Swimsuit - James Patterson [28]
MY PHONE RANG as soon as I opened the door to my room.
I said hello to a woman who said, “ Ben-ah Haw-keens?” Strong accent.
I said, “Yes, this is Hawkins,” and I waited for her to tell me who she was, but she didn’t identify herself. “There’s a man, staying in the Princess hotel.”
“Go on.”
“His name is Nils Bjorn, and you should talk to him.”
“And why’s that?”
My caller said that Bjorn was a European businessman who should be investigated. “He was in the hotel when Kim McDaniels went missing. He could be… you should talk to him.”
I pulled at the desk drawer, looking for stationery and a pen.
“What makes this Nils Bjorn suspicious?” I asked, finding the paper and pen, writing down the name.
“You talk to him. I have to hang up now,” the woman said — and did.
I took a bottle of Perrier from the fridge and went out to my balcony. I was staying at the Marriott, a quarter mile up the beach from the much pricier Wailea Princess but with the same dazzling ocean view. I sipped my Perrier and thought about my tipster. For starters, how had she found me? Only the McDanielses and Amanda knew where I was staying.
I went back through the sliding doors, booted up my laptop, and when I got an Internet connection I Googled “Nils Bjorn.”
The first hit was an article that had run in the London Times a year before, about a Nils Bjorn who had been arrested in London, held on suspicion of selling arms to Iran, released for lack of evidence.
I kept clicking and opening articles, all of which were similar if not identical to the first.
I opened another Perrier and kept poking, found another story on Bjorn going back to 2005, a charge of “aggravated assault on a woman,” the legal term for rape. The woman’s name wasn’t mentioned, only that she was a model, age nineteen, and again, Bjorn wasn’t indicted.
My last stop on Bjorn’s Internet trail was Skoal, a glossy European society magazine. There was a photo that had been taken at a reception dinner for a Swedish industrialist who’d opened a munitions factory outside of Gothenburg.
I enlarged the photo, studied the man identified as Bjorn, stared at his flashbulb-lit eyes. He had regular features, light brown hair, straight nose, looked to be in his thirties, and had not one remarkable or memorable feature.
I saved the photo to my hard drive and then I called the Wailea Princess and asked for Nils Bjorn. I was told he’d checked out the day before.
I asked to be put through to the McDanielses.
I told Levon about my phone call from the woman and what I knew about Nils Bjorn: He’d been charged with selling arms to a terrorist nation, and he’d been charged with raping a model. Neither charge had stuck. Two days ago he’d been staying at the Wailea Princess hotel.
I was trying to keep my excitement in check, but I could hear it in my voice.
“This could be a break,” I said.
Chapter 35
LEVON WAS HOLDING for Jackson. After five minutes of Muzak, he was told the police lieutenant would call him back. He hung up the phone, turned on the television, a big plasma thing, took up half the wall, as the news was coming on.
First came the flashy graphic intro to All-Island News at Noon with Tracy Baker and Candy Ko‘alani, and then Baker was talking about the “still-missing model, Kim McDaniels” and cutting to a picture of her in a bikini. Then Jackson’s face was on the screen above the word “Live.”
He was talking to the press in front of the police station.
Levon shouted, “Barb, come in here, quick,” as he cranked up the volume. Barb sat next to him on the sofa just as Jackson was saying, “We’re talking to a person of interest, and this investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information about Kim McDaniels is asked to call us. Confidentiality will be respected. And that’s all I can say at this time.”
“They arrested someone or not?” Barb said, clutching his hand.
“A ‘person of interest’ is a suspect. But they don’t have enough on him, or they’d be saying he was in custody.” Levon cranked up the volume a little more.
A reporter asked, “Lieutenant, we understand you’re talking to Doug