Three Drops of Blood and a Cloud of Cocaine

by Quentin Mouron

  “Listen, if you object to my being here, why don’t you discuss it with the DA?”

  Another dark look from the sheriff.

  “I’m following this case as an observer,” Wilde continues. “If it turns out there’s a connection with the Sherman Valley murder, we’ll reopen the file. That’s all. We don’t have to appreciate one another.” (You’re right there, thinks McCarthy.) “But I’m asking you to be completely transparent, in line with the orders we’ve been given.”

  “Right,” McCarthy goes on, knowing that there’s nothing he can do about the DA’s decision, “let’s get back to business and recap: yesterday evening, probably between 5:30 and 6:00 p.m.” (he glances at Olson, who confirms with a nod) “at the corner of Parker Street and Mount Auburn, one or more individuals assaulted Jimmy Henderson as he was sitting in his vehicle.”

  “Forgive me,” Wilde interrupts, “but how can we be certain that he was in his vehicle?”

  McCarthy pretends not to have heard. “The aggressor or aggressors cut Henderson’s throat and then disfigured him.” Anticipating Wilde’s next question, he adds, “If he had been mutilated before being killed, the incisions would not have been as clean. The body had to be immobile, and Jimmy unable to defend himself. What’s more, no one heard him cry out.”

  Wilde nods.

  “We have a suspect,” adds Gomez. “Alexander Marshall. A record as long as my arm and a conviction for attempted murder. Jimmy Henderson was going to throw him out for sexual harassment of his granddaughter, which provides a reasonable motive. His alibi is far from convincing as well: he says he was wandering about the town high on drugs – he no longer remembers where he went, nor when he came home.”

  “Have you any proof?” asks Wilde.

  McCarthy stares at him. “I find you’re strangely talkative for an observer, Sergeant.”

  “I’m just doing my job, Sheriff. So it looks as if you’ve no evidence.”

  “A thorough search of the home and Marshall’s vehicle should teach us more. His stepdaughter’s complaint allowed us to obtain a warrant.”

  “But this search hasn’t been carried out yet… So you don’t think he’s guilty; isn’t that it?”

  McCarthy lets out a sigh. “This time you’ve scored a point. I can imagine Alexander Marshall killing a man in cold blood. There’s no doubt he’s capable of it. But it seems to me there’s no way a guy like him would stick around to amuse himself with the victim’s face, or leave without picking up Jimmy’s wallet and gun – never mind the truck, for we mustn’t forget the guy was a car thief—”

  “Maybe he was afraid of compromising himself by selling a murdered man’s vehicle?”

  “Yes, but that doesn’t explain why he didn’t take the $150 that was in the wallet.”

  “So you intend to release him?”

  “No, there are other charges against him. In addition, we still have to question Laura Henderson, Jimmy’s daughter.”

  “Where is she?”

  “I’ve no idea. Marshall says he doesn’t know either. He told us that every three months or so Laura tends to take off without a word to anybody.”

  Gomez adds, “Her daughter confirms that. Laura Henderson goes off the rails now and again; she’s filled with disgust for herself, for everyone close to her, for the life she’s leading. In short it’s the big spring clean: she sets off to recharge her batteries, change direction, get back into harmony, and all that bullshit.”

  Wilde intervenes again. “Okay, Sheriff. Honestly, we haven’t really gotten anywhere, right? I’m not saying that to piss you off, but we have to face the facts: if it’s not Marshall, it could be just about anyone.”

  Olson’s pager goes off. He mutters an excuse and leaves the room.

  “It can’t be just about anyone, Wilde. Among the people who can really kill in cold blood – and they’re not that numerous, take it from my experience – very few do it without a reason.”

  “So I suppose you’re going to make inquiries with the psychiatric services?”

  “That’s my business. I just want to point out one thing: slowly mutilating someone you’ve just killed doesn’t happen every day. Somewhere out there there’s a guy who’s not like anyone else. A crazy guy, in other words. And it’s that crazy guy we have to find.”

  “So you’re looking for a raving lunatic, is that it?”

  “Ye-e-s,” answers the sheriff, unconvinced by his own reasoning. “Except that you know, Wilde, lunatics don’t necessarily go around on pink bikes dressed up as Mickey Mouse and with eyes the size of golf balls. They can be more… discreet.”

  Olson returns.

  “Something new, Doctor?”

  Olson is paler than before. McCarthy thinks that he must have gone outside to throw up.

  “Since Jimmy Henderson’s severed tongue wasn’t found anywhere close to his vehicle, we thought it must be down his throat.”

  “And?”

  “It’s not there, Paul.”

  “Meaning?”

  Olson hesitates. He looks at the sheriff. Then at Wilde. Then at the sheriff again. “That the murderer most likely took it with him.”

  10

  Lance Le Carré’s mansion was born of the union of a rapid fortune and an ostentatious taste for the neo-baroque. Built according to plans by Garnier and Weissbach as adapted by Paul Hunter, a well-known architect who worked for Walt Disney, the result is an enormous, tacky carbuncle as aggressive as it is heavy-handed, but one which secures its owner’s reputation as an aesthete. Concerned about remaining faithful to his image, Le Carré devotes himself to the promotion of the arts and of artists – in addition to a considerable number of questionable activities in partnership with various Boston gangs. He can frequently be heard going on about some singer to whom he is “giving a head start,” some “fiendishly promising” young visual artist, or some aged poet who has lost his sight because of illness and whom he is proud to support. His wife, Evia (not her real name), occasionally organizes fundraisers and charity soirées to provide assistance to the most poverty-stricken artists (she acts with a mixture of good intentions and gullibility, which has earned her the nickname “Sugar Mommy” among the Bostonian upper crust). The Boston Museum of Modern Art is indebted to them for significant donations, while the curator of the Watertown Museum of Armenian Art repeats to anyone prepared to listen (his nascent senility has something to do with this) that nothing would have been possible without these exemplary patrons of the arts. The mayor and councillors regularly sing their praises during council meetings. Their company is much sought after. The husband, short and stocky, the wife, slender and tall, stand side by side, sculpted in marble, at the end of an avenue of cypress trees by the entrance to their property, as if to welcome their visitors: artists, of course, but also producers, financiers, models, intellectuals, and judges. As for the underworld, it is requested to use the back door.

  Franck parks the black 300C in a public lot adjoining the property. A surveillance camera tells him that his arrival has not gone unnoticed. Less than a minute later a side door opens and one of Le Carré’s employees, a generously scarred hulk who Franck senses is armed, gestures to him to come in. Side by side, without exchanging a word, they climb a service staircase leading to the second floor, where a second hulk similar to the first meets them and begins a thorough body search to which Franck merely submits with a sigh. Then they set off again, and after a series of empty white corridors hung with chandeliers intended to cast light on some indifferent paintings, they reach a heavy oaken door. They knock. A voice tells them to enter.

  Moist-lipped, with nasty eyes, Lance Le Carré is sitting behind his desk. He measures Franck up before greeting him. The detective, slightly nauseated by what he sees all around him (cheap copies of Renaissance masters in heavy wooden frames, bookshelves full of volumes with matching bindings that look as if they have never been opened, and knickknacks of no particular age or origin, acquired in bulk from unscrupulous antique deale
rs), responds with a nod.

  Without a word, Franck steps forward. He puts a hand in one of his pockets and takes out a USB key, which he lays on the desk. Then, on a gesture from Le Carré, he sits down.

  “First of all, let me congratulate you, my friend. This was a tricky business, but you were able to carry it off successfully.”

  “I carry off all my assignments successfully, Mr. Le Carré,” replies Franck in a perfectly blank voice.

  Le Carré suddenly seems mollified. “Are you sure no one saw anything?”

  “Absolutely certain.”

  The man who had escorted Franck enters the room. He lays a black attaché case on the table and opens it. It is full of banknotes.

  “All cash, and untraceable. You can count it.”

  “No need,” Franck answers. He gets up, takes the attaché case, and holds out a hand to Le Carré.

  “You’re leaving? Didn’t you get my invitation?”

  “I did indeed, but our contract has now been fulfilled. So I’ll go out the way I came in and then re-enter by the front door, as the guest of Evia and Lance Le Carré.”

  The businessman smiles, and shakes Franck’s hand.

  A youthful pianist is expending enormous energy on a Bach fugue that falls on deaf ears. The lighting is harsh. The guests are chatting loudly; several masterpieces are on display for their admiration. In the main room, Evia Le Carré takes Franck on a round of the guests; for him it becomes a series of inane, painful stops. First comes Judge Malcolm, who almost reached the federal level; he had sincerely battled crime all his life until a bout of depression tinged with alcoholism left him at the mercy of the city’s criminal gangs. He is tall, bald, slightly unsteady on his feet, with a serious, constantly preoccupied air. They pay their respects to the von Wirts, a pair of bankers who were very successful until the 2008 crisis but are now reduced to traipsing from drawing room to drawing room, grousing, mudslinging, and repeating wherever they go that they would rather be somewhere else. Then, from a corridor, there emerges an African-American Dominican monk wearing a white woolen scapular. He is Jack Loewy III, celebrated for his extravagance, his austere morals, and his participation in numerous charitable works. He has no idea that Lance Le Carré is a big shot in organized crime. Indeed, most of the guests are blissfully unaware of this. This bunch of well-heeled nitwits, thinks Franck, that some fanatics, for the most virtuous of motives, would like to see cast into the flames, actually seem quite decent, respectable, and soft-hearted. So, into the fire with them? By all means! But out of boredom, on a whim, for pure entertainment! As for morals, those shop-window smashers, cop haters, and throwers of Molotov cocktails aren’t much more savory. Anyway, nothing seems very savory when viewed from a moral angle. Everything just turns black. It’s a total eclipse.

  Next, Evia and Franck greet Professor Caron, a physicist specializing in quantum theory, whose red hair and thick-rimmed glasses allow a glimpse of a childhood on which mockery and bullying have left their mark. Franck recognizes him: yesterday afternoon he saw him in the town, and had the definite impression that the man was following him. What’s more, he has read his file: a cousin of Lance Le Carré’s, a loner, a bit peculiar, who has been forced into early retirement for some unstated reason. Caron blushes as they shake hands. “I’m truly delighted to meet you; I’ve heard a lot about you, delighted!” Franck wonders how and why he can have heard of him. But Evia leads him away from the redhead, who, left standing by himself, continues to express his delight. “He’s a relative of my husband’s,” she explains to Franck, who already knew this and has had time to picture him as a hanger-on, a parasite, tolerated for the sake of appearances and avoided by the other guests. This last thought renders him almost sympathetic.

  “Ah! Here’s Lyllian!” Lyllian is a Texan flutist with the looks of a young prince of the blood crossed with a cowboy. Under thirty, perfectly distinguished. He immediately impresses Franck as someone superior. They exchange a cordial handshake, warm enough to make both men want to go beyond the ritual pleasantries. Then Evia and Franck greet a few more eminent individuals, lumpish industrialists, senior officials, a famous lawyer, a young Russian harpist, two slick-haired market traders, a B-movie actress, three rather stoned male models, a large man in a burnoose who seems completely out of place, and a with-it novelist who explains to Franck in three minutes why a detective novel must have as its hero a divorced, alcoholic cop always at loggerheads with his superiors. Franck, who inclines more toward the flute player, the Dominican monk, or the man in the burnoose, feels ill at ease among these industrialists, judges, models, and photographers – second-rate thespians trying hard to behave like art lovers. Beauty appeals to them only because of the art market. Without it, the marvels before which they fall into ecstasies would long ago have been abandoned on a public dump. But they have been told how much they are worth. They estimate the value of works instead of looking at them. They show their respect.

  “Come, Franck,” says Evia, “I’d like to show you our pièce de résistance.” She leads him into an adjoining room, in the center of which stands a gigantic marble statue in the classical style, painted a candy pink, its shoulders speckled with bird droppings that make a kind of shawl. “What masterly execution!” crows Mrs. Le Carré.

  “And so perfectly in harmony with the rest of the house,” adds Franck.

  Evia launches into the life and works of the artist – who has one leg and cirrhosis of the liver, and is ranked “somewhere between Michelangelo and Giacometti” – before declaring, almost smugly, that dinner is about to be served. Franck is dreading the moment when he will have to go to the dining table and rub shoulders with this bunch of halfwits, pretend to them that he shares their dilettantish amusements, their seriousness, their enthusiasms, and where there will certainly be a discussion of politics, of reforms, and other idiocies of the same stripe. And he thinks he will have to put up with more insipid diatribes like the one served up by the hotel barman about the so-called barbarous killer of some godforsaken drunk. He knows these people all too well. They come to his office on Madison Avenue, where he hears them expose their petty jealousies and passions. He is familiar with these features, molded into heavy, waxen masks that express nothing but dissipation and death. He knows what they are hiding, what they are trying to flee. He knows the shady dealings they spin, web-like, over the void. He knows all the ways they have of salving their consciences. And the worst is that they believe it! They’re sincere!

  As they are passing into the dining room, Franck is overcome by nausea. He excuses himself. Bolting the door of the bathroom with its marble-clad floor and walls, he takes out his black mother-of-pearl pocket mirror and sets it down beside the basin. He cuts the cocaine into thin, parallel lines an inch or so apart and snorts them voluptuously through a glass straw. He looks at himself in the mirror, opens his eyes wide, rubs the base of his nose, and then carefully wipes around his nostrils with a tissue.

  When he re-emerges, Le Carré’s guests are taking their places. Franck sits down opposite Lyllian. Evia and Lance are to his left. Stammering a series of incomprehensible phrases, the red-haired cousin sits down on his right. Franck studies him out of the corner of his eye. He is hanging his head like a dog who fears a beating. Humiliation has probably been part of this man’s daily regimen. It most likely began in kindergarten. In school he must have been subjected to all the cruelty and abuse that can be fitted into recess. After school they must have followed him home, calling his name, shouting insults, throwing garbage or stones. If he had been sent away to boarding school, it would have been even worse.

  Then Franck’s gaze moves to Lyllian, whose good looks disturb him and disrupt his analysis – good looks all the more remarkable when juxtaposed with the ugliness of the physicist and the other guests. Here is a powerful personality, he thinks, brought up in one of those bastions of the delinquent Southern aristocracy. Where did he get his passion for the flute? Was it inherited from his family? The outcome
of those evening parties inflicted by the family, when young girls in red dresses coax a wailing cacophony from their poor instruments (leading the men, left to themselves, to speculate that they probably suck better than they blow)? Evia Le Carré would certainly speak of destiny. But Franck doesn’t like the word. If chance isn’t responsible, you have to admit that fate isn’t either.

  Further away the models are giggling together, all aquiver. They are discussing an exhibition on Sunbird Avenue that made one of them feel like a dork to be parking a Jaguar when everybody else was driving an Italian sports car or a Bentley. They said they hadn’t understood very much, but it was crazy all the same, that Tierce Johns and Peter Paul were there, and the cream of Boston society. (Yes, rich and thick, Franck says to himself.) He then thinks he overhears how they got very high in the washrooms of the hotel where the exhibition was being held, but he can’t discover on what – and anyway, why should he care?

  On the other side of the table, the novelist is expatiating. Franck hears him say, “But it’s not enough to make your detective an alcoholic, ladies and gentlemen, you have to give him a partner; then your cop won’t need to talk to himself all the time. Monologues always piss the reader off.” The guests roar with laughter while Franck tries to concentrate on Lyllian’s words as he tells him about his career – how he came from Texas to the New York Conservatory, and from there to the Boston Philharmonic. He is not pretentious, just conscious of his own worth. What a pleasure to hear him talk, and how he stands out against all these morons around, thinks Franck. He can’t help hearing their buzz. The models are relating how they arrived home dead drunk in Cody Roy’s limousine, while the celebrated designer smoked a crack pipe and called them “my little elves.” The novelist is exposing the secrets of his trade: “It’s the urban setting that counts; you’ve got to have an urban setting! You’ve got to show them addicts and the working class, underprivileged neighborhoods, dark alleys crawling with rapists and murderers. Believe me, that’s what sends them into ecstasies!”