Sadie folded the pictures and put them in her purse, then asked the valet to help her get a taxi since the streets and sidewalks were already full of people rushing to work. As the cab pulled away from the hotel a minute later, she admitted to herself that she’d hoped the note she’d slid under Pete’s door would result in his calling her and wanting to talk about a breakthrough realization he’d had during the night. But it had been half an hour, and he hadn’t called. She reminded herself that Pete needed to do whatever Pete needed to do. Sadie needed to do the same. Tomorrow she would fly back to Colorado and confront what may or may not be the next step in her relationship with Pete. Today, she needed to focus on what had happened to her sister.
The taxi dropped her off at Wendy’s apartment building, and she let herself in. The clock on her phone showed that it wasn’t yet 9:00 in the morning, and though she disliked the idea of bothering people so early, she’d already accepted that she had a better chance of finding the tenants at home at this time of day. She really needed to talk to all of them if she wanted to verify that Min and Ji had told her the truth about when they’d been to Wendy’s apartment building. She approached apartment one and knocked.
A woman dressed in sweaty workout clothes pulled the door open. Sadie could hear the voice of Tony Horton in the background, and she wondered to herself which P90X workout the woman was doing. Sadie explained who she was and that she was trying to reconstruct what had happened to her sister.
The woman—Stacey—confirmed that she hadn’t been home when the fire happened, that she’d never really met Wendy, and that she had lived there for just five months. “I didn’t even know her name until after the fire.”
“Did you, by chance, ever see a Chinese girl around the apartment building?”
Stacey leveled her with a look that made Sadie review what she’d just said. “I believe you mean Asian, and there are a lot of Asians in this city.”
Actually, Min was Chinese, so Sadie wasn’t being politically incorrect by stating it that way, but she was embarrassed by the way the woman had interpreted the question. “This girl was seen inside the building—one of the tenants reported—”
Stacey put one hand on her hip. “Someone reported an Asian in our building?” she said with sarcastic concern. “By all means, let’s call the border patrol.”
“Ma’am,” Sadie said, wishing her red face wasn’t betraying her embarrassment. “I think you’re misinterpreting me. What I’m trying to establish is if you saw her here after May twelfth—inside the building, I mean. There were a couple of times that—”
Stacey didn’t let her finish. Instead, she cut off Sadie with a lecture on bigotry and ethnic stereotyping while Tony Horton yelled “Bring it!” in the background. When she finished her diatribe, she shut the door in Sadie’s face.
Sadie blinked at the closed door and raised a hand to her hot cheeks. She sighed and turned toward apartment two, reviewing how she’d said things to Stacey in order to make sure she didn’t give Jason the same impression. It wasn’t prejudicial to point out someone’s ethnicity, was it? And Stacy hadn’t even answered the question about Min or given Sadie the chance to ask about Ji. The day hadn’t started off very well. Sadie could feel the uncertainty of what she was doing and why she was doing it begin to creep up on her. Why had she even come to San Francisco?
The smile Jason gave her when he opened the door went a long way to calm her fraying nerves. They’d only talked one other time, but she felt as though they were friends.
“Hi again,” he said.
“Hi, Jason.” Sadie wished she felt comfortable enough to ask him for a hug. She could use a hug about now. “I was wondering if I could ask you a couple more questions.”
“Sure. Would you like to come in?”
“Oh, I don’t want to intrude,” Sadie said, though she appreciated the offer. Maybe not everyone hated her. She held out Min’s picture. “Pete talked to you yesterday about the girl you saw around the apartment last winter—can you verify if this is her?”
Jason looked at the picture and cocked his head to the side. “I think so,” he said. “You know who she is then?”
“Yeah,” Sadie said. “But I needed to be sure. Also, do you, by chance, remember if you ever saw her here after the twelfth of May?”
“Oh gosh,” Jason said, making a face and shaking his head slowly. “I really can’t be sure—that was almost two months ago.”
Sadie frowned and put the photo back in her purse. “I know,” she said, discouraged. She pulled out Ji’s printed picture. “Have you ever seen him before?”
Jason’s expression reflected sympathetic concern. “Um, I met him yesterday when he gave me the keys to Wendy’s apartment.”
“Oh yeah,” Sadie said. “Um, before last week, though, had you ever seen him here in the building?”
Jason looked at the picture again, seemed to think hard about it, and then looked up at Sadie. “I didn’t.”
“Oh good,” Sadie said, relieved as she returned the picture to her purse.
“Good?”
She glanced at Jason and realized she’d spoken out loud. “Oh, yeah, I’m trying to confirm that he’d never been here before Wendy’s death.”
“You think he might have had something to do with it?”
“No,” Sadie said quickly. “I just want to confirm that he didn’t. Does that make sense?”
“Sure,” Jason said, but she had a feeling he was humoring her just a little. “Does this have anything to do with the Asian girl?” He waved toward Sadie’s purse where she’d put the photo of Min.
“Yeah, well, sorta.”
“Ya know, after I talked to your friend—Pete?”
Sadie nodded and Jason continued. “I asked Damon about her, and he’d seen her too—several times.”
“Damon?” Sadie wondered if he was the tenant in apartment four that she hadn’t met yet.
“He’s my roommate,” Jason explained. “He usually gets home around four o’clock in the afternoons, and he said that he’d seen her several times just as he was coming in. I’m assuming it’s the same girl. Since he saw her more than I did, I wondered if that was her regular time to visit. He didn’t ever talk to her, though, but he saw her coming and going by way of the stairs, so she was definitely here for someone on the higher floors.”
“That’s excellent information,” Sadie said, glad to have another account and hoping it would work toward confirming when Min had stopped visiting Wendy. “I wonder if he would remember if he saw her after May twelfth?”
“He might, but when I talked to him, he also mentioned that he’d run into an Asian woman in June—not long before the fire, I guess.”
For an instant time stopped, then Sadie remembered herself. “A woman?” Sadie only knew one Asian woman in this city who had ties to Wendy.
“Yeah. At first he thought it was the girl again but then realized that this lady was older.”
“And he saw her in June? Before the fire?”
Jason nodded.
“Did he tell the police?”
“He said he hadn’t thought about her until I asked him about the Asian girl. You know how things spark a memory sometimes.”
Sadie nodded; she knew that all too well. “Did he notice anything about her that might help me figure out who she is?”
“I didn’t ask him anything about that,” Jason said with a frown, then pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. “I could call him real quick though.”
“Really? That would be wonderful.” Jason invited her in to his apartment again and this time she accepted, but she was glad he left the door open. She had no reason to suspect Jason, but it was easier to trust him with an open door at her back.
The apartment was like Wendy’s but more masculine in décor. Sadie assumed it was a one-bedroom apartment since there was only one door leading off the common area. Something smelled wonderful—lots better than the stale granola bar Sadie had eaten in place of breakfast.
Jason picked up his cell phone and dialed a number. The creak of the ceiling caused Sadie to look up. Jason noticed and shrugged as though apologizing for what Sadie assumed were footsteps of the upstairs neighbor. That was something Wendy’s apartment didn’t have—upstairs neighbors.
When Damon answered his phone, Jason explained what Sadie was looking for and then handed the phone to her. Damon had a rich, radio-announcer-type voice with a slight effeminate drawl to it. After some quick introductions, she repeated her questions about the mystery Asian woman he’d seen.
“Uh, let’s see, she had her hair up in a bun—those dancer-types, right on top of her head—but she was dressed in black slacks that didn’t fit and an oversized black T-shirt. She could have rocked something a little more formfitting, if you ask me.”
“You’re sure it wasn’t the same girl you’d seen before?”
“Well, I thought it was her at first, but I always saw that girl in the afternoons and this was in the morning. And then, here’s the thing—” He sounded hesitant to continue as he stopped for a breath. “There’s nothin’ wrong with a lady getting some hair color to amp up what God gave her, ain’t nobody going to get judgment from me about that, but it’s got to be maintained, and the lady I saw coming off the elevator had a solid half an inch of regrowth. Not all gray, mind you, but enough that you could see the color line.”
Bun.
Black slacks and oversized shirt.
It had to be Lin Yang!
Sadie’s brain tried to reject the possibility—it was so . . . complex a thing to consider. “So, there’s no way it was the same girl you and Jason had seen earlier in the year?”
“No,” Damon said with a laugh. “Though, at the risk of having this sound all kinds of wrong, there was something about them that looked the same. Not just race or anything, more like . . . related. Oh, my mama would shoot me if she heard me say that!”
Sadie felt her hand tighten on the phone. “Jason said you saw her before the fire. Are you sure about that? And do you know when?”
“I can’t remember the exact day. Maybe it was the day before the fire, maybe two. I usually have to be at the office by seven—I work East Coast hours—but I was going in late that day, so it would have been closer to 9:00. Actually . . . hold on, let me check my online calendar.”
“Thank you,” Sadie said while she waited for him.
“Okay, yep, here it is—it was the twenty-third, the Wednesday before the fire.”
The fire had been set early on the following Friday morning—so, two days after Damon had seen her.
How had Lin Yang gotten into the building?
“Can I ask why you’re so interested in this woman?” Damon asked on the phone, drawing Sadie’s attention back to him. “I’d forgotten all about her until Jason asked me about the girl.”
Exactly, Sadie thought to herself. Just like Pete said, evidence breaks down and people forget what they’d seen as time continues on. “I’m just trying to cover all the bases,” Sadie said, choosing to be vague. “And I appreciate your help so much. Could I ask you a couple more questions?”
“Sure. What else can I help you with?”
What nice young men. Sadie asked if he could remember whether he’d seen Min after May twelfth.
“I don’t think so,” Damon said. “It seems like the last time I saw her was in April.”
“And what about an Asian man?”
“The one who brings the dry cleaning?”
“Uh, I don’t think so.” How could she get him to see Ji’s picture? She thought of her phone in her purse. “Hang on—could I send you a picture of the man I’m asking about?”
Damon agreed, and with Jason’s help, Sadie texted the photo to Damon’s phone.
“I think I just got it. Hold on a sec.”
Sadie waited, counting slowly so as not to be too anxious. Within a few seconds Damon came back on the line. “Not him,” he said. “The guy that picks up the dry cleaning is older and rounder. I’ve never seen this guy.”
Sadie was relieved. “Thank you. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all this.”
“You bet,” Damon said. “I hope you find what you’re looking for.”
The comment was bigger than he could possibly know as Wendy, Min, Ji, and Pete came to Sadie’s mind in an instant. She was looking for—or hoping for—many things regarding those four people. Would she find the answers and assurance she needed? Did they even exist? She felt unbidden tears come to her eyes, another symptom of how poorly she’d slept and how emotionally draining the last few days had been. “Thank you,” she said in a soft voice.
They ended the call, and she handed the phone to Jason, who was watching her closely. “Are you okay?” he asked as he set the phone on the counter.
“I’m fine,” Sadie said, embarrassed as she wiped at the tears that hadn’t fallen. “I just have a lot going on right now.”
Jason nodded with a sympathetic frown. “Have you had breakfast already? I made a frittata, but without Damon here to share it with me, I’ll end up throwing too much of it out.”
Sadie sniffled one more time. “You have a frittata? What kind?”
Chapter 26
Jason made a lovely asparagus and ham frittata. Sadie enjoyed it thoroughly and thanked him over and over. After she’d insisted on washing her own dishes, he walked her to the door and she got that hug she’d wanted earlier. It went a long way to refuel her energy levels. He wished her luck, and she thanked him for being just what she’d needed this morning.
Once he closed the door behind her, she considered her next move. She was already here at the apartment building and hadn’t talked to Shasta or the tenant in apartment four about Min and Ji. But clearly she needed to talk to Ji—and follow up on Lin Yang.
She vacillated for a moment, then headed to the stairs and walked up to the second floor. She couldn’t decide whether she wanted to talk to Shasta or the unknown tenant in apartment four first but decided to start with Shasta. Maybe she could fill her in on the neighbor Sadie hadn’t met yet. She knocked and waited for a solid twenty seconds for her to answer before she knocked again.
Disappointed but not dissuaded, she went to apartment four and knocked. She was grateful when she felt the vibrations of footsteps coming to answer her knock, but then glanced back at Shasta’s apartment. She thought back to the footsteps she’d heard from the ceiling in Jason’s apartment, which was directly beneath apartment four. Shasta’s, on the other hand, was directly beneath Wendy’s. Wouldn’t she have noticed when there were no footsteps overhead for an entire month?
The opening of the door recaptured Sadie’s attention, and she faced forward, remembered what she was doing here, and put a smile on her face. The woman was in her forties, dressed in jeans and a baggy sweater. Sadie introduced herself and explained her connection to Wendy. Carmen was a freelance writer who worked from home. She’d lived there for nearly a year and only knew Wendy through the letters of complaint Wendy had brought around.
“Mr. Pilings is what I call a corporate landlord. He prefers that we just pay the rent, without being bothered by the human lives living under the roofs he repairs only when he has to.” She rolled her eyes. “I’ve talked to Mario about some of the response time to issues, and he told me that he’s the sole person responsible for maintaining four different buildings. Four! I think that’s ridiculous so, yeah, I threw in with Wendy, but we didn’t hang out or anything like that.”
Sadie smiled conciliatorily and launched into her questions about Ji and his family—a bit awkwardly, she thought—but the woman transitioned with her. Carmen had never seen Min before, didn’t recognize Ji other than having seen him over the last weekend, and had no knowledge of an Asian woman.
“Is that all?” she asked as Sadie returned the pictures to her purse.
Sadie started to nod, but then remembered the creaking ceiling from Jason’s apartment. “Uh, one last thing—there isn’t anyone living above you rig
ht now, is there?”
“Nope, it’s been empty since last month.”
“Before, when that apartment was occupied, could you hear the tenant’s footsteps when they were walking around?”
Carmen nodded. “I would have loved to sign one of Wendy’s petitions about the squeaky floors, but of course that wasn’t an issue for her so she never brought it up.”
“So it’s pretty loud.”
“The gal that lived above me—graduate student.” She rolled her eyes again. “I think she did Zumba and, man, it was ob-nox-ious. It’s been very nice to have a break. I don’t even have to wear my noise-canceling headphones. If it weren’t a studio up there I’d probably move up there just to get away from having someone on top of me again.”
Sadie thanked Carmen for her help before heading back to the main floor. She wished Shasta was home right now—she’d sure like to know why she didn’t notice when the sound above her stopped—but maybe Sadie could come back later. Right now, she needed to have a conversation with Ji that wasn’t the kind that could be done over the phone.
It was a relief to be able to check Min and Ji off her list of suspects though; no one had said anything that contradicted what the two of them had told Sadie about their comings and goings from the apartment. All her focus could go to Lin Yang. She wanted to call Pete and talk all of this out, but she refused to force herself into his sphere right now.
Sadie didn’t want to think about how much money she’d spent on cab fare the last few days but made a mental note to stop at the next ATM she encountered to refill her cash reserves. For now, though, she told the cab driver to take her to Choy’s on Sacramento Street in Chinatown, then settled back into the seat and pulled out her phone in order to give Ji a heads up. That Ji lived above the restaurant made it easy to know where to start.
Fortune Cookie (Culinary Mystery) Page 22