I could imagine someone disguised in hospital scrubs, looking at rows of bodies on gurneys, reading toe tags. I could imagine someone wheeling a corpse out of the hospital emergency room.
No one would have stopped a person in scrubs. Not that night.
I was breathless, almost faint. I stood up and, placing the flats of my hands on the table, I leaned toward our only material witness.
“Think, Henry. Did Mr. Soo mention the name Michael Chan? Was he looking for the body of Michael Chan?”
“He never said the name,” Yee said.
The kid looked terrified. Of me? Or of retaliation?
Ling said his client had cooperated fully. The interview was over. Yee was released.
I still had questions. Plenty of them.
PART FOUR
CHAPTER 71
CINDY CALLED TO say, “Lindsay. I’ve got breaking news. Big-time. Can you meet me downstairs in five minutes? I’ll drive you home after.”
“Give me a hint,” I said, shutting down my computer and locking my desk drawer.
She was speed-talking. Warp speed.
“A tip came in twenty minutes ago. From a guy who saw the photos I’m running of the Four Seasons’ Jane and John Doe, and he says he’s got video of them. In the hotel. On a hidden camera. He’s going to show me the video. Is that enough hint for you?”
It certainly was.
“I’m on my way.”
Conklin had already left for the day. I asked Brenda to call off my ride while I phoned Mrs. Rose to say I’d be late. Then I zipped up my jacket and ran down the stairs.
Cindy had my attention for sure. Was the tipster solid? Would there really be a video of the kids in that room? And if so, would the video reveal their killer? Had Cindy cracked the case on four homicides? I was hoping. I guess I’m still an optimist after all these years.
Cindy was waiting for me in front of the Hall as traffic rushed and dusk fell. I got into her ’09 Honda Civic just two steps ahead of Traffic Control, who was about to shoo her away.
“Start talking,” I said as I buckled up. “Where are we going? You’ve got my undivided attention.”
The car lurched as Cindy put it in gear. “His code name is Jad,” she said. We were heading northeast on Bryant, Cindy turning her head every few words to pin me with her big blue eyes.
“‘Jad’ was doing surveillance for somebody. I took it to be a government agency, but he wouldn’t say who. He was, however, emphatic that what he caught on tape could get him killed. I could feel him sweating over the phone.”
“And so why did he contact you?”
“Because in my copy I begged anyone with information as to the identities of John and Jane to get in touch with me, confidentially. He also said that what he knew was eating him up inside. His voice was cracking up, Linds. He was freaked out.”
“Did you tell him you were bringing me?”
“Well, what I said was that I wasn’t going to meet a stranger alone. That I was bringing my associate. Like Woodward and Bernstein. You know?”
“Oh, man.”
I was shaking my head. This wouldn’t be the first or even the fifth time Cindy had waded into a highly flammable situation because she was onto a big story.
“Linds, he said it was OK to bring you. And there’s more,” said my crime reporter friend. “Along with the video of those two kids, Jad also has footage of what could be Chan and Muller. Yeah, Lindsay. Really. Asian guy. Blond woman. I’m thinking, Oh, my God. It’s now or never. Jad could take off. This time tomorrow he could be on another continent.”
“We should be going in with a tac team, Cindy.”
“I agreed to keep this confidential. And I believe him. He’s going to show us the video. He wants to. He called me. Look, we’re meeting him in the parking lot at Washington and the Embarcadero. It’s wide open. We’ll be perfectly safe.”
I told her, “We’ll be sitting ducks.”
“Wait a minute. Didn’t you just outwit three armed desperados with nothing more than a quick draw on your stick shift?”
I laughed. “You have a way with words.”
“And that’s why they pay me the OK bucks.”
Cindy grinned at me and threaded her car through a narrow opening in traffic. She maintained maximum possible acceleration from Bryant to the Embarcadero, where she smoothly entered the lot right across from the Ferry Building. She took one of the empty spots facing the street and left the motor running.
She fished her phone out of her bag and made a call. “Jad? It’s Cindy. I’m here.”
There was a pause.
“The blue Civic. Front row. OK.”
Cindy clicked off.
“Our date with destiny,” said my friend. “He’s on the way.”
CHAPTER 72
AN OLD BLACK Lincoln with a noisy muffler took the looping turn off the Embarcadero, crossed the wide roadway, and nosed into the parking lot where Cindy and I sat waiting.
The Lincoln’s driver braked at the back of the asphalt, plates up against the chain-link fencing and partially hidden from our view by a staggered row of parked vehicles.
I watched over my shoulder as he got out of his Town Car and headed toward us. The tipster was overweight. He wore a thin, gray knee-length coat and carried a nylon computer bag in his right hand. He came up behind us and knocked on Cindy’s window, which she buzzed down.
Cindy said hello and introduced me as “Lindsay, my partner on the crime desk.”
Jad took off his gloves, put them in his pocket, and said to me, “Pleased to meet you. Let’s sit in the back.”
Cindy and I disembarked from the front seat and arranged ourselves in back so that the big man was sitting between us. When I got a closer look at him, I saw that he was young, early to midtwenties, with pale hands and brown eyes that couldn’t quite meet mine.
I quashed a nervous impulse to laugh. Sitting in the shadows next to this stranger who was passing secret information made me feel like I was inside an old comedic spy movie. Was this improbable spy the real deal? Had he caught a professional killer on video and in the act?
I tuned back into the moment as Jad was saying, “I told my bosses that the equipment didn’t work. You know, shit happens. So, this is video, here. I’ve seen it and you’re going to see it, and then I’m gonna destroy it. This footage is never coming to a theater near you.”
Cindy said, “How am I going to report this if I don’t have the footage to back me up?”
Jad opened a very thin laptop and it lit up the backseat. He said, “Cindy, that’s your problem. I agreed to meet with you conditionally. After you see the video, you’re either going to get independent corroboration or you’re not. This is as far as I go.”
Jad tapped at his keyboard and said, “On your mark, get set.” And then he pressed Play.
I instantly recognized the image on the screen as room 1420 of the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael Chan was sitting at the end of the bed, flipping channels on the television. A doorbell sounded and Chan turned off the TV and walked toward the door, out of camera range. A moment later, I heard Chan saying, “You’re late.” And the door closed hard.