Let Me Go (20 page)

“They're not exactly local,” Henry said.

“They have some local contractors,” Jack said. “We flew in a few others.”

“Those guys are all ex-military,” Henry said to Archie. “They would have had a command hierarchy.”

“Who was in charge?” Archie asked Jack.

“He goes by Ronin,” Jack said. “Charming, right? I'm guessing that's not his real name.”

“He's one of the guys you flew in?” Henry asked.

“Yes,” Jack said.

“Where is he?” Archie asked.

“The guesthouse,” Jack said. “For all I know, he's still asleep.”

Archie stepped closer to Jack. He could smell him—his black soap, his expensive cologne. “Let's wake him up, shall we?” Archie said.

*   *   *

The guesthouse was
locked, but Jack produced a heavy ring of keys, sorted through it, and opened the door. The air in the house was thick with the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Three well-muscled men with thick necks and buzz cuts were sitting at the round kitchen table, along with Karim, whose thicket of black hair and slight build left him looking a little out of place. There was a large serving bowl of scrambled eggs on the table and another bowl of sausage links and plates that the men had just begun to heap with food. It was early evening. But this fact seemed to escape everyone at the table.

Jack jabbed a thumb toward the living room. “Karim and Ronin stay,” he said. “The rest of you give us a minute.”

Two of the buzz cuts looked to a third for permission before they followed Jack's orders. When Ronin nodded, they stood up and carried their plates into the living room.

Karim stayed where he was. Whereas the buzz cuts were all wearing varying versions of exercise pants or shorts paired with tank tops, Karim was impeccably dressed in a well-cut gray suit and a canary-yellow bow tie. Not a clip-on, Archie noticed—this bow tie was the real deal. It had been complexly knotted and was only very slightly askew. Karim picked up a cherry red electric kettle in front of his plate and poured hot water into a dainty cup with a tea bag in it. Steam rose from the cup.

Ronin lifted a forkful of eggs to his mouth and chewed, his eyes darting around the room. His close-cropped hair was a shadow of dark stubble and his eyes were a light brown that looked almost gold. His features and skin color were so multiethnic as to be difficult to pinpoint. He looked like he was from everywhere, and nowhere.

Archie recognized him from last night. He'd been the one with the headset and the clipboard.

“I want you to tell him who the girl is,” Jack instructed Ronin. There were empty chairs at the table, but Jack didn't sit. He stood with his arms crossed, behind Karim, like a captain on the bridge of his ship.

Henry held his phone in front of Ronin and Ronin studied the image of the dead girl. He didn't react at all to the fact that he was looking at a corpse. His meaty face didn't change. He did not appear disturbed. But he also did not appear overly cavalier or self-conscious, the way he might if he had something to prove or was overcompensating. It took looking at a lot of dead bodies before you could look at the face of a dead young girl like that without showing even a flicker of emotion. Archie knew that from experience.

“I don't know her name,” Ronin said finally, shoveling another bite of eggs into his mouth. “She wasn't on the list.”

“Nice,” Jack said. “She wasn't on the list, but apparently she
was
at the party. Excellent security. Clearly I'm getting my money's worth.”

Archie slipped into one of the empty wooden chairs next to Ronin.

Ronin didn't know her name. She wasn't on the list. But that didn't mean Ronin hadn't seen her.

“You remember her?” Archie asked quietly.

Karim stirred his tea with a spoon, and the spoon knocked against the side of the porcelain cup as he circled it. He was wearing square silver cuff links, each with a small blue gem at its center that matched the fine blue stripes on his white shirt.

Ronin was wearing a black tank top, and shorts that had an elastic waist. His legs were smooth and hairless. He swallowed some eggs and nodded. “She showed up by herself,” Ronin said. “Said she'd grown up around here, that she'd always wanted to see the island up close. She looked hot. I figured an attractive woman at the party alone—that was good. She promised not to eat much.” He slurped the eggs down with some coffee.

“You hire class acts,” Henry said to Jack.

Archie stayed focused on Ronin, tripped up by something he'd said.
She showed up by herself.
But that wasn't right. She hadn't been by herself. “What about her friend?” Archie asked him.

“She didn't have a friend,” Ronin said, shoveling some more eggs in his mouth. “She was alone.”

“She was with another woman,” Archie insisted. “I saw them later in the evening. They'd been drinking.” A young woman crashing a party by herself? It seemed unlikely to Archie. But two women together, that he could buy.

Ronin thought for a minute. It looked like it hurt. Bright yellow bits of egg clung to the corner of his mouth. His tongue was stained brown with coffee. “What did she look like?” Ronin asked. “Hot?”

Archie mentally stumbled. He hadn't actually
seen
the friend. She was in the bathroom. He'd heard her throwing up. Or at least what sounded like someone throwing up. “I don't know,” he admitted.

Ronin shrugged. “Maybe she met someone at the party, but I'm telling you, she arrived solo. And she was the only person we let in who wasn't on the list.” He glanced at Archie. “I mean, besides you.”

Karim lifted the spoon out of his cup, tapped it on the cup's lip, then licked the spoon and laid it carefully on the saucer. There was something about him that Archie found unsettling. He was too calm. Too controlled. His cuff links sparkled. The gems were probably sapphires.

Archie turned his attention back to Ronin. Ronin took care of himself—he shaved his legs, for Christ's sake. He considered himself a player. He would have flirted with a pretty girl. And when men flirted with women, they asked their names. It was instant intimacy. Use the first name as often as possible. It was the same technique Archie used in interrogations. Ronin would have asked her name. Which meant that he was lying.

“What was her name, Ronin?” Archie asked.

Ronin's mouth fell open. Archie could see chewed-up egg inside.

Karim lifted his teacup to his mouth. The teacup was a fragile little thing, bone china. A blue stamp on the bottom of the cup claimed it had been made in England. Archie watched as Ronin gave Karim a questioning look, and Karim responded with an almost imperceptible nod.

The command hierarchy.

Ronin's shoulders sagged and he scratched at a ruddy patch on his cheek. “Lisa,” he said. “Said she grew up here. Said she graduated from Lake Oswego High. Said she'd always wanted to get on the island.” He leaned forward a little and lowered his voice. “But if you ask me, I think she was just interested in hooking up with someone important. Some girls? You can smell their desperation.”

“I paid to have the list vetted,” Jack said, shaking his head in disgust. “I paid for the headsets, the earpieces. And you let her in because she batted her eyelashes at you?” He looked down at Karim. “Did you know about this?”

Karim returned his cup soundlessly to its saucer. “No,” he said.

Archie studied Ronin. Ronin wasn't exactly the sharpest tool in the shed, and yet he'd managed to gather a lot about the victim from a very brief encounter. Archie wasn't convinced that Ronin's powers of observation were that potent.

“You'd met her before last night,” Archie said.

Ronin's mouth twitched. “Outside the grocery store, in town,” he said. “We talked a little. She was a flirt. I told her I was in town for a job on the island. She said that thing about always wanting to see the place.”

Archie felt a stab of pain, as a father. “You invited her to the party,” he said, shaking his head.

Ronin drew his head back defensively. “Hey, I didn't think she'd show up.”

“And when she did?” Archie asked.

“I had a job to do,” Ronin said, glancing at Karim. “She thought it was some kind of date.” He grunted and flashed a world-class asshole smirk. “That little bitch was lucky she got into the party at all.”

Archie could imagine Ronin's surprise when the girl he'd talked up in town had shown up in her pretty dress, flush with excitement at the prospective evening. She would have wanted to avoid the humiliation of him sending her away. She would have seen the dazzling guests streaming up the path, the torches lighting their way, seen the tuxedos, the magical landscape, the Tudor mansion, straight from a storybook. It was the kind of party little girls dreamed of. At that point, she would have done anything to get past the metaphorical velvet rope. Archie had seen enough to know what that meant. “You made her pay for her ticket, though, didn't you?” Archie asked Ronin.

Ronin stabbed at some eggs with his fork. Without a commander to order him in no uncertain terms to reveal what he knew, he'd hem and haw all day about this. Men like him were incapable of taking responsibility unless someone with more power told them to. Archie had to force the situation. He put his hand on Ronin's shoulder and gripped it hard. “What did you do?” Archie demanded.

The room went still and silent.

Ronin's shoulder was warm meat under Archie's palm. Archie could see the veins in Ronin's biceps rise as they engorged with blood. Ronin's fist tightened around the fork. Archie had a brief vision of the fork going into his neck. He did not doubt for a moment that Ronin could do it if he wanted to. Archie wondered what it would feel like.

“You don't want to do that,” Karim said softly in his British accent.

In the same instant that Ronin's shoulder relaxed slightly, Henry went for his weapon. He leveled it, two-handed, at Ronin's head. “Drop it,” Henry said.

No one flinched. Jack looked on, detached. Karim was watchful. Apparently someone drawing a gun at breakfast was not all that extraordinary.

“Drop it,” Karim said, picking up his cup.

Ronin's hand opened. The fork stood for half a second, balanced on its tines, and then toppled over onto the plate, splattering fragments of scrambled egg onto the table.

Archie kept his hand on Ronin's shoulder, the ribbed black tank top under his fingers. “She's dead,” Archie said between his teeth. “She was sexually assaulted. Are we going to find your sperm on her?”

Ronin met Archie's gaze with his golden eyes. “I guess so.”

Archie shook his head in disgust. “Where?” he asked.

Ronin's mouth turned up in a smile. “In her stomach.”

Archie let go of Ronin and sat back in his chair. His head was pounding. His hand had left a red print on Ronin's shoulder. Next to him, Henry holstered his weapon, his face flushed. Jack was still standing behind Karim's chair with his arms crossed. Karim was sipping his tea. “We're going to need a DNA sample,” Archie said.

Henry lifted a small black case out of his pocket, opened it, and pulled out a long Q-tip. “Open up, Romeo,” he said to Ronin. Ronin looked again to Karim, and Karim nodded and Ronin opened his mouth. Henry swabbed the inside of Ronin's cheek and bagged the Q-tip.

“When was the last time you saw her?” Archie asked.

Ronin crossed his arms. “I let her in around nine-thirty. Didn't see her after that,” he said.

“So you didn't see her leave?” Archie said.

“No,” Ronin said.

Archie looked over at Jack. “I want to review the footage from your surveillance cameras,” Archie said.

Jack smiled indulgently, like Archie had suggested that they strip down to their socks and cannonball into the lake. “That's not going to happen,” Jack said.

Archie rubbed his hands over his face. He knew there was very little chance of talking Jack into going along with his request, but he had to give it a shot. “I talked to this girl last night. In your house. And today she was found dead on your neighbor's dock. Whatever else you were up to here last night, it doesn't concern me.”

“It sounds like it's my neighbor you should be interrogating,” Jack said. “A dead girl on his dock? That sounds suspicious. You know, I've never trusted that man. He doesn't pick up after his dog.”

“She was here,” Archie said. “I need to look at the security footage. See the people she talked to—see if she had any altercations with anyone. For all we know, one of your cameras might have filmed the murder.”

Jack leaned forward, reached over Karim's shoulder, and picked a piece of toast off Karim's plate.
The hierarchy of command
. Jack took a bite off the corner of the toast and chewed on it a few times. “Get a warrant and we'll talk,” he said.

“I don't suppose you'd consent to allowing us to interview the rest of your staff?” Archie asked. “Maybe check some backgrounds for priors? There was a goon guarding the bottom of the first-floor stairs in the main house that could use a women's studies class, and I wouldn't mind asking him about his movements last night.”

“I think I've given you enough time today, Detective,” Jack said.

Archie stood up and pushed his chair in. “Say hi to Leo for me,” Archie said.

Jack didn't blink. “Leo isn't here.”

“Where is he?” Archie asked.

Jack shrugged. “Call him. Leave a message. If he wants to talk to you, I'm sure he'll return it.”

“Can I take a piece of toast to go?” Archie asked, surveying the food on the table.

Jack sighed. “Help yourself,” he said.

“Want one?” Archie asked Henry.

Henry squinted at him. “No, thanks,” he said.

There was a paper napkin dispenser on the table next to the bowl of eggs. The paper napkins were for the help—Archie would have bet money that they used cloth napkins in the big house. He pulled a paper napkin out and picked up a piece of toast and spread some peanut butter on it. As he reached to put the knife back in the peanut butter jar, his elbow caught the edge of Karim's teacup.