Color of Blood(16)

“How do I order a black coffee?”

“You ask for a long black,” she said, both to him and the woman behind the counter. After picking out a pastry, he said, “Oops. Hey, Judy, could you spot me a few dollars? I don’t have any local currency yet.”

She silently dug out several dollars and paid the attendant. Dennis had already sat down at a table, and with both hands raised the cup of coffee as if he were self-administering a sacrament.

Judy sat across from him and continued to look at her watch.

“Well,” Dennis said, “what did you think of our watch seller?”

Judy didn’t answer but looked out the window at the street behind the American.

“And what kind of accent did he have?” Dennis said.

“Accent?” she said.

“He didn’t have the same accent as you.”

“Oh, that’s what you mean,” she said. “He’s probably South African.”

“He sounded earnest enough about his watches,” Dennis said. “But what did you think of him?”

“Think?” Judy said.

“Yeah, what do you think about him? Could he be a suspect?”

“I have no idea,” she said perfunctorily. “It would take more than a single interview to decide that.”

“I know that,” Dennis said. “Was just wondering what you thought.”

“Well, to be perfectly honest, Mr. Cunningham, I thought your interrogation was a little heavy-handed,” she said carefully. “You seemed to want to confront him in a way that I’m not used to. It was a little . . .” she paused, searching for the right word, “aggressive.”

“That’s just my style,” he said. “I actually tried to tone it down a little.”

“That was toned down?” she said.

Immediately she was sorry for confronting her visitor and tried awkwardly to backtrack.

“Actually, Mr. Cunningham, it’s none of my business, really, how you manage your investigation. I don’t quite know why I just said what I did. Really. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you how to investigate.”

She could feel the skin of her neck glow with heat as she blushed, and she reflexively raised her hand to adjust the collar of her blouse to cover the blemish.

Dennis noticed both how pretty and uncomfortable she was, sitting there in a red silk short-sleeve blouse and black skirt. She had her hair pulled back with a hairpiece, further accentuating her little upturned nose. Her complexion was lightly freckled, though her neck was a blotchy red as she blushed. Again he wondered how old she was.

“You’re entitled to say whatever you want,” he said. “And believe me, you wouldn’t be the first to mention my confrontational style. I’m sorry it made you uncomfortable.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go that far,” she said.

“Maybe I’ll figure out another approach one of these days,” he said, leaning back in his chair and looking into the street behind her. “Old habits die hard.”

He sipped his coffee and said, as an afterthought, “Can you run a background check on him?”

“Certainly.” She stood up. “I really must be going.”

They walked back to the car in silence, and Dennis wondered idly about Mr. Shingley and his relationship with Garder. There might have been a lot of money wrapped up in the watches that were left in Garder’s apartment. But then again, the watches were still in Garder’s drawer, not stolen.

On the ride back to the hotel, Dennis grew pensive. Judy made small talk, asking about his impressions of Western Australia just to break the silence. When she dropped him off at the hotel, he seemed glad to leave the car.





Chapter 8


The young American woman sitting across from Dennis was quite pretty. He wondered idly about his own daughter, and he grew distracted by his recent phone conversation with Beth.

“Sir?” the woman said.

“Yes,” Dennis said, collecting himself. “So you knew Mr. Jansen for nearly all his time here, and I gather were one of his ‘party friends.’”

“Mr. Cunningham, as I told you already, we weren’t, like, romantically involved. The way you put it, it sounds like we were hooking up or something. We went out as a group. There were a bunch of us all about the same age, and we did things together.”

“You weren’t attracted to him?”

“No. We were friends!” she repeated. “You keep trying to insinuate things like that, and you’re upsetting me, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Why are you upset?”

“Because you seem to keep suggesting we were lovers. That’s stupid, and I feel like you’re trying to trap me.”

Dennis noticed her eyes were beginning to well up, and again he heard a tiny little bird chirp a warning.

“Do you know what happened to him?” Dennis said.

“No, do you?” she said defiantly.

“No, I don’t,” Dennis said.

“Miss Carter, do you know what Mr. Jansen did here at the consulate?”

“No,” she said, wiping one of her eyes. “But there are a lot of people here that I don’t know what they do.”

“Did he ever talk about his work, his assignments?”