George Chesbro: Dark Chant In A Crimson Key

I tried to call Harper at her home in Palmetto Grove, Florida, but she was out, and her answering machine was off. I was just getting ready to call the Zurich police and Interpol to ask them if they knew that the man they were so certain they had penned up in Switzerland was busy in New York killing and kidnapping people when there was a knock at the door. Surprised, I replaced the telephone receiver in its cradle, went to the door, and opened it.

The man standing in the doorway was about six feet tall, well dressed in a three-piece suit off Savile Row. He was whippet thin, with pale brown hair and eyes. An angular, rodent-like face was made to seem even more angular and rodent-like by a wispy moustache. However, the most striking thing about the man was the strong antiseptic smell, perhaps skin or scalp medication, that he exuded. It was precisely the same odor I'd detected in my room the day before.

"My name's Duane Insolers, Dr. Frederickson," the man said, producing a slender, well-worn leather wallet which he flipped open to reveal a very official-looking violet and gold card with his photo on it. "I'm with the Central Intelligence Agency, and I'd appreciate a few minutes of your time. May I come in?"

I stayed in the doorway. "None of the spies I've ever met have gone around flashing ID cards. I hope you're not here to try to sell me a set of encyclopedias, or something."

The man who had identified himself as Duane Insolers smiled wryly. "Ah," he said, scratching his left ear, "I've been told that you and your brother know more than a little about the intelligence community, and that some of my colleagues have made a bad impression on the two of you in the past. I can assure you that I don't shoot people, and I don't go skulking around trying to overthrow unfriendly governments. I'm really just a functionary, a bureaucrat."

"Sure you are. Now you're starting to sound like a spy."

"If you want more convincing, the last ten digits of that very large number at the bottom of my ID card is an eight-hundred number for a direct line to Langley. They'll verify that I am who I say I am."

"What do you want, Insolers?"

"To speak with you."

"About what?"

"May I come in?"

"How'd you know about me?"

"Well, to say that your reputation precedes you anywhere you go in the world is an understatement. Interpol told me you were coming to town to make inquiries about the matters involving Chant Sinclair. Interpol and the CIA cooperate on many things, but we're especially cooperative when it comes to hunting Sinclair."

"You may not skulk around trying to overthrow unfriendly governments, Insolers, but you're definitely a skulker. If you didn't want to give me a bad impression of you, why did you search my room yesterday? What the hell did you expect to find?"

He reacted. He caught himself quickly, but not before I had seen the glint of surprise in his pale brown eyes; it occurred to me that, as skillfully stealthy as Insolers might be, he was actually not aware of the odor he carried and left in his wake like an olfactory fingerprint.

"Really, Dr. Frederickson. Even if your room was searched, what makes you think it was me?"

"Is that a denial, Insolers?"

He studied me carefully while he considered his answer. "No," he said at last. "I'm usually pretty good at these things, and I'll be damned if I saw any detection devices. You must know some tricks I don't."

"I'm a veritable magician. What were you looking for?"

"I wasn't sure, Frederickson. That's the truth." He paused, shrugged. "I guess old skulking habits die hard."

"Forget it," I said, turning and walking back into the suite, casually motioning for him to follow me. "You can skulk around here all you want, and it won't make a damn bit of difference. You, Interpol, the Zurich police, and the Swiss Army are all wasting your time. Sinclair took his show back out on the road. He's an ocean away, butchering and kidnapping people in New York."

I stopped and turned, expecting to find him right behind me. But Duane Insolers was still standing in the doorway, looking positively stunned and making no effort to mask it. "What are you talking about?" he asked in a tight voice.

"I just finished talking on the phone to a Long Island cop who tells me Sinclair kidnapped Emmet P. Neuberger last night- motive unknown, since he didn't ask for money in the note he left. I was about to call the authorities here to see if they knew, when you showed up."

"Just because there was a note with Sinclair's name on it doesn't mean he did it."

"He left a calling card; he killed all of Neuberger's servants, burned out their eyes. That does seem to be his preferred method of murder these days."

Insolers had obviously discovered the hidden bar with its complimentary supply of booze during his earlier visit to my rooms, because that's where he headed now. He opened the cabinet, took out a bottle of malt Scotch, and poured himself a serious drink.

"Make yourself at home," I said evenly. "Maybe you'd like a drink?"

He turned around and sipped at his Scotch, staring somewhere over my head, as if he hadn't heard me. "No," he said at last, setting the half-finished drink down on top of the liquor cabinet.

"No, you wouldn't like a drink?"

"No, I don't think Sinclair snatched Neuberger and killed his servants."

"Why not?"

It seemed a simple enough question, but it took him a long time to answer it. Finally, he said, "I have my reasons."

"Which are?"

"One of them is that even Sinclair can't be in two places at once, and there's very good intelligence, from a number of different sources, to indicate that he's still in Switzerland."

"Maybe he had his people do it."

Insolers dismissed the suggestion with a wave of his hand. "Sinclair always works solo, regardless of the odds. It seems to be a point of pride with him."

"Well, there's little likelihood of a copycat killer at work. This is basically a European story, and it hasn't gotten much play in the American press."

"The Swiss have the borders sealed off," Insolers said distantly. "He couldn't have gotten out."

"Just like he couldn't have gotten out of Vietnam twenty-five years ago, right?"

"Ah," Insolers said, fixing me with his pale brown eyes. "You know about that."

"It's in the public record, part of the legend. What do you want from me, Insolers?"

The CIA operative picked up his drink, walked across the room, and sat down on a beige sofa. "If Sinclair really did get out of Switzerland," he said carefully as he slowly rotated his tumbler on an open palm, "I'm not going to be the only one surprised; not a few people are going to be downright disappointed. Zurich is beginning to resemble a convention center for a lot of different kinds of espionage types. So far, I've counted operatives from six different countries. It's another of the reasons why I don't think Sinclair did the Neuberger thing. These other people have been getting the same signals I have, maybe from different sources. The word is that he's still in Switzerland, lying low someplace."

"Why are all these intelligence types interested in Sinclair? What's your interest? Sinclair's a murderer and con man, not a spy."

"My interest is to find out what their interests are. My assignment is to try to sort out the players."

"That's just double-talk. If you don't want to tell me anything, that's fine, but I still don't understand what you think you can find out from me."

Insolers sipped at his drink while he studied me over the rim of the glass. After he had drained the tumbler, he resumed turning it in the palm of his hand. "Does the term 'Cooked Goose' mean anything to you, Frederickson?"

He had tried to make the question seem almost casual, but I was certain I detected an underlying tension in his voice. I thought I was beginning to understand how Alice had felt when she'd tumbled down the rabbit hole. "Insolers, somehow I sense that you're not talking about food, or the usual slang usage of the term. Am I right?"