Chaos

“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.