Rules of Deception

Turning back to the table, he unwrapped the florist’s paper and removed the roses that lay inside. With care, he trimmed the stems and placed them in a blown glass vase, one of a pair purchased on his honeymoon at the famous factory in Murano. He’d been married once. He’d had a daughter and another on the way. The house wasn’t too big then. Still, when he’d first wed, his wife had pleaded with him to sell it. She was an attorney from Geneva, spirited and impetuous, brilliant in her field. She saw the house as a relic, as rigid and hidebound as the society that had built it. He disagreed. They never had a chance to settle the argument.

Von Daniken flipped on the living room light. A photograph of his wife and daughter sat above the fireplace. Two blondes, Marie-France and Stéphanie, taken from him fifteen years ago in an airline disaster. He replaced the day-old roses with fresh ones, then sat down in an old recliner and drank the rest of his beer. He picked up the remote and flicked on the television. Thankfully, there was no mention of the failed arrest that afternoon on the late news. He changed cha

Television was safer than real life. Over the years, he’d had plenty of first dates, fewer second ones, and only two relationships that had lasted longer than six months. Both women had been attractive, intelligent, and not unaccomplished in bed. Neither, however, had compared to his wife. Once he realized this, the relationships withered. Phone calls went unreturned. Dates grew infrequent. More often, they were canceled at the last minute because of a case. It didn’t take long for either of the women to get the message. Strangely, the parting had been bitter, and more painful than he liked to admit.

His cell phone rang. “Yes?”

“Widmer. Zurich Kantonspolizei. We have a situation. A murder in Erlenbach. The Gold Coast. A professional job.”

Von Daniken swung out of the recliner and turned off the television. “Why me? Sounds like it belongs to the Criminal Police.”

But already he was moving. He walked into the kitchen and poured the cold beer into the sink. He attached his holster to his belt, put on his jacket, and picked up his wallet.

“The victim turned up on ISIS,” Widmer explained. “The file was flagged ‘Secret’ with a note saying he’d been the subject of an inquiry twenty years back.”

“ISIS” stood for the Information System for Internal Security, the Federal Police database that contained files on over fifty thousand individuals suspected of being terrorists, extremists, or members of a foreign intelligence agency, both friendly and not.

“Who’s the lucky fellow?” von Daniken asked, scooping up his car keys.

“Name of Lammers. Dutch. Permit C holder. Lived here fifteen years.” Widmer paused, and his voice grew taut. “There’s something else. Something you might want to see yourself.”

“Give me ninety minutes.”

Von Daniken needed only eighty-five minutes to make the hundred-ten-kilometer journey. Stepping out of his car, he walked cautiously across the icy sidewalk and ducked beneath the fluttering police tape. An officer from the Kantonspolizei caught a glimpse of von Daniken’s face and drew himself to attention. “Good evening, sir.”

Von Daniken patted him on the shoulder. “I’m looking for Captain Widmer.”

“Up there,” said the officer, pointing toward the garage.

Von Daniken made his way up the driveway toward a battery of mobile lights that had been erected around the perimeter of the crime scene. The array of thousand-watt bulbs lit the victim as if he were sun-bathing on Plage Tahiti in Saint-Tropez. He looked at the body, then looked away. “Some piece of work,” he muttered.

A bald, broad-shouldered man kneeling next to the body glanced up. “Three to the head, one to the chest,” said Walter Widmer, head of the Zurich Kantonspolizei capital crimes division. “Small caliber. Dumdums by the mess it made. Whoever did this wasn’t taking any chances.”

“Still think it was a hit?”

“No shells. No witnesses.” Widmer stood, frowning. “We’re guessing that the shooter electronically jammed the garage door to make sure Lammers had to get out of the car. You tell me.”

Von Daniken hurried back to the street. The sight of the victim’s ruined physiognomy would be with him for days.

Marcus von Daniken was not a homicide cop. In fact, he had little experience with violent crime. He had come up the other way. After four years as an infantry officer, he had joined the Federal Police’s financial crimes division. It was a slow climb. Years as an investigator in the field looking into fraud, counterfeiting, and money laundering-the holy trinity of Swiss banking. Then, ten years back, he caught his big break: a slot as Fedpol’s representative on the Swiss Task Force on Nazi Victims’ Assets.

Working alongside directors of his country’s largest banks, diplomats from a dozen nations, and representatives of too many aggrieved organizations to name, he had been instrumental in fashioning a solution that was acceptable to all interested parties: the Swiss government, the Swiss banks, the World Jewish Congress, the White House, the German government, and lastly, the wronged parties themselves. His reward was a posting to the Service for Analysis and Prevention, regarded as the elite division of the Federal Police.

“What about the wife?” he asked, pointing to the picture window that overlooked the garage. “Did she see anything?”

Widmer shook his head. “She’s a tough one. Moluccan by birth. She says that she and the kids were watching the television when it happened. She saw the car pull up. When she didn’t hear the garage door open, she went to look for him. She swears it was only two minutes. I went through the usual questions. Husband have any enemies? Had he received any threats lately? Anything strange happen the last few days? She claims that everything was fine.”

“You believe her?”

“I don’t believe anybody,” said Widmer.

“Maybe Lammers knew the killer? Could that be why he didn’t open the garage? A little rendezvous set up in advance?”

“Doubtful. We found some footprints by the woodpile. I’d hazard a guess and say that the killer hid there while he was waiting. Were you able to pull up anything on the drive over?”

“Only that the Belgian police had him under weekly surveillance in Brussels in 1987. When Lammers moved to Switzerland, they kicked their files over to us. We added him to ISIS as a matter of course. There’s more, but it’s archived and I can’t access it until morning. What I can tell you is that since he moved to Zurich, he’s been a law-abiding resident. Pays his taxes. Stays out of trouble. ISIS is packed with people like him. You know…not guilty of anything yet.”

“He was guilty of something. Come inside.”

Widmer led the way up the drive and into the house. Inside the foyer, he made a sharp turn and descended a flight of stairs leading to a suite of rooms off the garage. “One of my officers had to use the WC. The mistress of the house told him to go downstairs so he wouldn’t drag any dirt into the place. He got disoriented and went into the workshop by accident.”

Von Daniken walked past the bathroom, its door open, lights blazing, and continued down the corridor. “I can see how he might be confused.”

Widmer flipped on the light in a room at the end of the hall. The workshop was a stainless steel marvel. Stainless steel workbench, stainless steel tool rack, all as shiny as the day it left the factory. But this was no Sunday tinkerer’s room. No saws and hammers here. Instead, there was a collection of high-tech instruments that screamed “professional engineer.”