The Killing Hands (27 page)

She pauses.

“I insist. Plus there's more room in there for your suitcases.” I point to my bedroom.

“Okay. If you're sure.”

“I'm sure.”

She nods. “I'll still leave your bag in here. I'll unpack it later.”

She comes back into the living room. “I've made soup for lunch. You hungry?”

Just thinking of Mum's home cooking makes me hungry. “Sounds great.”

She busies herself in the kitchen, heating up the soup and some Turkish bread, while I open the envelopes. My Dad raises his eyebrows and I mouth “Two and a half hours” at him.

“Playing with fire first thing,” he says under his breath.

He's right and I would prefer to avoid my mother's wrath, but curiosity is getting the better of me. I flick through Saito's file, taking a seat at the table, while Mum's getting everything ready. A quick pass tells me that in the five years leading up to his disappearance he was suspected of drug trafficking, money laundering and even a few murders, but no charges were ever brought against him. In addition to crime-scene photos of three homicides Saito is suspected of being involved in—all male victims—there's also a photo of a beautiful Japanese woman with her throat slit. From the file, I soon gather she was his girlfriend—she was killed just before he disappeared and the police suspected him of that murder, too. In fact, his prints were all over the murder weapon. And as for his alias, Jo Kume, all Singapore had on that was a driver's license and a small apartment in his name. As Jo Kume, he stayed under the radar…unless he used other aliases in Singapore, too.

I'm still scanning documents when my mother comes over. “Sophie. We're about to eat.”

“I'm sorry, Mum.” I gather up the pages, glad that I'd been careful enough not to have any crime-scene photos on the top. I stack everything back into one pile and pop it on the sofa next to the other, unopened yellow envelope.

“Fifteen minutes,” my Dad whispers in my ear while Mum brings another bowl of soup over.

“What, you're timing me?”

“You better believe it, sweetheart.”

I sit, glaring at Dad.

“What's going on, you two?” Mum puts her bowl of soup on the table and sits down with us.

We both act innocent.

“This looks beautiful, Jan.”

“Yes, it does, Mum.”

She smiles. “Well, eat up.”

I'm scraping the bottom of my soup bowl when my BlackBerry buzzes. “Sorry. I better get it.” I fish it out of my handbag. “FBI, Sophie Anderson.”

“Anderson, it's Petrov. Can you talk?”

“Sure.” I move away from the table, grabbing my notebook and pen from my handbag on the way.

“First off, I've got some good news. I just got a call from the hospital. Ramos is out of intensive care.”

“That's
fantastic
news.” I only managed to visit Ramos a few times, and even though it was touch and go, I always believed he'd pull through. Or maybe I just couldn't bear to think about the alternative.

“Full recovery?”

“It'll take a while, but yes.”

I breathe another sigh of relief.

“You get the Saito information?” Petrov asks.

“Yes, thanks. And Melissa also couriered the printouts of the State Department information, too.” I'm still hoping I'll get something from the hard copy, from the photos. Despite numerous attempts to induce a vision or see something, I've had nothing for a week. Maybe now that I'm off the painkillers my head will clear enough to focus on my second sight.

I take a seat on the couch. “Any news your end?”

“No luck on a link between Saito and the other Yakuza death in 2000. De Luca has tapped all his contacts, we all have, and as far as we can make out Saito and Matsu never crossed paths. The only point of intersection is that they both
knew Tomi Moto and his father. Matsu worked for Moto's father, and Saito did business with him back in the late eighties and early nineties. Although even those ties haven't been proven irrefutably. It's all based on tips from informants and undercover operations from years ago. What about you? I bet you've looked at our list of Chinese nationals, haven't you?”

“Believe it or not, no.” I don't tell Petrov about my deal with Dad. All he needs to know is that I haven't found anything in the list.

“Maybe we should send it to your teacher's cousin in Beijing?”

“There are too many names on it at the moment—I don't want to burn that bridge with such a wide search.”

“Fair enough. So we need to eliminate some names.”

“Uh-huh.”

Silence.

“Sir, what if we cross-reference our hit man's visit this time with the other ViCAP entries? Aliases or not, the guy's killed in the US at least eight times, nine if you count Corey Casey. Plus there are the other ViCAP matches I found for heart concussion, ruptured spleen and ventricular fibrillation. He can't have thirteen different aliases. And by cross-referencing Chinese nationals' details with those from around the dates of the murders, we might get a match.”

“Sounds good, Anderson.”

“Sorry, I should have thought about it days ago.” I shake my head.

“Anderson, you're still recovering. And you're not the only one working on the case…
we
should have thought of it, too.” He sighs. “Although our resource issues certainly haven't helped.”

Poor Petrov. He's down two people
and
he's trying to find a mole. Plus I can't imagine it would have been easy for the rest of the team, finding out about Ramos and me and still trying to keep their heads in the game.

“I'll call Rodriguez now. Anything else?”

“Saito's hotel and Mee's apartment. All the prints in
Saito's hotel room have been eliminated, verified as either his or hotel employees'. There were two extra sets of prints, but we managed to locate the last two visitors in that room and both agreed to give us samples. They were a match.”

“Trace?”

“Nothing useful. It doesn't look like Saito had any visitors in his room.”

“And Mee's house?”

“All the prints on Mee's front door and her chest of drawers belonged to Mee or her boyfriend and there was nothing strange from trace.”

“What about her computer?”

“Just the usual stuff—her work for school, a few personal letters and e-mails. The only big news is that the lab's come back with a paternal DNA match between our victim and samples we collected from Mee's phone. Mee's definitely Saito's daughter.”

“Which isn't news to you…or me.”

“No. But now it's official, on the books.”

I nod—so in other words Hana and Williams know, too, as well as the wider Gang Impact Team. “About that, sir…”

“Yes?”

“I might be able to help with your search.” I keep my language vague, reluctant to say straight-out “the search for the mole,” especially in front of my parents.

“You sound confident.”

I'm not sure whether I've offended Petrov—perhaps by suggesting that I can find the mole when no one else has been able to—or if he's relieved that fresh eyes might actually identify the culprit.

“
Confidence
is an overstatement. But I'm hoping my specific skills as a profiler and my psychology training may give us some new insights. And fresh eyes never hurt, do they?”

“I'm all for fresh eyes,” Petrov responds. “Especially if you can point the finger at someone. There are a couple you might want to start with.” He pauses. “Or does that defeat the purpose of fresh eyes?”

“Good question.” On the one hand, there's no point in me
duplicating work that's already been done. Poring over twenty-four detailed personnel files will take time, and if Petrov, Brady and De Luca already have suspects or have some people they've eliminated…Not to mention my work quota of two and a half hours per day.

We're both silent, thinking.

In the end, I speak first. “What sort of info rang bells for you?”

“People who've worked undercover, perhaps gone bad during their time. Agents and officers who have some affiliations or informants within our target gangs. Mind you, most of the task force members have built up contacts, that's part of their job.”

“Is that all in their files? Their undercover work, and so on?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Okay, let's do the completely objective thing.”

“Your call.” Petrov shuffles papers in the background. “But you're right. It will be interesting to look at it from the psych angle. See if anyone sets off alarms from a behavioral perspective. I'll get the docs couriered over to you. Call me to confirm receipt.”

Petrov is being careful.

“Will do. Can you also send me copies of the info on the Yakuza here in L.A.? I'd like to have a closer look at that.”

“This is sounding like a lot of work, Anderson. You sure you're up to it?”

“Yes.”

Silence, then Petrov decides, “Let's see how you go with the other one first. Then maybe next week we can talk about sending over more documents.”

“But, sir—”

“Anderson, don't push your luck. I'll send the files over first thing Monday.”

Monday? I keep my mouth shut and change the subject. “What about those new ViCAP matches I e-mailed through. Anything?”

“We've added them to the paperwork and we all agree
that they could be related to our killer. Williams followed up the D.C. politician, and it certainly looks suspicious. He was about to block a large development for environmental reasons and some of the building contractors have underworld links. The D.C. police were interested in our theory, but it's going to be hard, if not impossible, to prove.”

“Yeah, I agree. But it's important to note that he pissed off the wrong people, the kind of people who might have ties to a hit man.”

“Yes. Williams also looked into the Seattle murder and it's a similar story. It looks like it might be related, but we can't be sure.” He takes a breath. “De Luca took the New Orleans vic, which turned out to be an interesting one. The police actually suspected the victim had been blackmailing someone, but could never find anything on it besides a few cash deposits that they couldn't trace.”

“So maybe the person being blackmailed hired our hit man to get rid of the problem.”

“It's a possibility.”

“And the New York businessman?” I ask.

“I've contacted some old friends from the New York field office. They paid the widow a visit and got pushy with her. Told her they know she hired a hit man who used kung fu. According to them she did react, but again, how can we prove it? The original investigating officers already took a close look at her, tried to find evidence of a large withdrawal from her bank account before her husband's death, but they couldn't find anything. In fact, they hypothesized that maybe she paid the killer in jewelry. Apparently the woman is bling city.”

I nod, knowing that in her case the best way to pay a contract killer would have been with a pricey diamond necklace or bracelet.

“They looked for evidence of someone selling a big-ticket jewelry item around the time, but didn't have any luck in that department.”

“Sounds like the wife knew what she was doing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“So you're happy for me to add those four deaths into the US State Department search?”

“Yup…But don't work too hard, Anderson. Enjoy some time with your folks.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Seriously, Anderson. You've got just over a week until you're back in the office and I don't expect anything from you between now and then. If I had my way, you wouldn't be working on anything. But I've given up arguing with you…to a point.”

“Yes, sir. But you will call me if you have any developments? New leads?”

He snorts. “Goodbye, Anderson.”

When I look up, Dad's reading the paper and Mum's stacking the dishwasher.

“I've got one more phone call to make, and then I do need to spend an hour or so going over some of this.” I hold up Saito's file.

Dad peeks over his newspaper. “Okay, darling.”

When I look at Mum, she shakes her head. I don't take the bait. Instead, I dial Rodriguez, but the call goes straight to voice mail. Saturday…the weekend. I guess it'll have to wait until Monday.

“Let's go for a walk, darling,” Dad suggests to Mum. I'm not sure whether he really wants a walk, or if he's clearing Mum out to guarantee I'm not interrupted for the time I've got left. Either way, it works for me.