Jake Needham - The Ambassador's wife

The ambassador stopped again.

“How did you feel about that, sir?”

“How did I feel ? How would you feel if your wife suddenly announced that she was leaving you for a woman, Inspector? I felt like she had cut off my goddamned dick. I felt-”

“Enraged?”

The ambassador just looked at Tay and said nothing else.

“Is that why you killed her, sir?”

“I never said I killed her, Inspector. You said that. It’s an interesting theory, I admit. And it might get you a lot of press.”

“It’s not a theory, sir. It’s a fact. You killed your wife.”

“You are forgetting, Inspector, that I have what people in your line of work call an alibi.”

“Are you referring to your trip to Washington?”

“Of course, Inspector, since I was on an airplane-”

“You were on Singapore Airlines to London on the day Mrs. Munson was killed, that’s true; and from London you made a connection to Washington. According to the airline’s reservation records, you were on the same flight that you’re on today, but you weren’t, were you? The records were altered. You were on the eleven twenty flight that night. You didn’t leave Singapore until five hours after Mrs. Munson died. You killed her and then you went to the airport and flew to London as if nothing had happened.”

“And you can prove that?”

“Not really, sir. But it’s still true.”

“That’s what I thought.”

The ambassador retrieved the newspaper he had been reading when Tay sat down.

“You’re not very good at this kind of thing, are you, Tay?”

Tay couldn’t think of anything to say to that.

But then, he didn’t really need to say anything.

“Tony DeSouza knew it was true.” Tay spoke to the ambassador through the raised newpaper.

“Did he?”

“Yes, sir. And he tried to cover everything up. He tried to protect you.”

“Tony was very loyal to me.” The ambassador lowered the newspaper and offered a small smile. “He thought I was doing the Lord’s work, and he felt it was his duty to look out for me.”

“DeSouza did all sorts of things for you, didn’t he, sir?”

“Are you talking about something in particular, Inspector? Or are you just jerking off?”

“He picked up a prostitute at Orchard Towers the night before he died, a transsexual prostitute.”

“I’m shocked.”

“We followed the two of them to the Hoover Hotel.”

At that, a wariness appeared in Munson’s eyes and Tay allowed himself a moment to enjoy it.

“DeSouza came out less than ten minutes after he got there, but the prostitute didn’t come out for another hour,” Tay continued. “Were you there that night, sir? Did DeSouza bring that prostitute to the Hoover Hotel for you?”

“Jesus fucking Christ, Inspector, are you seriously suggesting-”

“It’s not easy to recognize you in the photographs, sir. I’ll say that.”

“Photographs?”

The ambassador kept his voice under control. Tay knew that couldn’t have been easy.

“The photographs I took of you going in the side entrance to the hotel. You’re just a silhouette on the street really. It took me a while to work out what it was about that silhouette that looked so familiar. But then I did. It was you, wasn’t it, sir? Your wife preferred women and you preferred transsexuals. What were you two trying for? Kinky couple of the year?”

The ambassador shifted his gaze and tightened the muscles in his forehead. It was the approved gesture of puzzlement, of course, but underneath it Tay could clearly see him sagging as the blows registered. He looked like a man watching his house catch on fire, one who knew there was absolutely nothing he could do about it but watch it burn.

“What did you have on DeSouza, Ambassador?”

The ambassador’s mouth twitched. “You don’t understand loyalty, do you, Tay? People like you think you have to force people to do things. Tony was a good man. He was loyal to me by choice. He was loyal to what I stood for.”

“He certainly was loyal, sir. That’s why you called him after you murdered Mrs. Munson. That’s why he cleaned up after you at the Marriott and staged the crime scene so that we wouldn’t be able to identify the body until you were back in Washington and your alibi was established. That’s why he arranged to alter the airline’s reservation records to back up your alibi.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“And the loyalty didn’t even stop there, did it, sir? DeSouza murdered Ambassador Rooney just to deflect suspicion from you for Mrs. Munson’s murder. That was why he set up the crime scene in Bangkok to make it look like the same man killed both women.”

“I thought it was generally believed that the same man had killed both women.”

“It certainly looked that way, sir. He fooled me, at least for a while. The two crime scenes were almost identical.”

The ambassador blinked at that and Tay waited him out.

“Almost?” he eventually asked just as Tay knew he would.

“There was only one difference, sir. Only one.”

Tay saw the flash of panic in Munson’s eyes. “And what was that?”

“It was the flashlight, sir.”

“I thought both women had a flashlight pushed up their…” Munson paused, tasting the words for any hidden danger before he used them. “Pushed into them.”

“They did.”

“Then I guess I don’t see what you mean.”

“The first flashlight was pushed into Mrs. Munson lens first, but the second flashlight was pushed into Ambassador Rooney barrel first.”

“Oh, come on-”

“No, sir. If the same man had killed both women, he wouldn’t have made a mistake like that. It would have been important to him to pose both bodies in exactly the same way. That’s what he would have been showing us by it, that the same man was responsible for both murders. To make the two scenes almost the same, but different in one respect, particularly one like that, would just confuse things. If the same man committed both crimes, he wouldn’t have made that kind of mistake.”

“Well, maybe-”

“And there was something else, too.”

“Something else?”

“DeSouza didn’t know where the flashlight at the Marriott had come from. He told me he found it in the bedside table, but it was in the closet. Remember that, sir? It was in the closet.”

The ambassador closed his eyes and allowed that to sink in.

“Motherfucker,” he muttered, his voice barely a whisper.

“Sorry, sir?”

“That’s all very interesting, Inspector,” the ambassador said instead of repeating himself, “but it doesn’t add up to dog shit. You can’t hang a case against me on crap like that.”

“You’re right there, sir. It’s not much. Certainly not enough for a court of law, but then I’m not in a court of law here, am I?”

“And you’re not likely to be. Perhaps you’d been able to make a better case if Tony hadn’t committed suicide, but-”

“Oh, Tony DeSouza didn’t commit suicide, sir.”

“What are you talking about? Of course he did.”

“I was there, sir, at least I was there just before he died. I went to his house to confront him with what I knew and what I suspected. It surprised me, sir, I have to admit that honestly, but he confessed to everything.”

“Confessed?” Tay could hear Munson’s breathing begin to accelerate. “He told you I killed Elizabeth?”

“No, sir. He claimed to me that he killed her, and that he killed Ambassador Rooney after that to deflect attention from Mrs. Munson’s murder. Then he killed Cally Parks because she was close to working it all out.”