“Like someone else you know?”
“Who?”
Milo smiled. “I had a dad like that.”
Helga shuddered. Her turn to cover the stab of emotion with an even bigger smile. “Pity for you, Policeman.”
“Let’s get back to basics, Helga: You’re not leaving here. But you do have a chance to help yourself by telling me-”
“Policeman,” she said, “at this time, I need to…”
“Oh, shit,” said Maria Thomas.
“… have time to think. Alone. Please.”
Soft voice, almost gentle.
“You have surprised me,” she said. “I need to think. Please, some time.”
Milo said, “Take all the time you need.”
CHAPTER 33
The door to the observation room swung open. Milo stepped in, wiping sweat from his face.
He’d remained cool in Helga’s presence: Zen and the art of detection.
Maria Thomas said, “I have to say she didn’t look the least bit hinky on those two murders.”
Don Boxmeister said, “Even with that, we get her on Rutger, she’s away for a long time.”
“Don’t get overconfident about Rutger,” said Thomas. “She has family money. Want to take bets the first thing any decent lawyer does is move to throw out the last two hours because she was under emotional duress?”
“ Milo didn’t persecute her, Maria.”
“Who’s talking reality, Don? It’s a game and rich people have a better win-loss record.” She turned to Milo. “You’re lucky she’s arrogant. Only reason she hasn’t lawyered up is she thinks she’s smarter than you. But now that she’s faced with Rutger, don’t count on that lasting. What’s your next step?”
Milo sat down heavily. Watched Helga through the glass.
She’d remained in her chair.
Black-wigged statue.
Thomas said, “ Milo, you with us?”
“I don’t know.”
Thomas’s BlackBerry sent her a message. She checked the screen, poked with a stylus, scrolled. “Detective Obermann has your German translations all done, he’ll e-mail them to you but is happy to talk to you over the phone. And… looks like he identified some of those numbers you found on Gemein’s papers. GPS coordinates, matching a private hangar at Van Nuys Airport. Registered to… DSD, Inc. That ring any bells?”
Milo sat up. “Loud ones. The sultan’s holding company.”
“So our Swiss Miss had more arson in mind. I’ll talk to the Sranilese consulate, ask for consent to enter the hangar.”
“There is no consulate.”
“The embassy in D.C., then.”
“They’ll say no and clean the place out.”
“Of what?”
“Their royal family’s involved in murder, they’re gonna be in total ass-covering mode.”
Thomas thought. “Guess we have a problem.” Helga Gemein closed her eyes.
Boxmeister said, “How about this: We apply for warrant under exigent danger. Likely presence of volatile chemicals, imminent risk of ignition.”
“The hangar’s ready to blow?” said Thomas. “What evidence do we have of that?”
“We’ve got prior bad acts by Helga and her looking for GPS coordinates. To me that’s clear intent.”
“She can look to her heart’s content, Don. How’s she going to gain access to the hangar?”
Milo said, “She’s got money to charter a private jet. Maybe once she’s in there she could find it.”
“Exactly,” said Boxmeister. “Like one of those private clubs. Getting past the rope’s a bitch, but once you’re in, anything goes.”
Thomas said, “No judge is going to buy it and we’re talking royalty, to boot.”
Milo said, “But what if she’s already gotten in there and set her Jell-O? All those aircraft nearby? All that jet fuel?”
Boxmeister said, “Shit, I don’t want to even imagine. Sure hate to be the one who failed to take precautions.”
Thomas said, “Subtle, guys. You want me to ask the boss.”
Milo glanced toward the one-way mirror. Helga remained frozen. “Up to you but I used all my charm up with her.”
Thomas drummed her BlackBerry. Began texting.
Helga Gemein stood up, walked to the mirror, turned her back on us.
One hand reached up. Fooled with the wig.
“That’s her anxiety tell, messing with the rug,” said Boxmeister. “She’s gonna cave, I can feel it.”
If that comforted Milo, he didn’t show it.
Thomas kept texting.
Helga Gemein turned again, faced us.
Looking but not seeing.
Blank eyes; she’d arrived at a solitary place.
Snatching off her wig with one deft movement, she exposed a beautifully shaped head shaved white and glossy. Holding the hairpiece in front of her, bowl up, like a chalice, she smiled.
Sad smile. Second time I’d seen it. I liked her no better.
Reaching into the wig, she pulled something out. Small and white and capsule-shaped, pincer-grasped between thumb and forefinger.
Still smiling, she opened her mouth, popped the white thing. Swallowed.
Her smile spread. Her breathing quickened.
Boxmeister said, “Oh, shit.”
Milo was already up, rushing for the door.
Maria Thomas looked up from her BlackBerry. “What’s going on?”
Milo ran past her, let the door slam shut.
Inches away, blocked by glass, Helga Gemein wobbled. Clutching her abdomen, she let out a gasp.
Retched.
Something green and slimy trickled out of her mouth.
Slack mouth, the smile was gone.
Thomas said, “Omigod,” and ran out of the room. Boxmeister hustled after her.
I stayed in my chair. No reason to crowd the space.
Helga began convulsing. Her breath grew labored. Staggering closer to the one-way, she panted raggedly. Filmed the glass. Flecked it with glassy spit, then pinpoints of pink.
The massive convulsion began at her eyes, raced downward as her entire body was seized.
Rag doll, shaken by an unseen god.
Foam began pouring out of her mouth, a Niagara of bile. Chunks of slime coated the glass, clouded my view. But I managed to make out Milo rushing in, catching her as she fell.
Laying her down gently, he began chest compressions. Thomas and Boxmeister stood by, transfixed.
Milo ’s technique was perfect. Rick insists he recertify every couple of years. He gripes about the colossal waste of time, homicide is brain-work, when would he ever have the opportunity to get heroic.
Today, he did.
Today, it didn’t matter.
CHAPTER 34
The police chief’s face is pocked more severely than Milo ’s. A lush white mustache does a pretty good job of camouflaging a harelip.
He’s a lean man with no discernible body fat. The lack of spare flesh stretches the skin that sheaths his skull, highlighting pit and crater, glossing lump and scar. The skull is an oddly shaped triangle, broad and unnaturally flat on top, coated with silky, blond-white hair, and tapering to a knife-point chin. His eyes are small and dark and they alternate between manic bounces and long stretches of unblinking immobility. When he turns his head a certain way, patches of taut, tortured dermis give him the look of a burn victim.
He turns that way a lot and I wonder if it’s intentional.
Take me on my terms.
Everything in his history supports a Screw-you approach to life: the up-from-nothing ascent, the graduate degree at an Ivy League university he disparages as “an asylum for rich brats.” War heroism followed by clawing up the ranks of a notoriously corrupt East Coast police force, the combative years spent kicking bureaucratic ass and clearing out departmental deadweight. Defying the brass and the police union with equal-opportunity contempt, he arm-twisted his way to dramatically lowered felony rates in a city considered “ungovernable” by pundits he dismissed as “fat-assed brats with mental constipation and verbal diarrhea.” Stunning success was exploited to demand and receive the highest law enforcement salary in U.S. history.
A month later, he quit unceremoniously, when L.A. upped the ante.
Everyone said L.A. would be his fatal challenge.