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Chapter 3

Yangon

On June 23, 2020, four days after the Royal Asia Explorer had left Yangon, two plainclothes investigators from the National Division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in Montreal arrived in Kuala Lumpur, the next stop on the Royal Asia Explorer’s itinerary. Marie Veronique Roy and her junior partner, Jon Martin Wolfe, took a taxi to nearby Port Klang and boarded the Royal Asia Explorer. They collected samples of human hair and bed sheet stains from Stateroom 712, then began interviewing passengers and crew members.

Beginning with the ship’s photographic records, the RCMP computer wizards in Montreal undertook global facial-recognition searches for “Mark O’Mara” and “Ingrid Halvorson.” They rapidly identified “Mark O’Mara” as Mark Miller and “Ingrid Halvorson” as Dr. Ilsa Hartquist.

Using various other surveillance and electronic data search capabilities, they were able to trace Miller to the Hotel Ciputra in Jakarta. They also learned of his death there. Now Marie and Jon were investigating a second death, which raised a new set of possibilities to pursue.

Two months later, the Hartquist and Miller murders seemed likely to end up in the cold case files. Royal Asia Cruise Lines quietly announced the death of “‘Ingrid Halvorson,’ a passenger on the Royal Asia Explorer, perhaps actually Dr. Ilsa Hartquist,” without giving any details. The RCMP later confirmed that Dr. Hartquist had been asphyxiated. Neither made any mention of Mark Miller or his death.

The announcement ignited enormous global interest. The Swedish public and the climate science community worldwide were shocked by unconfirmed rumors of her death. They were deeply distressed by the report officially confirming she had been murdered. Media stories about her death ran for days, including tearful interviews with grieving family and sad and angry professional colleagues. The Swedish Government and the public wanted answers and justice.

The internet was soon thick with blog posts about who she was and who would want to murder her. Organizations opposed to her views aired old attacks on her scientific integrity in a final attempt to discredit her views.

Others attacked by personal denigration, implication, and innuendo. The gist of their assertions was that since Dr. Hartquist was traveling incognito, she was surely involved in some criminal venture, perhaps even a treasonous plot. The false passport indicated that her death most likely had nothing to do with climate science at all. Passport and travel records showed she repeatedly cruised the world under a false name, no doubt looking for drugs or hookups, and who knew what her sexual proclivities were anyway?

Sympathetic scientists, government colleagues, and lay fans rose to her defense. Aside from disputing the merits, some enthusiasts sought to discredit the hostile rumors. They claimed the fossil fuel industry was fomenting them for its own ends, perhaps to hide their involvement. The result was a cacophony of claims and counterclaims that threatened to sully her reputation and taint her call for action.

Faced with these developments, the Government of Sweden officially requested the RCMP to give Dr. Hartquist’s murder the level of attention usually reserved for the murder of a senior government official. The RCMP readily agreed, while stressing that the case was a difficult one that could take years to resolve, if ever. Marie and Jon got orders to expand their investigation.

Both were experienced investigators. Marie Veronique Floquet was a native Quebecoise, descended from a long line of fur trappers turned clothing merchants, turned department store owners. She grew up in elegant surroundings in Montreal and attended high-quality private schools. In 1998 she graduated from McGill University Law School, where one of her great-uncles had been a Member of the Board of Governors.

Marie earned degrees in both civil and common law, joined the Montreal office of the Dentons international law firm and married a law school classmate, all in accordance with her family’s wishes and expectations. After a few years, however, she tired of corporate work and began looking around for something more exciting.

In 2002, the National Division of the RCMP was recruiting plainclothes investigators to focus on international crimes, mostly of the white-collar variety, but increasingly involving potential terrorists. The job promised international travel, mysteries to solve, and ideally a little intrigue. The pay was not important, as her trust fund and her husband earned more than enough to support her “champagne tastes.” She applied and was accepted.

Her husband did not approve, and after it became clear she was more interested in the drama of investigative work than in giving him an heir, he suggested a divorce in 2005. Despite her attachment to him, she agreed in order to escape the strain of his constant dissatisfaction with her chosen career.

After eight years living unhappily alone, Marie found the man she needed and could love—Christopher Matthew Roy, an older coworker and widower with two teenage girls. Their strong relationship helped them survive the hectic years before the girls left for college. Now in her fifties, Marie Roy was enjoying life with Chris, at least when their schedules allowed them to spend time together.

Jon Martin Wolfe also grew up in Quebec, but in a small working-class English-speaking town. His parents, descended from farm hands, labored in the town’s one large factory. He was the first in his family to get a college education and earned a JD degree in common law, with a smattering of civil law, from the Université de Montréal Faculté de Droit. He married Linda, his secondary school sweetheart, a primary school teacher, two days after finishing his university studies.

A stoic, risk-averse slogger, Jon had no desire to pursue anything entrepreneurial in a law firm or business. He preferred the Canadian civil service, where he had the security of government employment and a dependable paycheck. The RCMP wasn’t what he had in mind, but they were hiring in a year when the government generally was shrinking, so he took advantage of the opportunity. Working on white-collar crime gave him all the challenge he wanted. He had no deep interest in clothes or cars; his only avocation was pick-up soccer, twice a week. Within a few years, he and Linda were living happily together in a modest but roomy apartment with their two young boys.

Marie and Jon had begun working together in 2014, and by now they were a smoothly functioning team. Their physical appearance often evoked ironic smiles. Marie was a scant 5'3" tall, with a slight build that she clothed with elegant suits and shoes. Jon was 6'2" with big bones, large muscles, and indifferent suits that had fit him five years ago. He looked like a night club bouncer; she looked like a sophisticated chanteuse. Neither fit the image of a Sherlock Holmes or Inspector Poirot.

Marie’s determination and enthusiasm for finding the culprits nicely offset Jon’s innate caution, skepticism, and pessimism. Marie was the senior and clearly in charge, but she loved the adventure inherent in complex cases, as well as the challenge of overcoming Jon’s more staid, practical, and defeatist outlook. Jon, in turn, admired her creativity and willingness to pitch in on the mundane chores their work entailed, rather than supervise investigations from a distance.

They were both delighted to be given the chance to take charge of the Hartquist case, with its prominence. Marie particularly enjoyed knowing that their efforts would receive continuing visibility. It meant they would not be constrained by the usual penny-pinching of the budget office.

They set about methodically identifying leads and pursuing ideas that would crack the case. After interviewing the Royal Asia Explorer passengers and crew, they left Kuala Lumpur for Jakarta. Although Mark Miller’s body had been cremated, they hoped to retrieve the remains and conduct DNA testing. The ashes still resided at the crematorium. But it would take some time to get through the customs red tape to import them into Canada for first-class analysis and testing. Until they were tested in the RCMP laboratories, it was impossible to say whether they would yield any useful DNA data.

Meanwhile, they asked the US Federal Bureau of Investigation to search Dr. Hartquist’s apartment in Baltimore, Maryland, and her office at Johns Hopkins University. Perhaps the FBI would find some useful information among her effects. It reported that it found nothing relevant, beyond receipts for the cruise and some old “hate letters” from a variety of sources, attacking her for believing in climate change or for proposing an active climate modification program.

Her modest finances were in order, and no one other than her parents and some charities would benefit financially from her death. Her secretary did recall talking to someone about interviewing Dr. Hartquist on the cruise, but she was unable to retrieve the name or phone number.

Three weeks later, the lab successfully completed DNA testing on Mark Miller’s remains and compared the results with the DNA from Dr. Hartquist’s body and the bed linens from her suite. At best, this information would show whether Miller was in Dr. Hartquist’s room and had sexual relations with her the night of the murder. But it could not definitively establish his responsibility for the murder. Moreover, Miller’s unexplained death just days later raised the obvious possibility of a larger conspiracy.

The Hartquist DNA testing turned up another possibility. The investigation showed semen in and on Dr. Hartquist’s body from two different individuals, but hair from only one. The RCMP forensic experts theorized that the person whose hair and semen were found would have been with her the last night, while the other person probably would have been in her room on some earlier night. That person’s hair would have disappeared when the housekeeping crew replaced the sheets two days before the murder, and any of his hairs on her body would have been lost in the shower.

The evidence of intimacy with two different men suggested a more prosaic motive for murder—jealousy. Perhaps after the first man discovered the existence of the second (or vice versa), he murdered Dr. Hartquist in a moment of rage. It would have been someone still on the ship when it docked in Yangon, in addition to Mark Miller. The RCMP began by testing those most readily available: the crew. And it discovered the other matching DNA.

It came from Xavier. They took his fingerprints, which also matched a few of the fingerprints found in the room. Marie and Jon interviewed him again, now with this evidence in hand. He had earlier acknowledged knowing “Ingrid Halvorson” from serving her in the main dining room but denied any personal contact.

When confronted with the fingerprints, he tried at first to profess ignorance. But his emotions and body language contradicted that contention. Under intense interrogation, he admitted going to her stateroom for drinks and ending up in bed with her, at her request, some days before. But he adamantly denied any interest in recent contact with her, claiming he would not dare jeopardize his job.

Marie and Jon confronted him with a carefully conceived “jealous triangle” narrative, “Overwhelmed by your desire for her, you returned to her suite the night before the ship docked in Yangon, hoping to find her willing to continue your liaison. Half asleep, she spurned you. From the conditions in the room you realized that another man had just left the suite. You murdered her in a moment of rage.”

After a painful silence, Xavier broke down completely.

“I did go back to Ms. Halvorson’s room that night. Yes, it was obvious from the clothes on the floor that a man had been in the room. She seemed to be deeply asleep. I whispered her name, but she did not answer. I suddenly realized the precariousness of my situation. I would not dream of touching her without permission, for fear she would report me. I tiptoed out without disturbing her, angry with myself for such a foolish lack of personal discipline.

“The next day, when I heard she had died, and then later that she was murdered, I was terrified that I would be accused of the crime. But I had nothing to do with any of it.”

The investigators didn’t give up so easily. “Let’s go over this again. What time did you go to her room?”

“Around midnight. Maybe 1:00 am.”

“What time did you get off work?”

“At 11 pm.”

“What did you do for that hour or more?”

“I was obsessed with her. I kept telling myself to go to sleep, but I couldn’t do it. I finally gave in to my fantasy that she would welcome me with open arms, and no one would ever know.”

“Had you seen her that evening? What was she wearing? Did she encourage you?”

“No, I didn’t see her at all.”

“Are you absolutely sure?”

Xavier paused. “Well, I guess I did see her dancing with someone that evening. That was part of my problem. I was so eager to be with her again. She didn’t come to the main dining room for dinner at my table. Then I saw her dancing with this other guy in the Panorama Lounge. It drove me crazy.”

“Crazy enough to murder her. What weapon did you use?”

“no! I never touched her! Not that kind of crazy. Ms. Halvorson was so beautiful and kind and wonderful. I knew she would be leaving forever in several days. I would never hurt her. I just wanted to spend a few more hours with her.”

“And sleep with her, of course. But she refused you. So you killed her. Where did you go after you left her suite?”

“NO! None of that is true. She never awoke, never moved. I went back to my room, fearing that I had stupidly risked my whole career on that one night. I couldn’t sleep, but I was afraid to go anywhere.”

Repeated interrogation failed to break Xavier’s story. Jon, the skeptic, suspected that Xavier had in fact discovered that Dr. Hartquist was dead and was afraid then to report it and was afraid now to admit failing to report it. But both Marie and Jon came away persuaded that Xavier was not the murderer. Among other things, a man in a jealous rage is unlikely to asphyxiate the object of his anger. That takes time, and it doesn’t inflict enough pain to be satisfying. They both believed that overall, he had told them the truth. That left them with Mark O’Mara (or Miller, if that was his real name.)

Marie and Jon assembled what answers they could find in a first report dated October 6, 2020. The report discreetly omitted any specific reference to Xavier by name, as the report would inevitably become public. But it could not ignore the Captain’s failure to track all his passengers from the moment he was notified of the murder, considering that one of them might well be the villain. As a courtesy, and part of their investigation, they gave Captain Ricardo a draft copy, to allow for his additions or corrections. Ricardo read and reread the crucial portions of the report.

Fingerprints and DNA evidence identified the deceased as Dr. Ilsa Hartquist, a Swedish citizen living in the US, traveling under a forged Dutch/EU passport as Ingrid Halvorson. She was a highly respected and highly visible climate scientist with controversial views. No motive has been found for her use of a false passport. Other cruise ship records show that she had traveled as Ingrid Halvorson on previous occasions. The likely reason was simply a desire for anonymity, given her high public profile and the controversies surrounding her views.

The time of death was either late June 17 or very early June 18, 2020. It appears to have been a carefully planned murder, executed with great care, and for reasons that are not likely to be typical. No personal or financial motive is evident.

The investigation found small quantities of semen from two men in Hartquist’s body, but their order could not be definitively proven. There is no evidence of a lovers’ quarrel, or an angry ex-spouse or professional enemy seeking revenge.

There are no financial circumstances that might provide a motive for murder—no beneficiary from a large life insurance policy, no pension proceeds to anyone other than her parents, no family feuds, no evidence of entanglements with drug dealers or other underworld characters. No money or other property appeared to be missing from her stateroom on the ship, her office, or her apartment.

The search for “Mark O’Mara,” also a passenger, who left the ship when it docked in Yangon and never returned, led to his identification as Mark Miller, using facial recognition technology. He was traveling on the cruise ship under a forged Irish/EU passport. He disembarked in Yangon in the morning of June 18.

Two days later, he boarded a flight from Yangon to Jakarta. Indonesian immigration has a record documenting Mark Miller’s arrival in Jakarta. Perhaps coincidentally, he was found dead in his room at the Hotel Ciputra in Jakarta on June 21.

The coroner handling Mark Miller’s death saw no evidence of anything other than natural heart failure. The body was immediately cremated at the request of someone who claimed to be Miller’s uncle, but he cannot be found. Analysis of the alleged uncle’s handwriting is underway.

Miller was known to have underworld connections and a record of arrests, but no convictions. Other than his presence on the ship and his unexpected departure, no evidence connects him directly to Dr. Hartquist’s murder, although two crew members recognized him as probably the man Dr. Hartquist was dining and dancing with the evening of the 17th.

No identifiable fingerprints, other than those of the deceased and various crew members, were found in the stateroom. Even if Miller did know Dr. Hartquist and was in her room on the night of June 17–18, that would not be enough to demonstrate that he committed the murder.

Captain Ricardo set down the draft report and put his head in his hands. First, the crew had failed to verify every passenger’s passport long before the ship arrived in Yangon. That would have found both O’Mara and Halvorson.

Second, to anyone at Royal Asia reading the report, it would be obvious that allowing any passenger to disembark without constant supervision was a mistake. Ricardo was thinking about preserving the quality of the passengers’ experience in Yangon, but that was only one consideration.

I’m the one who botched the investigation, he sighed to himself. That fact swirled in his head as he looked for a way to minimize the effect of his errors. There was no way of ensuring that Mark Miller would not disappear in Yangon unless every passenger was detained aboard the ship, but for how long? The investigators only arrived four days later! Whoever arranged for the elimination of poor Dr. Hartquist, and then Mark Miller after the deed was done, would not have been deterred by anything we did.

Ricardo paused. Maybe I’m not thinking enough like Inspector Poirot. What difference does it make if the crime could not have been prevented? The criminal could have been caught!

Captain Ricardo was by now deeply fearful about his own future. This one disaster could bring my entire career to an end. I have an unblemished record as a ship’s captain, but I’m not a trained investigator. There is nothing in the Captain’s Manual or training on how to handle the situation I faced. I did need to concentrate on docking the vessel. I did my best to reassure my passengers and crew that the murderer was not a threat to anyone else, without fabricating stories out of pure supposition and speculation. But there was only so much I could do.

For the most part, I was successful. Passengers and crew went on with their vacations and their work without fear. One damn passenger, however, filed a complaint to Royal Asia about the way I handled the matter. And the media got the story.

Will Royal Asia blame me for the bad publicity? A claimed lack of security onboard ship, the allegedly dangerous crew member, the failure to secure every passenger? How long could I have sequestered them? Maybe it’s time to retire gracefully, before I’m asked. He requested retirement as of December 31, 2020. His request was granted. He departed without the usual formalities and celebrations.

Having ruled out Xavier, Marie and Jon concluded that Mark Miller was almost certainly Hartquist’s murderer, but the trail seemed to end there. These murders were carefully organized and executed, involving extensive preparation and a fair amount of expense. Hartquist’s demise was unlikely to have been Miller’s own idea. If he was a hired assassin, who hired him? Where did the money come from for him to arrange to be on the same ship with a forged passport, and then fly to Jakarta and stay in the elegant Hotel Ciputra?

Reviewing every scrap of information, Marie and Jon had one other clue, which also pointed to the larger conspiracy. Mark Miller had made a call to a Geneva cell phone from his own cell phone shortly after he went to his hotel room. If they could track down the recipient of that call, they might yet untangle the threads of the larger story.

It would take some time to get the Swiss and Indonesian authorities, and then the cell phone service providers, to release the phone records, but there was still a small hope of finding the truth about Dr. Ilsa Hartquist’s death. Marie and Jon were just beginning that search.