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you!” The message ended abruptly as the caller slammed down the phone.

Chapter

Nine
    D O YOU HAVE ANY IDEA who that- was?” B.D. asked Nancy. “He could very well be our murderer.”
    â€œI know exactly who it was,” Nancy said slowly. The caller’s lilting accent was easily recognized by her. “The man who threatened to kill Etienne is Gaetan Orakuma.”
    â€œGaetan Orakuma?” B.D. repeated the name. “Tell me more about him.”
    â€œHe’s a former friend of Etienne. My understanding is that they had some business plans that fell through,” Nancy explained.
    â€œHe must have thought that Etienne owed himmoney,” the detective said. “People have been murdered over that kind of thing before.”
    Nancy explained to the detective how Charity and Gaetan had lied to her about being at the Razor’s Edge. “Gaetan’s girlfriend, Charity Freeborn, even tried to attack me with a knife when I questioned her about Bess’s disappearance. They certainly acted like they were hiding something. And there’s no question that that was Gaetan’s voice on Etienne’s answering machine, threatening to kill him.”
    â€œThen Gaetan could be our link between the two crimes, the kidnapping and Etienne’s murder,” B.D. replied.
    â€œThat would be pretty stupid of Gaetan to leave a message threatening Etienne just before killing him,” George pointed out.
    Nancy paused, thinking. “You’re right, George. That would seem to indicate that the murder wasn’t premeditated. He would never have made that threat if he were intending to follow through on it because he’d be booked in an instant. So he must have killed Etienne in the heat of anger. But then,” she continued after a brief pause, “the use of ether to knock him out indicates otherwise. It indicates premeditation.”
    â€œWe’ll figure out all the missing pieces as we go along.” B.D. shrugged. “At the moment thisGaetan Orakuma is our most likely suspect in the murder, and probably in the kidnapping, as well. I’ll have to bring him in for questioning. Do you happen to know where he lives?”
    Nancy nodded. She dug into her purse where she had shoved the slip of paper Etienne had given her the day before with Gaetan’s address on it. She handed it to B.D.
    The coroner had arrived and was in the kitchen. “Hey, B.D., did you see the tattoo,” the coroner called into the living room.
    In the kitchen the coroner, a small man dressed in a dark suit, was examining Etienne’s right arm. “Look at that,” the coroner said, pointing to a tattoo on Etienne’s arm. “Isn’t that a piece of work? Haven’t seen one of those rising phoenix tattoos since I was in Europe with the army.”
    Peering over B.D.’s shoulder at the tattoo, Nancy gasped. It looked like an ornate green eagle tattoo, just as Bess had described seeing on the arm of one of her abductors! The coroner asked them all to leave before he slipped the body into a body bag.
    In the living room Nancy told B.D. about the tattoo that Bess had seen the night before. “Bess said she saw a green eagle tattoo on the arm of the kidnapper who let her go.” This meant thatEtienne was probably the half of the kidnapping team who had released Bess, Nancy realized. Her thoughts were racing. Could Etienne and Gaetan, and perhaps even Charity, have been involved in an abduction scheme that went awry? But why? Perhaps, she reasoned, they’d been planning to demand a ransom for Bess, but then Etienne had had second thoughts? And what about Tom Kragen? Nancy hadn’t forgotten about the pale, young man—he seemed to be the only person so far who had a clear motive for the kidnapping itself. Was there any connection between him and Etienne, or Gaetan?
    â€œIf Etienne was one of Bess’s kidnappers, that certainly puts a whole new