“We were tracking Michael Chan.”
My blood was beating against my eardrums. I was still in shock from my meeting an hour ago with John Carroll, that prick. And I wished more than anything that I could turn back time to—when was it? A week ago, when I’d had lunch with the girls and I was so high on my life. Now I was in a long black car with June Freundorfer, who wanted to be my friend. Crap. I was starting to like her.
“The reason we were keeping tabs on Michael Chan,” June said, “was because we were interested in his wife.”
June definitely had my attention.
“Shirley Chan has been on the CIA watch list for years. Ours, too. She was working for MSS, China’s intelligence agency. The Ministry of State Security. MSS recruits heavily from the academic sector. This is a big talent pool for industrial and military spies, and they also plug into the universities to keep informed about our trends and advances.”
I remembered Shirley Chan crying in the backseat of our squad car after learning that her husband was dead. She had been an emotional wreck. She was a Chinese spy? Now I pictured the woman with the “striped hair,” taking her out with three well-placed shots from across the kitchen table.
June was saying, “We were thinking that maybe Michael Chan was also MSS. That could explain Muller’s interest in him. Or maybe Chan was just a way to get information about his wife. You met her, didn’t you?”
I gathered my scattered wits. I had no top secret information on Shirley Chan. Her murder was on the record in Palo Alto and, to a lesser extent, my very minor report for our files. We’d informed her that her husband was dead. We’d hoped she could tell us why Michael Chan had been killed. That was all.
I said to June, “My partner and I interviewed her after her husband was murdered. We went back out to her house again three days later.”
I told June that I’d found Shirley Chan dead and that her daughter’s description was vague. It seemed possible that it had been Alison Muller who had pulled the trigger.
“Three shots,” I told June. “No misses. Very professional. The shooter left no prints and no trace.”
June said, “Yeah, well, that’s Alison’s style all the way.”
When the limo stopped at Virgin’s curbside check-in, June reached over and hugged me. Out of reflex, I hugged her back. It felt OK. I got out of the car and moved through the airport like a zombie on Xanax.
Once on the plane, I collapsed into my window seat and buckled in. The flight didn’t scare me at all.
This was the fastest way home.
CHAPTER 56
I HIT THE ground running and was home within an hour. I was spending some cuddle time with my daughter and gab time with my little sister and darling Brigid and Meredith when Cindy called, saying, “We’re meeting at the clubhouse in thirty minutes. Your excellent presence is requested.”
I checked it out with Cat, who said, “Go. Please go ahead. We’ll be fine.”
Twenty minutes later, with my stomach growling and my bruises throbbing, I breezed through the entrance to a little joint on Jackson Street called Susie’s Café.
The four of us thought of this place as our clubhouse and tried to meet within these ocher-colored, sponge-painted walls every week.
With the catchy beat of steel drums coming from the front room and the aroma of Caribbean-style cuisine fanning out from the kitchen, we had shared years of laughter in “our” booth at the back of the house. And we’d solved a few knotty crimes while we were at it.
I sighed happily once I was inside.
I nodded to the old acquaintances at the bamboo bar and to Susie, who was penning the specials on the whiteboard. I passed through the narrow channel that skirts the pickup window and empties into the smaller back room.
As usual, Claire and Yuki had arrived first and had taken one side of the booth. Also as usual, Yuki had ordered a margarita. After all my years of knowing Yuki, she still didn’t care that tequila put her under the table. In fact, giddiness suited Yuki. Her ringing laughter was one of life’s pleasures.
Claire’s seat was on the aisle, so she stood up and hugged me, saying, “You OK, darlin’?”
“Never better.”
“Right,” said Claire, calling me on my bullshit with just her inflection.
I swung myself down to the seat across from my friends and ordered a beer, and that was when Cindy entered the back room with Richie in her wake.
True, Richie is not in the club, but we all love him dearly, and sometimes testosterone can move our thinking in a different direction.
Cindy sat next to me, and Richie pulled up a chair at the end of the table. Lorraine took our orders for the specials du jour and more beer. Then everyone turned to look at me.
The volume in this place was so high that unless there was a microphone buried in the jerked pork, this was as discreet a venue as possible for a conversation about Joe Molinari, Chinese spies, and a blond government operative who set honey traps.