The team broke up.
TWENTY-FOUR
Jayne’s mental review of possible signs of violent tendencies on Gene’s part had quickly run back to Rwanda. But the only thing she could think of was metaphorical violence.
Steelie said, ‘I remember when Gerrit called Gene combative, particularly in regard to you.’
Jayne was staring at the tabletop. ‘He didn’t miss a thing. For whatever reason, Gerrit had my relationship with Gene down pat.’ A movement caught her eye and she glanced at the door. Scott was standing there, watching her.
She started to get up. ‘Scott, I—’
He launched into the room. ‘Whatever you have to say about King is going on tape.’ The case he was carrying hit the tabletop with a thud.
Jayne froze, half standing, half sitting.
He spoke again, less roughly. ‘So just hold that thought and we’ll get to it on tape. OK?’
She nodded and sat down.
Steelie was eyeing the contents of the case he’d now opened. ‘What’s the deal, Scott? I’m getting the feeling you’re about to read Jayne her rights.’
He continued to busily pull out equipment as he replied. ‘She’s not a suspect.’
He set up a microphone on a stand in the middle of the table. ‘Neither are you, for that matter. You’re material witnesses. I’m recording this because I need it to be available for the whole team. You’re going to give us background on the suspect. You’re not under oath.’
He yanked tangled wires free and bent down to plug into the sockets on the table’s edge. He caught Jayne’s eye. ‘But it would be helpful if you told the truth.’
He turned on the recorder, pulled over a legal pad, and looked squarely at her. ‘Who is Gerrit?’
Jayne opened her mouth, closed it, then started again. ‘Gerrit? Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Gene?’
‘Yeah and it sounds like this Gerrit is a mutual friend of you and King so I’ll want to talk to him.’ He dropped his eyes to the pad, jotted something on it and added, ‘For background.’
Scott repeated his question, directing it at Steelie. ‘So, who is Gerrit?’
Steelie calmly replied, ‘He was the UN Tribunal’s lead criminal investigator for the sites we exhumed in Kigali in ’ninety-six, when we worked with Gene.’
‘Surname?’
‘Leuven.’
‘Seconded or . . .’
‘Seconded.’
‘One year or two?’
‘He was into his second year.’
‘From?’
‘Government of the Netherlands. Politie.’
‘Do you know his current title?’
She looked to Jayne, who replied, ‘Chief of Police.’
‘You’ve got contact information for him?’
Jayne nodded and pulled her bag from the chair next to her. She dug around for her cell phone while Scott pushed the legal pad toward her, a fresh page uppermost. She wrote down Gerrit’s email and direct telephone numbers as stored in her phone, then pushed the pad back across the table. ‘He continued working with Gene after we left.’
Scott turned to the next page of the pad. ‘You stated that you saw King last week?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Which day, what time?’
So much had transpired since that night, Jayne had to think for a second. She felt the pause made it seem like she had something to hide so she met Scott’s gaze directly. ‘Wednesday evening. I picked him up around seven and he left my place at about eleven.’
She saw his pupils dilate and the start of a frown in the moment before he looked down at his pad. It felt like an entire minute passed before he looked up from his pad.
‘So, did he contact you for the meet?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a meet. It was just dinner. He contacted me – us, really. Sent an email to the Agency on Tuesday and—’
‘Meaning last Tuesday, the day before you met?’
‘Right.’
‘So you were in regular contact?’
‘No—’ She threw her hands up. ‘You don’t understand.’ She looked to Steelie.
Steelie’s tone sounded conversational compared to Jayne’s. ‘Scott, we hadn’t heard from him since we worked with him in Rwanda. This was a one-off.’
‘Uh-huh. So you get this email out of the blue. What did he say?’
‘Just that he was flying into LA the next day and could we meet up,’ replied Steelie.
‘Just Jayne or both of you?’
‘Both of us.’
‘But you didn’t attend the meet, Steelie?’
‘Gene was never my favorite person. Even before you alleged he was a serial killer.’ Steelie gave him a thin smile.
He made a note. ‘OK, we’ll get to that.’ He looked to Jayne again. ‘How many more emails did you have from him?’
‘I wrote back, said I’d be meeting him, then he just wrote one more time to tell me that he’d be staying at the Omni and what time I could pick him up.’
‘That’s it? Nothing about what he was doing in LA?’
‘No.’
‘And you’re sure he said he was flying in the next day, the Wednesday?’
‘Yes, positive.’
‘Flying in from . . .?’
‘I presumed DC because that’s where he used to live.’
Scott tapped his pen against the pad. ‘We’ll need to see the email traffic between his account and yours, track his account.’
Jayne bit back the words I’m not lying. ‘Fine. We can get into the Agency account from here.’
‘Have you had any more emails from him since you met?’
‘No . . .’ Jayne paused, remembering the message she’d sent Gene on the day the half-empty filing cabinet had depressed her. She realized that Scott would probably see that message now.
‘You sound unsure.’
Jayne noticed Steelie looking at her curiously, so mustered herself. ‘I’m sure. He hasn’t written again.’
The door opened and they all looked up.
Mark Wilson walked in and addressed Scott. ‘You want this now?’
Scott nodded and turned off the tape recorder.
‘There’s almost nothing on this guy. Two people say they were friends of his when he worked at the Lab but they haven’t been in touch since. They understood he was resigning to take care of his mother down here, who was getting sick; one of them thought it was Alzheimer’s—’
Jayne cut in. ‘That’s right. He told me she died a few years ago, after living with Alzheimer’s.’ She looked at Scott but he only indicated that Mark should continue.
‘King’s friends only ever socialized with him at their local bar in DC or at professional conferences. He used to have a DC-area code cell phone. I called it and also checked with the phone company. He dumped the number four years ago.’
‘When his mother died?’
‘Around the same time, yeah.’
‘Find out if it was before or after and by how much time.’
‘You want me to check on the Alzheimer’s business?’
‘Yeah.’ Scott flipped back to another sheet on his pad, ripped it off and handed it to Mark. ‘And get a hold of this guy in Holland; get him out of bed if you have to. He was the lead investigator when King was working with Jayne and Steelie in Rwanda. He may have worked with King even longer than they did. Find out if anything happened out there. And his name’s pronounced Herrit.’
Mark nodded and left the room.
Jayne opened her mouth to speak but Scott was already restarting the tape recorder.
‘OK, let’s go back to Wednesday night. Did you ask for King at the desk inside the Omni?’
‘No, he said he’d meet me where the taxis pull in.’
‘Did you see him come out of the hotel, through the doors?’
‘No . . .’ Jayne felt sudden surprise. ‘I was scanning the area but he spotted me first and met me at the truck.’