“Instinct. When I texted you I asked if all was well. So I drank my whiskey.
“But fifteen minutes later, when I am walking back to the hotel, I found myself walking faster and faster, until I was actually running…I just had a feeling. I can’t explain it.”
“You never can,” she says.
Chapter 38
The next morning.
Eleven o’clock. I meet K. Burke in the lobby of the hotel.
“So here we are,” she says. “Everything is back to abnormal.”
Even I realize that this is a bad play on words. But it does perfectly describe our situation.
“Look,” I say. “A mere apology is unsuitable. I am totally responsible for the near tragedy of last night.”
“There’s nothing to apologize for. It goes with the territory,” she says, but I can see from her red eyes that she did not sleep well. I try to say something helpful.
“I suspect what happened a few hours ago is that the enemy saw us together at some point here in Paris and assumed that we were a couple, which of course we are not.”
I realize immediately that my words are insulting, as if it would be impossible to consider us a romantic item. So I speak again, this time more quickly.
“Of course, they might have been correct in the assumption. After all, a lovely-looking woman like you could-”
“Turn it off, Moncrief. I was not offended.”
I smile. Then I hold K. Burke by the shoulders, look into her weary eyes, and speak.
“Listen. Out of something awful that almost happened last evening…something good has come. I believe I have an insight. I think I may now know the fingerprint of this case.”
She asks me to share the theory with her.
“I cannot tell you yet. Not for secrecy reasons, but because I must first be sure, in order to keep my own mind clear. On y va.”
“Okay,” she says. Then she translates: “Let’s go.”
We walk outside. I speak to one of the doormen.
“Ma voiture, s’il vous plaît,” I say.
“Elle est là, Monsieur Moncrief. ”
“Your car is here?” Burke asks, and as she speaks my incredibly beautiful 1960 Porsche 356B pulls up and the valet gets out.
“C’est magnifique,” Burke says.
The Porsche is painted a brilliantly shiny black. Inside is a custom mahogany instrument panel and a pair of plush black leather seats. I explain to Detective Burke that I had been keeping the car at my father’s country house, near Avignon.
“But two days ago I had the car brought up to Paris. And so today we shall use it.”
I turn right on the rue de Rivoli, and the Porsche heads out of the city.
After the usual mess of too many people and triple-parked cars and thousands of careless bicycle riders, we are outside Paris, on our way south.
K. Burke twists in her seat and faces me.
“Okay, Moncrief. I have a question that’s been bugging me all night.”
“I hope to have the answer,” I say, trying not to sound anxious.
“The gun that you used last night. Where did you get it?”
I laugh, and with the wind in our hair and the sun in our eyes I fight the urge to throw my head back like an actor in a movie.
“Oh, the gun. Well, when Papa’s driver dropped off the car two days ago, I looked in that little compartment, the one in front of your seat, and voilà! Driving gloves, chewing gum, driver’s license, and my beautiful antique Nagant revolver. I thought it might come in handy someday.”
In the countryside I pick up speed, a great deal of speed. K. Burke does not seem at all alarmed by fast driving. After a few minutes of silence I tell her that I am taking the country roads instead of the A5 autoroute so that she might enjoy the summer scenery.
She does not say a word. She is asleep, and she remains so until I make a somewhat sharp right turn at our destination.
K. Burke blinks, rubs her eyes, and speaks.
“Where are we, Moncrief?”
Ahead of us is a long, low, flat gray building. It is big and gloomy. Not like a haunted house or a lost castle. Just a huge grim pile of concrete. She reads the name of the building, carved into the stone.
PRISON CLAIRVAUX
She does a double take.
“What are we doing here, Moncrief?”
“We are here to meet the killer of Maria Martinez and Dalia Boaz.”
Chapter 39
A few years ago, a detective with the Paris police described the prison at Clairvaux as “hell, but without any of the fun.” I think the detective was being kind.
As K. Burke and I present identification to the entrance guards, I tell her, “Centuries ago this was a Cistercian abbey, a place of monks and prayer and chanting.”
“Well,” she says as she looks around the stained gray walls. “There isn’t a trace of God left here.”
Burke and I are scanned with an electronic wand, then we step through an X-ray machine and are finally escorted to a large vacant room-no chairs, no tables, no window. We stand waiting a few minutes. The door opens, and an official-looking man as tall as the six-foot doorway enters. He is thin and old. His left eye is made of glass. His name is Tomas Wren. We shake hands.
“Detective Moncrief, I was delighted to hear your message this morning that you would be paying us a visit.”
“Merci,” I say. “Thank you for accommodating us on such short notice.”
Wren looks at Detective Burke and speaks.
“And you, of course, must be Madame Moncrief.”
“Non, monsieur, je suis Katherine Burke. Je suis la collègue de Monsieur Moncrief.”
“Ah, mille pardons,” Wren says. Then Wren turns to me. He is suddenly all business.
“I have told Ballard that you are coming to see him.”
“His reaction?” I ask.
“His face lit up.”
“I’m glad to hear that,” I say.
“You never know with Ballard. He can be a dangerous customer,” says Wren. “But he owes you a great deal.”
With a touch of levity, I say, “And I owe him a great deal. Without his help I would never have made the arrests that made my career take off.”
Wren shrugs, then says, “I have set aside one of the private meeting rooms for you and Mademoiselle Burke,” Wren adds.
We follow him down another stained and gray hallway. The private room is small-perhaps merely a dormitory cell from the days of the Cistercian brothers-but it has four comfortable desk chairs around a small maple table. A bit more uninviting, however, are the bouton d’urgence-the emergency button-and two heavy metal clubs.
Wren says that he will be back in a moment. “With Ballard,” he says.
As soon as Wren exits, Burke speaks.
“I remember this case from the other day, Moncrief. On the computer. Ballard is the horse trainer who killed some guy and wounded another at the Longchamp racecourse.”
“Yes, indeed, Detective.”
“But I don’t totally get what’s going on here now.”
“You will,” I say.
“If you say so,” she answers.
I nod, and as I do I feel myself becoming…quiet…no, the proper word is…frightened. A kind of soft anxiety begins falling over me. No man can ever feel happy being in a prison, even for a visit. It is a citadel of punishment and futility. But this is something way beyond simple unhappiness. Burke senses that something is wrong.
“Are you okay, Moncrief?” she says.
“No, I am not. I am twice a widower of sorts. And now I feel I am in the house where those plans were made. No, Detective. I am not okay. But you know what? I don’t ever expect to be okay. Excuse me if that sounds like self-pity.”
“No need to apologize. I understand.”
Chapter 40