At age nine, Ryan continued to mature and seek his independence. More and more, he spent time with friends and in numerous after-school activities, ranging from Judo to soccer and even taking cultural lessons at the Chinese Youth Center. His Chinatown guilty pleasure was the little boxes of snappers. He would beg and promise me he wouldn’t throw them at his sister. The last time I bought him a box, he threw the very first snapper at Lucy’s head. I threw the rest into the trash.
I remember telling him, “I told you not to throw them at people.”
“But, Abby, you didn’t say you would throw them away.”
“I expect you to listen to me whether you know the consequences or not.” I may not be his biological mother, but I am still his mother, and I make the rules.
Ever since then, he would ask, and I would say no. However, that day, my mood was positive, and I felt lenient. He had been punished long enough, so I bought him a box and reminded him of the rule.
We’d finished brunch a half hour earlier and were enjoying a stroll along Grant Avenue when Po Po stopped us in front of the Eastern Bakery. “I go buy rice cake for later.”
That was another treat that had become customary.
She disappeared inside while the three of us remained on the sidewalk, hovering on the edge of the Sunday foot traffic. No sooner had I looked away from the kids than I heard a yelp, and Lucy ran behind me.
I looked at Ryan. “Did you just throw a snapper at your sister?”
“She said I could,” he said calmly as if he had an airtight defense.
“What did I tell you earlier?”
He raised his shoulders and held his arms out. “But she said it would be okay.”
He started to huff and stomp his feet; he knew what was coming.
I held out my hand. He handed over the box, and into the trashcan it went. I looked down at Lucy, who had a devious smile on her face. I reached down and took the package of stickers from her hand.
“Hey, those are mine.”
“Not anymore.” Into the trash they went. “Next time, don’t taunt your brother.”
Po Po returned to find two kids moping—frowning at the sidewalk when they weren’t glaring at me or each other. Before she could ask what had happened, a loud cracking sound caught my attention. I drew a sharp breath. A gunshot! I quickly ushered the kids and Po Po back into the bakery. “Stay here.”
Back outside, my eyes scanned the area. To my left, about fifty yards away, I noticed a commotion. I stepped off the sidewalk and took two steps into the street for a better look. That’s when I saw him: a male teen pushing his way through the crowd. Behind him, in pursuit, I saw a tall man in a suit. Elderly people were pushed into one another as the teen bumped off them like a pinball. He soon left the sidewalk for the open road. That’s when I spotted the gun in his right hand.
I couldn’t tell why he was being chased, but as he approached me, I saw that his shirt was torn, and tattoos covered his chest. I’m not saying that made him a criminal, but I was in Chinatown, and I knew the neighborhood had Triads, a Chinese gang.
No sooner had I noticed his ink than he fired another shot at the suit following him. This kid is nuts. The sidewalks were packed with people, mostly families. If he kept shooting, the odds were that some innocent bystander would get hit.
I was off duty, but I still had my weapon on me. However, I didn’t want to encourage him to fire his gun by pulling out mine. I figured at his speed, I could trip him up. He wasn’t tall, but neither was I. A tackle was out of the question. I looked around for something to take his legs out but saw nothing. I worried whether my legs were long enough to tangle with his and if I could keep my balance. He was closing in. Fast. I had to decide.
Right as he was about to pass by, I stepped back into the street and swung my arm up as hard as I could. My forearm and fist caught him at the top of his chest, right below his Adam’s apple. The force stopped him and kicked his feet up in front of him, causing him to land flat on his back, hard. He groaned as the gun fell out of his hand, and I kicked it away. The clothesline method triumphed again.
A few seconds later, the man in the suit arrived and flipped the kid over. He wheezed pretty hard as he tried to speak. “I’m a detective. Back away.” He put a knee into the kid’s back and handcuffed him.
“You shouldn’t have interfered. It’s dangerous,” he said, still working on finding his breath.
My head jerked back, and my brow crinkled. I was expecting a thank you of some sort. “From the looks of it, you needed the help.”
“I was catching up,” he said between breaths.
He squatted, resting his hands on his thighs for a moment before standing fully upright. That’s when I really noticed his height—unusual for an Asian. He had to have been at least six two, though a little on the skinny side. Sweat poured down the sides of his face and seeped into his collar. I watched him loosen his tie.
“You okay? You look like you’re about to pass out.”
He squinted at me. “I’ll have you know I chased this guy up California before turning down Grant. You know how steep California is?”
“Mm-huh,” I said as I clucked my tongue.
Just then, another tall man in a suit appeared. He was bald, white, and muscular.
Let me guess, SFPD paired up the two tall guys. “You caught him. Good work,” he said with a Russian accent.
I cleared my throat.
Both men looked down at me. I shifted my weight to my left leg and folded my arms across my chest.
“She helped,” the Asian one admitted.
A large smile appeared on the other guy’s face, followed by a deep laugh. He then bent down and yanked the kid off the ground. He radioed for a squad car to meet him at the corner.
“Why were you chasing him?”
He paused before speaking. “He’s a wanted suspect.”
“Looks like a gang member with those tattoos on his chest.”
“You normally involve yourself in law enforcement matters? What are you, a first-year law student or something?”
The left eyebrow arched. “Only when I help law enforcement do their job.”
“Like I said, I had him.”
By then, Po Po and the kids had returned to my side. “Well, it looks like everything is under control.” I patted my stomach. “We just finished a large meal of dim sum. Time to go home and rest.” Zing!
Clearly irritated and ready to move on, the detective handed me his card. “If you end up seeking medical attention for your arm, call me. I can probably get the department to reimburse you for any expenses.”
“Thanks.” I snatched the card out of his hand with the arm I had used earlier.
I watched him hurry to catch up with his partner before looking down at the card: Detective Kyle Kang, Personal Crimes Division.
3
The next day, I arrived at the Philip Burton Federal Building at my usual time, 9:15 a.m. I had a travel mug full of hot tea in one hand and an onion bagel stuffed with cream cheese and double lox tucked away in my purse. My stomach grumbled during the elevator ride to my floor. I couldn’t wait to sit down and devour my breakfast.
The office doors opened to a quiet floor. That week, an unusual number of agents were out in the field working cases, which I loved. A little quiet time coupled with my lox bagel was all right with me. No sooner had I placed my breakfast on my desk than I heard the one thing capable of ruining my morning.
“Abby!”
Dammit! I looked to my left and saw my supervisor, Special Agent Scott Reilly, leaning out of his office and tugging at me with his index finger. Generally he was okay and fair with a sense of humor. But boy did he have the worst timing of anyone I had ever known. I slipped my heels back on, picked up my tea, and made my way over to his office.
“Take a seat.” He removed his wire-framed glasses and wiped his face with his hand before letting out a breath. “How’s that case with the attorney coming along?”
“
We’re close to raining on his parade.”
The case I had been investigating involved an attorney who stole the identities of his terminally ill clients to fraudulently obtain millions of dollars from insurance companies. I thought I saw some sick bastards when I hunted serial killers back in Hong Kong, but this guy took it to a whole new level.
He would purchase variable annuities with death benefits and death put bonds and list his clients as co-owners. When they died, the bonds allowed survivor options, meaning the bond could be redeemed years before maturity at face value. Same thing with the annuities he purchased: they provided a guaranteed return of all money invested plus a guaranteed profit upon the death of the person named the annuitant. All he had to do was wait for them to die—which they did. We were days away from raiding his office and making an arrest.
“You’re doing a great job. I’m pleased with your performance with the white-collar cases, considering your background.”
A compliment. This can’t be good. Part of the deal when I came on board with the FBI was that I would work white-collar crime. I had worked on enough cases involving homicide and organized crime and wanted a change of pace. Reilly agreed to it on one condition: if he believed my background would be helpful on a certain case, he would put me on it. So far he hadn’t abused his powers, but I felt as if one of those moments were coming.
“The satellite office in Oakland has themselves in a pickle. Over the weekend, we received a tip that the man fingered as the person responsible for mailing arsenic to the office of the Mayor of Oakland was seen camping in the woods near Mount Tamalpais, in Marin County. They coordinated with a couple of rangers from the U.S. Forest Service and did a sweep of the area they believed him to be in.”
“They find him?”
“No, but they did find a fresh body: a young woman with an axe sticking out of her chest. Doesn’t look like a camping accident either.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.
“The rangers are arguing that the FBI should take the lead since our agents were the ones who technically discovered the body.”
“Yeah, but it’s their jurisdiction.”
“I know. Here’s where it gets tricky. The body, and I’m not kidding here, was found on the boundary of State land and the land of the National Parks—Muir Woods to be exact. So that’s another agency, the National Park Service, that’s involved, and right now, everyone’s pointing fingers.”
“Talk about splitting hairs. If you want my opinion, those two agencies should fight it out. Between the two of them, they’re responsible for all things wilderness.”
Reilly sat quietly, pondering the dilemma. After a few moments, he took a breath and straightened up. “Abby, I want you to take over the case.”
I knew that was coming. “Why do you want the case, if you don’t mind me asking?”
He shook his head. “I have a bad feeling about this one. If we leave it up to those two agencies, they’ll screw it up. And if I pull the case in, you’re the best we have.”
Reilly handed me a file. Inside were pictures of the crime scene and the victim and reports from both the forest rangers and the agents in our Oakland office. The medical examiner would need a few days to weigh in.
“She’s pretty,” I said. “She could be a model.”
“Such a young girl. She had her whole life ahead of her.”
I’ve never seen much emotion from Reilly, but this girl had a noticeable effect on him. Then it dawned on me. Behind him, on the credenza, was a picture of his daughter. She looked to be the same age. The story was she had just graduated from UC Berkeley when she vanished. Her car was found abandoned on the 101 near Stinson Beach. No leads. No witnesses. The case went cold fast.
Every year, on the anniversary of her disappearance, he drives up to the location and spends the entire day there. From what I understand, she was all he had. His wife had died four years earlier from breast cancer. I felt sorry for him. I could understand his pain, having lost my own husband to a horrific crime while living in Hong Kong. Not knowing what happened had to be the worst part.
I stood up with the file in hand. “I’m on it.”
He barely nodded as he gazed out his office window.
4
After finishing my bagel, I spent the rest of the morning poring through the contents of the file Reilly had given me. Piper Taylor was twenty-three years old. According to her parents, she graduated from Ohio State a year ago and had wanted to travel around Europe since the age of seven, when she first saw The Sound of Music. “She wanted to twirl on a mountain just like Julie Andrews,” they said. “She spent a year waiting tables to save up enough money.” They also mentioned that Piper added Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York to her itinerary at the last minute.
My victim sounded like an adventurous one. Her parents referred to her as “free spirited.” There wasn’t much information from them, which wasn’t surprising considering a field office in Cleveland had conducted the interview. The parents kept up on Piper’s travels through her blog, which I pulled up. Her postings were infrequent and general in the sense that she put up a few pictures and talked a little about what she did that day. Her parents seemed like genuinely nice people, and I didn’t get the impression that Piper had any problems with them.
I knew a couple of agents in the Oakland office, one pretty well: Agent Tracy House. We’d crossed paths a few times and had hit it off. Lucky for me, she was one of the two agents handling the arsenic investigation and was also the one who had stumbled across the young woman.
In her report, she wrote that she discovered the body in a small, hidden clearing. There were no equipment or signs that any camping or picnicking had taken place. The victim’s personal belongings consisted of a small backpack that included bottled water, a map of SF, some cosmetics, a small wallet, and a bag of chips. A short day hike. She could have easily been by herself or with someone she met along the way. Her wallet, passport and money were still intact as well. I can cross off robbery as a motive. I saw no mention of a camera. I thought it odd being she was a tourist. Also, I found no mention of a cell phone. Did the killer take these items?
Agent House wrote that there were no immediate signs of sexual abuse, but I figured I’d leave that up the medical examiner to decide. Her parents had confirmed she was staying at a small hostel on Sacramento, between Kearny and Montgomery. That’s right next to Chinatown. From what I could tell, no one had talked to anyone at the hostel. I wondered if management knew one of their guests had already checked out.
I had intended my next move to be to the coroner’s office but decided the hostel had a better chance of telling me more about Piper than her dead body could at the moment.
After a twenty-minute drive, I stood in front of a wooden door adorned with bright red wrought iron. Above it was a tiny sign with Asian font lettering that identified it as the Lucky Buddha Hostel. I rang the doorbell and, a few seconds later, was buzzed in.
Eighteen wooden steps up a narrow and creaky stairwell dumped me into a lobby where two mismatched love seats, separated by an end table, greeted me. Above, written on the wall in white chalk, was a list of hostel FAQs and other information. Against the other wall was a pair of bookshelves stocked with travel books and brochures. A computer touting free Internet access sat on a desk next to it.
As I walked through the lobby, I passed a large bulletin board that had been tacked to death by a plethora of tour advertisements. One promoted a day trip to Muir Woods. Why didn’t Piper sign up for that tour? Not far past that, I noticed a young woman sitting behind a Dutch door.
“Hello.” She brushed her chestnut hair out of her eyes. “Welcome to Lucky Buddha. Do you have a reservation?”
“Sorry, I’m not here to stay.” I flashed my identification. “I’m Agent Abby Kane with the FBI. I’d like to ask you a few questions.”
Her smile flipped upside down and her posture deflated. “What’s wrong
? Are you here to arrest someone?”
“No. I need information. May I have your name, please?”
“My name is Katerina Yezhov,” she said, straightening up in her chair.
The name matched the accent. “Are you the owner?”
“No. I work part time, and the owner lets me stay for free.”
“How long have you been working here?”
She tilted her head towards the side as she gathered her thoughts. “Maybe three or four weeks. In two weeks, I leave for Los Angeles and meet up with some friends.”
“So you travel alone?”
“Yes, for almost one year now.”
“Isn’t it dangerous for a young woman to travel by herself?”
She shook her head, and her hair followed. “No, it’s fine. One only needs to be responsible and use common sense.”
Gee, which one was Piper lacking? “You have a guest staying here, Piper Taylor.”
“Yes, Piper. I know her. She’s great fun. She’s been here for four days.” The receptionist tapped a few keys on the laptop next to her. “She’s scheduled to be with us for another two days. Is everything okay?”
“When did you last see her?”
“Saturday morning. She had plans to see the redwood trees in Muir Woods. I tried to sign her up for one of our tours, but she is very independent. She said tours are silly and limiting.”
“Did she tell you anything else? Was she planning to meet anyone or travel there with another guest in the hostel?”
Katerina took another moment to think. “No,” she said as she shook her head. “She was going alone. It’s not that difficult. She planned to take the ferry to Sausalito and visit the town as well—you know, kill two birds with one stick.”
[Anthology] Abby & Sei Thriller Starter Page 2
