Page 63 of Nobody's Hero

The fourth photograph was the gap on the wall in Louise Durose’s hotel room where the missing print should have been. The fifth wasn’t a CSI photograph; it was a picture ofVan Gogh’s Chairthat Koenig had printed off the internet.

The sixth and seventh photographs were of Michael Gibbs’s station wagon. One with the smiley-face air freshener, the other without it.

‘Tell me what you see,’ Koenig said.

‘We were due to land in DC in three hours,’ Draper said. ‘Now you’re saying we’re going to JFK. If that’s the case, I need to tell the pilot now. Stop dicking around and tell us what you’ve found.’

‘I’m not being a jerk,’ he said. ‘I need to know I haven’t made a connection that isn’t there.’

‘We don’t have time—’

‘Is it a puzzle, Benjamin?’ Margaret cut in.

‘Sort of, Margaret,’ Koenig replied.

She readjusted her hairpin, then said, ‘In that case, I’ll need a pot of tea and some biscuits.’

‘Why did you include a picture ofVan Gogh’s Chairamong these police photographs?’ Margaret asked.

It was the first time in five minutes that anyone had spoken. Draper, after huffing and puffing and moaning about changing flight plans at the last minute and a bunch of other stuff Koenig didn’t listen to, had settled down and studied the photographs the same as everyone else.

‘It was the print that was stolen from Louise Durose’s hotel room,’ Koenig explained.

‘Was it valuable?’ she asked.

‘About three bucks.’

‘Did Louise steal it?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘Then who?’

Koenig didn’t answer.

‘Yellow,’ Draper said. ‘That’s what connects everything – the colour yellow.’

‘Explain,’ Koenig said.

‘The smiley-face air freshener is missing from the wrecked station wagon,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t missing when Gibbs arrived at the restaurant. The dominant colour inVan Gogh’s Chairis yellow. It should have been hanging in Durose’s hotel room, but it wasn’t. Like you said, someone removed it.’

She picked up the three photographs taken in Hank Reynolds’s hotel room: the fruit bowl, the bedroom trash can and the bathroom trash can. She studied them, blowing a wisp of hair out of her eyes as she did. She barely paused before she said, ‘Bananas. There’s no banana in his fruit bowl. You included the trash cans to show he didn’t eat it when he got back to his room?’

Koenig nodded.

‘Perhaps he took it with him?’ Carlyle said.

‘I rang housekeeping, and the room was serviced while he was out,’ Koenig said. ‘Each fruit bowl gets one red apple, one green apple, one orange and one banana.’

‘OK,’ Draper said. ‘If we accept that for reasons unknown, everything yellow has been removed from Hank Reynolds’s hotel room and Michael Gibbs’s station wagon, why didVan Gogh’s Chairneed to be removed from Louise Durose’s hotel room? How does that fit? She wasn’t murdered in her room; she was murdered in an alleyway.’

‘I’m guessing now,’ Koenig said. ‘But I think whoever is behind this planned to kill her in her room. Probably another staged suicide. Pills, not hanging. Statistically, that’s how women kill themselves. But Louise went off script. She hooked up with someone. Was on her way back to her hotel room with him. I think one of the killers improvised. Beat Louise to death with a brick. I think Bess is right; the man she hooked up with was collateral damage.’

‘You saidoneof them improvised? You think it’s a team?’

‘I do.’

‘Why?’