Interference

by Danielle Girard

  “Thank you,” Mei told him, holding his gaze. She was impressed that he didn’t look away. Maybe Lance Findlay was one of the good ones. Then, when the attention became too much, Mei opened her tablet and unlocked the screen, navigating to her notes file.

  “Captain Findlay wanted to join us,” Jamie told her. “He’s going to leverage multiple departments to help us find this guy.”

  Mei took hold of the water bottle and looked around the table at the faces aimed at hers. The acid at the base of her stomach rose in a wave to coat her insides, making her hot and nauseated. She reached to take off her jacket but she wasn’t wearing one. The way they looked at her, she knew. “You’ve made a connection,” she said out loud. “One that involves me.”

  There was shifting in the room that reminded her of the way bugs scuttled out from under an overturned rock.

  Berry nodded. “We’ve connected the drugging at the club to the shootings.”

  “The shootings,” Mei repeated and looked down at her notes. “Jacob Monaghan and Justin Sawicki, Albert Jackson? The woman with the child, the one with the tooth infection?”

  Around the room, people nodded and watched Mei as though waiting for her to figure out the next part as well. She was stumped. How could those be related to her?

  “We matched the Rohypnol chemistry in your blood to the drug given to Albert Jackson,” Hailey told her. “The two samples are identical.”

  “We also matched the print on the gun that was used to shoot out your front window to the one on the electrical tape and on the computer equipment,” Ryaan added.

  Mei started to look down at her notes, but she didn’t need them. “So the man who shot at me was Sam Gibson, the hacker on our Oyster Point case?”

  “One and the same,” Ryaan said. “You don’t know him from anything else?”

  “Maybe another case back in Chicago?” Sergeant Lanier prompted. “One of his first Internet names was—”

  “Greeneggs,” Mei interrupted. “I know.” She shook her head. “I’ve never heard of him. So why would he want to shoot at my house? And why would the shooter want to roofie me?”

  “That’s what we were hoping you could help us with,” Hailey’s partner said from his spot at the end of the table.

  “You know my partner, Hal,” Hailey said.

  Mei didn’t respond. She was thinking of Sam Gibson. A hacker. She tried to remember the hackers she’d known in Chicago. The FBI had plenty of white hat guys who helped them and some gray hats. “Where is Gibson now? I’d like to speak with him.”

  Again, the room was caught up in series of exchanged looks. Sophie tried to give her a reassuring smile, but even that looked flat with pity.

  “Gibson’s dead,” Mei guessed.

  “Yes,” Ryaan said. “He was killed sometime Friday evening. Then the building was lit on fire. We think as an attempt to destroy the evidence, and maybe hide the identities of the victims though thankfully it wasn’t successful.”

  There was more shifting in seats, and Sophie gave Mei a little smile of encouragement.

  “So, if Gibson died on Friday, he can’t have roofied me on Saturday,” Mei said.

  “Right,” Hailey agreed. “We believe he had a partner.”

  Mei snapped her tablet closed. “Someone needs to tell me what we know.”

  “We think….” Ryaan started. “You were…,” Hal said at the same time. They both stopped talking. “You go,” Hal told her. “No, you,” Ryaan said in a back and forth as each tried to get the other to take the lead.

  “Someone go. Please,” Mei said, feeling desperate.

  Jamie Vail spoke up. “At some point after you were drugged Saturday night, Sophie—” Jamie motioned to Sophie, “—and your friend Sabrina realized you had left. We think the lapse was pretty short. Sophie and Sabrina both thought it can’t have been more than about fifteen or twenty minutes.”

  Sophie nodded in agreement as Jamie went on. “They both recall being at the bar, ordering drinks. You were there with them and then one of them noticed you weren’t. They didn’t see you on the floor and assumed you were in the bathroom. A little time passed and they went to look for you. Sophie came out of the club—via an alleyway—and saw you getting into a white van.”

  “A white van?”

  More glances all around.

  “I don’t remember any van,” Mei said before anyone could ask.

  Mei focused on Jamie as though she were the only person in the room. “The van took off when Sophie came out. Thankfully, whoever was driving hadn’t managed to get you inside. Sophie also got the plate number.”

  “And?”

  “Sophie checked records and found the van was registered to a man named Hank DeRegalo.”

  Mei shook her head. “I don’t know—”

  Jamie nodded. “Hank was the other man we found in the warehouse fire alongside Sam Gibson. But unlike Gibson, DeRegalo had been dead a while—maybe as long as a week.”

  Mei’s head was pounding again. She forced herself to open the water bottle and take a few deep drinks. “What else do we know?” she asked, not sure she wanted the answer. What she wanted even less was to be the only one in the room who didn’t know something.

  “Hal and I have been working another angle,” Hailey said. “Some of the people who received guns—Sawicki, Jackson, Monaghan and Witter—were all active in the same church. We have a call into the church administrator to see if we can link these people to a specific group within the church, a meeting of some sort and narrow down who else they might have interacted with.”

  It appeared that the church connection was news to most people in the room. There were a series of hushed comments around the table. Sophie and Sergeant Lanier were exchanging a look, and Mei saw Sophie mouth the word “church” in surprise.

  “We also made an arrest on Saturday night of a man named Karl Penn,” Hal said with a sideways glance at Ryaan Berry. Berry kept her head down as Hal continued. “We believe Penn was the man who delivered the car of weapons to the Tenderloin last Wednesday night. Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to link him to Gibson or DeRegalo yet.”

  “So, Penn drugged me?”

  “No,” Jamie said. “Penn was in police custody Saturday night. He was released early Sunday morning, but he was definitely in custody when you were drugged.”

  Mei waited. When no one spoke, she did the math herself. “So, the guy who shot up my house and the guy who owned the car that was driven when someone tried to kidnap me from an all-women bar are both dead and died before someone put Rohypnol in my drink. And the guy who might be their associate was in police custody when I was drugged. So we have no viable suspects for the drugging.”

  “That sums up what we know so far,” Jamie admitted.

  Mei was seized by the desire to laugh. Looking at the faces around the room killed the humor. Why didn’t they have a way to connect this? Why hadn’t any of these leads led them to someone they could arrest? “What now?” she asked finally.

  “Let’s walk through what you remember about that night,” Jamie said. “You up for that?”

  No. Mei nodded.

  “Why don’t you just start with the last thing you remember. Then back up maybe a half hour and tell us what happened.”

  Mei frowned, thinking. She remembered tripping and grabbing hold of a table. A woman with red hair. She felt sick. From there, the room sort of folded into itself and disappeared as though the memory fell off into a vacuum.

  “We got to the bar around nine,” Sophie interjected.

  Mei pulled herself back. “Sabrina bought lemon drops and I bought a round.”

  “We had beers,” Sophie confirmed.

  “Draft or bottled?” Jamie asked.

  “Bottled.”

  Mei nodded. She remembered holding a bottle. Something light and foreign,
something she never drank. Who had chosen those beers?

  “We were on the dance floor for a long time,” Mei continued.

  “And you felt okay then?” Hailey asked.

  “Yes. Fine.”

  “Do you remember talking to anyone?”

  “There was a redhead. Tall, freckles, kind of fresh looking but older than us. Maybe early forties.”

  “Pink lipstick. I remember her,” Sophie agreed.

  “Who bought the next round?” Jamie asked.

  Mei looked at Sophie. “You did.”

  “Right,” Sophie agreed. “But you ordered them, remember? I gave you cash when I went to the bathroom.”

  “That’s right,” Mei said. “I ordered them.”

  “Who passed you the beers, Mei?” Hal asked.

  Mei shook her head.

  “The bartender put them on the bar,” Sophie answered. “I think we each just took one.”

  “Is that how you remember it, Mei?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mei answered.

  “And the bottle was cold?” Jamie asked.

  Mei thought back. “Yes.”

  “Why?” Sophie asked.

  “Sometimes people will drug a full drink and leave it on the bar, waiting for someone to pick it up,” Jamie explained. “Oftentimes the drink is sort of warm when the drinker gets it.”

  “No,” Mei said. “It was cold.”

  Jamie took notes. “Let’s go back to the redhead.”

  Mei felt herself blush. In front of this entire room, they were going to have a conversation about who she had flirted with in a bar. A gay bar. As a married woman. She had never talked about her personal life at work. Not even as a newlywed with Andy. That part of their lives was always carefully separated from their jobs. Now this room was going to talk about the first night in a decade that Mei had gone out and her first ever visit to a club.

  “Did you set your drink down to talk to her?” Jamie asked.

  Mei thought back to that night. The redhead was holding a clear drink that Mei had assumed was gin or vodka. They had been standing at one of the high tables just a few feet from the bar. Mei had been looking back at Sabrina and Sophie who were trying to get the bartender’s attention. But why? They already had drinks. Or maybe that was later. Had she spoken to that woman twice?

  “Mei?” Jamie prompted.

  “I don’t know. The whole night—at least the part after dancing—is a jumble. It’s like I was drunk the whole time, but I don’t even think I finished the second beer.”

  “I don’t think so, either,” Sophie confirmed. “We were trying to get the bartender’s attention to close the tab when we noticed you were gone. The place was getting really crowded, and we’d decided to leave. At that point, we’d probably had those second drinks for fifteen minutes.”

  “Does that ring true to you, too?” Jamie asked.

  Mei rubbed her face. “I don’t know. I couldn’t tell you if it was ten minutes or an hour.”

  “Okay. I think we’ve tortured you enough,” Jamie announced. “I’ve only got one more question.”

  Mei sank into her chair and nodded.

  “Have you noticed anything out of the ordinary? At work, at home, on the commute? It could be anything. Something as obvious as an unfamiliar car or person, maybe a new person at a place you’ve been going a long time. Your dry cleaner, the grocery store.”

  Mei pictured the surly smoker who took her bundles of laundry across the counter, the vague smell of menthol emanating from her yellowed fingertips. An unhappy woman, yes, but a killer? It had been an unusual week in general. “I can’t think of anything specific.”

  Jamie nodded. “It could be strange activity on a credit card or spam email,” Jamie continued. “Evidence that someone broke into your car? Anything even a little bit unusual, I’d like to know about it.”

  “Okay.”

  With that, Jamie stood and effectively ended the meeting. “We’ll work on known associates for DeRegalo and Gibson to see if we can come up with a list of suspects who were actually alive and not in jail on Saturday night.”

  Mei was thinking about the few places she went, trying to remember if there was a new waiter at the wine bar. Maybe once, someone subbing. Mei didn’t think she’d even spoken to him. The name Gibson pierced through the thoughts. Sam Gibson, the hacker. But she didn’t know him.

  The room began to clear. Lanier rose with Findlay. Ryaan and Jamie left. Mei remained seated. Anxious for everyone else to leave the room, she wanted to sit in silence and think. When was the last time she’d had real silence? Hal and Hailey filed past. Hailey gave Mei’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. The conference room door opened and people exited. Mei was thankful that they didn’t stop. Even Sophie, who Mei knew was anxious to speak to her, just walked by with a quick, “We’ll talk later.”

  Mei didn’t see who closed the door, but soon, she was alone. Despite the industrial grade surfaces, the far wall was pocked with dents and scrapes. The majority hit close to hip height, right at the level of belts loaded with flashlights and guns. What she’d always assumed was white paint was actually a faint yellow. The tint made the halogen lights seem harsher. Was that even possible? Her phone vibrated and she pulled it from her pocket. Her mother. Again. That was eight or ten missed calls. Three from Andy. He had heard. Maybe from her mother or more likely, from his colleagues in the San Francisco office. A call to tell him that his wife was drugged in a gay bar. Something he didn’t know. Because Mei hadn’t called him. He wouldn’t believe it. Surely not Mei.

  She didn’t even recognize herself in the scenario. She saw her tablet in front of her with its navy cover. She’d chosen a navy cover. She wore gray dress slacks and black shoes. She didn’t own a pair of shoes that wasn’t black except her sneakers. She didn’t even own a red top. Or a pink one either. Not a single one. She did not go to clubs. She did not get shot at or drugged. She was Mei Ling. Straight A student. Quiet. Thoughtful. Smart. Married. Conservative. She’d never lived on her own, never made out in a public place, never even had a speeding ticket. What the hell was happening? Where had she lost control?

  No. She straightened up in the chair. She was in control. She would take this as she did everything—cautiously, systematically. She would do exactly as Jamie said. She would go through her life and document the changes. She would analyze and observe. The answer was there. Even if no one else could solve this thing, she could. And she would start now.

  With no one to interrupt her, Mei opened her tablet and scrolled across the pages for her notes. The ugly florescent light caught the screen and lit up the smudges. Mei pulled her hand away quickly. The tablet. Someone had gotten hold of her tablet. It hadn’t been in her desk. Someone had moved it. Or she had left it on Teddy’s desk, but she didn’t believe that.

  She never left it out. Lifting from the bottom edge, Mei tilted the screen to get a better look at the fingerprints on the screen. Most were likely hers. She moved the screen left and right. There were tons of prints. Probably all hers, but maybe not. Mei tucked the tablet into the crook of her arm and left the conference room. Several people from the lab were in the corridor talking. Mei said hello, pretending to be relaxed, and hurried toward the main lab.

  “Is Sydney Blanchard in?” she asked the receptionist.

  “I’m here,” Sydney called from the tiny room that housed a coffeemaker, a small fridge and a copier that worked only about thirty percent of the time. Sydney was in the process of trying to clean out a paper jam when Mei found her. Sydney pulled out a scrap of paper and added it to a pile she had formed on the countertop beside an ashtray filled with mismatched paperclips. “What’s up?” Sydney asked, reaching back into the machine.

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  Sydney looked at Mei then back at her hand, realizing she’d come up empty. “What sort of favor?�
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  “I’m not sure how much you’ve heard—”

  “Enough,” Sydney told her. “Tell me what I can do.”

  Mei exhaled. “Fingerprint this tablet and run the results through the database.”

  “Whose is it?”

  “Mine.”

  Sydney took a piece of copy paper and set it down on the counter. “Lay it on this.”

  Mei did.

  “I’ll call you as soon as it’s done.”

  “Thanks, Sydney.”

  “Don’t. Whatever you need, just ask, okay?”

  Mei nodded and left the room. She glanced at the receptionist who seemed distracted by something else. One less person to hear about her private life today. Maybe the receptionist had already heard. This thing was going to be public. She had to let go of that. Mei glanced at her watch. It was nearly three. A couple more hours and she could return to the lab without an audience, sort through email and case files in quiet. But she would have to face her colleagues soon enough.

  She was supposed to be in charge there. What sort of example would it be to run? Disappearing still sounded like the best option, so Mei settled for delaying the torture a little longer. Taking the stairs, she went up to the little coffee cart and ordered four lattes. Two caffeinated, two decaf, three regular milk, one skinny. She had no idea how the techs took their coffee. For herself, she chose an apple juice. Her phone showed Andy’s missed calls. He’d left two voicemails. The station was not the place to have that conversation. Buying herself a couple of hours, she sent Andy a text message. I know you have all sorts of questions. I’ll call as soon as I get home. The message sent with a little buzz. Coffees and her apple juice loaded in a cardboard carrier, Mei started back down to the lab.

  Her head was starting to ache again and Mei wondered how long it would come and go. The research she’d done on Rohypnol said the drug was completely out of her system in twenty-four hours. That was why Hailey had insisted on taking blood on Saturday night. If they had waited until Mei woke up on Monday, the drug would have been gone. So maybe it wasn’t the Rohypnol giving her the headache. She hoped the juice would help. At the lab, she balanced the juice in the center of the coffees and reached for the door. She got it open partway and used her foot to hold it. Across the room, Blake was at his desk. He said something Mei couldn’t hear and Amy walked toward him. Something about the angle of her face…