“Not a serial killer yet,” Hugo said. “That we know of, anyway. But yes, will do.” He watched Taylor leave, then pressed the intercom button that connected him to Emma. “I’ll take that coffee now. Extra strong, s’il te plaît.”
He thought about adding a dash of something stronger to it but the idea brought him back to Tom, his new boss, and he felt his stomach turn.
Chapter Seventeen
Hugo’s main objection to the terrorism angle was the redirection of resources. Lines of inquiry that led away from Al Zakiri were likely to be cut, and manpower and equipment would all head in, as far as Hugo was concerned, the wrong direction. And he suspected that Senator Holmes, having started this ball rolling to solve the murder of his son, would wind up sorely disappointed with the result. No one at the national level would care much about a young man and his Pakistani girlfriend killed at a Paris tourist site, not when the specter of terrorism lurked behind the parapets.
But Hugo cared. Not just because two people had been killed, but because the man who’d killed them had tried to kill him, too. Shot at him, and then disappeared into thin air, evading dogs, uniformed cops, and even two helicopters that hung over the cemetery, scouring its narrow lanes and empty boulevards with powerful spotlights for hours after Hugo had left.
Hugo cleared his desk, a physical act with intended symbolic meaning. That done, he sat back with a cup of coffee in his hand and thought about where to start. It should be with Tom, checking in to see where the investigation was headed, seeing what his role was. He hesitated, though, knowing that even if Tom was in good enough shape to pick a direction, Hugo might not like it. After all, Tom had bosses to please, too.
So, he thought, start backward from last night. From the disappearing act.
He logged onto his computer and started reading about Père Lachaise cemetery. Some of the information, like the number of grave sites and bodies, he knew from Garcia. But he’d not known much about its history.
Originally a field, and one considered somewhat distant from Paris’s bustling city center, the cemetery had been established by Napoleon I. Because it was so far out, after being open for three years it only had sixty graves in it. The cemetery only became popular when city officials started reinterring the bodies of famous French men and women there, starting with the playwright Molière and the remains of Abelard and Heloise, whose tragic love affair from the twelfth century was legendary among Parisians.
Hugo was interrupted when Emma buzzed through. “I have Capitaine Garcia for you.”
“Put him through, thanks.” A click. “Capitaine?”
“Salut. Are you off the case, too, mon ami?”
“No, but I gather I’m going to have to make do without your help.”
“Fine with me, if you’re going to start chasing terrorists. Not my thing.”
“You prefer gun-toting grave robbers?”
“By far. Interesting time we had. Talking of which, I meant to ask you last night. How come every time I go on a field trip with you I get shot at?”
Hugo laughed. “Things are looking up. Last time you ended up with a bullet in you, this time he missed.”
“I should be grateful, you are right.” He paused. “What are you working on?”
“How he disappeared.”
“Want to do that over lunch?”
“I feel like I just had breakfast. Hang on a second.” He looked as Emma put her head into his office.
“Tom Green on the phone. Wants to meet you for a working lunch. What shall I tell him?”
Hugo thought for a moment. Some things couldn’t be avoided forever. “Ask him where and when.” Emma left and he spoke into his phone. “Sorry, Capitaine, I’m back.”
“Now that we’re not working together, you can call me Raul.”
“Bien. Raul it is. I’m afraid lunch will have to wait. My boss has summoned me. But if anything interesting happens, I promise to let you know.”
They sat outside at a café in the Latin Quarter, a basket of bread between them and their pizza orders given. Tom opened a small pill bottle and swallowed two tablets with water.
“A good reason not to order wine,” Hugo said.
“Too late. Be rude to change the order now.”
“He’d get over it.”
“This may be a working lunch, but it’s still lunch.”
“Now you’re my boss, any chance you’ll act like it?”
“Fuck no,” Tom said. “Here’s my idea. Two-pronged approach. One is the hunt for Al Zakiri, the other is a more direct investigation into the Père Lachaise murders.”
“And the second break-in there.”
“No reason a terrorist would steal a bag of bones.”
“Exactly, Tom. That’s exactly why none of this has anything to do with your precious terrorists.”
“Shh,” Tom said. “If you call them precious, they win.”
“I mean it. You’re launching a worldwide manhunt for a guy because he’s the son of some other guy and the traveling companion of a dead girl. Seems a little over the top, no?”
“Not if, like me, you have fuck all else to do and don’t mind the paycheck.” He leaned back to allow the waiter to put a carafe of red wine on the table. “Merci.”
“This isn’t about a paycheck for you. It better not be.”
“No, it’s about several things, Hugo, and if you could pull your head out of your ass long enough to look beyond that frigging cemetery maybe you’d see that. It’s about appeasing a powerful senator who lost his son. It’s about finding a guy who we’re pretty damn sure is a terrorist and doesn’t tend to travel places just to visit museums. Blow them up, maybe, but not buy postcards and admire the brushwork. You think anyone really cares if he killed those kids? It ain’t about that any more. It’s about letting every one of those ragheads know that we’re not taking chances any more. Not ever again. They pop up where they’re not wanted, using fake passports and false names, they can expect the hammer. A big fucking hammer.”
“Ragheads?”
Tom glared at Hugo over the rim of his wine glass. “A lot better than calling them precious.”
“You going to leave me alone to catch the real killer?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you, dumbass. I doubt very much Al Zakiri had anything to do with it. We will be checking that angle out, by the way. And I mean that. But we’re going big-picture here, and I’m fine with you focusing on the murders themselves.”
“Very gracious of you.”
“I know. Just don’t find the fucker too fast, I need some beer money.”
The pizzas arrived in a cloud of garlic and cheese and Hugo tucked in. When he looked up, he saw that Tom’s wine glass was empty and his plate still clean.
“Eat. If only to suck that wine up.”
“On a diet. And I’m a big boy, Hugo, quit nagging me about the booze, OK?”
“No.” Hugo reached over to the platter and pushed a slice of pizza onto Tom’s plate. “So tell me what we know about Al Zakiri. I’m curious.”
Tom poured himself more wine, the lip of the carafe unsteady in his hand, rattling against his glass. They both pretended not to notice.
“Pierre Labord, now,” Tom said. I’ll tell you right now, we have no idea where he is. Abida Kiani’s apartment didn’t tell us much at all. It’s not even clear they were staying together, and my bet is they weren’t. Hers was a shithole in Montmartre and likely his will be a shithole somewhere else. That way if one gets busted the other might not.”