Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series)

by Robert B. Lowe

  Even in the predawn darkness the suppleness and fluidity of Chu’s movements looked amazing, particularly for a man who must have been close to 80. They reminded Lee of the best mimes he had seen during the years that he had frequented New York’s theaters and dance studios.

  Chu’s concentration was so intense that Lee assumed the old man didn’t notice him running past. Then, one morning, Chu had stopped Lee.

  “Hey, you,” Chu yelled.

  “What? Me?”

  “Who else running by this time of morning?”

  Lee was almost finished with his normal three-mile run so he had stopped and gone over to Chu. He saw that the right side of Chu’s face drooped.

  “Try this,” Chu said.

  Chu led Lee through what he now realized was a fairly rudimentary warmup exercise involving simple leg movements made with the knees bent the entire time. After a minute, the muscles in his thighs burned and Lee feared for his knees so he fell out of step while Chu continued on.

  “Not so easy,” said Chu.

  “No.”

  Chu had gone back to the more elaborate fighting movements as the day’s first light brightened the sky.

  “You Chinese?” Chu had asked.

  “My mother was Chinese.”

  Chu had nodded, as if the answer was acceptable. When he didn’t say anything else, Lee had taken his sore legs back to his flat.

  After that, Lee began alternating running with tai chi exercises with Chu. He found they were a good counterpoint to running, using a different sort of strength and working different muscles. After six months, he was just beginning to understand how the slowness of the movements required a type of power that he had never appreciated. He was learning there was meaning behind phrases that Lee had assumed were simplistic slogans. There was strength in softness. It was important to find one’s center.

  At some point, Lee had asked Chu his name. With a twinkle in his eye, Chu had answered, “Master Chu.” Lee hadn’t bothered to inquire what Chu had done to earn the “Master” appellation or even if Chu had other students. He figured that at 80 a man could choose to be called “Jesus Christ” if he wanted. Lee just gave him a short bow and repeated, “Master Chu.”

  This morning, the exercises seemed to take longer than usual. When they finished the final set, Lee thanked Master Chu for the lesson as usual.

  “You not concentrate,” observed Chu, giving Lee a critical look. “You thinking of other thing.”

  “I am,” admitted Lee. “It’s something at my job. I’m trying to decide whether to start something that might end up causing me trouble.”

  Chu frowned. “Why you start trouble?” he asked.

  “I don’t know exactly.” Lee shrugged. “Curiosity, I guess.”

  Chu’s frown did not change. “Before you start trouble, you better know why.”

  • • •

  SARAH ARMSTRONG EASED herself carefully into her car and tossed the cane into the back seat. It was a heavy cane made of yellowed bamboo, a loaner from a sympathetic neighbor. Thus far, she had resisted the urge to buy something more consistent with her wardrobe, perhaps something with trim lines and a dark, wood-grain finish.

  It had been two days since the accident…incident? She wasn’t sure what to call it. Sarah had finished two spy thrillers, read Architectural Digest, Harpers and Ms. magazines cover to cover, overdosed on talk shows and answered every phone message left at her office. She had discovered it was nearly impossible to ride her stationary bicycle using only her right leg. She was going stir crazy. Gimpy leg or not, Sarah had decided she was heading to work.

  Sarah drove east on Sutter Street. It wasn’t the fastest route, with all of the stops, but it was the simplest since her office was on Sutter near Taylor in one of San Francisco’s older office buildings. The lawyers at the downtown megafirms knew immediately from the address that her’s was a “second-tier” firm, housed in cheaper, less prestigious quarters than in the financial district where, with enough seniority, one could hope for a view of the San Francisco Bay. Sarah didn’t mind too much. She had tasted and rejected big firm life and was happy to have ended up at Cross & Roberts.

  The adjustment had taken some time, though. The “rumple factor,” as she called it, was a lot higher at Cross & Roberts than she had been accustomed to seeing. It had taken her a while to see managing partner Larry Roberts as a wily litigator whose skill and down home charm had endeared him to clients and an entire generation of the San Francisco bar, and not simply as a guy with bad dandruff, dirty ties and cheap suits. She thought it was a joke the first time another attorney suggested cocktails at a nearby culinary school where the hors d’oeuvres were prepared as class assignments.

  Sarah knew that the process of assimilation had taken some effort on the part of Cross & Roberts as well. She had arrived with all the trappings of a dilettante willing to sacrifice her position and salary to represent more deserving clients, but still keeping one foot in the fast lane.

  First, there was the Beemer. Then, there were her clothes, always professional but with just enough extra style to set her apart and mark her as a clothes horse. There was something else, too, a distance or reserve about her that others mistook for aloofness.

  The truth was that Sarah felt like she had been raised about as far from San Francisco as was possible – even if the distance between the City by the Bay and her small, dying home town in Nebraska looked tiny on the globe. Her father worked in a hardware store. Her mother worked part-time as a school nurse. Both were born again Christians who spent most evenings at their church and eschewed alcohol, movies, dancing and any social activities unrelated to church. They had expected Sarah to live by the same creed.

  Armstrong had bought the car used from her aunt. It had been a gift really, from a proud Miriam Gilbert to her niece who had graduated from law school with top honors and was following in her footsteps. A fashion expert would have pegged Sarah’s clothes as last year’s lines, often of no-name or mid-level brands. Sarah was a ruthless shopper who bought only on sale or at discount. She substituted creativity and her own sense of style for cash.

  Of course she never took her friends at Cross & Roberts shopping with her for the same reason she never discussed the origin of her car or the fact that she came from more modest means than anyone would have guessed: It was none of their damned business.

  As she pulled into the parking garage across the street from her office Sarah was thinking about which of her clients to call first, assuming, of course, that one of them hadn’t already beaten her to the punch and left a panicked message recounting the day’s first crisis. She was too preoccupied to notice that the blue station wagon that had followed her all the way down Sutter Street had parked only a few spaces away.

  • • •

  LEE’S QUICK SEARCH of old News’ stories had yielded a rough portrait of Detective Bobbie Connors as a woman accustomed to being first. She had been first in her class at the police academy as well as the first black woman to make detective in the San Francisco police force. Connors also had been the first lesbian cop to walk in uniform in San Francisco’s annual Gay Pride parade.

  She was 42 and had a reputation as one of the department’s top homicide detectives. Lee guessed that she had gotten a rough reception early in her career from the old-line cops, including the top brass, who were predominantly white, Irish and macho. She must be both smart and tough to have gotten where she was.

  Lee almost hadn’t bothered calling on Connors. He figured the follow up to the deaths of Judge Gilbert and Orson Adams would be handled by the police and court reporters. But, every time he tried to focus on one of his feature assignments, the questions kept pulling him back. What did it add up to? How did Sarah’s brush with death figure into it, if it did at all? Maybe Connors knew something that helped it make sense. At least he could share his concerns with the detective. Maybe she could figure out what the hell was going on.

  Connors was dressed casually, wearing
khaki pants and a white golf shirt. She had a tiny cubicle to herself created from thin, plastic partitions colored white and pale green. On one wall hung a framed poster of two women in a convertible advertising the movie “Thelma and Louise.” On her desk sat a Chicago Bears helmet. She flashed Lee a friendly smile.

  “Scoop. Or should I say, ‘Mister Lee.’ We meet again.”

  “Thanks for seeing me,” said Lee.

  “Always happy to spend time with the press,” said Connors. “Take a load off.” She gestured to the single chair in front of her desk.

  “Thanks,” said Lee, settling down. “So…uh…did I get the story right?”

  “About the judge? Yup. No complaints here.”

  “That’s nice for a change,” said Lee. “Say, you’re handling the Orson Adams case, too, right?”

  “You got that right,” said Connors. “Busy week.”

  “Anything new on that one?”

  Connors grimaced and shook her head slowly.

  “We’re working on it,” she said. “We’re working on it.”

  “Do you expect any developments soon?” Lee tried again.

  “Can’t say. I’ll let you know if something breaks, though.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” said Lee. He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts.

  “Listen,” he continued. “Something happened yesterday that I thought you might want to know about. In the morning…right outside the News building…a young woman was hit by a van. She wasn’t hurt badly. But, it was a hit-and-run, just like Adams. I saw it happen and it looked like the driver tried to hit her. I thought there might be a connection.”

  “Was there any ID on the van or the driver?” asked Connors.

  “Not much,” said Lee, shaking his head. “It was a maroon Chrysler. No one got the license number. Someone saw a driver with long hair but they didn’t know if it was a man or a woman.”

  “Not a helluva lot to go on. Hmmm. Who’s the victim?”

  “Sarah Armstrong,” said Lee. “She’s the niece of Judge Miriam Gilbert.”

  “Oh my goodness! I see…hmmm.”

  “Right.” Lee watched while Connors entwined her fingers and rested her chin on her knuckles as she pondered what he had told her. Lee wondered what other bits of information in Connors’ head might be clicking into place to make sense of the last three days.

  “So, what exactly are you suggesting?” asked Connors.

  “Don’t know really. Maybe there is no connection. It just doesn’t feel right. Maybe two hit-and-runs aren’t unusual. But intentional?”

  “Just because someone weaves across the road doesn’t mean it’s intentional,” said Connors. “Believe me. There are drunks out there all hours of the day and night. I know. I’ve busted hundreds of them.

  “Look at it this way,” the detective continued. “Maybe you’ve got a couple of drunk driving cases. But, other than that you got no suspects…no motivation…nothing connecting these events together. Believe me, there is a lot of shit goin’ on every day out there. It’s easy to pick two or three things out of the soup and say, ‘Lookee here. See the pattern?’

  “I need more than that,” Connors concluded, tilting her head back and staring down her nose at Lee.

  Lee didn’t have a good reply. He didn’t really have any good theory to throw at Connors. It was just a hunch based on instinct as much as anything. Plus, Lee knew that Sarah Armstrong’s involvement had given him an extra incentive to keep sniffing around the story. He knew the chance to see her again was fueling his interest in the story.

  Maybe Connors was right. Perhaps he was seeing ghosts. Maybe it was time to figure out how to get this story out of his hands and over to the courts and cops reporters. They could do the follow ups on Gilbert and Adams.

  He rose from the chair and was about to thank Connors for her time when she cut him off with a curt nod, and then a slowly developing smile.

  “Don’t give up so goddamn easy,” she said, chuckling now. “If you do come up with anything, let me know. We’ll work something out.”

  • • •

  LEE HAD SETTLED back to read the Chronicle after finally turning in the story about the man who had 72 unnatural holes in his body at last count: (“His friends are seeing less of David Wrightson these days…”) The story wouldn’t run until the next day and Lee was feeling entitled to a long lunch. Then, he saw Ray Pilmann waving at him from inside the city editor’s office, no doubt to offer congratulations for another piece of clever journalism.

  “What the hell is this?” demanded Pilmann, the words leaping out to greet Lee in the office doorway. Pilmann held a copy of the early edition of the News in one hand and gave it a backhanded slap with the other.

  “I can’t believe you blew an unbelievable story,” said Pilmann. “This story shoulda screamed out: ‘Mystery Disease Plagues City!’ Instead, it reads like shit. What happened, Enzo?”

  “Listen, Ray,” said Lee. “I know I downplayed it a bit. We don’t know what it is or if it’s even contagious. Do you want people jumping out of their windows in fear?”

  “It’s not your job to censor the news, is it?” said Pilmann. “What’s wrong? Did all that time at Newsday ruin your news judgment? Is this too complicated for you? Don’t you get it?”

  “What’s done is done,” said Lee. “I wrote the story the way I thought it should be written. Some editors must have agreed since it made the paper without a change.”

  “This sure as hell won’t happen again,” said Pilmann. He tossed the paper onto his desk in disgust. “I’m editing all these stories from now on. What’s the next story? Why don’t we have a follow for the late editions?”

  Christ, thought Lee. More goddamn deadlines. Now, he really wanted to wash his hands of all this before it killed him a deadline at a time.

  “Santos has a press conference at 5 o’clock,” explained Lee. “I talked to him and he won’t have any test results until then. I thought…I thought maybe Duffy would cover it.”

  “Think again, Enzo.” Pilmann was getting red in the face. “This is fucking unbelievable. We break the story and then hand it off to the Chronicle. Is there something wrong with this goddamn picture?”

  “This could all fizzle into a big zero by tonight,” protested Lee. “What am I supposed to do? See if Santos will turn up the heat on the petri dishes so the crud cooks faster? Jesus.”

  “I just want you to think like a goddamn reporter,” said Pilmann. “Be aggressive. And you, of all people, shouldn’t bore the hell out of our readers.”

  Lee turned around to leave, resigned to the fact that he would have to cover Santos’ press conference. He hoped that would get him off the hook once and for all.

  “What about the profiles?” asked Pilmann, stopping Lee in his tracks and sending a chill up his spine.

  “What?” said Lee, turning back. “What profiles?”

  “Look, Enzo. These are your stories now. You break ‘em, you take ‘em. The judge and the prosecutor.” Pilmann spoke slowly, but Lee could see the pressure building for an explosion if he wasn’t careful.

  “You haven’t covered much hard news here,” Pilmann continued. “Maybe you didn’t realize that we usually write profiles about people like this, glorified obituaries, really. They weren’t exactly nobodies, you know.”

  “Shit,” said Lee. “Okay. When are these gems due?”

  “You got two days, Enzo. Make ‘em count.”

  When Lee got back to his desk, he saw that one of the copy clerks had dropped a letter on his desk from the late mail run. He opened the plain envelope. The 12 pages inside contained nicely formatted paragraphs on the left side with columns of dollar amounts on the right. Lee saw the pages were a monthly bill from a local law firm to some company with an address in Palo Alto.

  The law firm was Sutro, Foerster and Bridges, one of San Francisco’s megafirms. The client was a company called Futura Products, Inc. Lee had never heard of the company. He scanned the pages quickly.
The bill was for the month that had just ended and totaled $47,750. It listed meetings, telephone calls, legal research, memo drafting and the like. The itemized listings mentioned directors’ meetings, securities regulations and other corporate-related topics.

  No letter accompanied the document. He looked at the envelope. There was no return address, just a San Jose postmark. The bill meant nothing to Lee. He shoved it into his bottom drawer, meaning to examine it more closely when he had the time, and promptly forgot about it.

  Chapter 7

  THE EIGHT-STORY Whalers Hotel on the outskirts of Casa Grande rose out of the endless rolling Sonora Desert unexpectedly, like someone decided it would be a funny idea to plunk down a deluxe hotel in the middle of absolutely nowhere. The hotel towered over the countryside and dwarfed any other structures from Phoenix to the north to Tucson to the south, both an hour’s drive away. The most noticeable feature of the hotel was a huge black baseball cap bearing the orange “SF” insignia of the San Francisco Whalers.

  In the early spring, the hotel filled with players working off the winter’s rust while the desert floor began its slow bake. By April, the ball players moved on to cooler climes and the empty, out-of-place monument to baseball stood empty while the Arizona sun went from hot, to hotter to flat-out sizzling.

  The past year had been the exception.

  The young athletes had left, taking with them their aloha shirts and baseball gloves. Then came the newcomers who were not quite as young as the ballplayers. They carried Toshiba laptops rather than Louisville Sluggers. Computer paper filled their wastebaskets, not beer cans and bandages.

  After breakfast in the hotel restaurant, these older, pudgier, less playful hotel guests, climbed into their rentals, three or four to a car, and headed east down one of the straight country roads that carve the desert into square mile chunks of real estate.