15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(22)

Levy said, “What a tragedy. I only knew Michael professionally, but for more than eight years. I liked him. He was reliable. Conscientious. Knew his stuff cold. Although, in light of how he died, maybe I didn’t know him at all.”

Levy had prepared a list of several of Chan’s colleagues and students, in alphabetical order with phone numbers. He’d starred the names of a few people he thought had personal relationships with Chan.

“I’m just sick about this. The whole school is rocked. You’ll let me know if I can help further?”

I told Levy we would do that. After leaving his office, Conklin and I interviewed two dozen people over the rest of the morning, ending late in the afternoon.

We asked the standard questions: How well did you know Michael Chan? Had he been acting strangely? Did he have any enemies? Can you think of a reason why someone might have killed him last week in a five-star San Francisco hotel?

Not one person offered a shadow of a clue.

By five in the afternoon, we were no closer to cracking open a door into Michael Chan’s death than we had been four days ago. We were heading for the car when a breathless voice called out, “Officers.”

A brawny twenty-something young man in shorts and a school T-shirt was jogging up the walkway behind us. When he caught up, he stopped and introduced himself as Stiles Paul Titherington, assistant football coach. According to Levy’s list, he was a friend of Michael Chan.

He said, “Got your message. Yeah, Michael and I were tight.”

The man was bouncing on his feet, seemed hot to tell us what he knew.

“OK, I don’t know who the hell killed him, but I can tell you this: he was having an affair, like made-in-Hollywood in-love. Michael was not, like, an emotional guy and suddenly, he meets this woman, and she’s the meaning of life.”

Titherington went on to say that Michael hadn’t been planning to leave Shirley and that apparently Alison was also married with children.

The name Alison hooked me.

“He had plans to meet her a couple days ago,” said Titherington. “He was going to let me know how it went. Next thing, I heard that Michael was dead.”

I said, “Did Michael tell you Alison’s last name?”

“I’ve told you what he said. She’s gorgeous, smart, funny, a total package.”

After leaving Titherington, Conklin and I talked nonstop on the drive back to the city. We had some leads to go on, but we couldn’t tie them into a bow. Alison Muller had gone to Michael Chan’s room at the Four Seasons. He was in love with her. Both were married; it was an assignation.

Many questions remained. Why hadn’t Muller called the police when her lover was shot? Had she been abducted? Was she dead? Or had she killed Chan and had gone into hiding?

I was calling Brady to tell him about our day at Stanford when Conklin’s phone rang.

He said, “OK, sure. Thanks, Cin. We’ll meet you there.”

“What was that?” I asked him. “We’ll meet Cindy where?”





CHAPTER 35


THE GRAND PACIFIC Hotel was just south of the airport on Old Bayshore Highway. Folding doors between three adjoining conference rooms on the mezzanine level had been opened to create a hall big enough to accommodate the hordes who had come to hear NTSB’s update on the investigation into the crash of WW 888.

The cream-and-maroon room was packed, standing room only, no chairs at all. I stood off to the right of the room with Conklin and Cindy, in view of the rear exit.

At six o’clock on the dot, a blond-haired woman in a charcoal-gray suit with an NTSB patch over her breast pocket walked smartly along a hastily built stage at the front of the room. She took her place behind a podium, tapped the microphone, and, without waiting for the room to quiet down, she began to speak.

“My name is Angela Susan Anton and I’m chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board. I know you’ve been waiting since our initial announcement, but we have been working hard to gather meaningful information in the face of the near-total destruction of the aircraft and the tragic deaths of the passengers and crew.”

Waves of weeping swept the room as friends and family of dead passengers heard once more and with official certainty that they would never see their loved ones again.

Chairman Anton resumed her presentation.

“I’ve been working closely with our chief investigator, Mr. Jan Vanderleest, who heads our team of twenty-five investigators. The work so far includes interviews with those who knew the four pilots and relief pilots.”

Anton described the pilots’ seventy-two-hour preflight work-rest history, concluding that the flight crew had been rested and in good physical and mental health, all of which was borne out by the progress of the flight from Beijing up to the moment of the incident.

The chairman pushed through the shouted questions, saying that the air traffic controllers who were in SFO’s control tower when the tragedy occurred had reported that the pilot had checked in on San Francisco tower frequency for landing on runway 28 Left at 8:56 Thursday morning. That landing clearance was issued to WW 888 about a mile and a half from the threshold.

She said, “This is what the air traffic looked like just prior to the incident.”

Anton flicked on her PowerPoint and a large screen to her right depicted a simulation of WW 888’s approach to ward the runway, including the explosion and a graphic interpretation of the breakup of the falling aircraft.