The Mentor

by Monticelli, Rita Carla Francesca

  “No, wait,” Eric interrupted. “If that were the case, we’d have high-velocity splatter marks all around the body, and gravitational drops where the body fell.”

  “That’s right, and in fact there weren’t any,” she responded. “When we lifted the body up, most of the flooring underneath it was clean. That made me think Thompson wasn’t standing at all when he was shot.”

  “Hold on.” Eric knew where Adele was going with this. “You think he was already on the floor.”

  “That would explain the shape of the bloodstain, and the fact that the stain near the neck was moved with respect to the body,” said Adele, nodding.

  Now Eric was a little lost. They’d thought the unusual position of the bloodstain was due to the fact that the victim had wriggled as he was dying.

  “I’ll show you.” Adele fingered an icon on the side of the screen, and the position of the body changed. Now the human figure was no longer standing but lying down on the floor. “If they shot him when he was already lying on the floor, that would explain the direction of the bullets first and foremost.”

  A new figure, this one armed with a gun, stood alongside the victim, its feet by the victim’s groin.

  “The assassin threatens him with a gun, forces him to gag himself . . .” Adele’s account was fluid. It was clear she’d been working on it for a while. Given that it was nine o’clock on Monday morning, she must have been working on it during the weekend. “Then he makes the victim lie down on the floor, and bang!”—she raised her voice to imitate the shot—“he shoots him in the groin.”

  Without meaning to, Eric winced, instinctively moving his hands to cover his private parts. He caught ahold of himself in time, stopping his hands halfway there. The movement didn’t escape Adele, who shot him a malicious glance. He wondered for a moment if she’d done it on purpose to see his reaction.

  “Thompson wants to scream,” Adele continued. “But since he’s gagged, he can’t produce anything more than soft noises, something the neighbors can’t hear.”

  “But nobody heard the shots either,” said Eric. He was still her boss and had every right to test her a little when the opportunity arrived.

  “He used a silencer,” said Adele.

  Okay. That was easy enough. They’d decided as much back when they were examining the crime scene.

  “So . . . he shot him in the groin.” Eric tried to mimic the shot, holding his arm down and pointing at the floor. “The victim instinctively brought his hands to his groin, and in doing so curled up a little on one side.”

  Adele smiled, satisfied, and touched the tablet again, moving on to the next sequence. The body was now in a fetal position, curled up on one side. The assassin’s arm pointed downward, aiming at the victim’s neck. “Bang.” A single line united the pistol and the penetration wound on one side of the neck.

  The detective again examined the corpse stretched out on the table. The angle corresponded to the angle of the baton. But there was still something missing. “But that’s not how the body was when we found it.”

  Adele had an answer ready. “Because it was moved.”

  “How can you tell?”

  “The assassin waited until his victim was dead,” she said, apparently ignoring Eric’s question. “He struck the carotid artery in full, so he didn’t have to wait long. Thompson ran out of blood quickly and must have lost consciousness almost immediately.” She shifted her attention from the tablet to the corpse. “He pushed the body with one foot, shifting Thompson again onto his back.” The same sequence played out virtually on the screen, and Adele pointed to the side of the body where there was a bluish stain beneath the skin. “It wasn’t visible at first, but after a day in the fridge, this perimortem bruise showed up.”

  “He did it with his shoe.” They were dealing with the kind of revelations that—when all the clues began to line up one after the other, making it possible to see the threads connecting the whole—made Eric remember why he loved his job so deeply. He put on a pair of latex gloves and touched the flesh around the bruise. “It seems a lot more marked toward the center.”

  “As if it were the result of a kick made with a rigid, pointed shoe,” Adele suggested. They had both reached the same conclusion. “Like a woman’s shoe.”

  “Ah, a woman!” exclaimed the doctor from the other side of the room.

  “And once the body was stretched out on the floor,” said Eric, “the killer ripped off the tape.”

  “At that point there was no longer risk of him screaming,” Adele concluded, triumph in her eyes.

  Five minutes later they were standing in the atrium, waiting for the elevator. Adele was fingering her tablet again. Eric was watching her. At a certain point it seemed as if she was about to look up at him, and Eric quickly focused on his wristwatch. Exactly thirty seconds had passed since the last time he’d checked it.

  He snorted at his own stupidity, nearly certain he saw Adele stifle a laugh. He couldn’t be sure of it, but he also didn’t dare look in her direction.

  Suddenly he remembered the key. He patted his pants pockets, finally pulling out the long key. He held it out to her, ready to thank her again, when she abruptly interrupted him.

  “Did you enjoy snooping around my house, boss?”

  Eric was stunned. “What?” For a split second he was afraid Adele had a video surveillance system. His hand, holding the key, was frozen halfway between them. It took him a beat to remember that he hadn’t done anything wrong. Except maybe touching the mouse. Adele’s snarky expression erased any lingering doubts.

  She was kidding.

  Adele took the key, her fingers brushing his hand. At that very moment the doors to the elevator opened. Miriam and Jane were standing inside.

  Eric and Adele were caught both holding the key between them. Miriam’s expression hardened, while Jane’s mouth split into a smile. Shaw quickly dropped the key and got busy adjusting his wrist lapels.

  “Just the man we were looking for,” exclaimed Jane, stepping out of the elevator. She squinted in an expression of disdain.

  In the meantime, Adele had gone back to fiddling with her tablet and stepped quickly into the elevator. Miriam glared at her crosswise, then exited after Jane. Adele reached out, pressed a button, and the door closed.

  Miriam Leroux was staring at Eric insistently. “They told us you were in the morgue. Discover anything interesting?”

  Despite the question, he had the distinct impression the young detective wasn’t all that interested in the investigation just then.

  “Did you see Adele’s reconstruction?” asked Jane. “Amazing, isn’t it?”

  Miriam skewered her with a glare, but Jane ignored her companion.

  “Yes, well . . .” Eric paused for a moment. When he’d arrived at the office, he hadn’t seen Jane, and then he’d gone straight down to the morgue. How did she know about the reconstruction?

  Then his second in command raised her hand with her smartphone in it. “She sent it to me five minutes ago.”

  “Sooner or later I’m going to have to buy one of those infernal things too,” he admitted. Yes. Talking was a good idea. “Lately I’ve had the impression that I’m always one step behind the rest of you.”

  Jane laughed, and even Miriam seemed to relax a little. But she still didn’t seem like she was in much of a good mood.

  “Don’t be silly, Eric,” said the criminologist, slapping him on the back. “You’re always two steps ahead of the rest of us put together. Don’t you think?” she concluded, turning to Miriam.

  “So, what’s the news?” said Leroux.

  “Appears we’re looking for a woman,” said Eric, giving her an authoritative stare. It seemed like just the other day he was giving Miriam dolls for her birthday. He had been a sort of uncle to her, practically a member of the family, but that didn’t give her the right to
behave like this in the workplace.

  “A woman?” Miriam’s curiosity seemed to get the better of her outrage.

  “It looks like he was kicked with a woman’s shoe,” explained Eric. “Of course it could be a man wearing pointy shoes, but this element along with the shot to the groin gives us something to think about.”

  “An abused victim? Rape?” The detective’s hand moved to the hilt of her pistol. She moved her head a little in a sort of nervous tic, then let go of the gun and straightened out her arm again.

  “You tell me,” he responded.

  “We haven’t found anything like that in Johnson’s past yet,” said Miriam, massaging her right wrist. “But maybe we should dig a little deeper.”

  “An extremely meticulous woman who loves tea,” said Jane. She had listened to them in silence up until that point. The other two turned to look at her. The criminologist showed them a photograph on her cell phone. They could see a table with an empty teacup on it. Jane swiped to the next photo: two tea filters in the garbage. “Evidently two people drank tea that day.” She paused briefly for effect. “But we only found one teacup.”

  “Maybe Thompson just loved really strong tea,” said Eric, shouldering the role of devil’s advocate.

  Jane lifted up a finger to silence him. “We checked the dish rack and found four other teacups and four little plates just like this one. Add the one on the table, and you’ve got five. Looks like the set’s missing a pair.”

  Now he understood what she was driving at. “The killer took everything he or she used so as not to leave any evidence behind.”

  “Or DNA,” concluded his second in command.

  “No fool, this one,” Miriam added.

  Eric crossed his arms over his chest. “No,” he said. “Not one bit.”

  CHAPTER 5

  She pulled the yellow ribbon off the doorway and walked inside, leaving the door open behind her. The crime scene had already been picked over and sifted through down to the last square inch. The scientific investigations department had sequestered and catalogued everything that might have proven useful, photographing the minutest details in the room. Soon they would let the landlord back in to clean up, and then there wouldn’t be any signs left of what had happened here.

  Miriam paused to look at the bloodstains on the floor. It was no surprise no one in the building had heard anything. People were undoubtedly busy with their everyday lives and wouldn’t have been able to distinguish a muffled cry or the sound of a silenced shot from a thousand other sounds coming from nearby apartments, televisions, or traffic in the streets outside.

  But maybe someone had seen some detail, one that appeared unimportant but that might acquire new meaning when analyzed in the right context.

  A noise in the hallway outside made her spin around. She couldn’t see where it had come from, but it was followed by excited clatter.

  “Sayyid, quit it with that ball!” shouted a woman’s voice, echoing down the corridor. “And stop running on the stairs!”

  Detective Leroux stuck her head out of the victim’s apartment and nearly took a soccer ball to the face as it whipped past her. The ball bounced down the hall and a boy, roughly ten years old, shot past her like a streak of lightning, chasing the ball.

  “Hey, kid!” said Miriam instinctively, trying in vain to stop him. “Be careful!”

  She followed the boy. He’d come to a stop in front of a door. He was holding the ball in both hands, staring back at her, frightened.

  “Who are you? Leave my son alone.”

  Miriam turned around and faced the woman speaking. She was roughly forty years old, just now coming up the steps. She was wearing a long dress and a dark shirt that was tightly buttoned up her torso. She wore a veil on her head that hung down and covered her neck as well. She was carrying two large grocery bags, one in each hand. They seemed quite heavy, and the woman struggled to reach the top of the stairs. When she made it onto their floor, she had to stop and lean on the banister to catch her breath.

  “Good afternoon, ma’am,” said Miriam in a cordial tone, walking toward her. She took her badge out of her pocket and held it out to the woman. “Detective Miriam Leroux, Metropolitan Police.”

  This last phrase brought a grimace to the other woman’s face. “You again,” she said as she started walking again. “We didn’t see anything. We didn’t hear anything. I already told all of this to your colleague.” She reached Miriam and, without looking at the detective, pushed past her and headed for her son.

  “I’m sorry. I hope you don’t mind, but if I could just ask, Miss . . . ?”

  The woman sighed noisily, set the bags down on the floor, and started searching for something in the purse slung over one shoulder. “Jassim,” she said.

  Sayyid said nothing. As soon as his mother reached his side, he hid behind her and peeked out from time to time to see what the detective was doing. Now he was holding the ball under one arm, while the other hand gripped his mother’s side.

  “Miss Jassim, would you mind if I asked your son a few questions?”

  The woman, who had fished out her house keys in the meantime and stuck them into the lock, turned around and shot the detective a look of annoyance. “Why?”

  “As I’m sure you know, a man was murdered in the apartment next to yours. Maybe Sayyid saw someone go in or come out. Does he often play out here in the hallway?”

  Miss Jassim turned to her son and shot him a look of reproof. It almost seemed as if she were blaming him for the fact that she was now stuck talking to the detective in front of her.

  Going over to them, Miriam bent down so that her eyes were at the same level as Sayyid’s. “Do you often play out here in the hallway, Sayyid?”

  The boy said nothing.

  “Answer the lady!” his mother implored.

  Sayyid looked first at his mother, then back at Miriam. Then he nodded, clutching his mother’s wrist with his hands.

  Detective Leroux smiled at him. “That’s fine. Did you see anyone new enter or leave your neighbor’s apartment?”

  The child stared at her. He was almost trembling.

  “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You can talk to me. I’m with the police.”

  This didn’t appear to calm the boy one bit. “I-I don’t know . . .” he stammered.

  “You don’t know? Try to think about it a little. I don’t know . . . maybe a lady, for example?”

  Sayyid squinted for a moment. “Yes,” he said, practically whispering.

  “Goodness gracious!” exclaimed the mother. “Behave yourself. Tell the lady what you saw. And pull yourself together!” She forced Sayyid to let go of her and stand on his own.

  “I saw a woman come out of there,” he said, pointing to Thompson’s apartment.

  “When?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Okay. Had you ever seen her before?”

  Sayyid shook his head no.

  “What do you remember about her? Was she short, tall . . . ?”

  “Tall!”

  “As tall as me?” asked Miriam, standing up straight and pointing to herself. “Or taller? Or not as tall?”

  The boy hesitated for a moment, then looked away from the policewoman. “Like you . . .”

  “Okay, Sayyid.” She bent down to his level again, bringing her face just inches from his, forcing him to look right at her. “Do you remember what she looked like?”

  The boy swallowed nervously. “She was dressed in black. And she wore a big pair of sunglasses.”

  “What color was her hair?”

  The boy shrugged.

  “Would you recognize her, if you saw her again?”

  Sayyid immediately shook his head forcefully.

  “Okay,” said Miriam, sighing.

  “Do you need us much longer?” asked the mo
ther, sounding bored. “My son has to do his homework.”

  The detective stood up again. “Of course,” she said. “You’re right.” She smiled to the woman and took a step back.

  Miss Jassim turned the key in the lock and opened the door.

  “Just one last thing,” Detective Leroux added.

  Miriam’s voice interrupted the other woman’s movement. The child had set the ball down on the floor and put both hands on the door in order to push his way in, but his mother had a firm grip on the knob and kept Sayyid from slipping inside.

  “When the woman came out of the apartment, what did she do after that?”

  Sayyid stopped pushing on the door and looked at her, but he didn’t answer.

  “Did she leave right away, or did she do something else before she left?” insisted the detective.

  “She locked the door behind her,” the boy said.

  Then the mother let go of the doorknob and Sayyid ran inside.

  The cell phone rang right as the light turned green. Miriam pressed the answer button on the steering wheel and accelerated hard, cutting off the car to her left in the process, tires screeching. A car horn honked behind her.

  “Leroux,” she answered.

  “Detective, this is Mills. I investigated that thing you were asking about, and I may have found something interesting,” said a male voice coming through her speakers.

  Just as she was overtaking a bus, a pedestrian stepped out into the street ahead of her, forcing Miriam to screech to a stop. “Merde!” she swore in French.

  “Everything okay?” asked her colleague, preoccupied.

  Miriam took off again. “Yes, everything’s okay. You were saying?”

  “After digging around in Thompson’s past, I found an old accusation for rape.”

  She was now out on a four-lane road and became more relaxed behind the wheel. “Oh yeah? How come it’s only surfacing now?”

  “Because it dates back to when he was still a minor, and the charges were dropped, so they don’t show up in the system. I asked a friend over in the juvenile sector to check him out, just to be sure, and then this thing popped up.”