Walter Williams - This Is Not a Game

“The FBI. They’re here. They’re taking everything from Charlie’s office.”

Dagmar was astonished. “Why are they doing that?”

Distress flooded Karin’s voice. “They won’t say!”

“Have you called our lawyers?”

“Lawyers?” Karin sounded as if she’d never heard the word before.

“Call the firm’s attorneys,” Dagmar said. “If they’re taking company property, there needs to be an inventory. And probably a warrant-I don’t know.”

“Okay. Should I do that now?”

“Yes,” Dagmar said.

Karin clicked off. Dagmar looked at her phone and saw the AvN Soft number glow for a moment, then vanish as the screen went to black.

She tried to work out what to do next. Rush to the office to prevent the FBI from taking Charlie’s things? Tell Murdoch what had just happened? Do nothing?

Try to play detective and solve the crime?

It had to be admitted that this last approach hadn’t worked well so far.

Murdoch was stirring white powder into a cup of coffee with one of the red and white stir sticks. Dagmar holstered her handheld and approached him. He looked up.

“My boss has been killed,” she told him. “Charles Ruff, you might remember him. In a bombing.”

She realized as the words left her lips that Karin hadn’t actually given her all this information, and there followed a thrill of fear as she realized that Murdoch might trip her up.

But then, she thought, Karin wouldn’t remember what she’d said and what she hadn’t. And there wasn’t anything wrong with Dagmar’s knowing what she knew.

She was safe.

The crinkles around Murdoch’s eyes softened and then reformed themselves, something Dagmar took to be an expression of interest.

“Is this the bombing downtown?” he asked. “In the Fig?”

“I…” Dagmar hesitated. “She didn’t say. She only said that the FBI turned up at the office.”

His eyes held hers for a moment, and then he looked down and gave a long sigh.

“Well,” he said, “if it’s the Russians, the FBI might be the best agency for it.” His tone suggested that he made this statement against his better judgment. He made a vague gesture with the hand that held the stir stick.

“I’ll make some calls,” he said, “and we’ll see what we can find out.”

In the end, Murdoch took Dagmar to the FBI’s blue glass tower on Wilshire, where Dagmar talked to a special agent named Landreth, a woman with perfect makeup, an immaculate gray suit, and a Tidewater accent. She seemed completely comfortable with the idea that Charlie was a terrorist who had blown himself up with his own bomb. When Dagmar pointed out that Charlie was a multimillionaire entrepreneur with no ideological ax to grind, Landreth gave her a green-eyed look that made her realize that it was her credibility, not Landreth’s, that was in question.

A fact that pointed to Charlie’s guilt, Landreth was convinced, was that he had checked into the hotel under a false name, Neville Longbottom. Dagmar pointed out that this was a character in the Harry Potter books. Landreth didn’t seem to think that mattered.

Dagmar didn’t tell her about the patch. Landreth would probably have confiscated it as a possible tool in Charlie’s terrorist plot, and Dagmar wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

After the futile interview, Dagmar was tasked to identify Charlie’s body. Charlie’s other associates suddenly seemed unavailable, and Karin had refused.

It would probably sour her breast milk, Dagmar thought. Sourly.

Murdoch, who seemed to be doubling today as her chauffeur, took her to the morgue. The attendants weren’t yet ready with Charlie’s body, and Dagmar waited with Murdoch in the corridor. A fluorescent light buzzed overhead. Air-conditioning efficiently suppressed any odor: the place smelled like nothing at all.

“Harlem Nocturne” began to chime from Dagmar’s belt. She looked at the display and saw that it was Helmuth.

“Dagmar,” she said.

“We need to know what to do about the Banana Split mix-up,” Helmuth said.

“Jesus,” Dagmar said. “Do you know where I am?”

“We know that Charlie’s been killed,” Helmuth said. “But even if he has, we still can’t update till the players solve the Banana Split puzzle.”

She mashed her free hand against her forehead, then scrubbed her palm over her face, as if she were hoping that might help her mind to jump from one track to another.

“I can’t think,” she said. “You’ll just have to handle it yourselves.”

“Should I call Boris?”

“Sure. Why not? He’s devious.”

“He can’t hold his liquor very well.”

Dagmar didn’t remember that about him. It seemed to her that BJ had been pretty good with alcohol-better anyway than Dagmar.

“He and I went out clubbing last night,” Helmuth said. “My God! He turned into some kind of rampaging disco monster.”

Dagmar remembered the email BJ had sent her at four in the morning. Oh hai…

“You were with someone named Beverly?” she asked.

“Yes. Boris seemed…fond of her.”

“He didn’t pass out or anything?” she asked.

“No. He just… had more fun than the situation called for.”

“Well, he’s had good news lately. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

“Sure. And we’re very sorry about Charlie, by the way.”

“Yes,” she said. “So am I.”

Dagmar put her phone away. To give her privacy, Murdoch had turned away and taken a few steps down the corridor, just as he had during the phone call at the North Hollywood Station that morning.

“Someone from work,” she said.

Murdoch turned around and gave her a diffident look.

“Do people at your office pass out very often?” he asked.

A reluctant laugh bubbled like champagne up her nose.

“They do when they’re drinking with Helmuth,” she said.

Murdoch nodded.

A door opened and an attendant came out. He had glossy black skin, was dressed in pale green surgical scrubs, and had shaved his head.

“We’re ready, ma’am,” he said. “I should tell you a few things first.”

Dagmar nodded dumbly. Her insides were trying to climb up her throat.

“The victim’s face,” said the attendant, “has been badly damaged.” Then, speaking quickly as he gauged Dagmar’s horrified expression: “We’re not going to show you the face. We’re going to show you as much of the body as we can, so that maybe you’ll recognize the hands or feet or a birthmark or something.”

“Okay,” Dagmar said.

“The victim has also been autopsied. There is a large Y-shaped incision on the trunk. It has been sewn up and has nothing to do with the accident.”

Accident. Indeed.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Dagmar had expected a scene from the movies, with a wall full of sliding trays with bodies in them, but the viewing room wasn’t like that. It was small, with subdued light, and the body was actually in an adjacent chamber, with glass in between. A woman attendant, also in scrubs, was in the room with the body.

The body was very white, and naked except for a cloth covering the face, and a towel folded over the genitals. The front of the torso had been blackened, and there were deep circular wounds dished over the arms and torso. The Y-shaped incision of the autopsy had been closed with large stitches.

Only the legs seemed normal.

Dagmar felt a lightness wash over her, a floating sensation as if she were on the very edge of sleep. She continued walking toward the body, but her feet felt as if she were walking on pillows, reaching a long way before they met the ground.

The shaven-headed attendant stayed behind her, quite close. To catch her if she fainted dead away.