Color Of Blood (4 page)

“AFP later learned that Mr. Jansen is of special interest to the US intelligence services, and according to the US–Australian Security Pact of 1967, American security investigations on Australian soil—except those at diplomatically protected facilities—must be observed by an official Australian designee.”

She looked up. “I’m the designee.”

“I kind of figured that.” Dennis smiled. “Can we turn on some more lights?”

Judy went into the small kitchen and turned on a few lights.

“Assume the place was dusted?”

“Yes, I believe you have the report,” Judy said. “No other prints except those of Mr. Jansen.”

“I guess we don’t need to wear gloves then,” he said, sitting down on the couch. He picked up a newspaper. It was dry as parchment and crackled as he opened it.

“Every attempt was made to leave everything the way it was when Mr. Jansen disappeared,” she said.

“No word on the car?” he said, standing and walking into the kitchen.

“Nothing, which is unusual.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, we don’t have a populous state. Western Australia has about two million residents, and most are clustered around the coast. We would normally pick up a stolen car quickly—unless it was broken down for parts.”

“What kind of car did he have?”

She looked at her notes. “A Toyota Camry.”

“That’s not a fancy car.” He opened each kitchen cabinet, looking at the stacked plates and glasses.

“No, not particularly.”

Dennis opened the refrigerator. “Not much food in here. Did the guy eat out a lot?”

“I’m not sure. You might want to ask his consulate friends about that.”

Dennis walked into the bedroom and turned on the light. There was a single wood dresser against the wall, an open closet, a double bed, and a small bedside table with a clock radio on it.

“The apartment was furnished?”

“Yes.”

Dennis looked through the closet, sliding the hanger of each piece of clothing to the left, including several Hawaiian shirts, a dark blue suit, a blue blazer, and several white dress shirts.

He opened the top drawer of the dresser and pulled out a large, leather-encased box.

“What’s this?”

“Watches, I believe.”

“Wristwatches?” He flipped it open.

“Yes.”

“Jeeze, the guy liked watches: must have more than a half dozen here.” He picked up one—it had a black leather strap and a large, stainless steel housing. “These must be worth something. Did anyone price these?”

“No,” she said. “We could do that if you like?”

“Not yet.” He closed the box and put it back into the drawer.

Rifling through the second drawer, he pulled out a folded pair of white jockeys. He unfolded the underwear and looked at the crotch area closely.

“What are you doing, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Checking.”

“Checking for what? I’ve never seen anyone do that.”

“I’m looking for signs of discharge. A guy who has a wild sex life invariably comes down with the clap or urethritis, and the discharge will stain the underwear. From the look of this guy, he’s still a virgin.” For a moment Dennis wondered if he was being rude but quickly dismissed it.

“I see,” she said.

Dennis threw the underwear into the drawer and walked back into the living room. Standing in front of the TV set, he looked around the room again. “This place looks pretty normal to me: nothing out of the ordinary. No signs of a struggle. He wasn’t robbed here because the watches are still there. Seems that he left expecting to return.”

“Yes, that’s our judgment, too,” Judy said.

“What kind of homicide rate do you have in Western Australia?”

“Well, recently the rate has jumped a bit, I’m afraid. We’re dealing with these violent drug gangs now. There were perhaps sixty or so homicides in the state last year.”

“Jeeze.” Dennis laughed. “We have that many in New York City each month.”

“Well,” Judy said, “we’re not that big of a nation.”

“You’re big enough to have swallowed Mr. Jansen.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

“Can you take me back to the hotel?” He looked around one final time.

“Of course. Do you still need the apartment preserved as it is? The landlord would like to rent it.”

“Let’s keep it just a while longer. Is it under guard twenty-four hours a day?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Let’s get out of here.”

Judy dropped the American off at the hotel and drove to her office on Wellington Street in Perth. She found it amusing that the AFP’s modern concrete and steel office in Perth was across the street from the red-brick colonial-style Art Gallery of Western Australia: crime and art, opposites perhaps, but also perversely similar in their reliance on creativity.

“
I don’t know why men like that make me so uneasy,
”
she mulled.
“
Maybe it’s the ‘Yank thing’—he’s so bloody sure of himself.”

“Hello, Judy,” the receptionist said. “Simon called. He needs to speak to you.”

She went into her small office and closed the door.

Damn,
she thought,
what could possibly be wrong now?

There was a knock on the door.

“Judy?”

“Come in.”

It was Calvin Miller, her boss. “How did it go with the Yank?”

“God! He’s a bloody disaster.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He sat down. “I really am. I know you don’t need this kind of trouble.”

Judy resisted the temptation to complain about the assignment. Neil, one of the other investigators, had a light load these days, and she knew that Alex, the other investigator, was wrapping up the Bunbury auto-theft-ring case.
Let it go,
she told herself.

After Miller left, she reached for her office phone and dialed the stored number for Simon, her sixteen-year-old son. Even though he was in school, she would leave him a voice mail.

“Hello, Mum,” Simon said.

“Aren’t you in class?” she asked.

“No, today’s a House day, don’t you remember?”

“Oh yes, of course. But what’s wrong? Cyndi said you needed to talk to me.”

“Right. Um, Dad said he couldn’t take me this weekend. He’s been called out of town on business. Can I come home this weekend? Please!”

“Simon, I may be called away on business myself,” she said. “I know it’s difficult being in boarding school but given the situation it’s best for all of us. The last time I let you come home and stay by yourself it was a bitter experience for me, do you remember?”

“Mum, you keep bringing that up! I’ve learned my lesson. It won’t happen again, I promise. All my mates are going to be around this weekend. Please, Mum!”

“So help me God, Simon, if you slip up once more, you’ll be in serious trouble. Do you hear me?”

“Then I can come home?”

“Yes.”

“Mum, I love you.”

“I’ll pick you up after school on Friday, but if I have to work, you’ll need to take the bus home.”

“Right. Ta, Mum.”

Judy hung up and put the cell phone next to her keyboard.
That bastard,
she seethed.
I bet Phillip’s just running off to Margaret River for a dirty weekend with his tart. That bloody bastard.

***

Dennis sat in a small office used for temporary assignments at the consulate. It barely had enough room for a gray metal desk, a black metal chair behind the desk, and a matching chair in front. He doodled on a small notebook, methodically drawing concentric circles, then filling them with hatching.

The door opened, and a young man put his head in. “Is this the right office?”

“Depends who you’re looking for?”

“A man named Cunningham.”

“I’m the guy.”

The young man came in and closed the door. He sat facing Dennis across the desk.

“Um, hi,” he said.

“So you’re Jonathan Roby?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you the Jonathan Roby that’s Geoff Jansen’s best friend?”

“I don’t know if we’re best friends, but we’re, like, you know, good friends.”

“I’ve talked to some other people here, and they confirm that you two did a lot of things together,” Dennis said. “Like going to clubs, bars, the beach: things like that.”

“Yeah. We did a lot of stuff together.”

Dennis went through a long list of questions, asking about other acquaintances in the consulate, women they dated, anything at all that would connect Garder to a person involved in his disappearance, or suggest a motive.

After thirty minutes of questioning, Dennis said, “So what happened to your buddy?”

“Man, like I have no idea,” Roby said. “It’s the weirdest thing. He just stopped coming to work. I mean he would sometimes be gone for a long time. Once he was gone for, like, three weeks. He’d usually check in with me. But one day he was here, and the next he disappeared. It’s just weird.”

“Anyone you know who might be interested in ‘disappearing’ your friend?”

“No! Geoff was a really cool guy who didn’t create much trouble.”

“So what kind of drugs did you guys do?” Dennis asked.

“Excuse me?” Roby said, eyes widening.

“You know what I mean. You guys must have done some drugs.”

“No,” Roby said. “We didn’t do drugs.”

Dennis noticed the young man’s eyes darted minutely, and then refocused upon Dennis.
Idiot,
he thought.
He doesn’t even know how to lie
.

“You mean to tell me that you and Geoff didn’t even smoke dope? Just a joint every now and then? Give me a break, Roby.”

“Honestly.” He sat forward on his chair. “Really.”

“Roby, you want me to authorize a lie detector test for you? Is that what you want?”

“You can do that?” Roby asked.

“Of course,” Dennis said.

“Christ!” Roby ran his hand through his short blond hair. “My career is going to be ruined.”

“Look, just come clean with me about you and Geoff, and we can skip the lie detector. Once we schedule one of those things, the results go into the official record. Get my drift, Roby?”

The young man stared long and hard at Dennis, his face a mix of despondence and fear, then clasped his head with his hands, looked downward, and sighed.

“OK, so we smoked dope every now and then,” he said, his voiced muffled by his hands.

For just a moment Dennis felt a tinge of compunction for the young man who was getting bullied by a veteran investigator, but it was fleeting.

“I can’t hear you, Roby.”

Roby sat back in the chair and crossed his arms in front. “We smoked a little dope. Not much at all really. Every couple of weeks we might share a joint. Wasn’t a big deal.”

“Who bought the dope?” Dennis asked.

“Me.”

“Geoff never bought any and shared it with you?”

“No, I bought it and rolled the joints. He didn’t mind smoking pot, but it wasn’t his favorite activity. I think he only did it because I did.”

“Where’d you buy the dope?”

“From a neighbor—you’re not going to get her in trouble, are you?” he said suddenly, startled.

“No, I don’t think so. Is she American or Australian?”

“Aussie. Can we please leave her out of this?” he pleaded.

“Probably,” Dennis said. “What other drugs did you and Geoff use? Ecstasy? Coke? Amphetamines? Heroin?”

“Hell, no,” he said. “I’m not a druggie. I just like getting high every now and then. Don’t make it sound like we were hardcore druggies.”

“And Geoff? What was his drug of choice?”

“Wine.”

“You mean wine from grapes, or is that a nickname for another drug?”

“No, I mean wine from a bottle. Geoff was a real connoisseur about wine. I guess there are some great wines in Australia, or at least he said so. Hell, I could barely get him to drink beer. If he did other drugs, I never saw it.”

Dennis drilled into the drug issue hoping to pry something useful; he would ask a tough, nearly outrageous question and then ask increasingly mild inquiries, winning Roby’s confidence, and then spring another tough question.

After a while Dennis was convinced that the young man had neither a personality disorder nor a drug problem.

“So what kind of hobbies did Geoff have? What did he do with all his time?”

“Well, he liked watches; he was crazy about them.”

“Wristwatches?” Dennis asked.

“Yeah, really cool watches. He knew everything about them. He wore a different one almost every day. Never knew a person could get so much into watches.”

“Did he have expensive watches?”

“Gee, I don’t know if they were really expensive. But he would go to these, like, watch websites and bid on them. Stuff like that. To be honest, I couldn’t understand his passion for those things, so I just kind of humored him, you know. But I learned a lot about watches, so that was cool.”

“Like what?” Dennis asked.

“Like, you know, a quartz watch is looked down upon by serious watch people.”

Dennis took a sidelong glance at his quartz Seiko. “What’s wrong with a quartz watch?”

“According to Geoff, the best watches are mechanical. They’re difficult to make. They’re more like works of art, or at least that’s what he said. I mean I believed him. He seemed to know his stuff.”

“Don’t you need a lot of money to own expensive watches?”

“He said you didn’t have to pay a lot of money if you knew where to look.”

“Like websites?”

“Yeah, and stores; there’s one in town he used to go to.”

“Really? What’s its name?”

“Oh, something like ‘The Swiss Movement.’ It’s on Hay Street.”

Dennis jotted down a few notes. “Any other hobbies?”

“Oh man, he had a lot of interests. We tried surfing lessons. Kite surfing—that was hard, man. And snorkeling. Stuff like that.”

“Anything else that Geoff did?”

“Just poetry, I guess.”

“Poetry?”

“Yeah, kind of unusual, I suppose. He would quote poems sometimes, or just make something up and write it down on a napkin or a piece of paper. He said he studied it in college. I think he joined some poetry club at the Uni.”

“Uni?”

“University of Western Australia. It’s not far from here.”

“He joined a poetry club at the University of Western Australia? Doesn’t that sound a little weird to you?”