The Girl Who Remembered the Snow (27 page)

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Authors: Charles Mathes

BOOK: The Girl Who Remembered the Snow
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“The dragon was the common thread. Pépé sold it; Henri-Pierre bought it.”
“Yes, but you have only just now discovered this. The police, they have known nothing about the dragon whistle. They have been concentrating on finding out who might benefit from both deaths, which is why it is so awkward that Henri-Pierre Caraignac has named you his sole heir.”
“What?!” exclaimed Emma.
This time heads did turn in the room, faces full of amusement, annoyance, curiosity. They turned back to their companions just as quickly.
“Just after you left for San Marcos, the American lawyers for the Caraignac family in France produced the hand-written will of Henri-Pierre Caraignac, dated the day before he died,” said Charlemagne. “It names you as his beneficiary.”
“But I hardly knew the man,” said Emma in shock. “We were total strangers.”
“Apparently you make the good impression.”
Emma shot the lawyer an angry look. He grinned sheepishly.
“Sorry. I make the little joke.”
“Very little,” said Emma. “Why didn't Detective Poteet say anything to me about this? I thought he was my friend.”
“He is not your friend, Emma,” declared Charlemagne. “He is the police. Detective Poteet has been investigating. He has been trying to learn why Monsieur Caraignac would have done such a thing.”
“Why did he? What did his family say?”
“Nothing, unfortunately. They are in Paris, so there is no way we can force them to cooperate. They have referred all questions to their U.S. attorneys. But now these attorneys they make the stonewall. That is what I am doing here in New York. I have been meeting personally with Doulange Henrik Swales & Carner, attempting to extract the reasonable explanation that Detective Poteet has not been able to secure. All the lawyers would say, however, was that the Caraignac family would not contest the will, although there appears to be a significant estate involved. Detective Poteet knows this, too. He is very unhappy about it.”
Emma struggled to absorb this shocking development. Charlemagne appeared to be equally troubled. They sat in silence for a few moments, neither touching the lovely meal set out before them.
“You are not still mad with me, are you?” asked Charlemagne finally with a lopsized grin.
“No, I'm not mad at you.”
“You have not touched your salad.”
“You haven't eaten your fish.”
“Neither of us is hungry, I think,” sighed the lawyer. “A pity at these prices. But we must not let our reunion go entirely to waste. We should put our troubles beside us, not give in to them, yes?”
Emma didn't answer.
“I know,” said Charlemagne, pulling the napkin out from around his neck and depositing it on the table. “Maybe we go for a walk. What do you say?”
“I'm sorry, Charlemagne. I don't think I'm up to it.”
“Come, Emma,” he implored, catching the waiter's eye and motioning for the check. “A walk will do us both good. Go get your coat and meet me in the lobby. I'll take you over to Lincoln Center, show you the sights.”
Emma didn't say anything. Charlemagne reached over and raised her chin with a gentle touch.
“It will be okay,” he said softly. “I promise. You do not want to sit alone in your room and be unhappy now. It is not good. All these mysteries will resolve themselves soon. I am sure of it. There is nothing about which to worry. Now get your coat. Please.”
Emma nodded. Perhaps he was right. It was only seven-thirty. She could hardly go to sleep this early, and she hadn't come to New York to watch television. Maybe a walk would be good for her.
Emma rose and walked slowly out of the room. When she returned to the lobby five minutes later in her coat, Charlemagne was standing by the door in his double-breasted overcoat and fedora, checking his watch. When he looked up, he saw her and held out his arm with a smile.
They walked out the Fifty-ninth Street door. Pedestrians hustled to and fro in the brisk night air, but the crowds were thinner. Behind a stone wall across the street the trees in Central Park twinkled with Christmas lights.
Emma took Charlemagne's arm, as much for warmth as for comfort. She was still severely shaken by the revelation that Henri-Pierre had left her his estate. Each time she tried to think of some possible explanation, the facts ran away from her; it was like chasing clouds.
Charlemagne led the way across the street to the Central Park side. They walked slowly toward the next avenue, not talking, her arm in his. There weren't many people on this side of the street. Emma and Charlemagne had the sidewalk almost all to themselves.
As they waited to cross Seventh Avenue, Emma glanced back over her shoulder. A tall thin man with his hands in his pockets was directly behind them, no more than thirty feet away.
“That's him!” Emma exclaimed.
“Who?” said Charlemagne, not turning to look.
“The man I told you about who was following me before. The man with the heart-shaped scar. Quick, let's cross to the other side of the street.”
“No, I wish to have words with this man,” said Charlemagne, grabbing her wrist with his small, surprisingly strong hand.
“What are you doing?” said Emma, struggling to free herself. Didn't he understand? Didn't he see the danger?
“We shall make the inquiry about why this man is bothering you,” declared Charlemagne. “We shall demand to know his business. At least this is one mystery we can arrive to the bottom of.”
The man with the heart-shaped scar had seen her, helpless in Charlemagne's steely grip. He started to walk faster toward them, then broke into a run.
“Are you crazy, Charlemagne?” cried Emma. “Let me go!”
“Trust me, Emma,” declared Charlemagne, raising his chin aggressively. “It is always better to have things out in the open in matters like these. There is probably some innocent explanation.”
Emma stared at the lawyer in horror. Suddenly she understood why he had been so nervous tonight, why he had kept looking at his watch, why he had suggested a walk. Charlemagne was somehow behind everything! He had known about the dragon from the beginning, and she had kept him posted on everything that had happened since. Now he had set her up for his scar-faced accomplice. Suddenly Emma was terrified of the little man she had known her whole life.
But why? Emma asked herself, her heart frozen. Why would Charlemagne have killed Pépé? Was it the treasure? Had the lawyer
stolen the model boat and the map? Had Henri-Pierre expected Charlemagne to share the treasure with him? Was that why Charlemagne had killed him, too?
Emma realized that she would never know any of the answers. Everything was happening too fast, but at the same time seemed as though it were in slow motion. The man with the heart-shaped scar was racing toward them, whipping open his coat. Suddenly there was a hard, black object in his hand. A gun.
Emma let out a scream so loud it surprised even her. At the same time she stomped down on Charlemagne's instep as hard as she could. The little lawyer cried out in pain as he released his grip on her wrists and collapsed to the pavement. The man with the heart-shaped scar was practically on top of them. Emma spun around and, with a dancer's grace she had forgotten she possessed, executed her highest kick, catching the man with the heart-shaped scar directly in the chin.
Suddenly half a dozen other men with drawn guns and walkietalkies were leaping out of taxicabs and from behind the stone wall of Central Park. They pounced on her dazed assailant and on Charlemagne, who was writhing on the ground in pain.
Emma turned to run, not looking where she was going, desperate to escape. She had gotten only a few steps, however, when she collided with a rock-solid figure. A rock-solid figure wearing tooled leather boots and a cowboy hat. A rock-solid figure the size of a refrigerator.
“Big Ed!” exclaimed Emma, horrified.
“That's right, little lady,” replied the phony Chevy salesman with a radiant smile. “Only it's Agent Big Ed, when I'm not undercover. Federal Agent Edgar M. Garalachek of the joint DEA/ FBI Task Force on Narcotics-Related International Currency Manipulation, at your service.”
 
 
“
Y
a gotta understand, Emma honey,” said Big Ed mournfully, hat in hand.”We was getting ready to pick him up as a illegal alien, maybe try for a conspiracy charge. Who knew he'd decide to go after you just when we was closing in?”
“I can't believe you, Ed,” snarled Emma. “I can't believe you did this.”
They were waiting in a corridor outside the emergency room of Lenox Hill Hospital, where the man with heart-shaped scar and Charlemagne had been taken. Agent Big Ed had tried to make the little lawyer comfortable on the ambulance ride up, while Emma's assailant had sat in stony silence surrounded by federal officers, his swollen jaw beginning to turn purple where it had taken her kick.
No amount of hand-holding and happy talk was going to placate Emma, however. Now that she had learned that it was Big Ed, not Charlemagne, who was behind tonight's fiasco, she was more than hurt and confused—she was furious.
“You was never in any real danger, Emma honey,” said Big Ed
again. “I promise. You wouldn't have wanted us to try to take him in a crowded hotel, would you?”
“Like nobody could have been shot on the street, even accidentally?” she replied angrily. “Like Charlemagne or I couldn't have run out in front of a bus? But that's not even the point. You had no right.”
“Well, there, little lady, I might beg to differ. Your federal government got all kinds of rights when it comes to pursuing international criminals and combating illegal drug traffic. That's what your Drug Enforcement Administration is all about.”
“Bernal Zuberan is not a drug trafficker.”
“Is too.”
“Is not!”
“All right,” grumbled Ed, “maybe he ain't actually the man going down the street selling reefers to little kiddies, but he's the one who launders the money and keeps all them coke barons in business.”
“I don't believe that. Bernal Zuberan is in financial services.”
“For cryin' out loud, Emma. What do you think money laundering is?”
Emma folded her arms in front of her and didn't answer.
“What do you want?” said Big Ed. “You want to see our files on Zuberan?”
“Yes.”
“Then you'll have to come to Washington, D of C, with me, now, won't you? 'Cause I got nearly twenty thousand pages on this man. Goes back decades. Whole filing cabinets full of stuff.”
“Has he ever been convicted of anything?”
Big Ed waited to answer until a team of frenzied emergencyroom doctors wheeled a man full of tubes past on a gurney.
“That's not the point,” he said.
“I thought people were supposed to be innocent until proven guilty in this country,” she hissed. “But I guess that doesn't apply to people you don't like.”
“What do you think this is all about, Emma?” said Ed, shaking his head in frustration. “You think Washington dragged me away from my job—I normally supervise three hundred agents and coordinate all drug enforcement in the entire Southwest, in case you was wondering—you think they go to all the trouble of setting up an entire task force to go after some fella they got mild suspicions about? No, ma'am. Bernal Zuberan is one bad, bad man. He is slick and smart and ruthless, which is why he's gotten away with it until now. But we are one hundred percent absolutely certain beyond the shadow of a doubt that Bernie Zuberan is moving hundreds of millions of dollars of drug money into legitimate accounts each year, and we aim to nail him. With your help or without it.”
“You son of a bitch,” said Emma, shaking her head. “You suckered me all the way, didn't you?”
“Now, come on, Emma. If we weren't such good friends, I'd swear you was trying to hurt my feelings. Hell, I thought you'd be pleased we're goin' after Zuberan.”
“Pleased? Why would I be pleased?”
“You don't get this at all, do you?”
“What's to get?”
“Don't you see that Zuberan's the one who killed your grandpa?”
“You're crazy,” sputtered Emma in disbelief and turned to leave.
“Look, honey,” said Big Ed, reaching out for her arm. “You gotta calm down. You gotta sit down here, let me explain things from the beginning.”
Emma reluctantly let him guide her over to a hard wooden bench against the wall. It wasn't until she was seated that Emma realized how tired she was, how upset. For the first time since the events outside of Central Park, her hands began to shake.
“Now that's better, ain't it?” asked Ed, smiling his big, dopey smile. A woman went by leading a child who was holding a
bloodstained handkerchief to his nose. Two nurses passed, chatting about trading shifts. The corridor smelled of rubbing alcohol and disinfectant.
“What makes you think that Bernal Zuberan had anything to do with Pépé's death?” said Emma finally.
“Because I don't believe in coincidence, that's why.”
“Don't believe in coincidence? I thought you were the Synchronicity King!”
“Well, I was just sayin' all that synchronicity stuff to fool you in San Marcos so you wouldn't get suspicious. Didn't do me much good either. If I hadn't put your name on the custom boys' list, I would still be down there, waiting for you to show up for dinner tonight, wouldn't I?”
“If you know something about my grandfather's murder, Ed, just tell me.”
“Okay, okay,” said Ed. “But it's not that simple. You gotta see this in context. You gotta get the big picture. It all started when your grandpa's body was found, and the San Francisco police sent the fingerprints off to the FBI for identification—standard procedure with unknown murder victims. What came out of the computer was more than three decades old and didn't match the name that SFPD had gotten off some credit-card receipt by then. The credit-card company said the dead man was Jacques Passant. The fingerprints said he was Etienne Lalou.”
He stopped and studied Emma for some reaction.
“Go on,” she said, giving him none.
“Now, you gotta understand, Emma,” Big Ed continued, “I been looking for old Etienne Lalou from the moment I took this assignment. You remember how I told you about all them files we got in Washington on Bernal Zuberan?”
“Yes?” said Emma.
“Well, on the very first page of the very first folder is that name. Etienne Lalou. I told you Zuberan's got no convictions. Fact is, the only time he ever spent more than a few hours in jail, it
was for gunrunning with this Etienne Lalou fella, a/k/a your grandpa. Case was eventually dropped for lack of evidence. Somebody bribed it to go away.”
“That was a long time ago,” said Emma defensively. “My grandfather was a decent man.”
“Hell, I know that. The old San Marcos police weren't mental giants, but even they weren't fooled by Zuberan. Even as a kid he was involved in all kinds of illegal crap. According to the police records, Etienne Lalou was totally unaware of what Zuberan had been doing with his boat. He was an innocent dupe.”
“But Zuberan told me …”
Emma stopped and bit her lip.
“Don't worry,” said Big Ed in a gentle voice. “I know you went and saw Zuberan. Hell, when you booked a ticket to San Marcos, I nearly flipped my wig. We had you under surveillance from the minute you stepped onto that island, sometimes even by satellite.”
“Oh, for God's sakes.”
“Now, I don't know what that old snake Zuberan told you, Emma honey, but you can be dead certain it wasn't the truth, the whole truth, and nothin' but the truth. The man's a world-class liar. Why, he's got one of the biggest banks in New York City believing that a certain company in Colombia makes forty million dollars a year cash money selling papaya juice to tourists.”
“Then my grandfather didn't do anything wrong?”
“Nothing that we know about. His only mistake was trusting this kid, this Bernal Zuberan. Besides smuggling goods on your grandpa's boat without his knowledge, Zuberan was running prostitutes, extorting money, helping merchants cook their books —you name it, if it was profitable and illegal, he did it. In fact, the San Marcos cops thought Zuberan ran Etienne Lalou off the island just to get his boat. They couldn't prove anything, though. What we didn't understand was why, if Zuberan had chased Etienne Lalou away, was he so eager to find him again? Ol' Bernie's had a mess of expensive lawyers and private investigators on
Lalou's trail for years, even posted a big reward for any information. Which is why I wanted to talk to Etienne Lalou myself.”
“Mr. Zuberan told me that he just wanted to see my grandfather again to thank him.”
“And you believed that?” Ed laughed. “Let me tell you something, Emma honey. Bernie Zuberan is one hundred and eighty-five percent business. There's not a sentimental bone in his body. If he invested his cold hard cash to find Etienne Lalou, you can bet your Aunt Edna's girdle that there was gonna be some kind of monetary return to him at the end of the trail. Something big.”
Emma started to protest again, then stopped. The map. The treasure. If Zuberan had lied to her about who had been smuggling contraband on the
Kaito Spirit
thirty years ago and why he and her grandfather had been arrested, then what else had he lied to her about?
“See?” said Big Ed triumphantly. “You're beginning to see how all this fits together, aren't you? So, anyways, when those Etienne Lalou fingerprints appeared on a dead man in San Francisco after all this time, me and my boys got real interested. We wondered if maybe Zuberan had finally found Lalou after all these years. And killed him. Why he would do that, we had no idea, of course. Until you told Detective Poteet this afternoon about that dragon thing and the treasure ship it came from. And the map in the model boat that got stolen.”
“I don't really know there was a map in the model,” stammered Emma. “I was just guessing.”
“Well, we think you're right. We think you've hit right on the head Zuberan's motive for killing Etienne Lalou, alias Jacques Passant.”
“Can you prove it?”
“Now you're talking,” said Ed with a big smile. “That's what we're trying to do here, see? Get the evidence we need to prove our theory. We've never been able to come up with a case against
Zuberan for his money-laundering shenanigans—at least nothing that any jury could understand. But murder is different. Everybody understands murder—hell, there's one every few minutes on TV. That's why I arranged to meet you in Phoenix. I needed to find out more about the victim, needed to get a feel for who this Jacques Passant fella really was, make sure he didn't go and get himself killed on his own.”
“Wait a second,” said Emma. “What do you mean, you arranged to meet me in Phoenix? I thought you just happened to be there with Lionel when the dog I had booked for my act got sick.”
“Well, not exactly,” said Ed with a sheepish smile. “Actually I was outside your rehearsal room, waiting for you to use the phone, like I knew you would have to, sooner or later. Do you know that that unpatriotic Mrs. Schneiderman wouldn't agree to let her stupid Saint Bernard take a dive until my boys paid her triple what you were gonna give her?”
“I suppose Lionel isn't even your real dog,” Emma muttered, dismayed at how easily she had been tricked.
“Oh, he's mine all right. He likes to go undercover with me on assignments where there's no danger of anybody getting shot.”
“Where is he tonight?”
Ed flashed a stupid grin, but didn't say anything.
“If you wanted information about my grandfather, Ed, why couldn't you have just come to me honestly and asked?”
“Involving a citizen in a complex federal investigation is not something we do at the drop of a hat, Emma,” said the big agent. “That's the easiest way to get your career nailed up on the front page of the
Washington Post
. Besides, why spook you if it turned out there was nothing to any of this? You had enough troubles. Hell, after we talked in Phoenix, I saw my dreams of a case against Zuberan melting away. It looked like the Frisco cops were right, that it was just a robbery. That's what they been telling us all
along. Then this Henry-Pierre Caraignac fellow got himself killed and all the pieces began to come together. The way we figure it, Caraignac was Zuberan's hit man.”
“That's ridiculous,” said Emma, laughing reflexively. “Mr. Zuberan never even heard of Henri-Pierre Caraignac.”
“Oh yeah? Sez who?”
“Says Mr. Zuberan. I mentioned Henri-Pierre when I was in San Marcos, and he didn't recognize the name.”
“I know you think this man is your friend, Emma,” said Big Ed, shaking his head. “I'm sorry to disappoint you, but it just proves what I was saying to you before, that Bernie Zuberan is a world-class liar. Fact is, he did, too, know Caraignac. After Caraignac's death we got a court order and went through the records of his antique store. Fact is, Caraignac had made three separate sales to Zuberan over the past two years, according to invoices we found. We're talking nearly a hundred thousand dollars' worth of merchandise here.”

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