15th Affair (14 page)

“We never got a look at the driver,” Conklin said. “But the point is, Lindsay, you have been harassed and assaulted.”

“Could you ID these guys?” Brady asked.

“Maybe I could identify the man who confronted me outside Claire’s office, but otherwise, their faces are a blur.”

“Tell me what happened outside the ME’s office.”

“That guy wanted to see his son. I took it to mean that his son had been on the plane. Brady, he couldn’t have known if his son was with Claire or at Metro or still on the highway.

“I gave him a phone number. He didn’t like that. Maybe everything that followed was payback for that. That’s speculation. What do you think?”

Brady said, “I want you to go home. No argument. Keep your gun with you. You want to speak to someone? A shrink?”

I shook my head. I could feel the marbles inside my skull rolling from ear to ear.

“Call me if you see these guys again. Even if you
think
you do.”

I nodded and Brady left the room.

I got my jacket, and after Conklin walked me down to the car, he told me, “For God’s sake stay home, lock your doors, and get some sleep.” It was touching how much my friend and partner worried about me. How much he cared.

We hugged. Then, without agreeing to anything, I drove home.

I PARKED MY
car at Eleventh and Lake, a block from the apartment. It was humiliating to have to admit to being beaten by dirt bags who’d gotten clean away with it, dirt bags I couldn’t identify.

But I was glad Brady had sent me home.

Underneath my horrible mood was a sense that I was burying something really big and really deep. As if I’d had a profound dream of losing something. And now that I was awake, I had to figure out what I’d lost.

I locked up the Explorer, stuck my hands in my pockets, and walked home, still limping from the pain cloaking my entire body. I looked up to see Mrs. Rose at the front door. She must have just brought Julie and Martha back from the park.

Wow, that Gloria Rose was cute.

She was wearing a watermelon-pink wool coat and a knitted cloche-type hat with flowers in the front. My baby girl kicked in her stroller and waved her hands and shrieked when she saw me. And Martha barked in little riffs that made me grin.

I took back my baby and dog. Then I gave Mrs. Rose a hug and told her I’d been made to take a sick day and I’d call her later.

Upstairs, I fixed fresh banana smoothies for baby and me. We ate in front of the TV and I made up a story of a big banana that wanted to be a smoothie. Julie seemed to think I was an awesome storyteller, and when she fell asleep on my lap, I put her in her playpen with her sock monkey.

I switched on the TV to Bloody Airplane News, which was pretty much on all channels. Worldwide Airlines was giving a press conference and all the networks were present.

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.

“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.

Joe had given Findlay an elegant FU the last time he spoke with him, and Findlay had no reason to help me—but it was a place to start.

Findlay didn’t answer his own phone, but the woman who took a message said he’d be back in the office after lunch. I used the time to empty the bookshelves, flap open every book, and run my hand over the shelves.

And I made other calls. I spoke with three federal agents I’d worked with on cases where the SFPD and federal law enforcement crossed paths. I didn’t expect much, and that’s what I got. No one had heard from Joe or knew what he was working on or where he was.

Then Findlay’s name lit up the caller ID.

I told Findlay I hadn’t heard from Joe in a few days. That the last I’d heard, he was doing a freelance job for San Francisco International Airport having to do with the crash. Did Findlay have any information on that?

“I haven’t heard from Joe and I haven’t heard
about
him, either. I don’t think you know who you’re married to, Lindsay.”

I suddenly understood the expression “My blood ran cold.”

I told Findlay thanks and good-bye—I think. I became aware of the beeping busy signal as I held the phone next to my side.

I disconnected the line, used the bathroom, washed my face, gulped some Advil, and tried to think. There was one name and phone number I hated to call, but it was time.

Her number was stored on my phone from nine months ago when she’d come to SF to drop off a gift for our new baby. Her name was June Freundorfer and she was Joe’s old girlfriend, still with the FBI, DC Office.

I called June.

She answered on the first ring.

I WAS DRESSED
and caffeinated when my sister, Catherine, arrived from Half Moon Bay with her two little girls and an air mattress. I was glad to see them, very darned happy to turn my household over to Julie’s aunt and cousins.

I had cleared two days off with Brady, and my cab was waiting. I kissed everyone hello and good-bye at my door, grabbed my bag, and ran down the stairs.

The driver kept the radio on throughout the drive to the airport. I knew the news cold, but I listened again as reporters talked about San Franciscans in a panic. It had been bad enough when the news of the crash of WW 888 had centered on the body count and the tragic stories. Since then, the story had evolved and expanded and was now being billed as the worst terror attack on US soil since 9/11. And so far, no person, no group, no country had been identified as the terrorists.

I boarded the 10:15 a.m. Virgin America flight to Dulles International on the theory that terrorists wouldn’t strike two airliners in one week, a theory that held no water at all. All the passengers were putting on brave faces, and when the nice man to my right offered me a sleep aid, I took it.

Seven hours after leaving San Francisco, I was in the darkly lit bar at the tony Hotel George, waiting for June Freundorfer to appear. I had a small table, a bowl of nuts, a watery wine spritzer, and a ton of trepidation.

I remembered a time not so long ago when a picture of June, dark-haired and glamorous in a full-length gown, and Joe, completely dashing in a tux, had turned up in the online Style section of the
Washington Post
. Joe was still commuting to DC at the time, and when I showed him the photo, he insisted that he and June were just friends and that he had escorted her to a benefit. That was all.

I’d taken it badly.

June was gorgeous. Furthermore, she had once been Joe’s partner in the FBI. She was promoted to the FBI’s Washington field office about the same time Joe was hired as deputy director of Homeland Security, also in DC.

Both single, they’d dated for a while back in the day, but I hadn’t asked Joe for details. Not long after Julie was born, June had come to visit, unannounced, and had brought a baby gift in a robin’s-egg-blue box tied with a white ribbon.

I’d thanked her, and as soon as she was out of sight, I’d dumped the unopened gift into the trash. I didn’t want to see her, know her, or give the Tiffany’s rattle or whatever it was to Julie.

Now I was going to have to see June again. And this time, I was going begging. She said she had information for me but wouldn’t speak further on the phone. And that was how I came to be waiting for her at a hotel bar three thousand miles from home.

I was about to order another drink when I saw her coming through the room. She was in a shimmering gray suit, diamonds at her throat, perfect wavy hair—the kind of look I admired but couldn’t easily pull off.

There was just too much street cop in me.

Joe’s former partner and ex-girlfriend, high up in the FBI pecking order and currently whatever she was to Joe, came over to me. She said, “Lindsay, it’s good to see you.” I stood up and she gave me a fragrant air kiss.

I thanked her for making time for me.

“You sounded worried,” she said. “I would be worried, too.”

Holy crap. What did that mean?

The waiter pulled out her chair, and when we were both seated, June ordered a glass of club soda and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Jack Daniel’s was Joe’s drink.

When she turned back to me, she said, “I only have fragments of information for you, but it may be worth something.”

The waiter put the drinks down in front of June and she pushed the whiskey over to my side of the table.

“This is for you,” she said.

I SIPPED AT
the two iced fingers of Jack to be polite, but not only did I want to hear from June, I wanted to be able to assess whether she was being straight with me or jerking me around. She put her phone on the table.