Outside, a horn honked. Someone at the house. Who would honk? She inhaled a breath and tried to lift herself above the clouds. She’d taken too many of the yellow pills, and now she fought to rise to the surface of the fog. She had to get up. She listened for the boys but heard only the quiet purr of the washing machine. But the water wasn’t running. She didn’t hear water.
It wasn’t the washing machine. Who would be doing laundry? She shifted her elbow beneath her, striking something hard in the bed beside her. But it was all hard. She lifted her head and struck a low ceiling.
Dirk’s bunk bed. Why would she be in his bed?
She reached up to rub her head. Beneath her something vibrated with a steady hum. It was so dark, almost as though her eyes weren’t open at all.
Clarity trampled her like a wave. Nausea and the drilling of her heart, the roiling of her stomach. Bengal. His face.
She reached out and touched the hard edges. Not a bed. Not home.
She was trapped. In a trunk. He’d put her in the trunk of a car.
She screamed out and kicked her legs, crashing her knee against the metal and howling in pain. She wedged herself in sideways, her shoulders pinched as she moved onto her back, her face inches from the lid of the trunk. She punched at the metal, barely able to make a noise. The space was too tight, the trunk lid too close.
She kicked her feet and then her knees, pummeling the metal, screaming at the top of her lungs.
The car made a sharp turn, and her head smashed into the hump of the wheel well. She edged herself down, watching the red glow of the brake lights.
Then she remembered a story about a woman who had been abducted. She had kicked out a brake light and stuck her hand through it. Bitty reached the light and clawed at the hard plastic, trying to rip off the cover, to wrench it free. Her nail broke, tears streaming down her face.
She needed something hard, something to break the plastic. She pawed the area beneath her, scrambling to reach the corners.
Her fingers struck something thin and plastic—like an ice scraper. Only then did she realize that the car had stopped.
Click. She was blinded by light. She bolted upright, squinting against the brightness.
Something struck her hard in the face. Her nose popped with a terrific pain, and her vision went black. Her mouth filled with blood, and she choked, trying to roll onto her side.
“I should have killed you fourteen years ago.” He grabbed her hand, and she struggled to get free. He shoved a towel in her face and rolled her over, her face away from the light. “You’ll choke if you end up on your back,” he said.
Something warm edged his tone. He was taking care of her. “Please,” she whispered.
And she felt the pinch in her back. A needle.
More drugs.
She vomited a rush of hot blood as the trunk slammed shut, and everything went dark again.
33
The security room had grown cold, the AC vent blasting Hal with frigid air. His fingers stiffened on the keyboard as he jabbed the “Reverse” button and watched as Tabitha Wilson came, walking backward now, around the corner. He hit “Pause” and stared at the frozen image of Wilson, panic clear in her features. What was she up to?
“Where is this?” Hal asked the security tech at the computer beside him.
The tech slid his chair across the room until he was almost in Hal’s lap. His chair sat considerably higher, which allowed him to peer down at Hal. Hal felt a new wave of frustration, but the tech didn’t seem to notice. “Right behind the wall is the west elevator bank.”
Hal reached across him and yanked the camera schematic toward him. “Which camera has the best view of those elevators?”
The tech circled his finger over the map and landed as though choosing a vacation location at random. “Thirty-one.”
“Queue it up,” Hal said. As the tech slid back to his own computer, he added, “Please.” A moment later, his phone buzzed. A text from Naomi. Call when u can.
Excusing himself, Hal tucked his notebook in his pocket and stepped into the hallway to call her back. “You find Wilson? Or Malcolm Wei?” he asked before she could speak.
“No.”
He pinched his nose at the bridge and pressed his fingertips against the tension behind his brow. His eyes burned from staring at the dim screen under the room’s dull halogen lights.
“I found something else,” she said.
Hal paced the hallway, staring at the floor as he listened.
“I searched through news in Berkeley during the time Tabitha was there.”
“And?”
“There was an incident—two girls, freshmen—assaulted at a professor’s house.”
“When?”
“It happened in April of 2004. The girls’ names aren’t listed in any of the articles, but a comment on one of them from about six months later says, ‘Come back, Bitty.’”
“Bitty,” he repeated, halting midway down the corridor. The scent of bleach still hung in the air. “Tabitha Wilson.”
“Jones back then, but yes. I’m guessing they were telling her to come back to Berkeley.”
Which she never did. He tucked the phone under his ear and pulled out his notebook.
“And according to the article, the two assault victims were roommates.”
“So the other one would have been Aleena Laughlin.”
“Saf—” Naomi started to correct him.
“Yeah, yeah, her maiden name. What else do you know? Who was the professor?”
“His name is George Ramseyer. He’s a professor of history, focused on Greco something or other.”
“Where is he now?”
“Wait,” she said, a smile in her voice.
“Sorry.” Hal forced himself to take a breath.
“Ramseyer wasn’t there for the entire school year. He was on sabbatical in Turkey or something.”
“So who was in his house?”
“He rented it out, but so far, I can’t locate the name of the renter. According to the campus police, Ramseyer didn’t have record of the renter’s name.”
“Didn’t have record of the guy who rented his house?”
“I know,” Naomi agreed. “I’m digging into it, but I’ve got the contact information on the Berkeley police officer who handled the case.”
“Good. What’s the name?” Hal asked, the adrenaline kicking in.
“His name is Richard Gambini, and I’ve got his cell phone number.”
“Damn. You work fast.”
“I’ve got my ways.” She laughed. “You have a pen?”
“Ready.” She recited the number, and he jotted it down.
“I have to warn you, he’s retired.”
“Retired is better than dead,” Hal said.
“True. I’ll keep you posted on Malcolm Wei.”
She was about to hang up when he said her name.
“Yeah?” she asked.
“You’re the best.”
“True,” she said, ending the call.
Hal dialed Richard Gambini’s cell phone number. As it rang, he thought about the incident at the college. Rape, maybe? It was the most serious crime on college campuses. And despite the efforts of campuses to keep women safe, it was way too common. He didn’t know how parents dealt with that fear.
Thankfully, he didn’t have to know.
After a few rings, the call went to voicemail. “Hello,” came a cheery voice, and Hal thought maybe Gambini had answered after all. But then he heard, “You’ve reached Richard. I’m out fishing . . .” There was a pause in the recording. “Or maybe I’m golfing. Or napping.” Another pause. “Or maybe I’m having a beer and ignoring your call. You know what to do.” And then came the long, angry beep.
Hal ended the call, clenching the phone in his hand until it felt like it might snap in half. What kind of message was that for a cop? A retired cop, but once a cop . . .
The worst part was that he hadn’t left a message, so now he had to
call back. “Damn it.” He hit “Redial” and pulled the phone from his ear as retired detective Richard Gambini repeated his list of hobbies.
Then Hal left a brief, urgent message.
“Ready to go,” the tech announced as Hal stepped back into the security room. “And I set it up for that same time stamp,” he continued. “So you should see them at the elevator . . . now.”
“Thanks,” Hal said as the screen brightened. Malcolm Wei stood in front of the elevator. The bell dinged, and Wei stepped inside. A moment later, a breathless Tabitha Wilson rounded the corner and shoved her hand into the closing door. Another hand—Wei’s—appeared, and the doors opened to allow Wilson to step inside the car.
“Now, it’s camera nine,” the tech said. “Hang on . . . Now.”
Wei and Wilson were in the elevator together. There was no indication that the two knew each other. Malcolm Wei stood in the center of the car, face forward, briefcase in his hand. He made no move to look at or engage with Tabitha Wilson.
Wilson, on the other hand, had tucked herself into the far corner of the box, dabbing her forehead with the sleeve of her blouse to mop up the perspiration that shone on her fair skin. If anything, she looked more out of place up close. In the small space of the elevator, the images were vivid, making him claustrophobic, as if he was, right then, stuck in that elevator with her.
Her lipstick, an unfortunate shade of pink, had bled into the hard lines around her mouth, and in the process of wiping away the sweat, she had smeared her mascara.
She kept a constant eye on Malcolm Wei as she dabbed her brow, eyeing him up and down. She was clearly in that elevator for him . . . but why? What did she want? At one point, he must have sensed her staring as he glanced over his shoulder. Their eyes met for a fraction of a second before Tabitha—it was becoming clear how Bitty had become her nickname—began to dig in her purse as though she’d lost something.
When they reached the twelfth floor, the doors opened. Wei surprised Hal by stepping aside to let Tabitha Wilson exit first. She did so nervously, hesitating before turning to the left. Wei stepped off and went right, and the doors began to close. But as they came together, Hal got a glimpse of Tabitha Wilson crossing in front of them, heading after Malcolm Wei.
Hal paused the recording, the backside of her right leg visible in the narrow opening between the elevator doors. Staring at the frozen image, Hal wondered what Malcolm Wei had been thinking as the elevator reached his floor. Odd, Wei stepping aside to let Tabitha Wilson exit first. Had Wei realized that she was following him? Did he let her pass to keep an eye on her? Had he been suspicious that she was going to hurt him? Had he recognized her from somewhere?
Moving aside for her might have been a gesture of chivalry, but Wei had taken the center of the car, essentially owning it for the ride. He didn’t broadcast himself as a man with chivalrous tendencies. But he had also put his hand in the doors to allow her to get on in the lobby.
So what had happened in that hotel room? Did the blood in that closet belong to Malcolm Wei? Had Tabitha Wilson attacked him? It was hard to imagine her overpowering him. He would have been stronger. But she might have had the element of surprise.
But where the hell were they?
“You said something about a burqa, right?” the tech guy asked.
Hal was pulled from his thoughts. “What?”
“I found this.” The tech rotated the monitor, and Hal saw a fuzzy image of several people on the screen.
Hal rose from his chair to get a closer look at the image. “Where is that? And when?”
“This was taken at about two p.m. yesterday.”
About an hour after Tabitha Wilson followed Wei onto the elevator.
“The footage comes from the camera at the loading dock off the receiving office,” the tech continued. “It’s actually right down the hall.” He pointed to the wall behind them. “There was a robbery a few years ago—some stuff taken from the penthouse—and I remembered this was where we ID’d the thieves. They left this same way. Hang on,” he said. “I’ll back it up to where they arrive.”
When the film played again, a slightly built man with dark hair ushered a woman in a niqab out a metal door, down a short flight of stairs, and into the alley. When they moved out of view, the tech guy said, “Again?”
“Yes,” Hal said.
They watched that twenty seconds of film four times. The woman’s face was profiled for several seconds, only her eyes visible to him. He swore there had been a flash of pale green, a bit of fair skin when the woman had turned her head. Tabitha Wilson was fair and light-eyed. But maybe he had imagined it.
And the man beside her remained a mystery. He was too tall to be Malcolm Wei, and the color of the skin on his hand—the one pressed to Tabitha Wilson’s back—was darker than Wei’s. His hair seemed about the same color—almost black—and smooth, which implied his ethnicity was something other than African American.
But Hal could tell nothing else about him.
Not even a sliver of his profile had been caught on camera.
34
Hal spent the weekend working the case. On Saturday, he heard from two of the mothers whose sons went to school with Kaelen. Neither knew why Kaelen wasn’t in school on Wednesday, and neither had spoken to Aleena—other than in passing—in the days leading up to her death. Both women suggested that if Aleena had needed Kaelen to stay the night somewhere, she’d probably asked Marcie Nielsen, whose son Nano was Kaelen’s best friend.
Hal reached Marcie midday on Saturday.
“I’m so sorry I haven’t called back,” she said in a rush of words. “I’m in total shock. And Nano is so upset.”
Nano. The name brought to mind tiny robots. He didn’t ask about its origin. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said.
“Is Kaelen doing okay? He hasn’t been at school.”
“He’s okay,” Hal said, a half-truth. How could he be okay? How would he ever be? “Did Aleena Laughlin contact you about keeping Kaelen on Tuesday night of last week?”
“She did. She’d said she would drop him off after karate, but she never came. I called and left a message, but when he wasn’t in school on Wednesday, I figured she took him with her . . . or something had changed. I didn’t hear about—” Her voice cracked. “What happened until last night.”
“Did Aleena tell you why she needed a place for Kaelen to stay on Tuesday night?”
“Sure. She’d had to work unexpectedly, and her regular person wasn’t available.”
So Aleena Laughlin had lied. The pharmacy had not been expecting her until Friday.
“How did Aleena seem when you last saw her? Was she upset or distracted?” Hal asked.
“No. Aleena was always so—” Marcie Nielsen began to cry, sniffling into the phone. “She was so positive. Even with Jared gone—at war, for God’s sake—she took it all in stride.”
Hal thought about Aleena Laughlin’s fingernails, bitten down to the quick. Schwartzman said it looked like she’d done it as recently as days before her death. “Did anything about her physical appearance change? Was she disheveled or tired?”
“A lot of us bring the kids to school in our workout stuff. Others dress for a workday, but Aleena didn’t work in the mornings, so she was always sort of casual.” She hesitated. “Maybe she was tired, but who isn’t? We’ve got young kids, and we’re all going a million miles an hour. But . . .” She made a hiccupping noise that Hal recognized for a stifled sob. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Who would want to hurt her? She was so kind, so generous . . . Was it because she was Muslim? Was it a hate crime?” Her voice grew frantic.
“There’s nothing to indicate that her death was related to her religion,” Hal said, unsure whether it was the truth. He left his number and asked that she call him if she thought of anything else Aleena might have said or done—or if anyone else at school mentioned anything.
Hal read his notes. Another lead was now a dead end.
Forcing him
self to keep at it, Hal filled his traveler cup with coffee and went to Berkeley. He started with Richard Gambini, the retired detective who had yet to return his call. Naomi had managed to get Gambini’s street address, so Hal went there first. But the retired detective wasn’t in. A UPS sticker on the door indicated a delivery had been attempted three days ago.
That did not bode well for getting to talk to Gambini anytime soon.
Next, Hal went to the Berkeley Police Department and talked to one of the old-timers. He remembered the case, but he hadn’t worked it. The university had its own police, so much of the investigation had been handled on campus. The detective did offer to let him look at the case file, if he was willing to come back after they’d had a chance to make a copy. The detective offered to mail it, but Hal said he’d come back and pick it up the next day.
There wasn’t time in this case to wait for postal service delivery.
From the station, Hal drove to the house where Tabitha Wilson and Aleena Laughlin said they’d been assaulted fourteen years earlier. The address brought him to a beautiful Berkeley home set on a hill and two stories high. Its shingles were a pale gray, the windows trimmed in white, the yard perfectly maintained. After driving past twice, Hal parked a few blocks away and walked by to take a closer look at the house. Maybe he’d go to the front door and get inside. It wouldn’t be hard to do. He could pretend he had the wrong address, act like he’d reversed a couple of numbers.
But when he approached, an older man stood in the garden in a navy bathrobe and plaid slippers. His fists on his hips, he wore a stern expression as he spoke to a younger man pruning the rosebushes. The gardener wore a faded Giants baseball hat and a pair of work pants. His T-shirt was worn. Hal wondered how long he’d worked for the older man.
“You’ve done enough damage as it is,” the old man said, taking hold of one of the stalks. “You’ve got to get right up to the dead piece and cut at exactly forty-five degrees.”
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