The Day After Tomorrow_ A Novel - Allan Folsom [23]
“McVey, would I disturb as prominent a policeman as you without doing a little further checking?”
McVey felt the needle and gave it back. “I don’t know, would you?” He smiled.
“McVey, I am trying to assist you. Do you wish to be serious or should I hang up?”
“Hey, Lebrun, don’t hang up. I need all the help I can get.” McVey took a deep breath. “Forgive me.” On the other end he could hear Lebrun ask for a file in French.
“His name is Paul Osborn, M.D.,” Lebrun said a moment later. “He gives his home address as Pacific Palisades, California. You know where that is?”
“Yeah. I can’t afford it. What else?”
“Attached to the arrest sheet is a list of personal belongings he was carrying with him at the time he was taken into custody. The first are two ticket stubs from the Ambassadors Theatre, dated Saturday, October first. Another is a credit card receipt from the Connaught Hotel in the Mayfair district dated October third, the morning he checked out. Then we have—”
“Hold on—” McVey leaned forward to a stack of manila folders on the desk and pulled one from it. “Go ahead—”
“A boarding pass on a British Airways London-to-Paris shuttle dated the same.”
While Lebrun talked, McVey scanned several pages of computer printouts provided by the Public Carriage Office, which had answered a police request asking for the names of drivers delivering or picking up fares from the theater district Saturday night, October 1, into Sunday morning, October 2.
“Hardly makes him a criminal.” McVey turned one page, then another until he found a cross listing for the Connaught Hotel, then slowly ran his finger down it. He was looking for something specific.
“No, but he was evasive. He didn’t want to talk about what he was doing in London. He claimed he became ill and stayed in his room.”
McVey heard himself groan. With murder, nothing was ever easy. “From when to when?” he asked with as much enthusiasm as he could muster and put his feet up on the desk.
“Late Saturday evening until Monday morning when he checked out.”
“Anybody see him there?” McVey glanced at his shoes and decided they needed to be reheeled.
“Not that he wants to talk about.”
“Did you press him?”
“At the time there was no reason, besides he was beginning to yell for a solicitor.” Lebrun paused and McVey could hear him light a cigarette, then exhale. Then he finished. “Would you like us to pick him up for further interrogation?”
Suddenly McVey found what he was looking for. Saturday, 1 October, 23:11. Two passengers picked up at Leicester Square. Delivered Connaught Hotel, 23:33. The driver was listed as Mike Fisher. Leicester Square was in the heart of the theater district and less than two blocks from the alley where the head was found.
“You mean he’s free?” McVey took his feet off the desk. Could Lebrun have, just out of sheer luck, stumbled onto the head-cutter, then let him go?
“McVey, I’m trying to be nice to you. So don’t put that sound in your voice. We had no grounds to hold him and so far the victim hasn’t come forth to press charges. But we have his passport and we know where he’s staying in Paris. He’ll be here until the end of the week when he goes back to Los Angeles.”
Lebrun was a nice guy doing his job. He probably didn’t relish the assignment as Paris Préfecture of Police liaison to Interpol or working under its coldly efficient assignment director, Captain Cadoux, arid he probably wasn’t crazy about dealing with a Hollywood cop from LaLa Land, or even having to speak English for that matter, but these were the kind of things you did as a civil servant, which McVey knew only too well.
“Lebrun,” McVey said measuredly. “Fax me his booking photos and then stand by. Please . . .”
An hour and ten minutes later, Metropolitan police had found Mike Fisher and delivered the bewildered taxi driver to McVey. Whereupon McVey asked him to verify that he had picked up a fare from Leicester Square late Saturday night and delivered said fare to the Connaught Hotel.
“Right, sir. A man and a woman. Amorous bats