Black notice (39 page)

"Then some Microsoft-company-type paid for all this?" Marino asked.

Talley's patience was being tried. He didn't answer him.

"I'm asking you. I want to know who paid for my ticket. I want to know who the hell went through my suitcase. Some Interpol agent?" Marino persisted.

"Interpol doesn't have agents. It has liaisons from various law enforcement agencies. ATF, FBI, the postal service, police departments. and so on."

"Yeah, right. Just like the CIA doesn't snuff people."

"For God's sake, Marino," I said.

"I want to know who fucking went through my suitcase," Marino said as his face turned a deeper red. "That pisses me off more than anything has in a hell of a long time."

"I can see that;" Talley replied. "Maybe you should complain to the Paris police. But my guess is, if they had anything to do with it, it was for your own good. In the event you might have brought a gun over here, for example?"

Marino didn't say anything. He picked through what was left of his ribs.

"You didn't;" I said to him in disbelief.

"If someone isn't familiar with international travel, well, innocent mistakes can be made;" Talley added. "Especially American police who are used to carrying guns everywhere and perhaps don't understand what serious trouble they could get into over here."

Still, Marino was silent.

"I suspect the only motivation was to prevent any inconveniences for either of you," Talley added, tapping an ash.

"All right, all right," Marino grumbled.

"Dr. Scarpetta," Talley then said, "are you familiar with our magistrate system over here?"

"Enough to know that I'm glad we don't have one in Virginia."

"The magistrate's appointed. for life. The forensic pathologist is appointed by the magistrate, and it's the magistrate who decides what evidence is submitted to the labs and even what the manner of death is;" Talley explained.

"Like our coroner system at its worst," I said. "Whenever politics and votes are involved-"

"Power," Talley cut in. "Corruption. Politics and criminal investigation should never be in the same room."

"But they are. All the time, Agent Talley. Maybe even here, in your organization," I said.

"Interpol?" He seemed to find this very amusing. "There's really no motivation for Interpol to do the wrong thing, as sanctimonious as that might sound. We don't take credit. We don't want publicity, cars, guns or uniforms; we don't fight over jurisdictions. We have a surprisingly small budget for what we do. To most people we don't even exist."

"You say this we shit like you're one of them," Marino commented. "I'm confused. One minute you're ATF, the next minute you're a secret squirrel."

Talley raised an eyebrow and blew out smoke. "Secret squirrel?" he asked.

"How'd you end up over here anyway?" Marino wouldn't relent.

"My father's French, my mother American. I spent most of my childhood in Paris, then my family moved to Los Angeles."

"Then what?"

"Law school, didn't like it, ended up with ATE"

"For how long?" Marino continued his'interrogation.

"I've been an agent about five years."

"Yeah? And how much of that's been over here?" Marino was getting more belligerent with each question.

"Two years."

"That's kinda cushy. Three years on the street, then you end up over here drinking wine and hanging out in this big glass castle with all these hot-shit people."

"I've been extremely fortunate." Talley's graciousness carried a sting. "You're absolutely right. I suppose it helps somewhat that I speak four languages and have traveled extensively. I also got into computers and international studies at Harvard."

"I'm hitting the john." Marino abruptly got up.

"It's the Harvard part that really got him;" I said to Talley as Marino stalked off.

"I didn't mean to piss him off," he said.

"Of course you did."

"Oh. Such a bad impression you have of me so quickly."

"He's usually not quite this bad;" I went on. "There's a new deputy chief who's thrown him back in uniform, suspended him and tried everything short of a bullet to destroy him.., "What's his name?" Talley asked.

"It's a her," I answered. "Sometimes the hers are worse than hims, it's been my experience. More threatened, more insecure. Women tend to do each other in when we should be helping each other along."

"You don't seem to be like that." He studied me.

"Sabotage takes too much time."

He wasn't sure how to take that.

"You'll find I'm very direct, Agent Talley, because I have nothing to hide. I'm focused and I mean business. I'll fight you or I won't. I'll confront you or I won't, and I'll do it strategically but mercifully because I have no interest in watching anybody suffer. Unlike Diane Bray. She poisons people and sits back and watches, enjoying the show as the person slowly and in agony wastes away."

"Diane Bray. Well, well," Talley said, "toxic waste in tight clothes."

"You know her?" I asked, surprised.

"She finally left D. C. so she could ruin some other police department. I was at headquarters briefly before getting assigned here. She was always trying to coordinate what her cops were doing with what the rest of us were doing. You know, FBI, Secret Service, us. Not that there's anything wrong with people working together, but that wasn't her agenda. She just wanted to get in thick with the power brokers, and damn if she didn't."

"I don't want to waste energy talking about her;" I said. "She's taken far too much of my energy already."

"Would you like dessert?"

"Why has no evidence been tested in the Paris cases?" I got back to that.

"How about coffee?'

What I'd liked is an answer, Agent Talley."

. Jay.

"Why am I here?"

He hesitated, glancing toward the door as if worried that someone he didn't want to see might walk in. I decided he was thinking about Marino.

"If the killer is this Chandonne wacko, as we very much suspect, then. his family would prefer that his nasty habit of slashing, beating and biting women isn't made public: In fact"-he paused, his eyes digging into mine-"it would seem his family hasn't wanted it known that he was ever on this planet. Their dirty little secret."

"Then how do you know he exists?"

"His mother gave birth to two sons. There's no record of one dying."

"Sounds like there's no record of anything," I said.

"Not on paper. There are other ways of finding out things. Police have spent hundreds of hours interviewing people, especially those on Ile Saint-Louis. In addition to what Thomas's former classmates allege, it has also become rather much a legend that there is a man who's sometimes seen walking along the shore of the island at night or in the early morning, when it's dark."

"Does this mysterious character swim or just walk around?" I asked. I was thinking of the freshwater diatoms inside the dead man's clothes.

Talley gave me a surprised look.

"It's funny you should say that. Yes. There have been reports of a white male swimming nude in the Seine off the shore of Ile. Saint-Louis. Even in very cold weather. Always when it's dark."

"And you believe these rumors?" I asked.

"It's not my job to believe or not believe."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Our role here is to facilitate and get all the troops thinking and working together, no matter where they are or who they are. We're the only organization in the world able to do that. I'm not here to play detective."

He paused for a long moment, his eyes reaching into mine to find places I was afraid to share with him.

"I don't pretend to be a profiler, Kay," he said.

He knew about Benton. Of course he would.

"I don't have those skills, and I certainly don't have the experience," he added. "So I won't even begin to paint some sort of portrait of the guy who's doing this. I have no feeling for what he looks like, walks like, talks like--

except I know he speaks French and maybe other languages as well.

"One of his victims was Italian," he went on. "She spoke no English. One has to wonder if he may have spoken Italian to her to get inside her door."

Talley leaned back in his chair and reached for his water.

"This guy's had ample opportunity to be self-educated," Talley said. "He may dress well, because certainly Thomas is reputed to have quite a penchant for fast cars, designer clothes, jewelry. Maybe the pitiful brother hidden in the basement got Thomas's hand-me-downs."

"The jeans the unidentified man was wearing were a little big in the waist," I recalled.

"Thomas's weight fluctuated, supposedly. He worked very hard to be slender, was very vain about the way he looked. So who knows?" Talley said, shrugging. "But one thing's certain, if his alleged brother's as weird as people are saying, I doubt he goes shopping."

"Do you really think this person comes home after one of his slaughters and his parents wash his bloody clothes and protect him "He's being protected by someone," Talley reiterated. "That's why these cases in Paris have stopped at the morgue door. We don't know what went on in there beyond what we've shown you."

"The magistrate?"

"Someone with a lot of influence. That could be any number of people."

"How did you get hold of the autopsy reports?"

"The normal route," he replied. "We requested the records from the Paris Police. And what you see is what we got. No evidence going to the labs, Kay. No suspects. No trials. Nothing, except that the family has probably gotten a bit tired of shielding their psychopathic son. He's not only an embarrassment, he's a potential liability."

"How will proving Loup-Garou is the psychopathic son of the Chandonnes help you take down this One-SixeyFiver cartel?"

"For one thing, we hope Loup-Garou will talk. He gets nailed for a string of murders, especially the one in Virginia . . . Well, we will have leverage. Not to mention"-he smiled-"we I. D. Monsieur Chandonne's sons, we get probable cause to search their lovely three-hundred-yearold he Saint-Louis home and offices and bills of lading and on and on and on."

"Assuming we catch Loup-Garou," I said.

"We have to."

His eyes met mine and held them for a long, tense moment.

"Kay, we need you to prove the killer's Thomas's brother."

He held the pack of cigarettes out to me. I didn't touch it.

"You may be our only hope," he added. "It's the best chance we've had so far."

"Marino and I could be in serious danger if we get anywhere near this;" I said.

"Police can't go inside the Paris morgue and start asking questions," he said. "Not even undercover cops. And it goes without saying that no one here at Interpol can."

"Why not? Why can't Paris police go in there?"

"Because the medical examiner who did the cases won't talk to them. She trusts no one, and I can't say I blame her. But it seems she trusts you."

I was silent.

"You should be motivated by what happened to Lucy and Jo."

"That's not fair."

"It's fair, Kay. That's how bad these people are. They tried to blow your niece's brains out. Then they tried to blow her up. It's not an abstraction to you, now is it?"

"Violence is never an abstraction to me." Cold sweat was sliding down my sides.

"But it's different when it's someone you love," Talley said. "Right?"

"Don't tell me how I feel."

"Abstraction or not, you feel the-cruet, cold jaws of it when it crushes someone you love." Talley wouldn't let it go. "Don't let these assholes crush anyone else. You have a debt to pay. Lucy was spared."

"I should be home with her," I said.

"Your being here will help her more. It will help Jo more."

"I don't need you to tell me 'what's best for my niece or her friend. Or for me, for that matter."

"To us, Lucy is one of our finest agents. To us, she's not your niece."

"I suppose I should feel good about that."

"You certainly should."

His attention drifted down my neck. I felt his eyes like a breeze that stirred nothing but me, and then he stared at my hands.

"God, they're strong," he said, and he reached for one. "The body that turned up in the container. Kim Luong. They are your cases, Kay"-he studied my fingers, my palm. "You know all the details. You know the questions to ask, what to look for. It makes sense for you to drop by to see her."

"Her?" I pulled my hand away and wondered who was watching.

"Madame Stvan. Ruth Stvan. The director of legal medicine and chief medical examiner of France. You two have met.

"Of course I know who she is, but we've never met."

"In Geneva in 1988. She's Swiss. When you met she wasn't married. Her maiden name is Diirenmatt."