Second Life (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 4)

by D. F. Bailey

  “Not very well.” Her face softened with a look of compassion. “You are his frère? Or from his famille?”

  With these questions in half-English, half-French, Finch realized that she was trying to help. If he could claim some relationship to Austen, Will might be able to visit him.

  “Beau-frère,” he said—brother-in-law—and quickly realized this was the correct ploy. He and Austen were roughly the same age, but as brothers-in-law they wouldn’t share the same surname. He told her his name was Joel Griffin, leaned toward her over the countertop in a gesture of confidentiality and attempted to continue the conversation in French. “I just flew in when I heard what happened. Do you know where he is?”

  The nurse nodded and checked the desk monitor.

  “I’m afraid he needs another surgery,” she said in slow, careful French. “Do you understand?”

  He nodded.

  “But his wife is here,” she added. “At his room. Perhaps she’s your sister?”

  He smiled. “What room is he in?”

  “Cinquante-six B.” She shrugged to suggest she didn’t know the English equivalent.

  He glanced behind him and saw the corridors branching in four directions. “Where?”

  “To the right,” she said and waved with her hand past his shoulder.

  He turned and entered the hallway and began his search for 56B. After a few moments he found Austen’s room and tapped at the door.

  Finch took a step into the dim light and wavered. The antiseptic smell of the ward mingled with a stale odor of feces. The single window was shut tight and a pale drape had been pulled halfway across the opening. Next to an empty hospital bed a woman sat in a wooden chair, a damp tissue balled in her hand. She dabbed at her eyes and studied the nurse who stood next to the wall.

  “Can you say that again? How long will the surgery be?” she said with a knot of exasperation in her voice. Finch imagined that she’d posed this question several times and either hadn’t received a satisfactory answer, or she’d been unable to communicate with the nurses and doctors attending her husband.

  “Maybe two hours,” the nurse said in French and pointed two fingers toward the clock, then shrugged and looked away in frustration. When she spotted Finch she took a step toward him.

  “Can I help you?”

  “She said, ‘maybe two hours’.” Will looked from the nurse to the bereaved woman and stepped forward. “I’m here to see Mrs. Austen.”

  “That’s me. You speak English?” Her expression took on a look of relief.

  “Yes. I’m Joel Griffin.” He smiled and held his hand out to her.

  She grasped his hand and attempted to stand up but then faltered, slumped back into the chair and released a heavy sigh.

  “I’m sorry. I’m so exhausted,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep on the plane and I haven’t slept since the moment I saw Ed.” She paused a moment. “Do you know him?”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  She clasped her hands together and scanned his face. “Then maybe you can help me. I don't speak a word of French and I’ve only met one doctor who can even half-explain what’s happened to Ed. Then the police came with all kinds of questions. I don’t understand any of it. Then Ed suffered from some kind of cardiac crisis and just now the surgeon told me he has to operate on Ed immediately.”

  Finch held a hand up in an effort to slow her down. “What did the police tell you?”

  “I don’t know.” She pressed the frayed tissue to her eyes. “He was brought here by ambulance. He’d been crossing the Seine on one of the bridges when he was attacked. Someone stabbed him….” She struggled for breath and then forced herself to continue. “Then the doctor sent them off, and I don’t know, what—” She burst into tears and covered her eyes with both hands.

  When he realized that she couldn’t go on, he turned to the nurse and spoke to her in French. “I need to speak to Mrs. Austen privately. Can you give us a moment?”

  The nurse glanced over his shoulder as if she’d seen something important taking place in the hallway. “Of course,” she said and left the room.

  Finch turned back to Mrs. Austen and sat on the edge of the empty bed next to her. This put him about three feet above her, and he had to lean down to place his hand on her shoulder. As soon as he touched her she shuddered with a light gasp, and then relaxed.

  “Listen, I can’t imagine what you’ve been through, but I do know it’s been very traumatic. Can I take you out of here? I saw a small waiting room down the hall. Then we can sort this thing out, okay.”

  She nodded and turned her head from side to side as if she might be searching for her purse.

  “Would that be all right?” he asked.

  “I don’t want to leave him. You say it’s just close by?”

  He offered her a sympathetic smile. “Just three doors down.”

  “Yes. All right.” She managed to lift herself from the chair and took her purse in both hands.

  When they reached the waiting room, Finch guided her to two chairs next to a window that overlooked an inner courtyard. The exterior walls were made of chiseled stone, and the yard was paved with uneven cobblestones that must have been three or four hundred years old. In any other circumstance, Finch reasoned, tourists would be marveling at the antique construction and architecture. But he knew Mrs. Austen barely understood where they were, let alone what might happen next. Once he settled her into a chair, however, she seemed to quickly assess her predicament.

  “I’m not sure how you know Ed,” she said. “How did you find us here?”

  “It’s complicated. But if you bear with me, I’ll try to explain everything. I work for the San Francisco eXpress and I’ve been covering a series of murders that have taken place over the past few weeks.”

  A dark look crossed her face. “You mean this cursed list.”

  She pronounced it curse-ed. Finch imagined that she lived in another era. An earlier, more formal time and place. “He told you about it?”

  “It’s crazy. He was told the morning he left Toronto to fly over here for the conference.” She shuddered as if she’d been dropped into a madhouse. “The RCMP called and spoke to him about it. They said to be cautious, but they weren’t sure if it wasn’t just some crazy hoax.” She studied him with a pleading look. “But it’s real isn’t it?”

  “I’m afraid so, Mrs. Austen.”

  She waved a hand. “Please. Call me Donna. And your name again, is…?”

  Finch hesitated and decided to stick with his alias, at least for now. “Joel Griffin. Just call me Joel.”

  “And how do you know Ed?” She shook her head as if she were trying to wake up. “Apart from being a journalist, I mean.”

  “My name’s on the list. They’re targeting me, too.”

  She blinked in disbelief. “But—”

  “Madam Austen?”

  Two men stood at the doorway with an air of expectation. Finch instantly identified them as plain-clothes cops. Flics, as the French called them. The bigger of the two flashed his ID and strode across the room until he stood above her.

  “Désolé, mais nous devons vous parler immédiatement.”

  She looked to Finch.

  “He says he has to speak to you right away,” he said. “They’re cops,” he added.

  The big man blinked and waved his partner forward. The second man continued.

  “I am Sergent Rivière, this is Inspecteur Boll of the Sûreté. Monsieur, I have to ask you to leave us while we speak to Mrs. Austen.” His English was decent, on par with Finch’s ability to speak French. “Otherwise it will be necessary to take Mrs. Austen to our headquarters.” He raised his eyebrows as if the choice was obvious. No one would want to be interrogated in the Sûreté HQ.

  “All right.” Finch raised a hand, a bid to take another moment to finish his conversation with her. “Donna, this is my hotel, the Hôtel Esméralda. You can walk there from here. It’s just across the bridge.” He drew the hotel
business card from his bag and passed it to her. “When you’re done here, please get in touch with me. I have much more that I’d like to talk to you about.”

  “Monsieur, please.”

  Sergent Rivière set his hand on Finch’s shoulder. Finch shrugged it away as he stood, and put on a smile. Neither of them wanted any more trouble.

  ※

  Earlier that morning—before he’d arrived at the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu—Finch took a taxi from the Charles de Gaulle Airport to the Hôtel Esméralda and checked into the only available room. It consisted of little more than a single bed with an antique headboard, a night table with a stick lamp, a wooden dresser, and a two-foot wide freestanding armoire. A wall-phone connecting to the front desk was bolted to a metal frame next to the door. Oak wainscoting covered the walls from the floor up to Finch’s waist. The rest of the walls were papered with a pastel hydrangea print. A tall, narrow window looked onto the street. It opened no more than six inches. There was no toilet or sink; the shared bathroom was located at the end of the hallway. However, the room was clean and in its minimalist style, elegant. He booked it for two nights and then made his way to the hospital to track down Edmund Austen.

  After meeting with Donna Austen, Finch left the hospital and took a few minutes to sit in front of Notre Dame Cathedral to admire the Gothic masterpiece. He’d heard that the stone masons had passed on vital information to their sons and grandsons—instructions about adapting certain structures within the Nave to ensure that the flying buttresses could support the weight of the vault. The grandsons in turn transmitted the messages to their sons and grandsons. After one hundred and eighty-two years the church was completed in 1345. If nothing else, it represented continuity of purpose. And the unbroken faith that we are all in God’s care, Finch thought. An idea that Kali Rood would surely embrace.

  By two o’clock the sidewalks in the streets surrounding the church were thick with pedestrians ambling from block to block beside the book stalls, cafes, boulangeries and flower shops. The mass of tourists far exceeded anything he’d see on a typical day in San Francisco. After all, France attracted more visitors than any other country in the world and he imagined that the majority of them found their way into the capital city and most of them likely wandered along this historic island in the middle of the Seine River.

  He loved the randomness of this kind of human carnival. Random, and yet somehow harmonized by the clicking cameras and cellphones, the open maps hanging from the hands of disoriented travelers. Everyone seemed lost—and yet delighted by it all.

  Then reality set in. At any moment he could scan the crowds and see trios of soldiers pacing slowly along the sidewalks. They were armed with automatic machine guns and they wore the bleak expressions of men on the hunt. The rash of terror attacks had set the entire country on high alert, and Finch realized that his mission would seem like a bothersome side-show to the cops assigned to interrogate Mrs. Austen.

  After sitting for ten minutes he felt the weariness of the past few days drag through his arms and chest. He lifted himself from the bench where he sat, crossed the Pont des Arts, walked past the Shakespeare and Company bookstore, and rounded the corner to the Hôtel Esméralda.

  Although it was only mid-afternoon, what he needed more than anything else was sleep. However, he didn’t want to miss his rendez-vous with Donna Austen, so he asked the concierge to ring him when she arrived at the hotel.

  “Oui, monsieur,” the concierge responded. He wore a rectangular name plate on his lapel that said Roland.

  “How long are you here on the desk?”

  “My shift ends at midnight.” He smiled with a formal courtesy.

  “Good. And if I don’t answer the phone in my room, then bring her up and knock on the door,” Will said in French and passed five Euros to the concierge. “Roland, I cannot miss my appointment with Mrs. Austen. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, monsieur.” Roland smiled dutifully and pocketed the money.

  Feeling confident, Finch climbed the wooden staircase to the second floor and made his way along the corridor to his tiny room. As he entered the chamber, he recalled the trouble he’d had when he neglected to charge his phone at the Hotel Pennsylvania. Not this time, he murmured to himself, thankful that for the first time in years, he had no phone. No one could track him. No one could sweep behind him and gut him like they’d done to Edmund Austen.

  After he plugged his laptop into the wall outlet, he leaned against the windowsill and looked onto Rue Saint-Julien le Pauvre. On the opposite side of the street stood a small park surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The park lawn was clotted with tourists loitering in the small green space, as if they were all trying to gather the necessary stamina to make another foray into the marvels of the city.

  After a brief lull the tug of these distractions faded and he settled on the bed. He heeled off his shoes and let them thunk onto the floor. He reached for a pillow to tuck under his head, drew a long breath and slipped over the edge of consciousness into a restless sleep.

  ※

  He woke with a start. A feeling of disorientation frightened him as he scrambled to unwind a sheet from his neck. Somehow the bed linen had coiled itself around his face and under his arms. He struggled and then tugged it away in a panic. Where am I?

  After a moment, he recognized the noise of revelers from the park across the street and their laughter broke his confusion. “All right,” he muttered, “You’re in Paris.” He sat on the side of the bed and rubbed his eyes with his hands, then slipped on his shoes and made his way down to the bathroom at the end of the hall. When he returned to his room he picked up the handset to the wall phone and buzzed the concierge desk. After three rings, an unfamiliar voice answered.

  “Is Roland there?” he asked.

  “Sorry, monsieur, his shift is finished.”

  “Finished? He told me he’d be here until midnight.”

  A hesitation. “Yes, but he was called home for a family matter.”

  He paused to consider this. “Are there any messages for me? Joel Griffin in room 25.”

  “Nothing. I’m sorry, monsieur.”

  Finch felt a wave of inertia wash through him. He’d come all this distance and discovered nothing. He had to meet with Donna Austen as soon as possible. While Edmund Austen was still conscious, she’d been able to talk with her husband, and until Finch talked her through a probing interview, he had no way to discover who had attacked Edmund. Then another, more depressing thought struck him: what if Edmond failed to survive his surgery? Who knows what might become of Donna following his death? She could collapse in a bereaved breakdown, ignore Finch’s request to meet with her and take the next flight back to Canada.

  He decided to call the Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu to determine if Edmund had recovered from the second surgery. The answer to that question would guide his next move. But just as he picked up the telephone, his laptop buzzed. He put the handset back in the cradle and opened his computer. The Messenger icon flashed on the toolbar: Eve.

  He pressed his back against the headboard at the top of the bed, nestled the computer in his lap, and launched the text application.

  Her message read: “Are you there?”

  “Yes,” he typed. “Just woke up.” He checked the clock at the top of the screen. It read 9:17 PM. “Just slept six hours. Guess I’ve turned night into day.”

  “More breaking news here: Jacob Bell died yesterday.”

  Will read this twice, tried to decipher what it might signal. When nothing came to him, he replied with one word: “How?”

  “Fell from his apartment rooftop on Dolores.”

  Finch shook his head when he understood the implications. With Jacob Bell eliminated, his connection to Kali Rood was severed and she’d made a clean break from Bell and Martin Fast’s murder. He typed a new message to Eve: “Did he jump, or was he pushed?”

  The response came seconds later. “Jumped or pushed—FBI won’t say.”

  Finc
h smirked at this. Before he could add more to the conversation, a new text came in from Eve.

  “Can’t stay long. I’m heading to New York. I’ve got a lead on KR.”

  KR. He knew this meant Kali Rood. Obviously Eve had shifted her focus. Maybe Wally Gimbel and Fiona Page had also come around to think of Kali as the chief puppeteer in the lengthening string of murders.

  “Good. Keep her in your sights. Nothing to report here. May be a dead end.” His fingers stumbled on the keyboard and he erased the last sentence. This was no time for black humor.

  Her next message filled him with renewed dread: “Two more list members killed within three hours of one another: #7, Alex Baumann, fell from Reichenbach Falls, Germany. #19, Andrea Verona, shot in Hilo, Hawaii. Looks like multiple perps at work.”

  Will washed a hand over his face. The numbers 7 and 19 indicated the victims’ position on the list. Their deaths brought the total to six. Seven, if Edmund failed to survive his surgery. And Eve couldn’t be more right. Two murders within three hours—and half a world away from one another. It confirmed that at least five assassins were at work: one each for Martin Fast, Jayne Waterston, Edmund Austen and two more corresponding to the latest victims. Maybe it was a one-to-one match, which meant twenty-four killers assigned to eliminate every name on the list.

  Finch struggled to come up with a response. After a moment he replied, “Any good news?”

  “Yes. Saved the best for last,” Eve wrote. “The car in Manhattan is registered to Deacon Salter. Ring a bell?”

  Deacon Salter. The name meant nothing to him. Perhaps Jayne Waterston’s twin brother might know him. Finch scratched at his uncombed hair and wished he had a coffee to get him rolling. He waited a moment to sort out his thoughts. With Eve closing in on Kali, and the owner of the mystery car now a known entity, he realized he had to get back to the States. But what about Donna Austen? He couldn’t let whatever information she might possess slip past him. If he couldn’t find her tonight, he’d need at least one more day to track her down—if she was still in Paris.