Nicholas Marten 01 - The Exile

by Folsom, Allan

  Those questions were worrying enough, but they raised others. Had there been a lone perpetrator, or had he had accomplices, and by what means had he or they come there and left? For the moment Kovalenko was assuming the crimes had been committed by a male; few women had either the strength or mind-set for that kind of horrific attack. Then, too, there was the man called Jean-Luc, now confirmed to have been the body in the Toyota.

  What was it he had said to Ford over the telephone? This is Jean-Luc. I have the map. Can you meet me at four-thirty?

  Map?

  What kind of map, and of what? Where was it now, and had it been the reason both men were dead?

  Kovalenko took another sip of vodka and chased it down with mineral water, his thoughts shifting from the murders to something else. His surveillance of Dan Ford had had a secondary effect he hadn’t reckoned on—a closer relationship with Philippe Lenard. The French policeman had kept him at a distance since his arrival, bringing him closer to the investigation only after Halliday’s death. Even then Kovalenko had been content to stay in the Frenchman’s shadow and work on his own. But the sudden vanishing of the cars at the river had changed things entirely, and he’d called Lenard right away, waking him in the early morning hours to report what had happened. He’d expected to be reprimanded for acting without authority but instead had been thanked for his vigilance, and Lenard had come to the scene immediately.

  For whatever reason, personal frustration or pressure from above, solving the murders of Alfred Neuss and Fabien Curtay had suddenly become a Lenard priority, and who eventually took credit or became the hero seemed to make little difference. It was helpful because it brought Kovalenko closer to the heart of the investigation, but it was also complicated because his assignment reached beyond the obvious and the murders at hand, and was something the French knew nothing of. Strictly Russian, it involved the future of the Motherland herself and was known only to himself and his superiors inside the special section of the Russian Ministry of Justice to which he was attached. So working too closely with Lenard created the risk that Lenard or one of his people would sense Kovalenko was doing something else. Still, that was the way things had turned out, and he would simply have to be careful and handle it as best he could.

  A sudden gust of icy wind rattled the building and made Kovalenko feel even colder than he was. Another sip of vodka, another bite of sandwich, and he shifted from his current document to the Internet to check his e-mail.

  There were a half dozen, and most were personal and from Moscow: his wife; his eleven-year-old son; his eight-year-old daughter; his next-door neighbor, with whom he was still arguing over a shared storage locker in the building’s basement; his immediate superior wondering where his daily report was; and then last—the one he had been hoping for.

  It was from Monaco and the Monte Carlo office of Captain Alain LeMaire of the Carabiniers du Prince, Monaco’s security police. LeMaire and Kovalenko had met three years earlier when both had taken an information-exchange course at Interpol headquarters in Lyon, France. Ten months later they were reunited when LeMaire assisted in freezing Russian mob-related accounts at a major Monte Carlo bank in the midst of an international Russian money-laundering scandal. And it was LeMaire whom Kovalenko had called when he’d first learned of Fabien Curtay’s murder, to ask for assistance. With any luck this was it and LeMaire had found something.

  His message was encrypted, but it took Kovalenko only seconds to decode.

  Re: F. Curtay. Large personal safe at his residence found compromised. Curtay kept a precise inventory of the safe’s contents and dates deposited. Many items are of great value but only two are missing: (1) small reel of Super 8 movie film; (2) antique Spanish knife, a switchblade called a Navaja, in horn and brass, circa 1900. Next to each item were the initials A. N.—perhaps Alfred Neuss? The date of deposit was 01.09. The day Neuss arrived in Monte Carlo. They were old friends—40 years—so perhaps Curtay was keeping them for him. No other details.

  Kovalenko shut down the laptop and closed it. He had no way of knowing whether Lenard had the same information or if he would share it with him if he did. But politics aside, the logic of what might have happened played out right away. They all knew that Neuss’s journey had taken him from L.A. to Paris, and then to Marseilles before he went to Monte Carlo. Did that mean he had picked up the knife and 8 mm film in Marseilles and transferred them to Curtay’s private safe in Monte Carlo? Did that mean, too, that the diamond transaction had been merely a cover to give the appearance of business as usual?

  Neuss had been found dead on Friday the tenth, and Curtay had been murdered in Monaco early on Monday the thirteenth, making it reasonable to believe that the disfiguring of Neuss was done with one and possibly a second purpose—the first, to give the assailant time to get to Monte Carlo and size up the situation there before he attacked Curtay, and before Neuss’s identity was known and Curtay put on guard; the second, to cover up deliberate torture done to make Neuss reveal the whereabouts of the knife and the film. If so, the same thinking might apply to the other Russian victims—those tortured and then murdered in San Francisco, Mexico City, and Chicago. What if the killer had come to each victim expecting to find not only the safe deposit keys but the location of the box they would open? Suppose the victims had the keys but no idea of the location of the safe deposit box itself, but their assailant thought they did and tortured them hoping to find out.

  Abruptly Kovalenko’s thoughts shifted back to Beverly Hills and the idea that the reason Raymond Thorne had gone to Neuss’s residence was not simply to murder Neuss but to learn the location of the knife and film. That would have been the reason for his plane ticket to England, particularly if he knew they were hidden somewhere in Europe—perhaps in a bank, which would in turn explain the safe deposit keys found in his bag on the train in L.A.

  Detective Halliday, Dan Ford, and Jean-Luc had all been killed with some kind of razor-sharp instrument. Was it possible the murder weapon was the retrieved knife? If so, why? Was it just handy, or did the instrument itself hold some special significance? If it did, and because of the depraved manner in which all three were slain, did its use suggest ritual killing? If the answer to that was yes, did it mean the killer was not yet done?

  38

  27 RUE HUYSMANS, THE APARTMENT OF ARMAND DROUIN,

  THE BROTHER OF NADINE FORD. SAME TIME.

  Whether it had been pure instinct or sheer chutzpah, somehow, despite her emotional state of shock, made all the worse by the knowledge that the unborn child inside of her would never see its father, and under the eyes of the police Lenard had sent to seize and lock down the Ford apartment, Nadine Ford had managed not only to pack her clothes and Nicholas Marten’s into two suitcases, but at the same time smuggle out a little contraband—Halliday’s appointment book and a large accordion file holding Dan Ford’s current working notes. It had been a bold and courageous maneuver that somehow went off without the slightest hitch. Now, tucked away in a small study in Nadine’s brother’s apartment, Marten, half drunk and emotionally drained by the awfulness of the day, had both the accordion file and Halliday’s appointment book open in front of him.

  In the rooms beyond, among the vases of flowers and tables spilling over with food and bottles of wine, were Nadine, her brother, Armand, her sister, their spouses, and her father and mother. There were also friends. And friends. And more friends, including the two women who ran the L.A. Times Paris bureau and who had been Dan Ford’s assistants. That so many people could fit into one small apartment seemed a mathematical impossibility but it didn’t matter; they were there anyway, hugging, crying, talking, some even managing a laugh at some recollection.

  Earlier, when Marten had started for the study to get away from the mourners and to try to do something with purpose, he had walked past a small bedroom. The door had been open and he had seen Nadine sitting alone on the bed absently stroking a large tawny cat that had one paw playing gently against her big belly as if
trying to comfort her. It was the same portrait he had seen at Red’s house after Red had been killed—the rooms filled with mourners and Red’s wife alone in the study, the heavy head of Red’s black Labrador in her lap as she held a cup of coffee and stared off at nothing.

  Marten had to leave right then, get out of the apartment and out into fresh air, just to walk and be alone before he suffocated on his own grief. The crisp air helped, and despite Lenard’s warning he let down his guard and just walked, maybe in some way hoping Raymond was there watching, even following him. With luck he would reveal himself and then, one way or another, it would be over. But nothing had happened and forty-five minutes later he came back, went directly to the study, closed the door, and went to work, deliberately trying to find some key that would lead him to Raymond. If it was Raymond.

  Now, scanning Halliday’s book, trying to keep the ragtag jumble of loose pages in order, he tried again, as he had the night before, to decipher Halliday’s tiny backhand scrawl and find something he could use. But it was as impossible now as it had been then. Page after page crammed with half sentences, one-word notes, names, dates, places. As before, the few he could read were personal and about Halliday’s family, and Marten felt they were none of his business and he shouldn’t be reading them at all. Yet, as increasingly frustrated and uncomfortable as he was, he kept on.

  Fifteen minutes later he’d had enough and was about to put it down and turn instead to Ford’s accordion file when a name popped out at him—Felix Norman. Felix Norman, the doctor who had signed Raymond’s death certificate in Los Angeles. On the next page Halliday had written another name, Dr. Hermann Gray, plastic surgeon, Bel Air, age 48. Abruptly retired, sold home, and left country. In parentheses alongside Gray’s name was Puerto Quepos, Costa Rica, then Rosario, Argentina, name changed to James Patrick Odett—ALC/hunting accident.

  And next to that, written in pencil and erased and then printed over again as if for some reason Halliday had been angry at himself was 1/26—VARIG, 8837.

  1/26—a date, maybe. And Varig was, or could be, an airline. And 8837, was, or could be, a flight number.

  Immediately Marten swiveled in his chair and booted up Armand’s computer. When it was up and running he went to the Varig Web site and typed 8837 in the search box. A second later he had it—flight 8837, Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

  Marten looked back to Halliday’s stuffed, unwieldy journal. Maybe he hadn’t gone through it carefully enough. His concentration had been on what was written on the pages. Maybe there was something else, something he had missed.

  Picking it up, he turned it over and carefully opened the back cover. There were a number of loose pages and beneath them an awkward bulge where the cardboard backing to the day/date calendar was fitted into the cover’s leather sleeve. He slid the pages out and turned over the first of them. What he found were photographs of Halliday’s children and eleven hundred dollars’ worth of traveler’s checks. Next were Halliday’s passport and two folded pieces of paper. Marten looked at one and then the other. They were faxed electronic airline tickets. The first was Halliday’s round-trip LA–PARIS United Airlines ticket; the second was a Varig ticket—round-trip from L.A. to Buenos Aires that left on January 26 and had an open return.

  “Christ,” he breathed. Halliday had been planning to go to Argentina, maybe even before Neuss’s murder or maybe because of it. And it was to have been no vacation. Written in pencil across the top of the Varig ticket was the name James Patrick Odett, and in parentheses beside it, Dr. Hermann Gray and again the ALC.

  Marten felt his heart skip a beat. Was Argentina where Raymond had been taken at the same time he was supposedly being cremated in L.A.? And had Dr. Gray, the plastic surgeon, been recruited to oversee his physical rebuilding? The ALC and the “hunting accident” note he didn’t understand, unless for some reason Halliday had transposed the letters and what he really meant was ACL, for an anterior cruciate ligament knee injury, suggesting that someone, Raymond or maybe the doctor himself, had badly hurt his knee in a hunting accident. It made no difference. The real question was—had Halliday been killed because he’d found out about Dr. Gray and Argentina and was going there himself to continue his investigation?

  Suddenly another thought came and it chilled. If Neuss and Halliday and Dan Ford and this Jean-Luc had all been killed by the same person and that person was Raymond—and if Dr. Gray, as a plastic surgeon, had done his job properly—they would have no idea what he looked like. He could be anyone. Cabdriver, florist, waiter. Anyone who could get close to you without your giving him a second thought. Raymond was smart and very inventive. Just look at the variety of costumes he had used in L.A. From salesman to skinhead to dressing up in Alfred Neuss’s own clothes.

  “Nicholas.”

  The door behind Marten suddenly opened and a pale and drawn Nadine came in. Someone was behind her. Marten stood.

  “Rebecca,” he said, wholly surprised, and then his sister eased past Nadine and came into the room.

  39

  Her long black hair turned up in an elegant bun, dressed in a long dark skirt and matching jacket, in the swirl of heartache and sorrow, Rebecca was poised and beautiful. Away from the Rothfels family and on her own, it was remarkable to see how far she’d come from the fragile invalid she’d been for so long.

  “Merci, Nadine,” she said quietly, hugging the woman who had come with Dan to visit her so often when she had been in St. Francis and then again when she was at Jura. Rebecca went on, telling her in French what Nadine already knew, that Dan had been like a second brother to her for most of her life, and then, so gently, expressing her deepest sympathy for her terrible loss. Then Nadine’s father appeared, and, saying they had family business and apologizing, he took his daughter from the room.

  “I called you in Switzerland this afternoon.” Marten closed the door behind them. “You weren’t there. I left word. How did you—?”

  “Get here so quickly? I was away from the house with the children. I got your message when I came back. Mrs. Rothfels saw I was upset, and when I told her what had happened she spoke to her husband. The corporate jet was bringing a client here anyway, and Mr. Rothfels insisted I go along. His driver met the plane. When we got to Dan’s apartment the police sent us here.”

  “I wish you hadn’t come.”

  “Why? You and Dan are the only family I have, why wouldn’t I come?”

  “Rebecca, Jimmy Halliday was in Paris investigating the murder of Alfred Neuss. He was murdered in his hotel room last night.”

  “Jimmy Halliday, from the squad?”

  Marten nodded. “So far it’s been kept quiet.”

  “Oh, God, and then Dan—”

  “And another person, someone the police think Dan was on his way to meet. And now the police have warned me to beware.”

  “They don’t know who you are.”

  “No. But that’s not the point.”

  “What is?”

  Marten hesitated. For all Rebecca appeared to be now, healthy and adjusted and sophisticated, somewhere in her was that which Dan Ford had referred to and which Marten feared—the idea that her psychotherapy had been successful only to a degree and that the smallest reminder of the past could trigger memories that could send her reeling into the state she had been in before.

  On the other hand, she couldn’t live in a vacuum, and he had to think she was strong enough for him to take the risk of preparing her for what he was certain they would all find out soon enough.

  “Rebecca, there is the possibility Raymond is still alive and that he may be the one responsible for what happened to Dan and Jimmy Halliday and the others.”

  “Raymond? The Raymond from Los Angeles?”

  “Yes.”

  Marten could see her jolt in reaction. In the long transition from illness to health, she’d learned a great deal about what had happened in L.A. She knew about Raymond’s escape from the Criminal Courts Building, his cold-blooded murder of an
y number of police officers, Red McClatchy among them, and that Nicholas himself had nearly been killed trying to bring him to justice. More than once, and despite the emotion of her breakthrough and the haze of psychotropic medications given to her immediately afterward, she had been encouraged by Dr. Flannery to relive her terrifying experience in the rail yards. He knew it had been very difficult for her, and that what little memory she had of it at all was all crazed and fearsome and filled with gunfire and blood and horror. But there was no doubt she understood that Raymond had been at the center of everything. And like the rest of the world, she thought he was dead.

  “He was cremated. How could he still be alive?”

  “I don’t know. After Neuss was murdered Dan started working on it. Jimmy Halliday was on it, too, only he started some time ago.”

  “And you think it was Raymond who killed both of them?”

  “I don’t know. I can’t even say for certain he’s alive. But Alfred Neuss is dead, so are Jimmy and Dan—all people who were involved with him in L.A. Even if you don’t remember it clearly, you were there in the rail yards. You saw him and he saw you. If he is here in Paris, I don’t want you anywhere around.” Marten hesitated; this was something he didn’t want to think about but had to. “There’s something else,” he said. “If it is Raymond, there’s every chance he will have had cosmetic surgery, so we won’t know what he looks like.”

  Suddenly there was fear in Rebecca’s eyes. “Nicholas, you were the one trying to bring him in. He would know you better than anyone. If he knows you are in Paris—”

  “Rebecca, let me make sure you are okay, then I can worry about me.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I assume that if Mr. Rothfels sent you here by private jet, he also arranged a hotel room.”