A Quiet Vendetta (73 page)

A hint of a smile from Perez, and then he closed his eyes for just a moment. He leaned forward, ground out his cigarette, and reached for another.

‘They will seek the death penalty, you know.’

‘I know they will,’ Perez said, ‘but I am sure there will be many years of appeals and wrangling between the lawyers, and before they ever get to preparing my lethal injection I will die of old age.’ He drew on his cigarette; tendrils of smoke crept from his nostrils.

‘And now?’ Hartmann asked.

‘Now I tell you where she is, right?’

Hartmann nodded.

‘And as for me?’

‘There are two men here from Quantico. They are going to take you to the FBI Behavioral Science facility where there are at least three dozen criminal profilers who want to pick your brains.’

‘The food will be good down there?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I have no idea.’

Perez smiled. ‘Perhaps I will order take-out.’

‘Perhaps you will. And now, please, tell us where we find Catherine Ducane.’

‘You remember where you found the car?’

‘Gravier.’

‘Just a little way from there you will find a place called the Shell Beach Motel.’

Hartmann’s eyes widened. ‘The Shell Beach Motel . . . that’s no more than two or three miles from here.’

‘Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, that’s what I was told,’ Perez said. ‘Cabin number eleven, the Shell Beach Motel. Go find Catherine Ducane and tell her this thing of ours is done.’

Hartmann rose from his chair. He crossed to the door, opened it, and beyond it found Stanley Schaeffer waiting in the hallway.

Schaeffer nodded at Perez.

Ernesto Perez rose slowly. He took one more drag of his cigarette and stubbed it out in the ashtray. There was an air of finality to this action, as if he understood that everything had now come to its own natural conclusion. He walked towards Hartmann, and then paused in the doorway. He reached out his hand. Hartmann took it and they shook. Perez then leaned forward and – with his hands on Hartmann’s shoulders – he kissed each of his cheeks in turn.

‘Live your life well, Ray Hartmann . . . go back to New York and make believe this thing never happened. Fix whatever differences you may have with your wife and make it work, if only for the sake of your child.’

Hartmann nodded.

‘So long, Ray Hartmann,’ Perez said quietly, and then he turned to Schaeffer and smiled. ‘Let’s do it,’ he said, and when Schaeffer started down the hallway, Ernesto Cabrera Perez followed him slowly and never once looked back.

The FBI unit assigned to recover Catherine Ducane had already left by the time Schaeffer and Perez reached the street. Parked against the curb was the Humvee, beside it the two agents from Quantico, McCormack and Van Buren. Van Buren made his way around the back of the vehicle and handcuffed Perez. He escorted him to the side of the Humvee and McCormack opened the door. Van Buren climbed in beside Perez and used a second set of cuffs to manacle him to the arm of the seat. McCormack took the driver’s side and Schaeffer sat up front beside him. By the time the engine had started both Hartmann and Woodroffe had reached the street outside the hotel. They watched as the Humvee pulled away, and as it passed the junction Hartmann saw Perez turn and look at him. His expression was implacable and emotionless.

Hartmann lowered his head and looked at his shoes. He felt as if the center of his life had been pulled out and everything inside him was spiraling silently into the vacuum it had left behind.

‘The son,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I still can’t get my mind off the son.’

‘You were listening across the hall?’ Hartmann asked.

‘I was,’ Woodroffe said. ‘I know what Perez said, this thing about the son being pissed off because he wouldn’t kill the girl’s father, but I still feel there’s something else. I’m gonna go inside and call Quantico . . . get them to run this Emilie Devereau through the database. If we can find her, we might be a step closer to finding where Victor Perez has been while his father has been with us.’

‘You still think he was involved, don’t you?’ Hartmann turned and looked at Woodroffe. Truth was he didn’t care what Woodroffe thought; he didn’t care what anyone thought in that moment. His mind was on Carol and Jess, how he would go right back into the Royal Sonesta and call them, tell them he was coming home, that he would meet them any time they wanted, any place they chose, and there were so many things he wanted to say.

‘I think
someone
was involved,’ Woodroffe said. ‘The report said what it said . . . that it was improbable that one man would have been physically capable of lifting Gerard McCahill’s body from the back of the car and into the trunk that night on Gravier.’

‘Go for it,’ Hartmann said.

Woodroffe turned and started back towards the hotel. He stopped and turned before he reached the door. ‘You didn’t wanna go down and get the girl from the motel?’

Hartmann shook his head. ‘I want to call my wife. That’s all I want to do right now.’

Woodroffe nodded. ‘I’ll come tell you when they pick the girl up, okay?’

‘Sure . . . sure thing,’ Hartmann said, and then he watched as Bill Woodroffe turned and entered the hotel.

It was a good five minutes before Hartmann sat before a phone in the foyer of the Royal Sonesta. One of the Feds had hooked up an outside line bypassing the main switchboard. Hartmann dialed his own home number, the number that would take his call right across the East River into a two-bedroomed apartment in a three-story walk-up in Stuyvesant Town. He could picture where the phone sat, right there on a small table in the front hallway. What time was it? Hartmann glanced at his watch: a little after two p.m. Carol would be home now; it would be another hour or so before she left to collect Jess from school. The sound of the line hummed in his ear, and then connection was made and he listened as the phone rang. He could almost hear Carol’s footsteps as she made her way from the bedroom or the bathroom. Twice, three times, four times . . . where the hell was she? Why wasn’t she picking up? Was she in the bath? Perhaps she was in the kitchen with the TV on and she couldn’t hear it.

Hartmann willed his wife to pick up the goddamned phone. How many times had it rung now? Eight? Ten? He felt a tension in his lower gut. He was afraid, afraid that she’d had second thoughts, the very worst thoughts of all; afraid that she’d decided that his failure to arrive for their Tompkins Square Park appointment four days before was the little flag that told her nothing had changed. Ray had broken another agreement. Whatever the reason, whatever the rationale back of it, the truth of the matter was that Ray Hartmann had added another broken promise to the vast catalog of broken promises he had already accumulated.

Perhaps Hartmann would have hung on; perhaps he would have let the phone ring for another hour, would have sat right there with the patience of Job until Carol finally heard the phone, or Jess returned from school and picked it up . . . perhaps he would have done, but his plans were interrupted suddenly, abruptly, as three or four federal agents came rushing into the foyer of the hotel and began shouting.

Pandemonium broke out. It spread like wildfire through the lower floor of the building, and it seemed like minutes before Bill Woodroffe – the senior man amongst them – appeared in the entranceway, his face white and drawn, his expression one of complete shock and confusion.

‘They got him,’ he was shouting at the top of his voice. ‘Oh my God, they’ve got him!’

Hartmann stood up suddenly. His chair tumbled over behind him and he almost fell across it as he started across the foyer towards Woodroffe.

‘What?’ he shouted. ‘What’s happened?’

‘They shot him . . . for God’s sake, they shot him!’ Woodroffe screamed.

‘Who?’ Hartmann yelled back. ‘They shot
who
?’

‘Ducane!’ Woodroffe said. ‘Someone just shot Charles Ducane!’

And in the confusion no-one saw the radio light blinking at the main desk. No-one – amidst the sudden rush of confusion and panic that swept through the Royal Sonesta – saw the light blinking or stopped to pick up the radio headset.

Had they done, they would have heard the Recovery Unit Chief’s voice telling them to call Schaeffer in the transporter and get Ernesto Perez back to the hotel.

During the subsequent fifteen minutes or so, the few details they could gather regarding the shooting of Governor Charles Ducane came through to Bill Woodroffe. Simultaneously, the Recovery Unit was making its way back to the Sonesta, and out in Virginia, the FBI Identification Database was searching for the names of Emilie Devereau and David Carlyle.

A man had been arrested as he fled through a crowd gathered in Shreveport, Ducane’s home city. Ducane had been speaking publicly, opening a new arts center in a local suburb, when a man had stepped from the crowd and shot him three times in the chest. Even as details were coming through, Ducane was being rushed by the emergency services to the nearest hospital. He was still alive but in a grave condition. It was believed one of the bullets had grazed his heart. The arrested man had already been identified as the eldest son of Antoine Feraud, and even as Hartmann picked up the few details of what was happening, FBI Director Dohring was organizing a task force to raid Feraud’s property and take him in.

Perhaps because of all of these things together or the fact that no single man was directly assigned to cover unexpected eventualities, the Royal Sonesta became the eye of the hurricane and Ray Hartmann had no further opportunity to reach Carol.

The return of the Recovery Unit outside the building sparked a further wave of confusion.

Hartmann was out there to see them skid to a dead stop against the curb, and when the Recovery Chief stepped from the vehicle with nothing more than a bundle of clothes in his hands, Hartmann knew that something that could have been no worse had suddenly deteriorated into a nightmare.

Woodroffe appeared, and when he realized that Catherine Ducane had not been located, he ran back into the hotel to radio the transporter. Hartmann was there beside him as he tried in vain to raise a signal.

‘Disconnected,’ Woodroffe kept saying. ‘They’ve disconnected the goddamned radio for fuck’s sake!’ and it was some time before Hartmann managed to get him to understand that the transporter radio had been disconnected intentionally.

‘Oh Jesus Christ . . . Schaeffer!’ he said, and then his name was being called and an agent was standing at the side of the stairwell waving his arms above his head to attract his attention.

Woodroffe forced himself through the crowd and reached the man.

‘Quantico,’ the man was saying. ‘I’ve got Quantico on the line. They’ve got an answer on your ID request.’

Woodroffe pushed past him and hurried up the stairs to the second-floor room where Kubis had established a bank of computers with a direct and secure line to Quantico.

Hartmann followed at a run, all the while shouting above the noise from below.

‘Schaeffer! What the fuck are you gonna do about Schaeffer and Perez?’

Woodroffe reached the second-floor landing and started down the hallway towards the room.

‘Woodroffe . . . what the fuck are you gonna do?’ Hartmann was shouting. ‘Catherine Ducane wasn’t there . . . you understand what I’m saying? Catherine Ducane wasn’t in the fucking motel cabin!’

Woodroffe stopped suddenly and turned on his heel. ‘Go down to the street,’ he said. ‘Go down there and tell the Recovery Unit Chief to go after the transporter. Take the clothes and give them to Forensics, and show this to the chief.’ Woodroffe handed Hartmann a single sheet of paper. It was headed with the FBI symbol, and beneath it was typed a concise route plan that the transporter would be taking back to Virginia.

Hartmann turned and ran back down the stairs.

Woodroffe entered the room where the computer system had been established and found Lester Kubis sitting there staring at the screen.

‘What is it? What do they say?’

Kubis turned slowly and looked at Woodroffe over the rim of his glasses. ‘This,’ he said quietly, ‘you are not going to like.’

Hartmann reached the street and found the Recovery Unit Chief.

‘Take this,’ he said, thrusting the sheet of paper at him. ‘This is the route plan the transporter is taking. Go after them and get Schaeffer and Perez back here.’

The chief turned and started back to the vehicle at a run.

‘Wait!’ Hartmann called after him. ‘Where are the clothes you found?’

The chief indicated an agent standing on the sidewalk holding a plastic evidence bag containing a pair of jeans, some shoes and other items they had found in the motel cabin.

Hartmann raised his hand and the chief hurried back to his vehicle.

Hartmann took the clothes and went back into the Sonesta. He found someone from Criminal Forensics. ‘Take these,’ he said. ‘Get them to the County Coroner’s office. Get hold of the coroner, a guy called Michael Cipliano, and find the assistant ME, Jim Emerson. Take whoever the hell else you need and get these clothes processed. We need the results of anything you find back here as fast as it can be done. Tell them it’s for Ray Hartmann, okay?’

The agent nodded, and hurried away with the bag containing everything that remained of Catherine Ducane’s stay at the Shell Beach Motel.

Hartmann stood on the sidewalk trying to catch his breath. Woodroffe was up on the second floor, the Recovery Unit was hightailing it down the street after Schaeffer and Perez, and Hartmann shook his head and wondered what the fuck was going on.

He went back into the foyer of the hotel just as the first radio calls came in for the remaining Feds to leave for the Feraud property. Units had been assigned from New Orleans itself, also from Baton Rouge, Metairie and Hammond. Among the wave of agents that would make their way out to Feraud’s property were Robert Luckman and Frank Gabillard, men who had believed they’d seen the last of this thing a little more than two weeks before. Two units posted in Lafayette had been alerted, but they could not arrive for a further hour or more. It seemed that it was no more than a minute before the foyer of the Sonesta was cleared of people, and Ray Hartmann was left standing there, his heart thundering in his chest, his thoughts a whirlwind of confusion as he realized that everything they had organized was falling apart at the seams.