All Cry Chaos

by Leonard Rosen

  "Burn cases can be disturbing," Dr. Günter allowed. As medical examiner, she had taken charge of and controlled all access to the body at the crime scene. Before they met, Poincaré smelled her chewing gum from twenty paces and guessed she was the coroner, many of whom ended up addicted to mints of one sort or another. Something about the sweetness of decaying flesh followed them from the autopsy table, and oil of peppermint proved less complicated and less toxic than gin. "This one didn't suffer," she observed. "A man who knew what was coming would have turned away. He took the full impact here." With her telescoping pointer she touched what used to be the victim's chest, a cavity now blown open to the spinal column. "No lungs, no heart, no viscera: all tissues burned out. Notice that we see no impact wounds on the sides or back. He did not turn away."

  Poincaré focused on the tip of the metal rod, trying to hold off his nausea by regarding the corpse as he might an anatomical chart. "He's no less dead for taking it full on," he said.

  "True," replied Günter. "Care for a stick of gum?"

  He declined.

  "Henri, stop by my office on Sunday, and we'll review the case file. By then, I'll have received the DNA report from Boston and we'll have processed our own labs." She dropped the tarpaulin. "Dead is dead," she observed with all the emotion one musters for covering a pile of leaves. "I'll reconstruct the how," she said, "and you, my friend, will reconstruct who and why. These will be the last favors anyone can do for him."

  He stared out the shop window to a small, bricked courtyard, contemplating what favors the world owed the dead. He had answered that question once when he spent the better part of two years hunting Banović. He glanced over his case notes and supposed he would be answering it again. "You'll get jittery with all the caffeine," the woman warned, setting down his espresso and yet another plate of cookies. "I use Sumatran beans, roasted in one kilo batches to concentrate potency. Here—you can smell the potency." She inhaled deeply. "Do you smell it? I would eat the cookies for ballast if nothing else. Did you know—"

  Poincaré pointed to the two plates, uneaten, already crowding the table. He held up a hand. "Please, no more."

  "But you get three with each cup. That's our special on Thursdays. Three cookies, one cup. Three for one. Did you read the sign?" She pointed to the counter.

  "My Dutch," he said, "is not very good."

  "No matter, I'll wrap them."

  "No, thank you. Please."

  "I insist. I make them right here." She leaned over to show him her latest batch. "This one I call the Fantine. Do you see the shape— the profile of a young woman wearing a bonnet. She's sweet but was wronged. This is why the lemon, for tartness. She's also angry, which explains the dash of cayenne."

  Poincaré stood to leave, and she grabbed his arm.

  "Alright, then. I'll just set these down on the counter and go to the kitchen."

  She retreated behind a curtain, and he reached for a newspaper folded on the table beside him, opening to the financial pages. Since he and Claire had bought a farm in the Dordogne, Poincaré was in the habit of checking the London and Paris stock exchanges to monitor the health of their investments. Between his salary and the several paintings she sold each year through galleries in Paris and New York, they had paid for their apartment in Lyon and for Etienne's schooling. Eight years earlier, free of debt and anticipating a serene, if not lavish, retirement, they had rejected the advice of two financial consultants and heavily mortgaged themselves to buy a vineyard in the south, complete with a leaky stone farmhouse. It made no sense, this projection of themselves into a bucolic future, for neither of them had farmed much more than harvesting tomatoes from a potted plant or two. Yet while on holiday that year, they amused themselves one afternoon by touring a property that sat on the crest of a hill overlooking working vineyards, a distant river, and an ancient village. It took them no more than fifteen minutes to say yes to an absurdity, and now Poincaré checked the markets daily, his hopes for early retirement waxing and waning with the fortunes of Airbus and Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd.

  As he folded the paper and prepared to leave the coffee shop, he noticed a news brief reporting on the murder of a gang counselor in Barcelona. The young woman, much admired by the police who employed her and beloved by the gangs whose members she counseled, had received citations of merit from the city and been acknowledged at an international conference on the prevention of youth violence. Murdered, then? The news reverberated beyond Barcelona, not the least reason being the circumstance in which the body was found: seated at her desk at the community center, a single gunshot to the back of the head and a note pinned to her blouse quoting Matthew 24: 24.

  Notwithstanding all he had seen in his years chasing bad people, Poincaré was still capable of outrage. This morning he had concluded one chapter on a mass murderer; this afternoon he opened another with an assassination. Tomorrow—who knew? On days like this he longed for a more pedestrian life. He made a note to find the passage in Matthew and check the Interpol files on the Milan bombing. Apparently, both involved an appeal to Jesus. While none had been made prior to the Herengracht bombing, Poincaré had seen stranger connections and wanted to confirm that, in Milan, no professors or mathematicians had died. He downed his espresso. James Fenster, he thought. What remained of the man was just a few BTU's short of cremation.

  He left too large a tip and stepped outside to a day much improved over the past week of steady rain. Sunlight bursting through clouds over that section of the Herengracht gave the famously flat city a towering, vertical dimension. The breeze, freshening from the west, carried a hope of drier days if not clearer thinking. He retraced his steps to the Ambassade, hands deep in his pockets, recalling his less than satisfying conversation with the lead investigator from the Amsterdam police. The bald little man had embarrassed himself in his haste to give the case away. "It's true," Poincaré had allowed. "One doesn't often see a bomb made out of rocket fuel."

  "No doubt originating beyond our borders," responded the man, a few inches taller than he was round. "The victim appears not to be Dutch, so on both counts Interpol must lead this case. If we can help in any way, however . . ." Done, then: the case not just handed off but thrown, airmailed, to Poincaré. It was just as well, since Lyon would want to track down the source of the ammonium perchlorate.

  The to-do list on Poincaré's notepad was growing. Laurent would speak with Fenster's contacts at the World Trade Organization in the morning to learn more about the scheduled talk. Poincaré would discover what he could about Fenster's research. Ludovici had already begun sorting through the list of protesters presently in Amsterdam and would be recommending several for interviews. And De Vries had made progress. From the hotel's registry she had learned that Fenster, accompanied by a woman named Madeleine Rainier, had stayed at the Ambassade at least three times in the previous eighteen months. On this visit, however, Fenster alone signed the guest register. They would need to find Rainier. The hotel had kept a photocopy of her passport on file.

  "You say the manager recognized Fenster?" he had asked De Vries.

  "Correct. He makes a habit of learning the names of repeat guests. . . . Here's the Ambassade's guest register for the last two years, with the past two weeks clipped on top." She showed Poincaré the printout. "I'll interview everyone who's currently registered or who checked out within the past several days. This will take some time. I'll also need a day or so to get the names from surrounding hotels." They had spoken two hours earlier, which may as well have been two minutes; for across the canal, De Vries was now waving an arm in his direction and walking briskly. They met mid-bridge. "She's here."

  "Who?"

  "Madeleine Rainier, the woman who registered with Fenster before, at the Ambassade." She turned and pointed behind her, directly across the canal. "Checked into the Hotel Ravensplein last Wednesday. She's in her room now, Henri. The desk clerk handed her a key not more than twenty minutes ago."

  CHAPTER 5

  The
lobby of the Hotel Ravensplein reminded Poincaré of street corners he used to avoid as a teenager. A buzzing soft drink dispenser with a cracked display blocked the emergency exit. Overhead, what might have been a useful, even elegant chandelier in the 1940s threw more shadow than light. The wallpaper was torn, and Poincaré reflexively checked for figures lurking in the corners. At the registration desk, a teenager with purple hair and a pierced lip sat reading a magazine, ignoring him. When he slid his badge across the desk, she rose and backed away.

  He took no pleasure in that. However reasonable he thought himself around young people, flanked by Ludovici and De Vries he became imposing by association. The receptionist's eyes darted to the gym bags that Poincaré's associates carried. Paolo shifted his weight, and one could hear a clink of metal.

  "This is about the explosion?" she asked.

  "That's right, young lady."

  De Vries stepped forward. "The clerk who was here before you told me Madeleine Rainier was staying in 4B. Is she still there?" Behind the desk, an empty mail slot for that room answered the question: Rainier had taken the room key on her way upstairs.

  "I'd better call my manager," said the girl.

  Ludovici started for the stairs, but Poincaré grabbed his coat. "Pardon us," he said. "Make your call, but it would be better if we could go now." Paolo shifted, but Poincaré held tight.

  "Will I get in trouble?"

  Poincaré released his hold. At the fourth-storey landing, Ludovici slid the safety off the gun he kept holstered beneath his jacket. Gisele stepped to the right of the door, out of harm's way, and banged three times.

  They waited, and she banged again.

  This time they heard footsteps. A chain slid into place before the door opened, first a crack, then a few inches until the chain pulled taut and Poincaré could see a vertical slice of face. Gray, bloodshot eye set behind a thick lens. Cleft chin. Pale. Tall.

  "Yes?"

  "Police," said De Vries, thrusting her badge into the opening. "Madeleine Rainier?"

  The head bobbed.

  "We want to discuss the explosion at the Ambassade Hotel."

  Poincaré watched Rainier scan the slice of hallway visible through the opening. "And that requires three of you? Let me see your warrant."

  "I appreciate your hesitancy," said Poincaré, stepping forward. He offered his card through the slot. "Please call Interpol in Lyon to confirm our identity. Call them now, or your embassy. We'll wait until you're satisfied—or leave if you're not. We have no warrant."

  The door closed, and when a deadbolt slid into place, Ludovici pinned Poincaré with a scowl. An hour earlier he had argued strenuously for arresting Rainier on the grounds that bombers sometimes enjoy watching their handiwork and that this room offered a perfect vantage point. Besides, the fact that Rainier avoided roasting along with Fenster when she was in Amsterdam and her residency pattern would have placed her at Fenster's side in the Ambassade raised suspicions. Ludovici lost that battle and settled, barely, for a warrantless interview. Now he made no effort to hide his irritation: "Henri, we should have brought in tea service. That would have refreshed Miss Rainier, and then when we were all feeling happy, we could ask if she killed James Fenster."

  "She's a long way from being a suspect, Paolo."

  "Give it time."

  "I intend to," said Poincaré. "We gain nothing, and might lose a great deal, by intimidating her. In fact—" he looked at De Vries— "I would have knocked on the door gently. But then you both know this."

  Ludovici routinely ignored conclusions he found inconvenient, one of the qualities Poincaré admired at their first meeting in Marseille. Still, the younger man had the habit of pushing a half-step too far. Rather than argue the point, and to keep him occupied while they waited, Poincaré asked him to clear the rooms on that floor of the hotel. De Vries called Laurent to confirm that he and a detective borrowed from the Amsterdam police were in position at the front and rear entrances. Through the closed door Poincaré heard snatches of conversation and, finally, the sound of a phone being set in its cradle. Then footsteps again, a chain sliding off its track, and a deadbolt drawn. The door swung wide.

  "I called the American Embassy, and they confirmed your identity, Inspector. They're not happy about an interview without one of their own present. But you're here and they aren't. They instructed me to let you in."

  Exhaustion like a bird of prey had settled on this woman. Her skin was pale and waxy, and Poincaré half-wondered if he would find needle marks beneath the sleeve of her loose-fitting sweater. As she leaned against the door jamb for support, she knocked her eyeglasses askew—as if she'd forgotten they were there or was unaccustomed to wearing them. The glasses were not well fitted to the face, and with one lens substantially thicker than the other her gray eyes looked mismatched. A recent surgery, he supposed. Her hair was exactly the color of a wheat field awaiting harvest.

  "Please," she offered. "There's a sitting room."

  They followed her into a well-lit apartment, better appointed than the hotel lobby would have suggested, with a pair of facing couches, a writing table, a lamp, and an upholstered chair for reading. Poincaré saw no obvious signs of contraband, no bottles of medication. By whatever path she had staggered to her present, spent condition, she appeared to have done so honestly. But something had crushed her. For the moment he resisted the obvious and proceeded with his inquiry: "I assume you heard the explosion this morning?"

  "I was out. But one could hardly miss the damage or all the attention now."

  "What do you know about it, Miss Rainier?"

  "Know? Aside from the fact it was massive . . . and frightening? Was anyone hurt?" Her voice was reed thin, and he strained to hear. She was in her late twenties, though in her present condition looked older.

  "A man died," he said. "We believe you knew him."

  Poincaré watched closely. When he spoke the name, Rainier groaned as though a foundation in her were cracking. "I must be direct," he continued. "The first hours are critical. On three occasions over the last eighteen months, you and Dr. Fenster stayed together at the Ambassade—directly across the canal from this hotel. This is true?"

  She stared past De Vries and Ludovici, to the casement windows and a tangle of tree limbs just days from leafing out. The same breeze that floated curtains into the room carried music from a nearby street fair. Poincaré heard snatches of laughter and the pipes of a carousel. The evening might have been called lovely had they come on other business.

  "Miss Rainier?"

  "We stayed together. . . . Yes."

  "Yet for this visit you registered here, with Dr. Fenster across the canal."

  She wrapped her arms around herself and began to sway.

  "Miss Rainier?"

  "We were engaged to be married then," she whispered.

  "Then?"

  "Not now."

  "You saw him in Amsterdam?"

  "Dead. You're certain he's dead?"

  Poincaré spared her his impression that nothing could be more dead than those charred bones. "He didn't suffer," he assured her. "The coroner reports that death was instantaneous and caught the victim completely unaware."

  She sat on a yellow chintz couch, a mirror behind, a scuffed, coffee-stained table before her. De Vries and Ludovici stood off to the side, heavy roof beams angling above them. Poincaré sat opposite. Nothing moved save the sweep hand of a cheap windmill clock and the curtains lifting at the window. "Miss Rainier: did you see Dr. Fenster in Amsterdam?"

  "We met for dinner when I arrived."

  "And since?"

  She shook her head.

  "You're here because . . . ?"

  "I buy and sell antiques, and Amsterdam is my base in Europe. James joined me the other times. The neighborhood is convenient for my work. This time when I was scheduled to visit, he said he'd booked the Ambassade for a conference. I decided to stay here. . . . The explosion—so much damage, Inspector. Only the one death?"

  T
he effort to sit upright taxed her, and Poincaré considered detaining Rainier if only to send her to a hospital. "At that hour, the hotel was largely empty," he explained. "People had gone about their business, thank goodness. But much of the credit goes to the bomber's precise placement of explosives. There can be no doubt, Miss Rainier, that the bomber was a professional and that this was murder. Who might have wanted Dr. Fenster dead?"

  She stared at the coffee table.

  De Vries pulled aside a curtain for a better look at the canal in the lamplight. "Is it a coincidence that you visited Amsterdam the same time as Dr. Fenster?" she asked. "And that you had such a perfect angle from which to observe the explosion?"

  Rainier continued staring.

  "Miss Rainier?"

  And then, with sudden violence: "Perfect angle? How dare you!"

  "But you don't find any of this—what's the word in English?" De Vries searched the air as if the answer would appear in a bubble. "Achterdochtig. Suspicious—that's it. For me, at least, it raises the question why he died and you didn't. After all that time you spent together at the Ambassade . . . I'm thinking you should have died with him. Who broke the engagement, Miss Rainier?"