15th Affair (Women's Murder Club 15)

I watched over my shoulder as he got out of his Town Car and headed toward us. The tipster was overweight. He wore a thin, gray knee-length coat and carried a nylon computer bag in his right hand. He came up behind us and knocked on Cindy’s window, which she buzzed down.

Cindy said hello and introduced me as “Lindsay, my partner on the crime desk.”

Jad took off his gloves, put them in his pocket, and said to me, “Pleased to meet you. Let’s sit in the back.”

Cindy and I disembarked from the front seat and arranged ourselves in back so that the big man was sitting between us. When I got a closer look at him, I saw that he was young, early to midtwenties, with pale hands and brown eyes that couldn’t quite meet mine.

I quashed a nervous impulse to laugh. Sitting in the shadows next to this stranger who was passing secret information made me feel like I was inside an old comedic spy movie. Was this improbable spy the real deal? Had he caught a professional killer on video and in the act?

I tuned back into the moment as Jad was saying, “I told my bosses that the equipment didn’t work. You know, shit happens. So, this is video, here. I’ve seen it and you’re going to see it, and then I’m gonna destroy it. This footage is never coming to a theater near you.”

Cindy said, “How am I going to report this if I don’t have the footage to back me up?”

Jad opened a very thin laptop and it lit up the backseat. He said, “Cindy, that’s your problem. I agreed to meet with you conditionally. After you see the video, you’re either going to get independent corroboration or you’re not. This is as far as I go.”

Jad tapped at his keyboard and said, “On your mark, get set.” And then he pressed Play.

I instantly recognized the image on the screen as room 1420 of the Four Seasons Hotel. Michael Chan was sitting at the end of the bed, flipping channels on the television. A doorbell sounded and Chan turned off the TV and walked toward the door, out of camera range. A moment later, I heard Chan saying, “You’re late.” And the door closed hard.

Chan and Muller entered the frame. Muller’s legs were clasped around Chan’s waist and he was holding her tightly as he walked her toward the bed. Her glasses were gone and I could almost see her eyes beneath the curtain of bangs.

They laughed and kissed deeply, and then Chan laid Muller down on the bed facing him. He removed her boots and tossed them aside, all of his movements confident as though he’d been through this ritual before.

I caught bits of their game play. Chan said that he was the Prince of Gorgonzola. She said her name was Renata and that he had paid her for sex once before in Rome.

The teasing continued as Chan unbuttoned and peeled off Muller’s clothes, then stripped off his own. She moved under his hands, and if she didn’t just love the hell out of how he was turning and touching her, she could have won the golden statue for best actress.

The two were nearly naked on the bed, their heavy breathing sucking in all the air in the room, when the computer screen went black. Dead black.

Cindy said, “Hey. What happened?”

Jad said, “Yeah, that’s a bitch, right? I thought it was my equipment that lost the connection. Well, that wasn’t it. The Wi-Fi in and around the hotel was blocked.

“Stay tuned,” said Jad. “There’s more.”

CHAPTER 73

JAD WAS CUEING up another video.

He clicked the arrow and the video rolled.

I recognized 1418, the room next to Chan’s. There were two single beds, a sofa, a desk, and a coffee table, and the two young people, a black male in cords and a sweater, and a white female in jeans and a pastel plaid shirt. They were sitting at their ad hoc computer stations, looking at their screens.

Jad said, “Nothing happens in here for a couple of hours.” He fast-forwarded the video and the time stamp sped from 4:30 to 6:20.

As Jad had said, there wasn’t much happening in 1418.

The boy sat at the desk, the girl hunched over the coffee table, both gravely watching their computer screens, which were turned away from the camera. I couldn’t see what they were watching, but presumably, it was Chan and Muller in the room next door.

They ate sandwiches, chugged from their water bottles, and wheeled the room service cart outside the room, all without incident. At the 6:20 marker, Jad slowed the film and said, “Don’t look away. Don’t even blink.”

The young man in the video poked a key on his laptop and spoke to someone on his screen.

“Hey, Joe. You on the way up?”

A voice came over the computer’s speakers.

“Bud, where’s Chrissy?”