15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(20)

Mrs. Rose took a breath, put on her shoes, then continued. “He said to tell you he’s sorry he hasn’t called.”

“Was he okay?”

“He looked tired. I gave him a beer and he sat with Julie for maybe ten minutes. Then he changed his clothes and left. He said he had to get back. He was in a big hurry, Lindsay.”

“Did he say he was going to call later?”

Mrs. Rose said, “I’m sure he will. Of course, he will.”

I was still in stunned disbelief when Mrs. Rose said good night to me at the door.

I hardly slept.

My mind had writhed all night with all-too-realistic images of crash victims and other unsolved mysteries from both the job and personal fronts.

I was at my desk in the squad room at eight and ready to ambush Brady when he came through the gate an hour later. He waved me into his office and gave me the welcome news that Homicide was off airliner crash duty—the Feds were in charge—and we were back to solving homicides.

The Four Seasons murders in particular.

He said, “Yesterday morning we were talking about Joe. Have you seen him?”

“Yes. I mean, no. According to our nanny, he came home last night while I was still working. He changed his clothes, and he left me a phone message saying he’d been swept into the WW 888 investigation. That he was up to his eyebrows in it.”

Brady threw me a skeptical look.

“He’s an airport security consultant,” I said emphatically. “Formerly with Homeland Security.”

“I know that.”

“Listen, Brady, he’s not a fugitive. He will contact me again. And right now, we’ve got a new, very weird angle on the Michael Chan murder.”

I had Brady’s attention on Michael Chan, version 2.0.

I said, “Metropolitan’s head pathologist has misplaced this Michael Chan’s body. She could find him later today or sometime next week. She said she’d call when his body turns up. So I called Shirley Chan a little while ago. There was no answer at home or at her office, but I’ll try again. I want to talk to her again. Find out more about her marriage. Their financial situation. Anything odd about his behavior. She was in no condition to answer—”

“Go,” Brady said. “Go now.”

Thirty miles and forty minutes later, Conklin and I pulled up to the green house on Waverley. The old one-and-a-half story house was set squarely on its lot, everything neat except for the trike on the walk and a beagle-dachshund mix lying across the front steps. When the dog heard our car doors close, he got to his feet and set up a howl.

“Dogs love me,” I said. “Watch.”

I walked up to the dog, saying, “Hi, buddy,” and put out the flat of my hand. He wagged his tail, backed up, walked up to the door, and lifted his head toward the knob.

Conklin joined us. He pressed the doorbell. I knocked and called out, “Shirley? Anyone home?”

We were turning to go back down the walk when the lock clattered, the doorknob turned, and a little boy wearing pajama bottoms stood inside the doorway. I remembered the child’s name.

“Brett? I’m Sergeant Boxer. I met you a couple of days ago. Do you remember me?”

He looked up at us and burst into tears.

I pushed the door open. The boy’s PJs were wet and his footprints on the wooden floor from the kitchen to the front door were red.

His hands and feet, his chest, and the sides of his face were red.

Brett Chan was covered with blood.





CHAPTER 32


“GIVE ME YOUR hand,” I said to the little boy. I remembered Shirley Chan telling me that Brett was seven. He was small for his age. Dark hair, his glasses askew, tears sheeting down his cheeks.

He held out his hand, which looked rusty with dry blood.

I grabbed his little wrist to pull him outside the house, closed the door, dropped to a crouch, and looked him over.

“Where do you hurt?” I asked him. He cried—bawled, actually—but I saw no injuries. The blood wasn’t his.

“Who’s inside the house?”

“My mom. And Haley.”

“No one else?” I asked. “Are they hurt?”

The little boy just sobbed.

Had the perp or perps fled? Or had Shirley Chan gone mad, shot up the place, including her daughter and herself? Had Brett been sent to the door under a threat: Don’t say anything or I’ll kill you?

Conklin said, “Brett? Let’s go out to our police car, OK, buddy? I’m going to call for more police. I need you to stay in the front seat and listen to the police band for us. OK?”

Brett Chan nodded.

Conklin put his hand on the boy’s small back and walked him twenty feet out to our unmarked. I saw my partner talking into the mic, locking up the car, getting a couple of vests out of the trunk, then coming back up to the front steps.

“Local PD is on the way,” he said. “We can’t wait.”

Brett Chan was covered in blood. He might be the last living member of his family, or someone inside could be bleeding out right now. No one would blame us if we waited for backup before going into a hot situation, but my partner and I would blame ourselves if someone died because we were too late.

We got our vests on and our guns in our hands, and I shouted at the doorway, “This is the police! We’re coming in.”