“Did she have any information about the robbery?”
“No; all she knew was that her husband went to work one day and didn’t come back. They had been married for more than thirty years and had two grown children.”
“Did he have a criminal record?”
“No, he was an ordinary civilian; he sold computers to businesses. In fact, he was director of sales for his company.”
“Why do you think Robertson is Barney Cox?”
“Description, timing, money, and the fact that he says he’s retired from the computer business, which, if he is Cox, is a stupid thing to say.”
“Do you have any other possible identities in mind f
or him?”
“Well, I don’t think he’s the Lindbergh baby; did you have somebody else in mind?”
“Not really.”
“Then what are you doing in St. Marks?”
“I take it Lance didn’t tell you.”
“No, but he didn’t tell me not to ask, either.”
“Don’t ask.”
“Okay, sure.”
“And what you’ve just told me is as much as you have for thinking Robertson is Barney Cox?”
Pepper threw up his hands. “Lance told me to tell you what I know about him; that’s what I know and what I think. Oh, I forgot, he has a false identity, which is what Barney Cox would have, too. Anything else?”
“Tell me about Colonel Croft.”
“Ah, now there’s a piece of work. His real name is Maurice Benet, and he’s Haitian.”
“That explains the odd accent.”
“It explains a lot of things. When Benet was twenty, he was a captain in Papa Doc’s Tonton Macoutes. You know about them?”
“The Haitian secret police?”
“They were a happy band of murderers and torturers, whose main job was to scare the shit out of anybody who had a discouraging word to say about Papa Doc or his regime. They did this by kidnapping, torturing and murdering anybody who annoyed them, then delivering the mutilated corpse home to the family.”
“How did he end up in St. Marks?”
“When Baby Doc’s regime fell, Benet and a cohort of his escaped the island with a large bundle of various currencies and island-hopped for a while, ending up here, in the happy arms of Sir Winston Sutherland. Sutherland found a place in the police force for him and his buddy, and he’s been clawing his way up ever since. He’s been a little more restrained than when he was in Haiti, but he’s matured, I guess. He still scares the shit out of people, though.”
“How did you identify him?”
“I followed him into a bar and got his right index fingerprint off a bar glass. It’s confirmed; there’s no guessing about this guy.”
“Is he wanted anywhere?”
“Sure, he’s wanted in Haiti, but that place is such a mess they probably wouldn’t know what to do if he turned up on a street corner in Port-au-Prince.”
“How’d you get hold of Robertson’s application for buying a house?”