15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(32)

At the podium, in front of a dark curtain, was a red-haired man, Colonel Jeff Bernard. The title under Bernard’s image said he was an aviation safety expert and former air force colonel working for NTSB.

I amped up the sound in time to hear him say that the black boxes had been recovered and analyzed. He said the recordings told the story of a perfectly normal approach to SFO with pilots in control, no prep for an emergency landing.

Colonel Bernard looked down at his notes, then raised his eyes again and continued.

“We believe it’s likely that a SAM, that is to say, a portable surface-to-air heat-seeking missile, was launched within three miles of the aircraft, probably from Junipero Serra County Park. Once launched, the missile followed the heat trail to the engine on the right side of the airliner, and when it exploded, the fuel that is stored in the airliner’s wing ignited. Uh, it is my opinion that the passengers never knew what happened. Mercifully, the entire incident lasted approximately two seconds.”

There was shouting and shoving and the camera was knocked aside. My heart was pounding as I switched channels again. Cut to a reporter out front of the WWA building who began summarizing the news, namely that the crash of WW 888 had been an act of terrorism—and that while several terrorist groups had taken credit, none of the boasts had checked out.

I clicked on channels up and down the line, and at some point, sleep grabbed me by the shoulders and hurled me onto the sofa. When I woke up, an hour had passed and I had an idea.

I’m pretty sure I would have had the idea sooner if I hadn’t been in denial. But the interview with Alison Muller’s husband had been nagging at me.

If Khan was to be believed, he trusted his wife. She takes off and doesn’t call and he tells me, “She’ll be home when she’s ready.”

Meanwhile, there are secrets in Ali’s closet, hard evidence of something that should have told Khan he didn’t know everything about Ali.

As for me, I was pretty sure that Ali Muller was either a killer or a targeted victim, definitely not a casual bystander.

So what was the difference between Khalid Khan and me? Both of us trusted our spouses, and maybe both of us had been willfully blind to the fact that our mates were leading double lives.

I wasn’t buying into blind trust anymore.

I was going to find Joe, no matter what it took.





CHAPTER 50


“JULIE-JULIE-JULIEEEE,” I sang.

I picked her up, loudly kissed her stomach, and brought her with me into the master bedroom. After spreading the fluffy duvet on top of the rug, I put the kiddo down with her sock monkey and her favorite dog.

Martha is the perfect baby minder, and the two of them were having a perfectly sensible conversation as I opened Joe’s closet door.

Joe’s wardrobe was not as organized as the contents of Ali Muller’s closet. And it was smaller, too, your standard six-by-six closet, with upper and lower rods: jackets on the top rod, pants on the lower.

I gathered armloads of clothing, making several trips from the closet to the bed, and when the racks were empty, I cleaned off the top shelves. I opened shoe boxes and Joe’s gun safe. His gun was gone.

I looked in his hamper to see what clothes he’d shucked when he’d come home for clean ones a few days ago. I found only regular laundry: underwear, shirt, jeans, socks. No trace of paint, gunpowder, or lipstick was visible to my naked and angry eye. I smelled the dirty clothes. They smelled like Joe.

I ran my hands over every inch of the closet walls. I was feeling for anomalies, for secret doors or traps. I tapped on the walls with the butt of my flashlight. The walls were solid. I lifted the carpet for good measure and found only a mess of dog hair in the corners.

Next I went through all of Joe’s pockets and checked the linings. I shook out his boots and put my fingers deep into his shoes. Nada.

I tossed Joe’s clothes onto the closet floor and shut the door. Then I went to his dresser, where I did a similarly thorough frisking of his shirts and underwear. I not only emptied the drawers but also checked for false bottoms and examined the undersides.

After I’d looked between the mattress and box spring and under the nightstands, I remembered that I was dealing with a man who’d been trained by the FBI. If Joe didn’t want something found, it wouldn’t be found.

But still, I couldn’t stop.

I picked up Julie and her sock monkey, whistled to Martha, and went into the back bedroom, which Joe used as an office. It was small, about nine by twelve. He had a desk under the one window facing Twelfth Avenue, a swivel chair, and a stand-alone bookshelf.

The desk was locked, so I got the key from where it was taped under the bathroom sink. Not that I’m so smart. He’d showed me where he kept it.

I returned to the back bedroom, opened the desk, and looked immediately for his laptop—and of course, it was gone. So were his iPad and his computer bag, and since the days of datebooks are long gone, I found nothing telling.

There were no cryptic notes on the pad next to the phone and no numbers in or on his desk.

But I remembered a couple of names from Joe’s recent past.

I called Brooks Findlay, Joe’s former employer. Findlay is a real shit who had hired Joe to draft security procedures for the Port of LA. Then, without cause or reason, he fired him. We figured Findlay had canned Joe because by doing a great job, Joe was making Findlay look bad.