction, as if hovering above. It is this skill – to be both involved and, at once, not involved – that makes for a good interrogator.
The interrogator is not an inquisitor, but is a midwife for the subject’s desire to be human, to return to their humanness.
“Alright, then tell me,” the president laughed, pressing Mac earlier that morning. “So, what happens when all of this mushy-ass crap doesn’t work?”
Mac shook his head, “It’s not all candlelight and roses, you know. It’s simply about drilling down deeper. Whether it ends up being dark or light down there, well, you don’t know until you actually get there.”
“So,” the president taunted, “who’s the good cop and who’s the bad? You know what I mean.”
“Whatever it takes,” Mac shrugged. “It varies with each person. You first take a hard look.”
“Alright, then, who’s the badder cop?”
Osborne thought back, remembering that night ten years ago: the incessant thunder, the banging on the floorboards, lightning splitting across the windows. Soon after Maura had passed away, late one night they’d been transported by military helicopter to a remote cabin location. The situation was critical: somewhere in New York City, a suitcase bomb was allegedly on countdown.
Osborne remembered lying back as Jack had pursued the subject, pushing into him, deconstructing his psyche. Near the end, Jack grabbed the back of the man’s chair, bouncing him down the cabin stairs and out into the storm. Mac watched as cold rain pelted their faces, Jack towering over the man. For the first time, he thought he might need to step in.
Then Jack had calmly leaned over and whispered in the man’s ear. They were words that Jack would never discuss – not in the reports, not even later over drinks.
As Mac watched, the man broke. Jack pushed the chair away and slowly stood, turning his face up into the rain, the lightning flashing, staring up into the sky. He finally turned and walked back into the cabin without saying another word. What Mac remembered most was the expression on his face as he passed, as if he’d looked into some type of void.
“To be honest, Mr. President, with Jack, sometimes we just don’t go there.”
But the memory held to him. “I suppose, though, we all have that darkness in us, somewhere.“
He caught himself and looked back, “Of course, sir, of all people, you know this.”
Bob Walker stared at the brilliant hues of the eagles, arrows and stars in the carpet. Even amongst the light – in the flags, in the images, within the smiles and speeches – there were always the faces, and the fallen darkness at the edges.
Yes, he knew.
†
The initial perceptions of an individual’s bearing are critically important in an interrogation: how the subject reacts when she first sees him, in the split-moment before she can think; in the posture of her eyes and how she then chooses to let her body rest into the seat.
Like the famous Nefertiti statue, Aisha held still.
He took off his jacket and threw it over a chair. He pulled up another and it squeaked against the floor.
She kept her eyes from moving towards him.
He looked straight at her, “I’m Jack O’Neill.”
She offered no response.
He leaned back, mirroring her body – eyes down, as if staring into nothing.
The minutes drew on. An hour passed. Then another.
She wasn’t trying to show him that she could choose not to talk. She wasn’t trying to hold onto to any last freedom. She was a person lost in another time – floating in her own space, apart from time.
As a wash across her eyes, a memory arose. The village, her dog running from the house…
She quickly pulled it back, blinking twice.
Noting the movement, Jack said into the silence, “To be honest, I don’t think that God really wants us to kill people.”
He said it calmly, as if he s
imply knew.
She held still, feigning deafness. Another minute passed.
Then, in a voice almost too low to hear, hoarse from not speaking, “And what do you know… of God?”
He paused, letting the question hang. “Well, you’ve got a point there. No more than the next person. What I do know is that you know it too. The it.”
She looked at him without emotion, as if a beaten child. Yet there was a question in her vacant gaze. I know what?
“You chose not to kill those people.”
She looked at the floor.
“And yet, still, people died,” he said.
She looked up, challenging, “Many people have died, Mr. O’Neill.”
The two analysts on the other side of the glass made identical notes: fluent use of English pronouns, proper syntax, a probable U.S. educational background.
“That’s true,” he said. “In the middle ages, the Christians killed…”
“My people,” she interrupted.
“Yes, your people. Then again, I don’t think anyone is making excuses for the Crusades or the Inquisition these days.”
He continued, “You say, your people, but – your people, my people – aren’t they all God’s people, Allah’s people, whatever rattle you want to shake? Isn’t that what you saw in the faces in that theater? You can tell yourself that you’re like them – these leaders of yours – but at night, alone, you know that you’re not. You are different.”
He needed to start the process of pulling her away from her training, distancing her from the tutored anger that had become a part of her.
A wisp of a smile passed her lips, “Mr. O’Neill, you can say whatever you want, but I have no anger left, no God left…no family. I am already dead.”
“What if I told you that might not be true?”
Her strength came back. “I know that I will never leave here! I will not tell you anything!”
“Well, that’s true – you will be in prison for the rest of your life, no one here will ever let you out and you won’t be able to escape. But that doesn’t mean that you have to be dead to your family. Do you have a mother, a father?”
At this point, the subject sees that an emotion-laden question has been asked, sees the bait being set.
Before she could answer, as if her answer wasn’t important, he arose, “Coffee? Do you drink coffee?”
“Bribing me with coffee?”
“Actually, no,” he said, walking casually over to the cart he’d asked to be placed there. “Simply late for my morning cup. You can have some or not. Sometimes, it’s only coffee.”
“I hate coffee,” she hissed defiantly.
He sat back down, ignoring her reaction, casually mixing in the sugar.
“I can see that – my wife used to hate it too.”
He’d mentioned his wife on purpose, a disclosure of the self.
“You’re married?”
“I was. She passed away, about ten years now. A sweet lady.”
She thought of her mother and the question came out of her, as if she couldn’t help it, “And you miss her?”
“I’ll always miss her. People say it’s a hole, you know, straight through the middle of you. But it’s not like that, at least not for me anymore. She’s just here, in the things I do.”
“You loved her very much…”
“I did.”
Aisha seemed to forget herself, pulled down into the well of his feelings, so close to hers, hidden so deep.
“And she is here, you say, in spirit, even with us now?”
“Yes, especially now.”
“Why, especially?”
He leaned on the table, thinking.
“Because…” he paused, searching for the word. “Because of the weight of where we are. Because of what has happened – to you, to us. The dead – they’re all here.”
She looked down and her hands began to tremble under the table. She held them tightly against each other. Her eyes welled, the tremble climbing into her throat.
Subjects are sensitive to being prey, especially when vulnerable, and he let her have her time.
“You asked me,” he finally ventured, “whether I’ve ever been in love. If I can ask, have you?”
Her mind reeled back to the theater, to her mother’s face and the man she would never know, to the child that she would never have. She instinctively flinched, pulling her arms to her midsection.
He could see that she was pulling back into herself.
He walked slowly away from the table, retrieving his coat. She was alone and he wanted her to feel his leaving.
“Where are you going?”
“There’s somewhere I have to be.”
“More important than this?”
“Yes, more important than this.”
She looked up at the ceiling where a beige disk hid the cameras and listening devices.
She was recovering and smiled, motioning with her eyes at the disk, “You’d better not tell them that. What could be more important than this?”
“A friend is in the hospital. I need to go.”
It was a lie. There was no friend in the hospital.
She squinted, as if seeing through him. “You are trying to make me like you, telling me about an ill friend, trying to make me feel sorry for you. I think you are trying to play me, Mr. O’Neill.”
He moved to the door and turned.
“To be honest, it’s neither here nor there to me. We both know you will only tell me what you want, when you want. But, know this: in the end, it’s not about me. It’s about you.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, leaning forward, challenging, “I will not betray my people! I will not betray who I am!”
It was a false strength and the easy play would have been to respond, “You have already betrayed your leaders, your people.” Yet, it was too early to touch that nerve.
Instead, he went deeper.
He turned, calm and stern like a father. “Well then, who are you? Tell me, inside, who are you?”
Who am I?
Who am I?
She felt the upwelling in her throat, just beneath the surface.
He reached into his pocket and wrote on a rumpled napkin, one that he’d picked up at a restaurant earlier that night, knowing then what he wanted to do. He softly handed it to her. It was a word meant only between them. He wanted her to know this – no cameras, no listening devices, something only between them.
She looked at the word.
“It’s about you,” he said.
Aisha looked up – the defiance gone and tears at the edges, all of the faces burning in her eyes.
He quietly closed the door behind him.
She turned to the word on the napkin, trembling in her hand.
Redemption.
10
Garneau settled into the worn leather seats of his vintage Citroen DS, his weekend hobby, and drove down the Rue du Chemin Vert towards the Gendarmerie’s Forensic Science Laboratory. He would normally have taken the Metro, but he and Elise were planning on a road rally in Rouen that weekend and he wanted the car to have a chance to breathe.
Like many men, he thought of his vintage auto au feminin, as a woman. Yes, he chuckled to himself, his three girls – Elise, Millie and the car. Admittedly, it’d been an indulgence when he’d bought the car at auction, Elise at his elbow egging him on. But he liked the old things; he liked bringing them back to life and passing them on. We are all only custodians, you know.
He pulled the Citroen into Dr. Prevot’s always-empty parking space, smoothed out the creases of his trench coat and entered the circa-1700’s building. The granite stairs clicked under his shoes as the weather-pitted gargoyles stared down from the roofline.
Inside, Dr. Prevot was waiting for him at the entry station, pouring a coffee and chatting with his internist, Laurent.
Prevot turned as Garneau approached, each of them smiling. They’d worked together for over thirty years and were considered the
“ancient ones” here – the dinosaures still left in the city. Earlier that morning, Laurent had fought back at Prevot’s alleged oldness, “Well, in World War II that might have been a proper way!”
Standing here, watching his similarly creased friend approach, Prevot laughed to himself at that memory. Yes, he considered, Laurent was coming along nicely. And, yes, the youth always had that point. And, yes, of course, they would not be the youth without it. But this was his and Garneau’s place-in-time and, frankly, they liked it here.
“Good to see you, Henri. How have things been down at the tyrant’s abode?” A new NSN Assistant Director had been appointed and, with hovering computer-in-hand, was irritating everyone at the station.
“Espresso?” Prevot motioned, holding out the cup.
“Yes, thank you. Well, I simply stay clear of the little grenouille. He hasn’t figured out yet that the director and I are friends. He’s from Marseilles. A bit dim.”
“And, how are things for you?” Garneau asked as they negotiated the stairs down to the forensics lab.
“We’re fine. Amelie is just finishing up at the Cordon Bleu and Alain has his new job with the Gendarmerie in Lyon. We’re starting to miss them more, they’re so busy. Colette has her gardening and I have this, but still. Another transition.”
“And here, at the lab?”
“Well, the Americans call everyday – and I mean, everyday. I keep referring them to the Foreign Ministry and of course it’s not up to me, but there is that silly message blinking at me every morning. The insistence of wasps. What is this GMA anyway?”
“Who knows?” Garneau said, waving his hand like at a gnat. “I’ve asked around and no one can say, or won’t. Maybe the Americans made it all up. You know how they are: CIA, NSA, FBI. The alphabet soup boys! I think it makes them feel like their bistouquettes are bigger.”
That gave them both a good laugh. As they passed through the lab doors, Dr. Prevot finally said, “You know, Henri, I’m not sure I told you, but last weekend Colette and I had some friends in from America. The same couple that we met last year on that trip to San Francisco, you remember, for that conference. They just moved to Washington, D.C., he’s a freelance writer and she’s doing some sort of internship, and they came to Paris for a second honeymoon, young and romantic. Anyway, they’re very nice people. When we were in America they showed us all around – the old trollies, Muir Woods, Napa Valley, excellent wine. You know, all good fun. But, here is something strange. They have this cheese and they call it, eh…Veelaveeta, or something approximating. But here’s the stranger part – it’s not really a cheese, they just call it a cheese! I tell you, absolute heresy.”