Two large computer monitors, a wireless keyboard, and a host of other electronic gadgets littered his desktop. On the wall behind him, looming over everything like a shiny monolith, was a massive flat-screen television that had been mounted at a downward angle, so that clients could view surveillance videos, work proposals, or anything else he wanted them to see.
Payne stood across the desk from Jones and watched as he clicked away on his keyboard. A few seconds later, the television lit up with a panoramic image of Bavaria.
‘Is that Linderhof Palace?’ Payne asked.
Jones tapped his mouse and the photo disappeared. ‘Not anymore.’
A moment later, a virtual police report opened in its place. Jones used his cursor to click on the thumbnail image in the corner of the file, and a mug shot of a man named Kenneth Dalton suddenly appeared in the middle of the screen.
‘Who’s that?’ Payne asked.
‘The guy I hit with my SUV.’
‘He looks better with a face.’
‘I can’t argue with that.’
‘Wait. Where’d you get this?’
‘From a friend at the department. He sent it to me as soon as the body was processed.’
Payne focused on the name. ‘And what do we know about Mr Dalton?’
‘We know he’s dead.’
‘We knew that before.’
‘Good point,’ Jones said as he sat in his leather chair. ‘It seems Mr Dalton has been a troublemaker for years. First as a teen — he bounced around the juvenile system for years — then in the military — he received a disorderly discharge from the Marines back in ’93.’
‘What’d he do?’
‘He hit his commanding officer in the face with a shovel.’
‘Ouch. I bet that hurt.’
‘Not as much as getting hit by an Escalade.’
Payne laughed. ‘Touché.’
‘After a short stint in military prison, Dalton brought his skills — and shovel — to Pittsburgh, where he made a reputation as a collector for some of the guys running numbers on the Southside. If you forgot to pay, he’d beat a reminder into you. He was locked up for eighteen months when one of the guys he smacked around turned his name over to the police. Three days after he got out, the guy who put him away was found dead in his apartment. The cops could never link Dalton to the crime, but they don’t have any other suspects.’
‘In other words, a real sweetheart.’
‘Exactly,’ Jones said as he changed the image on the screen. ‘Next up is Mr Derek Paulsen.’
Payne recognized him at once. He was the smaller gunman from the incline. ‘Him I know. The two of us go waayy back. I’m talking, like, several hours.’
‘Well you can cross him off your Christmas list, because he didn’t survive the night.’
‘Come on! That can’t be right. I hardly even hit the guy.’
‘You mean compared to how hard I hit Dalton?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Don’t worry. He didn’t die from your fists of fury. He died at the police station. Someone killed him before he could talk.’
‘Do they know who did it?’
‘That would be this gem,’ Jones said as he changed the image to a third police report. ‘Mr Marcus Lindo. They found him inside a parked car two blocks from the station. Someone popped him with a small-caliber to the temple. No witnesses. No suspects.’
‘Do Lindo and Paulsen have anything in common?’
‘Not before yesterday.’ Jones clicked his mouse again. This time the screen split into several smaller windows, each displaying a separate police file, including some they hadn’t discussed. ‘In fact, I can’t find a connection between any of these guys.’
Payne stepped closer for a better look. He recognized the larger gunman from the incline and the man he’d shot inside the lower station. The two remaining men were the goons he had shot from the second-floor window. Along with the first three, it brought the total to seven.
Noticeably absent was the Arab who had been running the show at the lower station. Payne had only seen him briefly, but he wasn’t one of the dead men on the screen.
‘So,’ Payne said, ‘where do we go from here?’
As if on cue, the phone started to ring.
30
Dial stood in the hallway of the institute jotting a few notes. His conversation with Payne had brought new details to light — namely Sahlberg and those pursuing him — and he wanted to get the information down while it was still fresh in his head.
He was about to push through the double doors of the lecture hall when they swung open toward him instead and Eklund barged into the hallway, his cell phone pressed tightly to his ear. With his free hand he reached out and grabbed Dial’s arm.
His message was clear: Don’t go back in. You need to hear this.
Dial watched and listened as Eklund launched into a long conversation in his native Swedish. He didn’t understand anything except for an occasional name, but he could tell from the wide range of expressions on Eklund’s face that something important had happened.
Eventually Eklund hung up the phone and filled him in. ‘That was my office. They just heard from the Rättsmedicinalverket—’
‘The what?’
‘Our doctor from the National Board of Forensic Medicine.’
Dial furrowed his brow. ‘The what?’
‘The coroner.’
‘Oh.’
‘Anyway, they’ve combed through every inch of the crime scene, and we now have an official body count.’
Dial knew a body count wasn’t enough to make Eklund run the course of emotions he had just witnessed. There had to be more to the story than that. ‘How many?’
‘Twenty-three — twenty of which have already been identified.’
‘Is Berglund one of them?’
‘No.’
‘Could he be one of the remaining three?’
Eklund shrugged. ‘So far we’ve been unable to locate Berglund’s dental records, so we can’t compare his teeth against those three. Obviously there’s a chance he is one of the victims, but mathematically speaking the odds are against it.’
‘Odds? What odds? What are you talking about?’
Eklund glanced at his notepad. ‘Over the past two days, we’ve received calls from eight — no, make that nine — embassies asking for information about missing scientists. We were able to match some of those names with bodies in the morgue, but right now we have way more names than bodies. According to my notes, we have eleven possibilities for the three unidentified bodies.’
‘You’re right. We’ve got a math problem.’
‘Here’s the thing: figuring out how many people died in the fire is not the same as determining how many people worked in the lab. I can’t tell you with certainty that Berglund is alive, and I can’t say for sure that he died in the explosion. We just don’t know.’
‘What about the Finnish police? Any word from them?’
‘They went to his house and peeked through his windows but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Right now they’re waiting on a court order to get inside the house.’
‘What’s the hold-up?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If he’s dead, the Finns should want to find his killer. If he’s alive, he’s a suspect or a possible target. Either way, a judge should be willing to sign the paperwork.’
‘I know, but—’
‘But what?’
Eklund paused, unsure how to respond to his boss.
Dial instantly regretted his tone. The last thing he wanted to do was insult Eklund by insinuating he had lost faith in his ability to direct the investigation. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to overstep my bounds.’
Eklund nodded. ‘Old habits are hard to break.’