“That fucking idiot! I told him to delete it all! That’s what I get for giving a newbie a chance.”
“I’m sure you’re getting some karmic points for your benevolence, Mr. Holway. Now what we want to talk about is why you claimed the kill as yours.”
Daniel Holway furrowed his brows. “Who said it wasn’t me?”
Bingo, George thought. This turned out to be easier than anticipated. “We do have our sources, Mr. Holway. Now please elaborate.”
Holway stayed silent for a moment, clearly thinking things through. George hated intelligent suspects, but expecting a professional assassin to be completely stupid was naïve. Holway cocked his head. “You know it wasn’t me. But you came to me anyway, which means you don’t know who did it, and now you’re hoping I can help you out.”
George did his best to hide his irritation. Easy had just flown out the window. He didn’t let that deter him, though. “Your assumption is correct, Mr. Holway.”
“So you can’t charge me with murder.” Holway sounded triumphant.
George allowed a predatory smile to form on his lips. They were entering the negotiation phase. “Actually, we can. Our little conversation here isn’t recorded in any way, shape, or form, and we have written proof that you not only entered a contract to kill the three victims but that you claimed the kill and received the payment. Any judge and jury would be more than satisfied with that.”
Holway smiled as well, a cold, quick movement of his lips. “But you wouldn’t be satisfied. Because you want the real killer.”
He leaned back on his pillow. “What do I get for helping you?”
Now they were getting serious. “Apart from being exonerated from killing the three men? We would be willing to put in a good word with the DA to charge you for obstruction of justice and conspiracy to commit murder, asking for a maximum of fifteen years in prison.”
Holway made a face as if he had bitten into a lemon. “Seven.”
“Twelve.”
“Nine.” George glanced at Andi, who nodded. He didn’t like it, but he knew they had to give Holway an incentive to really help them and tell the truth. Even though they had managed to catch him—with a good portion of luck—everything Shireen had found about him suggested he was a seasoned pro who knew exactly how the game was played. They might have been able to trick him if they had more time, but time was in short supply in this case.
“Fine, we’ll do our best to get you nine years. And you tell us everything you know.”
Holway nodded, looking way too smug for somebody who was facing time. George also noted the sparks of amusement dancing in the killer’s eyes. The man was toying with them. “Deal. Now write it down and sign it.” He was also smart. Damn.
Andi got up to get pen and paper. After the terms of their agreement were written down and signed by all three of them, Andi went to copy it. One copy remained with Holway. Since his own cell had been destroyed in the crash, the assassin asked Andi to take a picture of the agreement and send it to his lawyer. It was all tedious, and George got the distinct impression Holway was enjoying it all. Once Holway was satisfied that they couldn’t take back what they had promised, he turned into a chatty Cathy, his tone rich with some kind of satisfaction George couldn’t understand.
“You’re right, I didn’t kill the marks. Somebody beat me to it.”
“Then why did you claim the kill?” George leaned back in his chair.
“It wasn’t an open contract, at least that was the assumption under which I was working. I was made to believe it was just between me and LaFarge. But given what I found out about them during research and observation, I’m not surprised there were others who wanted them dead as well.” He shrugged, then winced. No doubt his bruised side had reminded him what a bad idea that was. “Anyway, they were dead. Why shouldn’t I take that opportunity? Besides, he wasn’t explicit in how he wanted them to die, just to make it cruel and painful. Drowning is pretty cruel and painful, so I decided why not?” He rolled his eyes as if this was perfectly logical, which, in a horrible way, it was.
“You were at their cabin, weren’t you?” Andi sounded sly. If he found Holway’s behavior strange, he didn’t show it.
“I was. After they had been taken. I had planned on strangling them, which can be drawn out quite long, as you may know.”
George didn’t comment. He saw Andi nodding, though. Holway moved his chained hand a bit, probably to get more comfortable. “After they had arrived on Thursday, I went back to town to get something to eat and prepare for the evening. I figured nobody would miss them before their week away was up, and LaFarge hadn’t said I should hide the corpses. Always makes it easier, when you don’t have to get rid of bodies.” Holway grinned. “Imagine my surprise when I came back to the cabin and they weren’t there. It looked like they’d had quite the party, what with all the beer, and I thought they might have gone out on a midnight hunt.”
“A midnight hunt?” George couldn’t believe it.
Holway shrugged, this time more carefully. “People get the weirdest ideas when drunk. I looked around the cabin and scouted the area around it but couldn’t find anything except for tire marks, which ended once they hit the main road. As you can imagine, I was pretty pissed. I stayed a bit longer on site to see if they came back, which they didn’t. I came back the next day, and when they were still gone, I started suspecting foul play, which pissed me off even more. I checked with my broker, who swore on everything holy that I was the only one LaFarge had contracted. Then I found out they were killed and decided that I deserved to get a little compensation for my troubles. LaFarge was pretty eager to leave the country for some time, so he didn’t look too closely into my claim. Idiot didn’t even ask for proof of death and didn’t check with the broker.” Holway shook his head as if he couldn’t believe the stupidity of some people.
“When you were at the cabin, did you notice anything strange?” George wasn’t too happy with what Holway had told them so far. No mention of other people or the two women they were looking for.
Holway tapped his chin with his finger. “The only thing that stood out was how the mess didn’t fit the amount of alcohol consumed.”
“Can you explain that?”
“I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed, but there’s several stages when people get drunk. The messy state comes quite late, when coordination goes to shit. The cabin looked as if they had been drinking for at least a complete day, but the number of empty beer bottles was hardly enough to get three men, who I know could stomach their liquor, drunk enough to create such a mess.”
George glanced at Andi, who answered in his stead. “That’s because the killers used ketamine.”
