The Crooked Street

39

It was midafternoon by the time Frost had wrapped up several hours of questioning inside police headquarters in Mission Bay. When he was done, Captain Hayden called him into his office. The captain closed the door behind them and settled into the oversized chair that he filled completely. The smell of a cigar wafted from his uniform.

“How’s Fox?” Frost asked.

The captain cocked his large head. “Fox? Who’s that?”

“The boy. Mr. Jin’s son.”

“Oh, of course. The psychiatrist says he’s not dealing well with his father’s death, but that’s to be expected. He’s in the hands of Human Services now. They’ll look after him until we can find other relatives.”

“Is that safe?” Frost asked.

“Given the way things turned out, he shouldn’t be in any further danger,” Hayden replied. “With Gorham dead, the boy doesn’t know anything that would put him at risk from Lombard.”

Frost frowned. “I hope you’re right.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning the boy may be too scared to tell us everything he knows.”

Hayden shook his head dismissively. “What are you saying, that Gorham was innocent? If Gorham didn’t kill Mr. Jin, who else could have done it? You said yourself that the apartment was empty. Cyril didn’t meet anyone coming down the stairs, and neither did you. There’s no way anyone else made it out of the building.”

“Yes, that’s true.” Frost waited a moment and then added, “I’m curious, sir. Why did Cyril move in on Gorham so quickly?”

“You know exactly why,” Hayden said. “We talked about it last night.”

“Yes, but we had no actual proof that Gorham was connected to Lombard.”

“Maybe not, but Gorham was on the move, so I felt we couldn’t take any chances. It was my call to have Cyril go into that building. And now we know we were right about Gorham. Whether he was Lombard himself or just an operative, he was definitely part of the network. He killed Mr. Jin, and he would have shot the boy if Cyril hadn’t been there to stop him. He took two shots at him up on the roof. What more do you want, Easton?”

Frost had been asking himself the same thing. What more did he want?

The truth was, he wanted to know what Fox had seen from the balcony window. And he wanted to know who Gorham was really shooting at on the roof.

“I’d like to talk to Fox myself,” Frost said. “If he knows more than he’s telling us, I may be able to get it out of him.”

Hayden shook his head. “That’s not how it works. You know that. We’re talking about a cop shooting a cop. I don’t want anyone coming up with the idea that we’re coaching witnesses.”

“So what are you going to tell the press about Gorham?” Frost asked.

“I’ll tell the truth. Gorham was dirty. He was involved in eliminating witnesses, including Mr. Jin and possibly several others. Given that he was formerly on the drug beat in vice, the obvious conclusion will be that he was recruited by Diego Casal or one of Casal’s competitors.”

“In other words, Denny and the others were casualties in a drug war,” Frost concluded. “That’s exactly what Lombard wants everyone to believe.”

Hayden shrugged. “Look, you know how it works, Easton. Sometimes we have to accept the cover story because we don’t have a choice.”

“In other words, Lombard wins?” Frost said.

“Maybe. For now. Or maybe Lombard died on that roof.”

“I’d like to share your optimism about that, sir,” Frost replied, “but I’m cynical. Lombard gets everything he wants and then gets shot just as he eliminates the last witness? I have a hard time believing that.”

“You may be right,” Hayden agreed. “That may be wishful thinking on my part. It’s possible Gorham was just one more Lombard pawn. But if you take enough pawns, eventually you get the king.”

Frost studied the captain behind his desk. He knew he had to make a decision about whom to trust. He thought about his former lieutenant Jess Salceda, who’d been killed the previous year. Frost and Jess had been colleagues. Friends. One-time lovers. Jess had also been Captain Hayden’s ex-wife. It made for an uncomfortable triangle, and Frost was sure it was part of the reason that Hayden had never liked him.

But he also remembered what Jess had told him about Hayden. She hated him as much as she loved him, but as a cop, he always had her back. He was ambitious and political, but he was one of the good guys.

He was willing to put his faith in what Jess believed.

“Do you mind if I ask you a question, sir?” Frost said. “You won’t like it.”

Hayden offered him a curious smile. “Go ahead.”

“How well do you know Cyril?”

The captain was silent. Frost expected anger, but there was no sign of it on Hayden’s face. He leaned back dangerously far in his chair and stared at the office ceiling. “In other words, could the spy be in my own house?”

“I’m just asking if it’s possible,” Frost said.

Again the captain took a long time to reply. “I’m aware that Cyril doesn’t always play well with others. That’s because he doesn’t care what people think. It’s one of the reasons I chose him. He’s loyal to me and no one else.”

Frost’s voice was quiet. “Are you sure?”

“I am sure,” the captain replied, “but then again, I’ve been wrong about people before. It’s your job to find out the truth. I told you last night I want you in the loop, and here you are. You’re working directly for me now, Easton, and this is where you start. Dig into Trent Gorham’s life. Find out if there was anything about him that would help us crack Lombard’s network. And if you conclude he’s innocent, well, that tells us something about Cyril, doesn’t it?”

Frost nodded. “Thank you, sir. And Denny Clark’s murder?”

Hayden leaned across the desk with a sigh. “For now, that’s a dead end, Easton. The book is closed on Denny Clark and that cruise last Tuesday. You’re going to have to move on.”

When Frost got back to his Suburban, he called Human Services to check on Fox. He wasn’t surprised to learn that they’d already lost him. The boy had gone out a bathroom window, climbed over a fence, and disappeared.

He sat in his truck with an intense sense of failure about the entire investigation. Fawn was dead somewhere in the ocean, and anyone who knew how it had happened was dead, too. Lombard was still a mystery, and the mayor and Martin Filko were untouchable. Every loose end had been tied; every door had been locked. He’d been outplayed.

His phone rang and broke him out of his thoughts.

The caller ID on his screen told him it was Tabby. He stared with conflicted emotions at the phone and then tapped the button to ignore the call. Instinctively, he nursed his jaw, which was still tender where Duane had hit him. He wasn’t ready to talk to Tabby about any of this yet. He wasn’t sure he ever would be.

Instead, he called Belinda Drake. She answered in a clipped voice, and he could hear the rush of wind in the background. She was outside on her balcony again, high above the city.

“You heard about Mr. Jin?” he asked.

“Yes. I warned you what would happen if you didn’t get to him first.”

“So what do I do next?”

“You forget about Lombard. That’s what you do.”

“That’s not an option,” Frost replied. “I need your help.”

“I’ve already told you more than I should. There’s nothing I can do.”

“I have a name for you.”

“What is it?”

“Trent Gorham.”

“What about him? According to the news, he’s the one who killed Mr. Jin.”

“That’s my question. Was Gorham part of Lombard?”

“I have no idea,” she replied.

“Gorham was at the yacht harbor on Wednesday morning when the boat came in. Did you call him? Was he part of the cleanup crew?”

“No, he wasn’t with me, but that doesn’t mean anything. Sometimes Lombard sends observers to make sure things go according to plan. Now I really have to go, Frost.”

“Wait, I’m not done. What about Cyril Timko? He’s the personal aide to Captain Hayden. Could he be part of Lombard?”

“I’m telling you, I don’t know,” she replied impatiently. “Do you think the left hand knows anything about the right hand? We don’t. We’re all separate tentacles. That’s why it’s so easy to cut one of us off if we cause any problems.”

“I want to meet. We need to talk.”

“About what?”

“Anything else you can tell me,” Frost said.

“I can’t give you anything more than I already have.”

“I still have questions, Belinda. Right now, you’re the only one with answers. Please.”

In the silence, he heard the wind whistling around her. He could picture her alone on the balcony, debating with herself. He knew he was asking her to take a risk. Then she said softly, “Fine. Be here in one hour.”

He hung up.

He didn’t have time to go home before their meeting. He got out of his SUV and walked past police headquarters toward China Basin. He didn’t really think about where he was going, but three blocks later, he found himself across the street from the Zelyx construction site. It was a multimillion-dollar building project for a multibillion-dollar company. Thousands of new jobs would keep the city’s tech economy humming along, and it was happening here, not in Austin, not in Denver, not in Charleston. All because of Martin Filko and the mayor. And Lombard.

If you got in the way, you were expendable.

Frost watched the construction activity for several minutes, and then he turned around and went back to his truck and headed uptown. While he drove, Tabby called again. This time, she left a message, and he played it over the speakerphone as he sat in traffic.

“I need to see you, Frost. Call me as soon as you get this.”

But he didn’t know what to say to her.

Ten minutes later, he crossed into the Financial Center, where the pyramid top of the Transamerica building peeked above the other skyscrapers. It was almost the thick of rush hour, and the streets and sidewalks were dense with people. The rain had stopped, but dark clouds still blotted out the sun and made the afternoon look like dusk.

He’d nearly reached the alley behind Belinda’s building when he realized that something was wrong.

On the sidewalks near the pyramid, he saw people running.

Through his open window, he heard the wail of sirens. Ahead of him, on the cross street, a police vehicle screamed through the intersection. Only seconds later, an ambulance followed.

Frost drove up onto the sidewalk. He bolted from the car and followed the crowd. He sprinted through the plaza at the base of the Transamerica building. The white high-rise climbed above him against the black sky.

Across the street, people swarmed around an Acura sedan, its car alarm blaring. Police and EMTs tried to hold a perimeter around the car. Frost shoved his way in and yanked out his badge when a uniformed officer tried to hold him back. He pushed to the front and saw the damage to the car up close, its roof flattened, its windows shattered. Glass littered the street.

Belinda Drake lay atop the sedan.

She was on her back where she’d fallen thirty stories from the balcony above the street. Her limbs were spread. Her head was turned, her eyes wide open and staring at him. Blood made a lake underneath her, but her face was untouched, without even a scratch. Her lips were bent into the tiniest smile.

He remembered what she’d told him about going off the building.

You get one last exhilarating ride, and then you’re dead before you feel the pain.