The Foreign Service Journal, July-August 2003

“Eric Fleet was a jerk, I don’t care who hears me say it. He refused to get his own coffee even if he was sit- ting right by the coffee maker and I had to cross the room to pour it. And he claimed he didn’t know how to make the photocopy machine work. Fleet enjoyed mak- ing other people do menial labor for him.” I digested this in silence. That wasn’t a motive to kill someone, not really. “He was irritating,” agreed Jay amiably, reaching behind an impressively thick tome in the bookcase for the bottle of Scotch we kept there. He poured a shot of the amber liquid into a glass and continued, “It’s amaz- ing he managed to piss off so many people in just the five days he’s been here. Yesterday the WTO director- general became furious when he found Fleet changing the podium arrangement to give the under secretary a more flattering camera angle.” That wasn’t a reason to murder someone, either. “And wasn’t your committee chairman upset about something Fleet was doing?” he asked me. I held up my empty mug and Jay poured in some whiskey. “Dr. Tordorov has been beside himself with worry about this meeting,” I said, sticking my nose into the mug and breathing in deeply the alcohol’s fumes. “He’s been working hard for months now to conclude an agreement on turtle excluder devices. Even though the agreement’s not yet finalized, Fleet was planning to have the under secretary announce it as a deliverable. That would have been a setback for Tordorov’s negoti- ations.” “Even his own people didn’t like him,” volunteered Ellen. “When the General Council Chairman started screaming at Fleet when he found him switching around name cards at the head table just before the official dinner started, the rest of the advance team just snickered.” We laughed. Somehow it made us all feel better. “Y our name, Mademoiselle?” The young gendarme, poised with a clipboard and pen, startled me. When I had spotted a small crowd of people — some with cameras — milling around the WTO’s front entrance that morning, I detoured to a door at the back. The Swiss policeman was standing just inside. I stated my name, showing him my ID badge at the same time. “Liza Heywood,” he said as he ran his eyes down a list of names. After making a check mark with his pen he said, “Captain Lauer would like to speak with you in Conference Room 3.” I had already met Captain Lauer the day before; despite the stressful circumstances, he had managed to put me at ease. Within minutes he had me telling him everything I knew about Eric Fleet — not that I could tell the police anything of interest. Now he stood up to greet me as I came in. “Bonjour, Mademoiselle Heywood. I hope you are rested today.” “I am feeling much better,” I said sitting down at the small table he indicated. He sat across from me and lit a cigarette. The smoke from his Gauloise curled gently in the air between us. “You have more questions for me?” I said. Judging from the ashtray already overflowing with butts, the cap- tain had spent the entire night at the WTO. “Not more questions, just the same ones as yesterday. I am sorry to have to bother you again, but would you please repeat the circumstances, as you remember them, surrounding your discovery of Monsieur Fleet’s body.” So I did. I don’t think he learned anything new from me. When I finished talking, Captain Lauer was silent for a moment. He said, “No one went past you in the hallway?” “No.” The ash on his cigarette was getting long. He tapped it into the ashtray, then returned the Gauloise to his mouth. He didn’t say anything. “I’m the main suspect,” I said challengingly. Captain Lauer didn’t rise to the bait. F O C U S 22 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / J U LY- A U G U S T 2 0 0 3 Nancy Nelson, an economic cone officer, joined the Foreign Service in 1989. She has served in Caracas, Managua, Tallinn and Washington, D.C., and recently began a two-year tour on the Canada desk. When the General Council Chairman started screaming at Fleet, the rest of the advance team just snickered.