The Dark Room(87)

“Go on.”

“Mrs. Castelli went into the Pied Piper. It was mostly empty, and she got a seat at the end of the bar. Back to the door, easy to watch. Three martinis in twenty minutes. Doubles, I think. She didn’t talk to anyone but the bartender.”

“Dedication,” Cain said. “Commitment.”

“She ought to be committed. She came out of there, and she wasn’t even staggering. I think she was walking straighter than when she went in.”

Above them, in the main hallway, a man in a hotel uniform walked past. He was balancing a room service tray on one hand and disappeared with it down the hallway toward Mona Castelli’s room. Cain went up the stairs until he could see to the end of the hall. The man was knocking on a door that wasn’t Mona Castelli’s.

Cain returned to the midlevel landing, and Combs continued.

“She left the hotel, and I followed her at a distance; she was headed up into Chinatown. She stopped outside the Cathay Orient Bank and took something out of her purse. She was holding it in her left hand when she went up the steps.”

The Cathay Orient was the only bank Cain knew of with a main branch open on Saturdays. It was also one of three banks listed on the piece of paper they’d found in Castelli’s office safe.

“You didn’t see what it was?” Fischer asked. “What she had in her hand?”

Combs shook his head.

“I was on the other side of the street,” he said. “I’d been hanging back. But not far enough. Before she went in, she stood in the open door and looked back the way she came. Then she checked the other side of the street.”

“She wanted to see if she’d been followed,” Cain said.

“And she saw me. Her eyes locked on mine, and it took her a second to recognize me. But as soon as she did, she let go of the door. Whatever was in her hand, she put it back in her purse. She went down the steps and walked back to the hotel.”

“How big was the purse?”

“Small. You could fit a checkbook, maybe some keys. That’s it.”

“You’re talking about a clutch,” Fischer said. “That’s what she had?”

“A clutch—yeah.”

“What about her clothes?” Fischer asked. “Were they bulky? Pockets?”

“Everything she wears is skin tight.”

“And she’s been in the room since?”

“She came back from the bank, and she hasn’t left.”

“All right,” Fischer said. “What about the daughter?”

“Officer Aguilar followed her to the apartment. Alexa’s been up there since noon, and Aguilar’s at the coffee shop across the street, where she can see the door.”

Cain looked at Fischer and she flicked her eyes toward the elevators. There wasn’t much more they could get here, unless they went down the hall and knocked on Mona Castelli’s door. But it wasn’t time for that yet; they didn’t have enough to work with. The only thing to do was lie back and wait. And watch.

“You did a good job, Officer Combs,” Cain said. “Keep it up. Follow her when she goes out. Don’t be overt, but if she looks around, make sure she sees you.”

“I think I get it.”

“When you back people into corners, you don’t know what they’ll do,” Cain said. “So watch her, but watch yourself. You know what happened to Grassley.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Who’s your relief?”

Combs listed the other officers and their shifts, and they went through the same for Aguilar. Cain told him to call each of the others to pass along the word. They were to follow Mona and Alexa Castelli from the shadows, but step into view if either woman looked for a tail. Let them wonder how many eyes were watching them, how many ears were listening when they spoke. Then Cain asked for three more names, reliable patrol officers who could track Melissa Montgomery. A shared house on a residential street in Noe Valley might be harder to watch than a hotel room or a downtown condo. But a good officer would come up with something.



They came out of the hotel and got in Fischer’s car, which was parked at the valet stand along New Montgomery. They had to wait for a taxi to finish loading in front of them, and while they were sitting in the cold car, Cain felt the double pulse of an incoming text vibrate in his pocket.



Found Chun’s car on Alabama St., one block from Grassley’s apt. No forced entry, no blood. Some stuff in the trunk that bears on your case. Left copies on your chair.





After he read it, he passed the phone to Fischer.

“Who’s this from?”

“Frank Lee.”

“Got it,” she said.

She put the car into gear and steered onto New Montgomery, past Alexa’s apartment. In a moment, they drove by the coffee shop and Cain got a glimpse of a woman who might have been Aguilar. Then they were passing the front of Alexa’s condo, the double-height windows spilling light onto the wet sidewalk, the cut-crystal chandelier glittering. Her school was on the left. Grassley had been lucky that the fashion professor had sent him to Britex. They’d gotten some valuable information from the manager. But Cain wished he hadn’t sent Chun alone to Berkeley, that he’d gotten Grassley to go with her. He had no idea who she’d been talking to, where she’d gone after the police station.