15th Affair (6 page)

I watched intently as the driver of the Mercedes turned to look at the minivan. I paused the action and refined the image of the driver, who was looking directly into the camera.

My mind reeled, did cartwheels, and nearly stroked out.

My God
. It was
Joe. Joe was driving that car
.

He’d been caught on tape driving past the home of a dead man named Michael Chan, thirty miles from San Francisco.

Even though my heart and brain had left me for dead, my fingers moved and my eyes took everything in. As I stared at the image of my dear husband, my baby’s daddy, my closest friend and lover, who would never go behind my back, I fought hard to find a believable explanation.

Had Joe been looking for me? Had Brady told him where I was? If so, why, when the neighbor’s car took off up the street, had Joe kept going? Why hadn’t he called me?

There had to be a good reason. But I couldn’t come up with a thing.

I’VE NEVER THOUGHT
of myself as a coward, but I could not show this footage of my husband driving past the Chan house to my partner until I spoke to Joe.

I texted Richie, said I was going home now and that I would see him in the morning. I took the stairs down to the lobby. I left by the back door, fled along the breezeway out to Harriet Street, and found my car standing alone in the lot under the overpass.

I drove home on autopilot. The inside of my head felt like a pileup on a Minnesota highway at the height of a blizzard. I didn’t know which way was up or down, or when I would get slammed again.

At just before 11 p.m., I stood outside my front door with my key in hand.

If Joe was home, I would have to confront him. If he wasn’t home, that would only prolong the agony until he arrived. He had told me he was at the airport.

He told me that. And that was a lie.

I pushed the key into the lock. Martha woofed, and as I opened the door, she tore around the corner from the living room into the foyer and hurled herself at me, nailing me in the solar plexus.

I bent down, gave my doggy a pat and a kiss, and then went into the living room, expecting my lying son-of-a-bitch husband to get up from his chair.

But the chair was occupied by our sweet, gray-haired neighbor with the big heart.

I’m sure my face was rigid, but I greeted her and apologized for being so late. I asked after Julie and if Mrs. Rose could hang in for another minute so I could walk Martha.

She said, “Of course. Are you hungry, Lindsay?”

I hadn’t thought of food for hours, but the idea that something warm could be waiting for me made my stomach growl. I walked Martha in a tight rectangle on Lake Street, down to Tenth, across the street, and back up to Twelfth, and after Martha did her business, we went home.

A plate of meat loaf and mashed potatoes was waiting for me on the kitchen bar, along with a glass of wine. I thanked Mrs. Rose, hugged her, and asked about the
Fringe
marathon. I didn’t hear anything she said about her show. How could I? The whiteout whirled in my mind and the warm food went down without my tasting it.

I came back to the present when Mrs. Rose said she’d just changed Julie, the new box of diapers were in her room, and she’d see me in the morning.

We said good night and I went to my daughter’s room.

Julie has Joe’s dark hair and long lashes, and looking at her made me think of the Chan children, who wouldn’t be sleeping tight for years to come. I kissed my fingers and touched them to Julie’s cheek. My precious girl.

As I cleaned up the kitchen, I thought about Shirley Chan trying to make sense of her late husband’s behavior, wondering what he had done and why he had done it, and what would become of her family now.

I was having some of those feelings, but my husband was
alive
. He could speak to me. And he
would
.

While the dishwasher did the dirty work, I booted up my laptop and downloaded the camera van’s street view to my PC. I had to see Joe staring into the camera’s eye again.

And there he was.

Big, handsome, looking into the lens like he was a movie star and this was his close-up. After he moved on, I sped through the rest of the footage and saw nothing out of the ordinary. No one slunk through the bushes. Apart from Joe’s Mercedes, no one slowed down in front of the Chan house or sped past it. Not even a stray cat raced across the road.

I calmed myself, and then I called Joe. I imagined his voice nearly drowned out by the sounds of an airliner taking off behind him, and my tremendous relief that I’d been wrong.

But no. I got a digital voice saying that Joe’s mailbox was full, good-bye.

I took a therapeutic shower, toweled off hard, and slipped into a nightgown. I went to Julie’s room. Her diaper was dry and she was sleeping soundly, so I sat in the rocker and stared out the window onto Lake Street.

When I next saw Joe, I would just ask him,
Why were you in Palo Alto? Why did you lie to me?

I went to bed, and when Julie’s cries woke me, it was 6:15. I turned my head, absolutely sure that Joe would be sleeping next to me.

But the spot on my left was empty and cold.

I touched that empty place anyway and felt my resolve shatter and tears leap out of my eyes.

Where was Joe?

Why wasn’t he home?

MRS. ROSE ARRIVED
at 7 a.m., cheerful and rosy.

While I made breakfast for Julie and fed her, Mrs. Rose scrambled some eggs for me. She talked about her grandchildren in North Carolina while I combed Julie’s hair and played patty-cake with her, and once the baby was laughing, I handed her off, strapped on my gun, pulled on my Windbreaker, and said good-bye.

As I made my twenty-minute drive to work, I was in the grip of ugly feelings. My lying liar of a husband had lied. And yet, as furious as I was, I was even more terrified, because he hadn’t called me and hadn’t come home. Was he hurt? Was he dead?

I didn’t even know the names of the people Joe worked for, that’s how wrapped up I’d been in the Job over the last crazy months.

And that made me mad at myself.

Roaring mad.

By the time I parked my car, I was more of a mess than I wanted anyone to see. I entered the Hall from the rear and immediately ran into Jacobi in the lobby. My old partner, friend, and now chief of police knew the workings of my mind almost better than I knew them myself.

“What is it, Boxer? What’s eating you?”

“Just deep in thought. The Four Seasons case.” That was the half of the story I was willing to tell him.

Jacobi said he was assigning a couple of teams to work with me on the hotel murders.

I said thanks, gave him a weak wave, then headed up the stairs to Homicide.

Conklin was at his desk.

When he looked up, I said, “I screened the video from our van on the street.”

“And?”

“I hope you’re going to tell me I’m crazy.”

He looked at me like he was already of that opinion. I’ve tried, but I just cannot hide my feelings from people I know. I sat down behind my computer and Conklin stood behind me as I downloaded the surveillance tape from Waverley Street.

I ran the footage, halting it a few seconds before the heart-stopping incident.

“Look at this,” I said. “Tell me what you see.”

Conklin watched intently, and when we got to the part where Joe turned to the camera, I hit Pause.

My partner said, “Is that Joe? What’s he doing driving by the Chans’ house?”

“That’s the sixty-four-million-dollar question, and I have no answer. As far as I know, we’re looking at Joe’s last known whereabouts.”

“No way.”

“Right.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, that’s why he looks familiar.”

“I’m not following you.”

Conklin said, “The guy in the hotel,” he said. “The one with the bulky jacket who eluded the cameras. Look, Lindsay.” He went over to his desk, moved some papers around, and came up with the screen shots we’d taken of the stealthy man crossing the hotel lobby on the day of the shootings.

“Lindsay, don’t you see it?” Conklin asked me, shoving the photocopy under my nose. “The man in the lobby is
Joe
.”

I TOLD CINDY
I had to see her, and she met me on the front steps of the Hall fifteen minutes later.

“What have you got for me?” she said.

She was wearing a different T-shirt and steel-tipped work boots. The boots signified something. My guess was that she wanted to kick butt. She was in serious bulldog mode.

“We need to identify these people,” I said.

I showed her the pictures on my phone of the three unknown subjects: the mystery blonde and the morgue shots of the two PI kids, slightly ’shopped so that they looked less dead.

“Send them to me,” she said.

I did and she asked, “Are they wanted for questioning in the hotel murders? What can you tell me?”

“Let’s just start with you putting them out under a headline, ‘Do you know these people?’ and see how it goes.”

“OK, OK, OK,” said Cindy. “You’re not giving this to anyone else, right?”

“You’ve got a twenty-four-hour exclusive; then the FBI is going to move in and do it their way.”

Cindy said, “I’ll get this up on the site, front page, as soon as I clear it with Tyler. These photos will be on the Web today and in the paper tomorrow.”

“OK.”

“I’m going to say ‘Contact Cindy Thomas.’”

“You’ve got twenty-four hours.”

“Gotcha.”

My phone buzzed. Brady, of course.

“Boxer, got some people here from the FBI.”

“I’m downstairs. I’ll be up in a second.”

I hung up and turned back to Cindy.

“I don’t know how long your twenty-four-hour window is going to stay open. There’s a cab,” I said, pointing to one at the light. “See if you can grab it.”

She thanked me and told me I wouldn’t be sorry. We hugged, and I went upstairs.

Conklin, Brady, and I all got into the elevator and rode it up to Jacobi’s office. There we met three serious men in gray suits, and over the next two hours, we told them everything we knew. Everything but the one thing I wasn’t ready to give up, and I knew Richie had my back.

I didn’t say a word about Joe.

WHEN CINDY CALLED
me at 10:30 p.m., I was bordering on despair. I still hadn’t heard from Joe, the baby was crying, and although I had done everything I knew to calm her, nothing worked. She was frantic and I didn’t know why. I had thrown on a robe and was going across the hall to get Mrs. Rose when the phone rang.

Cindy didn’t wait for me to say hello.

“I got a hit,” she said.

“I have to call you back.”

“Really?”

Julie let out a freshly minted over-the-top howl. Why?

“
Really,
” I said, and then, “I’ll call you back.”

I felt the baby’s forehead and checked her diaper, and both were fine. I carried her to the kitchen, patting her back while I warmed up a bottle. Was she sick? Or was she simply channeling my anxiety?

I took her back to her room, sat down in the rocker, fed her, and tried to soothe myself. Julie took the bottle, and of course she couldn’t cry and suck at the same time. Mercifully.

When she fell asleep in my arms, I put her into her bed as gently as possible. She barely stirred, but I stood over her watching until her breathing deepened and I was sure she was in a nice solid sleep.

I nuked a cup of milk for myself, stirred in some Green & Black’s powdered chocolate, and set it on the end table next to the big sofa, giving myself permission to just sit quietly and calm the hell down.

I had dozed off when the phone rang.

Joe
.

I found the phone where I’d dropped it on the floor near the sofa and caught it on the fifth ring.

“Christ, Lindsay,” Cindy said. “What the hell is wrong with you? I said I have a
hit
on one of your suspects.”

“The baby,” I said. “She was having a tantrum.”

“Everything OK?”

“I think so.”

“OK,” Cindy said, moving on. “The blond-haired woman from the hotel. Someone wrote in saying he knows her. Are you free now? Or should I just tell Richie?”

“Put me on speaker and tell us both,” I said into the phone.

Richie grunted, “I’m here.”

“Good. Cindy, who is the blonde? Who the hell is she?”

CINDY’S ANONYMOUS TIP
could blow open the whole case.
If
it was good. If it was
true.

I took my laptop to the big sofa in the living room, and, leaving Julie’s door open, I got to work. I typed the name
Alison Muller
into one law enforcement database after another, and when she didn’t come up, I Googled her.

At 11 p.m., I called Brady.

He cleared the sleep from his throat, and after he said his name, I said, “Cindy got an anonymous tip on the mystery blonde from the hotel. We should keep it to ourselves until Conklin and I can chase it down.”

Every cop knows that the FBI doesn’t like to share. Once they’re involved, they take over the case and cut you out of it. You’re lucky to read about it in the papers.

I said so and Brady grunted without committing himself. Then he asked, “What did you find out?”

“According to Cindy’s source, her name is Alison Muller. She’s thirty-five, an executive at Aptec, a software company in Silicon Valley. The tipster told Cindy that he knows her, that his family and the Mullers live on the same street in Monterey.”

“You’ve got an address?”

“I do.”