15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(17)

She exchanged words with the concierge, showed him her government-issue photo ID as required, and he handed her a white #2 envelope. She thanked him, then crossed the colorful hand-knotted rugs, passed the blazing fireplace flanked with bookshelves, and stopped at the elevator.

When the lift arrived at the ground floor, a young couple got out holding hands, going out to dinner, no doubt. The guy was laughing at his own joke, the girl saying, “Funny. Yah. Good one, Brad.”

The woman smiled at young love, then got into the elevator alone. She was twenty minutes late, but if a thing was worth doing—and it was—it was worth waiting for. She checked out her reflection in the mirror on the back wall and adjusted her cap, playing with the ends of her newly brown-and-gold-streaked hair. Her brown contact lenses completed the look.

She liked it. She hoped he would.

The elevator bumped upward for several floors, then opened into a thickly carpeted hallway with watery light. There were only twelve rooms per floor, and she walked all the way to the end.

She scratched at the door with her nails, as if she were a cat; then she tore open the envelope she’d been given by the concierge and removed the key card.

She swiped the door lock with the card; the light turned green and the handle turned easily in her hand. She lingered in the open doorway for a moment, just watching him amid this lovely setting of woodsy colors and satisfying architectural lines. Then she closed the door.

He knew she was there, but he didn’t look up. He was sitting on a sofa in front of a coffee table, naked with a towel across his lap, and he was cleaning his gun.

Ali entered the room unbuttoning her swingy leather coat, dropping it on the half-moon-shaped ottoman at the foot of the bed. Then she took off everything else.

When she was wearing nothing but her heels, the man put the gun down. He stood up and took her into his arms.

He pulled her to him, swayed with her, kissed her neck, then took her by her shoulders and shook her.

“Why do you make me wait?” he said. “Why do you want me to worry?”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ll never do it again.”





PART TWO





CHAPTER 27


THAT EVENING, I parked the squad car next to my Explorer on Harriet Street under the overpass and headed out of the shadows. Claire had called, saying she had to see me right away. I was hungry, depressed, and worried sick on about six levels, but when Claire said she had to see me, I had to go.

I didn’t get far.

A BMW came squealing out of the dusk and braked in front of me. I had a thought that that BMW had been on my tail since I’d left the Mills-Peninsula Medical Center, but I couldn’t be sure. A man got out of the black car and walked directly toward me. He was Asian, thirties, had a wide face with a thin scar on his chin. He was wearing a black shirt and jeans.

“You police,” he said to me. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. How can I help you?”

“My son inside there.”

Relatives of WW 888 passengers had heard that the deceased would be brought here, but that was only partly right.

The ME’s office was the first port of call. But after it had filled to capacity, bodies were distributed to hospital morgues all over the city. When the hospitals ran out of room, the deceased had been stored in refrigerated vans parked inside a hangar at SFO.

There was no way the man standing this close to me with bunched fists could know the location of his son’s body.

I said, “I’m very sorry, sir. But the ME’s office is off-limits now. Please call this number,” I added, taking a card out of my jacket pocket and handing it to him. “Someone will let you know where to find your son and when you may claim his body.”

“You lie. This number all bullshit. I need to go inside and see him now,” he said.

I could see the four cops stationed along the breezeway that runs from the rear exit of the Hall of Justice past the ME’s office and out to the street. Could they see me?

I told the Asian man again that I was sorry and to please call the central number I had given him, but he was radiating fury, cursing me in his own language. I thought he was going to take a swing at me.

I was prepared to throw him to the ground and cuff him if he got physical, when Inspector Monty McAllister broke from the breezeway detail and came toward me. He was big. Very fit.

“You need assistance, Sergeant?” he asked as he let me pass through the cordon.

“Thanks, McAllister.”

“No problem.”

Three more men got out of the BMW and came toward us.

I kept walking. Claire was waiting for me at the ambulance bay. As I reached her, I heard shouts at my back: McAllister’s crew threatening to put the Asian men under arrest.

Claire reached out her arms to me and brought me inside. We held on to each other.

“I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said. “And I never want to see anything like this again.”





CHAPTER 28


IT WAS ABOUT 6 p.m. when I followed my best friend into the morgue and saw the double row of sheet-covered gurneys lining the stainless steel–clad room.

“I’ve got sixteen decedents here, all crash victims,” Claire said. “We’re officially full up, but we took on some overflow. Got six people in there,” she said, lifting her chin toward the autopsy suite.