Stephen Knight - White Tiger

“Detective Raymond. This is Detective Sergeant Ryker.” He said it for Wallace’s benefit. “The room service guy brought a breakfast trolley to the scene at zero-eight-hundred. It sat outside the door for twenty minutes. Nobody was in the mood for scrambled eggs, someone took it away. Find out who, and what happened to the trolley.”

“How important is this?” Raymond asked.

Ryker sensed he had the attention of everyone in the squad room. “It’s looking like the killer sneaked out when the room service guy wasn’t looking, and hid in his trolley until other people arrived. At an opportune moment, she just up and walked away while wearing a hotel blazer. Talk to Klein. We’re looking for fingerprints, trace, DNA.”

“She?”

“I’d say somewhere between five-zero and five-six, ninety to one-twenty pounds.” Bigger wouldn’t fit the trolley. “When she climbed out she was wearing the blazer and black pants. Perfect camouflage for the terrain.”

“She could be an employee,” Spider said softly.

Ryker didn’t respond; just as equally the killer could be impersonating an employee. He told Raymond, “She knew the position of the security camera. We’re missing a shot of her face.”

He waited a few seconds, wondering if Raymond would get it, and he wasn’t disappointed. “So she stayed in the suite with the body until morning? Jesus.”

“Yep, she was in there all night, until the room service guy opened the door.” Ryker glanced at Spider, who shook his head in disbelief. “She knew Danny Lin had booked a wake-up call and breakfast. She might already have been hiding in the suite when he called room service. How long was the suite empty before Danny Lin arrived? Who had access? Find out. We know the killer has patience. Maybe we need to go further back with the tapes. Related subject. Hotel lobby security, from eight-twenty to eight-thirty. If anyone came downstairs and exited the hotel during that time frame, I want a Kodak moment. Also check with staff, see if anyone’s missing some clothes, ask if they can remember when the clothes walked, who might have been around, anything.”

“It’s my sister’s kid’s birthday next week, she’s seven years old. She’s having a party. I’d like to go, if that’s okay.”

Raymond’s unveiled sarcasm slapped him hard. He did his best not to smile, which wasn’t easy with Spider standing there. “I’m with Lieutenant Furino. We’ll see about sending some cavalry. Get things moving, Sandra.”

“Will do.” She hung up before he did.

“So what have we gained?” Spider asked.

Ryker stopped the video. “Maybe a face, if we’re lucky. Maybe someone will remember something. The more questions we ask, the more chance of getting an answer. I’m putting Morales in with Raymond.” Maybe that would put a smile on Morales’s sour face. Ryker remembered something else. “There were a couple of Bay area cops at the hotel when we got there. Jackson. And Blacque, spelled with a ‘q.’“ Jesus, maybe my memory isn’t so bad after all. “Can you give their boss a courtesy call, ask if they can drop by the hotel?”

“I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”

“You arranged cover for Chee Wei?”

“It’s solid,” Spider said. “But if that hooker hasn’t opened her mouth this time tomorrow, we deal the cards another way. I’m bent over my desk on this one. Pants around my ankles.”

“Hell of a picture, lou,” Ryker said.

Spider grimaced as if he didn’t like the mental image either. “You heading back to the Mandarin?”

“It’s the place to be. Then I’m going to pay Valerie Lin a visit, see what falls out of the tree when I shake it.”

Spider motioned with his head and Ryker followed him into his office, closing the door as soon as they were inside. Spider settled in his chair and said, “What’s to be gained by hassling James Lin’s daughter-in-law?”

Ryker had never thought Spider was the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he didn’t think he was totally stupid either. Nonetheless he spelled it out. “That video increases doubt over the Zhu woman’s being the murderer. Like it or not-and I don’t-Valerie Lin is similar in size to whoever hid in that breakfast trolley.”

“Hold on. You’re forgetting she has a witness who swears she was home. The housekeeper. It’s in the report.” He tapped a folder on his desk. “The original’s in the murder book. The phone records checked out too. It’s just like she said, she was calling her sister in China when Danny Lin joined his illustrious ancestors. For your information, we had to request authorization via the chief’s office before we could pull those records.”

“Her sister-in-law,” Ryker corrected him.

Spider opened the report and flipped a couple of pages. “My mistake, not hers. Seems like anything to do with the Lin family has to be cleared by a couple of security agencies. You see where I’m going with this?”

“The housekeeper is a loyal family servant who’d swear Valerie Lin was playing Gypsy Rose Lee on Broadway at the time of the murder, if she was ordered to. Meanwhile, Valerie Lin drove to the hotel with her favorite chopping knife.”

Spider made a show of looking around the room. “What is this, Candid Fucking Camera ? Let’s keep it sane, okay? Mrs. Lin is not, repeat not , to be hounded by you at this or any other time. She’s a grieving widow, for Christ’s sake.”

“I’m aware of that, and I didn’t say I was going to hound her.”

“Sounded pretty much like it to me.” Spider drummed his fingers on his desk top. “Leave Valerie Lin alone. For the moment, anyway. I’ll talk to Captain Jericho, see what he says. Best I can do, Hal.”

Ryker thanked him and retreated gracefully. He intended to raise the subject again first thing in the morning, unless they got another break through Chee Wei or from the hotel video.

As if he were telepathic, Chee Wei called at that very moment to report they’d arrived safely at Xiaohui’s sister’s apartment. “I’m pretty sure we weren’t followed, and there’s nothing suspicious in the street. I’m looking out the window now.”

“Outstanding. How’s Princess Xiaohui?”

Chee Wei chuckled. “Happy to be with her family. She talked about getting some more stuff from her own apartment. I told her I didn’t think that was a good idea. The sister says she’ll call one of her cousins, ask them to pick it up.”

Ryker checked his watch. “I make it three-twenty. What say we skip the three-thirty call and make it four o’clock? Thereafter every thirty minutes. When Debbie goes home you call me.”

“Ten-four, mother hen.”

Ryker looked for Morales. Debbie Price was in the process of hanging up after a telephone call when Ryker approached her desk and said, “Hey Debbie, have you seen Detective Morales?”

“He’s a little down today,” Debbie said. She’d straightened her curly red hair and added blonde highlights. The overall effect made her look ten pounds lighter and ten years younger. Ryker wondered if she might have her eye on someone, and realized that someone could well be Luis Morales, given Debbie’s preference for Latino men. Relationships between squad members were discouraged for perfectly logical reasons, but clerical staff weren’t cops, which meant that technically they weren’t part of whatever squad they happened to be assigned to. “I saw him at the end of the hall. He didn’t even notice me.”

“That’s hard to believe. Hair’s looking nice, by the way.”

Ryker stepped out into the hallway. Sure enough Morales stood by the window at the far end, by the stairs, toying with a Styrofoam coffee cup. He glanced over his shoulder as Ryker approached.