15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(9)

“Is this your husband?” I asked her.

“Oh, my God. Was there a car accident?”

Conklin asked her kindly, “When was the last time you saw Michael, Mrs. Chan?”

“Yesterday morning. He called me in the afternoon But he didn’t come home last night. That’s not like him at all. Where is he? Where is Michael? What happened to him?”

My partner said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, ma’am. Your husband has been shot. He was killed.”





CHAPTER 13


CONKLIN WAS AT the wheel of the squad car as we headed back to the city in the dark. Mrs. Chan was crumpled up in the backseat, talking on the phone to her sister in Seattle. Brady called to say that the mayor had threatened to bring in the FBI if we didn’t crack the case pronto. The press had gotten tipped and had whipped the story into a frenzy, spraying the stink of fear onto all the hotels in San Francisco. “Tourism dollars are at stake.” That was what he told me.

I snapped, “How long is pronto, Brady? Because there are only twenty-four hours in the day, and you know what? We’re working twenty-five of them. By ourselves.”

“I’ll get you some help,” he said.

After I hung up, Conklin said to me, “We’re going to get our break when Mrs. Chan sees the videotape.”

Sure, it was possible. If Mrs. Chan recognized someone who knew her husband walking through the hotel lobby, that might pry open the lid of this big bloody box of I don’t know what.

As Conklin took the 101 on-ramp from University Avenue, I listened to the radio: dispatch calling for cars to a drive-by shooting out by the zoo, a bar fight in the Haight, a domestic stabbing in Diamond Heights, all straight-up, call-911 incidents—unlike this.

And then my phone buzzed. It was Joe.

He said, “Hon, I’m stuck out at the airport. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Wait. Joe, I’m stuck, too. This is not good.”

“I know, Linds. In twenty years, Julie’s going to tell her shrink how we neglected her—”

I wasn’t amused. I cut him off.

“Did you call Mrs. Rose?”

“Yes. She’s already at our place. Fringe marathon tonight. She likes our TV.”

“Well, that’s all right then,” I snapped before clicking off.

I was mad at Brady for passing on the mayor’s threat and mad at Joe for saying he didn’t know when he would be home. I turned to look at Michael Chan’s widow. She was leaning against the backseat, staring out the side window at the black of nothing, apparently drowning in the loss of her husband, and the probable devastation of her world.

I was ashamed of myself for snapping at Joe, really ashamed.

I would’ve called him back to apologize, but Mrs. Chan swung her sad eyes toward me and locked in.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Then she asked me a lot of questions. Good ones.

How had I identified her husband’s body? Was he alone when he was found? What was he wearing? Had we recovered Michael’s phone? Had he suffered before he died? Did we have any idea who had killed him? Did we have any idea why?

I answered as well as I could, but none of my answers were comforting. I reached for her hand, but it was awkward, and soon she was staring out the window again.

A half hour later, Shirley Chan was sitting in a metal chair in Interview 2, sandwiched between Conklin and me, a laptop computer open in front of us.

I said, “Let us know if you recognize anyone.”

I pressed Play and the video began showing an overhead view of the Four Seasons’ lobby with yesterday’s date and the time, 4:10 p.m.

Ten minutes into the tape, Mrs. Chan’s eyes got big as she watched her husband enter the hotel, cross the marble floors as if he was on a mission, and head toward the reception desk.

Mrs. Chan shouted, “There he is. That’s him. Michael, what are you doing there?”

Conklin and I looked at each other over Mrs. Chan’s head as the image of Mr. Chan went toward the elevators. I fast-forwarded the lobby footage until a blonde-haired woman with wraparound shades and a swingy leather coat entered the scene.

I hit Pause and turned to the grieving woman beside me.

“Mrs. Chan, do you recognize this woman?”

Her eyes were fixed on the blonde.

“Who is she?” Mrs. Chan asked. Her voice was cold. Resigned.

“We don’t know,” I said. “But she may have been the last person to see your husband alive.”





CHAPTER 14


WE ALL STARED at the image of the blonde-haired woman I had stopped in midstride by pressing a key.

We didn’t know her name or her occupation, if she was Chan’s date-by-the-hour, manicurist, longtime lover, drug dealer, financial planner, or personal banker. We didn’t know if she was dead or alive, if she had killed Michael Chan, had set up the hit, or had gotten out before he was shot and didn’t know he was dead. She was unknown subject zero.

Conklin’s prediction that when Mrs. Chan saw the video we would have answers seemed unlikely to come true.

I said to Mrs. Chan, “I’ll show you another view of her.”

I shuffled the discs, found the footage from the camera on the fourteenth floor, and booted it up. I let the footage run as the blond woman stepped out of the elevator and walked away from the camera, down the hall to Chan’s room.