The Ambassador's Wife (18 page)

Ambassador Munson was standing behind his desk when Tay entered. He came around it and walked toward Tay with his hand outstretched.

The ambassador was a big man, and so homely he was almost nobly ugly. He had rough, weathered skin, a huge misshapen nose, and oversized jug ears that stuck straight out. Droopy, dark brown basset hound eyes stared out of a face that looked like someone hadn’t read all the directions before they began to assemble it.

In spite of all that, there was something about the ambassador that overwhelmed the background against which he posed. He even looked familiar somehow, although Tay was certain he had never met any American ambassador, let alone this one. It was like encountering an actor you had seen over and over again on television, one whose appearance you recognized immediately but whose name you couldn’t quite remember. Could the Americans have hired someone to play the role of the ambassador, Tay wondered for a moment, just to make a fool of him? No, of course they hadn’t. That was ridiculous.

The ambassador enveloped Tay’s hand in his own enormous, gnarled fingers. “I want to thank you for meetin’ with me today, Inspector. I’m very sorry I had to keep you waitin’.”

When he heard the Texas drawl, Tay suddenly realized why Ambassador Munson looked so familiar. The man bore far more than a passing resemblance to Lyndon Johnson. That was it exactly. To shake hands with the ambassador was to watch a waxwork figure of Lyndon Johnson circa 1968 lurch into life. Good God, Tay wondered, could it be that everyone from Texas looked like this? Surely not.

The ambassador gestured with his head to an area by the windows opposite his desk. It was furnished with two leather couches and several chairs upholstered in dark fabric, all grouped around an oval-shaped glass coffee table.

“You know my boys here, Inspector?”

Tay looked where the ambassador was indicating and saw two men he didn’t recognize and one he did.

“I’ve met—”

“The one there with the tie is Tony DeSouza, our legal attaché,” the ambassador interrupted without waiting for Tay to finish. “The one sitting next to him who looks too damn young to be out of college is Marc Reagan, my staff assistant, and the old goat on the other couch is Dewey Garland, our commercial attaché.”

“I met Mr. DeSouza last week,” Tay said.

“Well, that must have been fun for you,” the ambassador said and flashed Tay a one-of-the-guys smile to let him know he was only joshing.

The ambassador waved Tay toward one of two empty chairs facing the windows and Cally took the other. Only then did the ambassador settle into a chair opposite Tay, cross his legs, and let his long arms dangle carelessly over the sides. The glare from the windows behind the ambassador made his eyes hard to see and Tay gathered that was exactly the point of the seating arrangement.

“You want a Coc’-Cola or something else ‘fore we get started?” the ambassador asked Tay.

“No, sir. Thank you.”

Nodding, the ambassador fixed Tay with what he apparently thought was a caring smile.

“First,” he said, “let me tell you that I ‘preciate the horse sense you showed in putting out that suicide story after Liz’s body was found.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you mean, sir. The only reason we made any press statement at all was—”

“We figure it was a pretty sharp idea,” the ambassador interrupted. “We’re thinking of sticking with it.”

Now Tay really was confused. “With what?” he asked.

“Your suicide story. We’re thinking of sticking with it and announcing that Liz committed suicide.”

“But she didn’t.”

“Look, dammit, we have to tell the press something. I’ve read the file. I know what happened. Is that what you want me to tell the world? That my wife was tortured to death and died with a flashlight shoved up her pussy?”

Tay was hardly an expert on the proper relationship between government and the press, but it did seem to him generally better for governments to tell the truth, or at least a mildly edited version of the truth, rather than to make something up. No matter how bad the truth was, when governments lied and got caught doing it, things always seemed to get much worse.

“Are you telling me, sir, that you intend to cover up your wife’s murder by telling the press that she committed suicide?”

The ambassador held up both hands, palms outward.

“Shoot now, Inspector, let’s not get off on the wrong foot here. I intend to treat Liz’s death with dignity. Under the circumstances, suicide is far more dignified than what happened to her. And I say that both as a husband and as an American ambassador.”

“But then the investigation of her murder will—”

“What we tell the press won’t have jack shit to do with that. We’re going to investigate the crap out of this thing. You can bet your butt on that. Terrorist acts against United States citizens are within the jurisdiction of the FBI and nobody’s better at getting to the truth than those boys.”

The corners of the ambassador’s mouth moved quickly up and down in what might or might not have been a miniature smile.

“No offense to you and your people, of course, Inspector. I’m sure you’re pretty good, too.”

“Yes, sir,” Tay said, not doing much to disguise his irritation at the ambassador’s obvious condescension toward the Singapore police force. “We are.”

“While we’d certainly ‘preciate your help, of course, Tony DeSouza will head up this investigation. He’ll get the sons of bitches that did this and get ‘em right quick.”

Tay wanted very much to ask the ambassador exactly how he thought DeSouza would be able to do that, not to mention why he had already assumed that there was more than one killer. But he didn’t ask the ambassador anything. He just sat quietly with what he hoped was an interested expression on his face and listened. That was apparently what he was meant to do because almost immediately the ambassador started talking again.

“And you can bet your butt on one other thing, too, Inspector. When we find the bastards that did this, they will be punished. Tony and I were both United States marines. I have two combat tours in Vietnam behind me and Tony did his two tours in Iraq. We do not flinch from taking the fight to those who do us harm. Oh no, we surely do not.”

Tay didn’t bother to ask exactly what that meant.

“Well then, Inspector, I’ve talked enough now. You take over. After all, you’re the one who asked for this meetin’.”

For the next ten minutes, Tay tossed out meaningless questions and nodded earnestly at all of the ambassador’s answers without bothering to listen to any of them. He was seething and needed a little time to calm down before he could trust himself to say anything of consequence.

Who the hell did this clown think he was? He might be the American ambassador — Tay didn’t give a flying fuck if he was the goddamned President of the goddamned United States — but he wasn’t going to pat Tay on the head, tell him that the FBI would take over from here, and oh by the way, they were going to tell the public that Elizabeth Munson committed suicide. Well, on second thought, perhaps it was a little hard to get self-righteous about that, wasn’t it? After all, the suicide story had originally been Tay’s own idea, even if he did regret it now.

“Inspector, I gotta be honest with you about something,” the ambassador suddenly volunteered apropos of nothing at all Tay could see. And when he heard that, Tay started paying more attention. In his experience, when people told him they were going to be honest with him, they usually weren’t.

“I want you to hear this from me,” Ambassador Munson said, looking down at his hands for a moment.

There was something about the gesture that looked wrong to Tay. He wasn’t absolutely sure what, but there was.

“Elizabeth and I were finished. She was going to divorce me and she wanted it to hurt like a son of a bitch. To tell you the truth, for the last few years it felt like that woman was fucking me up the ass with a garden rake.”

Tay glanced at DeSouza and at the two men sitting with him, but they were impassive. He assumed they were accustomed to the way the ambassador expressed himself. Still, he would have given a great deal right at that moment to see what kind of expression Cally had on
her
face, but she was sitting next to him and turning his head would have been obvious and clumsy so he didn’t do it.

“You’re going to hear that from someone sooner or later,” the ambassador continued, “and I wanted it to be me. Anyway, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I can’t see what it could have to do with Liz’s murder.”

Tay didn’t really see either. As far as he knew, no one was seriously suggesting the ambassador had murdered his wife and it sounded unlikely to Tay, too, if only for logistical reasons. For the American ambassador to Singapore to walk into the Marriott on a Monday afternoon, shoot his wife in the head, pulp her face with the gun butt, strip and clean the room, dispose of all her clothing, and then hop a plane without anyone knowing about it seemed unlikely to the point of impossibility. Still, it was interesting to know there had been bad blood between the ambassador and his wife. It was even more interesting to Tay that the ambassador had volunteered it without the slightest prompting.

Tay glanced quickly toward DeSouza again and saw he and the other two men had all turned their faces expectantly in his direction to gauge his reaction. They already knew about all this, Tay thought to himself. He wondered if Cally knew as well.

“I just have one or two more routine questions, sir,” Tay said, shifting his eyes back to the ambassador.

When Tay didn’t show any interest in pursuing the issue of the relationship between the ambassador and his wife, he was certain he could feel the room around him breathe out in relief.

“It is necessary, sir, for me to establish your whereabouts on the day when your wife was killed.”

“That’s outrageous,” DeSouza snapped before the ambassador could say anything. “How can you sit there and suggest—”

“I’m not suggesting anything,” Tay said.

“Calm down, Tony.” The ambassador held up one hand, palm out. “Don’t get your little pecker all knotted up. The man’s not accusing me of anything. He’s only doing his job. Isn’t that right, Inspector?”

Tay’s voice hardened more than he probably should have let it, but he was getting so sick of these buffoons he really didn’t care. “Could you just tell me exactly where you were, sir?”

If the ambassador noticed Tay’s tone, he gave no sign of it.

“I was in Washington all of last week. I didn’t get back until about two o’clock yesterday morning.”

“And precisely when did you leave Singapore, sir?”

The ambassador hesitated a beat. It was only a split second, but Tay noticed and wondered if it meant anything.

“On Monday of last week. I took the morning Singapore Airlines flight to London and then flew from there directly to Washington on United.”

Tay made a mental note to have Sergeant Kang check when the Singapore Airlines flight to London had left on Monday of last week.

“Did your wife have any enemies, sir? Was she in any particular danger you knew of?”

“All Americans in foreign countries have enemies, Inspector. We are all in danger all the time. The more prominent we are, the more danger we are in.”

“In what way was your wife prominent, sir?”

“Because she was my goddamned wife,” the ambassador snapped almost at once. Then he took a long breath and drained the irritation out of his voice. “She was the American ambassador’s wife. That was enough right there to make her a target for these bastards.”

“Have other wives of American ambassadors been murdered like this?”

“Well…”

The ambassador shifted his eyes toward DeSouza, but it was Dewey Garland who responded.

“Not that I can recall, Inspector. We can research the point for you if you like, but I’m not sure I see the relevance of historical experience here. The world has changed in the last few years and American diplomatic personnel have been thrust into the front lines of the war against terrorism. We are all at risk all of the time, as are our families. It’s something we live with every day of our lives, but it makes it no less horrible when exactly the thing we all fear actually happens.”

It was a nice speech, but Tay couldn’t see it had all that much to do with the question he had asked. Nevertheless, he gathered that hidden in it was his answer. Ambassadors’ wives were not routinely tortured and murdered by terrorists, or anyone else for that matter. In that, and perhaps in other ways, Elizabeth Munson had stood alone.

“What thing is that, sir?” Tay asked.

Garland looked puzzled.

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me,” he said.

“You said it is horrible when that thing you all fear actually happens. What is that thing that you all fear?”

“Ah, I see,” Garland said. “We all fear someday our number will come up, that we will be targeted by terrorists as their next victim.”

“And do you think that was what happened here? That Mrs. Munson was targeted by terrorists.”

“Of course, Inspector.” Garland shifted his weight on the couch and folded his arms. His face settled into an expression Tay didn’t like very much. “Do you have a different theory of the crime?”

That was exactly the problem, of course. The American obsession with terrorists aside, Tay really didn’t have a clue as to who else might have killed Elizabeth Munson.

“I’ve read the autopsy report,” Garland continued when Tay didn’t respond right away. “Mrs. Munson was killed by a single, point-blank shot from a weapon suited for very little else but killing a human being. What could that be other than a carefully planned terrorist attack?”

“I thought the ambassador said you were a commercial attaché,” Tay said. “Why would a commercial attaché be reading an autopsy report?”

To Garland’s credit, he didn’t even blink.

“Touché, Inspector. Very good. Still, you’ll excuse me if I don’t formally acknowledge I may indeed perform a few additional duties around here from time to time.”

“Look, Inspector,” the ambassador interrupted, “this is taking us a pretty long way off the reservation.”