The gas line was located on the right side of the house, along the tiny pathway that led to the backyard. I heard no hissing and didn’t smell anything. Everything seemed intact.
I could hear voices on the other side of the tall hedge that separated our property from that of our neighbors, John and Michi O’Brien. They were a fortyish couple who moved in two years after we did. They had a little girl, Shelby, about the same age as my Lucy.
“Everyone okay over there?” I called out.
“We’re fine,” I heard John call back. “Just a lot of broken stuff. You guys all right?”
“We’re all accounted for. Just surveying the damage.”
As we continued toward the backyard, I looked for the obvious visual damage and paid attention to any small signs that the house might have been separated from its foundation. We have a small concrete slab just outside of the enclosed porch in the back. A large crack ran down the middle of it. A few more potted plants on the back porch had toppled. The anchor in our backyard was a tall pine tree. Pinecones littered the lawn, but all of its branches were still intact.
We returned to the front of the house where we found most of our neighbors were also outside checking for damage to their homes. A few had gathered on the footpath near the front of my property. Most of them were long-time residents of the city.
They were making comparisons to the Loma Prieta quake in 1989—the worst quake the city had experienced since the big one in 1906. The one thing everyone talked about and vividly remembered was the collapse of the Cypress Street Viaduct, a two-tier freeway. A section of the upper deck had completely collapsed onto the lower level, crushing cars and killing forty-two people. That was a prime example of a pancake collapse. Everyone who remained inside their vehicles had been crushed. Had they gotten out and laid or sat on the side of their cars, they would have survived.
The Osakas, who lived across the street, were telling us about the apartment they lived in during that time, how part of their exterior wall had crumbled. Partway through their dialogue, the aftershock hit.
The kids freaked. I caught Ryan’s arm and stopped him from running around like a chicken without a head. I moved the kids and Po Po to the middle of the yard, away from tree branches and electrical lines, and we rode it out. Two more aftershocks struck in the following forty-minute period. By then, no one really wanted to venture back into the house.
It took another three hours for power to be restored to our area. When it had, I turned on the TV. Channel 5 was reporting that the epicenter was located in Bodega Bay along a section of the San Andreas Fault system. Early reports from California Institute of Technology said the quake registered a 4.5 on the Richter scale. Big enough to scare the crap out of people and cause damage, but not enough to be deadly like the 6.9 quake in ’89. We got lucky.
Footage of the damage had begun to flow into the media outlets. There were a couple of partial building collapses, mostly old structures. No residential buildings. Two deaths were reported, elderly people who’d suffered heart attacks. Most of the damage reported was superficial: crumbled chimneys, a few downed power lines, cracks in sidewalks, and whatnot. No fires, thankfully. Three days of uncontrollable fire was what really destroyed eighty percent of San Francisco in 1906.
The media also reported that, if people did observe structural damage in their homes, to call the numbers of city-approved engineering firms to assess the soundness of the building. A citywide closure of all schools had also been issued, obviously, until they could survey the structures for damage. The kids would have the next few days off. I would have kept them home anyway.
We spent the rest of the day cleaning up the mess. Ryan and Lucy were responsible for tackling their bedrooms. Po Po took over the kitchen, her domain. I handled the sitting and dining room plus my office on the third floor. The media room, opposite my office, had no broken objects. Our neighbor John came over and helped me move the hutch to the sidewalk out front.
All in all, the earthquake could have been worse. I was thankful that it wasn’t.
Chapter 5
Inspector David Lee stood with his hands on his hips as he craned his neck to look up at the building. By the time he’d arrived at the crime scene, the sun had set and the building had become a dark shell. There wasn’t much to see from his vantage point. CSI had yet to arrive, but Lee was eager to take a peek at the remains still embedded in the foundation of the building.
“No one leaves until we have their contact information. And get the property taped off,” he said to the officers around him. “I want to keep the number of people tweeting pictures to a minimum.”
Lee had already questioned the worker who had actually discovered the remains, and the two of them were waiting for the project manager before heading up to the fifth floor.
“Here, put this on,” Wang said by way of introduction as he walked up and thrust a hard hat into Lee’s hands. “We’ll have to take the stairs.”
“That’s fine.”
The three of them headed inside the building, the light from their flashlights crisscrossing as they walked.
“Is it safe?” Lee inquired when they were halfway up the stairwell.
“Yes, of course,” Wang said. “How do you think my men get up to the top? This type of demolition doesn’t affect the structure of the building on the lower floors, just the floor that’s currently being worked on.”
“Okay, then let me clarify. Is the fifth floor safe to be walking on?”
“Relax.”
On the fifth floor, the worker who discovered the body took navigational duties and led them to the wall. “Here it is,” he said, pointing his light at it. “You see? That’s the skeleton.” The beam of light traced what appeared to be a leg bone bent at the knee.
Lee moved in for a closer look, adding the beam from his flashlight for further clarity. It quickly became clear to him that these were indeed human remains. What he couldn’t tell was whether the body had been dismembered. Only parts of the skeleton were visible while the rest was still hidden inside of the concrete. Only chipping away at the cement would reveal the truth.
Footsteps approached. Another man, wearing a hard hat and carrying a flashlight, appeared from the dark stairwell.
Lee spun around and held a hand out in front. “Sir, I’ll have to ask you to stop right there, turn around, and exit this building. This is an active crime scene.”
“Are you sure? Maybe it’s not what you think,” the man said as he continued to approach them. His white-collared shirt bobbed like a beacon in the dark.
“Who are you?” Lee demanded.
“My name is Roger Song,” the man said, extending his hand as he drew closer. “I’m the developer.”
Lee shook Song’s hand. “Still, I need you to evacuate this floor. In fact, let us all walk down together.” By then Lee had caught sight of a van from SEO, Scientific Evidence Officers, arriving.
He shuffled the men in front of him and prompted them forward.
“So how long do you think your men will be here?” Song asked. “A few hours?”
Lee’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you kidding?”
Song stopped mid-step on the landing between the fifth and fourth floor. Wang and the construction worker continued down. “No, I’m not. I have an aggressive timeline I need to stick to. I can’t have any unnecessary delays.”
Lee placed a hand on Song’s shoulder. “I can assure you that investigating a skeleton in your building is not an unnecessary delay, and it isn’t something that will be resolved in the next few hours. My advice to you is to focus on a way to extend your deadline because I’m shutting this site down as of now.”
“No, you can’t do that,” Song protested as Lee nudged him down the stairs.
“I can, and there’s nothing you can do about it. That’s not a dead cat up there. It’s a human being.”
Lee spent the next thirty minutes ignoring the developer’s pleas while he coordinated with Darren Wong, team
leader for the SEO assigned to the case.
“Any idea on how long it will take to process this type of crime scene?” Lee asked
“Hard to say. I do know we’ll have to remove that entire section of the wall and bring it back to the lab. We’ll have a better handle on extracting the remains. My next question is whether or not we think there are more bodies contained within that building.”
Lee let out long breath. “I have no idea. Let’s hope not.”
“I’m with you, but hope won’t satisfy my curiosity. I’ll go ahead and have my team assess the situation. When we have figured out the best way to determine if there are more bodies, I’ll let you know. I can tell you this; it won’t be fast. I know that much. Whatever the approach, I imagine we’ll be out here for at least a week. Not only will we have to search the remaining structure, we’ll have to comb through existing debris here and find where the rest of the building has been dumped to be sure there aren’t bones that have already been discarded.”
Lee thanked him. Wong’s assessment of the situation agreed with his gut. Skeletons in a building aren’t the typical open-and-shut case. Just then, the first news media van pulled up. Great.
Chapter 6
The day after the earthquake, the kids were already doing much better. The aftershocks didn’t seem to be having the frightening effect on Ryan and Lucy that they did initially. They were still frequent but not as strong and had more of a gentle, rolling feel—Mother Nature’s way of reminding us who ruled.
After talking with Po Po, we agreed it would be okay for her to stay home with the kids and for me to head into the office for a few hours. I hesitated at first. How much did work really need me? My cell service was out, but the landline still worked. If there were a pressing matter, I would have received a phone call—and I hadn’t. But Po Po seemed to have a handle on things, and her nerves of steel appeared to be back. I figured I could show my face for a few hours.
The office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation was located on Golden Gate Avenue in the Phillip Burton Federal Building, just north of the Civic Center. The drive there wasn’t bad. I usually took Chestnut Street to Polk. It was a straight shot from there, especially if I caught the timing on the lights right and saw green at every intersection.
I still had my 370hp black Charger. I loved that car and was extremely happy I didn’t have to stick with one of the regulation vehicles issued to other agents. It took me a little longer to reach the office that day because a few of the stoplights were out, causing stop-and-go traffic.
Inside the lobby, the metal detector and x-ray machine was up and running. The personnel manning the checkpoint assured me the elevator had been looked over and that it was working properly.
“Any damage to the building?” I asked a guard as I placed my purse on the conveyor belt and handed my weapon to him.
“Nah, it’s solid,” he said, walking my sidearm to other side of the metal detector and handing it back to me. “A couple of broken vases in the lobby and few cracks on the steps outside, but that’s about it.”
“Yeah, I saw that on the way in. We’ll see what my desk looks like,” I said with a smile before collecting my purse.
A few other agents I knew joined me in the elevator for the ride up to the thirteenth floor.
“So you finally broke your cherry, eh Kane?” Agent Anthony Fritz eyed me as he leaned against the side of the elevator with both hands buried in the front pockets of his slacks.
“It was bound to happen sooner or later,” I said.
“How did the kids handle it?”
“Scared of course. I’ll admit, the quake shook me up in more than one way, but we got through it.”
“Boy, you’re lucky you weren’t around in ’89. Talk about rock and rolling,” Fritz said as he teetered on his feet with his arms out for balance. The other agents nodded their heads.
It seemed everyone I spoke with compared this quake with the Loma Prieta quake. I guess that was the bar.
Once cell service had been restored, I heard from a good friend of mine, another agent who worked in the Oakland field office, Tracy House. She had called to see if we were okay, knowing this was our first “shaky quaky,” as she called it. Over the years, our working relationship had developed into an honest-to-goodness friendship, one of the few I had in San Francisco.
The other person I’d become close with was a detective from the San Francisco Police Department. I met Detective Kyle Kang in the most unusual of ways. While off duty, I clotheslined a perp he was chasing through Chinatown. To this day, he still denies my efforts, but I never let him forget it. He was the next ring on my phone.
I thought I would have heard from Greg Walker, a man I had dated for a few months or so. Maybe breaking up with him was reason enough to merit his silence. Regardless, it felt good to know I had other people who cared about my family and me.
The elevator dinged, and we exited. Most of the agents, me included, had a desk in the open-floor plan. The window offices were occupied by the higher-ups. My phone and a few other personal items had been shaken off my desk. My chair had fallen over. I picked up my things and righted my chair. Around me, other agents were cleaning their work areas.
Before checking in with my supervisor, Special Agent Scott Reilly, I headed toward the breakroom to fix myself a cup of tea. A lady with janitorial services was in there cleaning up the mess on the floor. Amidst the pile she was sweeping into a dustbin, I recognized pieces of my mug that I kept in the cabinet. Another victim of the quake.
I grabbed another mug then removed a small tin from my purse that I kept filled with oolong tea. Tieguanyin was the only tea I drank when I could help it. I let the leaves steep for a minute or so before taking my first sip. Ahhhh.
“Hi,” I said, sticking my head through Reilly’s doorway.
“Abby, how are you? How’s the family? Everyone okay?” He leaned back in his executive leather chair. He held a report in his left hand while his right elbow rested on the armrest and his palm supported his head.
“A little shaken up, but we’re fine. I appreciate the concern. Looks like this place managed okay,” I said as I took a seat in the chair in front of his glass desk. Unevenly stacked yellow manila folders were scattered in piles all over it. “I see the quake left a mess in your office too.”
“Yeah, but I got in early and already cleaned up.”
Really? Could have fooled me.
The metal blinds on the windows behind him were pulled up, something I rarely saw. Reilly preferred to keep them down and angled, providing him a view of the street. Below the window was a wooden credenza with a few framed personal pictures on top. One was of his daughter. She was twenty-two when she disappeared without a trace.
“It’s been a while since we had a big one. I guess we were due.” Reilly removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes before returning the spectacles to his nose. He had been my supervisor since day one. He had always championed me, and we had a special working arrangement. My assignments were mostly white-collar crimes revolving around fraud. But because of my background as an inspector with the Hong Kong Police—specializing in organized crime and violent crimes in general, mostly serial killers—he reserved the right to pull me in on cases of that nature.
“How’s the house? Everything still standing safely? I know you did some renovating.”
“Yeah, aside from a few broken items. It’s fine. The previous owners had it retrofitted before we got it, thankfully.”
“That’s important. A lot of property owners sustained massive damage in the Loma Prieta quake. Man, that one still gives me chills. I was at the third game of the World Series, enjoying a beer and a hot dog in the upper deck of Candlestick when it struck.”
I had yet to meet a San Franciscan who called that ballpark by the branded names of companies that purchased the rights, such as 3Com or Monster Cable.
“You can imagine how much sway we had. It wasn’t until I exited the ballpark and drove back t
o the city that I fully realized the extent of the damage caused by the quake. And then I got a call about the collapse of the freeway.” Reilly shook his head. “Terrible thing to have happened to those people.”
“The FBI got involved?”
“Nah. We had our hands full with another quake-related matter. Just north of Bolinas, the ground split open, revealing a massive grave.”
“What? Like bodies piled on one another, or an old cemetery?”
“A hippie commune was located on that land about twenty-five years earlier. From what we know, they kept to themselves and were completely self-sufficient. They farmed their own food and handled their own medical needs. Because of this, they easily flew under the radar, considering they were squatting on federal land.”
“So they buried their dead there?”
“I wish the reasoning was a simple as that. Our investigation led us to think otherwise. Toxicology reports from the bodies confirmed that all thirty-two people—men, women, children—had all succumbed to arsenic poisoning.”
“Sounds reminiscent of the mass killing in Guyana by that cult leader. What was his name?” I snapped my fingers repeatedly.
“Jim Jones.”
I slapped my thigh. “Yeah, that’s the one.”
“Well, this was more like Jane Jones. We identified all the bodies but none of them turned out to be the woman who ran the commune. That case is still open. Never solved.”
“Wait, you’re not planning on putting me on this cold case are you?”
Reilly shifted in his chair as he waved off my comment. “Your schedule is clear. If I remember correctly, you have a family vacation coming up.”
“Oh, yes. That. Well, I’m thinking of postponing it.”
“Don’t do it, Abby. If there was ever a time to get out of the city, now would be it. Where were you planning on taking the family? Disney World?”
Kowloon Bay (Abby Kane FBI Thriller Book 3) Page 2
