Left To Die

Then again, perhaps that’s what he feared.

She shut the door behind her as she entered the pristine marble and tile atrium. In her estimation there were far too many statues and paintings adorning the area, not to mention the overly resplendent chandelier dangling from the ceiling. But taste was a matter of preference, and Robert’s tastes were more high-minded than most.

The small man stepped quietly across the tile floors in his fuzzy slippers, leading her through a side door and into a study, entirely unperturbed by her unannounced visit. In the study, a slow fire crackled behind a grate, and a couple of red chairs faced the flames. Robert plopped down in the seat on the left.

In one corner of the room, a dusty billiards table lodged between a bookcase and a wall. The pool cues were also covered in dust and stood unused in a rack by the table.

The house was large, and though there were two chairs, Robert lived alone. He’d never been married, and had never had kids of his own. He’d been brought up in a generation where his preferences in a romantic partner had not been smiled upon.

Adele’s breathing quieted and her heart rate calmed as she approached the fireplace, feeling the warm pulse of the flames as they crackled in the hearth. Robert propped his feet onto a footstool and leaned back, melting into his red chair with a look of contentment on his features.

“Sit, please,” he said, waving a small hand toward the empty chair. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Adele collapsed in the chair, as she’d done so many times before. She couldn’t count the number of nights she’d fallen asleep like this with Robert reading a book next to her. For some reason, this memory filled her with a flood of guilt.

She ran her hands along the arm rests, twisting at a couple of metal buttons. She knew she should have done better keeping in touch with Robert. He’d seen her as a daughter, and she’d just up and left.

But Robert hated goodbyes, so Adele had never offered him one.

She squirmed in her seat and stared at the flames. Perhaps, predictably, Robert had a glass of red wine set on the coffee table next to him. He lifted his book, propping it with one hand, his eyes scanning the pages while his other cupped the wine glass; cradling it with three fingers, he lifted it toward his lips. “Your old room is still available,” he said, softly. He glanced at her. “I know you won’t be here long, but you’re welcome to it. I haven’t moved anything, and the cleaners have kept it tidy.”

Adele paused and swallowed. She shrugged with one shoulder. Staying in a hotel was easier, but sleeping in one, especially for the first few nights, always interrupted her routine.

“There’s Chocapic in the kitchen,” said Robert, after a moment. He glanced over the top of his book, inclining one wispy eyebrow beneath his thick hair.

Inadvertently, Adele could feel her stomach grumble. She had packed her bowl and spoon, but she hadn’t had time to go to the grocery store.

She knew that chocolate cereal filled with sugar wasn’t the most nutritious breakfast for a law enforcement agent. But some habits were hard to shake.

“That’s not fair,” she said, “you’re tempting me.”

Robert pursed his lips and lowered his wineglass. His eyes twinkled, but he kept his expression serious. “I’m just offering a guest some cereal.”

“Aren’t you the one who gave me grief all those years for eating that, what was your word—junk?”

Robert chuckled and got to his feet, closing his book with a snapping sound. His slippers still made no noise as he padded across the room to another adjacent door. Adele followed, and they reached the large, polished kitchen with cherry wood cabinets and ebony-black countertops.

Adele went over to the cupboard where she knew Robert had kept the cereal once upon a time. She opened it, and immediately spotted three boxes of the chocolate cereal. She glanced back at her once mentor. “These look new,” she said.

Robert shrugged. “I often keep some there. Throw them out if they expire, and then replace them, just in case.” His voice trailed off at this, and he offered no further explanation.

She felt another surge of guilt.

Next to the cereal, a small stack of plastic bowls displayed Mickey Mouse cartoons. Identical to the bowl her mother had given her when she’d been a child, and the bowl she now carried in her suitcase.

She stared. “Where did you find those?”

Robert chuckled. “If I’m honest with you, I just asked someone to find them. Apparently this internet thing is all the rage. Can’t say I’m very familiar with it myself.”

Adele shook her head. “You didn’t have to.”

“I know.”

Adele could feel Robert’s eyes on her as she poured herself a bowl of cereal and then went to the fridge for the milk. A few moments passed in silence, expanding the space between the two of them, and Adele ate her first bowl of cereal in quiet.

After a moment, she lowered her spoon, tapping the metal quietly against the edge of the plastic. “I’m sorry for leaving like I did last time,” she said, softly. “I just couldn’t stay here. Not after what happened to—”

Robert shook his head, clearing his throat. “No need,” he said, hurriedly. “You don’t need to apologize. You lost your mother. I remember what that was like for me too. It’s painful. Sometimes change is warranted.”

Adele leaned against the cold counter, the ridge pressing into the small of her back. This room was colder than the study had been, but not unpleasant. “What was it you’d said back there in the office?” she said, clearing her throat and changing the subject. “Why are you only in an advisory role? They’re not trying to bully you out of the agency, are they?”

Robert waved his hand airily. “It’s the same with all these places. When I came over from homicide to work for the DGSI, they wanted me in a mentoring capacity. But now that the agency has grown, and they’ve recruited, they’re looking to replace all the old gentlemen of yore. It is what it is. Can’t cry about it.”

Adele shook her head in disgust. “You’ve closed more cases than any of them. You’re the best they have.”

Robert cleared his throat and puffed out his chest, if only a little, beneath his bathrobe. He chuckled. “You flatter me. I am quite good though, aren’t I?” He smirked and glanced away, intentionally striking a profile like a portrait of a gentleman detective from fiction.

Adele chuckled and flicked her spoon toward him, causing a couple of droplets of milk to land on his cheek.

The older man immediately clucked like a hen and hurried over to the sink, wiping his face and frantically checking his bathrobe. “This is silk,” he said, scandalized.

Adele held up her hands in mock surrender, the spoon clutched between her pointer and middle finger. “Sorry. I got carried away. I promise not to flick milk at you anymore.”

Her smile faded somewhat as Robert washed his cheek, and her own thoughts returned to the matters of the day. She could feel her phone in her pocket, pressed against her leg, silent. Far too silent. She had told John to call her the moment the tox reports came in. But it was just too broad. The technicians, even at Interpol, would have to spend days sifting through data and records, trying to locate matches of the substance in Marion’s system. They needed a way to narrow down the search. But how?

“I’m serious about staying here,” said Robert. “Only if you want to. But—”

“I don’t know how long I’ll be here for,” said Adele, wincing as she did. She knew that living in this giant mansion on his own was a source of loneliness for Robert. She knew he saw her as the daughter he never had. And, unlike the Sergeant, he was one of the more affectionate people she knew—a rare quality in fathers, in her experience. Robert actually seemed to enjoy things.

And yet, it felt a great burden to be the medicine for someone’s loneliness. Though, with Robert, if there was anyone deserving of her affection, it was him. He’d done her a good turn on far more than one occasion. Still, she was in France to do a job, not to rekindle old friendships…

“Robert,” she said, softly, “remember that case, three years ago, the one you emailed me about?”

Her old mentor frowned, scratching at his jaw. “Which one?”

“The one with that museum, where they tried to spend the night in the bathroom stalls to avoid the security cameras.”

“Ah, yes. A bomb attack. I remember. Foiled.”

Adele nodded. “You said something interesting about that case. I—I wanted to ask you about it, but it was hard to communicate what I meant over an email.”

A lesser man might have said something like, “Phones work too,” or, “My door is always open.” But while Robert definitely felt the hurt that could have spurred such words—she could see it in his eyes—he didn’t say it. Instead, he just watched her, a kind look on his face. “Ah, yes. I think I remember. It was a strange thing in an art museum.”

“It wasn’t the museum so much, but what you said about the man planning to kill the curator, and plant that bomb. He was going to kill fifty people if it had worked, maybe more. A monster. But you’ve never seen those people like that, have you?”

Robert studied her a bit and rubbed his finger across the spine of the book that he still held closed.

“What do you mean?”

Adele sighed, thinking of her time back stateside. Thinking of hunting down this killer, of what had been done to Marion, what had been done to her mother. “You have a compassion for these killers, too. Don’t you?”

Robert hesitated, staring at the plastic bowl in Adele’s hand. He shifted against the cherry wood cabinet, and then winced and quickly jerked away lest he stain his expensive bathrobe. He stood, straight postured, chin high, but eyes thoughtful. “I remember,” he said, his voice fading in thought. “I believe I do. I know how to use email; there is that. Perhaps the internet isn’t so bad after all. But I remember because it was a strange thing to happen in a museum. There were some paintings there that sold for hundreds of millions before being donated. Beautiful paintings. Statues and art encapsulating human history.” He trailed off, a vacant look in his eyes as he stared through the skylight into the dark skies above.

Adele said, “I’ve never appreciated art that much, but what little appreciation I have comes from how you talk about it.”

Robert didn’t seem to hear her, and he continued, leaving where he left off as if he hadn’t even stopped. “That museum held so much beauty, but when I hear about plans to kill people, be it the victim or the killer, all I feel is sadness.” He shook his head. “It’s easy to think of people as monsters. And perhaps some of them are. But they didn’t have to be. It’s like a vandalized Mona Lisa. It’s like seeing Notre Dame burning. Human beings are far more valuable than any piece of art. We are walking, breathing, thinking, loving, hoping masterpieces who flit about on the surface of this world. Think about how large the universe is. Each of us could have had our own planet, alone, standing in solitude as the rarest of things. Think about how diamonds are treated, as if they are the most valuable thing in the world. People guard them jealously. We build safes and hire security and carry guns to protect them. Imagine if people thought of others, other humans, with the same sense of value…”

Adele tried to track what he was saying, but whenever he started to philosophize it oftentimes went over her head. It wasn’t that she couldn’t understand, but more so that she didn’t think in such terms. Sometimes he would quote famous authors or wax poetic, and while there was a beauty to it, Adele was far more of a realist. Still, she held her silence and listened, waiting.

“The thing is,” Robert said, softly, “these killers could have been so much more. And the people they kill are so valuable. It’s like seeing a book burning or a painting destroyed for the sake of destruction. It saddens me.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if that answers your question.” His eyes seemed to refocus, and he noticed her expression. “I’m sorry; I didn’t mean to prattle on like that.”

But Adele quickly shook her head. “No; that’s beautiful. I was just thinking about something myself.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay here as long as you want. But I do need to get some sleep. I’ve managed to whittle it down to only three to four hours a night.” He chuckled and shrugged.

“Thank you, but I should probably—”

Before she could finish, the phone in her pocket started to vibrate. Adele frowned and whipped out her device, pressing it to her ear. “Yes?” Adele listened, her eyes widening with each passing moment. “Tonight? In the park? You’re sure it was him?”

Another pause.

“I’ll be right there.”

Adele turned and began hurrying rapidly away from the kitchen and through the study, back toward the atrium. “What is it?” Robert called after her.

“The killer,” she shouted over her shoulder, pausing only for a moment. “He attacked someone in the park, and they survived. I need to get back to the hotel. I’ll talk to you later; have a good night!”

Adele sprinted out the front of the mansion and ran breakneck down the street, hurrying back in the direction of her hotel where she’d parked the car.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Her wheels jumped the curb, jolting Adele forward in her seat and causing her shoulder to slam into the edge of the steering wheel. She cursed, wishing she’d taken the time to buckle; but without correcting the parking, Adele flung open the borrowed car’s door and sprinted between the two gendarmerie vehicles flanking the entry of the park with flashing lights.

In the distance, she could see men milling about beneath the trees, guns saddled against their shoulders. The gendarmerie were technically a military branch, but they would often serve in keeping order among the citizenry.

Elsewhere, she spotted regular police officers searching through the park, flashlights at the ready, leashed hounds with black and brown fur leading the way.

The nighttime park, normally a quiet affair, echoed with barking, shouting, and urgent cries.

Adele frantically scanned the vehicles in front of the park, and she spotted the ambulance.

She sprinted toward the vehicle and managed to glimpse a limp foot on a stretcher just as the back door slammed shut with a metallic clang!

“I need to speak with him!” she shouted, hurrying over to the ambulance. She flashed her temporary DGSI credentials and brushed past one of the gendarmerie who reached out a hand to intercept her.

“Who’s in charge here?” Adele demanded, avoiding the insistent hand. “I need to speak with the victim!”

Before she could reach the ambulance, though, two police officers inserted themselves between her and the vehicle. One of them glared at her, his eyes stony beneath his blue and black hat. The other one held out both hands in a pleading gesture, and kept repeating, “You can’t; he’s unconscious. You can’t.”

Adele thought to push past the two of them, but then reconsidered and hesitated. “Are you in charge?” she asked, directing the question toward the scowling man.

He gave a brief shake of his head. “The captain is over there,” he said, curtly.

Adele glanced to where he was pointing, and spotted a group of officers milling around near a park bench upon which sat four kids. They couldn’t have much older than fourteen, and a couple of the smaller ones swung their legs over the edge of the bench. All of them shared the same nervous fidgeting gestures and sidelong glances.

“You’re sure he’s unconscious?” she demanded.

The pleading officer responded before the scowling one could reply. “He hasn’t been able to say a word. He responds to light, he’s alive, but we have to get to the hospital, now. We think he was drugged.”

Adele cursed, running a hand through her hair. With a sudden jolt of embarrassment, she realized she was still wearing her sweaty jogging headband. Great. So much for first impressions.

Reluctantly, she dragged herself away from the ambulance. If the victim couldn’t speak, then he wouldn’t be much use to her anyway. No doubt the killer had dosed him with the same substance he’d used on the other victims. But how had this one survived?

She spotted John talking to a gendarmerie near a cluster of trees in a particularly dark section of the park. But she ignored her partner for the moment and headed directly toward the kids sitting on the bench.

As she went striding beneath the trees, the park seemed cold all of a sudden, or perhaps stepping on the dirt trail only reminded her of the frigidity of another night in another park. There was a reason she didn’t take her morning runs within spitting distance of a park—not even stateside. She shifted past two officers with another flash of her credentials, and then hurried over to the bench.

“You interviewed them yet?” she asked, glancing toward the female officer standing by the kids. She could see now that all were teenagers: three boys and a girl. All of them stared wide-eyed at her. Two of them had the freckles and upturned noses suggesting they were brothers; one of them had darker skin, and the fourth, the girl, looked a little bit like Marion.

“Never mind,” Adele said, cutting off the officer’s response. “Were you here? Did you see what happened?”

The teens glanced uncomfortably from her to the officer next to them. The police officer gave a small nod and gestured encouragingly for them to answer the questions.

The girl shot a look at the others, then spoke first. “Furkan saw them first,” she said, her voice lower and raspier than Adele had expected. “We thought they were lovers.”

The freckle-faced boy on the far end of the bench giggled, but then quickly disguised the sound as a cough.

“We went to investigate,” said the one who Adele assumed was Furkan. He was taller than the others and had a baby face. “Called out at them. Something was off.”

“Looked like he was going to stab the guy on the ground,” said the girl. “We thought he was mugging him. Furkan here was mugged last week. They took his watch.”

The baby-faced, dark-skinned boy nodded in confirmation.

Now they seemed less nervous all of a sudden. Adele’s undivided attention propelled them forward. They still fidgeted and shared glances with each other, as kids only know how, but the information continued, and Adele slowly pieced together what the kids had seen.

“What did he look like?” she said once they’d finished recounting the events.

“He was just stiff,” said the girl, “lying on the ground, like a plank of wood.”

“I—no, not the victim, the attacker. Did he have red hair?”

Two of the children shrugged simultaneously. “The baby-faced boy said, “He was wearing a hat. A big jacket, too.”

Adele almost growled in frustration. “Was he tall? Short?”

Again, the children shrugged.

Adele suppressed the emotions swirling through her. She wasn’t an amateur. Frustration was part of the game. She’d been doing this long enough to know how to be a professional even when things didn’t turn out how she wanted. She inhaled, counting quietly in her head, then exhaled and counted for a longer portion of time. Then she said, “You were all very brave; you saved someone’s life tonight. I hope you know that…”

“Wait,” said the girl, “there was one thing.”

Adele paused, listening.

“He spoke funny.”

Adele frowned.

At this, the other children all nodded, their heads bobbing as one. “It’s true,” said the baby-faced boy. “My parents speak with an accent. But his accent was even stranger.”

The other children nodded again. The one on the end began muttering beneath his breath, and sent his assumed brother sitting next to him into a fit of giggles. Adele listened for a moment, and her eyes narrowed sharply. “What did you say?” she said, turning on the boy at the end.

He immediately stiffened, his hands clutched tightly in his lap, his legs going rigid against the wooden bench.

Adele amended her tone, struggling to stay calm. “No, I’m sorry, you’re not in trouble. But what were you just saying?”

The boy hesitatingly glanced at his friends, then up at Adele. “I was just joking; I’m sorry.”

“No, I heard. You were mimicking his accent. Please, could you do it again?”

Hesitantly, the boy cleared his throat, then blushed and shook his head.

“He’s embarrassed,” said the girl, cheerfully.

The other children giggled except for the one under scrutiny, who scowled at his hands.

Adele hurried over and dropped to a knee in front of the boy. “It’s all right, I promise you’re not in trouble. You were incredibly heroic tonight. All of you. But please, this man has hurt people and I need to stop him. I need you to tell me what he sounded like.”

The boy didn’t look at his friends this time, mustering the sort of courage that required solitude, but then, responding to the earnest tone in Adele’s voice, he, in a very quiet way, repeated the phrase he’d said to his friend.

“You’re sure he said it like that?” said Adele. “With the aspirated stop?”

The boy looked at her, his nose wrinkling in confusion.

Adele shook her head. “Never mind. I mean with that s instead of the t. He mispronounced the word?”

The boy nodded. And, hesitantly, the others also nodded in confirmation.

Adele had the freckled boy repeat the phrase in French a couple more times, just to be sure, and each time he mimicked the voice of the killer, the elation in her chest only grew.

It’s a private thing. You’re being rude. A simple enough phrase. But a very telling pronunciation.

“Thank you,” she said, quickly. “Thank you very much. I owe you.”

Then she turned sharply on her heel and jogged over to where John was. Her heart thrummed in her chest, and she could practically hear her blood sluicing through her ears.

“Renee,” she snapped, gaining the attention of the tall agent. He glanced over the head of the smaller gendarmerie in front of him and raised an eyebrow. His eyes were bloodshot, and his cheeks puffy, but Adele didn’t have time to worry about her partner’s drinking habits. “You need to call that friend of yours at the lab.”

John frowned, wincing against the loud sounds in the park. “I didn’t know you were good with children. Have some of your own?” He raised an eyebrow.

Adele ignored the question. “You friend at the lab—call him.”

“Call him? It will take some time, like I said. There won’t be results.”

“No, I know. But I have a way for him to narrow it down. It should speed things up a ton.” Adele motor-mouthed her way through the sentence, propelled by her own excitement, her fingers tapping against her thigh in impatient spurts.

“How?” said John.

“The accent,” Adele said, trying to keep her calm.

“I don’t understand? What accent?”

“I spoke to the kids, and they heard his accent! You know how kids are, like parrots, they can mimic anything back. Well, I was insecure about how I spoke when I was younger, when I first moved to France. My mother was kind enough to hire someone to help me. They did strange tricks, even including chocolate chips placed on the tip of my tongue to help me learn how to stretch my consonants. But, most importantly, I learned about aspirated stops.”

John was staring at her now like she was crazy, but she pressed on. “The attacker clipped his aspirated stops. He dropped the ‘s’ instead of a ‘t.’”

“I really don’t—”

“He’s German!” Adele cried. “It’s dialectical. He’s not American. He’s not French. He’s German. Call your lab tech, tell him to narrow down the tox reports based on German companies, both private and public. Understand?”

John frowned, shaking his head. “You can’t know for sure based on the mimicking of a child—”

But Adele shook her head again. “I’m sure. I feel it. The pronunciation is like a fingerprint to me; I’ve heard the differences in language my whole life. I know he’s German. Just do it. Please.”

Renee sighed, but then shrugged and reached for his pocket, pulling his phone out. He pressed it to his ear and then waited, peering out into the park, toward the dark trees and leaves, along the abandoned trail with scattered dust.

Adele also turned, glancing back toward the children, her eyes settling on the girl. She did look quite a bit like Marion.

“…Yes. German companies,” John was saying behind her in a murmur.