Jim McGill 02 The Hangman's Companion Read online

  “What’s wrong, Bob?” Michaelson said. “This isn’t exactly the reaction I expected.” Merriman pushed himself up in his chair.

  “I’ll get your campaign up and running, Senator. Then I’ll bring in one of my people to take over. I’ll backstop him when necessary.”

  Michaelson wasn’t happy to hear that. Here he was reaching for greatness, and the guy he was counting on to see he succeeded was turning up his nose at the idea.

  Michaelson asked, “Why the hell can’t you just handle the whole thing?”

  Bob Merriman leaned forward, a smile forming on his face.

  “I’m going to be busy. Running for the senate seat you’ll be leaving.”

  Pruet’s office, Paris

  9

  Sitting in Pruet’s office, McGill told the magistrate, “It plays for me.”

  McGill was referring to Kinnard’s version of events, as they had been reenacted that morning.

  Pruet divined the meaning of McGill’s idiom, but was still mulling over his own opinion of what he’d seen. Gabbi and Odo looked on keeping their expressions neutral.

  “You know the accused far better than I do” Pruet said. “That, naturally, will color your judgment. But I must confess I see the scenario as more likely than before.”

  McGill reminded the magistrate, “When we talked with your countryman, M’sieur Leroux, he told us he was awakened by Glen Kinnard’s confrontation with Thierry Duchamp. Heard it through his open bedroom window. The one opening directly on the Quai Branly. Even if he didn’t see what happened, he thought it sounded serious enough to call the cops.”

  Leroux’s call had led to the discovery of the unconscious Kinnard and Duchamp’s body. Albeit two-and-a-half hours later.

  “Perhaps you’re charitable enough to think an American might help as well,” McGill said.

  Pruet nodded. He had Paul Leroux waiting in another room for further questioning. Still unanswered was the question of whether the man had heard a woman’s voice on the morning of the attack. Thus far, Leroux had said only that he’d heard the horrifying shouts of two men having a fight. If Leroux were unable to place a woman at the scene, Pruet would ask if he could provide the names of any people he would normally see in the morning when he walked along the Quai Branly.

  Maybe someone else could provide a fuller account.

  Pruet asked McGill, “Did M’sieur Kinnard tell you that he called out his identity as a policeman?”

  McGill shook his head.

  “No. But he was with the Chicago Police Department at the same time I was; he would have had the same training I did. We were taught to identify ourselves before we acted. I called out my identity as a police officer reflexively, despite the fact I’m retired. Despite the fact that I’m in Paris not Chicago. If Kinnard did the same, even if Thierry Duchamp didn’t speak English, he would have recognized the word police, wouldn’t he?”

  Odo had been watching McGill closely and nodded. “Oui. I recognized it when you called out, without having to shift my thinking to English.”

  Pruet asked his bodyguard, “Were you thinking in French while arguing with Ms. Casale?”

  Odo nodded. “Of course. That was my part.”

  “Were you fighting with M’sieur McGill in French as well?”

  “Oui. But I am not a professional football player. So I doubt my kicks were as accurate.”

  There was a subtext here, McGill could see it on Pruet’s face, but he didn’t pry.

  “May I ask what your next step is?” McGill asked the magistrate. “So we’re not duplicating our efforts.”

  Pruet told McGill he would look for any possible witness to the crime, someone who did not come forth as he or she should have. “And you, Mr. McGill?”

  McGill looked at Gabbi. “What’s the phrase in French?”

  She knew just what he wanted. “Cherchez la femme.”

  Look for the woman.

  McGill and Gabbi took their leave. Pruet turned his attention to Odo.

  “You are not a footballer, so you don’t know how to kick? You are a master of savate, or so you’ve always told me. Kicking is second nature to you.”

  “I used to think so,” Odo said, darkening with embarrassment. “I did not see the sweep from the Ami coming. One moment I was nicely balanced on my left foot, the next I was sailing away like a kite in a gale.”

  “I thought I was going to lose you, mon ami.”

  “I thought so, too. But M’sieur McGill was kind enough to save me from everything but embarrassment.” Odo shook his head in chagrin. “He is amazingly quick, Yves. And he knows techniques I have never seen.”

  “I still have great respect for your ability and your judgment, Odo. So the question I am about to ask you is entirely serious.”

  “Yes?”

  “If it had been the president’s henchman who had confronted Thierry Duchamp under the Pont d’Iéna, do you think our national sports hero would still be alive?”

  Odo didn’t have to think twice. “Oui. Damaged but alive. But what difference does that make?”

  “It raises the question of intent. After Kinnard intervened — if there was a woman in jeopardy— did he have to fight desperately to save himself? Or was he a short-tempered fellow, further aggravated by the death of his wife, a man who decided to beat Thierry Duchamp to death simply to satisfy his own rage?”

  Odo said, “His record, as furnished by his own department, indicates a frequent use of violence.”

  “As M’sieur McGill indicated, none of those instances was judged to merit punishment.”

  “Cops protecting cops.”

  “Probably so. But Kinnard also received commendations for valor. I would like to know who this fellow truly is. I would also like to know how closely he and Thierry Duchamp were matched as combatants.”

  “With Duchamp dead, we will never know.”

  “We may not know exactly. But if in your expert opinion M’sieur McGill would have had little trouble with Duchamp, then there is a way to reach an approximate conclusion.”

  Odo looked at Pruet in disbelief. “Surely, Yves, you are not suggesting —”

  “I’m afraid I am,” Pruet said.

  Paris

  10

  Arno Durand, a French sportswriter at La Bataille de Sports — The Sports Battle — a hard-edged sports tabloid, was busy pounding out a story on his computer. He worked from a notebook, transcribing his scribbles into a story. La Bataille’s specialty was scandal in the sports world. Durand was writing about the high-scorer of the Russian women’s national basketball team being a transsexual. The tabloid made no judgments of people who changed their physical gender to match their self-image, but according to confidential sources, Mavra Baklanova had begun playing for the Russian team while still sporting the genitalia of Mikhail Baklanov.

  The reporter had the documentation he needed to back up his story: dates of games in which Baklanov played preceding the date of his sex-change procedure done in a Bangkok clinic. The rebuttal of any critics of his story would be even more satisfying than the splash the breaking news would produce. A follow-up story would say that it had become necessary for league officials to do a brief but definitive examination of just what kind of crotch each “woman” possessed before allowing her to compete. He finished writing his story with a smirk on his face.

  With exquisite timing, the reporter’s phone headset beeped with an incoming call.

  “Oui,” Durand grunted, answering the call.

  “Parlez-vous anglais?” the caller’s voice asked.

  “Yes, of course. I cover football in England.”

  The English were always good for scandals. But the voice on the phone sounded American.

  “This concerns the death of Thierry Duchamp.”

  Durand was hooked immediately. “Yes, what about it?”

  “A detective has been hired to clear the American who killed him.”

  “A French detective?”

  “No, Americ
an.”

  “Does the gendarmerie know of this?”

  “You’ll have to find out for yourself.”

  “What is this detective’s name?”

  “James J. McGill.” The caller clicked off.

  Durand would have dropped the phone if it hadn’t been attached to his head.

  The American president’s henchman was investigating the death of Thierry Duchamp? That would certainly be the story of the year.

  Durand knew he would have to move fast to insure that it was his alone.

  Georgetown

  11

  Sweetie ignored Welborn as he paced in front of her desk at McGill Investigations, Inc. She read from her book of daily prayer and meditation as the young Air Force investigator paraded back and forth like a figure in an arcade game.

  On Sweetie’s desk lay two photos: the Vietnamese men who had briefly visited Bishop O’Menehy’s confessional that morning. Each time he passed, Welborn glanced at the photos.

  Without looking up, Sweetie said, “You always have so much trouble making up your mind, Welborn?”

  He stopped and looked at her. “If it’s all the same to you, Margaret, I’m feeling a bit conflicted. Unsure of my role here.”

  Sweetie marked her place and closed the book. She looked at her young companion. The two of them with their blonde hair and fair complexions look as if they could be brother and sister.

  “Who sent you here, Welborn?”

  “The president.”

  “And did Patti place any limitations on you, outside of not committing criminal acts?”

  Welborn studied Sweetie. “Are you really on a first-name basis with the president?”

  “Uh-huh. We’re buds.”

  “And you don’t think she’d mind my using a federal data base to help you with your case? You being a partner, if I understand things correctly, in a private enterprise.”

  “Philosophically, should any information gathered using taxpayer money ever be off-limits to taxpayers?”

  Welborn said, “I’m not worried about answering to philosophers; it’s courts martial that concern me.”

  “I think you’d be hard pressed to find an unsympathetic audience if you explain you were helping to find the assailant of a Secret Service agent.”

  Welborn slumped into a visitor’s chair.

  “Are we even supposed to be poking our noses into a Secret Service case?”

  “They haven’t done so well, have they?”

  “Still.”

  “And we’re only exploring an avenue brought to us by a private citizen.”

  “Small comfort, Margaret.”

  “You’re going to insist on addressing me by my given name.”

  “It’s my upbringing. As to the rest, I don’t do well with ambiguity,” he said.

  “Me either. I’m trying to square finding Deke’s shooter with fudging my confession to Bishop O’Menehy.”

  “You didn’t tell him—” Welborn bit his tongue.

  “Tell the bishop lies? No, not outright. But I shaded, I omitted. I’m worried that whatever’s in the air around this town might be getting to me. I feel like I need another confession to make up for the last one. Even so, it would be nice to know if those two mugs are in fact Horatio Bao and Ricky Lanh Huu, and if so whether they have criminal records.”

  “And I wish I had a clue about what I should do.”

  “A sign?” Sweetie asked. She steepled her hands and closed her eyes, as if in prayer. A heartbeat later the phone rang. Sweetie opened her eyes and smiled.

  “If that’s just a coincidence,” she said nodding at the phone, “the call will be for me.”

  The phone rang again.

  “On the other hand, if it’s for you…”

  She picked up, answering, “McGill Investigations…Why, yes, he’s right here.” She extended the phone to Welborn. “A Ms. Kira Fahey, calling from the White House.”

  Welborn took the phone, and gave Sweetie a look.

  “Hi, what? Yes, of course. Put her through.”

  As Welborn waited for the connection to be made, Sweetie asked, “The president?”

  “Close enough. Galia Mindel.”

  Winfield House

  12

  President Patricia Darden Grant welcomed the leaders of the G8 nations, excepting Russia, and adding the president of South Korea, to Winfield House. The leaders of the world’s leading economic powers were formally presented to President Grant by the U.S. ambassador to the Court of Saint James, Garret Byrne. Most of them had already had the pleasure in bilateral meetings. The handshakes were mostly cordial, correct in the case of British Prime Minister Norvin Kimbrough. There was a special twinkle in the eye of German Chancellor Erika Kirsch, the only other female leader present, when she shook Patti’s hand.

  The group was seated in comfortable chairs arranged in a semicircle in front of the lectern from which Patti would speak. Glasses of water had been provided for all in case President Grant’s words caused anyone’s throat to suddenly go dry.

  French President Jean-Louis Severin sat just off-center to the left, with Norvin Kimbrough on one side of him and Erika Kirsch on the other. The leaders of France and Germany seemed to possess a foreknowledge of Patti’s plans that the others lacked. Only Norvin Kimbrough gave any sign of having picked up on that. Kimbrough, a Tory, had backed one of Patti’s opponents, Governor Lawrence Concannon of Massachusetts, in the Republican primary race. Kimbrough had been open in his support of Concannon, something Patti could accept as both men had been at Oxford, the governor having been a Rhodes Scholar. But after Patti had beaten Concannon, the last of her challengers to stay in the race, there had been rumors that Kimbrough had urged his friend to run as an independent. Concannon had the personal fortune to make inroads into Patti’s vote count, but he was smart and knew it would damage him beyond repair, politically, to try to be a spoiler and throw the race to the Democrats. Concannon hadn’t risen in the world by backing the wrong horse. He’d pledged his support to Patti and campaigned vigorously for her. That had left Kimbrough with egg on his face and a political enemy in the new American president. That blunder had also boosted the fortunes of the Labor Party in the UK, and left the prime minister vulnerable within his own party.

  Kimbrough had only himself to blame for his troubles. But he didn’t have the integrity to do that. He blamed Patti for getting above herself. For being a woman in what still should have been a man’s world. Her and that damn Kraut, Kirsch.

  As soon as all the staffers had left the room, Patti said, “Chancellor Kirsch, gentlemen, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for agreeing to meet with me here today at Winfield House. I did not extend this invitation to you lightly.” Patti paused, like a cliff-diver gathering herself before taking the plunge. “What I propose to you today is that we make history.”

  Hart Senate Office Building

  13

  Senator Roger Michaelson, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, slammed his fist on his desk, not believing the document he’d just read.

  “She can’t do this, goddamnit,” Michaelson ranted. “She’s trying to end our status as a superpower, the only superpower. Whatever piece of crap agreement she gets over there in London — if the goddamn Europeans are stupid enough to go for it — it will never be approved by the Senate. I’ll kill it all by myself, if I have to.”

  Bob Merriman, who had brought the bad news to the senator, sat and pondered the situation. His initial judgment was a political one. He told Merriman, “She’ll have 99% of the women in this country with her; she’ll have an overwhelming percentage of liberals and voters under forty; she’ll have the Libertarians and America-firsters, too.” Merriman barked out a harsh laugh. “Where she’ll have the most trouble is with her own damn party.”

  “The fucking Republicans can get in line behind me,” Michaelson said.

  Bob Merriman looked at his boss. The senator had heard every word he’d said and hadn’t given a moment�
��s consideration to any of them. Patti Grant had come up with a foreign policy masterstroke, as Merriman saw it, one that would allow her to proceed with domestic policy changes that would be equally profound. In the second year of her first term, she was on her way to becoming one of the great presidents of American history — and Roger Michaelson was going to kill all that?

  Merriman didn’t think so. Given just a few minutes to consider the situation, he wasn’t even sure he wanted to thwart the president. Which was damned odd because he’d started the day wanting to destroy the Grant presidency as much as Roger Michaelson did. So what had happened to his political — his tribal — loyalty?

  Could the world, and the way he looked at it, really change that fast?

  The Hideaway, Paris

  14

  In the Irish pub below his new digs, McGill and Gabbi sat in a booth at the back of the room. Gabbi had a laptop computer sitting closed on the table between them. A waitress brought them burgers and fries. McGill had a Coke; Gabbi had a Perrier.

  The waitress smiled, let her look linger on McGill a moment, then left.

  “She’s trying to figure out who you are,” Gabbi told him.

  “Character-actor types like me are always hard to place,” he answered. He lifted the bun on his burger and looked at the patty.

  “You’re not the leading-man type?” Gabbi asked.

  McGill raised his eyes and gave her a smile. “A henchman never is. Besides, I do my best work when people are looking the other way.” He went back to inspecting the burger.

  “Isn’t it cooked properly?” Gabbi asked.

  “I’m just wondering, you know, if it’s really beef. I hear they eat horses over here.”

  Gabbi laughed. “They do, but not in this place. That’s prime beef.”