Left To Die

He hadn’t even lawyered up. This unsettled Adele more than anything. Why hadn’t he asked for a lawyer? Did he think he could fool them with spectacle?

She leaned forward, pushing off the mirror, and striding toward John. She stepped past his chair and faced Lehman. “Why were the test tubes in your bag?”

The man stared desperately up at her, his gaze flicking between John and Adele with rapid motions. He tried to twist, turning back to look at Agent Marshall, but his chained wrists hampered his range of motion. So instead, he glanced in the mirror and stared at Marshall’s reflection.

“Please,” he said, loudly. “This is a mistake. I haven’t been to France. And I haven’t been to the United States, ever. I don’t know anything about killing. I-I did have the drug… yes… but for a good reason…”

He said this last part quickly, his cheeks turning red, and the slick sweat across his brow glistened beneath the fluorescent light. He muttered to himself beneath his breath, shaking his head wildly from side to side.

His voice was strained as he pressed on: “I can’t—can’t tell you why. Just please, I didn’t kill anyone.”

Adele was staring at him though, still frowning. “We’re not interested in the theft of the drug. That’s something for BKA to worry about. All I care about is the killer. You have the drug on you. There’s no disputing that. The lab confirmed it. BKA has confirmed it, and local authorities have the evidence in custody.” She didn’t blink, and she kept her tone even, unaffected by emotion. “You can’t escape that undeniable fact. Secondly, you had a suitcase at the foot of your bed. The man we’re looking for has just returned from France to Germany. If you weren’t traveling then why did you have a suitcase with the drugs in it? You have to understand; I’m asking the same question in different ways, but the facts remain undisputed. Unless you can explain away those two things, I’m afraid you’re not going to like what comes next.”

Peter Lehman’s eyes bugged in his head, and he again muttered to himself in German, staring down at his shackled wrists. He did a double take at the chains, as if not quite believing what he was seeing.

At last, though, he muttered quietly, “Switzerland.”

Adele leaned in, “What was that?”

“What’s he saying?” John demanded in French.

But Adele held up a finger toward her partner. She turned back to Peter. “What about Switzerland? Did you kill someone in Switzerland, too?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” Peter loosed a sigh, his chest puffing toward the light, and then descending as he crumpled in on himself, his shoulders trembling now. Tears sprang into the man’s eyes.

He was better than Adele had given him credit for. No wonder his victims fell for him.

“Please,” he said. “My family, my children. If I tell you—I didn’t kill anyone. But you have to understand, I worked so hard on this project. The anesthesia was supposed to save lives. It would have been half the cost of normal anesthetic. There were some kinks; I admit that—some things that needed to be worked out, but we were rejected far too quickly. It was complete politics!”

Now his voice was rising, and the flush in his cheeks reddened further.

“What politics?” Adele demanded.

Peter was clenching his fists now, the tops of his hands turning white. “At our company. Lion is always gunning for contracts from the bigger fish. The competition wanted to put a stop to my project, to teach Director Mueller a lesson. I got caught in the crossfire. You have to understand, I’ve been working on this for three years. Me and my team have put in twenty hours days, sometimes staying over the weekends, just to make sure the thing was perfect. It should have been approved. We only had a couple more trials.”

He released another puff of air and continued to wilt in his chair, sliding down so that the back of his head rested against the metal frame. “Dear God, I didn’t kill anyone. This is a nightmare.”

Adele circled to the edge of the table and lowered into a sitting position on the table next to Peter’s clenched fist. She was only inches away from the man suspected of killing Marion, killing the three Americans. The same man who had callously murdered his victims and left their bodies to rot. The same way Adele’s mother had been left in that park.

She felt a flash of rage, which she quickly pushed deep down in her chest.

Somehow, though, she felt a burbling of pity, too. Perhaps Robert had been right. Perhaps even these sorts, the monsters of the world, were once destined to be masterpieces, but somehow vandalized.

Or perhaps her own instincts were trying to tell her something.

But what?

He couldn’t be innocent, could he? It was far too damning of evidence for him to have stolen the drug, have a packed suitcase, match the employee records, request a leave of absence…

“Adele,” said Agent Marshall, waving her phone.

But Adele held up another quieting finger and stared at Peter, studying the side of his face. “All right, let’s say you took the drug. Where have you been for the last five weeks?”

“Here, in Germany! I swear it. I’ve been with my family; you can ask my wife, my kids! I was at my daughter’s soccer practice last Wednesday. Everyone can tell you!”

“BKA is running your credit cards and passport right now,” said Adele. “You’re convincing, I’ll give you that. But this charade is pointless. If they find that you’ve been spending money in France, or that your passport was spotted at any of the borders, you’re going to spend the rest of your life behind bars. I hope you know that.”

Peter Lehman’s voice broke, shuddering with a sob. “I didn’t kill anyone. I took the five weeks because of the politics. Like I said. Those bastards at Lion wouldn’t stick up for us. I’m a chemist, not a killer. I was leading my team as best I could. I made promises, promises that they should’ve seen fulfilled. We all worked so hard…”

His voice strained, and he emitted another defeated sob. At last, he turned, meeting her gaze, his eyes laden with sadness. “I needed the time off to recover. I took the drug. I admit that. There’s no sense pretending, you found it. But I took it to sell it.”

He hesitated for a moment, his nostrils flaring as he realized what he’d said. But, shaking his head, he tried to steady himself. Then, soldiering on, with a grim look of determination like someone plunging into an icy river, he said, his voice strengthening with each word, “I was going to travel. I did pack a suitcase, but it wasn’t because I’ve returned from France, but because I was going to leave for Switzerland. I told my wife there was a conference, but really, I was going there to meet a Swiss pharmaceutical company. I told them about the drug. I offered to sell it to them. You have to understand; I’m not a bad man. But I spent three years working on this project.” He reached up as if to rub at his forehead, but his hand couldn’t make it the full way. The chain rattled as his hand dropped limply back to the table. “To throw it away, so callously, with Director Mueller not even taking a second to try to salvage it…it’s a crime. That’s the real crime!”

Adele still sat on the edge of the metal table, her legs crossed, her hands folded in her lap, her shoulder brushing against Lehman’s waving forearm as he gesticulated wildly, causing the chains to rattle back and forth and his hands to move up and down like a seesaw through the metal bracket holding him tight.

“Agent Sharp,” Marshall repeated again, waving with her phone.

Adele sighed, and finally glanced over at the young BKA agent.

“Yes?” she said.

Marshall winced apologetically. “He’s telling the truth,” she said, shaking her head. “BKA can’t find any record of credit card purchases or travel outside the country. And the officer sent to speak with his wife has her swearing up and down that he’s been home for the last five weeks, wallowing in it, in her words, but home.”

Adele felt a pit forming in her stomach. She stared at Agent Marshall. “You have to be kidding.”

The German agent winced again, shaking her head.

Adele glanced at Peter, who was hunched over now, crying, his forehead resting against his hands.

She turned to John, her expression grim. “There was no one else? No one in the employee records who worked on the project? Who requested absence? No one with red hair?”

John scowled. “Would you stop it with the red hair? He doesn’t have red hair.” He jabbed a finger toward Peter again. “He’s the killer!”

But Adele shook her head and translated what Marshall had told her as well as what Peter had said. As she relayed the facts, John’s expression morphed from one of anger to sheer contempt. He flung out a hand and grunted as if waving away everyone in the room. “He has to be the killer,” John said, mulishly. “He had the drug on him, in the suitcase. You saw!”

“He does have a ticket for Switzerland,” said Agent Marshall, once again waving her phone like a child raising their hand to catch the attention of a supply teacher.

John growled again and opened his mouth to protest, but Adele interrupted, “No credit cards or passport out of Germany, John. He’s been here.”

“Can anyone else vouch for his whereabouts?” John demanded.

Adele turned to Peter. “Can anyone else corroborate that you’ve been in Germany?”

Peter hesitated, but then nodded wildly. “Yes, of course! My team. We met up for drinks only two weeks ago after the project was officially canceled. It was a wake, a sendoff, if you will. There were nearly twenty people there. They’ll all be able to vouch for me. Please, just ask them!”

Adele felt her shoulders slump in defeat. “We’re going to need names,” she said softly. She reached out and patted Lehman on the shoulder, and then pushed off the table, turning toward the door to the interrogation room. “I need a breath,” she said. “I’ll be back.”

As Adele pushed out of the cramped space, the smell of iced tea and sweat was replaced by cheap cologne and scented air freshener. She kept her eyes ahead as she walked down the hall, mulling over the possibilities. Either Peter was an Oscar winner, or else the real killer was still out there. For all she knew, he was preparing for his next victim.