answer.”
“Good.” He peered up and down the hall, his eyes shadowed and wary. He looked every inch the tall, dark, and dangerous security expert I knew him to be.
“Derek, where did that gun come from? I didn’t even see you-”
“Wait. Now, what’s this?” he said.
I let out a terrifying scream as something wrapped itself around my legs. The cell phone flew out of my hand. Derek grabbed it, put it to his ear, and walked away, shaking his head-in amusement, it appeared.
I looked down. “Tyler! Jeez, you scared the… Never mind. Are you all right?” He looked a little dazed as I knelt down and hugged him tightly, then held him at arm’s length to check that he wasn’t injured.
“The bad man broke your door,” he said in a tense whisper.
“What bad man, honey?”
“Did you catch him?” he demanded. “Did he take my book?”
“No, no,” I said. “I’m sure your book is fine.”
“But I saw him. He was a mean giant and he threw your stuff around. Did he break my book?”
I would decipher his ramblings later. Right now, only one thing concerned me. “Tyler, where were you when you saw the bad man?”
His smile was cunning. “I was hiding.”
“Hiding where?”
He pointed to the stairwell door a few yards down the hall. The stairs led down to the ground floor. “In there.”
“Did the man see you?”
“No,” he said patiently. “I was hiding, but I could see through the crack.”
“Right. Did you see what he looked like?”
“He was big!” To demonstrate, he stretched his arms out as far as they would go. “And he was ugly and mean. He kicked your door. He kicked and kicked and didn’t stop until he got inside. Did he take my book?”
The thought of the big man discovering Tyler made me dizzy and sick.
“Did he? Miss Brooklyn?”
I shook myself back to the moment. “What, honey?”
“My book,” Tyler said, tilting his head to stare at me as though I’d gone off my rocker. “You were supposed to fix it.”
“Right. Your… book… Oh, shit, my book.” The Kama Sutra! I headed for my studio.
“That’s a bad word,” Tyler said, folding his arms across his chest.
I turned. “Tyler, I want you to go home right now.”
His lower lip wobbled. “But I want my book.”
“I’ll get it in a minute.”
“I want it now.”
Oh, for God’s sake. Was he going to cry? I would start crying, too, and then we’d all be a mess. There was a reason I didn’t have kids. I took a calming breath. “I’ll make sure it’s okay, honey. I know the bad man didn’t take it.”
He looked doubtful, but then he nodded, turned, and walked to his front door. Where he stopped and waited, watching me.
And that was when two things hit me. First, where were his parents? Why hadn’t they heard someone smashing my door down?
Second, and probably more important, this little six-year-old was the only witness to the break-in. That wasn’t good. But on the positive side, Tyler might be able to identify the man who killed Alex-if it was the same person.
The police would want to talk to Tyler, might even bring a sketch artist over to get a detailed description. His parents were not going to be happy about this. I hated to be the ones to tell them, but I looked around and didn’t see anyone else stepping forward to do the job.
“Wait, Tyler. I’ll go with you.”
I figured the Kama Sutra was either still where I’d hidden it or it was gone. I would find out soon enough. Right this minute, Tyler was the priority. I ran back to Derek, who was still on the phone with Inspector Lee, quickly explained the situation, then jogged back to face the wrath of Tyler’s parents.
The good news was, the Kama Sutra was right where I’d left it, in the safe box under the floor of my hall closet.
The bad news was, Tyler was grounded for life.
To say that his parents were upset with him for hiding in the stairwell was putting it nicely. Now he was the only witness to a crime and could possibly identify a murderer.
Tyler’s father had been in his office in the back of their apartment on a conference call. His mom had been giving her two little girls a bath, during which they’d screamed and laughed nonstop. Neither parent had heard the door-bashing racket going on in the hall.
I tried to calm them both down, but I wasn’t doing a very good job. Inspector Lee showed up shortly after that and I was off the hook. She took young Tyler under her wing, impressing me with her charm when it came to kids as well as with her ability to deal with Mr. and Mrs. Chung respectfully and authoritatively. Maybe it was due to our own casual, bantering relationship style, but I’d never realized that Inspector Lee could communicate so intelligently or maturely on almost any topic. My mistake.
In this case, Lee had one big point in her favor. Despite growing up in San Francisco’s Chinatown, where many of the immigrants spoke only Cantonese, Lee also spoke Mandarin, thanks to one of her aunts. Henry Chung, Tyler’s father, spoke Mandarin, too. He also spoke perfect English, but Mr. Chung, very angry that his little boy had been drawn into the investigation, had drawn some sort of psychological line in the sand and decided that he would speak to the police only in Mandarin. It was satisfying to see the shock of surprise in his eyes when Inspector Lee answered him in perfect Mandarin.
The fear that Tyler had been traumatized for life faded as Mr. Chung watched his little boy jump up and down at the chance to work with the police artist. Tyler was also anxious to reenact the scene for the police, so both parents stood in the hall, each holding the hand of one of their little girls, as Inspector Lee led Tyler over to the doorway leading to the stairs.
Before she had him scoot behind the door, Inspector Lee asked, “Do you know how to tell time, Tyler?”
“Yes, I have a watch.” He thrust his arm out for her to see his red plastic wristwatch.
“Can you tell me how long you think the man stayed here breaking the door down?”
Tyler frowned. “Not very long.”
“Five minutes?”
“Oh, no. Maybe… ten minutes?”
Lee glanced at her partner and Jaglom shrugged. Who knew what ten minutes translated to in little-boy time? Lee thought of another question. “Did you see the man go inside?”
“Yes,” he said spiritedly, excited to know the right answer. “He was inside; then the elevator made that loud noise and the man ran out of there.”
“How did he leave the building?”
“Down these stairs.” Tyler pointed down the stairs he was on.
His father grimaced at the realization that the man had been within inches of his son.
“Now, Tyler,” Lee said, pointing at Derek, “do you think the bad man was taller than our friend Derek?”
The stairwell door was partially open, and Tyler stared at Derek, who stood in front of my doorway pretending to kick it. His studious gaze moved from Derek’s feet up to his face. “I think so. Bad man was fatter. But his hair was that color.” He pointed at Derek.
“So he had dark hair?”
“Yes.”
“Did you see his face?”
“Yes.”
“Can you describe it?”
