15th Affair Read Online Free PDF Page B

to speak with her. Fear sparked in her eyes like small black flames. She already knew we weren’t selling raffle tickets for the PBA.
    “Is this about Michael?” she asked, her hand going to her collarbones. “Is he all right? Please tell me he’s all right.”
    Neither Conklin nor I answered, and in that brief silence, Mrs. Chan switched her focus to Conklin’s eyes, back to mine, and back to Conklin.
    My partner has magnetic good looks and the nicest way with women of all kinds: meth heads, serial killers, party girls, old ladies lost in parking garages, and in this case, a woman about to learn that her husband had been killed after private time with an attractive, still unidentified bombshell.
    Mrs. Chan stepped back into her house, leaving the door open.
    We followed her through the foyer and into the many-windowed living room furnished in washed pine and khaki-upholstered love seats, presided over by a fifty-two-inch TV above a fireplace.
    Two young children, who looked to be about seven and five, stared up at us. They instantly saw the distress on their mother’s face. The little girl clambered up from the floor and, asking, “What’s wrong, Mommy?” grabbed her mother around the waist. Mrs. Chan’s hands shook and her voice faltered when she told the kids to go to their rooms. They wailed and argued with her until she screamed, “Haley. Brett.
Do what I say.
”
    They fled.
    We three stood in the homey room, Shirley Chan with her hand over her mouth, refusing to sit down. I pulled out the DMV photo of Michael Chan and showed it to her.
    “Is this your husband?” I asked her.
    “Oh, my
God
. Was there a car accident?”
    Conklin asked her kindly, “When was the last time you saw Michael, Mrs. Chan?”
    “Yesterday morning. He called me in the afternoon But he didn’t come home last night. That’s not like him at all. Where is he? Where is Michael? What happened to him?”
    My partner said, “I’m sorry to have to tell you this, ma’am. Your husband has been shot. He was killed.”

CHAPTER 13
     
    CONKLIN WAS AT the wheel of the squad car as we headed back to the city in the dark. Mrs. Chan was crumpled up in the backseat, talking on the phone to her sister in Seattle. Brady called to say that the mayor had threatened to bring in the FBI if we didn’t crack the case pronto. The press had gotten tipped and had whipped the story into a frenzy, spraying the stink of fear onto all the hotels in San Francisco. “Tourism dollars are at stake.” That was what he told me.
    I snapped, “How long is pronto, Brady? Because there are only twenty-four hours in the day, and you know what? We’re working twenty-five of them. By ourselves.”
    “I’ll get you some help,” he said.
    After I hung up, Conklin said to me, “We’re going to get our break when Mrs. Chan sees the videotape.”
    Sure, it was possible. If Mrs. Chan recognized someone who knew her husband walking through the hotel lobby, that might pry open the lid of this big bloody box of I don’t know what.
    As Conklin took the 101 on-ramp from University Avenue, I listened to the radio: dispatch calling for cars to a drive-by shooting out by the zoo, a bar fight in the Haight, a domestic stabbing in Diamond Heights, all straight-up, call-911 incidents—unlike this.
    And then my phone buzzed. It was Joe.
    He said, “Hon, I’m stuck out at the airport. I’m sorry. There’s nothing I can do.”
    “Wait. Joe, I’m stuck, too. This is not good.”
    “I know, Linds. In twenty years, Julie’s going to tell her shrink how we neglected her—”
    I wasn’t amused. I cut him off.
    “Did you call Mrs. Rose?”
    “Yes. She’s already at our place.
Fringe
marathon tonight. She likes our TV.”
    “Well, that’s all right then,” I snapped before clicking off.
    I was mad at Brady for passing on the mayor’s threat and mad at Joe for saying he didn’t know when he would be home. I turned to look at Michael Chan’s widow. She was leaning