“Grab some coffee. We’ll talk,” he said.
Ryker rubbed his eyes wearily and did what the younger man suggested. He stopped by the men’s room first and washed the blood off his chin, then made his way to the break room. There, he filled a cup with some of the most rancid coffee he’d ever tasted even after he tried to soften it by adding copious amounts of sugar and four Mini-Moos creamers. Mission accomplished and his taste buds almost certainly assassinated, he returned to the homicide office. He slid back into his chair and faced Chee Wei again. He sipped the coffee and grimaced.
“What’ve you got?”
“Zhu lawyered up last night,” Chee Wei said. “I just got a call from the D.A.’s office.”
“So?”
“Her representative is Victor Chin,” Chee Wei said. He leaned back in his chair and clasped his fingers together behind his head.
Ryker sighed again. Victor Chin had started out as a Bay Area ambulance chaser, who now made more money representing specific Asian interests in the city. His current calling was acting as counsel to the “underrepresented” Chinese community whom had been “victimized” by the racist San Francisco Police Department. The S.F.P.D., and more importantly the District Attorney’s office, were already handling several lawsuits initiated by the do-gooder and social crusader with the two thousand dollar sharkskin shoes named Chin.
“This day really
Chee Wei shrugged.
“Look, we knew she had money. So of course she’s going to get the best she can get, and Chin’s just going to be the first one. If he doesn’t work out, she’ll just grab someone with more horsepower who won’t make such a scene in public.”
“What’s the D.A. say?”
“They say the normal stuff: we’ll stick by you, but you have to get us a case we can bring to trial. Speaking of which, is Miss Zhu under arrest for murder or just for questioning?”
Ryker rubbed his eyes again. He contemplated the coffee, then went ahead and sipped some more. A mistake.
“We just got her yesterday. She’s not even due for arraignment until this afternoon, right? You can’t tell me that Chin’s got that much name value. The guy’s an ambulance chaser.”
“Who’s suing the department,” Chee Wei countered. “Three suits at the same time.”
“She was properly Mirandized and went through the same procedures as anyone else we pick up. Big deal. This Chin guy can play with himself in Union Park, for all I care.”
“Well, you know-”
Ryker waved Chee Wei to silence.
“Skip it, that’s out of our hands. Let the D.A.’s office handle it. We need to start the murder book. You get the surveillance video from the hotel?”
Chee Wei reached into a desk drawer and pulled out six DVDs. They were in evidence bags.
“Yep. One master disc and one copy of each. Already entered as evidence.”
“Good. Criminologist reports?”
“Not due until this afternoon or tomorrow.”
Ryker grunted. He hadn’t expected anything any sooner. That would have been a genuine miracle, and his morning wasn’t shaping up that way.
“All right,” he said wearily, “let’s get started.”
Ryker spent the next hour working on his initial report, filling out the required departmental forms and annotating all evidence collected. He also added notes from the night’s interrogation of Xiaohui Zhu, currently locked up in the department’s detention cells. Ryker had made sure she was separated from the rest of the detainees in one of the “Hilton suites”, so she wouldn’t run the risk of being injured by one of the other women in lockup.
One of the more interesting aspects of the case was that Xiaohui’s high-end Diamond Heights residence had all the signs of being expertly tossed when the other two detectives on Ryker’s squad, Kowalenko and Morales, had arrived armed with a telephone warrant and keys to search it for themselves. They had recovered the clothes which matched those on the hotel surveillance footage, and had delivered them to the criminologists for inspection. Ryker checked the day planner which served as a blotter on his desk; Kowalenko was scheduled off, and Morales was in court, but was expected back before noontime.
Bit by bit, the murder book began to come together. It was still thin-very thin-but at the very least, the evidentiary process was coming along. Once they had the results from the criminology lab, then they could start tying up the loose ends from a physical evidence perspective. The coroner’s report on the body wouldn’t be seen until the end of the week at the very earliest, as there had been two other homicides earlier in the week. Not that the cause of death was an issue, but Ryker was keenly interested in the DNA evidence the coroner might turn up.
“You ready to watch the video again?” Ryker asked. He checked his watch. It was already ten minutes to eleven in the morning.
“Born ready,” Chee Wei said. “It might even be better than watching HBO.”
“At least this time it’s for free,” Ryker replied. He pushed back his chair and rose to his feet. He took a moment to stretch, and felt his back pop and crack in different places. Getting old certainly could suck.
A monitor with DVD player was on a wheeled rack at the other side of the room. As Ryker and Chee Wei walked toward it, Metro homicide’s commanding officer stepped into the office. He carried a cup of Starbuck’s coffee in one hand.
“Heya Lou,” Ryker said. “Just showing up for work, are we?”
Lieutenant Phil Furino was a tall, thin man with gangly limbs that had earned him the nickname of Spider. He had thick brown hair and dark brown eyes that dwelled deep in his head. His nose was almost as thin as a rifle sight, and he swiveled that targeting apparatus toward Ryker as he continued on to his office, located at the far end of the room.
“We have a meeting at eleven-thirty, you and me,” he said. “Don’t go anywhere I can’t find you.”
Ryker stopped short.
“What meeting?”
Spider continued on, targeting his office with his nose now.
“If I knew, I’d tell, but I don’t. So just stick around.” With that, he disappeared into his glass-paneled office and closed the door. Ryker watched as Spider sidled into his chair and swigged some of his overpriced but doubtless non-lethal coffee and began going through the contents of his inbox.
“Like shit he doesn’t know,” said Detective Sergeant Wallace, a portly man with a thick mustache and bald head. As bad luck would have it, his desk was right beside the A/V cart. “Spider got in at seven-thirty, then got his ass yanked by the High and the Mighty.”
Ryker looked down at Wallace.
“What’s that, Cueball?” he asked, even though he already knew.
“Jericho came stomping in here at about seven-forty-five looking like he was about to piss himself. Went into Spider’s office and asked about you, then he and Spider went off someplace else.” Wallace leaned back in his chair, which creaked beneath his bulk, and interlaced his fingers across his round belly. “You piss someone off again there, Supercop?” he asked, his dark, porcine eyes locking with Ryker’s.
“The day’s too early for that,” Ryker said.
“Never too early to put your ass in a sling,” mused a short, thick black detective named Johnson. He sat at one of the desks in Wallace’s pod.
Ryker shrugged, nonchalant. He then motioned Chee Wei to put the DVD in the player.
“Let’s get the show on the road,” he said.
“Or on the tube, to be more precise,” Chee Wei said, sliding the disc into the unit. As he fiddled with the buttons on the player’s control panel, he asked, “Any idea what’s up?”
“I can only think James Lin,” Ryker responded dryly.
“That chink’s got a hard-on for you, Ryker,” Wallace said. Apparently Chee Wei’s racial status was outside his ability to detect, which made sense: Putting him in the field pretty much guaranteed a case would appear on television’s “Unsolved Mysteries” program.
