the other, while the fifth desk at the head of the pod was for the sergeant running the squad. Ryker walked to his own pod, and found only Chee Wei sitting at his desk. Chee Wei’s usual partner, Garofolo, was out on medical leave after falling down a flight of steps while drunk. He had broken a leg, and wouldn’t be back for weeks. Of the other pair of detectives, there was no sign. Nor was the Lieutenant in; his glass-walled office was empty.
“Hey, nice threads,” Chee Wei commented when Ryker approached. “Nice job with the razor, too.”
“Huh?” Ryker stalked toward his desk, situated directly across from Chee Wei’s. Chee Wei touched a spot on his chin as Ryker pulled out his chair and fairly collapsed into it.
“Nice cut right here,” he said.
Ryker ran his hand over his chin, and felt a small scab underneath his chin. It stung lightly when he played with it.
“Fuck,” he said simply.
“Not your day, huh?” Chee Wei said, smiling.
Ryker sighed and removed his pistol from its holster. He dropped the Glock 17 into a desk drawer and locked it with a key on his key ring, then slipped the keys into his pocket.
“Not so far. Where’s Spider?” Ryker nodded toward the vacant lieutenant’s office.
“Dunno, haven’t seen him. You want to get some coffee, though. Your day’s probably not going to get any better.”
Ryker looked over the computer monitor on his desk at the Chinese detective.
“How so?” he asked, suspicious.
Chee Wei waved toward the hallway.
“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
