“Well, you’re not getting any younger, you know. None of us are getting any younger.”
“Yes, sir”
Tay didn’t ask what the question of his retirement had to do with his suspicions concerning DeSouza. He thought he could figure it out on his own.
The OC turned back toward Tay, leaned against the windows, and folded his arms, crossing his legs at the ankles.
“You’re a damned good detective, Sam, but you’re getting to be more and more of a pain in the ass around here. It’s natural, I guess. People get older, that sort of thing happens. They get cranky, unhappy about everything, never satisfied. They make life hard on everyone around them.”
“Are you saying I’m making your life difficult, sir?”
“You damn well are right now.”
The OC returned to his chair. He pulled out a desk drawer, rested a foot on it, and crossed his legs.
“This case is closed, Sam. I’m sorry this woman you obviously had so much regard for was killed, but the FBI says our murderer from the Marriott was killed, too, and I believe them. So that is that.”
“Why do you believe them, sir?”
The OC turned his head and gazed out the window again, but he didn’t answer. Tay wondered for a moment what he was looking at, but then he decided he really didn’t care.
“Will you just hear me out, sir?” Tay went on. “Will you at least do that?”
The OC kept his eyes focused somewhere outside the windows, but he lifted one hand and gave a little wave. Tay had no idea at all what that gesture was supposed to mean, but he decided he had nothing to lose by reading it as an invitation for him to take his shot.
“We can link DeSouza to the Marriott. We have him there on tape the week before Elizabeth Munson was murdered.”
“It’s a hotel, for God’s sake, Sam. It sits at the busiest intersection in the whole fucking city. Thousands of people pass through the Marriott every goddamned day.”
“May I go on, sir?”
The OC shrugged and made that odd little wave with his hand again.
“We can also link DeSouza to the apartment in Bangkok where Ambassador Rooney was murdered. As an FBI agent, he would have had access to it and, according to the American embassy here, he was in Bangkok on the day following the discovery of the body. My guess is that, if we push them, we’ll find out DeSouza was also there on the day she was killed.”
Tay paused. The OC’s eyes were still focused out the window, but he didn’t interrupt again.
“And finally, we know that DeSouza was at the scene when Cally was killed. We also know she wasn’t killed by this so-called suspect of DeSouza’s and that doesn’t leave many possibilities.”
That caused the OC to turn away from the window and examine Tay’s face for any sign that he might be exaggerating.
“What are you talking about?” he asked.
Tay told him about the photographs, the blood around Cally’s body and the lack of blood around Dadi’s body in spite of the shotgun blast directly into his torso. Tay told the OC his theory that Dadi had been dead when he was brought into that room and that it had all been a setup because Cally was getting too close to something.
“Where did these photographs come from?”
“I have a contact at the American embassy in Bangkok.”
“Oh, do you now?” The OC raised one eyebrow. “A contact?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And I suppose this contact just turned up out of the blue and gave you these photographs all on his own.”
“Yes, sir. Something like that. He did.”
“Who’s your contact?”
Tay hesitated. He was not sure why he was so reluctant to mention John August’s name to his boss, but he was. Maybe he was still smarting over August calling him a loose cannon and didn’t want to give him too much credit, or maybe it was something else altogether. Either way, he didn’t want to bring August into it. At least, not quite yet.
“I don’t think I should tell you, sir. Not without getting his permission first.”
“It’s one of the American’s spooks, I suppose. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Tay remained silent.
The OC sighed heavily and turned back to the window.
“I would also guess you don’t actually have copies of these photographs right now or the slightest idea what happened to the originals, do you?”
“No, sir.”
“Why not?”
“He…my contact kept them.”
Tay’s boss shook his head, then tilted back in his chair and knitted his fingers together behind his head.
“My God, Sam, you don’t have the slightest idea what you’re into here, do you?”
“What do you mean, sir?”
“You said this was a setup, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, you might be right about that much at least.”
“I don’t follow you, sir.”
“You’re the one who’s being set up here, Sam. The spooks probably manufactured these photographs and showed them to you to incriminate this FBI guy for some reason.”
“Why would they do that?”
“How the hell should I know? How the hell should I know why these people do anything? But they pull exactly that kind of shit all the time, you believe me they do. All the time.”
Tay thought about what the Chief was saying. Yes, he had to admit it was at least theoretically possible he was being used somehow. He couldn’t prove absolutely to anyone that he wasn’t. He couldn’t even prove that to himself; but he didn’t think so. He remembered John August’s face when they had talked in his room in Bangkok, and he really didn’t think so.
“Let me ask you this, Sam. How come you trust this source of yours so much?”
Tay hadn’t really thought much about that up to this point and now that he was being asked to explain it to someone else, he guessed it might be a little late to start pondering the metaphysics of the question. Nevertheless, now that he did think about it, he found he had no doubt at all that he trusted August. Maybe that’s what loose cannons did, trust the wrong people; but if that was what he was doing here, then he was. All the reflection and deliberation in the world wasn’t going to change it.
“I just trust him, sir. I know that I can.”
“Then why didn’t he leave the pictures with you?”
Tay didn’t know the answer to that so he didn’t try.
“Regardless, sir, I still trust him. You’re going to have to take my word for it.”
“And you’d bet your ass he’s not setting you up.”
“Yes, sir. I would.”
The OC barked a quick laugh. “Well then, Sam, you just go ahead and do that then. You go ahead and bet your ass your little spook buddy isn’t making a meal of you here. Just don’t think you can bet my ass on it, too.”
“Look, Chief, all I want to do is put DeSouza under surveillance-”
“Let me just get one thing absolutely straight here. You’re not saying you think DeSouza killed these women himself. You’re not saying that, are you, Sam?”
Tay had known he would need to give the Chief a straight answer to that question and had turned it over and over in his mind since yesterday. Still, the truth of it was that he just didn’t know what the answer was, so he framed his response as carefully as he could.
“DeSouza can be physically linked to all three crime scenes. At a very minimum, he knows what connects the
