Kill Shot (16 page)

A vivid, low fall sun sparkled off the Seine. Neville’s eyes were concealed by a stylish pair of oversized Chanel sunglasses that covered nearly a third of her face. She wore them as much to shield her from the bright sun as to shield her from the prying eyes of the reporters. She had yet to hold a press conference, and she didn’t want them reading anything into her expressions until she was ready. She stood in the middle of the area and tried to make sense of it all. The reporters were back, thick as summer flies, shouting questions and snapping photos and in general being their irritating selves. In addition to the press, there were hundreds if not thousands of curious onlookers who couldn’t resist the morbid pull of the crime scene.

Neville kept her concern beneath a placid mask. She’d learned over the years that it was best to look serious at murder scenes—even angry could work, but it was never okay to laugh or be caught joking with other officers. The investigation, only in its second day, was becoming something of a mess. These little yellow flags, for instance, had only been placed this morning. The entire area from river to street was now blocked off with bands of crime scene tape and another ten officers to make sure nothing was tampered with. Neville thought it was a waste of manpower, but her superiors had insisted. The problem, she knew, was that this entire space had been crowded with people the day before. They had stepped all over the evidence and if this ever got to court it would be all but useless. She did, however, gain something very important—a new angle.

Neville looked back at the hotel and the balcony outside Tarek’s suite. She chided herself for not expanding the perimeter right away, but as her boss had explained, the amount of evidence in the hotel itself was overwhelming. Nine bodies, shell casings and slugs everywhere, and then on top of that they’d found the room with all of the surveillance equipment. They still didn’t have that one quite figured out. No one on the hotel staff remembered any security for the Libyan oil minister. They had over fifteen statements from employees saying Tarek had arrived with a single assistant. That assistant was now unavailable for comment, securely locked behind the gates of the Libyan Embassy.

The tough one to stomach for Neville was that she had more than thirty officers assigned to the case, and she had only learned of the spent shell casings that were strewn about the sidewalk and gutter in front of the hotel the previous evening. The press might eat her alive for that one. She went back to the crime scene, examined the casings, and wondered how many had been crushed, kicked, and taken during the course of the long day. They were more or less spread out under the suite’s balcony. The logical assumption was that either someone had stood on Tarek’s balcony and fired into his room, or someone had stood on his balcony and fired at someone or something down on the street.

She went up to the suite, stood on the balcony, and looked into the room. The wall directly in front of her was untouched, whereas the wall to her right was pocked with bullet holes. Turning toward the river, she looked down at the sidewalk where the shell casings had been found and imagined firing a weapon. After a long moment of reflection she ordered her deputy Martin Simon to rope off the area, bring in the metal detectors, and begin the search for 9mm slugs.

Neville then went home full of self-recrimination for the mishap. She had allowed herself to be sucked into the most plausible theory—that one man, or several men, had killed Tarek, the prostitute, the supposed bodyguards, and then two guests and a hotel worker on his way out the back door. In barely a day’s time it was all falling apart. The Libyans were so far refusing to talk, saying only that the four men were there to protect their oil minister. As a police officer, Neville despised being lied to, and like most cops, she had a very well-tuned BS detector. The four dead men were not bodyguards. They might have been sent to keep an eye on Tarek, but they most certainly were not bodyguards. She would have to ask around, but to the best of her knowledge, she’d never heard of bodyguards using silenced weapons.

Neville ignored the reporters who were yelling her name, instead choosing to act as if the pattern of little yellow flags would give her a glimpse into how to solve the crime of the century. Martin Simon approached from behind and called out her name. When Neville turned, she could tell by the open-eyed expression on his face that the case was about to take another turn.

“What’s up?”

“Let’s take a walk.” Simon glanced back toward the hotel. “There’s something interesting you should see.”

Neville fell into step with the red-haired Simon. Although he was two years older than her, his red hair and freckles made him look as if he were ten years her junior. When they were clear of the throngs of reporters and onlookers, she said, “Please tell me we didn’t find another body.”

Simon laughed. “No more bodies. I think nine is enough.”

“Then you’ve solved the crime for us?”

Simon shook his head as they entered the lobby. “No, but I think I’ve found something that is going to upset you.”

She pulled off her sunglasses and placed them in her purse. The hotel staff watched them with understandable anxiety. More than half of their guests had checked out and future reservations were being canceled at a quick clip. Neville felt bad for them. They were overworked and stressed and this thing was far from over. Every single one of them, whether they had been on duty or not, would be interviewed at least twice more. It was an avenue that had to be pursued for two reasons. Either one of the employees had seen something without realizing it, or one of them was involved in giving the killer or killers information about Tarek’s comings and goings.

They entered the elevator, and when the doors were closed, Simon said, “I couldn’t sleep last night.”

“That’s because you drink too much coffee,” Neville said in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Don’t start, boss,” he said as he watched the brass arrow move from left to right, ticking out their ascent. “While I was lying awake staring at the water marks on my ceiling, I asked myself why someone would stand on the balcony and shoot toward the street and the river.”

“And?”

“The nine-millimeter casings we found on the street match the ones that were scattered all around Tarek’s suite, and in the hallway, and the ones found by the body at the back door.”

The elevator stopped at the top floor and the doors opened. Neville exited first. “So you think they were fired by one of our Libyan bodyguards.”

“Maybe . . . but for the moment, I’m more interested in who was being shot at than who was doing the firing.”

Neville’s thin lips pinched to the left in an expression that told Simon she wasn’t following his line of reasoning.

Simon stopped walking in the middle of the hall and acted as if he was holding a gun. “If I’m standing on the balcony and firing at someone below, why am I firing at them, and how did they get there?”

Neville shook her head abruptly as if she was trying to clear her thoughts. “What are you talking about?”

“Somebody, or several people, killed those bodyguards, and then they had to get out of the hotel. We jumped to the conclusion that the same person or persons killed Tarek, the prostitute, the bodyguards, then killed the two guests and the worker.”

“Correct.”

“Then who was shooting from the balcony down onto the street, and more important, who were they shooting at?”

Neville visualized what he was saying and said, “I see your point.”

Simon opened a service door at the end of the hallway, revealing a steep, narrow metal staircase that led to the roof. “Whoever was being shot at was not the man who killed the employee who was in the alley. You wouldn’t leave by the back door and then come around to the front of the hotel where there’s a greater chance that you’ll run into someone.” Simon started climbing the stairs. The hatch that led to the roof was already opened.

Neville followed her fellow officer onto the roof and immediately noticed two of her best crime scene technicians.

“So I’m lying in bed,” Simon continued, “and I think, the most logical explanation is that someone left that room last night via the balcony, and if they left via the balcony they must have had a rope.” Simon stopped next to a black cast-iron vent stack and dropped to a knee. Neville followed suit. “You see where the soot has been rubbed free right here?” He pointed to the general area but did not touch it.

Neville could see a circle that wound itself around the cylindrical vent stack. She nodded.

Simon rose to his feet and walked to the edge where one of the crime scene technicians was taking measurements. “Bernard, tell her what you found.”

The man was in his fifties and rail-thin. He pushed his wire-rimmed glasses up on the bridge of his nose and said, “Fibers in this spot right here.” He pointed to the ninety-degree stone edge of the cap.

“What kind of fibers?” Simon asked.

“I won’t know until I get back to the lab, but they look like the type of fibers used in the construction of climbing ropes.”

Neville nodded, looked back at the vent stack, and then at the spot that Bernard had identified. She could see the discoloration in the stone, as if something had rubbed away the grime. She peered over the edge and directly beneath was a balcony. “I assume that’s the balcony of Tarek’s room?”

“It is,” Simon answered.

Neville looked back at the vent stack. “A rope?”

Simon nodded.

“So where is it?”

“That’s a very good question. In fact, I began asking our people if anyone removed it. No one did, of course. Our people know better than that. But I did find one officer who was on the scene early, who says he definitely remembered a rope running down the side of the building.”

“He’s certain of this.”

“I had him show me the exact spot where he remembered seeing the rope.” Simon pointed down. “He showed me where he parked his car and led me directly to the spot right beneath us.”

Neville looked at the buildings to her left and right. The heights didn’t match but the buildings abutted each other. “So you’re telling me there was an accomplice on the roof when the police arrived who then pulled up the rope and fled.”

Simon looked at the sea of yellow flags across the street. “I’m not sure. There’s another possibility.”

Neville could tell by his expression that he was deeply concerned about something. “What’s bothering you?”

“What’s not bothering me would be a more accurate question.”

She shared the same ominous feeling. “Spit it out.”

“I think someone may have tampered with the rope.”

“You mean removed it?” Neville asked.

“Yes.”

“Shit.” This thing just kept getting worse. “We have a list of all the people who’ve been in and out of here in the last thirty hours?”

“I’m working on it.”

“What about the guests?”

“That was the next thing I was going to talk to you about.” Simon walked away from the edge of the roof with Neville in tow. “Five guests are unaccounted for.”

“What do you mean, ‘unaccounted for’?”

“They checked in earlier in the week and didn’t bother checking out. Their luggage is still in their rooms.”

Neville grabbed him by the arm. “Do we have descriptions of them?”

“Yes,” Simon said with a cautious tone.

Neville thought about the dead bodyguards. “Dark hair, dark skin . . . all in their twenties?”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Have you talked to the employees who checked them in?”

“Yes.”

“Have you had them ID the bodies?”

“Not yet. We’re working on getting them to the morgue.”

Neville nodded. It was Sunday and they were still trying to wrap their minds around this thing. She was still trying to see how these new bizarre pieces fit into the puzzle when Simon said he had one more piece of information.

“The room with all of the surveillance equipment down the hall from Tarek’s . . .”

“Yes.”

“The hotel’s computer says the room was unoccupied and being remodeled.”

“Has anyone on the staff confirmed that it was in fact being remodeled?”

“Not so far, but I haven’t talked to everyone.”

Neville thought of the missing rope, the missing guests, who were more than likely lying on cold metal tables in the morgue, the strange behavior of the Libyan Embassy, and now this room full of surveillance equipment. “Has the forensic team finished going over the room with the surveillance equipment?”

“Yes.”

“Tell them I want them to focus on matching any hair samples with the four bodyguards in the morgue. Nice work, Martin.”

“You would have figured it all out,” he said trying to play down the whole thing.

“Maybe . . . maybe not. Let’s see if we can punch some holes in it and keep it between us until we know we have it right.” Neville headed for the steps.

“Where you off to?”

“Remember the guy from the Directorate who showed up last night?”

“Your ex-boyfriend?”

Neville was about to argue the point, but figured it wasn’t worth it. “I have a feeling he and his people know a lot more about what happened here than they’re letting on.”

“I agree,” Simon said, rushing to catch up with her, “and that’s why I’m coming with you.”

“I can handle it on my own.”

“I know you can,” Simon said as he started down the steps. “But it’s always good to have an extra set of eyes when you’re dealing with professional liars from the Directorate.”

C
HET
Bramble sat in the back of the van and watched the monitors come online one by one. The static of the little ten-inch monitors flickered to black and white images of the interior of the apartment. They now had audio and video on the safe house. He could see his two men move from one screen to the next. He adjusted the lip mike on his headset and said, “You two dildos done dicking around?”

“One more minute,” the voice crackled. “I need to take a crap.”