“Lindsay, I wasn’t sure when you’d be home.”
“I’m so sorry,” I said to Mrs. Rose. “The day got away from me.”
“Not a problem. I made a roast—”
“I love you,” I blurted.
“I love you, too,” she said. She opened her arms and hugged me and she told me to go see my daughter. “She’s really chatting up a storm.”
She brought a glass of wine into the baby’s room and I rocked Julie and stared out the window and told myself that I was fine, I just needed to sleep.
By nine, Julie and I were alone. She said, “Story,” and it was a demand, not a request. Joe had taught her that word. I took her and Martha into bed with me and told Julie the story of finding Martha at a border collie rescue league.
“We fell in love at first sight, didn’t we, Boo?”
Martha barked and Julie laughed, and I had a few laughs myself. First time in a few days, that’s for sure.
I intended to return Julie to her crib in just a few moments, but she woke me around three with the little distressed cry that usually precedes a meltdown.
“Sweetie, sweetie, Mommy’s here.”
Where was Daddy? Where was Joe?
CHAPTER 37
CLAIRE WAS RAGING as she left Metropolitan Hospital.
It was definite. Dr. Marshall had lost Michael Chan’s body. Her earlier statement, “I’ll call you,” had been amended to “Damned if I know what happened to him,” and a moment later escalated to “I’m starting to wonder if we actually had Mr. Chan, or if we just had his wallet in a plastic bag.”
“So where’s his wallet?” Claire had asked.
“Damned if I know. Look, I haven’t slept in three days.”
It was Saturday morning and Lindsay wasn’t answering her phone, and Claire didn’t want to wake her.
Still.
Claire got into her car and called again, and this time Lindsay picked up.
“What time is it?” Lindsay asked with a scratchy voice.
“Quarter to eleven,” Claire said. “You’re asleep. I’ll make it quick. Michael Chan’s body is still missing and Metropolitan has stopped looking for him. This isn’t over until I have his body in my morgue.”
“Never mind,” Lindsay said to her. “They tried.”
“They tried? What’s wrong with you, Lindsay?” Claire said.
“Nothing. Everything’s fine,” Lindsay told her.
“Joe? He’s come home?”
“Nope. He’ll turn up.”
Claire said, “OK,” hung up, and started her car. It was time to do something about this weird and unhealthy state of affairs. She called Cindy and Yuki, and by the time she arrived at Lindsay’s address, both of them were waiting for her in Cindy’s car.
Claire knocked on the window.
“Ready?”
“You betcha,” said Cindy. “It’s a good day for an intervention.”
The three of them, carrying shopping bags, went to the doorway of Lake Street and Twelfth, and Claire pressed the buzzer. When Lindsay answered the intercom to say, “No one’s home,” Claire shouted, “It’s me, lazybones. Open up.”
The buzzer sounded and Claire, Cindy, and Yuki entered the old residential building and climbed the wide stairs to the third floor, and Claire rang the bell.
Barking preceded the clacking of locks and the opening of the door.
“Claire, what? Can’t I sleep in once in a while?” Then Lindsay saw the rest of the gang and threw the door open. Claire saw that Lindsay was wearing maternity pajamas and gave her a questioning look.
“No, I’m not expecting,” she said. “This is all I have that’s clean.”
Martha danced, the baby cried from somewhere inside, and Lindsay said, “Just so you know, I’m not leaving this apartment until Monday. I might not leave then.”
“Agreed,” said Claire. “Time for us to all have a good visit.”
“We got sandwiches and cookies. Also coffee,” said Yuki.
Cindy said, “Linds, just so you know. Anything anyone says here is off the record. Even if you know who really shot Kennedy. Even if you know the location of the Holy Grail.”
Lindsay laughed and Yuki got the baby out of her crib and handed her to her mom.
“Lindsay, sit your ass down,” said Claire. “Let the feast begin.”
When the four best friends had gathered around the finger food on the coffee table, Claire announced, “Now that we’re all settled in, Lindsay, let’s have it. When was the last time you saw Joe?”
CHAPTER 38
IF CLAIRE HAD called first, I would have said, “Thanks, but no way. I’m going to sleep in, all day long.”
But she didn’t ask, and without warning or my permission, my well-earned deep funk was shattered by Yuki’s infectious laughter, Claire’s bossy mothering, and Cindy’s genuine joie de vivre.
Plus food.
Julie loved a crowd and was super-glad of the company. I put her in her bouncy chair about five feet from the action and Martha curled up at my feet, so it was all girls and all good. Correction, it was great.
Claire said, “Time to work, Linds. When did you last see Joe? When did you last hear from him?”
“And what do you think is going on?” Cindy added. “No matter how bad this is, you know we’re not going to judge.”
“We just want to clear up the mystery,” said Yuki. “We need to know what we’re dealing with, am I right?”
Yuki, her legal mind at work, asked for a calendar of events. So I started from the beginning and proceeded in chronological order.
I started with the remarkable fact that Joe hadn’t come home Monday night but had been snoring beside me on Tuesday morning. I told them he’d been perfectly fine—in fact, romantic. He’d made breakfast for me and Julie Anne, and I’d left him home with her as I ran out to work.
I said, “Monday was the day of the shootings at the Four Seasons. Rich and I were consumed with it. We got an ID on Michael Chan the next day and went out to see his widow.”
My friends were nodding, saying “Uh-huh, uh-huh” and encouraging me to keep talking.
I said, “I spoke to Joe on Tuesday while Rich and I were driving Shirley Chan back to the Hall. Late that night, I reviewed the surveillance video from our van we had sitting on the Chan house from across the street. He was on that tape.
“Wait, I’ll show you.”
I woke up my laptop, and as the girls stood around me, I showed them the clip of Joe stopping his car on Waverley and staring directly into the SFPD’s dedicated spy cam. And I told them about Richie picking out a guy in the hotel’s lobby footage who looked like Joe.
“Joe’s face on that tape—that’s the last I’ve seen of him.”
A lot of questions came at me from my clever, mystery-solving friends, but they were questions I couldn’t answer.
“Here’s what I think,” said Cindy. “He’s involved in this, Lindsay. I don’t mean in a bad way, but his drive-by in Palo Alto can’t be a coincidence.”
“I don’t know, Cindy,” I said. “I agree it means something, but we may not know all the angles.”
“Meaning?”
“He’s a consultant. He knows everything about port security. He could be working some kind of hush-hush job. He might be prohibited from contacting me. Maybe phones are being hacked.”
“Did you call the people he works for?”
“I would if I knew who they were.”
Cindy was undeterred.
“So keep going with your ticktock,” she said.
“OK, OK.”
I told the girls about the mysterious blond woman who’d been seen entering Chan’s room at the Four Seasons. Cindy jumped in, saying, “I posted her picture on our site and got a tip.”