15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(39)

“We’re downstairs.”

“Here? Now?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Well, give me a second. Make that five minutes and then buzz me.”

I rinsed Julie off, wrapped her up in a towel, and from there dressed her in PJs. She was not tired and she was not going to bed, so I put her in the playpen. I left Martha loose, but I got my gun out of the cabinet and tucked it into the waistband of my jeans.

When the intercom buzzed, I told Dixon and his partner to put their badges up to the camera. They did it. And still, I checked them out through the peephole in my door. Satisfied, I undid the chain lock and let the two men inside.

They introduced themselves as Agents Michael Dixon and Chris Knightly from Langley. They were both in their thirties, both in business attire, jackets and ties and well-shined shoes. They weren’t a twin set. Dixon was average height, dark hair, button nose. Knightly was large and blond with an American flag lapel pin.

Dixon was the man in charge.

When they were seated on the wide leather sofa, Dixon said, “I understand from John Carroll that you’re interested in locating Alison Muller.”

“She’s a possible witness,” I said. “She may have been the last to see a victim of a recent homicide.”

“Yes, we understand that she may well have been with Michael Chan.” Dixon went on. “We want to level with you, Mrs. Molinari. Call it interagency cooperation. But in exchange, we need you to back off your inquiries into Alison Muller.”

Really? They didn’t have the authority to take me off my case. If that was what they wanted, they shouldn’t have come to me here. What was up?

I said, “That’s not my call. Not yours, either. Muller is a person of interest in a quadruple homicide. Our case. SFPD.”

“I want to assure you that Muller didn’t kill Michael Chan,” said Dixon. “Muller wanted him alive. We all do.”

“So what happened?” I said, not promising anything.

Knightly looked around the apartment from his seat on the sofa. He got up. Went to the large windows facing Lake Street and looked out. Keeping watch, I thought.

Dixon said, “We’ve been in contact with Muller. She was working Chan, trying to establish if he, like his wife, was in Chinese intelligence.”

“And was he?”

“Muller didn’t know. She had already left the hotel and was walking northeast on Market at the time of the incident. This is documented. She doesn’t know anything about the other victims.”

“I’d like to talk with her myself,” I said. “Officially. Once I’ve cleared her, I’ll be happy to move on.”

Julie started to fuss. I made an educated guess that she needed changing and that she was about to make this need extremely well known.

“That’s not possible,” Dixon said. “She’s undercover on a job. When her current assignment wraps up, we’ll put her in touch with you.”

Pretty much what Khalid Khan had said to me a few days ago. I pressed on.

“What can you tell me about a passenger named Michael Chan who was on WW 888?”

He was lying. But maybe he’d tell me the truth when I asked the question that was most important to me.

“Joe Molinari,” I said. “Do you know where I can find him?”

Knightly returned to the sofa and said, “I know of Molinari, but he’s ancient history. We have no current information about him, I’m afraid.”

“I just want to know if he’s alive. Can you tell me that?”

“Believe me, I would tell you if I knew,” said Agent Knightly of the CIA. “He’s not one of ours.”

Julie let out a wail. The two men put their cards on the kitchen island and let themselves out of the apartment.

What the hell had just happened?

Alison Muller’s colleagues had said she was alive.

And for all I knew, Joe Molinari, my husband, the father of my crying little girl, that man was dead.





CHAPTER 60


AS SOON AS Julie was asleep in her crib, I filled the tub with the hottest water I could bear and got in. But even lavender-scented bubbles couldn’t relax my mind.

Those men from the CIA had lied to me. Maybe they had been in contact with Alison Muller, maybe not. My gut was telling me they just wanted me to stop looking for her, calling attention to her, speaking to the FBI about her. As for what they’d said about Joe, I couldn’t read them. Not for sure.

I imagined Joe, working out of his home office, that small room that he could almost wear like a sweater. Those months when he was home all day with the baby—had he been working for the CIA? Had he been working with her?

The day of the killings in the Four Seasons, had Joe been there because he had been teamed up with Muller? Maybe while she was on the fourteenth floor killing Chan, he had been waiting to get her out of the hotel unseen.

Far-fetched? Maybe. But it was too damned much of a coincidence that the two of them had disappeared at approximately the same time.

I went to bed, but I couldn’t sleep. In the light of the streetlamp coming in through the window, I stared up at the juncture between the walls and the ceiling and wondered now if Joe had been alone in his car when he looked into our camera outside the Chan house.

Had Muller been sitting beside him in the passenger seat? Had the two of them come to the Chan house—not to do their own surveillance, but to take out Shirley Chan? Had our squad car in the driveway delayed Shirley Chan’s murder?