The Ambassador's wife

“Not dead by a long shot, darling. It’s just sleeping. One of these days we’ll see fresh teams on the field and there’ll be fresh kills all over the ground. You can bet the farm on it.”

Cally reached out and tapped the photographs with her forefinger. “Like these women maybe?”

“Maybe,” he said, “but I don’t think so.”

August looked away from Cally and studied a spot in the air for a while. When he was done studying it, he started talking again.

“Both of these killings were meticulously planned and carefully executed. There’s generally nothing either meticulous or careful about the kind of people who gravitate to the radical Islamic groups around here. They go in for blowing up trucks filled with fertilizer, not stalking and murdering individual women.” He gestured toward the photographs. “To tell you the truth, I don’t think they have the stomach for that kind of thing.”

They all sat in silence for a while after that. Tay thought about lighting a Marlboro, but with all those pictures lying on the table it didn’t seem right somehow so he settled for a few sips of cold coffee. Eventually, August leaned forward, resting his forearms on the table and looked at Tay.

“You haven’t found Mrs. Munson on the Marriott security tapes, have you?”

“No,” Tay shook his head. “How did you know that?”

August’s face moved in a way that might or might not have been a smile, but he ignored Tay’s question.

“You’re not going to find her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Whoever did these two women was a professional. He was knowledgeable, well connected, and wouldn’t make mistakes. He won’t be on those tapes and she won’t either.”

“Are you telling me these women were murdered by a hired killer?” Tay asked.

“No, probably not.”

August picked up a crust of toast, examined it for a moment, and then, apparently unimpressed, returned it to his plate.

“The beatings, the posing of the bodies, the flashlights, they all speak of a sense of rage. That’s not a hired killer.”

“Then I guess I don’t understand,” Tay said. “What are you saying?”

“Your killer is a professional, but not a hired one. He’s somebody who understands killing and crime scenes. You really want my guess here?”

Tay nodded and then immediately wished he hadn’t.

“You’re looking for somebody with either a military or a law enforcement background.”

August stared at Tay with such intensity that Tay broke eye contact and looked away in spite of himself.

“My guess is law enforcement,” August finished. “I think you’re looking for a cop.”

TWENTY-SEVEN

The waitress came back just then and saved Tay from having to respond, which was his good fortune since he didn’t have the slightest idea what to say and almost certainly would have ended up saying something he would later regret.

“One more milk, Khun John?” she asked. “Milk make you strong, yes? Give power, na kha.”

From the waitress’s smile and her manner toward August, it appeared now that Gunter was more than welcome to stay in Berlin pretty much as long as he liked.

“Mai krap,” August said to the girl. “Drink much milk, still have no power.”

Noi laughed and August joined in. Then he stood up, pulled a roll of bills out of his pocket, peeled off a few, and pushed them into her hand.

“Khop khun mak krap,” he said, bending down and kissing her on one cheek.

Noi brought the palms of her hands together in front of her face in the graceful gesture Thais call a wai. “You have good heart, I think, Khun John.”

Tay wasn’t sure exactly what that meant, but it sounded like an excellent thing to have and he really did hope Noi was right about that.

“Come on, kids,” August said to Tay and Cally. “Let’s take a little walk.”

Tay didn’t see why they needed to do that, but Cally pushed the files and pictures back into the envelope, picked up the camera, and slid out of the booth. She stood up, so Tay did, too. They followed August out of Shenanigan’s and a short distance up the main road where he crossed over and headed down a narrow lane lined with bars. They were all closed now and looked tired and squalid in the bright morning sun. Tay could see the ocean a hundred yards straight ahead and he wondered if they were going somewhere in particular or if August had just gotten a sudden urge to work on his suntan.

Cally must have been wondering the same thing.

“Where are we going, John?” she asked.

“I’d rather finish this conversation outdoors, darling. If it’s all the same to you.”

Tay almost asked why, but Cally just nodded as if that actually made good sense, so he didn’t. Instead, he trailed along silently while he thought back to his first meeting with Susan Hoi, the one when she told him what she had found in her autopsy of Elizabeth Munson.

There were marks on her wrists and ankles consistent with restraints, Dr. Hoi had said. At first I thought that might suggest sadomasochistic sexual activity. On the other hand, her killer may have snapped the handcuffs around both her wrists and ankles for the purpose of killing her.

Handcuffs? Tay had asked.

Yes. My guess is they were the plastic disposal kind.

Like the cuffs police keep in their cars?

Yes, Dr. Hoi had said again and, as he remembered it now, without the slightest hesitation. Quite similar, or even possibly identical to those.

Tay and Cally followed August across Beach Road and out onto a narrow strip of gray-brown mud that people in Pattaya apparently thought was a beach. An elderly woman in a worn blue sarong hovered protectively over several lines of green-and-yellow beach chairs standing in perfect ranks underneath a stand of palm trees. The roll of bills reappeared in August’s hand and he passed several to the old woman. She waied him deeply, bending at her thick waist as well as she could, and then melted away into the trees.

August selected a chair and sat down. Cally took the one to his left and Tay the one to his right. Almost immediately, August slipped out of his loafers, peeled off his socks and shoved them inside his shoes, then reached back and pushed them underneath the chair. He stretched his long legs and wiggled his feet into the sand. When he had them exactly the way he wanted, he leaned back in the chair, knitted his fingers together behind his head, and closed his eyes.

Tay looked across at Cally. She appeared to be studying the ocean and didn’t look as if she were going to break the silence. Tay was on the verge of saying something himself just to get the conversation back on track again when August, his eyes still closed, spoke up.

“You don’t like me, do you, Sam?”

Tay’s first instinct, of course, was to lie politely. Then he considered the possibility of retreating into euphemism. Neither choice was particularly appealing to him and that didn’t leave any alternative he could think of offhand, except of course the truth.

“No,” he said. “Not really.”

“You got any idea why?”

That seemed a strange thing for August to ask and Tay didn’t quite know how to respond. As it turned out, it wasn’t really necessary for him to respond since August seemed quite happy to continue the conversation without his involvement.

“Because, if you don’t, I can tell you. You think that Cally and I-”

“Now boys,” Cally interrupted, “don’t be that way.”

Tay shifted his eyes to her. She looked like a lonely sea captain’s wife searching the far horizon for her