I dialed up the volume as the faces came on the screen: Sara Russo, Wendy Emerson, Kim McDaniels, and Julia Winkler, and now another face, a young woman whose name was Mieke Helsloot.
The announcer said, “Ms. Helsloot, twenty years old, was the secretary to the well-known architect Jan Van der Heuvel of Amsterdam, who was at a meeting in Copenhagen at the time of the murder. Mr. Van der Heuvel was interviewed at his hotel minutes ago.”
Jesus Christ. I knew his name.
The picture cut away to Van der Heuvel leaving his hotel in Copenhagen, suitcase in hand, journalists crowding around him at the bottom of a rounded staircase. He was in his early forties, had gray hair and angular features. He looked genuinely shocked and scared.
“I have only just now learned of this terrible tragedy,” he said into the clutch of microphones. “I am shocked and devastated. Mieke Helsloot was a proper, decent young lady, and I have no idea why anyone would harm her. It is a terrible day. Mieke was to be married.”
Henri had told me that Jan Van der Heuvel was an alias for one of the members of the Alliance, the man Henri called “the Dutchman.” Van der Heuvel was the third wheel who’d joined up with Henri and Gina during their romp through the French Riviera.
And now, soon after Henri had killed Gina Prazzi, Van der Heuvel’s secretary had also been murdered.
If I hadn’t once been a cop, I might have dismissed these two killings as a coincidence. The women were different types. They were killed hundreds of miles apart. But what I saw were two more flags on a grid, a part of a pattern.
Henri had loved Gina Prazzi, and he killed her. He’d hated Jan Van der Heuvel. Maybe he’d wanted to kill him, too, so, just thinking it out… what if Henri hadn’t known that Van der Heuvel was in Denmark that day?
What if he’d decided to kill his secretary instead?
Chapter 115
I WOKE UP to sunlight seeping in through a small window. Amanda was lying on her side, facing away from me, her long, dark hair fanned out over the pillow. And in a flash, I was enraged as I remembered Henri in blackface, his gun pointed at Amanda’s head, her eyes wild with fear.
Right then, I didn’t care why Henri had killed anyone, what he was planning to do next, why the book was so important to him, or why he seemed to be spinning out of control.
Only one thing was important to me. I had to keep Mandy safe. And the baby, too.
I grabbed for my watch, saw that it was almost seven thirty. I shook Mandy’s shoulder gently, and her eyes flew open. She gasped, then saw my face and sagged back into the bedding.
“I thought for a moment —”
“That it was a dream.”
“Yeah.”
I put my head very gently on her belly, and she stroked my hair.
“Is that the baby?” I asked.
“You dummy. I’m hungry.”
I pretended she was speaking for the baby. I made a little megaphone with my hands, called out, “Hellloooo in there, Foozle. This is Dad,” as though the tiny clump of our combined DNA could hear me.
Mandy cracked up, and I was glad she could laugh, but I cried in the shower, where she couldn’t see me. If only I’d killed Henri when I had him in my gun sight. If only I had done that. Then it would all be over now.
I kept Mandy close to me as I paid the bill at the front desk and then hailed a cab and told the driver to take us to Charles de Gaulle airport.
Mandy said, “How can we go back to L.A.?”
“We can’t.”
She turned her head and stared at me. “So what are we doing?”
I told Mandy what I’d decided, gave her a short list of names and numbers on the back of my business card, and told her that she’d be met when the plane landed. She was listening, not fighting with me, when I told her that she couldn’t phone me, or send me e-mail, nothing. That she had to rest and eat good food. “If you get bored, think about the dress you want to wear.”
“You know I don’t wear dresses.”
“Maybe you’ll make an exception.”
I took a ballpoint pen out of my computer case and drew a ring on Mandy’s left ring finger with lines radiating out from a big sparkly diamond in the center.
“Amanda Diaz, I love every bit of you. Will you marry me?”
“Ben.”
“You and Foozle.”
There were happy tears rolling down our cheeks now. She threw her arms around me, said, “Yes, yes, yes,” and swore she wouldn’t wash off the ring I’d drawn until she had a real one.
I bought breakfast for us at the airport, chocolate croissants and café au lait, and when it was nearly time to board, I walked with her as far as I could go. Then I wrapped my arms around her, and she sobbed against my chest until I was crying again, too. Could anything be scarier than this? The thought of losing someone you love so much? I didn’t think so.
I kissed Mandy’s poor bruised mouth again and again. If love counted for anything, she would be safe. Our baby would be safe. And I would see them both soon.
But the opposing thought went through me like a lance. I might never see Amanda again. This could be the end for us.
I dried my eyes with the palms of my hands, then watched Mandy go through the checkpoint. She looked back, waved, threw kisses, then turned away.
When I couldn’t see her any longer, I left the airport, took a cab to the Gare du Nord, and boarded a high-speed train to Amsterdam.
Chapter 116
FOUR HOURS AFTER I boarded the train in Paris, I disembarked in the Centraal Station in Amsterdam, where I used a public phone to call Jan Van der Heuvel. I had contacted him before I left Paris about our getting together as soon as possible. He asked me again what made this meeting so urgent, and this time I told him, “Henri Benoit sent me a video I think you should see.”
There was a long silence, then Van der Heuvel gave me directions to a bridge that crossed the Keizersgracht Canal only a few blocks from the train station.
I found Van der Heuvel standing by a lamppost, looking into the water below. I recognized him from the news clip that had been shot of him in Copenhagen, the journos asking him to comment on Mieke Helsloot’s murder.
Today he was wearing a smart gray gabardine suit, a white dress shirt, and a charcoal-colored tie with a silken sheen. The part in his hair was as crisp as if it had been drawn with a knife, and it highlighted his angular features.
I introduced myself, saying that I was a writer from Los Angeles.
“How do you know Henri?” he asked after a long pause.
“I’m writing his life story. His autobiography. Henri commissioned it.”
“You met with him?”
“I did, yes.”
“All of this surprises me. He told you my name?”
“In publishing, this type of book is called a ‘ tell-all.’ Henri told me everything.”
Van der Heuvel looked extremely uncomfortable out on the street. He appraised my appearance, seemed to weigh whether or not to take this meeting further, then said, “I can spare a few minutes. My office is right over there. Come.”
I walked with him across the bridge to a handsome five-story building in what appeared to be an upscale residential area. He opened the front door, indicated that I should go first, and I took the four well-lit flights of stairs to the top floor. My hopes rose as I climbed.
Van der Heuvel was as twisted as a snake. As part of the Alliance, he was as guilty of multiple murders as if he’d killed people with his own hands. But as despicable as he was, I wanted his cooperation, and so I had to control my anger, keep it hidden from him.
If Van der Heuvel could lead me to Henri Benoit, I would get another chance to bring Henri down.
This time, I wouldn’t blow it.
Van der Heuvel took me through his design studio, a vast uncluttered space, bright with blond wood and glass and streaming sunlight. He offered me an uncomfortable-looking chair across from him at a long drawing table near the tall windows.
&n
bsp; “It is hilarious that Henri is telling you his life story,” Van der Heuvel said. “I can only imagine the lies he would say.”
“Tell me how funny you find this,” I said. I booted up my laptop, turned it around, and pushed the Play button so that Van der Heuvel could see the last minutes of Gina Prazzi’s life.
I didn’t think he had seen the video before, but as it ran, his expression never changed. When it was over, Van der Heuvel said, “What is funny is… I think he loved her.”
I stopped the video, and Van der Heuvel looked into my eyes.
I said, “Before I was a writer, I was a cop. I think Henri is doing mop-up. He’s killing the people who know who he is. Help me find him, Mr. Van der Heuvel. I’m your best chance for survival.”
Chapter 117
VAN DER HEUVEL’S back was to the tall windows. His long shadow fell across the blond table, and his face was haloed by the afternoon light.
He took a pack of cigarettes from his drawer, offered me one, then lit one for himself. He said, “If I knew how to find him, there would no longer be a problem. But Henri has a genius for disappearance. I don’t know where he is. I have never known.”
“Let’s work on this together,” I said. “Kick around some ideas. There must be something you know that can lead me to him. I know about his imprisonment in Iraq, but Brewster-North is a private company, closed tight, like a vault. I know about Henri’s forger in Beirut, but without the man’s name —”
“Oh, this is too much,” Van der Heuvel said, laughing, a terrible laugh because there was actual humor in it. He found me amusing. “He is psychopathic. Don’t you understand this man at all? He’s delusional. He’s narcissistic, and most of all he lies. Henri was never in Iraq. He has no forger other than himself. Understand something, Mr. Hawkins. Henri is glorifying himself to you, inventing a better life story. You’re like a small dog being pulled along —”
“Hey!” I said, slapping the table, jumping to my feet. “Don’t screw with me. I came here to find Henri. I don’t care about you or Horst Werner or Raphael dos Santos or the rest of you sick, pathetic motherfuckers. If you can’t help me, I have no choice but to go to the police and give them everything.”
Van der Heuvel laughed again and told me to calm down, take a seat. I was rocked to my core. Had Van der Heuvel just answered the question of why Henri wanted to write the book? To glorify his life story?
“The Dutchman” opened his laptop, said, “I got an e-mail from Henri two days ago. The first one he ever sent to me directly. He wanted to sell me a video. I think I just saw it for free. You say you have no interest in us?”
“I don’t care about you at all. I just want Henri. He’s threatened my life and my family.”
“Maybe this will help your detective work.”
Van der Heuvel ran his fingers over the keyboard of his laptop as he talked, saying, “Henri Benoit, as he calls himself, was a juvenile monster. Thirty years ago, when he was six years old, he strangled his infant sister in her crib.”
The shock showed on my face as Van der Heuvel nodded, smiling, tapping ashes into a tray, assuring me that this was true.
“Cute little boy. Fat cheeks. Big eyes. He murdered a baby. He was diagnosed with psychopathic personality disorder, very rare that a child would have all the hallmarks. He was sent to a psychiatric facility, the Clinic du Lac in Geneva.”
“This is documented?”
“Yes, indeed. I did the research when I first met him. According to the chief psychiatrist, a Dr. Carl Obst, the child learned a lot during his twelve years in the crazy house. How to mimic people, of course. He picked up several languages and learned a trade. He became a printer.”
Was Van der Heuvel telling me the truth? If so, it explained how Henri could become anyone, forge documents, slip through the cracks at will.
“After he was released at age eighteen, our boy got busy with casual murders and robberies. He stole a Ferrari, anyway. Whatever else, I don’t know. But when he met Gina four years ago, he didn’t have to dine on scraps anymore.”
Van der Heuvel told me that Gina “fancied Henri,” that he opened up to her, told her how he liked his sex and that he had committed acts of extreme violence. And he said he wanted to make a lot of money.
“It was Gina’s idea to have Henri provide entertainment for our little group and Horst went along with this plan for our sex monkey.”
“This is where you came in.”
“Ah. Yes. Gina introduced us.”
“Henri said you sat in a corner and watched.”
Van der Heuvel looked at me as though I was an exotic bug and he hadn’t decided whether to smash me or put me under glass.
“Another lie, Hawkins. He took it up the ass and squealed like a girl. But this is what you should know because it is the truth. We didn’t make Henri who he is. We only fed him.”
Chapter 118
VAN DER HEUVEL’S fingers flew across the keyboard again. He said, “And now, a quick look, for your eyes only. I’ll show you how the young man developed.”
Delight brightened his face as he turned the screen toward me.
A collection of single frames taken from videos of women who’d been tied up, tortured, decapitated, flickered across the computer screen.
I could hardly absorb what I was seeing as Van der Heuvel flashed through the pictures, smoking his cigarette, providing blithe commentary for a slide show of absolute and, until now, unimaginable horror.
I felt light-headed. I was starting to feel that Van der Heuvel and Henri were the same person. I hated them equally. I wanted to kill Van der Heuvel, the worthless shit, and I thought I could even get away with it.
But I needed him to lead me to Henri.
“At first I didn’t know that the murders were real,” he was saying, “but when Henri began to cut off heads, then, of course, I knew.… In the last year, he began writing his own scripts. Getting a little too drunk with attention. Getting too greedy.
“He was dangerous. And he knew me and Gina, so there was no easy way to end it.”
Van der Heuvel exhaled a plume of smoke and went on.
“Last week, Gina planned to either pay Henri off or make him disappear. Obviously, she misjudged him. She never told me how she contacted him, so once again, this is the truth, Mr. Hawkins, I have no idea where Henri is. None at all.”
“Horst Werner signs Henri’s paychecks, doesn’t he?” I said. “Tell me how to find Werner.”
Van der Heuvel stubbed out his cigarette. His delight was gone. He spoke to me with dead seriousness, emphasizing every word.
“Mr. Hawkins, Horst Werner is the last person you ever want to meet. In your case in particular. He will not like Henri’s book. Take my meaning. Don’t let it out of your hands. Scrub your computer. Burn your tapes. Never mention the Alliance or its members to anyone. This advice is worth your life.”
It was too late to scrub my hard drive. I’d sent my transcripts of the Henri interviews and the outline of the book to Zagami in New York. The transcripts had been photocopied and passed around to editors and Raven-Wofford’s outside law firm. The names of the Alliance members were all over the manuscript. I had planned to change the names, as I’d promised Henri, in the final draft.
I bulled ahead. “If Werner helps me, I’ll help him.”
“You have the brain of a brick, Hawkins. Listen to what I’m telling you. Listen. Horst Werner is a powerful man with long arms and steel fists. He can find you wherever you are. Do you hear me, Hawkins? Don’t be afraid of Henri, our little windup toy.
“Be afraid of Horst Werner.”
Chapter 119
VAN DER HEUVEL abruptly called our meeting to an end, dismissed me, saying that he had a flight to catch.
My skull felt like a pressure cooker about to blow. The threat against me had been doubled, a war on two fronts: If I didn’t write the book, Henri would kill me. If I did write the book, Werner would kill me.
I still had to find Hen
ri, and now I had to stop Van der Heuvel from telling Horst Werner about Henri’s book, and about me.
I dug Henri’s Ruger out of my computer case and aimed it at the Dutchman. My voice was hoarse from the stress of unexpressed fear and fury when I said, “You remember I said I didn’t care about you and the Alliance? I’ve changed my mind. I care a lot.”
James Patterson Page 23