15th Affair (Women's Murder Club 15)

“I know.”

My partner turned off the engine.

“We’re here,” he said.

CHAPTER 42

ALI MULLER’S 1920S Mediterranean-style home on Ocean View Boulevard was stunning. The many-windowed white stucco house was roofed in terra-cotta tiles and punctuated by a six-sided tower at the right-angle juncture between two wings.

I looked up through the windows of the squad car at the spiky native plantings on a rising slope up to the carved oak front door and I felt—warned off. The place was beautiful, and as welcoming as a fortress.

Conklin said, “You OK, Linds?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Fine. Let’s go.”

The man who opened the front door was handsome, just over six feet, in his midforties, wearing a cashmere pullover, dark trousers, slippers, and a gold wedding band. He looked well put together and not happy to see us.

He said, “Yes? What can I do for you?”

Conklin introduced us, showed his badge, and said we were looking into Alison Muller’s disappearance because she might have been a witness to a homicide.

“I am Khalid Khan,” said the man in the doorway. “Alison is my wife. Come in.”

We followed Khan past a spiral staircase inside the entrance and into a blond and airy great room ripped from the cover of California Living. It had a high ceiling, and the tall windows I’d admired from the street offered a ten-million-dollar view of the bay.

Khan offered us seats on the pale leather sofas, and he took a matching armchair. Soft music surrounded us, a string composition I didn’t recognize. There were no paintings or photographs or anything personal in the room. Again, I felt that forbidding air about the house.

I said, “We’re investigating four killings that took place early in the week in the Four Seasons Hotel.”

I showed Khan my phone with the still shot of Muller from the hotel security footage. Khan scrutinized the image.

He said, “I could see how someone might think that’s Ali, but this woman’s hair covers her face except for her nose. I don’t believe this is my wife.”

“Do you recognize her coat, Mr. Khan? Could it be Alison’s?”

He shrugged, just as two girls came down the stairs and entered the great room. They were beautiful children with thick, glossy hair, one about thirteen, the other about five. Khan said, “Caroline and Mitzi, these are police inspectors from San Francisco. They are looking for Mama.”

The younger child, Mitzi, said sternly, “I hope you are looking very hard.”

I said we were, and after the children ran off toward the kitchen, Conklin continued questioning Khan.

He said, “When was the last time you spoke with your wife?”

“She phoned me on Monday, saying she’d be home that night. She didn’t come home, but this is not unusual for Alison. She has a very busy life.”

Conklin asked, “You’re not afraid something has happened to her?”

Khan answered no to all of Conklin’s questions without apparent emotion or curiosity. No to ransom demands, unusual behavior, strangers in the neighborhood, hang-up phone calls, and whether he knew the name Michael Chan.

Why was Khan so unperturbed when his wife had been missing for almost a week?

So I asked him. “You don’t seem concerned, Mr. Khan. Why is that?”

Said Khan, “This isn’t the first time Ali has taken off for a few days without leaving word. They’re walkabouts. What she calls focus downs. She just checks out to think by herself.”

Really? Without saying a word?