The Mentor (2 page)

CHAPTER 2

TWENTY YEARS LATER

When Miriam Leroux hit the table hard with her hands, the man winced. She leaned in so close that their heads almost touched. A curl of chestnut-brown hair slid across her face. “We know it was you,” she whispered. “And we can prove it. You’re going to rot in jail for the rest of your life.”

“There’s no way you have any proof!” the suspect burst out.

She stood back up straight. “Oh no? Why not?”

“Because . . .” The suspect paused for a moment. “Because I’m innocent.”

Detective Leroux started laughing. “Did you hear that? He says he’s innocent,” she said, and turned to Eric with a smile on her face.

Eric hadn’t said a word during the entire interrogation. He’d stood there, impassive, while his colleague worked the suspect over. They’d refined their approach over time. He, head of the scientific investigations department, stood to one side, paging through a file and looking at them from time to time, apparently disinterested. The only signs he gave were occasional nods; then he’d smile faintly and go back to reading his file. Sometimes he might frown in faint annoyance and shake his head a little.

“We have proof that it was you, Johnson. This time you’re finished.” Miriam was serious again.

The suspect seemed a little disoriented. Perhaps because he’d been sure he hadn’t left any proof of his involvement in the crime? Eric smiled to himself.

They’d been following this man for months. In every homicide that resembled an execution, his name came up. There was a suspicion that he was a hired assassin. He’d been seen near the victims’ houses prior to the actual crimes, and Eric and Miriam were convinced it was no coincidence. He was a killer, but they couldn’t establish a motive, so they had to base the investigation entirely on physical proof.

In each case they’d found the murder weapon: a gun, abandoned at the scene of the crime. The serial numbers were always removed, and ballistics had nothing to add. There were never any fingerprints on the guns, or anywhere else at the crime scene. The door locks were always intact. Everything pointed to a suicide, except for the fact that the same thing had happened twelve different times. Twelve people had taken their own lives at home, each using an untraceable firearm. Not one of them left behind a suicide note or displayed warning signs that they were about to take their own lives. Each victim had a number of known enemies, although it was impossible to connect any of them with the deaths. Alibis were ironclad and abundant.

A killer for hire. It hadn’t taken long for the detective who ran the scientific investigations department and his young colleague of the Scotland Yard investigative team who was handling the twelve cases to arrive at this conclusion. With this theory in mind, gathering evidence from various video cameras located around the victims’ homes, they’d identified Damien Johnson—an ex-soldier on leave who worked as a private security guard—in film from ten of the twelve cases. Digging into Johnson, they discovered he appeared to live beyond his modest means.

Johnson’s sunken eyeballs stared out at Miriam, challenging her. “You don’t have any proof,” he said calmly, his thin face contracting slightly. “And this little game of good cop, bad cop won’t work with me. I came here of my own free will, but I don’t have to stay here unless you have a formal charge to bring against me.”

Miriam kept watching him, an expression of detached curiosity on her face.

“Otherwise, you’re going to be hearing from my lawyer,” he added.

Without lifting his eyes from the folder, Eric took out a picture and put it on the table in front of Johnson. The man froze. “What’s that supposed to be?” he asked.

“Those are your fingerprints,” said Eric, finally breaking his long silence. “We found them on the murder weapon.”

The suspect seemed to stop breathing for a moment. Then he shook his head. “That’s a trick!” he shouted, shoving the photograph away. “Those aren’t my fingerprints on a murder weapon.”

“Oh no?” Eric stared into the man’s eyes. “How come? Because you wore gloves?”

Johnson smiled again. “You keep bluffing. You don’t have a thing.”

“So if I test your right hand for gunpowder residue, it will come back negative, right?”

Johnson struggled to hold back a grimace. He seemed to think about that.

Eric knew perfectly well what was causing the suspect’s change in behavior. The day before, Johnson had fired a shot into the air to scare off some wild dogs—they had been foraging near a mansion he was keeping an eye on for work. He’d reported the event to the company he worked for in order to justify the missing bullet. The test would come back positive in any case, and that was precisely what Eric and Miriam were counting on, even though there was almost no chance the residue would be compatible with the bullets they’d recovered from the scene of the crime. Johnson wasn’t a criminologist, though, and if they got a confession, they might not even have to go to trial.

“I use guns every day for work,” said Johnson, closing his eyes for a moment. Every inch of his body was struggling to project a calm he certainly didn’t possess.

“Ah!” exclaimed Miriam, making no attempt to hide her sarcasm.

Eric motioned to her with one outspread hand. He was careful to appear calm, like someone who had everything under control. He knew that this would only make suspects more nervous, especially if they were guilty. And Johnson was undoubtedly guilty. He had escaped punishment too many times for lack of proof, but this time it was going to be different. With just a little push, they’d be able to lock him up. The fact that he’d just used his gun on the job was exactly the kind of opportunity they’d been waiting for to act.

“We have your prints on the gun. And as far as I understand, the residue tests on the gunpowder will come back positive.” He glanced at the suspect, letting a complacent smile creep across his face. “You were seen near the victim’s house the day before the murder. Maybe you were going over the final details of your plan?”

“My fingerprints aren’t on that gun,” said Johnson, looking his accuser in the eye.

“No? Are you sure?”

“There. Are. No. Fingerprints.” The suspect pronounced his words carefully, one by one.

In truth, he was right, because Johnson had undoubtedly worn gloves. Or at least there hadn’t been any fingerprints when they found the murder weapon at the scene. But there were fingerprints on it now. Because of the kind of work Johnson was doing, his fingerprints were registered in IDENT1, the digital British fingerprint database, so that he could be ruled out of any crimes that occurred in the places he was charged with keeping under surveillance. They were also registered in the military database, but fortunately they hadn’t needed to go that far in order to obtain them. If they’d accessed that database, their move would not have passed unnoticed. After they’d obtained the prints, it was easy for an expert like Eric Shaw to find a way to make them show up on the weapon.

Shaw had asked personally to handle the case, something he did whenever one came along that he cared about deeply. His subordinates preferred to stay out of his way when he was working a case, even though Eric suspected that some of them realized he tended to fiddle a little with the proof. But who could blame him? He was certain they were dealing with an assassin who’d committed multiple crimes, but they couldn’t find a way to lock him up. Their suspect had been too careful, too skilled at hiding his involvement. Eric felt like it was his duty to do something. He couldn’t just stand by and let it happen.

Too many times over the course of his career he’d found himself faced with cases that went unresolved due to lack of physical evidence. The development of increasingly sophisticated forensic investigation techniques and his position as chief of the department were just tools Eric used in order to guarantee he brought the highest number of criminals possible to justice. Sometimes he had to use methods that weren’t entirely orthodox.

He’d never once regretted his actions.

He was so good that all the evidence he provided proved to be ironclad, even during the trials. But his ability to invent evidence where there hadn’t been any had earned him a certain notoriety among criminals. People who wound up in his sights knew there was little chance of escape, and this had won the detective more than one death threat. Shaw wasn’t worried. By the same token, plenty of minor criminals were more than happy to roll on a larger fish in the hopes that they’d get special treatment in return.

“Our tests say exactly the opposite,” Eric continued, pointing to the photograph in front of the suspect. “We found fingerprints on the murder weapon, and they are yours beyond a shadow of a doubt.” He cleared his throat. “Maybe you forgot to use gloves.”

Johnson was about to say something, then stopped. Of course he’d been wearing gloves. Eric didn’t doubt it for a minute, but it was pointless to hope the suspect would admit that during an interrogation. No matter what Shaw said, Johnson knew he was burned. Shaw could see resignation in the man’s eyes.

“I know you’re not so naïve that you wouldn’t wear gloves, but let’s suppose for a minute that the situation got a little out of hand.” Eric tapped his pen on the table. “It’s a bright, sunny day, almost like summer outside. You know you can’t walk around wearing gloves. You’d draw attention to yourself. Somehow you got into the victim’s house, maybe using an excuse. At a certain point you realized that something wasn’t working, and you had to kill him immediately. Then you cleaned the pistol, but you missed a fingerprint on the base of the handle. It happens—even the best of us get sloppy.” He concluded with a broad, satisfied smile.

“I want a lawyer,” said the suspect, before closing his mouth. He appeared to have ended the conversation once and for all.

“You could confess. You’d save us all a lot of time,” said Miriam, sitting down on the edge of the table. “Maybe your willingness to help could earn you a few rewards. Maybe it could keep you from winding up sharing a cell with some very unpleasant fellows. You know, a guy like you, so handsome . . . pretty, even . . . always attracts certain
interests
.”

“I want a lawyer!” he insisted.

“Okay.” The detective jumped off the table and nodded to Eric, who stood up as well.

They left the interrogation room and closed the door behind them.

“Well, I’d say that went reasonably well,” said Miriam, smoothing her shirt. “I think his lawyer will advise him to confess. That way we won’t even have to bother with an obnoxious trial.”

“I hope so,” said Eric, smiling.

Miriam raised her palm and they high-fived—the way they had ever since she was a young girl.

The door to the next room opened. Martin Stern, an agent with the scientific investigations unit, walked out. He was accompanied by his young colleague, Adele Pennington. As soon as Eric saw her, he tensed up. He knew they’d had an audience looking on from the observation room, but he had no idea she was the one watching them.

“You were great in there, boss,” Stern said with the enthusiasm of a little dog excited to see his master. Eric couldn’t stand this sort of behavior, and in response he frequently punished Stern with the most unpleasant tasks to handle. His colleague never complained, though—instead he merely went about his business.

Adele, on the other hand, gave Eric a slight smile and a nod of approval, then spun on her heels and headed down the corridor.

“Hey, where are you going?” said Martin. “Wait for me.”

“The show’s over,” said Adele. She stopped for a moment and gave her boss a serious look, her eyes darting back and forth between Shaw and Stern. “We’ve got work to do. Instead of hanging around here, you should come too,” she said, then continued down the corridor toward the elevator.

Stern flared. For months Eric had watched as Stern tried everything he could to make friends with Pennington, and as she completely snubbed him in return. To be honest, Adele behaved that way with everybody. The only one she was polite to, or at least seemed to try to be polite to, was Eric, her boss. But even then she never stepped over the line. She spoke her mind with everyone, never worrying for a moment what their reactions might be, especially when it came to criticizing them for not working hard enough. At the same time, she was putting a wall up between herself and her colleagues in order to keep them from getting too close to her. This made her the object of unconcealed hatred among her female coworkers, while the men—as could be expected—were crazy about her.

Not even Eric, three months away from his fiftieth birthday and twenty-two years her senior, was immune to her attractions. He was old enough to be her father, and knowing this made him uncomfortable, especially since he had the strong sensation that she was aware of how he felt and that it disgusted her. She had every right to be disgusted. In the end, he was an
old man
.

Eric’s eyes met Stern’s. “Your colleague is right,” he said, growing serious. He enjoyed torturing Stern, perhaps more than he should. The more Stern tried to endear himself to Eric, the more Eric underlined his shortcomings.

“Oh . . . yeah, of course. Right, boss,” said Stern, practically saluting. “I’ll get back to work right away!” He ran down the corridor. “Adele, sweetheart, wait up. Hold the door, would you?” But before he could reach the elevator, Adele waved to him with one hand and let the doors close in his face.

Eric and Miriam started laughing. “Pennington’s just sugar and spice and everything nice, isn’t she?” said Leroux.

Eric smiled. “You can say that again.”

“Our fearless leader strikes again!” exclaimed Jane Hall, smiling as she stormed into Eric’s office. Hall was Eric’s second in command.

From behind his desk, he shot her a questioning look, lifting his eyes slightly from the computer screen.

“You haven’t heard?” Jane flopped down in a chair and put her feet up on the table.

Eric grabbed a file pinned beneath one of Jane’s shoes, managing to pull it away as she crossed her legs. “Heard what?” he asked, smoothing the crumpled paperwork with one hand.