Page 64 of 25 Alive

Conklin switched on the lights, I yanked up the shades, and Brenda wheeled in a mail cart that held a coffee urn, paper cups, and a tray of quartered bagels with a cream cheese spread on the side. Brenda placed a cup of black coffee and a pile of sugar packets next to me along with a sheet of copy paper, folded in half.

She said, “Linds. This’s from the boss.”

I opened the note and read, “Lindsay, Bao Wong is temporarily on our task force and will be partnering with you. She’ll be in the meeting. Before you ask, she has no news of Joe.”

CHAPTER96

RICHIE CONKLIN, SONIA Alvarez, Cappy McNeil, and Paul Chi were seated on one side of the long conference table. I sat across from them with an empty seat on either side of me. I was trying to pay attention, but my head was pounding with the contents of Brady’s note: that there was no news about Joe.

Psychologically speaking, I was spiraling. Thoughts of Joe circled my brain in an endless loop: the sound of his laugh, his way with Julie, his support for how hard I worked, and the last thing he’d said to me:I’ll call you tonight.

What was happening to Joe right now? I wanted to know how he was, where he was, how to get him back. And while I waited for word of him, I wanted to find, interrogate, and lock up Jacobi’s killer.

All of us, everyone in this room, were united in our desperate desire to solve this case. Our unity was our strength, and it gave us the resolve to push forward.

A tired-looking Asian woman in her thirties came throughthe door. I’d met Bao Wong after she and Joe started working together, and I liked her. I guessed now the two of us were going to partner up for a while. She looked depressed. I’m sure I looked the same or worse.

Bao waggled her fingers at me and took the empty seat to my right. She whispered, “The lieutenant wants me to work with you on this case. Okay with you?”

I nodded in agreement. “Absolutely.”

She asked, “Lunch later, after the meeting?”

“Sure. Good idea.”

Brady swung down into the chair at the head of the table. Seeing that we were all present and had coffee and fatty snacks beside us, he said, “Awright. We have news.

“Please say hello to FBI agent Bao Wong, who is joining us for a while. She will be working with Boxer on this assignment for now. She has information gathered by and sent to us by the FBI. Bao, you know Lindsay, of course.”

And then he introduced her to the others seated at the long, scarred table. There was a welcoming murmur and hands stretched across the table to shake hers.

CHAPTER97

BAO WONG SAT between Lieutenant Jackson Brady and Lindsay Boxer at the war room conference table. She placed a padded manila envelope on the table, and the group leaned in for a better look.

Bao hoped that the material Chief Steinmetz had passed to her through Brady would give the task force what they needed to solve the unfathomable murders that had no apparent motive and often a bizarre catchphrase written on or near the victims.

Bao addressed the group, saying, “Good morning, everyone. It’s good to be here. Graig Steinmetz, FBI section chief of the San Francisco field office, has sent me what may be evidence of a suspect in the murders of Judge Martin Orlofsky and his wife, Sandra Orlofsky.

“I understand that several of you in this meeting were at the Orlofsky crime scene and possibly saw the suspect—but he’s a blue-ribbon chameleon. If you didn’t recognize him as a seasoned killer, that’s his superpower and why he’s stillfree. Also, I’ve been told that two former inspectors from this department, now retired, may have been involved with this suspect. I have some photographic evidence that may prove or disprove that theory.”

Bao reached into the open envelope and extracted a half dozen eight-by-ten photos and a small hard drive. She spread the photos out on the table, saying, “I’ll tape these photos to the wall in a few minutes. This one,” she said, holding it up, “shows the killer in profile. He is sitting behind the wheel of his gardener’s truck, which is part of his disguise. The photo was taken by a security camera wired to the next door neighbor’s home and was recorded at 6:45 a.m. three days ago. That’s the Orlofsky house. In the next photos, the truck’s driver had moved the truck out of camera range.

“This hard drive,” Bao said, holding it up, “was part of the same security system, and that system recorded the same truck at the same time and same day. The truck comes into the frame from down the street, pulls into position where the driver is in range to watch police activity.

“This photo was taken by the still camera five minutes after this one in my hand. And here is a uniformed officer telling the driver of the gardener’s truck to move along. He obeyed.

“Change of scene,” Bao said to the task force. “Here’s the same truck awaiting its turn to go through the border checkpoint from Tijuana deeper into Mexico. We have video of this truck, and of this man getting out of the truck to show his passport to the border police, returning to the truck, then driving on.

“There are no stills or video of this man doing actual murder or entering or leaving the Orlofsky house. He leftno DNA and no prints. He is an accomplished killer, and his name is Santiago Garza, known as Tiago. He’s the former boss of the drug cartel Los Hermanos del Diablo. The last I heard, Tiago Garza is now an assassin for hire.”

Bao paused and looked at the people at the table, making sure they were all with her. Then she said, “Tiago’s son, Dario Garza, is on trial for murder, here in California, and is currently confined to a cell in a maximum-security location.

“Back to Tiago Garza. Here’s a mug shot of him taken fourteen years ago when he was arrested for the theft of a half dozen catalytic converters that had been ripped out of high-end vehicles, then found in his nondescript junker. He denied any knowledge of the thefts but had no explanation for how they ended up in his car. He was booked and charged, and we have this information: He is five eleven, U.S. born, with dual U.S.-Mexico citizenship.

“His prints are on file, but nothing has yet shown as a match. Most probably Garza knew how to prevent house security cameras from getting clear shots of his face.

“Bottom line, Tiago Garza is at large.”

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