Chaos

CHAPTER 11

IT WAS INTERPOL,” MARINO states as if there can be no doubt about it.

I ask him how he could be so sure. “You said the number was blocked. So I’m not clear on how you knew who was calling,” I add, and other drivers are moving out of our way.

“The person identified himself as an investigator from their Washington bureau, the NCB, and said he was trying to reach Investigator Peter Rocco Marino of the Cambridge Police Department.”

Interpol’s United States headquarters, the National Central Bureau (NCB), reports directly to the attorney general. And neither the NCB nor Interpol’s global headquarters in France would be interested in any U.S. case unless there’s reason to suspect criminal activity that extends beyond our national borders. That thought brings me back to the cyclist with the British accent, and I hope she’s not dead.

I envision her blue helmet with the unbuckled chin strap, and I should have said something. I should have told her to fasten it.

“I asked the NCB guy what he was calling in reference to, and he said he was aware of the developing situation in the park on the waterfront,” Marino explains.

“Those were his exact words? The developing situation?” Now I’m really baffled.

“I swear to God. And I’m thinking, What the hell? What situation could he know about? How could he know there’s a body in the park by the water here in Cambridge?”

“I don’t understand…” I start to say.

“I asked how he could be aware of any situation period around here,” Marino talks over me. “What was his source? And he said that was classified.”

“I don’t understand,” I repeat myself. “How is it possible that Interpol’s call to you was in reference to Elisa Vandersteel, assuming that’s who’s dead?” It’s completely illogical. “Was her name mentioned?”

“No, but he was talking about a sudden death. That was how he phrased it, a sudden death that had international consequences, which is why Interpol is involved,” Marino says.

“Elisa Vandersteel would have international consequences,” I reply, “since she’s not American. Once again, that’s assuming the driver’s license is the dead woman’s.”

“It felt like that was the situation he was referencing. That he somehow knew about it.”

“Tell me how it’s possible? I’ve never heard of something like this happening,” I reply. “The local media hasn’t even caught wind of it yet. Is there something on the Internet I’ve not been told about? How could Interpol know about a death before you’ve been to the scene or called the medical examiner?”

“I asked Lucy if anything had been tweeted or whatever,” he says. “I called her right after I hung up from talking to the Interpol investigator. Nothing’s out there about the Vandersteel case that we know of. Assuming that’s who she is. But you’re right. It seems Interpol knew before either of us did, and I don’t understand that either.”

Marino’s portable radio is charging upright in the console, and it hasn’t escaped my notice that there’s very little chatter. In fact it’s so quiet I forget the radio is in the car until I notice it. I’ve heard nothing go over the air that might alert anyone about the dead body awaiting us at the park.

“But how would Interpol investigators or analysts know about a body found in a Cambridge park near the water in the past thirty-some-odd minutes?” I ask. “I’m sorry, something’s off about this, Marino. And it’s not the way the process works. Local law enforcement requests assistance because there might be an international interest-”

He interrupts, “I know how it’s supposed to work. You think this is my first friggin’ rodeo?”

“I don’t believe I’ve ever heard of Interpol initiating contact about a homicide scarcely anyone knows about yet,” I emphasize. “We don’t know she’s a homicide for that matter. We also haven’t verified the victim’s identity. We don’t know a damn thing.”

“All I can tell you is the investigator who called said he was from their counterterrorism division. He said he understood we have a situation,” Marino uses that word again. “A death with international consequences, and I got the feeling he was thinking about terrorism, based on the words he used. I sure as hell wish I had a recording of what he said.”

“And where did the information come from?” I’m going to keep pounding that drum. “Just because a British driver’s license was found on a bike path? And how would he even know about that unless Barclay told him? This is absurd.”

“When I asked him how the hell he could know about anything going on in Cambridge, and why he was calling me directly, he said they’d received e-mailed information that listed my name and number as the contact.” Marino stares straight ahead, and he must be thinking the same thing I am, but he won’t want to admit it.

“Interpol doesn’t work that way.” I’m not going to back down because this is something I know about, and Marino has been duped. “And they don’t hire psychics with crystal balls who can predict cases before the rest of us know about them, last I heard.” I instantly regret saying this because he’ll take it as a slight directed at him, when it’s not. “It’s implausible if not impossible that they could know about a scene and a dead body we’ve not so much as looked at yet.”

“Well I’m not the one who’s pals with the secretary-general,” Marino replies with a sarcastic snap. “Maybe you should call him up and ask him how the hell they found out so damn fast.”

I’ve been to Interpol’s headquarters in Lyon, France, numerous times, and am on friendly terms with the secretary-general Tom Perry, who’s actually American, a Rhodes scholar, a former head of the National Institute of Justice, and a bona fide Renaissance man.

“If need be I will,” I reply reasonably, ignoring Marino’s sting, careful of my tone because I don’t want to argue with him. “How was it left?” I ask.

“The investigator said the Washington headquarters, the NCB, was contacted but didn’t say by who. He said it was protected information, the same shit I use as an excuse all the time. So I didn’t think much about it,” Marino explains, but I can tell he’s thinking about it now.

“This is sounding too much like the nine-one-one complaint,” I reply, in hopes he’ll make the same connections I am.

I’d rather he draw his own conclusion so he doesn’t kill the messenger.

“Yeah, and the guy coughed.”

“Who did?”

“The Interpol guy coughed several times and I remember wondering if he had a cold. And now that I’m thinking about it, the person who left the bogus nine-one-one coughed too.”

Marino has a hard edge to his glumness, and his face is deep red.

“I’m beginning to think that whoever murdered Elisa Vandersteel has anonymously reported his own damn case to Interpol because he wants the entire damn planet to know about it,” he then says above the noise of his car, and I can see his pulse pounding in his neck. “And God only knows who else has been contacted.”

That may be Marino’s biggest worry. But it’s not mine.

THE ANGRIER HE IS the calmer I get.

“There had to be a source,” I persist anyway, because I deal with international cases far more often than Marino does, and I know the routines and the protocols. “Did a police officer contact Interpol? In other words did another cop contact the NCB in Washington about the Cambridge case? Because that shouldn’t be classified.”

“Got no idea who the source was but somebody sure as hell told somebody something,” he almost yells over the roar of his engine. “Hell no, Barclay didn’t, though. He wouldn’t without clearing it with me. He wouldn’t even think of it.”

“Interpol’s very careful who it talks to. You have to be authenticated and verified.” I gently lead him closer to what will most assuredly be an unpalatable truth.

“I don’t think it was a phone call. It sounds like they got an e-mail,” Marino says, and the ugliness he’s about to face is going to enrage him.

I look at his profile inside the dark SUV, at the big dome of his bald head, his strong nose, and the hard set of his heavy mandible.

“I do know that e-mail is the quickest and simplest way to report something to them,” he’s saying. “The forms and everything are right there on the Internet. They’ve got it all on a website. It’s easy but it’s also going to be monitored and traceable.”

“So we certainly would expect that the Washington office of Interpol, the NCB, would know if an e-mailed tip was bogus,” I say pointedly. “In other words, the NCB should know if it weren’t from a real member of the law enforcement community or someone else in an authorized position to report an incident or a threat.” I know what I’m suspicious of, and Marino doesn’t like the tack I’m taking.

“You sure as hell would think so,” he says with a hint of defensiveness, which is what I expect because he should know what’s coming.

He should have figured it out before I did, but it’s an unpleasant truth. And those take longer. They’re harder to swallow.

“And it also could be that Interpol hasn’t been contacted by anyone legitimately,” I suggest. “And that you weren’t either,” I add, and he acts as if he didn’t hear me.

“You would think the investigator who called me could have helped out a little by saying they weren’t sure the tip was credible, that maybe some whack-a-do is jerking everybody around.” Now Marino sounds personally offended, and he continues to ignore what I just said. “But I took what I was told at face value.”

“Are you absolutely certain it was an Interpol investigator who called you?” I begin to confront Marino with what I suspect, and he’s silent.

To borrow his colorful and bewildering vernacular, this is the real piece of cake, the poison in the ink, the snake under the tent, and the elephant in the woodpile. I’m asking him who he was really talking to, because all the signs point at his having been played for a fool. Or at least that’s exactly how it’s going to feel to him.

“I’m wondering what made you believe it was Interpol on the phone besides what the person claimed?” I try that approach next, and I can feel Marino getting stubborn like concrete setting.

Then he says, “I guess the only way I’m going to know is if I try to call the asshole back.”

He picks up his cell phone from his lap. He unlocks it and reluctantly hands it to me as if he’s turning over evidence that will get him into a world of trouble.

“Open it to my notepad,” Marino says with his unblinking eyes fixed on the road, “and you’ll see the number. Just click on the app and you can see where I typed what he gave me.”

“Why? So you could call him back and report what we’re about to find?”

“Hell if I know. He just gave me a number and said to update him, that we’d touch base tomorrow,” Marino says, and this is sounding only more like a taunt, a hoax, with every second that passes.

Throughout my career I’ve worked closely with Interpol. We’ve always enjoyed a close relationship because when it comes to death and violence the world is a small place. It gets smaller all the time, and it’s increasingly common for me to deal with color-coded international notices about fugitives and people who have vanished or turn up dead and nameless in the United States.

I also deal with Americans who die abroad, and now and then a decedent turns out to be undercover law enforcement or a spy. I know how to dance the dance with the Department of Justice, the Pentagon, the CIA, the United Nations Security Council and various international police agencies and criminal tribunals. I can honestly say that what Marino is describing to me isn’t at all the way the process works.

“Then you want me to call this?” I look at what he typed in an electronic note, a phone number with a Washington, D.C., area code.

“Why not?” he says, and he’s like a pressure cooker about to blow.

“I don’t want to talk to whoever it is since it’s your phone and not mine.” I look at the phone in my hand, at the number displayed on an electronic message pad.

“Quit thinking like a damn lawyer. Just call it. May as well go ahead, and both of us can listen to it on speakerphone. Let’s see if the investigator answers.”

“You never did tell me his name. Who will you ask for?”

“John Dow. Dow as in Dow Jones.” Marino’s jaw muscles clench.

“Or as in John Doe?”

“I’m pretty sure he pronounced it Dow.” The redness in his face is spreading down his neck.

I click on the number and am given the option to CALL, which I select, and I wait for it to connect. And it does, ringing loudly, wirelessly through intercom speakers in the SUV.

“Thank you for calling the Hay-Adams. This is Crystal, how may I assist you?” a female voice answers.

“Hello?” Marino says with a blank expression that turns into a murderous scowl. “This is the Hay-Adams? The hotel?” He turns his baffled furious face to me and silently mouths, What the fuck?

“This is the Hay-Adams in Washington, D.C. How may I assist you, sir?”

“Would you mind reading back your number to make sure it’s what I was given?” Marino says, his glaring eyes on the road.

“Were you trying to contact the Hay-Adams Hotel, sir?”

“It would be helpful if you’d tell me your number. I think I might have dialed the wrong place,” Marino says, and after a pause the woman recites the same number that’s in the electronic note I looked at.

“Thanks. My mistake.” Marino ends the call. “Goddamn son of a bitch!” He slams his meaty fist on the steering wheel.

What he wrote down is the general number for the hotel. It’s what was given to him by someone who identified himself as a counterterrorism investigator for Interpol. This is worse than a typo or even a deliberate and mocking misdirect. It’s personal, and not just directed at Marino. It may not be directed at him, period, but now’s not the moment to tell him that. The Hay-Adams means nothing to him and I doubt he’s ever stayed there.

But the hotel is close to the Capitol, the White House, and convenient to FBI headquarters, and also its academy and behavioral analysis unit in northern Virginia. The Hay-Adams is our first choice when Benton and I are in Washington, D.C., together, and we were there several weeks ago for business and pleasure. We visited museums, and Benton had meetings in Quantico while I conferred with General Briggs about our space shuttle presentation at the Kennedy School.

I think back to anything else that stands out about the trip. But nothing extraordinary occurred. I had work and so did Benton. We were in and out of offices and around a number of different people. Then the last night we were there we had dinner with Briggs and his wife at the Palm with its cartoon-covered walls.

We sat in a booth near a host of iconic characters. Nixon, Spider-Man, Kissinger, and Dennis the Menace, I recall.