The Ambassador's Wife (30 page)

Tay took a deep breath.

“Go see the boss for me, Sergeant. Tell him I’m…tell him that the investigation…I don’t know. Tell him any damned thing you want. Just let him know I won’t be back for another day or two.”

“Don’t you think, sir, that it might be better if you—”

“Just tell him, Sergeant. You got that?”

“Yes, sir. Got that, sir. Good luck.”

THIRTY-FOUR

AS
soon as Tanner was gone Cally called the embassy in Singapore and got a cell phone number for Tony DeSouza. She dialed it and he answered on the second ring.

“Tony, it’s Cally Parks.”

“Well, this a surprise.”

“A pleasant one, I hope.”

“Just a surprise. To what do I owe the honor, Ms. Parks?”

“Where are you right now?”

“I’m doing my job, Cally. Out chasing bad guys.”

“Are you in Bangkok?”

There was a beat of silence.

Gotcha
, Cally thought to herself.

“Yeah,” DeSouza said, and Cally could hear the caution in his voice. “Yeah, I am.”

“So am I, Tony. I’m sitting in the security office at the embassy and I need to talk to you. How soon can you be here?”

DeSouza chuckled slightly. “How soon would you like me to be there?”

“Now.”

“Okay,” he said.

Then he hung up.

Cally looked at the telephone with a quizzical expression as she returned it to the cradle. What was that supposed to mean? It was only a minute or two before she found out. DeSouza walked in without bothering to knock and threw himself down in a chair in front of the desk where Cally was sitting.

“Soon enough for you?” he asked.

Cally watched the smug look on his face until she had had enough.

“What are you doing in Bangkok?”

“Like I told you. Chasing the bad guys.”

“What were you looking for in the apartment where Ambassador Rooney was murdered?”

For a moment there was complete silence. Then DeSouza asked in a neutral voice, “What are you talking about?”

“You and a bunch of guys who were supposed to be cops but where probably phonies—”

“Watch yourself, little girl.”

“You and these guys turned over the safe house where Rooney was found right after her body was taken out. What were you looking for, Tony?”

DeSouza yawned and scratched at his jaw. “You had that place under surveillance?”

“Does it matter to you?”

“No,” DeSouza said, “I guess it doesn’t.”

“So let’s get back to the question then. What were you and your little buddies doing there?” Cally repeated.

“Just the usual stuff. Examining the crime scene. Evaluating the evidence. You know how these things work.”

“Yeah, I know how these things work. I also know that examining a crime scene doesn’t usually include trashing it. In fact, it usually includes preserving it.”

“Well,” DeSouza yawned again, “you know Thai cops. Can’t trust the little bastards to use a light touch, can you?”

“Did you find the surveillance equipment you were looking for? Any tapes or video? Any autographed photos of the killer?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“That’s because there weren’t any cameras or bugs left. The CIA took their equipment out of that place over a year ago.”

“That’s what they told me.”

“Then what were you looking for?”

“Well, you can’t trust those bastards either, can you?”

DeSouza was smiling and looking at Cally as he talked, but he had a way of tilting his head and keeping her slightly off center that she found annoying. It was as if he was always just on the verge of dismissing her.

Cally stared at DeSouza in silence for a minute or more while the smile left his face very slowly, something like an eighth of an inch at a time.

“What’s going on here, Tony?”

“I’m investigating two crimes. Mrs. Munson’s murder and Ambassador Rooney’s murder. That’s what’s going on. I thought you’d heard.”

“You made any progress?”

“Yeah. I have.”

DeSouza’s head rotated back and forth a couple of times. It looked like an antenna seeking a signal.

“Yeah,” he repeated when Cally said nothing. “I think I know who did both of them.”

“Really. You’ve got a suspect?”

“Sure have.”

“Here in Bangkok?”

“Close by. We’re going to pick him up this afternoon.”

“We?”

“Me and those guys…” DeSouza stopped talking for a moment and unveiled a nasty grin, “who are supposed to be Thai cops.”

“Who’s your suspect?”

“The way I remember it, you didn’t think much of my terrorism theory. But I was right.”

DeSouza paused. Cally gathered he wanted it to appear a thoughtful pause, and then continued.

“An Indonesian named Dadi Suryadi killed both of them. We used to watch him on and off, but we thought his group had pretty much dissolved and we lost track of him a year or two ago.”

“His group?”

“The Brothers of the Sword. It’s a fundamentalist bunch that used to make all kinds of threats against Americans in the region. Up until now they’ve never done much of anything, but…” DeSouza spread his hands, palms up. “Welcome to the new world order, huh?”

Cally eyed DeSouza for a moment and then leaned back in her chair and folded her arms.

“What makes you think this is our man?” she asked “We got his prints from the apartment here, and since both crime scenes were identical, you’ve got to like him for both murders.”

“Bullshit, Tony. The Thais couldn’t have gotten Dumbo the elephant’s prints from that place and they probably couldn’t have done an ID on them even if they had. By the way, who were those guys you had dressed up like cops?”

DeSouza shrugged, but he didn’t say anything.

“This stinks,” Cally said, “and you’re not even trying to make it smell good, are you?”

“The ambassador wanted this cleaned up and I’ve cleaned it up.” DeSouza shrugged again. “You don’t like it, you can go fuck yourself.”

“I want to solve this case before more women end up dead, Tony, not just hang some poor bastard whose name you and your pals picked out of a telephone book.”

“Don’t you tell me how to do my job, little girl.” DeSouza’s expression hardened. “We’ve got the guy whether you like it or not.”

“You wouldn’t have a personal interest here by any chance, would you, Tony?”

Cally felt a shift in the air. It was slight, but noticeable.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” DeSouza asked.

Cally tilted her head back and studied the ceiling. “Both murders occurred in safe houses you have access to and you went back into one of them and trashed the place. Either you were looking for surveillance equipment or you were trying to destroy any forensic evidence that we might find later. Now, I got to ask myself, why would Tony do that if he weren’t trying to hide something?
Were
you trying to hide something, Tony?”

DeSouza said nothing.

“Cat got your tongue, Tony?”

“You’re full of shit, Parks.”

“You know, now that I think about it, maybe I ought to take a real close look at you here, pal. There’s something about all this that looks to me like it might be just your style.”

“You accusing me of something?”

“No, not yet. But I’m all over this, Tony. I want you to remember that. There’s nothing I’d love to do more than burn your ass.”

“Be careful how you talk to me, little girl.”

“Call me little girl one more time, you smarmy fuck, and I’ll make your life a living hell.”

DeSouza bounced to his feet and leaned toward Cally, both hands palms down on the desk.

“What are you going to do now, big man?” she asked. “Slug me?”

DeSouza looked away, and then abruptly he sat down again and folded his arms.

“Jesus Christ,” he murmured. “Listen to yourself.”

Composing his features, he unfolded his arms and flung out both hands. “How can you sit there and accuse me of murdering two women? How can you do that? I’ve been a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation for twenty-two years. You have absolutely no right—”

“Look,” Cally interrupted, “let’s both just cool down. We’re on the same side here.”

“Are we?”

“I want to solve these murders. I assume you do, too.”

“Whether you believe me or not, Cally, I’ve got a legitimate suspect I think may be good for both of them. I’m going out with some locals this afternoon and we’re going to pick this guy up. After that, we’ll talk to him and I’ll see what the story is.”

Cally snorted. “Ambassador Munson told me he wanted us to find a suspect for his wife’s murder and then feed him to the locals one finger at a time. Frankly, I got the impression he didn’t care much who it was. It looks to me like you’re just obliging him here. If you are, Tony, it’s still not too late to do the right thing.”

“Let me talk to my suspect and we’ll see how we go.”

“If I let you and your Thai pals talk to this guy alone, he’ll probably admit to shooting President Kennedy.”

“Hell, Cally, maybe he
did
shoot President Kennedy.”

A silence fell after that and the longer it lasted the more unpleasant it became. Eventually DeSouza broke it.

“So are we done here, Ms. Parks?”

“When are you taking this guy down?”

“This afternoon.”

“I want to go with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I want to go with you when you take down the suspect and talk to him. We wouldn’t want anything to happen to him now, would we?”

“That’s out of the question. It’s too late.”

“No, it’s not.”

“The Thais think it’ll go down rough,” DeSouza said. “This is no time for a woman to start showboating.”

“I can handle anything you can handle, Tony. If I don’t go, you don’t go.”

“It might be interesting to hear how you think you can stop me.”

“You’re not the only one with friends who like to play cop.”

Cally thought that had a nicely ambiguous ring to it. Of course, it meant nothing at all, but she figured her comment was weird enough to discourage DeSouza from pursuing it. Apparently it was, because abruptly DeSouza pushed himself up from the chair and stood for a moment looking at her, his arms folded over his chest. Then he leveled his right hand at Cally, holding his thumb and forefinger as if they were a little gun.

“Be at the back gate in an hour,” he said.

After a moment he winked, then tossed Cally a salute and walked out of the office.

THIRTY-FIVE

TAY
got no answer the first time he dialed Cally’s cell phone, not even voicemail. He lit a Marlboro and tried again. Exactly the same thing happened so he called the operator at the Marriott, got the main number for the American embassy in Bangkok, and dialed that.

“Embassy of the United States,” a pleasant female voice answered in an American accent. “Good morning.”

“Cally Parks, please.”

“Who are you calling, sir?”

“Cally Parks. P-a-r-k-s. She’s in the security office.”

“There is a Ms. Parks who is the Regional Security Officer in Singapore. Is that who you’re calling, sir?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“The number of the embassy in Singapore is 65—”

“No, Cally is here today. In Bangkok. I came up with her yesterday.”

“May I ask who is calling, please?”

“Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID-SIS. Miss Parks and I came up to Bangkok yesterday because of the murder of Ambassador Rooney.”

The woman paused. “Because of
what
, sir.”

Now it was Tay’s turn to pause. “You don’t know what I’m referring to?”

“No, sir. I’ve already told you that Ms. Parks is in Singapore. She is the Regional Security Officer there. I can give you the number if you like.”

“I know her number in Singapore, but Cally is in Bangkok today so it’s not going to do me much good, is it?”

“Can someone else help you, sir?”

“You don’t know about Ambassador Rooney’s murder, do you?”

“Would you like me to connect you to someone else, sir?”

A robotic tone had crept into the woman’s voice and for a fleeting moment Tay wondered if he could be talking to some sort of computer system rather than an actual person. He stubbed out his cigarette.

“Just connect me to your security office.”

“I need a specific name, sir.”

“I don’t have a name. Just ring the security office for me please and I’ll sort this out myself.”

“I can’t do that, sir. I must have a specific name in order to connect your call.”

“Look, ma’am. I’m an Inspector in the Criminal Investigations Department of the Singapore police. You have heard of Singapore, haven’t you?”

The woman remained silent, which didn’t altogether surprise Tay.

“I came to Bangkok at Ms. Parks’s invitation to work with her on an investigation of the murder of your ambassador. The ambassador was found in an apartment here two days ago with her face beaten in and a bullet in her head.”

“Sir—”

“Cally told me she would be at the American embassy today. Her cell phone doesn’t answer and I need to find her. It is very urgent. Am I getting through to you?”

“I still need a specific name to connect your call, sir.”

“Never mind,” Tay said. “I’d just like to thank you for your help. You’re a great American.”

The line went dead.

TAY
had no idea where the American embassy was and so he was surprised when the taxi from the Marriott took no more than five minutes to get there. He could have walked. Well, probably not in Bangkok’s heat and rancid air or over the broken-up sidewalks and through the traffic, but the embassy was certainly close enough for him to have walked if he had been in any normal city.

The embassy’s main gate was set back about fifty feet off the street and there was a small paved courtyard in front with parking areas to both the right and left. A sliding metal barrier topped by a row of spikes blocked the driveway. The taxi driver, appropriately intimidated, didn’t even try to turn in. Instead, he stopped at the curb and motioned to Tay to walk the rest of the way.