Chapter 79
" Namaste.”
The Indian accent carrying the words into Gage’s cell phone was both heavy and familiar. Gage swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up. He looked at the alarm clock, the red letters glowing in the dark.
“You know what time it is?” Gage asked as he emerged from the gray haze of sleep.
Babu laughed. “Of course, five in the evening.”
“I mean here.”
“Twelve and a half hours earlier. As it should be.”
“Which means?”
“It’s time to get up.”
“Not in California.
Babu paused. “You mean Americans aren’t getting up at the same time as us? I am always assuming they did. You want me to call back?”
Gage glanced over at Faith. He couldn’t see her face, just the moonlit outline of her head propped up on one elbow.
“Hold on a minute,” Gage covered the mouthpiece. “I’ve got a new cultural insight for you. Babu seems to think everyone in the world gets up at the same time as Indians.”
Faith shook her head.
“I’m sure that’ll be the next cover story for the American Journal of Anthropology,” Faith said, then dropped her head back onto the pillow.
Gage slipped on his robe and uncovered the mouthpiece.
“Hold on. I’ll take this downstairs.”
G age stood at the kitchen counter in the darkness, looking toward the lights of San Francisco, his view framed by pines and oaks on the lower part of the property. It was still more than an hour before the sun rose, and the owl hooting in the branch overhanging the deck seemed to be asking why Gage was already awake.
“The Hyderabad police found Mr. Wilbert’s body in a mango grove behind one of the dhabas along the highway,” Babu said.
Gage felt his muscles tense.
“Did you see it?” Gage asked.
“No. He was cremated right afterward. We use our limited refrigerated storage for food, not dead people. But the local police took photos beforehand. That’s how I knew who he was.”
“What killed him?”
“Natural causes.”
“How do you know?”
“Because foreigners in India only die of natural causes, even if the body shows signs of… of… shall we say… abuse? Our Ministry of External Affairs insists on it.”
“How much abuse?”
“Maybe as long as a few hours. Some bruises had time to form and some wounds scabbed over, others didn’t. My guess is that he was strangled in the end.”
“Do the local police know who he is?”
“They suspect he’s German because it’s mostly them who come to India on the sex tours. More to Kolkata and Goa than to Hyderabad, but still…”
“How about encouraging them in that idea?”
“They’ll find encouragement in anything that allows them to put the matter to rest.”
J ust before sunrise, Gage brought a cup of coffee to Faith, still lying in bed and watching the local news. On the screen was a repeat from a previous evening’s news segment.
A self-satisfied President Duncan leaned forward in his chair toward the interviewer.
“Of course, we’ll swear them in immediately after the Senate vote.”
“What about a filibuster?” the reporter asked.
“The Democrats would look ridiculous if they tried. A third of the Senate and the entire House hit the campaign trail in a few months, and nobody wants to carry that kind of ugly baggage.”
“Or is it merely that they don’t want the same treatment if they take the White House a year from now?”
Duncan straightened his shoulders.
“That’s not going to happen.”
Gage handed Faith her cup, then sat down on the edge of the bed.
“I think we’ve lost TIMCO.”
“Hawkins? Is that what Babu called about?”
Gage nodded. “Murdered.”
Faith shuddered.
“Now we have no admissible evidence.”
“Unless you can work back from whoever killed him.”
“That’s assuming the killing was related. For all we know, it was something else. Maybe revenge for Hawkins’s mistreating a girl.”
“But you don’t think so.”
“No. But we’ll never know for certain. There’s nothing left of the crime scene except dirt and rotting mangos, and nothing left of Hawkins except ashes.”
“And Babu?”
“There’s not much he can do. I’m positive the local cops he’d have to rely on have already been paid off by whoever did it.”
G age called Joe Casey as he drove toward his office.
“Can you find out if a Robert Marnin came through customs recently?”
“Hold on.”
Casey came back on the line a few minutes later.
“He flew into Newark. Flight AI-191 from Paris a few days ago.”
“Thanks.”
Gage disconnected and slipped his phone into his shirt pocket.
AI-191. AI. Air India. A redneck like Boots Marnin wouldn’t fly Air India from Paris unless the flight originated in Delhi, Mumbai, or Kolkata.
Gage looked up from the Bay Bridge at the fog intertwining itself in the financial district. Then his mind cleared: Charlie Palmer, the OSHA inspector Karopian, and Wilbert Hawkins weren’t killed for revenge.
They were chosen one by one because they were links in an evidentiary chain Gage had followed hand over hand; one that now had exploded into a thousand pieces, just like the valve that had set off the TIMCO firestorm.
Gage shook his head and exhaled. At least there’s no one left to kill.
He drove on for a half mile, then found himself gripping the steering wheel.
Unless whoever was behind the killings stopped thinking like a lawyer.
I nstead of taking the exit toward the Embarcadero, Gage continued on the freeway to the off-ramp nearest the Hall of Justice. After a couple of hours researching criminal files in the superior court clerk’s office, Gage realized he was wrong.
There was one person left to kill.
Chapter 80
The Elf was leading a different Wolf when Gage pulled to stop on the one-way Folsom Street in front of the Bootstrap at eleven-forty that night. Apparently Jeffrey Stark, Charlie Palmer’s physical therapist, hadn’t taken all that well to the yoke.
Gage stepped out of his car as they came even with him. The overhead streetlight gave Elf’s face a yellow pallor. His eyes widened and he dropped the leash.
Gage shook his head. “This isn’t about you. I’m trying to find Jeffrey. His cell phone is disconnected.”
“He fell behind on the payments so it got turned off.”
“And I went by the place where he told me he was staying. Nobody answered the door all day.”
Elf’s eyebrows narrowed. “Why’s everybody so interested in Jeffrey?”
“Who’s everybody?”
“The company he worked for-”
“Physical Therapy Associates?”
“Yeah. They called me like six times in the last two days, real anxious to contact him.”
“Why you?”
Elf glanced over at his Wolf. “He put me down as his next of kin on his application.”
The Wolf glared at Elf, then stomped away.
“Sorry,” Gage said.
“No problem.” Elf tilted his head toward the club. “There’s lots where he came from.”
“Practically a candy store.”
Elf’s eyebrows went up. “You’re not…”
Gage shook his head again.
“Too bad.”
Gage smiled. “Anyway I think I’m a little old for you.”
Elf smiled back. “I don’t know. I’ve seen Sabrina like a hundred times. Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart. May and December.”
“Sorry.”
Elf shrugged. “So what’s up with Jeffrey?”
“I’m trying to figure that out. Do you know why the company was trying to contact him?”