Left To Die

Agent Marshall stood behind Peter, but she wasn’t leaning against the wall. She seemed nervous, and was on the phone, quietly relaying the interrogation’s entirety over the phone to her supervisors via video camera. Eyeballs in the sky, eyeballs on the ground. Adele glanced toward the security camera in the corner of the ceiling, then back at the blinking glass of Marshall’s camera lens.

They would have to do this by the book. Then again, there wasn’t much of a book for this sort of thing.

John continued to harangue the suspect, slamming a large hand against the top of the metal table with a resounding thwack! Peter Lehman continued to shake his head and repeat, over and over, “I only speak German. I don’t understand. Please. German.”

Adele felt, surprisingly, the rumblings of pity burgeoning in her chest. She studied their suspected killer.

He had a pleasant face with a straight nose and high cheekbones. His hair was thinning, but not unduly so, and he wore an earnest expression as he stared across the table.

He hadn’t even lawyered up. This unsettled Adele more than anything. Why hadn’t he asked for a lawyer? Did he think he could fool them with spectacle?

She leaned forward, pushing off the mirror, and striding toward John. She stepped past his chair and faced Lehman. “Why were the test tubes in your bag?”

The man stared desperately up at her, his gaze flicking between John and Adele with rapid motions. He tried to twist, turning back to look at Agent Marshall, but his chained wrists hampered his range of motion. So instead, he glanced in the mirror and stared at Marshall’s reflection.

“Please,” he said, loudly. “This is a mistake. I haven’t been to France. And I haven’t been to the United States, ever. I don’t know anything about killing. I-I did have the drug… yes… but for a good reason…”

He said this last part quickly, his cheeks turning red, and the slick sweat across his brow glistened beneath the fluorescent light. He muttered to himself beneath his breath, shaking his head wildly from side to side.

His voice was strained as he pressed on: “I can’t—can’t tell you why. Just please, I didn’t kill anyone.”

Adele was staring at him though, still frowning. “We’re not interested in the theft of the drug. That’s something for BKA to worry about. All I care about is the killer. You have the drug on you. There’s no disputing that. The lab confirmed it. BKA has confirmed it, and local authorities have the evidence in custody.” She didn’t blink, and she kept her tone even, unaffected by emotion. “You can’t escape that undeniable fact. Secondly, you had a suitcase at the foot of your bed. The man we’re looking for has just returned from France to Germany. If you weren’t traveling then why did you have a suitcase with the drugs in it? You have to understand; I’m asking the same question in different ways, but the facts remain undisputed. Unless you can explain away those two things, I’m afraid you’re not going to like what comes next.”

Peter Lehman’s eyes bugged in his head, and he again muttered to himself in German, staring down at his shackled wrists. He did a double take at the chains, as if not quite believing what he was seeing.

At last, though, he muttered quietly, “Switzerland.”

Adele leaned in, “What was that?”

“What’s he saying?” John demanded in French.

But Adele held up a finger toward her partner. She turned back to Peter. “What about Switzerland? Did you kill someone in Switzerland, too?”

“I didn’t kill anyone.” Peter loosed a sigh, his chest puffing toward the light, and then descending as he crumpled in on himself, his shoulders trembling now. Tears sprang into the man’s eyes.

He was better than Adele had given him credit for. No wonder his victims fell for him.

“Please,” he said. “My family, my children. If I tell you—I didn’t kill anyone. But you have to understand, I worked so hard on this project. The anesthesia was supposed to save lives. It would have been half the cost of normal anesthetic. There were some kinks; I admit that—some things that needed to be worked out, but we were rejected far too quickly. It was complete politics!”

Now his voice was rising, and the flush in his cheeks reddened further.

“What politics?” Adele demanded.

Peter was clenching his fists now, the tops of his hands turning white. “At our company. Lion is always gunning for contracts from the bigger fish. The competition wanted to put a stop to my project, to teach Director Mueller a lesson. I got caught in the crossfire. You have to understand, I’ve been working on this for three years. Me and my team have put in twenty hours days, sometimes staying over the weekends, just to make sure the thing was perfect. It should have been approved. We only had a couple more trials.”

He released another puff of air and continued to wilt in his chair, sliding down so that the back of his head rested against the metal frame. “Dear God, I didn’t kill anyone. This is a nightmare.”