The Dark Room(31)

“I need to see Castelli,” Cain said. “Right now. Can you set it up?”

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“Why you want to see him.”

“Come with me.”

He started walking back to his car, not looking to see if she’d follow. When he reached it, he went to the passenger side and opened the door for her. Once she was in, he came around the front and sat in the driver’s seat. He switched on the dome light, then put Alexa Castelli’s photograph on Fischer’s lap.

“I got this from the mayor’s nineteen-year-old daughter,” he said. “She stole it from his study when she was ten.”

Fischer looked at it without touching it.

“It’s a different shot,” she said. “A different angle. We haven’t seen this one.”

“But she’s the same person,” Cain said. “The woman we saw, in Castelli’s four pictures.”

He told her about meeting Mona Castelli at her cliff-top house. The interview with her, and then the strange encounter with Alexa on China Beach. He put the note on top of the photograph and told her about the call at the Western, how he’d chased the man until he’d disappeared. He tread carefully as he described this. Chun and Grassley didn’t need to come up. And he didn’t say a word about the corpse in the 850 Bryant morgue.

When he was done, he took the photograph and the note back.

“Now you understand,” he said. “I don’t want him getting special warnings.”

“You think she’d do that. Your lieutenant.”

“You read her the same way. When we met in the supervisors’ chambers, I saw it. You don’t trust her.”

“She’s the one who insisted on these meetings,” Fischer said. “I didn’t think there was any point, except one.”

“To keep an eye on you.”

“That’s right.”

“Who actually called you—the mayor, or his staff?”

“His chief of staff. Melissa Montgomery. We got involved, and then he wanted SFPD in too, so he called Nagata.”

“Miss Montgomery called you on her own, or with his blessing?”

“I don’t know.”

“Shouldn’t we find that out?” Cain said.

Agent Fischer was looking out the window. Across the street, a man in a colorless overcoat pushed a shopping cart through the black puddles. A small child, wrapped in a raincoat, slept among the soaked paper grocery bags. A man going home from the store, or a man with nowhere to go? It was a toss-up, Cain decided. It could go either way. Or an altogether different story might fit the evidence even better. Cain watched the back of the FBI agent’s head and waited for her to answer him.

“Wait here,” she finally said. She turned back to him. “I need five minutes to set this up—while you’ve got Castelli, I’ll pull Montgomery off into a corner.”

“You know where he is?”

“Except when he’s at home, we’re watching him.”

“Who’s watching him at home?”

“Your guys.”

“And you’re okay if we leave Nagata sitting?”

“Someone can brief her on what we’ve learned knocking on doors in North Beach,” she said. “Which is nothing, but it’ll take an hour. After you talk to Castelli, you can tell her whatever you want.”

“That should go well.”

“Stay out of trouble,” she said. She opened the door. “I might like working with you.”

“Yeah—you, too.”

She got out of the car and ran through the slanting rain to her building’s entrance.



City Hall’s front door was locked.

The gilded balcony above them didn’t hang out far enough to block the runoff falling from above. After trying the handle, Fischer hammered on the wood with her fist. An FBI agent opened the door, looked past Fischer, and stared at Cain, waiting.

“This is Inspector Cain,” Fischer said. “With SFPD. Castelli should’ve heard we’re coming.”

The agent stepped back and let them in. They crossed the empty rotunda, Cain’s wet shoes squeaking on the freshly polished stone. They went up the staircase and opened the door to the mayoral suite without knocking. Melissa Montgomery was waiting for them behind the receptionist’s desk. She stood when they entered, smoothing the lapels of her light gray suit.

“He’s back there?” Fischer asked.

“He’s waiting,” she said. “He was ready to go home.”

“That’s great,” Fischer said. She took Melissa Montgomery’s wrist and put her other hand on the small of the younger woman’s back. She moved her toward the exit. “We’ll give Inspector Cain some space, in case they have to raise their voices.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” Fischer said. “You and I can talk out here.”

They stepped out of the office and closed the door. Cain crossed the red carpeted reception area, knocked once on the door to the inner office, and pushed through without waiting for an answer.

Castelli turned from the window. He’d been looking down on the rows of spot-lit flags in Civic Center Plaza. Or maybe he’d just been looking at his reflection in the dark glass.