Then I hopped out of the car and gave a wave, and she was off. I decided immediately not to think about her, but then I was thinking about nothing else but Adanne—her smile, last night at her house, things that we didn’t do.
Flaherty! I reminded myself. What the hell does he want from me?
The CIA man was nowhere to be seen, though. I waited about twenty minutes, just long enough to start getting paranoid, when his Peugeot skidded up to the curb.
He threw open the door on my side. “C’mon, let’s go. I don’t have time to waste.” When I got in, I saw there was a blue folder on the seat and picked it up.
“What’s this?”
Flaherty looked dirty and sweaty and totally stressed out, more weaselly than usual. He pulled away and started driving. Typical of him, he didn’t bother to answer my question.
So I opened the file. It was just a single photocopied form with a passport-size picture of a young boy stapled to it.
“Adoption papers?”
“Orphanage records. That’s your Tiger. His name is Abidemi Sowande. Born Lagos, nineteen seventy-two, to wealthy parents. Both of them died when he was seven years old, no living relatives. Apparently little Abi wasn’t exactly the picture of mental health. He ended up on a ward for a year after that. When he came out, the old family fortune was gone.”
“What happened to it?”
Flaherty shrugged, and a little smoke from his cigarette got into his eye. He squinted and rubbed at it.
“Sowande was supposed to get transferred to state care, but somewhere between hospital and orphanage, he disappeared. He was a bright boy apparently. High IQ anyway. He spent two years at university in England. Then he disappeared until a few years ago here. That’s it, all I have. No further record of any kind until now. We think he might have worked as a mercenary.”
I stared at the picture in my hand. Could this boy be the man I’d seen in Darfur? The killer of so many people here and in Washington? Ellie’s murderer?
“How do we even know it’s him?” I asked.
“The dead guy in Sudan—Mohammed Shol? We got a source says he was bragging about doing business with ‘the Tiger,’ supposedly knew a thing or two about him. It seemed like a long shot, but then someone dug up this record and we got a print match to the crime scene at Shol’s. Sweet, right?”
“I don’t know,” I said, holding up the folder. “I mean, really, what am I supposed to do with this? Seems a little convenient all of a sudden.”
Flaherty glared over at me and swerved out of his lane. “Jesus, Cross, how much help do you want here?”
“Help?” I said. I wanted to hit him. “You hang me out to dry, then show up and give me the name of someone who doesn’t seem to exist anymore? Possibly a mercenary, but who knows? Is that the kind of help you mean?”
“This is gravy, Detective. I told you not to count on me from day one.”
“No, you told me that on day four—after I spent three nights in jail.”
Chapter 100
FLAHERTY ANGRILY FLICKED his lit butt out the window and wiped the sweat off his face. “Do you even know why you’re not dead yet? It’s because everyone thinks you’re CIA, and we let them think it. We’ve been babysitting you. I’ve been babysitting you. Don’t bother to thank me.”
I clenched my hands several times, trying to cap my anger. It wasn’t just Flaherty’s arrogance getting to me, or his condescension. It was this entire case. The Tiger was worse than any of the serial killers I had ever arrested—so why was he allowed to roam free here?
I looked over at Flaherty. “What is it you do, exactly—for the agency?”
“I service the copiers at the embassy,” he said, deadpan.
Then he lit another cigarette and blew out smoke. “Actually, I’m on record here as CIA. Okay by you?”
“Fair enough. How about this, then? Why aren’t you on the Tiger’s case yourself? Why pass me information instead of running with it? Abidemi Sowande is a murderer. You know that.”
Something about the debate, just getting it out in the open, I guess, was diffusing the tension in the car. Plus, I was on a roll.
“For that matter, why in God’s name am I wearing this stupid tie?”
For the first time, Flaherty smiled.