The Fifth Profession (26 page)

Akira nodded. “Champagne. Graham loves it.”

“So much? Three bottles in one evening?”

“Graham's large enough to tolerate a great deal of alcohol,” Savage said. “But you're right, it does seem strange. I've never seen him overindulge.”

“Perhaps he had company,” Akira said.

“There's only one glass,” Rachel said. “If he did have guests and he put away their glasses, why didn't he put away his own glass and the empty bottles as well? And something else. Have you read the labels on the bottles?”

“No,” Savage said. “What about them?”

“At the farmhouse outside Athens, when the two of you talked about Graham, you said he drank Dom Pérignon.”

“It's the only brand he'll accept,” Akira said.

“Well,
two
of these labels say Dom Pérignon. But the third is Asti Spumante.”

“What?”
Savage straightened.

“And what's that noise?” Rachel asked.

Savage glanced around sharply. His ears had been slow to adjust to the silence after the throbbing music. But now he heard a muted drone.

“Yes,” Akira said. “A faint vibration. What's causing it?”

“A refrigerator?” Savage said.

“Graham's kitchen's on the second floor,” Akira said. “We wouldn't hear the refrigerator this far away.”

“Maybe the furnace turned on,” Savage said.

Akira lowered his hand toward a vent. “No rush of air.”

“Then what … ?”

“It seems to come from”—Rachel frowned, passing Savage— “this door beside the bookshelf.”

She opened the door and lurched back as thick gray smoke enveloped her. The faint drone became a rumble. Rachel coughed from the acrid stench of the smoke.

Except that it wasn't smoke,
Savage realized.

Graham's garage! Savage hurried through the doorway. The garage was dark, but the lights in the living room managed to pierce the dense exhaust rushing past him. He saw Graham's Cadillac, its engine running, a bald, overweight figure slumped behind the steering wheel.

He rushed to lean through the car's open window and twisted the ignition key. The engine stopped. Straining not to breathe, he yanked the driver's door open, clutched Graham, and dragged him across the garage's concrete floor into the living room.

Rachel shoved the door closed, preventing more exhaust from spewing in, but enough had already entered the living room that when Savage finally breathed, he bent over, coughing.

Akira knelt beside Graham, feeling for a pulse.

“His face is deep red,” Rachel said.

“Carbon monoxide.” Akira listened to Graham's chest. “His heart isn't beating.”

Savage knelt opposite Akira, Graham between them. “Give him mouth-to-mouth. I'll work on his heart.”

As Akira opened Graham's mouth and breathed into it, Savage pounded Graham's chest once, then placed both palms over his heart, applying and releasing pressure.

“Rachel, call nine eleven,” Savage blurted, pressing again on Graham's chest, leaning back, pressing once more.

Rachel scrambled toward the phone on Graham's desk. She picked it up and began to press numbers.

“No, Rachel.” Akira sounded sick. “Never mind.” He stared at Graham and slowly stood.

“Keep trying!” Savage said.

Akira shook his head in despair. “Feel how cold he is. Look at his legs. When you set him on the floor, they stayed bent—as if he's still sitting in the car. He's been dead for quite a while. Nothing's going to revive him.”

Savage squinted at Graham's bent knees, swallowed, and stopped pressing Graham's chest.

Rachel set down the phone.

For several seconds, they didn't move.

“Jesus.” Savage's hands shook. He had trouble standing.

Akira's neck muscles were so taut they resembled ropes.

Rachel approached, trying not to look at Graham's corpse.

Savage suddenly noticed how pale she was. He reached her just in time before her legs gave out. He helped her toward a sofa, choosing the one that allowed her to sit with her back to Graham. “Put your head between your knees.”

“I just lost my balance for a second.”

“Sure.”

“I feel better now.”

“Of course. I'll get you some water,” Akira said.

“No, really, I think I'm okay.” Her color was returning. “For a moment there, the room seemed blurry. Now … Yes.” She mustered strength. “I'll be fine. You don't need to worry. I'm not going to faint. I promised myself I wouldn't get in the way. I won't hold you back.” Her blue eyes glinted, stubborn, proud.

“Get in the way? The opposite,” Savage said. “If it hadn't been for you, we probably wouldn't have discovered …” He bit his lower lip and turned toward Graham's body. “The poor bastard. I came here ready to strangle him. Now I'd hug him if he were alive. God, I'll miss him.” He pressed downward with his hands, as if repressing emotion. “So what the hell happened?”

“You mean what
appears
to have happened,” Akira said.

“Exactly.”

Rachel looked confused.

“Three empty wine bottles,” Akira said.

“Right. A drunken man decides to go out for the evening. He starts his car, but before he can open the garage, he passes out. The exhaust fumes kill him.”

“A coroner will reject that explanation.”

“Of course,” Savage said.

“I don't understand,” Rachel said.

“The garage was dark, and the door from the living room was shut,” Akira said. “Even a drunk would realize that the garage wasn't open when he found himself blundering around in the dark. His first instinct would be to open the outside door.”

“Unless he had an automatic garage-door opener, and he figured he could press the remote control in his car while he started the engine.”

“But Graham's garage actually has
two
doors. Like the stable doors they're supposed to resemble, they open out on each side, and it has to be done by hand.”

“So the garage was left closed deliberately.”

“I'm missing something,” Rachel said. “It sounds like
… Graham committed suicide?
”

“He sits here alone, the stereo blaring while he smokes and drinks and broods. When he's drunk enough to work up his nerve, he goes out to his car. Doesn't bother to shut off the stereo. Why worry about it? Makes sure the living room door is closed to keep the garage sealed. Turns the ignition key. The exhaust smells terrible, but after several deep breaths, his eyes feel heavy. He drifts. He dies. No muss, no fuss. Yeah,” Savage said, “the coroner will buy it.”

“And that's the way Graham would do it. He's too fastidious about his appearance to put a bullet through his head. All the blood would ruin his three-piece suit,” Akira said.

Rachel looked disturbed.

“He'd need a reason to kill himself,” Savage said.

“Problems with his health?”

Savage shrugged. “The last time I saw him, three weeks ago, there didn't seem anything wrong. Overweight, of course, but robust as ever. Even if he suddenly learned he had cancer, he's the type that would pamper himself till every medical option proved useless and he was terminal.
Then
he might kill himself. But not before.”

“Then
business
problems.”

“Better,” Savage said.

“You're still confusing me,” Rachel said.

“It wouldn't have anything to do with money,” Akira said. “Graham was wealthy. He invested shrewdly. So it has to be a client that turned against him, or a client's enemy who discovered that Graham arranged an attack against him.”

Savage thought about it. “Good. It'll work. In his prime, when Graham belonged to the British commandos, a challenge excited him. But after he retired, once he put on weight and got soft from too much champagne and caviar, he'd have realized that he'd lost his ability to tolerate pain. He trained me, but his own skills were memories from his youth. He once admitted to me that these days, one-on-one, he wouldn't have a chance against a practiced opponent. If he knew he was being stalked, if he was certain his death would be painful, he might have chosen a peaceful suicide.”

“Especially if
we
were stalking him,” Akira said.

“Except that when Graham sent us to Mykonos, he had to assume we'd eventually come here demanding answers, and he knew us well enough to assume that no matter how angry we were, we'd never kill him. Besides, the coroner isn't aware of us. I don't think he's
supposed
to be aware of us, either.”

“I agree,” Akira said. “Still, the coroner will have to believe that
someone
was stalking Graham, or else the scenario isn't valid. Somewhere—probably behind those bookshelves, in Graham's hidden files—the police will find evidence that Graham feared for his life.”

“And knew he would suffer.”

“And chose the dignity of a self-inflicted death.” Akira raised his eyebrows. “Very Japanese.”

“Would the two of you please explain?” Rachel asked.

“Graham didn't kill himself,” Akira said.

“But the way you've been talking …”

“We're pretending to be the coroner,” Savage said. “The verdict is suicide. But the coroner doesn't know that Graham would never have chosen a heavy-metal radio station. And the coroner doesn't know that Graham would never have mixed Dom Pérignon with Asti Spumante. Graham was murdered. He was forced—I assume by several men—to drink the champagne he had in stock. But two bottles weren't enough. So they sent a man to buy another. He came back with his choice, not Graham's. When Graham passed out, they put him in the car, turned it on, shut the living room door, waited till he was dead, then left.”

“But not before they played the radio to pass the time,” Akira said. “Again
their
choice of stations. They probably figured the music would be a realistic touch, so they didn't switch it off before they activated the alarm on the outside entrance and left.”

“Almost perfect,” Savage said. “The bastards. I'll …”

“Make them pay?” Akira's sad eyes blazed. “That goes without saying.”

5

Savage raised Graham's arms while Akira lifted his legs. Rachel opened the living room door, turning from the cloud of exhaust spewing in while the two men carried the corpse to the garage.

They positioned the body behind the Cadillac's steering wheel. The poisonous fumes were still so dense that Savage held his breath while making sure that Graham slumped on the seat exactly as before. After all, as soon as Graham's blood had stopped circulating, gravity would have made the blood settle toward various pockets in his abdomen, hips, and legs, causing purplish-red discolorations in those areas. If the corpse had discolorations in higher areas, a coroner would know that the corpse had been moved.

The corpse
had
been moved, but Graham's body had not lain in the living room long enough for the blood to be redistributed and thus discolor the back. The coroner would not become suspicious.

Savage twisted the ignition key, hearing the Cadillac's engine rumble. He slammed the driver's door and ran with Akira into the living room.

The room was filled with haze. Savage coughed, hearing Rachel shut the door.

“The windows,” Akira said.

They hurried toward opposite ends of the room, pressed buttons that shut off intruder-detection alarms, raised panes, and gulped fresh air.

A cold wind billowed drapes, attacking the fumes. Gray wisps swirled toward the ceiling, dispersed, and flowed out the tops of the open windows.

In the wind's subtle hiss, Savage listened to the muffled drone of the Cadillac's engine. He turned toward the living room door, the garage beyond it. “I'm sorry, friend.”

“But
was
he a friend?” Akira asked. “A friend wouldn't have deceived us.
Why did he do it?
”

Anger conflicted with grief and made Savage hoarse. “Let's find out.” He crossed the room and tugged at the bookshelves.

The wall swung outward, revealing further shelves. Metal containers. Graham's documents.

Savage and Akira sorted urgently through them.

Rachel stood in the background. “You said you didn't think the coroner was supposed to know about you. What did you mean?”

“Too coincidental. Graham's murder. Our coming here to question him. They're related.” Savage scanned pages.

“You can't
prove
that.”

“Yes,” Akira said, “we can.” He sorted through another box of files. “Graham keeps these documents for one reason only—to explain his income to the IRS. If it weren't for taxes, his passion for secrecy would never have allowed him to keep business records. Of course, he took the precaution of using pseudonyms for his operatives and his clients, so an enemy wouldn't learn anything vital if he found these files. The code for the pseudonyms is in a safe-deposit box. The arrangement with the bank is that both Graham
and
his lawyer have to be present to open it, so we know the code is secure. But Savage and I don't need the code to tell us which pseudonyms Graham used for us. We chose our pseudonyms ourselves. In fact, the names by which you know us
are
our pseudonyms.”

They searched through other boxes.

“What are you looking for?” Rachel asked.

“Graham kept two sets of documents, cross-referenced, one for his operatives and the jobs they did, the other for the clients who commissioned the jobs. Did you find them?”

Akira checked the final box. “No.”

“I didn't either.”

“Find
what?
” Rachel asked.

“Our files,” Savage said. “They're gone.”

“We don't know the pseudonym Graham gave Kamichi, or the ones he gave your sister and your husband,” Akira said. “But since
our
files aren't here, I assume the others are gone as well. That's the proof I referred to. Whoever killed Graham must have taken the files. The coroner isn't supposed to be aware of us, not even of our pseudonyms. Graham was killed to keep him from telling us why we saw each other die.”

“And here's the suicide note Akira predicted we'd find. Typed, of course. Because Graham didn't compose it.”

“Left by his killers. All right,” Rachel said. “I'm convinced. But how could they be sure the police would look behind these bookshelves?”