15th Affair Read online

  I PARKED MY car at Eleventh and Lake, a block from the apartment. It was humiliating to have to admit to being beaten by dirt bags who’d gotten clean away with it, dirt bags I couldn’t identify.

  But I was glad Brady had sent me home.

  Underneath my horrible mood was a sense that I was burying something really big and really deep. As if I’d had a profound dream of losing something. And now that I was awake, I had to figure out what I’d lost.

  I locked up the Explorer, stuck my hands in my pockets, and walked home, still limping from the pain cloaking my entire body. I looked up to see Mrs. Rose at the front door. She must have just brought Julie and Martha back from the park.

  Wow, that Gloria Rose was cute.

  She was wearing a watermelon-pink wool coat and a knitted cloche-type hat with flowers in the front. My baby girl kicked in her stroller and waved her hands and shrieked when she saw me. And Martha barked in little riffs that made me grin.

  I took back my baby and dog. Then I gave Mrs. Rose a hug and told her I’d been made to take a sick day and I’d call her later.

  Upstairs, I fixed fresh banana smoothies for baby and me. We ate in front of the TV and I made up a story of a big banana that wanted to be a smoothie. Julie seemed to think I was an awesome storyteller, and when she fell asleep on my lap, I put her in her playpen with her sock monkey.

  I switched on the TV to Bloody Airplane News, which was pretty much on all channels. Worldwide Airlines was giving a press conference and all the networks were present.

  At the podium, in front of a dark curtain, was a red-haired man, Colonel Jeff Bernard. The title under Bernard’s image said he was an aviation safety expert and former air force colonel working for NTSB.

  I amped up the sound in time to hear him say that the black boxes had been recovered and analyzed. He said the recordings told the story of a perfectly normal approach to SFO with pilots in control, no prep for an emergency landing.

  Colonel Bernard looked down at his notes, then raised his eyes again and continued.

  “We believe it’s likely that a SAM, that is to say, a portable surface-to-air heat-seeking missile, was launched within three miles of the aircraft, probably from Junipero Serra County Park. Once launched, the missile followed the heat trail to the engine on the right side of the airliner, and when it exploded, the fuel that is stored in the airliner’s wing ignited. Uh, it is my opinion that the passengers never knew what happened. Mercifully, the entire incident lasted approximately two seconds.”

  There was shouting and shoving and the camera was knocked aside. My heart was pounding as I switched channels again. Cut to a reporter out front of the WWA building who began summarizing the news, namely that the crash of WW 888 had been an act of terrorism—and that while several terrorist groups had taken credit, none of the boasts had checked out.

  I clicked on channels up and down the line, and at some point, sleep grabbed me by the shoulders and hurled me onto the sofa. When I woke up, an hour had passed and I had an idea.

  I’m pretty sure I would have had the idea sooner if I hadn’t been in denial. But the interview with Alison Muller’s husband had been nagging at me.

  If Khan was to be believed, he trusted his wife. She takes off and doesn’t call and he tells me, “She’ll be home when she’s ready.”

  Meanwhile, there are secrets in Ali’s closet, hard evidence of something that should have told Khan he didn’t know everything about Ali.

  As for me, I was pretty sure that Ali Muller was either a killer or a targeted victim, definitely not a casual bystander.

  So what was the difference between Khalid Khan and me? Both of us trusted our spouses, and maybe both of us had been willfully blind to the fact that our mates were leading double lives.

  I wasn’t buying into blind trust anymore.

  I was going to find Joe, no matter what it took.

  CHAPTER 50

  “JULIE-JULIE-JULIEEEE,” I sang.

  I picked her up, loudly kissed her stomach, and brought her with me into the master bedroom. After spreading the fluffy duvet on top of the rug, I put the kiddo down with her sock monkey and her favorite dog.

  Martha is the perfect baby minder, and the two of them were having a perfectly sensible conversation as I opened Joe’s closet door.

  Joe’s wardrobe was not as organized as the contents of Ali Muller’s closet. And it was smaller, too, your standard six-by-six closet, with upper and lower rods: jackets on the top rod, pants on the lower.

  I gathered armloads of clothing, making several trips from the closet to the bed, and when the racks were empty, I cleaned off the top shelves. I opened shoe boxes and Joe’s gun safe. His gun was gone.

  I looked in his hamper to see what clothes he’d shucked when he’d come home for clean ones a few days ago. I found only regular laundry: underwear, shirt, jeans, socks. No trace of paint, gunpowder, or lipstick was visible to my naked and angry eye. I smelled the dirty clothes. They smelled like Joe.

  I ran my hands over every inch of the closet walls. I was feeling for anomalies, for secret doors or traps. I tapped on the walls with the butt of my flashlight. The walls were solid. I lifted the carpet for good measure and found only a mess of dog hair in the corners.

  Next I went through all of Joe’s pockets and checked the linings. I shook out his boots and put my fingers deep into his shoes. Nada.

  I tossed Joe’s clothes onto the closet floor and shut the door. Then I went to his dresser, where I did a similarly thorough frisking of his shirts and underwear. I not only emptied the drawers but also checked for false bottoms and examined the undersides.

  After I’d looked between the mattress and box spring and under the nightstands, I remembered that I was dealing with a man who’d been trained by the FBI. If Joe didn’t want something found, it wouldn’t be found.

  But still, I couldn’t stop.

  I picked up Julie and her sock monkey, whistled to Martha, and went into the back bedroom, which Joe used as an office. It was small, about nine by twelve. He had a desk under the one window facing Twelfth Avenue, a swivel chair, and a stand-alone bookshelf.

  The desk was locked, so I got the key from where it was taped under the bathroom sink. Not that I’m so smart. He’d showed me where he kept it.

  I returned to the back bedroom, opened the desk, and looked immediately for his laptop—and of course, it was gone. So were his iPad and his computer bag, and since the days of datebooks are long gone, I found nothing telling.

  There were no cryptic notes on the pad next to the phone and no numbers in or on his desk.

  But I remembered a couple of names from Joe’s recent past.

  I called Brooks Findlay, Joe’s former employer. Findlay is a real shit who had hired Joe to draft security procedures for the Port of LA. Then, without cause or reason, he fired him. We figured Findlay had canned Joe because by doing a great job, Joe was making Findlay look bad.

  Joe had given Findlay an elegant FU the last time he spoke with him, and Findlay had no reason to help me—but it was a place to start.

  Findlay didn’t answer his own phone, but the woman who took a message said he’d be back in the office after lunch. I used the time to empty the bookshelves, flap open every book, and run my hand over the shelves.

  And I made other calls. I spoke with three federal agents I’d worked with on cases where the SFPD and federal law enforcement crossed paths. I didn’t expect much, and that’s what I got. No one had heard from Joe or knew what he was working on or where he was.

  Then Findlay’s name lit up the caller ID.

  I told Findlay I hadn’t heard from Joe in a few days. That the last I’d heard, he was doing a freelance job for San Francisco International Airport having to do with the crash. Did Findlay have any information on that?

  “I haven’t heard from Joe and I haven’t heard about him, either. I don’t think you know who you’re married to, Lindsay.”

  I suddenly understood the expression
“My blood ran cold.”

  I told Findlay thanks and good-bye—I think. I became aware of the beeping busy signal as I held the phone next to my side.

  I disconnected the line, used the bathroom, washed my face, gulped some Advil, and tried to think. There was one name and phone number I hated to call, but it was time.

  Her number was stored on my phone from nine months ago when she’d come to SF to drop off a gift for our new baby. Her name was June Freundorfer and she was Joe’s old girlfriend, still with the FBI, DC Office.

  I called June.

  She answered on the first ring.

  CHAPTER 51

  I WAS DRESSED and caffeinated when my sister, Catherine, arrived from Half Moon Bay with her two little girls and an air mattress. I was glad to see them, very darned happy to turn my household over to Julie’s aunt and cousins.

  I had cleared two days off with Brady, and my cab was waiting. I kissed everyone hello and good-bye at my door, grabbed my bag, and ran down the stairs.

  The driver kept the radio on throughout the drive to the airport. I knew the news cold, but I listened again as reporters talked about San Franciscans in a panic. It had been bad enough when the news of the crash of WW 888 had centered on the body count and the tragic stories. Since then, the story had evolved and expanded and was now being billed as the worst terror attack on US soil since 9/11. And so far, no person, no group, no country had been identified as the terrorists.

  I boarded the 10:15 a.m. Virgin America flight to Dulles International on the theory that terrorists wouldn’t strike two airliners in one week, a theory that held no water at all. All the passengers were putting on brave faces, and when the nice man to my right offered me a sleep aid, I took it.

  Seven hours after leaving San Francisco, I was in the darkly lit bar at the tony Hotel George, waiting for June Freundorfer to appear. I had a small table, a bowl of nuts, a watery wine spritzer, and a ton of trepidation.

  I remembered a time not so long ago when a picture of June, dark-haired and glamorous in a full-length gown, and Joe, completely dashing in a tux, had turned up in the online Style section of the Washington Post. Joe was still commuting to DC at the time, and when I showed him the photo, he insisted that he and June were just friends and that he had escorted her to a benefit. That was all.

  I’d taken it badly.

  June was gorgeous. Furthermore, she had once been Joe’s partner in the FBI. She was promoted to the FBI’s Washington field office about the same time Joe was hired as deputy director of Homeland Security, also in DC.

  Both single, they’d dated for a while back in the day, but I hadn’t asked Joe for details. Not long after Julie was born, June had come to visit, unannounced, and had brought a baby gift in a robin’s-egg-blue box tied with a white ribbon.

  I’d thanked her, and as soon as she was out of sight, I’d dumped the unopened gift into the trash. I didn’t want to see her, know her, or give the Tiffany’s rattle or whatever it was to Julie.

  Now I was going to have to see June again. And this time, I was going begging. She said she had information for me but wouldn’t speak further on the phone. And that was how I came to be waiting for her at a hotel bar three thousand miles from home.

  I was about to order another drink when I saw her coming through the room. She was in a shimmering gray suit, diamonds at her throat, perfect wavy hair—the kind of look I admired but couldn’t easily pull off.

  There was just too much street cop in me.

  Joe’s former partner and ex-girlfriend, high up in the FBI pecking order and currently whatever she was to Joe, came over to me. She said, “Lindsay, it’s good to see you.” I stood up and she gave me a fragrant air kiss.

  I thanked her for making time for me.

  “You sounded worried,” she said. “I would be worried, too.”

  Holy crap. What did that mean?

  The waiter pulled out her chair, and when we were both seated, June ordered a glass of club soda and a Jack Daniel’s on the rocks. Jack Daniel’s was Joe’s drink.

  When she turned back to me, she said, “I only have fragments of information for you, but it may be worth something.”

  The waiter put the drinks down in front of June and she pushed the whiskey over to my side of the table.

  “This is for you,” she said.

  CHAPTER 52

  I SIPPED AT the two iced fingers of Jack to be polite, but not only did I want to hear from June, I wanted to be able to assess whether she was being straight with me or jerking me around. She put her phone on the table.

  “I’m waiting for a call,” she said.

  Then she leaned in.

  “Joe was involved in some heavy stuff, Lindsay.”

  Was?

  “When you met him he was with Homeland Security, right?”

  I nodded. A group of six people came into the bar and the maître d’ led them to a table about ten feet away. The group settled in noisily, laughing, their chairs scraping the floor.

  I said, “He’d just been appointed deputy director.”

  June said, “Well, as you know, he had been with the FBI before that, DC Bureau, but it isn’t commonly known that right out of college and for the following ten years, Joe was CIA.”

  “What? He…never told me.” Was that true?

  “Nor me. But it’s come to my attention recently. Do you know the name Alison Muller? Sometimes she goes by Alison Khan. Sometimes by Sonja Dietrich.”

  Yes, indeed. I pictured Ali Muller with her Gucci shades and slow-motion blond hair. Then Joe flashed onto the flat-screen in my mind.

  I said, “Ali Muller showed up on security footage around the time of a quadruple homicide last week.”

  June said, “I thought so. She was seen by our people, but not positively identified. I have to ask you to keep this between us, Lindsay. I could get in very deep trouble, but look. Joe is missing and I know you must be in hell.”

  I nodded dumbly as June said, “Joe and Muller worked together in the CIA.”

  “They did? Worked together how?”

  “This is what I know,” said June Freundorfer, tugging on her diamond necklace. “Muller sets what’s called, in the trade, honey traps. She uses her, um, appeal, to entice her subject, get close, and once she’s learned what she needs, she’s gone.

  “Joe was her superior, I think. At any rate, they were an effective team. Muller had connections to foreign ministers, foreign intelligence operatives, military leaders—you wouldn’t believe the names. She’s not only brought in actionable information, she’s turned enemies into defectors to our side. She’s kind of a legend in the CIA.”

  I must have been blinking like a bat under a bright light. I was trying to process information that just didn’t compute. Joe. Managing a Mata Hari for the CIA? No. No way. June could be making this up, but why would she? I thought she was being sincere. Maybe she really could help me. I had to ask.

  “June. Is she working with Joe now?”

  “I don’t know, Lindsay. But you should know that it’s not impossible. Alison and Joe were close.”

  There was a lot of static in my head. “Close.” Meaning sexually. Romantically. Joe and that blond flytrap. I could actually picture that.

  “I’m just guessing,” June said, “but maybe his relationship with Alison Muller got out of hand. Maybe that’s why he moved over from the CIA to the FBI. This is speculation built on rumor—but then, that’s my stock in trade.”

  I took a swig of the whiskey and coughed most of it up. June handed me a cocktail napkin, and as I dabbed at my face and the table, she said, “Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

  “No. But I’m almost completely in the dark.”

  Not just dark, pitch freaking black. I remembered what the horrible Brooks Findlay had said to me: “I don’t think you know who you’re married to, Lindsay.”

  Wasn’t that the truth?

  June said, “To your knowledge, when was the last time anyone saw Alison Muller?
”

  I told June that the video featuring Alison Muller was shot Monday a week ago.

  “And the last time you saw Joe?”

  “I saw him on surveillance video that was shot the next day.”

  June sighed and sat back hard.

  I managed to ask, “Is Joe alive?”

  “I don’t know,” June said. “He hasn’t answered my calls. Look. I have a name for you. John Carroll. He used to go by the tag Number Six, because that was his number on our CO’s speed dial.”

  June laughed.

  “Funny guy. He was my mentor at the time, and he knew both Joe and Alison before he retired. He may still be in touch with Alison or know someone who is. You can trust him.”

  She wrote a name and number down on the cocktail napkin, then answered her phone. When she clicked off, she said, “I’ve got to go. Good luck, Lindsay. Call me if you need to talk.”

  CHAPTER 53

  THAT MORNING’S THREE a.m. wake-up call had nothing to do with Julie. It was utterly silent in my big hotel room, but my mind was far away and it was very busy.

  I ran my memories of Joe in fast forward, picturing him when I’d first met him. How he looked. How impressed I was with the way he worked our case. How smart and funny and solid he was. I tried to skip over the first time we made love, but the pictures took up a whole room in my mind.

  My apartment. Our second date. Even now, as scared and as angry as I was, I could still feel the chemistry.

  After that, Joe flew across the country to see me, time upon time. And then he left DC and his job and moved to San Francisco so that we could get off the roller coaster of bicoastal relating. That was meaningful. Job vs. Lindsay. He chose me. And I couldn’t have loved my big handsome lover more.

  When my apartment on Potrero Hill burned to the ground, Joe said, “Move in with me.”

  I did it.

  I thought about the fights we’d had, and how he’d walk us back down. I liked that he was older than me, and I saw a good husband and father in his values and his manner and his actions.