15th Affair (7 page)

I heard Yuki in the background saying, “Brady, who’s calling this late?”

Brady said to her, “It’s Lindsay. We’ll be off soon.”

I said, “I found info on Muller on Aptec’s website. She’s married to Khalid Khan, the composer. They have two children, five and thirteen years old. She’s a graduate of Stanford with a PhD in mathematics from MIT and she’s fluent in Spanish and Chinese. Speculating, but she and Chan may have met at Stanford.”

There was a pause as Brady thought things over.

He said, “OK. I’ll call Monterey PD and have them sit on Muller’s house until morning. You and Conklin bring her in first thing.”

I called my partner and filled him in. Then I tried Joe’s phone again.

As before, his mailbox was full. Good-bye.

I dragged my churning mind to bed with me and closed my eyes, but sleep stayed on the other side of the room. It was just as well. An hour after I’d spoken with Brady, he called me back.

“Here’s the thing, Boxer.”

“I’m listening.”

“This Alison Muller. She’s been reported missing. Monterey PD has a BOLO out for her. Her husband hasn’t seen her in a couple of days.”

“No. Really?”

“Khalid Khan spoke with her late Monday afternoon. She missed her daughter’s birthday party. Said she was working and would be home soon. She never showed.”

“Late Monday afternoon. That’s when the shootings went down,” I said.

Brady said, “Right.” He and I talked it over.
Where was Alison Muller? Had she been abducted at gunpoint? Was she dead? What, if anything, did she have to do with the death of Michael Chan, and the other victims of that purge?

I asked him, “Anything else? Did Muller’s husband get a ransom call?”

“No. And Khan has been unable to reach his wife on the phone. Total blackout. Monterey PD pinged her phone. Last time it was used was Monday, six fifty-seven, from the Market Street area.”

The Four Seasons Hotel was on Market.

I no longer expected to find Muller and question her. She had disappeared, and I had no idea where to look for her, no idea at all. Another thought sprang at me with bared fangs. Joe Molinari, my husband, was also missing.

What was he doing? Was he involved in all of this? I felt cold, like I was out there on that deadly, frozen highway in Minnesota again. Only this time, I was naked, alone, and without a car.

Julie whimpered. I shot a look in the direction of her room as I said to Brady, “I take back what I said before.”

“Which is what?”

“We need the FBI. We need their resources.”

Brady said, “See you in the morning.”

We hung up, and the full weight of what I had done crashed in on me. I had withheld important, possibly critical information from Brady, and in doing so, I’d involved my partner.

I had to tell Brady about Joe.

He could fire me. And he’d be right to do it.

I hoped that by morning, I would have a theory that explained how Joe innocently fit into this case—a theory that didn’t sound like total bullshit.

Maybe he’d come home so that I could ask him tonight.

I dared to hope.

I HATED THIS
.

It made me sick to have to show anyone that questionable footage of Joe in places where logic said he didn’t belong. I wanted to ask him about it. He was my husband. And I trusted him. Right? But
whatever
he’d done, he’d covered it up. He’d lied. He’d put me in a jam.

I had to do the right thing. So I put on my game face and sailed through the entrance to our squad room.

The man known as Lieutenant Badass was in his glass-walled cube. Brady is brave. He’s fair. And he doesn’t play patty-cake.

When I had his job, I didn’t like being restricted to a desk and all that that entails. Now I report to him. Once in a while, I’ve taken liberties with police procedures and Brady has given me hell—with a warning.

I didn’t think I would get a warning today.

I cleared the obstacle course of gray metal desks and hardened homicide cops and knocked on Brady’s door, and he waved me in. He was working at his laptop and didn’t look at me.

“I’m busy, Boxer. Can this wait?”

When I didn’t speak, Brady jerked his head up and nailed me with his double-barreled, blue-eyed stare.

“I have a meeting with Jacobi in five, so make it quick.”

“Brady. Something I have to tell you. I haven’t heard from Joe in thirty-six hours. Then, yesterday, while Conklin and I were in Palo Alto notifying Chan’s widow, our surveillance team recorded Joe driving by the Chan house.”

“I don’t get you,” he said tersely. “What are you saying?”

Brenda, the department assistant, came through the doorway, dropped some papers on Brady’s desk, and said, “Sergeant Chi needs to speak to you, Lieu, and your ex-wife called.”

Brady said to her, “Hold everything until after my meeting.”

“We can talk about this later,” I said to Brady, getting half out of my chair.

“Sit,” he said.

I did it.

“Make me understand,” he said. “Use short, clear sentences.”

I swallowed hard and pushed through my own wall of resistance. I gave Brady the short sentences he’d asked for, covering the Palo Alto footage, Joe’s drive-by at 5:24, and the hotel security video from the day of the shootings.

“We saw a man on the hotel tape who looked like Joe.”

Brady said, “Joe was in the hotel around the time those people were taken out?”

“Looks like him—which is far from a positive ID.”

Brady said, “You’re saying Joe was in the hotel and also on the block where Chan lived. What’s he doing?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t—”

“Could he be involved in the shootings?”

“Absolutely
not
,” I said with conviction, but honest to God, I had no idea what Joe was capable of. Not anymore.

“Jesus, Lindsay. You shoulda told me yesterday.”

Brady was furious. As I would have been in his place. I waited for him to ask for my badge and my gun and send me home.

I said, “I wanted to talk to Joe first.”

I was looking at Brady’s face, waiting for the shit-storm that didn’t come. Maybe he was holding back because outside of the Job, Brady and Yuki are married. Joe and I hang out with them. We’re friends.

“The meeting with Jacobi is an FBI briefing,” Brady said. “You’re going to have to tell this Joe story again. Get the video, Boxer. Meet me upstairs.”

WORLDWIDE AIRLINES FLIGHT
#888 from Beijing was in its final approach to San Francisco International Airport into a foggy sun-lit morning.

At 9 a.m., Michael Chan was seated in the center row of business class on the main deck. The seats were narrow and uncomfortable and configured in blocks of two rows of four seats facing another row of four seats, so that eight passengers were sitting knee-to-knee.

Chan had been trying not to look at the untidy American couple sitting directly across from him for the last twelve hours. They were sloppy eaters. They took off their shoes. They had littered bags of chips and newspapers on the narrow space in front of their feet.

He had done his best to avoid eye contact, but they hadn’t done the same. The long plane ride had been pure hell. But it was almost over.

The pilot took the plane into another series of descending turns toward the airport. The
FASTEN SEAT BELT
signs were on and the flight attendants had put away the serving carts and strapped in.

But Michael Chan had his eyes on the restroom at the front of the cabin on his left. When he had washed his hands in that restroom earlier, his wedding band had loosened and dropped into the sink. He had fished it out, but just then, the plane had lurched. He’d been thrown off balance and needed both hands to catch himself, and the ring had spun away from his grasp, into a dark, germ-ridden place somewhere between the commode and the console. And that was when the “return to your seat” announcement had come on.

The flight attendant had rapped on the door, and after a brief, fruitless search for the ring, Chan had left the restroom, deciding he could retrieve his ring once the plane landed. Now, as the huge airliner made its descent, he knew he’d made a mistake.

Chan turned to the man on his left, another cramped, overtired traveler, and said he needed to get up.

The neighboring passenger reeked of sweat and bad temper. Muttering, he swung his knees toward the aisle. Chan said thanks and made the awkward climb over his neighbor’s legs, bumping the knees of the woman across from him, apologizing for that.

He was steps away from the WC when the flight attendant, the red-haired one with the bright pink lipstick, unclipped her harness and blocked his path.

She said, “Mr. Chan, you have to return to your seat.”

Chan said, “I’ll be very quick.”

He thought of the wheels touching down and the passengers from the first-class deck and all the others behind him, blocking the aisle, stampeding for the exit. He would have to wait for the aisle to clear, and for the plane to empty, and then all four hundred passengers from this flight would get ahead of him in the endless rope-lined queue to go through customs. His delay would irritate the men who would be waiting for him. It was just unacceptable.

He said, “Sorry, sorry,” and pushed past the flight attendant. He had his hand on the door latch when there was an explosion directly under the plane’s right wing.

Chan saw a flash and felt the simultaneous concussive boom. He was slammed off his feet, and at the same moment, a metal fragment pierced the fuselage and sheared through his left thigh. A question formed in Chan’s mind, but before he could process the thought, his brain and body were separated by an inexplicable destructive force.

Two seconds passed between the catastrophic explosion and the rain of bodies and objects hitting the ground.

I WAS COLLECTING
the footage of Joe for Brady’s meeting when Brady blew through the door to the squad room.

“
Everyone, listen up!
” he shouted.

He grabbed the remote from Brenda’s desk and flicked on the TV that was suspended from the ceiling. A reporter was yelling into her microphone that Worldwide Airlines Flight 888 from Beijing had been landing at SFO when the Boeing Triple 7 had crashed somewhere west of 101.

The reporter was set up with her back to the highway. At some distance behind her was a screen of fire capped by a thick, coiling column of smoke. Her voice was nearly overwhelmed by the sirens of the emergency vehicles that were streaming out to the downed aircraft.

There were eleven of us in the squad room, and we all stared up at the images as one, cursing, gasping, stunned by what we saw.

Brady muted the sound and said, “Here’s what I know. Ten minutes ago that plane crashed and likely killed everyone on board. The point of impact was the athletic fields at Mills High along Millbrae Avenue. The kids were inside, thank God, but the buildings were hit with debris and whatever. There may be injuries. Gotta be.”

As we watched the silent TV, Brady continued, saying that the airport was closed, a no-fly zone had been imposed, and the governor had declared a state of emergency. NTSB was on the scene and the National Guard was on the way.

Brady paused for breath and shook his head, and then he was talking again.

“We don’t know what happened to this plane. We don’t have a passenger list, and Worldwide is just stalling until they can say this was not their fault. Best guess is that there were more than four hundred people on that flight.

“This whole deal is under investigation by the NTSB, and beyond that, just about every government agency is en route. All cops are being drafted to help.

“Effective immediately, everyone here is assigned to assist wherever we’re needed until y’all are relieved. I don’t know when that’s gonna be. Boxer, you’re point man for our squad until I can get to the scene.”

I was given contact info for the NTSB command post at the Millbrae Avenue exit off Route 101.

And then we were dismissed.

Conklin and I joined the flight to the stairs. Once we were in a car, I dialed up the news on my phone. The smoke-veiled visuals from SFPD’s eye-in-the-sky looked like nothing I’d ever seen before.

A half mile of highways, airport on- and off-ramps, the Burlingame Plaza Shopping Center, a couple of blocks of small business and light industry, and oh, my God, not one, but three schools were within range of the crash site.

Conklin had thrown on the siren, and as we sped through the traffic on Bryant, he said, “Let me see, Linds.”

I said, “
Richie. Watch the road.
”

My fight-flight reflexes were all on high alert; my heart pounded, sweat sheeted down my body, and my thoughts sparked along multiple neural pathways before coming up against an impenetrable fact: I had no experience that could prepare me for catastrophic, wholesale human destruction.

A WHITE RV
with blue lettering and the logo of the National Transportation Safety Board was parked in the right lane of Millbrae Avenue after the Millbrae exit from 101. A line of trailers from ATF, FBI, Homeland Security, and the Sheriff’s Department formed a roadblock, leaving a small break in the barricade to admit emergency vehicles.

Conklin parked our car behind the RV. We got out and stepped into the eerily silent roadway.

A man wearing an NTSB Windbreaker met us at the door to the RV. Captain Jan Vanderleest was in his midforties and had a heavily lined face and a strong handshake. We followed him into his command center, a small space with very little headroom that was banked with NTSB techs working crouched over their computers.