Terminal (A Lomax & Biggs Mystery Book 5) (12 page)

“A minute later he called back. I recognized the Caller ID. Now I was angry. I picked up the phone, but before I could say anything, he said, ‘Mickey and Minnie got married.’ I started crying. That was the secret family password Cal and I taught the kids when they were little. We sat them down and said, ‘If anybody ever tells you that Mommy and Daddy told them to pick you up and bring you home, ask them the password. If they don’t know it, don’t go with them, and talk to a policeman or a grownup you trust.’ There was only one way Mr. Welcome could have known it. He was delivering a message from Cal.”

Her eyes were watery, and she wiped away the tears. But not the pain. She buried her face in her hands. We waited till she could speak.

“He was very polite. He said that the account was opened with fifty thousand dollars a month ago. Cal told him to expect another four hundred and fifty thousand and asked him to call me when that was wired to the account. He warned Mr. Welcome that I wouldn’t trust him, but the Mickey and Minnie password would help convince me it was real.

“I still had trouble believing it, so I called my sister-in-law who’s a lawyer. She told me to have the bank wire twenty-five thousand dollars to my account here in LA. If it were a scam they wouldn’t send a nickel, but Mr. Welcome said he would be happy to oblige. Ten minutes later I checked with my bank in Van Nuys. The money was deposited in my account, and I could
draw on it immediately.”

“Where do you think the money came from?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but the only thing I can think of is what you suggested. Someone paid Cal to shoot the doctor. It’s blood money. I don’t want it. I don’t want any part of it.”

“Did your husband ever even hint that you’d be coming into a half a million dollars after he died?”

“No. He knew better than to tell me anything. I’d have asked him where the money was coming from, and I’d have pried the truth out of him. And then, I would never have let him do it.”

I looked at Terry, and he nodded. I’m sure our minds were on the same track. Bruce Bower not only told his wife he was hired to kill Wade Yancy, he made her an accomplice. She paid for it with a bullet to the brain.

Cal Bernstein kept Janice completely in the dark, and that probably saved her life.

CHAPTER 29

TERRY AND I
had no proof that Charlie Brock was our shooter, but he was far and away the leading candidate. We decided to extend an invitation to Mr. Brock for a sit-down chat, this time minus the beer and the camaraderie.

There was only one small problem.

“I can’t find the fucker,” Muller said.

“How is that possible?” Terry said. “He
lives
in LA. He
drives
a car.”

“Thank you, Detective,” Muller said. “How stupid of me not to check tax rolls, voter registration, or DMV records.”

“He’s got liver cancer,” I said. “Does that help?”

“In a convoluted way, it just might,” Muller said. “But it’s going to take a while. I have to navigate my way around those pesky medical privacy laws.”

While Muller tried to track down Charlie Brock, Terry and I set about unburying ourselves from a mountain of paperwork. The shooting on Homedale Street alone took a big chunk of the day, including a field trip back to the scene of the crime.

At 2 p.m. we got a hallelujah call from Eli confirming that the golf club we found in Bruce Bower’s garage was a perfect match for the wedge-shaped divot in Wade Yancy’s skull.

At 4 p.m. I was ready to haul ass and stick Terry with three more hours of grunt work. I had something more important to do
than placate the LAPD paper bureaucracy. I was meeting Sophie and the family at LAX to celebrate the return of Carly Tan to America.

I was about to leave when my progress was impeded by an urgent call from my trusted informer at the front desk. “Melvis has entered the building,” Officer Mulvey announced.

Deputy Mayor Mel Berger has many nicknames. Melvis is among the more flattering.

Most politicians prefer to oversee their domains from on high, but he has the annoying habit of showing up in the trenches unannounced in search of a progress report that is unsanitized and unfiltered. Half a minute after Mulvey’s warning, Terry and I were summoned into Kilcullen’s office to update Berger on the murder of the doctor who made the mayor a grandfather three times over.

He listened intently and didn’t interrupt until we dropped the bomb about Wade Yancy. “And you’re sure they’re connected?” he asked.

“Positive,” Terry said. “What we don’t know is who’s behind it all and who their next target might be.”

Melvis glared at Terry as if he were the perp instead of the messenger. “Do you realize that a serial killer running around this city would be a disaster?”

“Actually, another six-point-seven quake like the one that hit Northridge would be a disaster,” Terry said. “A serial killer would be more on the order of a media shitstorm that would land in your lap, but your point is well taken.”

Terry is one of the few people in the department who can bust the deputy mayor’s balls and get away with it. They have a history of mutual respect tempered by cautious uneasiness.

After we’d taken Berger through it all, he peppered us with many of the same questions we were still asking ourselves.

The meeting cost me fifty-three precious rush-hour traffic minutes, and I dashed out the door knowing I didn’t have a prayer of
getting to LAX before Carly’s plane landed.

I called Diana from the road. “If I’m lucky,” I said, “I’ll get there before Carly clears customs. But just in case, take plenty of pictures. I don’t want to miss the look on Sophie’s face when she finally sees her mom after five months.”

I’d have liked to go Code 3—lights and sirens all the way—but I’d rather be late than lose my job. Too many department vehicles wind up in wrecks even when they’re legitimately violating the rules, so I resigned myself to the fact that I was just another citizen doing the speed limit, stopping at red lights, and avoiding the dangers of texting and driving.

It was slow going, and by the time I got to the airport and parked, Carly’s plane had been on the ground for forty-five minutes. I hustled into the Tom Bradley International Terminal, and waded through a knot of people who were all on a similar mission when I heard an unmistakable voice bellow my name.

Big Jim was halfway across the terminal, holding Sophie’s hand. As soon as she saw me, she pulled away and started running toward me, tears streaming down her cheeks. I knelt down and scooped her up in my arms.

“Don’t let them take me away,” she said.

“Sweetheart, don’t worry. Nobody’s taking you anywhere.”

The rest of the welcoming committee—Big Jim, Angel, Diana, Frankie, and Izzy—converged on us.

“We got trouble, bro,” Frankie said.

“We can handle it,” I said. “I just need one of you—I repeat,
one
of you—to tell me what’s going on. Diana, you talk. The rest of you, keep it zipped.”

“Carly wasn’t on the plane,” Diana said. “She didn’t text us, or warn us in advance, and at first we thought we had the wrong flight. Then two people came out of customs, saw the signs we had for Carly, and said they’re her aunt and uncle.”

She pointed at a Chinese couple in their mid- to late sixties who were standing quietly twenty feet away.

“They said Carly was arrested yesterday.”

“Arrested? For what?”

“Political dissidence,” Big Jim spat out, ignoring my ground rules.

“That doesn’t even make any sense.”

“It’s China, Mike. It doesn’t have to make sense.”

“Are we sure that’s Carly’s aunt and uncle?” I said to Diana.

“I checked their passports,” Big Jim said. “They also had a bunch of pictures on the cell phones—family shots with Carly. They’re who they say they are, and don’t get me wrong—they seem to be very nice people, and they genuinely want to help.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “If they want to help, why didn’t they
call
us? Why did they fly halfway around the world to give us the bad news in an airport?”

“Damn it, Mike,” Big Jim said. “They—”

“Stop!” Diana said, holding up her hand. “I’ll tell him.”

Angel added her vote, using her elbow to give Big Jim a nudge that was more like a body blow. He backed off.

“The aunt and uncle didn’t come here to give us the bad news,” Diana said, her eyes watery. “They came here for Sophie. They want to take her back to Beijing.”

The little girl in my arms tightened her grip around my neck and started sobbing into my shoulder.

CHAPTER 30

BIG JIM WAS
right. Daniel and Lucy Zhang were very nice people, and they definitely wanted to help. I just wasn’t clear on what they came to help us with.

Angel, Frankie, and Izzy took Sophie to the food court, so that Big Jim, Diana, and I could find out.

The Zhangs had spent more than forty years working for a translation service company in Beijing, so it turned out that they spoke better English than any of us.

“I realize that this all comes as shock,” Daniel said. “We considered trying to get a message to you, but the Chinese government has eyes and ears everywhere.”

“We decided it was safer and wiser for us to fly to the states,” Lucy said. “We do it often enough for business, so leaving the country wasn’t an issue.”

“My father told me that Carly was arrested for being a dissident,” I said. “I find that incomprehensible. She’s a nurse. She works with Diana at Valley General Hospital. And she’s a naturalized American citizen.”

“She’s also an outspoken activist against human trafficking,” Daniel said. “She was arrested several times in Beijing during her university days, but that was before the Jasmine Revolution of 2011. The penalties for inciting subversion are much more severe now.”

“
Inciting subversion
?” Diana repeated.

“Not on the streets,” Lucy said. “On the Internet. Are you aware of her blog?”

I turned to Diana, who looked just as dumbfounded as I was.

“Carly met Jeremy Tan and moved to LA about ten years ago. The government followed her blog, but their tentacles can only reach so far.” Daniel said. “When Xiaoling became ill, Carly managed to get into the country without being noticed. But she couldn’t stop posting, and when the electronic spy stations realized she was uploading her leftist rants from China, they tracked her down. She was planning her trip home when they arrested her.”

“So she wrote a few critical blogs,” Diana said. “How long can you lock someone up for that?”

Daniel lowered his head, reluctant to answer.

“It doesn’t matter,” Diana said. “Mike and I have taken care of Sophie for five months. We’ll be happy to keep at it until Carly gets out of jail.”

“She’s not in jail,” Lucy said softly. “She’s in prison. She’s been sentenced to twelve years.”

I had my arm around Diana, and I felt her buckle when she heard the news. “That’s not possible,” she said.

“Not in America, perhaps,” Lucy said. “But life is different in China.”

“Excuse me,” Big Jim said. “But I have a question.”

“Of course,” Daniel said.

“The truth is, I already know the answer,” Big Jim said, “but I think Diana needs to hear it.”

“Dad, just ask the question,” I said.

“If you take Sophie back to China with you, how often will she get to spend quality time with her mother?”

“Carly is an enemy of the state,” Daniel said. “She’ll be in a forced-labor camp. Children are not welcome.”

“Then why do you want to take this kid back to China?”

“That is a much less painful question to answer,” he said, his eyes scanning the terminal, looking left, right, up, down, and then slowly making a second, even more deliberate pass.

“But you’re not comfortable answering it here,” I said.

He smiled. “No, I am not, Detective Lomax.”

“Mike,” I said.

“Mike,” he said, nodding graciously. “Lucy and I are children of the Mao era. We have lived through war, famine, and the wholesale execution of forty-five million people at the hands of the greatest mass murderer in the history of the world. But unlike our niece, we won’t sit in Starbuck’s sipping cappuccino and churning out anti-government manifestos. If there’s one thing we’ve learned after sixty-eight years of non-stop paranoia, it’s to avoid having private conversations in public places.”

“In that case,” Big Jim chimed in, “I’ve got a twenty-eight-foot soundproofed Lincoln Town Car waiting right outside for you.”

“Dad,” I snapped, “we’re not finishing this discussion in the back of a limo.”

“Of course we’re not,” he said, picking up the Zhangs’s luggage. “We’re moving the party to your place. I’m just giving these nice folks a ride.”

CHAPTER 31

EVEN ON A
normal day Sophie asks too many questions, and this day was anything but normal. As soon as the four-foot-high sponge buckled up her seat belt, I turned to Diana, took in a deep breath, and exhaled a look that said,
Brace yourself for the inquisition
.

“What’s political dissidence?” the sponge asked, getting the word right, even though she’d only heard it once.

Diana and I did our best to answer honestly, but still spare her the nightmare-inducing details like forced-labor camps, twelve years of confinement, and no visitation rights.

“So let me get this straight,” Sophie said after draining us dry for most of the ride home. “My mother is an American, she went to China to be with
her
mother, and the Chinese government put her in jail for writing the thoughts that were in her heart.”

“That’s the gist of it,” I said.

“Then why would you send
me
to China? I’m American, I want to be with my mother, and I write all kinds of thoughts,” she said, challenging us with her watertight logic.

“You’re not going to China,” Diana said.

“You promise?”

We both promised. I didn’t know if it was a promise we could keep, but I knew it was one Sophie needed to hear.

Having picked our brains and our souls clean, Sophie turned
on her iPod, plugged in her earbuds, and tuned out the world for the rest of the ride.