Harlan Coben: Long Lost

“Excuse me?”

“You,” he said with an angry, thick French accent. “You are a lying sheeet!”

“And you,” I countered, “are a lying pillowcase.”

Berleand just stared at me.

“Sheet,” I said. “Pillowcase. Get it?”

Berleand looked mortified. Couldn’t blame him.

“Do you love Terese Collins?” he asked.

I stayed on the truth train. “I don’t know.”

“But you’re close?”

“I haven’t seen her in years.”

“That doesn’t change anything, does it?”

“No,” I said. “I guess not.”

“Do you know Rick Collins?”

For some reason, hearing him say it, I was surprised Terese took his name, but of course, they met in college. It would be natural, I guess. “No.”

“Never met him?”

“Never.”

“What can you tell me about him?”

“Not a damn thing.”

Lefebvre put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed just a little. “Lying sheeet.”

I looked back at him. “Please tell me that’s not the same toothpick from the airport. Because if it is, we are talking seriously unsanitary.”

Berleand said, “Is Ms. Collins correct?”

I turned back to him. “About what?”

“Are you good at finding people?”

I shrugged. “I think I know where Rick Collins is.”

Berleand looked at Lefebvre. Lefebvre stood a little straighter.

“Oh? Where is he?”

“A nearby morgue,” I said. “Somebody murdered him.”

Berleand took me out of the Groupe Berleand office and turned right.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

He wiped his hands on his pants legs and said, “Just follow me.”

We walked in a corridor with an opening that dropped down five floors. A steel net covered the space.

“What’s up with the net?” I asked.

“Two years ago we brought in a terrorist suspect. A woman, as a matter of fact. When we walked her down this hallway, she grabbed one of the guards and tried to throw them both over the railing.”

I looked down. It was a long drop.

“They die?”

“No, another officer grabbed them by the ankles. But now we have the netting.”

He took two steps up into what appeared to be the attic. “Watch your head,” Berleand said to me.

“Terrorist suspect?”

“Yes.”

“You guys do terrorism?”

“Terrorism, homicide, the boundaries are no longer so clear. We do a little of everything.”

He entered the attic space. I had to duck big-time now. There were clothes on a drying line. “You guys do your laundry up here?”

“No.”

“So whose clothes?”

“Victims. That’s where we hang them.”

“You’re kidding, right?”

“No.”

I stopped and looked at them. A dark blue shirt was ripped and covered with bloodstains. “Do these belong to Rick Collins?”

“Follow me.”

He opened a window and stepped outside onto the roof. He turned and looked back for me to follow.

Again I said, “You’re kidding, right?”

“One of the great views of Paris.”

“From the roof of 36 quai des Orfevres?”

I stepped out onto the slate-and wow, was he right about the view. Berleand lit a cigarette, sucked in a breath so deep I thought the entire cigarette might turn to ash, released it in a long stream through his nose.

“Do you often interrogate up here?”

“To be honest, this is a first,” he said.

“You could threaten to push someone off.”

Berleand shrugged. “Not my style.”

“So why are we here?”

“We are not allowed to smoke indoors and I desperately need a cigarette.”

He took another deep breath.

“I used to be okay with it, you know? Smoking outside only. I would jog up and down the five flights of stairs as my way of exercising. But then I’d be so out of breath from the cigarettes.”

“It would cancel each other out,” I said.

“Exactly.”

“You might have considered quitting.”

“But then I wouldn’t have a reason to run down the stairs and so I wouldn’t exercise. Follow me?”

“As much as I’d like to, Berleand.”

He sat down and looked out. He gestured for me to do the same. So there I was, on the roof of one of the world’s most famous police stations, staring at the most breathtaking view of Notre Dame.

“And look that way.”

He pointed over his right shoulder. I looked over the Seine and there it was-the Eiffel Tower. I know how touristy it is to be awestruck by the Eiffel Tower, but I just stared for a moment.

“Amazing, no?” he said.

“Next time I get arrested, I need to bring a camera.”

He laughed.

“Your English is really good,” I said.

“We are taught here from a young age. I also spent a semester at Amherst College in my youth and worked two years in an exchange program with Quantico. Oh, and I have the entire Simpsons collection on DVD in English.”

“That will do it.”

He took another hit from the cigarette.

“How was he murdered?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t I say something like, ‘Aha, how do you know he’s been murdered?’ ”

I shrugged. “Like you said, you don’t process parking violations here.”

“What can you tell me about Rick Collins?”

“Nothing.”

“How about Terese Collins?”

“What do you want to know?”

“She’s quite beautiful,” he said.

“That’s what you want to know?”

“I did a little research. We have CNN over here, of course. I remember her.”

“So?”

“So about a decade ago she was at the top of her profession. Suddenly she quits and there isn’t a Google mention of her again. I checked. There is no sign of employment. I can’t get a residence, nothing.”

I didn’t reply.

“Where has she been?”

“Why don’t you ask her?”

“Because right now, I’m asking you.”

“I told you. I haven’t seen her in eight years.”

“And you had no idea where she was?”

“I didn’t.”

He smiled and wagged his finger at me.

“What?”

“You said ‘didn’t.’ Past tense. That implies you now know where she was.”

“Your good English,” I said. “It has come back to haunt me.”

“So?”

“Angola,” I said. “Or at least, that’s what she told me.”

He nodded. A police or French siren went off. The French have a different siren than we do-more insistent, horrible, like the love child of a cheap car alarm and the wrong-answer buzzer on Family Feud . We let it shatter our silence and waited for it to fade away.

I said, “You made some calls, didn’t you?”

“A few.”

“And?”

He didn’t say anything else.

“You know I didn’t kill him. I wasn’t even in the country.”

“I know.”

“But?”

“May I offer another scenario?”

“Shoot.”

“Terese Collins murdered her ex-husband,” Berleand said. “She needed a way to dispose of the body-someone she could trust to help clean up the mess. She called you.”

I frowned. “And when I answered, she said, ‘I just killed my ex-husband in Paris, please help me’? ”

“Well, she might have just told you to fly here. She might have told you the purpose after you arrived.”

I smiled. This had gone on long enough. “You know she didn’t tell me that.”

“How would I know that?”

“You were listening in,” I said.

Berleand didn’t face me then. He just kept smoking the cigarette and looked out at the view.

“When you stopped me at the airport,” I continued, “you put a bug on me somewhere. My shoes maybe. Probably my cell phone.”

It was the only thing that made sense. They found the body, maybe checked Rick Collins’s cell phone or whatever, found out his ex-wife was in town, put a tap on her phone, saw that she called me, held me up at the airport long enough to put on a bug and start surveillance.