Fausi turned the Buick north. He drove fast out of Brockhurst to Route 17. It was a hot, cloudy night, very dark, and very light traffic. The Buick clocked 80 mph all the way, since Shakira believed a speeding ticket was a lot better than becoming a suspect in a brutal murder.
When they reached Chesapeake Heights, she got out, on the road, and walked to the front entrance, a distance of 150 yards. She moved fast, straight past Fred, the doorman, to avoid his observing her slightly hectic appearance, and immediately took the elevator to her apartment.
Once inside, she grabbed her suitcase and placed it on the bed, wide open. In a blur of activity she hurled her clothes, shoes, possessions, laundry, and toiletries inside. She changed her shirt, forced the suitcase shut, and put on a denim jacket.
She checked every cupboard, checked under the bed, checked the kitchen and the bathroom. Throughout her stay, she had been careful to accumulate nothing. She stripped the bed of sheets and pillowcases, gathered up two damp towels, scooped up a couple of dish towels, and raced for the incinerator hatch, down which residents could get rid of any rubbish they no longer required. She dumped anything that might bear DNA samples straight down the chute. Shakira would leave her apartment carrying only what she had brought with her.
She took her cell phone onto the balcony and dialed the numbers for the house in Gaza. No reply. She had not expected one. She just left the briefest of messages: Evacuating immediately. Cell phone active.
Then she dialed a local number, let it ring twice, and pressed the cutoff button. Downstairs, Fausi pulled into the drive, his headlights off. He parked in the shadows, rendering the car almost invisible.
Then he walked around the side of the building, selected an expensive Lincoln Continental, picked up a stone from the rock garden, and hurled it through the windshield.
The alarm system went off like a klaxon, echoing through the deserted parking lot. Fausi raced back to his own car and swept up to the front of the building. He charged through the door, still in his chauffeur’s uniform, and yelled through to the little anteroom where Fred was watching television.
“Excuse me, sir, I think I just saw two guys break into one of the residents’ cars. I heard a crash and then they ran right past me. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until I heard the alarm go off.”
Fred, a heavyset former Green Beret, came out of his chair like a bullet. This would not look good for him, a professional security officer. “Thanks, pal,” he called, as he raced across the foyer. “I’m right on it.”
The big doorman rushed outside, following the sound of the blaring car alarm. And as he did so, the elevator door slid open. Fausi beckoned Shakira to come out, and she edged her way through the foyer, turning deliberately away from the door and covering her face with a copy of American Vogue. She walked slowly, in a stooped fashion, like an old woman.
Outside, Fausi grabbed her suitcase, and the two of them slipped swiftly through the shadows to the Buick, which was running quietly. Fausi shoved the suitcase onto the passenger seat and climbed in behind the wheel, while Shakira prostrated herself on the backseat.
The black car, displaying no lights, sped off down the drive, swung right toward Route 17, and moments later was hurtling up the highway. No one at Chesapeake Heights, especially the night doorman, knew that Carla Martin was no longer a resident.
It was almost midnight now. Back in Brockhurst, Emily Gallagher was sound asleep, content in the knowledge that Carla would take care of Charlie in the morning. Jim Caborn was upstairs watching television, feeling self-congratulatory at the competence of his latest bar manager. And the undiscovered body of Matt Barker seeped blood, silently, in the shadows of the hotel parking lot.
By 1 A.M., Fausi had reached the junction with Interstate 95, the endless highway that runs north-south down the entire length of the eastern seaboard of the United States.
Once more they turned north, and Fausi asked, “Okay, where’s it to be, Shakira? Washington Dulles, Philly, or New York?”
“Boston,” she replied.
“Wow!” said Fausi. “That’ll take us another eight hours. That’s a long way. I guess you mean nonstop?”
“I most certainly do,” she replied. “And I am sure you understand, Fausi, that right now this car is my best friend in all the world. Every mile we travel is one more away from Brockhurst. Every mile means I am just a little more remote.”
“When do you think they’re going to find that body?” he asked.
“Probably early in the morning. When one of the hotel residents drives out that way. I suppose around eight o’clock. I’m hoping they’ll think it’s a local murder and concentrate their search for the killer in the Brockhurst area.”
“You want to go straight to Logan?”
“Oh, I think so. Then I’ll get the first flight to Europe I can.” Not even Fausi was permitted to know her destination. And he knew it. Never even asked. He just said, “I’m going to miss you, Shakira. It’s been tense, but enjoyable.”
Shakira had never heard those two adjectives used together, and, as a student of language, she found herself laughing. “Very nicely stated, Fausi,” she said. “I think you are better at speaking English than I am. Which is important, because I am really good.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Rashood,” he replied. “I’ll accept the compliment.”
It was forty miles more from the I-95 junction up to Washington, which they made by 1:45 A.M. They avoided the city, because 95 swings sharply right on the southern outskirts of Alexandria and sweeps across the Potomac on the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge, straight into the state of Maryland.
From there it makes a huge easterly sweep, combining with the Beltway, right around the outside of the nation’s capital for about twenty miles, running directly past Andrews Air Force Base, and then, in Fausi’s case ironically, veering resolutely off-course, diametrically away from the National Security Agency at Fort Meade.
The Buick angled back to its northeasterly route at around 2:30 A.M. and headed for Baltimore. They were past that city by 3:15 and heading on up to the Philadelphia area. Shortly before first light, they crossed the Delaware River at Trenton and made the New Jersey Turnpike, toward New York and the long wooded highways of New England.
They stopped for gas and coffee somewhere north of New Brunswick, and kept going to the George Washington Bridge. Traffic was beginning to build even at 5:30 in the morning, but it was still flowing fast, and Fausi crossed the Hudson at high speed, gunned the Buick along the north end of Manhattan, and then straight up the New England Thruway.
Three and a half hours later, they were approaching Logan airport, and they pulled into the international building, Terminal E, at 9:15 A.M. Their parting was achieved in under five seconds; they shook hands, and Shakira grabbed a nearby baggage cart and walked into the terminal.
At precisely this time, seven states away in Virginia, the pace was less frenetic. Matt Barker’s body was discovered in the parking lot, not by a departing resident but by a member of Jim Caborn’s cleaning staff who always entered the hotel that way, and who almost tripped over the body.
She stood there in the parking lot and started screaming at the top of her lungs. It was never made clear whether this was because Matt’s cock was still sticking ramrod-straight out of his trousers, or because the hilt of the jeweled dagger did suggest he had been murdered. At any rate, Mrs. Price did some world-class screaming.
Jim Caborn, who was in his office, heard the commotion and came running outside, thinking someone was being murdered. Close. But the deed had taken place many, many hours before. Jim reached in his pocket for his cell phone and dialed 911.
Within ten minutes, the local police chief, in company with two officers, a detective, and the pathologist, arrived at the parking lot. An ambulance came five minutes later. The body was photographed and briefly examined by the pathologist, who took the temperature and pronounced that Matt Barker had died around midnight or before.
The detective in charge of the investigation considered that there would be no point in casting a police cordon around the town. If the killer had left, it was too late. If he was still in the area, he would almost certainly remain in place. There was no harm in having the body removed to the nearest mortuary, since it was obviously not a perfect advertisement for Jim Caborn’s Estuary Hotel.
“Thanks, Joe,” said Jim, as the ambulance pulled away. “Now come in for some coffee, and I’ll arrange for you to speak to everyone you want.”
All three of the principal men in this sudden, unexpected small-town saga on the banks of the Rappahannock had known each other since childhood. Detective Joe Segel had been at school with Matt Barker. Jim Caborn had played football with Joe at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, out in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains in the western part of the state. This was a very local murder.
Inside the hotel, Jim made a list of everyone he thought might be able to throw some light on the final hours of Matt Barker, which had plainly been spent in the Estuary Hotel bar with his buddies. Top of Jim’s list was Carla Martin, who often talked with the big garage owner. He also gave Detective Segel the full names of Herb, Rick, and Bill, who were presumably the last people to see Matt alive.
“What time does Miss Martin show up?” asked Detective Segel.
“Five o’clock sharp,” said Jim. “And she’s never late.”
“I’ll be here,” he replied.
Shakira made a split-second decision not to use her Carla Martin passport to exit the USA. Instead, she went to the one copied from that owned by Michigan-born Maureen Carson, thirty. She walked to the Aer Lingus ticketing desk and asked if she could travel first-class to Dublin on the airline’s new morning flight, leaving at 10:30 A.M., arriving Dublin at 2240 with a stop at Shannon.
“Yes, I have seats available on that. May I see your passport?”
Shakira handed it over, and the Aer Lingus girl gave it a cursory look, checked the photograph of Maureen against the dark-haired lady who stood in front of her, smiled, and said, “How do you wish to pay?”
“American Express,” she replied, knowing the card had been issued to an attaché in the Jordanian embassy in Neuilly-Seine, Paris, and that she, Shakira, was a secondary signature on the card and in possession of the PIN.
She punched it into the machine, for a ruinous amount of money, more than six thousand dollars. “Is there anything else we can do for you?” asked the girl.
“I wonder if you could book me a room in the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin, and tell them I’ll be arriving quite late?”
“Will you require them to meet you off the flight?”
“No. I’ll take a cab,” said Shakira, ever alert for the necessity of anonymity whenever possible.
She picked up her bag and walked to the first-class desk. One hour later, Shakira took off for southern Ireland. The Aer Lingus Airbus was climbing steeply out over Boston Harbor just as, six hundred miles to the south, Detective Segel was preparing to return to the police station.
By any standards, the Estuary Killer had well and truly flown the coop.
Detective Joe Segel had little to go on. Someone in the hour before midnight had plunged a dagger into Matt Barker’s heart, and, according to the doctor, killed him instantly.
The police search of his body had revealed a wad of twenty-dollar bills, adding up to over $300. His credit card wallet was intact, no one had taken his cell phone, and there was no sign of a fight save for a nasty bruise on the left-hand side of his face, which could have happened when he slid, face forward, down the wall.
And yet… someone had wanted to kill Matt Barker very badly. Detective Segel spoke to his close friends, particularly those who had been in the bar with him the previous evening. None of them had the slightest idea what could possibly have happened to him. They were obviously all extremely upset. Herb and Rick were both in tears at the death of their lifelong friend.
Which, essentially, left the Virginia detective holding the dagger. He sat in his office, wearing white linen gloves and handling it carefully. There was no maker’s mark on it, which was unsurprising since it did look as if it had been manufactured somewhere in the Middle East.
And those jewels in the handle-Jesus! If they were real, the darned thing was worth a fortune. And yet it had been abandoned, jutting out of Matt Barker’s body, in the manner of a true professional, someone who knew the blood would not flow immediately if the weapon was left jammed in the wound.
This was someone who knew how to make an escape unscathed by the detritus of the crime. The forensic boys had already made a thorough search, and the dagger bore not one trace of a fingerprint.
In the next twenty minutes, he expected to see the local jeweler, who would tell him, one way or another, whether or not the murder weapon was worth several thousand dollars. As a matter of fact, it wasn’t. The jeweler turned up right on time and told Joe Segel the stones were just colored glass set into brass. Pretty, but worth no more than $50.
The biggest concern for Detective Segel was Matt Barker’s cock. What the hell was that doing, sticking out into the morning light? There’s only one reason for that-sexual passion. And whoever Matt had intended to stick that cock into had obviously had second thoughts. Male or female? Friend or stranger? Who had taken such an elementary dislike to Matt Barker that, instead of fucking him, they had stabbed him to death?
It beat the hell out of Joe Segel. But one thought was uppermost in his mind. The killer could not possibly have been a girl. At least, no ordinary girl. That death blow to Matt Barker’s ribs had been delivered with terrific strength, an upward thrust into precisely the correct place to inflict death.
Hell, thought Joe Segel, was old Matt some kind of a faggot? All these years, and no one’s ever known that. No one I ever met. I’ll be real interested to hear the opinions of Miss Carla Martin when she turns up for work. According to Jim Caborn, that would be another hour.
Joe was sitting in the front hall of the hotel as the old grandfather clock struck five times. He waited patiently for five more minutes. Then ten. Then he stood up and walked to the desk and said, “Jim, old buddy, you said she was never late.”
“Joe, old buddy,” replied the manager, “she never was. Not ’til today.”
“I’m gonna sit here for another twenty minutes,” said the detective. “Then I have to go find her. This Carla may have been the last person not only to talk to him, but also to see him.
“His three guys all thought he spoke to her, then drank his beer and left. Said something about going to Washington early in the morning. That was around 10:30. And before eleven o’clock, Miss Martin had packed up and left the hotel. Out the back door, directly into the parking lot where Matt’s body was found.”
“Is she a suspect?” asked Jim.
“She sure as hell is. But right now I personally don’t think she did it. And if she’d turned up for work on time, she wouldn’t be. Get me her phone number and address, will you?”
Jim Caborn flipped through his card index file where he kept details and locations for all of his staff. But he was basically wasting his time. Shakira had long ago removed her card, which bore her passport number, Social Security number, reference details, and the name of her “aunt’s” village, Bowler’s Wharf. She had replaced it with a simplified one, which listed only her address-the Estuary Hotel, Brockhurst.
Jim Caborn could not believe his eyes. He turned to Joe Segel and said, “I just cannot understand this.”
“Understand what?”
“I filled out a detailed card with a lot of stuff about Miss Martin, including her Social and passport numbers. I even wrote down the names, addresses, and phone numbers on her reference letters. I made a note of her aunt’s name in Bowler’s Wharf where she lived.”
“Did you get her car registration?”
“She never told me.”
“Did you ask?”
“Twice. And both times she said she’d get it and fill the card out for me. I assumed she’d done it.”
Joe Segel’s hackles were up and bristling. “I’m not being critical, Jim. Believe me. But I want to get this very clear. This girl gets a job here when?”
“Couple of weeks ago.”
“Okay, and you’re sure you filled out that card?”
“’Course I’m sure. I’ve done it for everyone who’s ever worked here. Both her references were from London, England.”
“Okay. So here we have Little Miss Nobody. She destroys all her records, right here in this hotel. She writes out an address for your file, where she does not live. Someone gets murdered, an obvious sex crime, and Little Miss Nobody vanishes off the face of the earth.
“How old was she?”
“Now that I can recall. She was thirty. I remember looking at her birth date on her passport. It was May 1982. You know how I remember?”
“Lay it on me.”
“I graduated from college that month… But wait a minute, Joe… wait a minute. She said she was living with this aunt in Bowler’s Wharf. I think she said her name was Leno. Jean Leno. I remember. It reminded me of the Tonight Show.”
“Jim, let me tell you something. This lady went to a whole hell of a lot of trouble to brush away her footprints. Five dollars gets you a hundred if we find a Jean Leno in Bowler’s Wharf.”
“That’s a bet I’m not taking. Not now.”
“Was this Carla good-looking?”
“She never made much effort, but anyone would consider her really beautiful. Dark-skinned, black hair, slim with amazingly long legs. A lot of the guys could hardly take their eyes off her.”
“How about Matt?”
“Especially Matt.”
Detective Segel looked up. “Did she go out with him?”
“I don’t think so. I heard a couple of the guys joshing him a few days ago. You know, saying it was sad, a man of his stature getting blown off by the barmaid. So I guess she refused to go out with him.”
“Look, Jim, I’ve known Matt for years,” said Joe. “So have you. But I’ve learned you never really know everything about a person. You don’t think Matt attacked her, do you? Or tried to? And Miss Martin stabbed him to fend him off.”
“Matt!” The hotel manager was incredulous. “Hell, no. There wasn’t a shred of malice in him. He was a big soft puppy.”
“It might seem that way,” said Joe. “But he didn’t get that Porsche by being a big soft puppy.”
“He probably hadn’t paid for it,” chuckled Jim Caborn.
“Yes, he had.”
“How do you know?”
“We checked. This morning.”
“So where does that leave us?”
“It leaves us with one very large missing piece. Because everything any detective could want to find out about Matt Barker is right there on the table. We know his friends, his acquaintances, his customers, his relatives. I doubt there’s a suspect among them. They all live right around here.”
“And Carla’s the missing piece?”
“She sure as hell is. And what, Jim Caborn, was said by the greatest detective who ever lived?”
“You got me.”
“When you have eliminated the impossible, only the truth remains. Sherlock Holmes.”
“So what happens now? A nationwide manhunt for my barmaid?”
“I wouldn’t go that far. But we sure as hell need to find her. And I’ve got a real strong feeling the lady ain’t coming to work.”
The Aer Lingus Airbus had completed its short stopover in the sprawling international airport of Shannon, which was for many years the first transatlantic refueling stop for every passenger aircraft incoming to Europe from the United States and Canada.
Even today it’s a favorite departure point for thousands of Americans wishing to visit Ireland’s great southwestern beauty spots-the Ring of Kerry, the Lakes of Killarney, and the coastline of West Cork. Which is why Aer Lingus flights from the United States stop there every day on the way to Dublin. And why an exhausted Shakira Rashood was sitting by the starboard-side window, almost alone, in first class, as the half-empty aircraft taxied to the end of the dark Shannon runway.
She glanced at her watch, which was still on American time, five hours back. “Twenty-five minutes late for work,” she murmured. “I wonder if they’ve missed me yet.”
The wind was gusting out of the southwest tonight, directly off the Atlantic, and they took off in that direction. The lightly loaded Airbus climbed steeply away from the airport peninsula at the head of the Shannon estuary and swung hard right over Ireland’s greatest river.
It was just a short twenty-minute flight to Dublin, straight across the lonely heart of the Emerald Isle. They would scarcely fly over any towns. After crossing Lough Derg, their route would take them only above an endless dark green patchwork of fields.
Shakira was awakened after perhaps ten minutes of sleep, when the captain told the passengers he was beginning the descent into Dublin airport. Eight minutes later, they were on the ground. And Shakira’s nerves began to tighten.
As a first-class passenger, she was among the first to disembark from the aircraft, and she walked briskly to the passport control booth. There were only two officers on duty, and both of them gave the impression they could think of better things to do at this late hour on a Tuesday evening.
She handed over her perfectly forged copy of Maureen Carson’s passport. The officer opened it and put a large green port-of-entry stamp on one of the pages. He looked at her, smiled broadly, and said, “Welcome to Ireland. Have a nice stay here.” Shakira wondered whether he said that to everyone, and decided, on reflection, he probably did. As usual, she tried not to think of these people as part of the Great Satan.
The baggage area was quiet, and she walked through the green nothing-to-declare area, which was totally deserted. She did think this was strange, not being attuned, as yet, to that crystal-clear Irish logic, which reasoned: Now, what would be the point of putting a customs team in there when no one has anything to declare?
Shakira climbed into a taxi and asked the driver to take her to the Shelbourne Hotel. However, when they arrived in St. Stephen’s Green half an hour later, she realized she had no Irish currency. No euros. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she said. “Please wait. I expect the hotel will change me some American dollars.”
“Ah, Jesus,” he said, “don’t be worrying yourself. I’ll take ’em-it’s twenty-eight euros. The dollar’s about one and a half. Say forty-two bucks.”
Shakira gave him a $50 bill and said, “Keep the change, and thank you.”
“Ah, you’re a Christian,” he replied in the Irish idiom, grinning broadly, delighted with his tip, and certainly not realizing how utterly wrong was his statement.
The doorman took her bag, and she checked in. The Shelbourne is an innately Irish hotel, its bars the favorite watering holes for generations of Dublin’s scholars, poets, and businessmen, from Brendan Behan on down. They mostly don’t have any nonsense with passports, especially for their American clients.
And they never even asked for Shakira’s. “Just a quick swipe of your American Express card, and it’s fine,” said the desk clerk. “Niall, over there, will take your bag up, room 250, enjoy your stay. Anything you need, just pick up the phone.”
No, it couldn’t be possible. These cheerful, welcoming people could not be part of the Great Satan’s world domination. She would forbid Ravi and his men to make any kind of attack on any Irishmen, anywhere.
She unpacked some of her suitcase and hung a few things up. Then she took a long, luxurious bath in deep fragrant water and climbed gratefully into bed. Shakira had had little sleep, indeed she had not even been in a bed since eight o’clock on Monday morning. And now it was midnight Tuesday.
She relaxed on her pillow, worked out that it was 7 P.M. in Brockhurst, Virginia. They’ve probably missed me by now, she thought. But I still doubt they’ll connect me with the death of Matt Barker.
Like the cab driver’s, that was another truly astounding misjudgment.
Four state police cruisers were parked on the main street of the little village on the banks of the Rappahannock. House by house, the troopers banged on doors, asked if there was a Mrs. Jean Leno in residence, asking if anyone knew of a Jean Leno in residence, finally asking if anyone had ever even heard of a Jean Leno in all of their lives.
The answer was negative, to all three questions. Jim Caborn’s shrewd decision not to risk his five dollars betting with Joe Segel was looking better by the minute. The troopers’ secondary question was whether a very beautiful woman, in her late twenties, name of Carla Martin, had been living in the village for the past couple of weeks, going to work in a small car in the late afternoon.
That last one elicited a veritable salvo of completely blank stares. No Jean. No Carla. No luck. The young lady had flown the coop. Detective Segel had a photo-artist identity kit prepared by two police artists, who were guided by Jim Caborn and one of Matt Barker’s buddies. And, in truth, they came up with a pretty fair likeness of Shakira Rashood.
Segel ordered hundreds of “wanted” posters to be distributed all over the area. Hell, someone must have seen her. No one can just disappear off the face of the earth. And what I really need to know is where did she live. She must have lived somewhere. And somewhere close. And someone must have seen her.
At 7:30 P.M., he held a press conference at the Brockhurst Police Department, having tempted the broadcasters and journalists by announcing that the police were treating the death of a local man, Mr. Matt Barker, as murder.
This is not absolutely unusual when a body is found with a dagger jutting out of its chest. But the word “murder” has a shock-value ring to it, particularly when the media does not even realize there has been a death, never mind a homicide.
Detective Segel had deliberately withheld the announcement all through the day, since he did not want small afternoon newspapers running away with the story. He wanted blanket coverage, big dailies, network newscasts, wall-to-wall radio bulletins. Lights, cameras, music. Detective Segel wanted The Big Show. Because he believed that was the way to nail Miss Carla Martin. He believed someone would come forward with information about the vanishing Estuary Killer.
His judgment in the first part was excellent. The idea of a middle-class, well-to-do, Porsche-driving proprietor of a garage being stabbed to death in the parking lot of the local hotel was very appealing to those who essentially make a lavish living out of other people’s misfortunes.
And journalists drew a careful bead on the tiny township of Brockhurst. The first to arrive were the camera crews and presenters from the big 24-hour news networks, CNN and Fox. Both of them have running news programs, all day and night; and a story like this, a classic whodunnit, would keep them topical for at least two days, maybe four.
Reporters from the three main Washington newspapers, the Post, the Star, and the Journal, came down in a shared helicopter. CBS thought it worthwhile to send a full camera crew down, plus presenters, in a truck the size of the Pentagon.
NBC thought it was a good story, but was happy to rely on stringers and a local camera crew. ABC sent no one, but E-mailed a local reporter and told him to keep them posted. The newspapers from Richmond and Norfolk, both situated around fifty miles from Brockhurst, sent in reporters and photographers.
And there were about a dozen representatives from local weeklies based around the Rappahannock River and Chesapeake Bay area. And the same number of radio reporters, five of them local and five down from Washington. It was, without doubt, the biggest assembly of media personnel ever seen in Brockhurst. The whole town was talking about it, and, within a couple of hours, the name Matt Barker would be heard more often than that of the President of the United States. There’s one thing about meeting a violent death. It really gets your name out there.
Detective Joe Segel started the proceedings by announcing the fact that Mr. Matthew Barker, a well-known member of the local community for many years, had been found dead outside the Estuary Hotel this morning. He was thirty-four. A jeweled dagger was protruding from his chest. It had been driven into his heart, right up to the hilt, and death had occurred at around midnight.
He added that no one had been arrested, but that a friend of Mr. Barker’s, the barmaid at the Estuary Hotel, Miss Carla Martin, was almost certainly the last person to see him alive, and had mysteriously vanished.
There was available to the media an excellent identity-kit picture, a very close likeness of Carla, which reporters could pick up from the table at the back of the room. Before taking any questions, Detective Joe Segel said, “We are extremely interested in speaking to this lady, because we believe she may be able to assist us with our inquiries.”
Does this mean we got a murder hunt right here?
“Well, not precisely, because we really do not have any evidence whatsoever against Miss Carla Martin. But she was most certainly the last person seen speaking to him before he left the bar. And she may have seen him again in the parking lot of the hotel when she left. Mr. Barker’s body was found at the street end of the parking lot.”
How long after he left did Carla exit the bar?
“We believe twenty minutes maximum.”
Was she in love with him? You know, were they going out together?
“So far the answer to that is a very definite no. According to his close friends, Mr. Barker had asked her out, but she always refused.”
Where did Carla live? In the hotel?
“Good question. She did not live in the hotel, and it appears that she removed her identity card from the manager’s file. We thus have absolutely no idea where she lived. But it must have been quite near. She came to work every day, right?”
When did she quit her job?
“She never did. She just failed to show up today. She was due to start at 5 P.M. What is it now? Eight o’clock? And she’s never been late before. Don’t hold your breath.”
Pretty suspicious, right?
“Pretty suspicious,” agreed Joe Segel. “But that does not mean she murdered him.”
A lot of people wouldn’t agree with that. This is a murder hunt, sir. You must know that.
“No, it’s not. She may have just fled because of something she saw out there in the parking lot and did not wish to get involved, for whatever reason. And even if she did kill him, it may have been self-defense. We don’t know that he didn’t attack her. He was a big man, and his fly was undone.”
Jesus Christ, Joe. You mean the whole world could see his pecker?
“Well, only the members of the world who happened to be walking past the western end of the Estuary Hotel parking lot, right after first light today.”
You think he had tried to sexually assault Carla?
“Well, I wouldn’t rule it out. But this entire case rests on us finding Carla Martin. And I want you to help us get that done.”
A few members of the press corps nodded their assent and asked for more details about Matt Barker’s home and relatives. A couple of them wanted to know a lot more about the sex side of the case. And Joe told them he would be happy to see members of the media privately in his office any time during the next hour.
He knew the value of the publicity the case would receive from this. And he knew the value of that kind of exposure. Not Matt’s kind. And he was not about to discuss the Barker Pecker again, not in front of a mixed audience.
As it happened, there were enough journalists asking questions to keep Detective Segel busy for another hour and a half, at which point he called an end to the evening’s proceedings. He turned out his office light, locked the door, and walked briskly up the road to the Estuary Hotel for a nightcap, as he often did.
But when he opened the front door, the journalists were packed in there, most of them staying, all of them trying to obtain interviews from locals, as they prepared to hit the world with:
VIRGINIA TOWN IN SHOCK AT COLD-BLOODED MURDER State Police Launch Dragnet in Hunt for Mystery Woman
Detective Joe Segel retreated toward home. He had answered quite enough questions for one day. And with a major media outburst scheduled in the next few hours, he needed to be up early.
Nonetheless, Joe walked rather disconsolately home, knowing he would be greeted by an equally disconsolate wife, Joanne, who would tell him she could hardly remember what he looked like, the way she always did when he was involved in a major case.
Joe, who was forty-six, had married late in life, and Joanne, who was much younger, in her late twenties, was already showing signs of exasperation as the wife of a police officer. She had given up preparing a late dinner long ago.
And there would be questions about this Mystery Woman, he knew that. Which was why he had stopped off for a drink at the Estuary. To get away from it all, just for an hour. To tell the truth, Joe was pretty fed up with the Mystery Woman himself. Where the hell was she? Still, he had a good chance of some answers tomorrow.
At the time, the Mystery Woman was dead to the world, sound asleep in a luxury room, four thousand miles away, in Dublin ’s Shelbourne Hotel. She was beyond the dragnet, perhaps beyond the law, exactly the way she had planned it. The Virginia police did not even know her name.
The late-night news bulletins on American television were full of it. The story had “more legs” than anyone realized, especially the bit about the Barker Pecker. By 10:30 P.M. on the East Coast, Detective Joe Segel’s name was a household word, more or less.
The Fox Channel led with it. The newscaster, filmed standing outside the Estuary Hotel, announced: “This was the sex attack that went violently wrong. Right here in this rather sleepy little town, way down on the Rappahannock River, a highly regarded local businessman was found dead this morning with a jeweled dagger jutting from his chest.
“He was in a state of disarray, and police believe, judging by his condition, he had been involved in some kind of sexual assault on another person.
“He was found in the parking lot of the Estuary Hotel in the town of Brockhurst, Virginia, and police say he was killed around midnight. Right now there is only one suspect, the beautiful barmaid from the hotel, Carla Martin.
“The dead man, Mr. Matt Barker, owner of a local garage, had been drinking there during the evening, and was believed to have asked Miss Martin out, but she refused. The two left the bar twenty minutes apart, and Miss Martin, say police, has vanished, leaving a perfectly ordinary little American country town in a state of shock.”
At this point, the newscast switched to interviews, showing footage of the detective in charge of the crime, Joe Segel, stressing the importance of finding Miss Martin, who, he said, had taken a great deal of trouble in covering her tracks.
Then they went to one of Matt Barker’s friends, Herb the photographer, who was unable to shed one scrap of light on the reason for Matt’s death, or indeed the whereabouts of Carla.
The next lady had been saved by the news producers for the big payoff line. Mrs. Price, the hotel cleaning lady who had first discovered the body, said, “Well, it gave me a very nasty shock, I can tell you. Matt Barker lying there with that big thing sticking out of him.”
Mrs. Price, I assume you mean the dagger?
“Nossir. I do not mean the dagger.”
Cut to studio. Smiling anchors, serious man, dazzling blonde. Really great television. Half the country was rolling about laughing. That’s what it’s all about, right? Leave ’ em laughing. Even in the middle of a murder hunt.
The morning newspapers tackled the Brockhurst killing boldly. The Washington Post made it the second lead on the front page under the headline:
MURDER MYSTERY STUNS VIRGINIA TOWN Police Seek Vanished Barmaid.
Other publications were more lurid. One of the tabloids came up with:
SEX-CRAZED GARAGE MAN MURDERED BY BARMAID
Another went with:
SEX BRAWL IN HOTEL PARKING LOT ENDS IN DEATH
So far as Joe Segel was concerned, the only thing that mattered was that they all carried the identity picture of Carla Martin. And they all stressed the importance of locating the Mystery Woman. Joe hoped that by lunchtime they would have some serious leads. This was the kind of high-profile local murder that could not be allowed to go unsolved.
It was Wednesday, July 4, a national holiday, but murder hunts do not stop for those. Joe had set up a reception desk with three operators drafted in from another town to take the calls. And there were calls, dozens of them. But they were geographically hopeless. Joe had drawn a large circle on his wall map of the area, a sixty-mile diameter, with the town in the middle. That’s thirty miles in any direction.
Almost all the calls named or identified suspects outside the murder zone, places too distant for Carla to have made it to work every day. She had stated to Jim Caborn that she wanted to live in or near Brockhurst. And in Joe Segel’s opinion, that absolutely ruled out anyone more than thirty miles away.
There were leads that needed to be followed, but Joe’s policeman’s instincts, honed by a lifetime in the force, were telling him they were not yet on the right track. At least they were telling him that until the phone rang for him personally, and Mrs. Emily Gallagher informed him that she would very much like to see him at her house, something concerning Matt Barker’s murder.
Mrs. Gallagher was a lady who commanded enormous respect in the area, with which she had a lifelong family association. There were also those who knew her daughter was married to one of the most important men in America. Joe Segel was rather proud she had called him, and he asked one of his team to drive him immediately to her house and wait.
When he arrived, Mrs. Gallagher had recovered her decorum, having almost been pulled into the Rappahannock by Charlie an hour before. She had made some coffee, and now she was ready to talk to Joe about the pretty dark-haired girl who had suddenly vanished from her life, as thoroughly as she had from Joe’s.
The detective listened wide-eyed to Mrs. Gallagher, who swiftly established that she knew more about Carla Martin than anyone else he had spoken to. Admiral Morgan’s mother-in-law recalled a conversation in which Carla had mentioned her “apartment,” and once her “doorman.”
She also had a fleeting suspicion that Carla either may have been foreign or had lived abroad for a long time. She had never forgotten that sentence “I give you one little piece, if you behave.” Future conditional. The mistake of a foreigner. Joe Segel really liked that.
Emily also recalled once asking what Carla had been doing on such a fine day, and she had mentioned that she just sat on her balcony and read some magazines. Apartment, doorman, balcony. Vital observations, not because they led to anything specific, but because they ruled out so much.
But the key point Mrs. Gallagher raised was the conversation she had in the hotel, possibly an hour before the killing. “That Matt Barker was harassing Carla,” she said. “I saw him, and I heard him. I told her to be careful, he was entirely the wrong type of person for her to go out with.”
“Careful, Emily,” said Joe. “He was successful, well-liked. And he did drive a Porsche.”
“He also had some very rough edges, entirely inappropriate for my friend Carla,” she replied. “I just hope this is all sorted out soon. And that she can come back to help me with Charlie and Kipper.”
“Who’s Kipper?” asked Joe.
“Oh, he’s my daughter’s spaniel. She and Arnold are going to Europe for three weeks, and I’m in charge of the dog.”
Joe smiled. He really liked Mrs. Gallagher, and he asked her once more, “You really have no idea where she lived?”
“Absolutely none. But it could not have been very far away. She was always on time, and I presumed she left her car in the parking lot at the hotel. But I never saw it. Not here. She always walked.”
So far as Joe was concerned, the mystery, if anything, deepened. And Mrs. Gallagher should have been a detective. He was grateful to her, and interested in how genuinely surprised she was that Carla had left without a word.
Lt. Commander Jimmy Ramshawe was on duty. His boss, the director, Admiral George Morris, had been away since the previous weekend, visiting his son in New York. He would not be back until tomorrow morning.
This left Jimmy at the helm. The agency had many more senior officials in residence, commanders, captains, admirals, colonels, and brigadier generals. But Ramshawe had the ear of the mighty, and everyone knew it. He punched far above his weight in his job as assistant to Admiral Morris, thanks in no small way to his known friendship with the Great One, Admiral Arnold Morgan.
Everyone kept Jimmy posted, willingly and without rancor. Admiral Morris trusted him implicitly. If you wanted to get something urgent done, in any department, have a chat with young Jimmy. Everyone knew that rule. Indeed, most everyone believed that one day Admiral-or at least Captain-Ramshawe would occupy the Big Chair. Admiral Morgan said his protégé was the most natural-born intelligence officer he had ever met.
The downside, of course, for one so respected, was you had to work on national holidays. Jimmy’s fiancée, Jane Peacock, the Aussie ambassador’s daughter, was particularly peeved because she had wanted to dazzle the local populace of Chesapeake Beach on her surfboard, Bondi beach goddess that she was. But Jimmy swore to God he’d be at her house for dinner by 7:30 P.M.
Meantime, he had spent the morning catching up on the foreign papers. He never got to the local ones until quite late, and even then concentrated principally on overseas news.
However, the Estuary Killer was crowding in on him, since it was mentioned on all the front pages and he had heard mention of it on television news. He picked up the Washington Post and could scarcely miss the second lead, accompanied as it was by a large photo-artist identity of Carla Martin and a photograph of Matt Barker.
“Hello,” he muttered to himself. “Here’s the bloke who died with his pecker out.” He recalled the cleaning lady mentioning that it was jutting out there, large as life.
But it was not the pecker that arrested Jimmy’s attention. It was the dagger, which he thought sounded extremely old-fashioned. You just don’t hear it much, that’s all. You hear about knife crime, and stabbings, but you don’t hear about daggers. Except in Macbeth, or Julius Caesar-“Is this a pecker I see before me?”
Jimmy chuckled, floored by his own amazing humor. But he was taken by the jeweled dagger, taken by its off-key presence and by its suggestion of the Middle East, like something out of Arabian Nights or the Crusades. I don’t care what anyone says, he mused. There’s no daggers in 21st-century Virginia. Guns, yes. Knives, yes. Maybe even bombs. But no daggers. And that’s final.
Jimmy read on. And then he stopped dead. Brockhurst, now where the hell’s that? And where have I heard the name before? It’s too familiar. Someone has mentioned that town before.
He poured himself a cup of hot coffee and tried to concentrate. Then he went to his computer database, hit search mode, and punched in Brockhurst. Nothing. He’d never filed anything that included that name before. He called Jane, and she could not even remember hearing the name.
“See you later,” he said. “Call me if you remember anything.”
“Don’t be late,” she replied, archly.
He summoned up a big computerized wall map and searched for Brockhurst. Found it in the middle of nowhere, and confessed himself more baffled than he was before. Jesus, that place is in the bloody outback, he confirmed to no one in particular. I just can’t remember where or why I ever heard that name before. But I did.
He glanced through the paper to check whether anything truly diabolical had happened, and was glad to see nothing had. Iraq was quiet, Afghanistan was quiet, and Iran for once was behaving itself. The right-wing French president was threatening to quit the European Union, and the Brits were running out of North Sea oil, probably going broke with their massive welfare programs and no resources.
Then he had a brainwave. He called Jane and checked whether they had the embassy to themselves tonight, and, if they had, would she object to asking Arnold and Kathy to join them for dinner?
“Well, Mum and Dad are going out, and we do have the staff on duty. I don’t really have a problem with inviting them. Do you want me to call Kathy?”
“They probably can’t come,” said Jimmy. “But we’ve been to at least three really expensive restaurants with them lately, and it would be a good chance to repay something. You know Arnold always pays.”
“Okay. I’ll call. Will he be all right with Aussie wine?”
“I doubt it. He’ll call it grape juice. If they’re on, call me and I’ll try to do something.”
Brockhurst. The word was revolving around in Jimmy’s mind. He sat quietly and racked his brains. And suddenly, thinking of Arnold’s predictable reaction to Australian Shiraz, it hit him.
“It’s Kathy’s mum! I got it. That’s where she lives. I’ve seen a photograph of her house there. A picture of Kathy with two dogs, a big golden retriever and Kipper. That’s where Kathy goes when she visits.”
Jim was proud of that. He rewarded himself with a fresh cup of coffee and sat for a few moments pondering the world. He picked up the Post and read the story in more detail. Beyond the Pecker, as it were.
And he read with immense awareness of the hunt for the missing barmaid. Dark, beautiful, may have been the victim of a sex attack, covered her tracks and vanished. No other suspects.
He read some other newspapers. He read all the accounts and assessed the many facts that were spread out before him. And as the afternoon wore on, he came up with one question, as he so often did when trying to solve something: what was this Middle East weapon doing rammed into someone’s body, two hundred yards from Kathy’s mum’s house?
Did he like it? Absolutely not. And he cast his mind back to that big story in the Post, three or four months ago, the one that had painted Admiral Morgan as the archenemy of all Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
Here we have a new situation, he pondered. From right out of the wide blue yonder, we have the first murder in a hundred years in the town of Brockhurst, Virginia, international crossroads to nowhere. The crime was committed with an obvious Middle East weapon, a jewel-encrusted dagger, which, from the photos, looks like it belonged to Abdul the Turk or someone.
But it bloody didn’t, did it? It belonged to someone in Brockhurst, visiting or resident. Now what the hell’s a resident of a nice Virginia community doing with something like that? And then stabbing a bloke to death right down the road from the mother-in-law of the jihadists’ number one enemy. Don’t understand it. But I don’t like it.
Jane called back. “Arnold and Kathy can’t come. They’re going to the Bedfords’.”
“Well, at least we tried.”
“And we might have to try harder,” added Jane. “They’re going on vacation in three weeks for most of August. Kipper’s going to Virginia.”
“Okay, see you later,” said Jimmy.
Right now, it seemed to him, the local police detective was certain that this Mystery Woman had probably committed the crime, stabbed this Barker character for whatever reason. And Jimmy was inclined to go along with that, because people do not make really elaborate plans to remain anonymous, cover up every one of their tracks, and then leave the area. Not without they were bloody well up to something.
For Jimmy, that Middle Eastern dagger was critical. Because it had “jihadist” written all over it. He sipped his coffee and frowned. And he decided, then and there, that he would take a drive down to Brockhurst early tomorrow morning, try to get his facts in a row. Right now he would call Arnold, set out his suspicions, and then ask if it would be okay for him and Jane to visit Kathy’s mum while they were in the area.
He would mention to the admiral what a coincidence it was that they were headed down to the Brockhurst area on an entirely separate matter. But he understood with unerring certainty that there was about as much chance of Arnold believing that coincidence as there was of Copernicus joining the Flat Earth Society.
He picked up the phone and dialed the admiral’s number. Arnold answered in person and immediately said how sorry he was they could not join Jimmy and Jane at the embassy. But then he paused, as if sensing that Jimmy was all business tonight.
“What’s on your mind, kid?” he asked, flatly.
“Well, it’s about that murder down in Brockhurst,” he began-
“Guy with the pecker and the dagger?” interrupted Arnold.
“That’s him,” said Jimmy, aware that the admiral’s voice betrayed impatience with a very large capital “I.” “And don’t you think it’s kind of strange that some Arab murderer, a professional by the look of it, should be plying his trade a half mile from Kathy’s mum’s house?”
“Two things, Jimmy. One, the newspapers think the murderer was probably a girl. Two, the fact that the dagger was made in the Middle East does not mean it was being wielded by an Arab. Could have been used by a fucking Eskimo, for chrissakes. Ramshawe, you’re getting paranoid.”
“It’s my job to be paranoid.”
“Jimmy, right now there’s no connection whatsoever between this barmaid and the murder, except they left the hotel within twenty minutes of each other. But let’s say she did kill him, by accident if you like; then, so what? She didn’t kill Kathy’s mom, did she? She didn’t go to live in Brockhurst for that, did she?”
“Then why did she go to live in Brockhurst?”
“Christ knows, old buddy. It’s all a bit far-fetched for me. Coincidences. Disjointed, unconnected facts.”
“Anyway, Arnie, the real purpose of my call was to ask you if it would be okay for Jane and me to visit Mrs. Gallagher while we’re in the area tomorrow.”
“’Course it would be fine. But what the hell are you two doing in the area?”
“Oh, Jane’s got some kind of art project down on the estuary, you know, teaming up with a few other students in the wetlands.”
“Yeah, right,” said Arnold, and hung up the phone.
Jimmy chuckled. “Cunning old bastard,” he muttered to himself. “But he’s being a bit bloody hasty on this one. I’m not done with it yet. Not by a good long way.”
Jimmy’s evening at the Australian embassy passed with its customary luxury, the white-jacketed butler serving dinner to Jane and her fiancé as if Jimmy were the ambassador himself. The following morning they set off at 8 A.M., down Interstate 95 to Fredericksburg, and then to Route 17, which followed the Rappahannock River all the way to its estuary and the little town of Brockhurst.
Jimmy and Jane parked his Jaguar behind the Estuary Hotel, not twenty-five yards from where someone had rammed an Arabian dagger into the heart of Matt Barker. Jimmy walked to the end of the parking lot. There was an obvious bloodstain on the wall and on the concrete surface of the area. They walked in through the rear door of the hotel and inquired if they were too late for breakfast. The manager smiled and said, “Go through to the dining room and we’ll fix you up.”
It was almost 11 A.M. when Jimmy ordered eggs, bacon, sausage, and toast. Jane settled for cereal, yogurt, and fresh fruit salad. They were sitting in companionable silence when Jimmy stood up and walked through to the hotel foyer and spoke to the manager.
“Sir, are you Mr. Jim Caborn?”
“That’s me.”
Jimmy offered his hand and said quietly, “I’m Lt. Commander Ramshawe, National Security Agency. Could you find time to join me in the dining room? There’s a couple of things I’d like to discuss.”
The hotel manager looked suitably impressed at the mention of America’s most secret intelligence agency. “Why, certainly, Commander. I’ll be right in.” Jimmy returned to Jane, and Caborn came in and pulled up a chair and sat with them. He was a naturally friendly man, and he poured himself a cup of coffee.
“I’ll get some fresh if we need it,” he said, and offered his own right hand to Jane Peacock with the practiced aplomb of all hotel managers. “Glad to meet you, ma’am,” he said.
She shook his hand and replied, in the unmistakable style of a true Australian, “G’day, Jim. Nice little place you’ve got here.”
The hotel manager grinned and said: “Now what would a high-ranking young officer from the National Security Agency be doing down here-as if I didn’t know. It’s Carla, isn’t it?”
“Of course it is,” replied Jimmy. “And I want you to answer my questions with great care.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his identification pass, which allowed him to enter, every day and any night, the innermost sanctum of the front line of America’s military security.
Jim Caborn gave it a cursory glance and handed it back. “I don’t need to see that,” he said. “If the hotel business teaches you one thing, it’s to spot genuine. I knew you were on the level, first time I saw you.”
“Did you feel that way about Carla Martin?” asked the commander.
“Well, she had an American passport and all the right references. But there was something about her-she was kind of a mystery. I never felt I knew one thing about her background.”
“Did you ever think she might be foreign?”
“Not consciously. But now you mention it, she did sometimes say things kind of strangely. You know, like a French person-fluent in English, but sometimes saying things not quite the way we would.”
Jimmy nodded. “I guess you never knew where she lived?”
“No. I never did. No one did. Still don’t.”
“Do you think she murdered Matt Barker?”
“Jesus, I’ve always found that darned near impossible to grasp. She was a very nice girl, educated, polite, and very efficient. But I guess you have to consider, she covered her tracks and vanished the night of the murder. Never been seen since.”
“You have no documents or records of her?”
“Hell, no. Either she or someone else cleaned out her file. We have absolutely nothing to show that she ever existed.”
“Very professional,” murmured Jimmy.
The manager looked at him quizzically. “Professional?” he said. “I’d say more like cunning.”
“We’re in different trades, mate,” replied Ramshawe.
They finished their coffee, paid the bill, and said their good-byes; but as Jimmy and Jane walked across the parking lot, she turned and said, “Jesus, Jim, there were a whole lot more questions I could have asked him.”
“I’m not trying to solve this murder,” he replied. “I’m trying to identify Miss Carla Martin, nothing else. I don’t give a flying fuck about Matt Barker or his death.”
“Well, where are we going now?”
“We’re going to the police station, mostly because I want to have a look at that dagger.”
They’d driven past Detective Segel’s office on the way to the hotel, and now they strolled through the warm summer morning, leaving the car parked behind the hotel.
Both of them wore light blue jeans and loafers. Jane had on a crisp white shirt, and Jimmy a dark blue short-sleeved polo shirt. His shock of floppy dark hair, which so irritated the crewcut Admiral Morris, blew in the light wind. As did Jane’s spectacular blonde mane, bleached all through her teenage years by the hot sun that warmed Sydney’s Bondi Beach. They were, by any standard, a striking couple.
When they reached the police station, Jane said she’d rather wander down to the wide river, and Jimmy walked alone to the duty officer’s desk. He asked to see Detective Joe Segel, whose name he had read in the newspaper as the man leading the murder inquiry.
His NSA identification dispensed with any waiting. Within one minute, Lieutenant Commander Ramshawe was shown into the office of Brockhurst’s top investigator. They exchanged greetings, but Jimmy was aware of the natural reserve all local law officers display in the presence of officials from the FBI, the CIA, or, even more sinister, the National Security Agency.
Detective Segel smiled. “And to what do we owe this great honor?” he asked.
“Oh, nothing much,” said Jimmy, cheerfully. “I was just trying to get a handle on this vanished Carla Martin. Tell the truth, we think she might be foreign, and we’d very much like to know precisely what she was up to, working here in this small Virginia town.”
“But what caused you to care so much, you drove personally all the way down here? Your card says you’re the assistant to the director.”
“Two things, Joe,” replied Jimmy, slipping easily into the naturally casual way of the Aussie. “One, Miss Martin apparently took a great amount of trouble removing every trace of identification at the hotel. I’m assuming the murder of Matt Barker was a sudden and bloody inconvenient occurrence, and merely hastened her departure. Like no one thinks she came down here just to murder Matt.
“Two, that dagger was Middle Eastern in origin, and America’s most important terrorist hunter, Admiral Arnold Morgan, just happens to have a mother-in-law who lives right here in this town. I guess a few hundred yards from where Carla Martin worked so anonymously. We don’t like the coincidence.”
“Stated like that, I’m not sure I do either,” replied Detective Segel. “I do, of course, know Emily Gallagher. And I have, of course, had a chat with her about Carla Martin. I’ve spoken to most people in the area, especially those who frequent the Estuary Hotel. But I’ll admit that it had not occurred to me that Mrs. Gallagher was the prime reason for Carla’s presence right here in Brockhurst.”
“Different mindset, old mate,” said Jimmy. “You’re trying to solve a murder. I’m looking at the possibility of a future attempt on the admiral’s life. Although I’ve kept that one to myself. And I sure as hell haven’t told the admiral!”
Detective Segel laughed. “Good idea,” he said. “Might make him nervous.”
“Not him,” said Jimmy. “He’d just laugh and say he wasn’t sufficiently important for that. But even he’d know that was pure bullshit.”
Detective Segel frowned. “You mean Carla Martin was here as a kind of jihadist outrider, trying to find out the future movements of Admiral Morgan and his wife?”
“I think she might have been. But first, could you and I have a look at the murder weapon?”
“It’s right here… let me give you a pair of rubber gloves to handle it with. The forensic guys might want to look at it again.”
Jimmy pulled on the gloves and removed the dagger from the plastic evidence bag. He pulled a small folding printmaker’s glass from his pocket, and he stared hard at the area where the blade joined the handle. And there he saw what he had come for. A small mark, perhaps a hieroglyphic, possibly Arabic writing, no more than a half inch long. It began with a shape like a small letter “a” with two dots above and below, then two curves like a “j” and then a “9,” finally a “w.”
Jimmy pulled a small white card from his pocket. It contained an alphabetical list of fourteen Middle Eastern countries, from Bahrain through Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and Jordan to Yemen. Next to the name of each country was the Arab translation. The markings on the dagger fitted precisely the country listed eleventh from the top, Syria.
“Well, Joe,” said the commander, “at least we know where the murder weapon was made.”
“Does that help?”
“Not much. But it might. Especially if your Carla Martin made her way here from Damascus and tucked this little devil right here in her suitcase.”
“You think she might have?”
“If she did, I’m rapidly losing interest.”
“How come?”
“Joe, at the National Security Agency, we only look for very big fish. If this barmaid took a chance and stuffed that dagger into her luggage, running the risk of a U.S. airport security man finding it… well, that would not be the action of a professional. A true terrorist agent would never do that, because for them, discovery is unthinkable. If you find her, which I doubt, make sure you find out where she got that dagger.”
Detective Segel nodded thoughtfully. “If indeed it was hers,” he said. “You are not interested in the murder, are you?” he said.
“No, I just want to know who Carla Martin really is, where she came from, and what her purpose was here in Brockhurst.”
“A pretty tall order, right? Where’s your next stop? Mrs. Gallagher?”
“Correct,” said Jimmy. “We’re friends of the family, and I do not believe the sole reason for Carla coming here was to murder this somewhat insignificant garage owner. And I don’t need to tell you how important it is for you to keep us informed, the moment you find her.”
“If we find her.”
Jimmy stood up and handed the Brockhurst detective a card with his name and phone numbers written on it. “Any time of the day or night, Joe. This could be a whole lot more important than you think it is.”
“Give my regards to Mrs. Gallagher.”
The two men shook hands and Jimmy walked out into the sunlight, where Jane was peering through the window of the local sports shop. Three minutes later, they were approaching the front gate of Mrs. Gallagher’s house, where the golden retriever Charlie was prostrate on the front stoop of the tall white colonial.
The front door opened, and Emily Gallagher stepped outside and welcomed them warmly, telling them Kathy had called and that she was delighted they had come to see her. Without further ceremony, she asked them to come inside for some iced tea and for a conversation about the missing Carla Martin, which she was certain they had hoped for.
Jimmy and Jane sat through the preliminaries-the possibility that Carla might be foreign, her politeness, her reliability, and the utter unsuitability, as an escort, of the late Matt Barker. Finally, on his second glass of iced tea, Jimmy ventured to ask whether Emily had told Carla when Arnold and Kathy were leaving for vacation.
“Well, I suppose I must have,” replied Mrs. Gallagher. “I had to tell her when the two dogs needed walking, and I am sure I mentioned the precise day when Kipper was due to arrive. That’s about three weeks from now.”
“Mrs. Gallagher, did you tell her where Arnold and Kathy were going?”
“Not very accurately, because I don’t really know myself. But I think I told her Kathy was coming here first, and then driving back to Washington, for the evening flight to London with Arnold.”
“You didn’t mention the airline, did you?”
“Certainly not. I don’t know it. But I did suggest that Carla might like to come over around noon, to have lunch with Kathy and myself and acquaint herself with Kipper, who is very slightly crazier than Charlie.”
“Did you give her any further details of their stay in London?” asked Jimmy.
“I’m sure not.”
“Do you know where they’re staying?”
“I expect the Ritz in Piccadilly,” she replied. “Arnold always stays there; says he likes the tea they serve in the Palm Court.”
“Did you mention that to Carla…?”
“You know, I think I must have. I seem to remember her saying something about cucumber-and-marmite sandwiches, her favorite, that she and an English army officer she once knew always went there for tea, as a special treat.”
“Jesus Christ!” said Jimmy.
“I’m sorry?” replied Arnold’s mother-in-law.
“Oh, nothing, Mrs. Gallagher. I was just remembering I stayed there once myself, with my dad. I was only about fourteen years old, but I remember those sandwiches.”
Emily laughed and wished she could have been more helpful. Her parting words to Jimmy and Jane were “Quite frankly, I hope Carla turns up. She was such a very nice girl. And so good with Charlie.”