2 The Dante Connection (5 page)

“We got some solid leads that would’ve connected Kubanov to more international crimes. If we had been able to get our hands on that evidence, we would’ve had a good case against him.” He slumped in his chair. “When I reached that point in my investigation, the top guys took an interest, grabbed all the files from me and said that they would get their own guy on it. Can you imagine that?”

“No.” I only said this because Manny looked at me with expectation to share his disgust.

“Exactly! The bastards sent their guy and if scuttlebutt is to be believed–”

“What is scuttlebutt?” I asked.

“It’s navy slang for rumours.”

“You’ve never been in the navy. Why would you use that term? Why not just say rumour?”

Manny bit down hard on his jaw for a few seconds. “Yes, you are still as annoying as always. Rumour. There, I said it. Rumours were flying that the person they had sent in to gather the evidence on Kubanov had been killed. My case went cold after that. I wasn’t allowed to pursue Kubanov anymore.”

“Why not? I thought you were put in charge of your own specialised investigation unit. Did you get demoted?”

“I did not…” Manny took a deep breath. “Apparently something happened that is far above my specialised pay-grade. I have carte blanche on which cases I take, as long as it is related to white collar and art crimes.”

“What about conflict with your co-workers? Wouldn’t they be resentful of your power to take cases from them?” I had read that some of the fiercest competition came within law enforcement, especially investigative services.

“Not that I really care, but these guys are so overrun with cases that I’ve found them immensely grateful to hand anything over. I can have any case I want.”

“Except the Kubanov investigation.”

His face tightened with anger, but his response was interrupted by Phillip’s return. He lifted an eyebrow at Manny’s body language, looked at me, but didn’t say anything. He sat down and glanced at the files on my desk. Manny and I had completely gone off topic.

“We have to solve these thefts, Genevieve. As soon as possible.”

“Of course. Why do you sound more stressed now? Did something happen with your phone call?”

“Yes. Madame Lenoir is threatening to sue us. She has no leg to stand on, since we have nothing to do with her security at home, but it is a nuisance any which way. Now I’ll have to get the lawyers involved and it will cost time and money that I don’t want to waste on this.”

Phillip was venting. Academically I understood the need people had for this. I sometimes needed to vent. But it was boring. I picked up one of the files and flipped through it while Phillip addressed Manny when he saw that he had lost my attention. I scanned the police reports and looked at the crime scene photos. Something caught my eye and I picked up another file. Five files later I was frowning.

“Why has this flower not been identified?” My questions interrupted Manny in the middle of some unimportant observation about rich people’s sense of entitlement. Both men looked at me with raised eyebrows. I shook a photo at them. “The flower?”

“What flower, Genevieve?” Phillip asked.

“The flowers that were left at every scene.” I pointed at a red flower on the mantelpiece. “It is out of focus and too far for me to identify what kind of flower it is, but the same red shape appears in all five crime scene photos.”

“What?” Manny grabbed the photo out of my hand and studied it. “Show me the other photos.”

I laid five crime scene photos next to each other. In chronological order. At each scene the flower was in close proximity to the safe that had been broken in to. In one photo the flower was on what I guessed to be an eighteenth-century cherry wood wall unit. In another, the red flower was on the desk in front of the wall where the open safe was an empty husk.

Manny and Phillip leaned in to look at the photos on my desk. They were too close to me, so I pushed my chair a bit back and waited. They were looking back and forth at the photos. The change in their breathing was audible as they noticed the flowers in each photo.

“Well, I’ll be damned.” Manny slumped back in his chair and looked at me with wide eyes. “Doc, you’ve just seen something that none of the detectives had noticed.”

I sucked my lips in and bit down hard on them before I angered Manny again by remarking that he also had not noticed this. Phillip was still looking at the photos, so close now that his nose was almost touching my desk.

“This is most frustrating.” Phillip sat up and nodded at the photos. “In some photos it looks like it could be a tulip, in others a Laeliocattleya.”

“A whatsit?” Manny looked at Phillip as if seeing him for the first time.

“It’s an orchid hybrid.” As he looked at the photos, his lips pulled into a brief pout, indicating his uncertainty. “No, it can’t be. Oh, I don’t know. Manny, did the crime scene investigators bag the flowers?”

“I’ll have to check the evidence catalogue.”

“Could you do that now?” I asked.

“Um, sure. Do you think this is important?”

I glared at Manny.

“Oh, this is too easy.” Manny laughed. “Doc, you make for such an easy target. I got your goat, didn’t I?”

“I don’t have a goat,” I said in a tight voice. Manny and Phillip started laughing, so I had to wait until they settled. This was it. I was going to have to enrol in some course to enrich my knowledge of metaphors. I didn’t enjoy being laughed at.

“Sorry, Genevieve,” Phillip said. “This was very amusing.”

“So I surmised.” My voice was still tight. It sobered Phillip, but Manny continued looking full of mirth.

“Give me a moment to phone the office. They’ll check the evidence and we might have an answer.” He got up and walked out of my viewing room, chuckling to himself.

I wavered for a moment, but then decided I had to know. “What just happened?”

“Manny was only teasing you, Genevieve,” Phillip answered gently.

“Why?”

“With your three degrees in psychology, you don’t know?”

“Some people tease to establish dominance.” I had written a paper on it in my first year in university in Tokyo.

“You know this is not Manny’s intention.”

“No, it would appear that his teasing would fall in the other category. It is done out of playful affection. I can see it in his nonverbal cues.”

“But you don’t look overly happy with it.” Phillip ended his statement in a question form. In the six years he had been my boss, I had learned to interpret it as his request for an explanation.

“I don’t understand it. Why would Manny feel affection towards me? I’m nobody to him.”

Manny returned to the viewing room. He grunted something and put his phone in the breast pocket of his jacket.

“My guys will check these flowers.” He fell into his chair. “What else did you see in those files, Doc?”

I was happy to return to a topic of a lesser emotional nature. “Apart from the flowers on the photos, I didn’t see anything you don’t already know, but I haven’t studied the files thoroughly yet. For that I would need some time.”

“Take all the time you need, Doc. Just make it really fast.” Manny looked at one of the dark monitors on the wall. “It doesn’t compute. From the crime scenes it is obvious that these guys are rank amateurs. Yet they knew where all the security features were, they disabled it and had their sights only set on stealing the most valuable pieces in each home. Some of them then continued to steal crap, but nothing else of true value. It is almost as if they were stealing on order.”

“A crime syndicate?” I asked. This was a feasible theory.

“That would explain the differences and similarities.” Manny sat up and looked more animated. “The main guy found a way to get into the security companies’ systems, getting the security codes and specs for each of these homes. He employs small-time criminals to do his dirty work for him, giving them everything on a silver platter. All they have to do is get him something very specific from that home. If they choose to take anything else, it is their prerogative. Hence the stolen iPads and ice cream.”

“And he gets them to leave a red flower,” I said.

“Yes, I have not forgotten. The questions now are why were these houses specifically targeted? Why were those specific items so significant to the brains behind this ring? And why the flower?”

Manny’s phone started ringing and he took it from his jacket pocket. A brief and one-sided conversation ensued. He ended the call and put the phone back in his jacket pocket. He took a deep breath before he faced me. “I have to go. Work your magic, Doc. Find out what connects the art, the flowers and the other things.”

I ignored Manny’s final order to phone him, and waved off Phillip reminding me to take breaks and eat something. There was something about this case that didn’t sit right with me. My subconscious had already recognised it and I needed to get to work so that it could filter through to my conscious brain.

Chapter FOUR

“Jenny?”

I blinked at the monitors in front of me. I had been staring at the ten monitors for what felt like hours. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if I had started hallucinating. I took a shaky breath and turned to my right. I wasn’t hearing voices in my head. Colin was sitting next to me.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Right now I’m appreciating the amazing equipment in this room. I had no idea you had such a set-up here, Jenny. This stuff is seriously high-tech.” He glanced at the three antique-looking filing cabinets. “Maybe not everything, but you have a super-cool place here. Why didn’t you ever tell me about this?”

“What would be the purpose of such a discussion?” I was annoyed. This reminded me of the first time I had met Colin. Then he had also avoided answering my questions by diverting my attention. I was not going to let it happen again. I lowered my chin and stared at him from beneath my brows. “What are you doing here?”

He smiled. “Office buildings are not quite my hang-out spots, but Phillip insisted.”

“Phillip phoned you? Why?” That was odd. And suspicious.

“He is worried.” Colin leaned back in the chair and awkwardly stretched his right leg out in front of him. “What’s this all about? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I took a deep breath and lifted my eyebrows to remove the frown on my forehead. It wasn’t that easy to not tighten my lips though. “What exactly did Phillip say?”

“He simply asked if I could come to the office. He said that you needed some help on a case and he thought I could give you some inside views.”

I looked hard for any sign of deception, but couldn’t find a single one.

“I’m telling you the truth, Jenny. But I don’t think that Phillip was telling me the truth. I think something happened that got him worried and that is why he phoned me.”

“I believe you.”

Colin exhaled and his facial muscles relaxed. “Thank you. Now tell me what happened. Did you have an episode?”

“No.”

“Okay. Then what happened?” Colin narrowed his eyes and I watched his mind work. It was fascinating to see his thoughts being represented in and around his eyes. His mouth remained largely passive. A slight widening of his eyes warned me. He straightened in his chair and looked at me with concerned intensity. “Jenny, speak to me.”

“There is nothing to tell. Phillip gave me a case this morning and I’m working on it.” I huffed. “I can’t believe he called you in to help me.”

“Tell me about the case.”

“Give me a moment.” I didn’t have an office phone in my viewing room. Phillip was the only one in this company who talked to me. If ever something had to be said, he came to my viewing room. Short business communication was usually done via email. I opened my inbox. There was a two-sentence email from Phillip explaining that both he and Manny had agreed to bring Colin in on the burglary case. I read it twice. “Do you know that Manny also agreed to you being in this case?”

“Millard?” Colin lost some of the colour in his face. I had gotten to know him quite well during the Piros case and the weeks after that. Granted, four months had passed since, but it didn’t explain the flash of fear, immediately followed by rage I saw written all over his face. “Is he also involved in this?”

“He’s the one who brought the case from Interpol to us.”

“Of course. I should’ve known.”

The micro-expressions flitting across his face surprised me. I was not easily surprised. I pointed at his face and twirled my index finger around. “There is so much rage there. Before you left me I only ever saw contempt, annoyance and disgust when you talked about Manny. But never rage. What happened, Colin?”

“I can’t talk about it.”

“Can’t or don’t want to?”

“Both, actually.” He looked at my finger until I realised I was still twirling it. I dropped my hand in my lap. He leaned forward. “Jenny, remember when I said in the hospital that there are certain things that I won’t be able to tell you?”

“Because of the high level of security and your work at Interpol. Of course, I remember.”

“This is one of those things I am not able to tell you.”

“Why?” I stopped speaking when Colin shook his head. His lifted eyebrows and pointed look indicated that I was to stop this line of questioning. The slight annoyance I felt brought back the complete outrage I had experienced at the hospital.

“Uh-oh. Are you thinking again about yesterday?” Colin had his hands up, his expression pleading. “Just give me ten minutes to explain.”

“What are you going to explain when you can’t or won’t tell me most of what happened in the last four months? Or what Manny has done to you? And how are you going to explain being my next-door neighbour?”

“I told you yesterday that I bought the apartment next to yours to make sure that you are safe.”

“Safe from what? Or who?”

“I can’t tell you.”

On the inside I let out a frustrated scream. On the outside I simply stared at Colin. This was the control I had worked so hard at maintaining. It felt good to have it back. I didn’t speak. I just stared.

“Oh, come on, Jenny.” His brow had deep furrows from his exasperation with me. He sighed and rubbed his hand hard over his face. “Okay, I will tell you this: the guys who captured me have looked into my life. I won’t be surprised if they found out that there is a connection between us. I didn’t want to be the one who led these monsters to your door.”

“So you planned to keep them from my door by moving in next to me?”

“It sounded like a good plan at the time.” He smiled ruefully. “Vinnie warned me that you would be very angry with us for keeping this from you.”

“He was right. You should’ve known better.” Something he had said distracted me from my irritation with him. When it reached my cerebrum, the thinking part of my brain, I forgot about Colin’s four-month absence and his new apartment. “This is it!”

I turned to the monitors and lost myself in the data on the screens for a few minutes. Colin’s insistence that I speak to him pulled at my concentration and I absently waved my hand in his direction. It grew quiet next to me. Five minutes later I swivelled my chair to face him. “Tell me about Francine’s hacker.”

Colin looked up from his smartphone. “You are like quicksilver.”

“We no longer say quicksilver. It is archaic. It is called mercury. Why would you compare me to mercury? People who have mercurial temperaments are emotionally unstable. I am not emotionally unstable.”

“No, you are not. But you must admit that you are quick to change focus.”

I thought about this. “That is true. Now tell me about Francine’s hacker.”

“I assume you are talking about the hacker she was ranting about yesterday while in and out of consciousness?” He waited for my nod before he continued. “After you left Francine refused to talk to me. She said that she would only talk to you.”

“Why? I know she trusts you implicitly. Why wouldn’t she tell you?”

“I don’t know. No matter how I cajoled her, she would not tell me about the mugging, who attacked her or what some hacker has to do with any of this.”

“And you are here to convince me to speak to her.”

“Can we please first clear the air between us?” He leaned towards me. “I know one can never go back to how things were before, but I would like for you to give me the benefit of the doubt. I didn’t contact you for almost four months because my mission was sensitive and because I didn’t want to put you in danger. I bought the apartment next to you because I really like your apartment building, the area and of course I wanted to make sure you were safe. I didn’t tell you because–”

“You wanted to protect me.”

He sighed. “Yes.”

“I don’t want to talk about this any more.” If this discussion continued, I would confess to him how I had thought it was something about me that had made him and then Vinnie avoid me. The words were pushing against my teeth, waiting to be uttered. I also didn’t want to admit exactly how much I had missed him. And Vinnie.

“I need to know that we are good, Jenny.”

“I’m not sure what you mean. I’m more than good. I’m an expert at what I do.”

Colin laughed softly. “What I meant was that I need to know that things are okay between us. That you might trust me again.”

“Trust is earned.”

“Granted. And as I did in the past, I will show you that I am worthy of your trust.”

“Agreed. Now can we please change the topic? Where is Francine?”

“She’s in my apartment. She refused to stay longer in the hospital and we took her home this morning. Vinnie is with her.” Regret flashed across his face. “I’ve already moved my stuff into your apartment. Before we argue about that, you know this is the best choice. I respect that you don’t like change and that you might not want me in your apartment, but with recent events, I think it is wiser if Vinnie stays with Francine and I stay with you.”

I closed my eyes and wrote three lines of the second movement, the Larghetto, of Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 27, one of the pieces I used when I needed calming down. There was something so restful about E-flat major. Once my cognitive, rational side was in control again, I processed my observations of Colin while he had been talking. My eyes flew open. “It’s not about keeping me safe. This is about you not wanting to be close to Francine. Why not?”

“Gods, you are good. Francine is, how shall I say, not an excessively tidy person. Vinnie doesn’t mind this, he likes cleaning up. I can’t stand the kind of mess she creates. Once we were on a…” He stopped. I suspected he had been about to reveal some criminal activity. “We shared a hotel suite once and after a week I wanted to strangle that woman. Her underwear was everywhere, on the sofa, in the bathroom, in the kitchen, for God’s sake. Why couldn’t she keep it confined to her room? I nearly broke a leg stumbling over one of her boots lying in the middle of the living room. I even found potato chips in the bath tub. How did she spill potato chips in the bath tub?”

Colin, the accomplished thief who secretly worked for Interpol, looked flustered. It was amusing to observe.

“And don’t get me started on the singing. You sing beautifully in the shower. Francine? She sounds like a drunken turkey on heat. It’s terrifying.” He leaned in. Pleading was evident in all his nonverbal cues. “Please, Jenny. Please let me stay with you.”

The discomfort of Colin mentioning my shower singing and the confusion about an inebriated fowl temporarily derailed my amusement. His distress was genuine. “I don’t like this, but will concede. Just promise that you won’t kick your heels against the wooden floor when you are working at the desk in the guest room. That scuff mark was hard to remove.”

He smiled. “I promise.”

“Okay, so when can I speak to Francine?” I needed to find out more about this hacker. My mind was trying to connect something, but there were pieces missing. I hoped that Francine could provide some pieces.

“Now.”

“I can’t leave the office now. It is still working hours.”

Colin was about to contradict me, but was interrupted by the quiet swoosh of the viewing room door. Phillip walked in and studied us for a few moments. His eyes conveyed concern. I wondered if he was worried about me, about Colin’s presence in his prestigious firm or whether he had made the right decision by calling Colin. I didn’t know, but his frown disappeared and his breathing deepened. He pulled the third chair closer and sat down.

“Genevieve, I hope you don’t mind that I phoned Colin.”

“I do mind. I didn’t, I don’t need him.”

“That is not why I phoned him.” He paused. “Okay, it is why I phoned him, but not in the way that you assume. I thought that Colin might be helpful with this case. Manny agrees with me. Manny had to go back to his office, but he said that we should meet tomorrow morning to discuss this case.”

The increased tension in Colin’s body language was becoming distracting. Something in this conversation was causing him a lot of distress. I looked at him. Few people were comfortable with me studying them as openly as Colin. Even Phillip would flinch at times when I gazed unblinkingly at him. Colin never even shifted in discomfort. He just sat there allowing me to put together what I saw.

It was that trust that held my tongue. I nodded and turned back to Phillip. “What time tomorrow morning?”

“Ten o’clock. Will you give a report on what you’ve found on the burglaries then as well?”

“Sure, I will have a report ready then.” I should be able to add a few interesting things once I had spoken to Francine.

“Good.” Phillip turned to Colin. “Thank you for coming. I don’t know what is going on between you and Manny, but he does seem to trust you. Genevieve trusts you and that is enough for me. But be careful. I don’t ever want a repeat of what happened last time you were helping on a case.”

“Neither do I,” Colin said. “My main concern is Jenny’s safety. Has always been. The case, any case, will always come second to that.”

“That is exactly what I wanted to hear.” Phillip got up and looked down at us. “I’ll leave you kids to have fun. Do what you need to, go where you need to. Let’s close this thing quickly and quietly. Before another rich old lady decides to sue us.”