by Gerald Jay
Though Kevin thought of himself as being good in an emergency, he was less good at recognizing when he was confronting one. Molly, on the other hand, was focused and well organized even in the worst of times. She told Kevin that her boss would be arranging for postponements of her cases. She’d already bought her plane ticket from Air France. She was leaving for Paris that evening. Molly knew
the city well, having spent her junior year at Barnard studying at the Sorbonne. Besides, she was only planning to stay overnight at the Hotel Lenox Saint-Germain and then fly down to the Dordogne the next morning. As soon as she knew where she’d be staying there, she promised to call.
Kevin volunteered to go with her. The independent Molly made it easy for him. Calling his offer sweet, she said she preferred to do this alone. There was, however, one thing that she did want him to do.
Never having met Sean Campbell, Kevin knew that he’d have to tell Ben’s partner the news of his murder face-to-face. He would have much rather done it on the phone. Kevin had been up to the Reece-Campbell Gallery with Molly only once or twice, their last visit for a show he really enjoyed. Any actor would. The work of the young Austrian artist Egon Schiele was full of self-conscious poses, expressive gestures, brutal sex, torment, lyricism, loneliness, and death. All that and only twenty-eight when he himself died. Despite the amusing Klee drawings that Kevin passed as he walked through the uptown Madison Avenue gallery, death was very much on his mind.
The young woman behind the desk finally glanced up. Good-looking, he thought, surprised to see how duded up she was. Not the careless, plain-Jane look of the women who worked in the downtown SoHo and Chelsea art galleries. Kevin explained that he was a friend of Molly Reece’s. He’d a message from her for Mr. Campbell. Mona, the gallery assistant, said she was sorry but both Mr. Campbell and Mr. Reece were away on vacation.
Kevin, who knew how to lower his voice without losing his best lines, leaned across the desk and said, “This is important.”
“He’s out of the country. But he’ll be back in a few weeks. Can’t it wait?”
“No, it can’t wait. I wouldn’t be here if it could wait.”
Maybe it was important, Mona decided, recalling that perhaps she had seen him in the gallery with Molly. “Mr. Campbell is in France. He’s traveling at the moment. I have no idea where, but I do expect him to call. I’d be glad to relay a message for you.”
Kevin supposed that would be okay with Molly and told her what it was, watching her black-rimmed eyes dilate in disbelief, her face pale. Mona promised to make sure her boss got it. Kevin thought it a little odd that Campbell was in France too and that Molly didn’t know anything about it. He’d probably heard the news of Ben’s murder already.
Taking a slip of paper from her desk drawer as soon as he’d left, Mona went into the office, closed the door behind her, and sat down at Ben’s desk. She dialed 011, then 33 for France, 1 for Paris, and then the rest of the number Sean had written. She could hardly wait to tell him the awful news, fairly bursting with tragedy. “Hello, Sean, Sean …”
21
THE AMERICAN EMBASSY, PARIS
The Lenox was a small, quaint hotel that Molly had stayed at on her first trip to Paris. It was just a few blocks from the Seine and, across the river, a short walk to the Place de la Concorde and the American embassy.
Molly, aware that it was harder traveling east than west because of the loss of time, had read somewhere that drinking lots of water helped to prevent jet lag. It seemed to have done the trick. She was so wired, so adrenalized that she wasn’t even tired. But if she stopped for a minute, she was afraid that bad things might happen. Things she didn’t want to think about. After washing up and putting on her black linen suit, which was chic, short, tailored, and which, according to the mirror in her room, had come out of her suitcase better than she had any reason to expect, Molly left for the embassy. It was still early morning in Paris, the streets washed clean of dog shit, the river jeweled and sparkling in the sun. It almost made her feel guilty just for being there.
In the park along the avenue Gabriel, Molly paused by a giant sequoia to read the placard that said it was the embassy’s gift to Paris. She gazed across at the gleaming, four-story, white stone structure with its American flag flying from the balcony above the main entrance. It was surrounded by a high metal spear-tipped fence, and the French police had set up portable steel barriers in front. The embassy looked as if it were under siege. Molly wondered if it had anything to do with the political fallout from the recent NATO bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade.
She went up to the gendarme with the machine gun slung over his shoulder standing by the barrier and inquired how to get in. He smiled when he saw who had asked. Her French was excellent. It was her easy, open, confident American manner that gave her away. Tipping his kepi, he indicated the small temporary wooden gatehouse to his right. Inside, they asked what she wanted and weren’t satisfied until one of them had called Dwight Bennett’s office for authorization. The other examined the contents of her shoulder bag.
At the embassy door, she was immediately stopped by a guard in civilian clothes with a crew cut—obviously an American, probably an ex-Marine. All he seemed to be missing was an earphone and a pair of Ray-Bans. He asked for her pass. Looked at it and then at her with Secret Service eyes, the coldest that she’d ever seen, his mouth locked down like a prison.
“Second floor,” he mumbled in a sullen voice, pointing to the stairs, and watched her go up. Molly wasn’t accustomed to security this tight. What were they afraid of?
On the second floor, she was directed to the Economics Department. Molly thought it odd that Dwight Bennett worked in Economics but assumed they were short on space and he was doubling up with somebody. “He’ll be with you shortly,” his secretary said.
Ken McCarty had stopped by Bennett’s office to drop off some information for him and return a photograph of several people coming out of the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. Bennett had circled two of them in red. McCarty told him that it had helped. Bennett took the five by eight from the stiff old pro with a smile. Though ticked off that he hadn’t brought it back sooner, Bennett knew how to get on with people, especially anyone who might be of use to him. As for the rest, he dealt with them like second-class mail—the way he treated new case officers. McCarty was useful.
Ken McCarty did black bag operations for them and had just come back from Brussels. He was an expert in special intelligence. He had been doing SI in Europe for a long time and as early as 1974 had been active in Vienna. It was McCarty who first learned via electronic pickup that OPEC was about to lift their yearlong oil embargo against the United States. He had the calm focus of those who work clandestinely and well under pressure. Communications intercepts were his specialty. He was particularly skillful at handling phone and computer taps and the secret monitoring of conversations both indoors and out.
“I checked. Nothing wrong with the bugs, Dwight,” McCarty assured him. “They’re the best. Each no bigger than a microchip and because each one draws its power from the telephone, it requires no battery. They can last forever. Not only are we able to cover calls with them but whatever else is said in the room as well. You’ll see from my report. Your two friends must be away now. Maybe they’re still in Berlin. Okay?” he asked, not wishing to leave on a sour note. He’d been around long enough to know that Dwight Elgar Bennett wasn’t anyone you wanted to make unhappy.
“Okay.”
McCarty put out his hand. “I’ll keep you posted.”
“Do that.”
Molly watched the man with the photo ID around his neck come out of Bennett’s office. He was in his late fifties. Big, broad-shouldered, with spiky iron-gray hair, rimless glasses, and, she guessed, less humor than a slide rule. No wonder they call economics “the gray science,” she thought.
When Dwight Bennett’s secretary told her she could go in, Molly wasn’t sure whether she was more surprised by the size of his comfortable
office or by Bennett himself. Though he might have been in his mid-forties, he looked like early thirties to her. Only the conservative, three-button, banker’s-blue striped suit made him seem older. His trim, lanky build suggested he’d be more at home on a tennis court in shorts. Bennett wore a white shirt; a muted red paisley tie; and thin black-wire-rimmed glasses that looked good on him, heightening the fineness of his patrician features. He probably looked good without them too, she thought. As for what he thought about her, it was obvious.
Bennett couldn’t have been kinder, more considerate. He was so sorry to have been the bearer of such ghastly news. Too sorry, perhaps, for a complete stranger. There was something about him that she didn’t quite believe or, more to the point, trust. Like some oleaginous blind dates she could remember. If he really wanted to be sympathetic, compassionate, consoling, Molly felt he was overdoing it. Her question when it came was so direct, so blunt, that it cut through his spongy sentimentality like a meat cleaver.
“Do they know yet who killed them?”
Bennett heard the steel in her voice. This was not just another pretty face. “No … not yet. I’ve been told they may have some suspects, but nobody’s been arrested. Look,” he asked, “have you had any breakfast?”
Molly shook her head.
“How would you like to go out with me and get something to eat?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“How about some coffee? You look as if you could use some coffee. And I could use some myself.”
Molly hesitated. “I don’t—”
“Oh, come on.” Grabbing his jacket and taking his attractive visitor by the arm, Bennett marched her out of the office, telling his startled secretary, “Hold the fort, Barney. If London calls, take a message and say I’ll get back to them. See you in an hour.”
Maybe yes and maybe no. Elizabeth Barnes wasn’t about to hold her breath. For the first two years that she worked for him, Dwight Bennett had been as dependable as GMT, but since his divorce anything was possible. His ex-wife was now back in the States. Barnes had liked Claudia. Though their divorce had been a messy one, it certainly hadn’t killed her boss’s interest in women. But what Dwight really needed, she felt, was someone he could depend on. If she wasn’t almost old enough to be his mother, Elizabeth might have applied for the job.
On their way downstairs, Bennett promised Molly the best coffee in Paris. “And it happens to be right next door,” he said, as they swept past the security guard at the door who had given Molly a hard time.
“Morning, sir,” the guard shouted after him, practically saluting. Who was this Bennett anyhow? she wondered. Molly was sure that he was no junior accountant.
Nearby was the five-star Hôtel de Crillon. The uniformed doorman smiled deferentially as he ushered them in. Bennett led the way. Molly wasn’t ready for the glittering chandeliers and the operatic scale of the lobby or her heels noisily clicking on the marble floor. She wondered where he was going. It turned out to be the Crillon’s bar, a cozy room with a red carpet, red armchairs, a grand piano, and a large vase of orange and rust-colored chrysanthemums. Sitting down at one of the low tables in the empty room, Molly glanced at the bottles of Marie Brizard, Bacardi, Bushmills, and Johnnie Walker displayed like paintings on the mirrored wall behind the bar and, turning, gave Bennett a squint-eyed, unamused stare.
He laughed. “Trust me.”
Though Molly didn’t know it at the time, “trust me” would prove to be one of his favorite expressions. She was in no mood for this. Molly glanced out the window at the embassy across the street and wondered why she’d even bothered to come with him.
The young waiter in the red-and-gold-striped tie greeted Monsieur Bennett warmly. He had good news, he said. They’d found the gold earring that his friend had lost the night before. There was also his American Express receipt that he’d left behind. The waiter put them both down on the table. Molly had never seen such a hefty bar bill. It must have been quite a party. So that’s what happens to our tax dollars, she thought. Coffee wasn’t all he drank here. But when the silver pots of coffee and hot croissants did appear, they were as good as advertised.
“How did you get my name?”
Bennett explained that when any American citizen died in France it was customary for the French authorities to notify the embassy. “And, of course, in a murder case—” He decided there was no comfortable way to finish that sentence. “So when the procureur’s office in Périgueux called us, I contacted Washington and they did a search for family information—beginning at the passport office—and after a few days I had your telephone number. Nothing to it really. It just takes a little time.”
“How come you’ve got this job?”
By now he was used to her direct ways and deflected the question by gazing into her large gray-green eyes and saying, “It’s not so bad.”
Molly was not about to be put off by charm. “I mean you are in economics, aren’t you?”
“We take turns. Somebody’s got to do it. Besides, something like this doesn’t happen very often … fortunately.”
“Do many Americans die here every year?”
“Maybe about a hundred or so.”
“That many?”
“Not so many, not really. Especially when you consider that as of three years ago, according to U.S. Department of Commerce figures, we had thirty-four billion dollars invested in France, and each year roughly two million Americans come here to do business or as tourists.”
His mention of the Department of Commerce made her eyelids flutter and feel heavier than wool. She assumed it was just the delayed effect of the awful news and long trip. The coffee, at least, helped.
Bennett asked about her parents. Molly wondered if talking about them would make her feel any better. Fill in the gaping hole in her life that she feared nothing would ever heal. She told him her father visited Paris almost every year on art business. His New York gallery was known by collectors all over the world. But this visit was strictly vacation. They were staying in the French countryside with their old friends, and her mom had arranged everything. She was so proud of herself. Molly could hardly keep her voice steady as she spoke.
Bennett’s eyes never left her face. He listened hard but didn’t say anything at first. There was something on his mind.
“Did their friends the Phillipses have any children?”
“No, I don’t think so. Haven’t you been able to contact any of the family?”
Bennett admitted that he hadn’t. The Bergerac police were expecting someone from Phillips’s company in Canada to help them identify the bodies. He asked Molly if she’d ever met them.
“Just him. Once, a long time ago at my dad’s twenty-fifth college reunion. Dad and Schuyler were roommates at Dartmouth.”
“You may be able to help with him too.”
“Help who?”
“The police.”
In any event, Bennett felt sure that he’d be able to help her with the French authorities when she went to identify her parents. He volunteered to go down with Molly the next day on the TGV—the high-speed train—to Bordeaux and from there they’d rent a car and drive to Taziac. He’d made all the arrangements. Told her to expect a call that afternoon to let her know what time he’d pick her up tomorrow.
“That is,” he paused, “if it’s okay by you?”
Molly didn’t like being manipulated. Though she was the sort of woman for whom men did favors, Molly—a New Yorker born and bred—would ordinarily have been more on guard than she was. But she suspected that his generosity had something to do with her boss, the legendary Manhattan District Attorney Bob Morgenthau. He had friends everywhere and her dad happened to be one of them. She wondered if the DA had called someone he knew in Washington at the State Department. They couldn’t possibly do this for every American with a death in the family who arrived on their doorstep.
“Sure. Okay.”
“Good.” He seemed genuinely relieved. “Oh by the way, where
are you staying?”
22
POLICE INTERROGATION ROOM, BERGERAC
Bandu listened impassively to Duboit complaining about the cost of antibiotics for one of his kids who had something wrong with his ear. A good sort, Doobie, but he talked too much for Bandu’s taste. They were waiting for Mazarelle to get off the phone and tell them why he wanted to see them.
“Au revoir, monsieur, et merci.” Mazarelle, with a tiny enigmatic smile, hung up the receiver. The procureur was apparently solidly behind him. D’Aumont’s enthusiasm had a mildly unsettling effect on the inspector, who found it, at the very least, premature.
“Okay, now.” He turned to the two waiting men. “I want Ali Sedak. Bring him in for questioning.”
“Finally!” Duboit lifted his eyes heavenward. “With his record I don’t know why they let him into the country in the first place.”
“Somebody slipped up,” Mazarelle said. “That’s always how it happens. Overworked and underpaid and sloppy.” The clever Vignon had managed to track down Sedak’s liste des infractions from Algeria. Even as a teenager, the young Arab had already accumulated an impressive collection of crimes, including breaking and entering, robbery, resisting arrest, and drugs.
“But that,” Mazarelle said pointedly to Bernard, “doesn’t make him a murderer. At least not yet. And apparently he’s been a relatively good boy for the last ten or so years that he’s been here. That is, if you don’t count two suspended sentences for a barroom brawl and drug possession.”
“What about the domestic violence charge against him that was dropped?”
Mazarelle nodded approvingly. “Very good, Bernard. I see you’ve done your homework. Okay, bring him in.”