“And here’s where she could’ve looked up at me with baby-girl eyes and told me what I wanted to hear, but she didn’t.
“‘Who knows why,’ she says. ‘Because it happened, today happened. Isn’t that enough reason?’
“Sure as hell was.”
“Pathetic,” Zink said, as he dropped into a chair in Peterson’s office at the end of the day. “Fucking pathetic. Can’t I get back to some real investigation?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Fitzhugh.”
“What’s Matson say?”
“That he’s as dirty as they come. Knew everything. Been running these kinds of scams for years.”
Peterson thought for a moment. “I wish I knew what was going to happen with Burch, so I could decide who to make deals with.”
“What are you hearing?”
“There seems to have been some improvement. He’s moved his hands-but not like he’s actually responding to anything.” Peterson jerked his arm. “That kind of thing.”
Peterson tapped his forefinger on the edge of his desk. “It’ll look bad if the press thinks we’re singling out a road-rage victim-especially a guy like Burch. They’ve been making him into some kind of hero. The U.S. Attorney won’t like it. He likes press coverage, needs it for his campaign for governor, but not that kind.”
Peterson gazed out of his window toward the tree-covered Presidio and the Pacific Ocean beyond. “Let’s make the case look real international.” He looked back toward Zink. “How many countries so far?”
“Switzerland, United Kingdom, Panama, Liechtenstein, China, Vietnam.”
“That’s the way we’ll play it. Let’s indict Burch as soon as he’s conscious-”
“You mean if.”
“Yeah, if…along with Fitzhugh, Granger, the stockbrokers, and maybe some bankers in London and Switzerland. They all knew the whole thing was bogus.” Peterson grinned. “We’ll call ’em fugitives. International fugitives. The boss loves feeding that shit to the press. And Burch won’t look so much like a victim, even if they have to roll him into court in a wheelchair.”
Peterson glanced at his wall calendar. “You better break off what you’re doing with Matson and scoot over to London before Fitzhugh goes underground. He’s got to be hearing drumbeats by now.”
“I’ll call the guy in the Serious Fraud Office who got us the Barclays Bank records.”
“Tell him we’ll send a Mutual Legal Assistance Request as soon as we get Washington’s approval. In the meantime, maybe he can start checking out Fitzhugh-but carefully.”
Zink rose to leave.
“We don’t want this guy spooked,” Peterson said. “So make sure they don’t haul him in until we’re ready.”
CHAPTER 20
W hoever dumped Fitzhugh’s body into the Thames on the day Chief Inspector Devlin and Agent Zink were to knock on his door wasn’t a fisherman, a meteorologist, or a sailor. Instead of drifting out to the North Sea, Fitzhugh’s remains rode a tidal surge upstream, driven by winds blowing in from the east. Fishermen dropping lines off Victoria Embankment, where he was found wedged between a skiff and a piling, considered and debated the matter for weeks. The consensus, ultimately, was that Fitzhugh must’ve been dropped into the river at St. Katharine’s Docks, perhaps even dragged down Alderman’s Stairs. In any case, certainly no nearer than the Tower Bridge. After all, the paper said Fitzhugh hadn’t been dead all that long when the young solicitor walking in the darkness along the river toward his office in Blackfriars vomited at the sight of Fitzhugh’s headless and limbless torso floating by.
Chief Inspector Eamonn Devlin was disappointed. While some officers viewed the murder of a criminal as just deserts, Devlin figured it was no more or less than a timely escape from justice. He often fantasized about becoming the Lord High Executioner, thinking it a shame that the position no longer existed.
Devlin wasn’t personally certain Fitzhugh was a crook, but when the FBI rings up and asks you to perform discreet inquiries, and when an agent arrives bearing a most solicitous letter from Washington, it wasn’t much of a leap.
By the time he’d noticed the homicide entry on the morning bulletin, Fitzhugh’s two arms and one leg had been recovered. By noon, when Zink arrived at Devlin’s office, Fitzhugh’s head, which had been bobbing along and unnerving tourists near the Houses of Parliament, had been netted by a passing tour boat captain.
Just before 2 P. M., Devlin received word that Fitzhugh had been provisionally identified based on a missing person’s report filed by his wife when he hadn’t returned home the previous evening.
Devlin walked Zink down the hallway in the City of Westminster’s Agar Street Station to meet with Inspector Rees of homicide, who’d been assigned the Fitzhugh case, unofficially categorized as a Humpty-Dumpty.
“What’s your interest in Fitzhugh?” Rees asked, as they stood in his small office.
“Securities fraud,” Zink said. “We were going to indict him in a few weeks.”
Rees grinned. “Instead, he’ll be reassembled.”
Devlin frowned.
“Sorry, Chief Inspector. Sometimes we…I…”
“I don’t think our guest appreciates your attempt at levity.”
“Yes, Chief Inspector.”
“It’s okay,” Zink said. “I’m used to it. I started out as a street cop.”
“What was the cause of death?” Devlin asked.
“A slim sharp object entered his thoracic cavity from the rear and came to an abrupt stop in his right ventricle.”
“Any similars?”
“By victim? Chartered accountants. None. By method? A few.”
“Suspects?”
“In Fitzhugh? None. In dismemberments? Russians or Chechens.” Rees looked toward Zink. “Of the fifty-four nationalities in the City of Westminster, few others have the stomach for this kind of work. But anything is possible.”
“Motive?” Zink asked.
“Until you arrived, we had no thoughts beyond the likelihood that it was a contract killing or, of course, a domestic manslaughter followed by a desperate attempt to dispose of the body.”
“Have you searched his home and office?” Devlin asked.
Rees shook his head. “That’s next on the agenda.”
“Why don’t you take Agent Zink with you? I’m certain he’ll be interested in examining Fitzhugh’s files.”
“Yes, Chief Inspector.”
“And I’d like you to copy me on your reports.”
“Yes, Chief Inspector.”
As Zink was boarding his Heathrow flight back to San Francisco, he telephoned Matson, ordering him to appear at the Palo Alto safe house at 3 P. M., fifty-five minutes after his scheduled landing.
Twelve hours later, Matson’s sunken-eyed, ashen face stared at Zink on the other side of the coffee table.
“Who have you been talking to?” Zink demanded.
“No one. No one knows.”
“Burch gets hit just before we’re about to lean on him. Now it’s Fitzhugh.”
“I haven’t said anything to anyone. Not even my wife.”
“Bullshit. What about Granger? When did you last talk to Granger?”
“A week ago. But we didn’t talk about the case except he said he wasn’t gonna make a deal. I was gonna tell you about it when you got back from London.”
“And when were you going to tell me about your connection to TAMS Limited? I found the papers in Fitzhugh’s house.”
Matson blanched. “I was gonna…”
Zink sprang across the table and grabbed Matson by the shirtfront, yanking him from the sofa.
“You were gonna what? I could go to Peterson right now and get your ass indicted by sundown. Is that what you want? Hide one more thing from me and that’s what you’re going to get. You got it, you little shit?…I said, you got it?”
“Yeah, I got it,” Matson squeaked out. “I got it.”
Zink pushed Matson back down, but remained standing, glaring at him. Matson flinched when Zink reached into his briefcase for a legal pad, still astonished that a man that small could be so strong, and so quick.
Zink yanked a pen from his shirt pocket, then sat down.
“Tell me every fucking thing about TAMS fucking Limited.”