The Bannerman Effect (The Bannerman Series) by John R. Maxim Page B

there?”
    “No.”
    “No? What's no?”
    The question caught him off guard. He had, he realized, answered it almost dismissively because the habit of his years in Europe was rarely to concern himself with trigger men but rather those who sent them. Chasing after hired hands was a waste of time and energy. But a policeman, he realized, would not think that way. In this case, when he thought of it, neither did he.
    “So far, no one seems to have seen anything,” he said wearily. “All we know is that she took the train to Davos to do some shopping. Then she stopped for lunch at a mountainside restaurant. It was walking down from it that she . . .” Bannerman stopped. In his mind he was staring at an American Express receipt that the Swiss police had shown him earlier. It was from the Schatzalp Restaurant where she paid for her lunch by credit card. The amount. What she paid for the lunch. He'd seen it but it hadn't registered. Almost eighty Swiss Francs. Enough for two lunches. More likely three. When Bannerman spoke again, his voice was soft and distant. “She had lunch with them,” he said. “She paid for it.”
    “Lunch with who? Whoever did it?”
    “Unless she ran into ... I don't know . . . someone she knew from the states.”
    “Come on, Bannerman. Wake up.” Lesko's voice was rising. “Her friends from the states don't hang around Davos and they don't try to kill her. Who did she know in all fucking Europe well enough she'd buy them lunch?”
    Bannerman felt the blood drain from his face. Suddenly, he knew. He more than suspected. He knew.
    “You there, Bannerman?”
    “I'm here.”
    “Our flight's in a few minutes. We'll get there in about ten hours. Do you think maybe you can give this a little thought in the meantime? Maybe keep an eye on her for a change?”
    “I'll see you in ten hours.” He replaced the phone.

- 6-
    Bannerman's eyes were burning. He returned to Susan's bedside where he dampened a towel in a pitcher of ice water and pressed it to his face. It helped him to separate the sting of Lesko's words from their content.
    Lesko, of course, was right. Even with his daughter lying close to death, his cop's mind had continued to work while Bannerman's had become paralyzed by the pain of what he'd brought on Susan. The killers had to have been people she knew. People she was so pleased to see again that her own plans for the day could wait. And as clearly as he knew that, he knew that sooner or later the phone would ring and he would hear the voice of the man or woman, the American couple, that they'd met on the train.
    They would announce that they were in Klosters, passing through, had hoped to find them free for dinner, and had somehow heard the terrible news of what had happened to Susan. Maybe they stopped at the apartment. Heard it from the housekeeper. In a village the size of Klosters, an attempted murder would be on everyone's lips. They would be shocked. Horrified. Eager to help in any way they could. And, as long as they heard no suspicion in his voice, and as long as they were sure that she was still in a coma, they would insist on coming to the hospital. Good old Ray and Caroline. Middle-aged southerners. Salt of the earth. First trip to Europe. They would volunteer to forego it. To come sit with her. Take up the vigil. Share his burden. Let him get some sleep. And then, because they were paid for results, they would finish her.
    Bannerman even knew how.
    The Swiss doctor had told him, not an hour before, when he came into the room to describe Susan's condition. Almost lost in his litany of tests they had run and treatments they had given was the mention that no suppository had been found.
    “Wait a minute,” he'd said. “No what?”
    “No suppository. No more cocaine.”
    “Doctor,” Bannerman tried to shake off the fog, “what are you talking about?”
    The doctor, his expression now confused, explained about the suppository and its purpose. A guarantee. A time bomb. In