The Empathic Detective: A Mystery Thriller Page 9

  They found four open spaces on the end of a table and put their food down, then took their cups to the drink station. Bryce and the two women filled up on unsweetened tea while Desmet selected a soda. Neither one of the Belgians put ice in their drinks.

  Back at the table, Renard’s eyes lit up in surprise and pleasure as she bit into the brisket.

  “This is very good! I have never tasted meat like this.”

  Bryce looked over at Desmet. He said nothing, but kept shoveling brisket into his mouth. Bryce felt a wave of contentment from him.

  The sliding door opened again, and three men dressed in expensive suits and sunglasses walked inside. The one in the middle looked older. Late sixties, Bryce guessed. He took his sunglasses off and scanned the crowd.

  Bryce nodded toward the entrance.

  “Our friends from the black car.”

  Seeing them, the older man approached their table. The two younger men followed behind, protectively scanning the crowd.

  “They’re armed,” Parker said. “Telltale bulges under their left arms.”

  Bryce nodded.

  “They’re relaxed, though. As long as they’re relaxed I don’t think we’ve got anything to worry about.”

  Although, he admitted to himself, a lot of people could get hurt in a crowd this size if things get awkward.

  When the three reached the end of the table, the older man looked around. There was no place to sit. He motioned to one of the younger men who walked over to another table and grabbed an empty chair, then brought it over to the end of their table.

  The older man sat down and looked at the four of them, tilting his head first left, then right.

  “I am Ivan.”

  Bryce took a sip of iced tea, then set the cup down. The name meant nothing to the others.

  “He’s the head of the Bolshoi Boys. Our local Russian mafia.”

  “Such a distasteful name. I did not choose it, the news media pinned it on us.”

  Bryce smiled apologetically, and cut another slice of brisket. He noted Ivan’s thick accent. Although his English seemed fluent, the accent easily marked him as Russian.

  “Six of your boys shot up our building pretty good the other day, Ivan.”

  The older man grunted in acknowledgment.

  “The reason for my visit. I understand you have been chasing the harpy.”

  Bryce paused, the fork half way to his mouth. Then he continued, and chewed on the meat thoughtfully.

  How much did Ivan know? Apparently quite a bit. He pondered the implications. How far into the department did the Russians go? Who fed them information?

  The man’s emotions revealed nothing. All Bryce could discern was a sense of earnestness.

  Bryce swallowed his food before responding.

  “Yes. We’d like to catch her. What can you tell us? Obviously she used your men in the attack. Are you working for her now?”

  Bryce felt anger and irritation rise up in the man.

  “Of course not. She took six of my men and made them do her bidding. They emptied a weapons cache and she made them storm your station. The two who survived told me from their jail cell that when they came to their senses they found themselves holding guns, aimed at the police. They could not tell me how they got there or what made them do such a thing.”

  Ivan paused, pulled out a handkerchief and absentmindedly polished his sunglasses.

  “Look, I’m a reasonable businessman.”

  Bryce felt the others scoff, silently. But Ivan projected sincerity.

  Maybe he honestly believes it, Bryce thought.

  “I don’t like to create trouble, you know? Trouble is bad for business.”

  He locked eyes with Bryce, waiting to see if the detective understood. Bryce nodded, encouraging him to continue.

  “This woman, she comes in and uses my men to stir up lots of trouble. I don’t like that.”

  He pocketed the handkerchief and spread his hands.

  “I have trouble with this woman. You have trouble with this woman. She’s a harpy. A very bad one.”

  Bryce nodded again. He took another sip of tea, and stayed silent.

  “Detective, I want to offer you the assistance of my organization in dealing with her.”

  He looked around the table. Parker felt stunned, Renard surprised. Desmet felt nothing. He was busy eating fried corn on the cob, and Bryce suspected he had tuned out of the conversation.

  Bryce looked back at Ivan, and decided to be diplomatic.

  “Thank you for the offer. However, I’m afraid I don’t have authorization to accept any civilian help at the moment. That decision would have to be made at a higher level. I’m sure you understand.”

  Ivan smiled, as if to wave off Bryce’s concerns. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a vid card, handing it to Bryce.

  “This number is for a private offshore messaging service.”

  And out of our jurisdiction, Bryce thought. Clever.

  “Should you need anything from me, please don’t hesitate to leave a message. It will be forwarded to me immediately. Like I said, any assistance I can offer in ridding our city of the harpy, you will have it.”

  He stood up, and his two guards stepped forward, scanning the place for threats. People nearby looked up at the three men briefly, then resumed their conversations and eating.

  “Until then, Detective.”

  He bowed slightly at the four of them, and walked out the door with his bodyguards trailing.

  Chapter Ten

  Back at the station, Bryce made some online adjustments so that Renard and Desmet had full access to the computers. Desmet immediately linked up with the Europol system in The Hague, synchronizing data. His eyes seemed larger behind the bottle-bottom glasses. He stared intently at the screen, vocalizing commands softly in English and French.

  Bryce and Parker gave Renard a tour of the station, culminating in a visit to the damaged lobby. Most of the smashed furniture had been removed, but bullet holes still pockmarked the wall. Thick plastic plating had been hastily erected over the damaged doorway, and street traffic into the building had been redirected to side entrances.

  Finally they made their way back up to their desks. Desmet had not moved, and continued working on the computer.

  Renard bent to his ear and asked a question in French. He responded briefly.

  “Non.”

  Her brows creased and she asked him more some questions, a little more insistently this time. He stopped, and tore his eyes from the screen. His tone turned curt, and Bryce noted their rising irritation levels, especially Renard’s.

  She broke off conversation and approached the detectives while Desmet returned his attention to the computer.

  “Our supplies were overnighted from The Hague by commercial carrier, but François tells me they are being held up by your Customs in Houston. Evidently their nature has attracted some suspicion. I apologize for that. I will work with my superiors to try and find some way to send additional supplies without further delay.”

  Bryce felt some sympathy from Parker.

  Nobody likes dealing with bureaucrats, he thought.

  “What can you do?”

  “I’m thinking maybe a diplomatic pouch. Belgium has a consulate in San Antonio. That’s probably the closest to us. We might be able to go through one of Holland’s, too. I will see what my superiors think is best.”

  She excused herself, and pressed under her ear to activate a phone implant. A screen appeared in the air near her face and she began dictating dialing instructions.

  Bryce turned his attention back to Desmet, who seemed fully engrossed in his computer program. He moved to look over the technologist’s shoulder. On the screen, a series of gridlines overlapped with a satellite photo of the city. Various dots of light flashed in different locations.

  “What’s this?”

  “I have downloaded my tracking program from our computer at the office back in Holland. With this, we shall be ab
le to determine where the harpy might visit in the near future.”

  Bryce watched as various lights on the grid lit up, some more often than others.

  “How does it work? Obviously that’s not showing us where she is in real time.”

  “It’s a predictive algorithm. I’ve filled in her known locations from when she was identified as a potential ‘gifted child,’ as we call them, until most recently before she fell off the grid.”

  “A ‘gifted child?’” Parker said. “You follow these people from when they are children?”

  “From before they are born, actually. We have identified the bloodlines of the women who seem to produce gifted children down through the generations, and we keep an eye on them. We watch who they marry, the children they have, their grandchildren. We have been doing this a long time.

  “Unfortunately, Ms. Lamont recently stopped using phone implants and other electronics, and she is harder to find now. So, I am running a report on all her known prior locations to see if we can predict where she might show up again. Knowing where she might be is the next best thing to knowing where she is at the moment.”

  Parker raised her eyebrows.

  “Impressive.”

  “Yes, it is. I designed the program myself. Look, it is showing the most likely place for her to visit next is a nightclub called Mile High Alamo. It shows the probability she will visit there tonight at oh-point-seven-nine.”

  A note of smug pride had crept into his voice, evident even through his accent. Bryce and Parker smiled at one another.

  “Well, I think your program is wrong about that,” Parker said.

  “Non. I do not think so. The probability is very high.”

  “Mile High Alamo burned down the other night.”

  “Eh? This club no longer exists?”

  “Yep. It burned down when we tried to apprehend her there,” Bryce said. “We’d come to a similar conclusion as your program through old-fashioned detective work. But unfortunately, she got away.”

  Bryce felt a surge of disappointment from Desmet. The technologist hung his head in defeat for a moment.

  Bryce chuckled at the dramatics.

  “Don’t take it so hard, Desmet. Your data was incomplete.”

  Desmet’s head sprang up, new enthusiasm coursing through him.

  “You are correct, monsieur. I will adjust the data and run the probabilities again to find the next most likely place she will be.”

  -+-

  The afternoon wore on. Renard left early, using a ridesharing service to go back to her hotel. As Bryce and Parker left at the end of the day, Desmet continued working at his computer station. Bryce peered over his shoulder at the flashing lights on the satellite grid.

  “Any progress?”

  “There is nothing above oh-point-three. I have run the data several different ways.”

  Bryce felt the disappointment in the man. Everything about his posture seemed glum, too.

  “Well, cheer up. We’ll take the higher probability locations and set up some stakeouts. Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll show up somewhere.”

  Desmet nodded, but never took his eyes off the screen.

  -+-

  The next morning, Bryce walked in and found Desmet asleep, slumped over his desk. He chuckled at the sight, and sat down at his own desk nearby.

  Parker and Renard walked in together, chatting excitedly. Renard saw Desmet and laughed. She shook his shoulder.

  “Bonjour, François. Quoi de neuf?”

  He roused himself, bleary-eyed, and retrieved his glasses. He began speaking in French until Renard stopped him, tilting her chin toward the others. He looked over at the detectives and switched to English.

  “My best place was oh-point-three-six. I am sorry, I can get nothing more probable than that.”

  “No problem, that’s still not bad,” Bryce said. “We can set up some stakeouts for that and your other top three places.”

  Parker said, “Phoebe and I have been discussing some ideas. If we don’t know where she might show up, we can go back to where we know she’s been. Maybe some people from her past can help shed light on the present and give us some clues as to where to go next. Phoebe drew up a list of candidates to visit last night.”

  He could sense strong enthusiasm from the two women for the idea. He nodded, agreeing with them.

  Getting out and doing something will help keep our morale up as well, he thought.

  “Let me send out some uniforms to cover Desmet’s top places, and we’ll go.”

  They asked Desmet if he’d like to join them. To no one’s surprise, he said he would prefer to remain working at the computer.

  -+-

  They took Parker’s car this time, and she flew it north along the old I-35 out into the suburbs. Turning off the main flyway, she headed over rooftops until the car’s navigation system slowed them down over a particular subdivision.

  The car landed gracefully in the street near a cluster of spacious homes on a cul-de-sac. Parker and Renard climbed out of the front while Bryce exited from the backseat. They walked up to one of the houses and rang the doorbell.

  An attractive woman in her late thirties answered the door.

  “Mrs. Trantham? I’m Detective Parker, we spoke on the phone earlier. This is my partner Detective Bryce, and this is Agent Renard from Europol. May we come in?”

  Shelly Melton Trantham nodded, and held the door open wide for the trio. Bryce sensed worry and trepidation in her, but nothing out of the ordinary. He knew that lots of people the police asked to talk with feel similar emotions at first.

  They sat down on a leather sofa and chairs in the living room. Everything seemed neat and organized, the rooms well furnished. The Tranthams evidently lived a quiet, upper middle class lifestyle.

  Bryce scanned the room, noting the photographs on the wall. Two kids, a boy and a girl. They were high school age. Mr. Trantham obviously enjoyed boating. Two photos showed him posing near a skiff. Several pictures showed the family out on a local lake. One showed the daughter waterskiing.

  “As I said on the phone, we understand you were friends with Desiree Lamont back in high school. You knew her as Desiree Dubois back then.”

  “Yes, I did. I heard about what happened on the news.”

  “Have you seen Mrs. Lamont lately?”

  Trantham shook her head.

  “No, I’m sorry. I haven’t seen Desiree in years.”

  “That’s okay. The purpose of our visit is simply to learn more about her. What you can tell us about her childhood? Her teenage years? Tell us what she was like.”

  Trantham’s eyes grew wide, and a smile spread on her lips as she glanced at each of her visitors in turn.

  “Well . . . Desiree was something else. I don’t think anybody at Hutto High School has seen her likes before or since. She was the most popular girl ever. Every boy wanted her. Every girl wanted to be her, or at least be her friend. I felt very fortunate to be her best friend. In high school I sort of rode her coattails, so to speak.

  “Anyway, she could do no wrong, and she could get whatever she wanted. She was the homecoming queen, the head cheerleader. She dated the quarterback and all the other popular boys.

  “She liked rich boys who could shower her with gifts, and they did. But she took gifts from anybody, even if they couldn’t afford it. I know Bobby Canton worked two jobs after school to save up and buy her a diamond necklace she told him she wanted. I never understood how she could get boys to do things like that. She never even dated Bobby or gave him a thank you kiss or anything. And he never once said he regretted spending that much money on her.

  “It was the same way with teachers. She was always the teacher’s pet. I don’t think she ever did much homework, or any assignments unless they interested her. She’d always finish tests first. I saw one time, we sat near each other in math class our sophomore year, and she went down the list choosing C for all her answers. She never chose A or B or D. All she chose was C
for every answer on the entire test. I know this for a fact, I saw it. But Mr. Pemberton gave her an A for the test, and an A for the entire course.

  “She got A’s in everything, most of the time while doing nothing in the class. I couldn’t understand it. So I asked her this time. I said, ‘How do you do it? I know the computer couldn’t have given you an A on that exam. I saw you put in C for every answer.’

  “She brushed me off. She said, ‘Mr. Pemberton loves me, Shelly. He gives me A’s in everything.’

  “I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it. She could do no wrong, and she got everything she ever wanted. She literally led a charmed life.

  “I lost touch with her in college. She got into UT. I went to Texas State. I came home a lot on the weekends, I mean San Marcos is not very far away. She did too, at first. But then she started coming home less and less. I heard she was running around with some very wealthy people, and not just frat boys at college. Rich, older men who were giving her things like exotic vacations, new cars, and super-expensive jewelry.

  “Over time she just disappeared. I never saw her again after, oh I think it was around my junior year in college. I read about it in the society pages when she married that billionaire, Charles Lamont. They got married in Tahiti. Even if I had gotten an invitation to her wedding, which I didn’t, there’s no way I could have afforded to make that trip.”

  She paused for breath. Bryce felt her annoyance at this last bit. Shelly had been popular in high school, and ran with the most popular girl of all, Desiree Dubois. But when Desiree married, she catapulted into the upper echelons of wealth, leaving her high school friends behind. He could tell Shelly resented it.

  “What about her parents?” Bryce said.

  “They both died. I think it was some kind of car accident. It was around the time we were in college.”

  “Do you know of any other family members? Or any other friends in the area we could contact?”

  “I never met any of her family other than her parents. And I’d like to think I was her best friend, at least until college. There are a couple other girls who liked to hang around us. I still know where some of the boys she dated are. I keep up with them on social media.”