Left To Die

At this, Peter’s pale face turned downright ghostly. Sweat broke out across his forehead beneath his fading gray and brown hair. “I didn’t kill anyone!” he said, sputtering. “What is this about? A drug I worked on? I assure you, anything in my capacity for Lion Pharmaceutical is covered by the company’s liability. If any patients are suffering side effects, we have a shield of immunity from prosecution as individuals. Which project is the issue?” He was shaking his head. “I know that hair regrowth cream isn’t the best. But it wouldn’t have caused anyone’s death.” Peter was talking rapidly now, the words spilling from his throat. He shook his head side to side, looking pleadingly from John to Adele and back to Agent Marshall.

Adele had to hand it to him. He was good. She could understand why Marion would’ve gone with him into the underpass. There was a sincerity in his words and his expression that would have put anyone off guard. Still, facts didn’t lie.

“Check his suitcase,” she said, pointing at John.

The large agent pushed Peter roughly in the chest, causing him to collapse backward, lying down against the bed. Then John dropped to a knee and unzipped the suitcase.

A pile of folded clothes and neatly arranged toiletries comprised most of the compartment. Adele frowned, wondering if they would find the knife. But as John tossed clothing from the suitcase, causing a couple of shirts to land on Peter’s face, the tall agent froze.

“Sharp, look,” he said, pointing.

Adele stepped further into the room and peered down into the case. She spotted a small white container with translucent glass. Sealed within the container, six small test tubes protruded from circular compartments, secured by rubber clasps.

“Project 132z,” said John with a growl. He tapped the side of the glass with a long finger.

“Please, be careful with that!” Peter said, trying to sit back up.

John reached out an arm and pushed Peter back down on the bed.

“What do you know about the paralytic?” Lehman asked between hyperventilating gasps from where he lay, facing the ceiling, his hair sticking wildly out around him, jutting against the bed sheets.

“We know you used the drug to incapacitate your victims,” snapped John. “We know you stole it from the lab, even though it was slated to be destroyed. And we know that the five weeks you’ve been absent from your company, you’ve been vacationing in the United States and France, killing citizens.”

Agent Marshall pursed her lips, shaking her head side to side. “Mr. Lehman, I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

Adele helped John back to his feet and patted him affectionately on the back.

As Agent Marshall muttered beneath her breath to Peter, advising him of his rights, Adele smiled at John. “Good job,” she said.

Renee holstered his weapon, and his smirk returned like flowers in bloom. “Same to you.”

Adele shifted her shoulders. “I have to say, I’m a little disappointed he didn’t have red hair.”

“You’re a strange one, American Princess. Not bad in a day’s work. Think we’ll get a confession?”

Adele frowned, glancing over at the two Germans by the bed. “I’m—I’m not sure…”

“What is it?”

“Nothing… Just a thought, but… no, really, it’s nothing.” Robert had often told her to trust her hunches… but this time, she didn’t want to. Peter Lehman seemed… so normal. He had to be the killer though, didn’t he?

Adele frowned, scratching at the side of her chin.

Together, the three agents led their handcuffed suspect out of his home and over to the waiting police cars at the end of the street.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

In Adele’s opinion, all police stations, no matter what country they called home, shared a certain recognizable uniformity immediately apparent to anyone who’d spent much time around cops. There was a quiet order among the men and women of a police force. The arrangement of their offices would be different, the interrogation rooms might be in a basement or down a hall. But eventually, all police stations could be interpreted through the same grid.

Adele wasn’t surprised they hadn’t been taken back to a BKA headquarters. While Germany might’ve decided to play nice, allowing a DGSI agent and an FBI agent into their base of operations without preparation would have been a laughable proposition.

Still, the local police station would do well enough.

Adele stood in front of the vending machines, scanning the items.

She inserted a euro which she’d borrowed from Agent Marshall, clicked the button, waited for the tumbling sound, then retrieved an iced tea from the vending machine’s slot. Clutching the cold beverage, she sidled past the desk clerk, and toward the long hall which led to the interrogation room.

She pushed open the door and stepped beneath the bright fluorescent light.

The naked room housed only two chairs, a long metal table bolted to the floor, and a glass mirror across the back half of the wall.

It wasn’t a one-way mirror, but it served to convince the suspects, who’d seen enough TV, to assume that every police station had someone on the other side of that glass, watching them. In this case, though, it was just a mirror.

John was already seated in the metal chair opposite Peter. The suspected killer’s hands were handcuffed in front of him and latched to the table through a metal hoop.

The man fidgeted uncomfortably, shaking his head. He could move his hands just enough to reach at his face to scratch an itch, but every time he moved one hand, the other one would lower, causing the chain to rattle as it slid through the metal hoop.

Adele placed the iced tea next to Lehman’s left hand. She stepped back, leaning against the frigid mirror and watching the suspected killer.

“It’s confirmed,” said John. “Those test tubes contain the same substance that killed your victims. How about you tell me what you were doing in France last week?”

Peter shivered though, and shook his head. He glanced pleadingly at Adele. “I don’t understand him. Is that French? Why am I being verbally abused by a Frenchman? What is this?”

Adele shrugged. “He says he can’t understand you.”

John threw his hands up. “He’s lying!” He pointed a steady, thick finger toward Peter’s chest. “You’re lying—we know you are. You can speak French; that’s how you tricked that poor girl to her death!”

Peter just looked back at Adele, his expression pleading. “I—I don’t understand. I’ve told you, I didn’t kill anyone! Please, you have to believe me. I’m not a violent man!”

“You’ve been gone from work for five weeks,” said Adele, her tone even. “A strange coincidence that our murderer also travels a lot. What was the suitcase for?”

Lehman shifted again, shaking his head nervously. “I was just packing some things to store beneath the bed.”

John growled, slamming his hands against the table. “What’s he saying?” he demanded.

Adele found herself confused for a moment, switching from German to French, while trying to process her thoughts in English. “He says he was just going to stow the suitcase beneath his bed,” she said, transitioning into French once more.

“Yeah?” John snorted. “Some things like illegal substances used to paralyze young women?”

Agent Marshall stood behind Peter, but she wasn’t leaning against the wall. She seemed nervous, and was on the phone, quietly relaying the interrogation’s entirety over the phone to her supervisors via video camera. Eyeballs in the sky, eyeballs on the ground. Adele glanced toward the security camera in the corner of the ceiling, then back at the blinking glass of Marshall’s camera lens.

They would have to do this by the book. Then again, there wasn’t much of a book for this sort of thing.

John continued to harangue the suspect, slamming a large hand against the top of the metal table with a resounding thwack! Peter Lehman continued to shake his head and repeat, over and over, “I only speak German. I don’t understand. Please. German.”

Adele felt, surprisingly, the rumblings of pity burgeoning in her chest. She studied their suspected killer.

He had a pleasant face with a straight nose and high cheekbones. His hair was thinning, but not unduly so, and he wore an earnest expression as he stared across the table.