Color of Blood(17)

“No, not really. Just that he did a lot of traveling around the state. He was teased a little bit because he would be gone for weeks at a time, and we all said we wanted his job. To be out of the office and driving around: seemed liked fun.”

“Did he tell folks what he was doing driving around the state?”

“No.”

“Did he ever argue with anyone in the group?”

“He wasn’t like that. Geoff was a really nice guy and would never argue and be loud.”

“Did he have any hobbies?”

She laughed, and Dennis was relieved to have changed the mood. “Well, he had unusual hobbies: things that I thought were cool.”

“Like what things?”

“Well, like watches. He would tease me about my watch; it was a Timex. And he would talk about how those kinds of watches were mass-produced and did not have the workmanship of mechanical watches. He was pretty intense about that, but in a good way. I certainly learned a lot about watches. And he helped me get a nice watch, too,” she said, holding up her wrist to show a stainless steel timepiece.

“How did he do that?”

“He told me that he’d sell my Timex on eBay, take the money, and buy a nice, older mechanical watch. I had to throw in about a hundred more, but it seemed like a good idea. So he showed me this one online and I bought it. It’s an old Tudor, which is, like, the cheap line of watches from Rolex.”

“Besides watches, did he have any other hobbies?”

“Well, I guess you’d call poetry a hobby for him.” She smiled. “I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t understand his poetry thing but, like, he’d suddenly speak a line from a poem to make a point. Or sometimes he’d just compose something out of thin air. He’d say it with, like, a dramatic flair. We just laughed at him, but he didn’t mind. Like I said, he wasn’t a self-conscious guy or anything.”

Not like me, Dennis thought.

Now with her guard down again, Dennis moved in quickly.

“Did he like to do drugs?” Dennis said.

Her face hardened, and she said sharply, “We didn’t do drugs.”

“Any drugs?”

“Nope.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yep.”

“Do you have any idea what happened to Mr. Jansen?”

“Nope.”

“Anything else you wanted to tell me about Mr. Jansen?”

“Nope.”

As the young woman left the small office, Casolano, the consulate’s PR man, put his head in. “The CG would like to see you, Mr. Cunningham. He’s in his office now if you’d like to follow me.”

Dennis had experienced another night full of vaguely disturbing dreams. As he walked to the CG’s office, he felt tired, and for the first time since he had taken on the assignment, he wanted to go home. This, by itself, was new. Dennis relished the hunt and tolerated everything, really, until the prey was cornered and bagged. Sometimes the prey was a person, sometimes just a piece of information. But it always needed to be hunted down.

Now, in an odd twist, he wondered when he could go home.

St. Regis served up a wan smile as Dennis sat down.

“How is your investigation going?”

“Fine.”

“Have you had any luck finding out what happened to Mr. Garder?”

“Nothing I can tell you about,” he said.

“Of course.”

A dull, muffled silence fell over the two men, and Dennis wondered what St. Regis wanted. Dennis had requested Langley look deeper into the consul general’s background and was waiting on that report.

“In full disclosure, Mr. Cunningham, I have to tell you that I have lodged a formal complaint about you. I spoke to Mr. Roby after his meeting with you, and I will follow up with young Miss Carter as well. I don’t appreciate how you’ve treated us and wanted you to know that you’ll doubtless be hearing about it through channels. I’ve requested you be replaced with someone more agreeable.”

St. Regis proffered the wan smile again. “That’s all,” he said, opening a manila folder on his desk.

Dennis sat in the chair, staring above St. Regis’s head at a strange, primitive painting on the wall. It appeared to be a landscape in a shadow-box frame made of tree bark and dabs of white and black paint. He was momentarily captivated by its three-dimensional quality, and it gave him a good excuse to process what had just happened. He had made a stupid, self-destructive mistake. Marty would surely come down hard on him.

He sighed, looked at his watch, and said, “I have some work to do.”

St. Regis did not acknowledge him as he walked out. Dennis made his way to a small office door marked 209. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stainless-steel key Casolano had given him. He unlocked the door, turned on the light, and looked at Geoffrey Garder’s small, windowless office.





Chapter 9


Cunningham, he kept repeating to himself, what is wrong with you?

He sat down in the small chair in Garder’s office and planted both elbows on the desk. Cradling his face on both sides with his hands, he rocked gently to and fro.

Work, he finally told himself. Get to work. Do something, for God’s sake.

So he began to bore into the minutiae of Garder’s office. Nothing intrigued him more than a subject’s personal surroundings.