The Mentor

by Monticelli, Rita Carla Francesca

  She nodded, taking her keys from his hand and getting out of the SUV.

  Eric watched her walk away until she’d entered her building, then sighed and relaxed in his seat. His eyes wandered around, passing across the rearview mirror. A dark car had pulled in and parked right behind his. The driver was still in the car and appeared to have no intention of getting out.

  He turned around to take a better look. Even though the man was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses that prevented Eric from seeing his eyes, Shaw had the distinct impression he was being watched.

  A moment later the engine turned over and the car moved. When it passed his SUV, Eric saw that the car was an old, dark-blue Volkswagen. He had the feeling he’d seen it before, but he couldn’t remember where.

  Twenty minutes after she’d gone in, Adele reappeared outside the building. She opened the rear door and tossed in a big black bag, then climbed into the front passenger seat. “Did it,” she said, pulling on her seat belt.

  Still thoughtful, Eric turned his car on.

  “You can set yourself up in here.” Eric put Adele’s bag on the queen-sized bed while she watched, perplexed, from the doorway. She was still holding her kit and gun.

  “Don’t worry,” said Eric. “I’m sleeping in Brian’s room.”

  The woman frowned and walked into the room, suspicious.

  “Brian’s my son. Sometimes he comes over to spend the weekend here with me.”

  “Ah, right. Your son.” Now she seemed to relax a little. She put her things down on the nightstand and turned her attention to the big bag, digging out her laptop.

  “I’ll make some room for you in the closet,” said Eric, moving things around.

  Adele put the computer down on the little table by the window and moved the bag onto the floor. Then she took off her shoes and stretched out on the bed to relax. Eric turned around every once in a while to look at her.

  She was so beautiful. He had to summon all his strength to keep from being overtly distracted. He emptied two drawers and moved his clothing to one side of the closet. Now there was a little more room.

  When he turned around again, he found her staring back at him, her head tilted to one side and an astute smile on her face. She was incredibly seductive. He told himself she must still be in shock, and that’s why she was behaving so strangely. She wasn’t trying to provoke him, even though it sure seemed like she was.

  “Okay,” said Eric, satisfied with himself. “Now you can put your stuff away.”

  “You’re a really handsome man, do you know that?”

  Adele’s comment left Eric speechless for a moment. “Thanks,” he managed finally, finding nothing better to say. “You’re not bad yourself.”

  She laughed. “I know you’d like to jump all over me right now.”

  Was it that obvious? No, nonsense. She was doing it on purpose just to needle him. She had a very peculiar way of dealing with bereavement.

  “Is it just me, or weren’t you the one who said we have to take things slow?”

  “You didn’t exactly agree, if I remember correctly.” Adele’s expression changed to vague boredom. She got up and went over to the bathroom, but didn’t go in. She simply stood in the doorway and looked around. She seemed like someone visiting a museum.

  Eric felt all his self-imposed restraint come crashing down around him in an instant. Gripped by an unexpected resoluteness, he walked quickly across the room to her, taking Adele by the shoulders and spinning her around. “You have to stop playing with me, little lady.”

  She stared up at him, startled. There seemed to be a tenuous light of possibility deep in her eyes.

  But before Adele could say anything, Eric grabbed her and kissed her. He didn’t stop, not even when Adele seemed indifferent, unwilling to kiss him back. But she didn’t stay that way for long.

  Suddenly they were both fighting off their clothing, struggling to be free.

  He hadn’t felt this good in a long, long time. He couldn’t even remember the last time. It all felt impossible, hard to believe it was real. But there she was, stretched out alongside him, her face still flushed, her expression relaxed and her beautiful hair splayed out across the pillows. She stared into his eyes, her finger tracing an imaginary path through his hair, then down his neck and across his chest. She had a little tattoo of a lotus flower on one wrist. Who knew what story lay behind that small symbol?

  “You’re a surprising man.”

  “Handsome and surprising. You’re all compliments today,” said Eric. He took her hand and brought it to his mouth for a kiss.

  Adele threw her head back and laughed.

  Eric turned toward her, and the two stared into one another’s eyes for a while. “Should I feel guilty I’ve just slept with a girl?” he asked in a joking tone, then tilted his head and rolled his eyes back and forth, pretending to consider the question honestly. Finally he shook his head violently. “No, not even a little bit.”

  “I’m a woman, not a girl,” she protested, but she smiled as she said it and gave him a light punch in the shoulder.

  “Definitely not,” said Eric, his eyes opening wide in pretend shock. “Girls don’t know how to do certain things.”

  Adele laughed again.

  “But maybe,” continued Eric in the same playful tone of voice as before, “I should feel guilty because I’m also your boss?” Then he shook his head again. “Definitely not!”

  “Hmm . . . Maybe I should sue you for sexual harassment.”

  “You’d better not,” he said, reaching out for her body and tickling her sides.

  “No, no, please! No torture! I’ll confess to anything you want. It’s all my fault!” Then she dissolved into giggling.

  Suddenly a ray of sunlight broke through the clouds, shone through the window, and filled the room with golden light. It was so beautiful and surprising that the couple stopped fooling around and turned to look out the window. Dancing ribbons of light played across the bedsheets.

  “It stopped raining,” said Eric. He’d lost all sense of time. He hadn’t taken a day off in at least a year, and he wasn’t used to being home during the day in the middle of a workweek, even in the late afternoon—much less in the company of a woman.

  He got up to move the curtains and let as much sunlight in as possible. Standing next to the window, he turned to look at Adele, who had sat up in bed. Her naked body practically sparkled in the sunlight. She was truly, incredibly beautiful. For a moment he was almost afraid of his depth of feeling for her. Everything had happened so quickly. He wasn’t sure he deserved all this, deserved her.

  In order to hide the emotions he was feeling, Eric turned back around and stared out the window. There was the usual to-and-fro of pedestrians. Two kids were running along the sidewalk on the other side of the street. A woman was following them, shouting, and the two children stopped, but only because a boy with a big dog on a leash was bearing down on them from the other direction. Eric smiled. He remembered when Brian was little and how hard it was for him and Crystal to rein in their son’s exuberance.

  Then, by chance, his eye was drawn farther down the street, to the right. A blue car was parked along the side of the road. He recognized it immediately. It was identical to the Volkswagen he’d seen near Adele’s house.

  “What’s up?” asked Adele, sensing something was wrong. He heard her get up and come over to the window. She looked out in the same direction.

  “That car,” said Eric. “The blue one. I saw one that looked just like it outside your house. When the driver realized I was looking at him, he turned the car on and drove away.”

  She squinted at the car. “There’s somebody inside.”

  The car was in shadow, and it wasn’t easy to see anything more.

  “I don’t like it,” said Eric, turning to look for his phone.

  “Wait
,” said Adele, going over to her purse and taking out her smartphone. She went back to the window, then used the phone to zoom in on the car’s license plate and take a picture. “There. It’s pretty clear.”

  “Send it to Stern.” Shaw took his cordless phone off the nightstand and called the desk where the criminologist usually sat.

  “Hey, boss,” said Stern, displaying an easiness he didn’t actually possess.

  “Stern, Adele’s about to send you a license plate number. Check it out and let me know who it belongs to, okay?”

  “Okay, yes,” said Stern, his voice pitched too high with excitement. “Got the message. I’ll check right away.”

  Eric hit the speakerphone button and put the cordless down on the bed. Adele was getting dressed, and he did too, keeping his eye on the car outside the window. It was still there, its driver still sitting patiently.

  “Boss,” said the voice on the telephone. He seemed agitated. “The owner is Christopher Garnish, the guy we’re looking for!”

  “Fuck!” exclaimed Eric, pulling on his shoes. “Send backup to my house immediately.”

  “Immediately . . . to your house?” said the criminologist, but then Eric hung up, cutting him off.

  “What do you want to do?” asked Adele.

  Eric grabbed his holster and gun and put them on. Then he took another look out the window. “Arrest him,” he said.

  Adele grabbed his arm, her mouth open in surprise. “Aren’t you going to wait for the backup?”

  But Eric broke free from her grip and headed for the door.

  “Wait!” she said, grabbing her own gun off the floor. “I’m coming with you!”

  Together they left the apartment and went down into the lobby.

  Shaw held the building door open just a crack to take a look around outside. The Volkswagen was still there. The man behind the wheel seemed to be watching a couple who was walking past on the sidewalk. When the driver turned his head toward the passenger seat, tracking the couple, Eric and Adele went outside and moved down the street. They held their guns hidden behind their backs and approached the car from behind so they wouldn’t be noticed.

  The man in the blue car raised his head, his face turning to the rearview mirror. He was still wearing dark sunglasses, so it was impossible to see where he was focusing his gaze, but he had undoubtedly noticed them. The way he tensed and froze gave him away.

  The detectives moved quickly, but the man started his car immediately. Eric ran to get in front of the car and block him from leaving. “Stop! Police!” But instead of stopping, the driver accelerated.

  “Watch out!” cried Adele.

  Shaw jumped out of the way just in time, barely avoiding being hit by the car.

  “Son of a bitch!” Eric stared at the car racing away. He raised his arm toward the car, ready to shoot at it, but then stopped himself. It was already too far away. “Fuck . . . ,” he murmured to himself. He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out a set of keys.

  “Let’s take my car,” he said to Adele, pointing to the SUV.

  They jumped in and started after the blue car, turning on the siren and emergency lights installed on the dashboard.

  “You may not use this car very much, but you’ve got it pretty well equipped!” said Adele, struggling to latch her seat belt while Eric accelerated and swerved around other vehicles.

  The Volkswagen turned left on Gloucester Place, racing at high speed and cutting off another car coming from the right. A cacophony of angry honking filled the air just as Eric came racing in behind him and did the same thing.

  The streetlight up ahead was green, but it turned yellow just as Garnish was crossing Marylebone, overtaking a van and heading toward Park Road. A moment later it turned red, but Eric didn’t slow down. The sound of screeching brakes accompanied them as they shot through the intersection. A motorcyclist heading into the intersection swerved, lost control of the bike, and tumbled across the pavement. The detective saw him get up in his rearview mirror and give him the finger. Evidently he wasn’t hurt too badly.

  “We’re nearly to the A41. If he keeps going this way, we’ll lose him!” exclaimed Adele.

  “Fuck! I know!” Eric accelerated, but the Volkswagen was much more agile in traffic than his hulking SUV. Sunlight streaming in from low on the horizon got in his eyes too, making his pursuit that much more difficult.

  They reached a large roundabout and headed onto Wellington Road. Ahead of them, but not by much, the streetlight turned green. Garnish had plenty of open road and accelerated even faster. At that very moment a pedestrian stepped into the crosswalk. Garnish’s car swerved just in time, smashing into a low sign on the traffic island. This slowed the car just enough for the light to turn yellow, but Garnish accelerated again.

  At the next intersection, he was blocked by a bus, while the right lane was partially obstructed by a delivery truck pulling out to turn around. The bus slowed down to stop at the light.

  “Gotcha!” said Eric, smiling to himself.

  But Garnish wasn’t going to give up that easily. He slammed on the brakes, pulled to a stop, and jumped out of the car. He left it there on the side of the road and took off running across the street.

  Eric stopped behind the Volkswagen and jumped out, gun in hand, ready to chase after him.

  “Eric!” cried Adele. Then came the sound of the door slamming and footsteps behind him.

  Garnish seemed to be in excellent shape. He leapt and slid across the top of a car maneuvering to park, angering its driver, then headed down Circus Road. Running down the sidewalk, he slammed into two girls, knocking them both down.

  “Police!” cried Eric. “Move aside! Stop right there!”

  The suspect kept running. When he reached the second block, he turned right.

  Shaw, who had just made it to the end of the first block, heard Adele’s voice behind him, but when he turned around she was nowhere to be seen. He couldn’t stop now.

  He followed Garnish down a parallel street, which was much narrower than the one they’d been on and completely empty. The man had gained quite a few yards on him, and Eric could feel his lungs burning. His legs refused to move as quickly as he wanted them to.

  He realized the street Garnish was on was a dead end. He was trapped. But Garnish dashed to the right, disappearing from view. Eric ran as quickly as he could, finally reaching a little pedestrian alley that ran between two buildings. Garnish had almost reached the far end. If he made it, he’d be out on a much larger, busier avenue.

  Eric had lost him. He couldn’t keep up.

  Suddenly a small figure stepped out, blocking the end of the alley and aiming a gun directly at Garnish.

  “Race is over,” said Adele.

  Garnish slipped and almost fell, trying to come to a stop. He started to raise his hands.

  “Don’t move!” shouted Eric, coming up behind him. Now that they were close, he could see that Garnish was somewhat shorter than he was. Probably around five foot nine, just like the black figure in their videos.

  The suspect laughed humorlessly. “Hey, hey, hey . . . No need to point that thing at me,” he said, keeping his eyes on Adele.

  Shaw was patting him down, his sides, his legs. He was clean.

  “I almost wish you would move,” said Adele, her gun steady, pointed directly at Garnish.

  The man laughed again. “I’m unarmed, and I haven’t done anything. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s not illegal to go running.”

  “It is if the police have ordered you to stop,” said Eric, taking out his cell phone and bringing it to his ear.

  “Terribly sorry. I must not have heard you.”

  He was playing with them, and neither one of them was enjoying it. After their mad dash through the streets of London, Shaw would gladly have punched his lights out, but a group of curious onlookers was gat
hering not far behind Adele.

  “Stern,” replied the officer at the other end at last.

  “We’ve got Garnish. Send those reinforcements to the corner of Cochrane Street and . . .” He looked around. What the heck was the name of this alley?

  “Cochrane Mews,” said one of the bystanders. They could already hear sirens screaming in the distance.

  CHAPTER 14

  Miriam pounded both fists on the table in the interrogation room, playing yet another turn as bad cop. She stuck her face in close to Christopher Garnish.

  “We know you killed those three people. You’d better come clean about it!”

  “Oh yeah?” said Garnish, challenging her. “If you had any proof, I’d already be formally arrested, but that doesn’t seem to be the case, does it?” He acted sure of himself, but a large bead of sweat was trickling down past his temple, betraying his true state of mind.

  “It’s just a matter of time,” said Miriam calmly, throwing Eric a glance. Shaw was sitting facing the suspect, saying nothing.

  Eric’s hands were folded on the table, a file underneath them. Three photographs of the victims were spread across the tabletop. He kept the photo of the last victim close.

  “At this very moment, officers are turning your apartment inside out, and I’m sure they’ll find something,” continued Detective Leroux.

  “Don’t be too sure, darling,” said Garnish. He brought a hand up to his chin and cradled it. He seemed almost bored. Every once in a while he glanced at his wristwatch. Then a perplexed look came over his face. “My apartment?” he said. “How do you know where I live?”

  “I think I’ve seen your car somewhere before,” said Eric, speaking for the first time. That blue Volkswagen was really familiar. He’d seen an identical one just the day before when he’d gone to pick up Mills near Arsenal stadium. It hadn’t been hard to describe the precise location to the officers. The owner of the house where the Volkswagen had been parked immediately recognized a photograph of the suspect.

  There was a knock on the door; it opened and an officer stuck his head in. He motioned to Miriam.