“Of course there are, my dear,” said Madeleine, jumping up, bangles jangling. “Would anyone else care for more?”
Gideon and Julie declined, and Clapper continued. “Not all along, no. But since yesterday I’ve been virtually certain of it, only I had no evidence. Now, with the bloodstains, I do.”
“But what made you think it was him yesterday?” Julie asked.
“Superior police work, my girl,” said Clapper jovially. “Learning that the fax to Mr. Kozlov-ostensibly from Mr. Villarreal-originated in Anchorage on the eighth of June, and knowing that the previous consortium had ended one day earlier, I had Kyle run a search for the name of any consortium fellow that might have arrived at Anchorage International Airport on either of those two days. And what do you know, up popped the name of one Rudolph Walker, who had flown from Toronto on the morning of the eighth, having flown to Toronto from London the day before. He stayed five hours, long enough, I should say, to send the fax and to pick up Mr. Villarreal’s car and dispose of it somewhere, then catch a 3:00 P.M. flight back to Toronto. That made it close enough to a virtual certainty to satisfy me. And the bloodstains in the room cinched it. So we nicked him.”
“Well done, Mike,” Gideon said.
“Hear, hear,” Madeleine said in the kitchen.
“The blood will go off to a laboratory for DNA analysis, and along with all that you’ve come up with, Gideon, I should say we’ll have a pretty strong case, whether Mr. Walker decides to cooperate or not.”
“He hasn’t confessed, then?” Julie asked.
“No, and I haven’t asked him to. It’s early days yet. He’s entitled to a legal adviser, you see, and he’s demanded one. The problem is that there aren’t any solicitors on the island, not a one. I offered him the opportunity to have telephone advice from Penzance, or London, or any place he liked, but he said that wasn’t good enough and refused.”
“You can’t really blame him,” said Gideon. “It wouldn’t be the same as having a lawyer at your side.”
“I don’t blame him. In his place, I would have done the same. In any event, he’s gotten hold of an experienced solicitor from Truro, but the gentleman isn’t available until tomorrow afternoon, so I’ve put the meat of the interrogation off until then. I want to be very sure I have all my procedural ducks in a row.”
Madeleine returned with Clapper’s bacon and eggs and put them before him.
“Ah, thank you, love,” he said, immediately setting to.
“And what about Joey’s murder?” Gideon asked. “Do you have anything to go on that connects Rudy to that? Anything solid?”
“Not yet,” Clapper said placidly. “Nothing more than conjecture, but then we’ve only just begun, you know. Don’t even have the autopsy report yet. I’m anxious to see that.”
Madeleine seized on the lull in conversation to change the subject. “What happens to you two now?” she asked Gideon and Julie from the kitchen. “I assume the rest of the consortium has been called off.”
“That’s because you don’t know Vasily,” Julie said. “No, we have one more day to go tomorrow, and he’s already informed us that he expects us-”
“Those of you still left,” said Gideon.
“-to be there. Vasily Kozlov’s not the man to have his schedule upset by a murder or two.” She accepted another cup of tea from Madeleine. “Thank you. And then on Monday we catch the 1:00 P.M. ferry for Penzance, and the train to London. We fly from Heathrow that night.”
“Perhaps we can have dinner tomorrow night?” Madeleine suggested. “Something heartier than eggs and bacon?”
“Absolutely,” said Gideon. “Our treat.”
“And then we’ll see you in October for our”-charmingly, she blushed-“wedding?” Although she was fifty, Gideon knew, this would be her first marriage, so blushes were in order.
“I suspect we’ll see them, or Gideon, at any rate, before then,” Clapper said. “We’ll need him to give evidence at trial.”
Having by now put away the last of his second helping, Clapper finally set down his knife and fork. “That was splendid, love,” he said to Madeleine, who beamed back at him, then went so far as to dab at a bit of egg beside his mouth with the corner of her own napkin.
“Oh, don’t fuss so, woman,” he griped, but it was obvious that he was loving it; that they both were loving it. Madeleine kept on digging until the egg came away, while Clapper’s happy eyes, raised helplessly to the ceiling, said: What can I do? The woman is mad about me!
TWENTY-FIVE
Olympic National Park Headquarters, Port Angeles, Washington Five Weeks Later: July 27, 2005
“I love a woman in a uniform,” Gideon said, watching Julie come down the steps in her tan shirt and snug olive trousers.
“Lucky break for me,” she said, leaning over for a quick kiss, then sitting across from him on the bench at the other side of the picnic table. “I’m starving. What did you get?”
Once or twice a week, depending on schedules and weather, they met for an alfresco lunch on the back lawn of the Olympic National Park’s administrative headquarters just outside of Port Angeles, where a picnic table for the staff had been set up in a sunny clearing in a grove of fir trees. Gideon usually brought the food, and today it was fish and chips with Diet Pepsis, from the Landings restaurant down at the ferry dock.
“Great!” Julie said, unwrapping her portion. “This should get me through the afternoon. Is this haddock?”
“Cod. Guess what. Rudy’s admitted murdering both of them.”
“Yeah, I bet. Are you going to be using your tartar sauce?”
He handed her his packet. “No, really. I got a call from Mike Clapper this morning. Rudy’s changing his plea to guilty. On the advice of his barrister.”
“You’re serious. What brought this about?”
“The marvels of modern science. The DNA results came in on Friday, and when Rudy’s barrister saw them, he did an about-face on the innocent plea they had going.”
There were two sets of findings, he explained. First, DNA extracted from the blood in Rudy’s room matched not only the bones from the beach, but also made a convincing match with a sample from Villarreal’s sister, thus establishing beyond any conceivable doubt that a) the bones were Villarreal’s, and b) the dried blood in Walker’s bathroom came from Villarreal as well.
But that had been expected; they’d been preparing for that. What had really turned things around was a second analysis that had been done on traces of blood and tissue found lodged in the links of Rudy’s metal watchband.
“They found blood in his watchband?” Julie said. “I didn’t know that.”
“Neither did I. Neither did Mike, who’s pretty much out of the loop at this point.”
“That’s incredible-that it would still be there after two years.”
“No, this wasn’t Villarreal’s; this was fresh.”
A ketchup-dabbed French fry on the way to her lips slowed. “Joey’s?”
“Yup. Blood and scalp tissue, both identified as Joey’s, based on comparisons with tissue from his mother.”
“Wow.”
“Wow is right. That did it, as far as the barrister was concerned. Can you imagine trying to convince a jury that these were not bits of Joey’s head that got dislodged while Walker was bashing it in with a rock?” He grimaced and peered doubtfully at the piece of fish he’d just broken off. “I think I got a little too graphic for my own good there.”
“Much,” Julie agreed. “So, did he say what made him kill Joey?”
“Yes, it’s all down on paper now, signed and sealed.”
“Had he known about Edgar’s murder, was that it?”
“Yes,” Gideon said, “and no.”
He returned to his lunch and continued. Joey had been staying, Julie would remember, in the Marianus Napper Room, which was next to Rudy’s room, the John Biddle Room, which was at the end of the hall. Late on the last night of the first consortium, after the squabble with Pete Williams at Methodist Hall and the nightly poker game, according to Rudy, a still-seething Villarreal had banged on Rudy’s door, sick of being needled by him all week, and determined to get down to the source of it. Or perhaps he had just needed to vent some more after the Methodist Hall incident, or to argue some more. Whichever it was, their voices were soon raised and Joey, trying to sleep in the next room, had thumped on the wall and told them to keep it down.