Central Park by Guillaume Musso (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

Alice shook her head.

“He holds the key to this mystery, though,” Gabriel insisted. “If he was telling you the truth—if he really did kill Vaughn—then we’re after the wrong guy.”

“You think I don’t know that?”

Gabriel crumpled the empty cigarette pack and threw it into the ashtray. “I don’t see why he would lie to you about it.”

Alice shrugged. “Maybe he wanted to help me move on after the attack.”

He frowned doubtfully. “To the point of inventing that whole story?”

“You obviously don’t know my father.”

“Well, no.”

She watched the roadside safety barriers as they zoomed past, a blur of steel and concrete.

“He has his flaws and his virtues,” she explained. “He knows me, so he must have realized I would want to get revenge by killing Vaughn with my own hands. It’s possible he was trying to stop me from doing something stupid.”

“Still, don’t you think you should try to call him again?”

“There’s no point. If he’d gotten my message, he would have called me.”

“Come on, try one more time, and then I’ll stop bugging you about it.” He smiled.

With a sigh, Alice pressed speakerphone and dialed the number again.

“Alain Schafer. Not here right now. Leave a message.”

“It’s strange he’s not calling you back, isn’t it?”

“My father is not the kind of guy who checks his messages every five minutes. And since he retired, he’s become crazy about spelunking. He’s probably with his old cop buddies in a cave somewhere.”

“So we’re shit out of luck,” Gabriel muttered.

Alice had barely hung up, though, before her phone rang. She answered it in French: “Papa, c’est toi?”

“I’m afraid not. This is Thomas Krieg. Gabriel gave me your number. May I…”

She pressed speakerphone again and handed the phone to Keyne. He took it, looking surprised.

“Hey, Gabe, it’s Thomas Krieg. Eliane Pelletier sent me the results of the DNA test you ran on the blood from that blouse. I put it into the CODIS database, and guess what—we have a winner!”

Alice and Gabriel exchanged a look. Both felt their hearts accelerate.

Alice pointed out a road sign to Gabriel.

“Thomas, we’re driving, but there’s a rest area coming up in a mile. Let me pull off there and I’ll call you back,” he said.

Grille 91 was in a long, rectangular, and fairly old-fashioned building, roomy and high-ceilinged like many 1970s constructions. It may not have overlooked the Pacific (in fact, it overlooked the parking lot of a rest area on I-91), but its geometric lines and big glass windows were more reminiscent of Californian houses than the gable-roofed Capes of New England.

Emblazoned with the slogan MILES AWAY FROM ORDINARY, the wall clock, decked out in the bright colors of a famous Mexican beer, indicated that it was nearly five p.m. Slanting sunlight poured into the almost empty dining room. Behind the counter, a waitress daydreamed while listening to Stan Getz play saxophone.

Alice and Gabriel sat at a table as far back in the room as possible. Gabriel placed the cell phone in the center of the table and put the call on speaker, and the two of them listened attentively to Thomas Krieg’s deep, resonant voice as he told them a strange story.

“The blood on the blouse belongs to a Caleb Dunn, age forty-one, who has a record for minor offenses—he was arrested eight years ago in California for drug-dealing and resisting arrest. He spent six months in prison in Salinas Valley, then he settled down—moved to the East Coast, where he found a job. No further problems until now.”

Alice took notes on a paper napkin. Gabriel asked: “What’s his job?”

“Security guard in a retirement home in Concord, New Hampshire.”

“Retirement homes are hiring ex-cons now?” Gabriel asked, amazed.

“Everyone deserves a second chance, don’t you think?”

Alice fiddled with the cap of the ballpoint pen she had borrowed from the waitress.

“Do you have his home address?”

“Yes,” Krieg replied. “A place in Lincoln, in the middle of the White Mountains. What do you want us to do, Gabe?”

“Nothing much right now. Just keep digging at your end. We’ll talk again later. We should be in Boston in two hours.”

“You need to fill me in. The boss thinks you’re still in Ireland.”

“Don’t tell him anything yet. I’ll explain it all when I get there. Actually…do you have a photo of Dunn?”

“I’ll text it to you.”

“That’s not going to work. This phone is prehistoric.” Gabriel glanced at the menu, which included the restaurant’s address and phone numbers. “Can you fax it?”

“Seriously? Do people still use those things?”

“Apparently. I’m at Grille 91, just off the interstate. Not far from Hartford. I’ll give you the number. Send me the picture and include the phone number and address of the retirement home and Dunn’s home address.”

Gabriel read out the fax number and then hung up. He and Alice looked at each other in silence. Their investigation was going nowhere. Too many leads. Too many questions. Not enough to connect all these apparently unrelated elements. Gabriel broke the silence.

“Fuck! None of this makes any sense! What was that security guard’s blood doing on your blouse?”

“You think I shot him?”

“We can’t rule it out. You told me yourself that there was a bullet missing from the Glock’s magazine.”

Alice scowled at him. “And what would my motive be, exactly? I’ve never even heard of that guy!”

He raised his hands in a calming gesture. “Okay, you’re right. I have no idea.”

He cracked his knuckles, then announced he was going to buy cigarettes from the gas station. “Do you want anything?”

She shook her head and watched him walk away.

Again, Alice felt a burning sensation in the pit of her stomach that rose up to the base of her throat. She stood and walked over to the counter to warn the waitress that a fax would be arriving for them.

“Are you feeling okay, ma’am?”

“Yes, it’s just heartburn. I’ll be fine.”

“Oh, my mom gets that! I could make you a papaya smoothie? It works real well!”

The waitress was a little blond Barbie doll with a slight lisp. In her cheerleader outfit, she looked