Myriades de calamités

Chapitre 4

“Let me tell you what’s feasible, Mr. Zinn.” I stared intently at his fake smile. “A feasible solution is for us to come back in two hours, with a summons, declaring that deleting any document from the files within the past twenty-four hours constitutes obstruction of a murder investigation. Another feasible solution is to send any material we find that is detrimental to X/L Corporation to the district attorney’s office for those ruthless legal giants to devour. Mr. Zinn, do you see these as feasible?” Gerry Gates leaned towards the lawyer beside him. “Chuck, it seems we need to think of something.” “Of course we can.” Zinn nodded. “But I’m afraid we can only talk about this much today. You two must be very busy. So, if that’s all…”—he stood up, a smile on his face—“I dare say you’d love to speak with Helena.”

In the first part of "The Third Time," the fish bites the hook and struggles desperately.

As soon as I stepped out of X/L Company's door, I hurriedly took out my phone and called Jill. I briefly told her about the less-than-successful meeting with the two people from X/L Company.

“You’re issuing a subpoena,” Jill interrupted me, “to access Letor’s files?” “Hurry up, Jill, get it done before they send in Arthur Anderson to clean up the files.” “Is there any evidence on Letor’s computer that could justify issuing a subpoena?” “Just say I have my suspicions, Jill. When the person I’m meeting seems distracted, like a fish on a hook struggling, my alarm bells go off.” “How do they go off, Lindsay?” Jill chuckled.

“Tch,” I said firmly. “Alright, Jill, I’m not just lounging around.” “Besides that instinctive feeling in your body, what else can prove they’re hiding something?” A surge of discontent welled up inside me. “You don’t want to do this for me, do you?” “Lindsay, I can’t do this for you. If I do what you say, whatever you eventually find out, it’ll be hard to use in an interrogation. How about this, let me try to make a deal with them.” “Jill, I have a multi-homicide case on my hands.” “Well, if I were you, I’d find a way to bypass the law and put pressure on them elsewhere.” “Could you be more explicit?” Jill snorted. “I just checked, you have some friends in the press…” “You mean, if their company were on the front page of the Chronicle, being talked about, they might be more willing?” “Well, Lindsay…” I heard Jill chuckle to herself.

Suddenly, my phone rang.

It was Kapi Thomas calling from his office. "Officer, please come back immediately, the sooner the better. We've found a lead on the maid."

The First Part of "Three Times of Soul Stealing": The Loving Nanny

When I rushed back to the police station, there were two women sitting in chairs in the interrogation room. Carl told me they ran a small employment agency that introduced nannies and maids. The agency was called "Compassionate Nannies."

“We called as soon as we heard it on the radio,” explained Linda Clayburn, the woman in the pink cashmere sweater. “We were the ones who recommended Wendy Raymond to that family for the job.” “She seemed perfect for it,” her partner, Judith Hertan, chimed in. Judith took a yellow folder from her handbag and handed it to me. Inside, after opening the folder, was a completed “Nanny of Love” registration form, several letters of recommendation, and a UC Berkeley student ID with a photo attached.

“The Letor family really likes her,” Linda said.

I stared at Wendy Raymond's face in the laminated photograph. Blonde hair, high cheekbones, a wide grin, and a radiant smile. The fleeting image before the explosion flashed through my mind again: the girl in overalls hurrying away from the scene of the impending explosion. It could very well be her.

“All our girls are carefully selected. Wendy seems like a great help with the kids. She’s cheerful, charming, and a very lovable child.” “The Letor family says their child is very attached to her,” her colleague said. “We regularly check with our clients and get their feedback.” “These recommendation letters…you verified them too?” Judith Hertan hesitated, then continued, “We probably didn’t follow up with everyone. But I did contact her school to confirm she’s a student of good character. Of course, we also saw her student ID.” I looked at the address on the document: 17 Palicken Street. It was in Berkeley, across the bay.

“I think she said she lived off-campus,” Linda Clyburn said. “The address we sent her the offer letter was a post office box.” I called Kapi and Jacobi outside. “I’ll notify the Berkeley Police Department and ask Chief Trajo for assistance.” “How do you plan to handle this?” Kapi asked, looking at me. He was actually asking what kind of police force we should use to find her. I stared at the photograph in my hand.

“Use every means possible,” I said.

The maid we're looking for in the first part of "The Third Time"

Forty minutes later, we arrived at 17 Paliken Street in Berkeley. It was a dilapidated blue Victorian-style house; there were several rows of houses like this on Paliken Street, just a few blocks from the university campus. Two police cars were parked at the intersection, blocking the street. A riot police vehicle was parked next to the police cars. I didn't know what would happen next, but I dared not take any chances.

We were all wearing bulletproof vests under our uniforms. It was 11:45. The Berkeley Police Department had been closely monitoring the house earlier and said no one had come out except for a Black girl who went in about 30 minutes ago carrying a paper bag with UC Berkeley printed on it.

“We’re going in to look for a missing baby,” I said to the people behind me.

Jacob, Kapi, and I crouched low behind a row of cars in front of the house and crept stealthily toward the door. There was no sound from inside. We knew that this kind of place could also be a trap for the police.

Two police officers quietly crept up and positioned themselves on either side of the front porch. A riot police officer carried a baton for ramming doors, ready to break in if necessary. The scene was silent, the atmosphere extremely tense.

I nodded, indicating that I should go inside.

“Open the door! We’re from the San Francisco Police Department!” Kapi pounded on the door.

I peered through the window by the door to see if there was any sign of activity inside. These guys had already used a bomb. I was sure they would open fire on us without hesitation. There was no sound from inside.

Suddenly, I heard footsteps approaching the door from inside the house, followed by the sound of the lock turning. The door opened, and we all raised our guns, aiming them at the people behind it.

Behind the door stood the Black girl wearing a UC Berkeley t-shirt; Berkeley police had seen her enter the house earlier. She screamed in terror when she saw the large group of riot police outside.

“Are you Wendy Raymond?” Kapi yelled, reaching out to pull her out of the house.

The girl was terrified and speechless. Kapi pushed her towards the riot police officer beside him. The girl trembled and pointed to the stairwell. "I think she's upstairs." The three of us strode into the house. The doors to both bedrooms upstairs were open, but the houses were empty. Downstairs, a door to an inner room in the living room was tightly shut.

Kapi pounded on the door. "Wendy Raymond? We're from the San Francisco Police Department!" There was no response.

I felt my blood boil. Kapi glanced at me, then checked the gun in his hand. Jacobi also prepared to ram the door. I nodded.

Kapi kicked the door open. We rushed in, pointing our guns at the four corners of the room.

A girl in a T-shirt jumped out of bed. She stared at us with a startled expression, her eyes still heavy with sleep, before screaming, "Oh my God, what's going on?" "Are you Wendy Raymond?" Kapi asked, his gun still pointed at her.

The girl turned pale with fright, her eyes darting between us.

“Where’s the baby?” Kapi roared.

"This is all a fucking blunder! This is all a fucking blunder," I thought to myself.

The girl had long, dark hair and a tanned complexion, completely different from the maid Diana Aronoff had described, different from the girl in Wendy Raymond's student ID photo, and not the girl I'd glanced at at the explosion site. I understood. This girl had probably lost her student ID, or it had been stolen. But the question was, who had it now? I lowered the gun I was holding. Before us stood a completely unrelated girl.

“This isn’t the maid we’re looking for,” I said.

Part 1 of "The Third Time" - The Baby Cradle Wrapped in a Bed Sheet

Lucille Clemons only had seventeen minutes during lunch break to wipe the ketchup off Marcus's face, take the twins back to daycare, and then catch the No. 27 bus back to her workplace. Her boss, Mr. Damon, would deduct $7.85 per hour (13 cents per minute) from her wages for absenteeism.

“Hurry up, Marcus,” she sighed as she called to her five-year-old son, whose face was covered in ketchup. “Mom doesn’t have time to change your shirt today.” She pointed to his collared white shirt, which was covered in his ketchup fingerprints, like a fingerprint painting—and the worst part was that the fingerprints wouldn’t come off.

Cherries waved her little hands from her seat. "Mommy, I want ice cream." "No, honey, no. Mommy's going to be late." She glanced at her watch, her heart sinking. Oh dear… "Hurry up, honey." Lucille put their "meal" boxes back on the tray. "Wipe your mouth clean." "Mommy, I want a McDonald's sundae," Cherries cried.

“Once you can earn sixty-five dollars a day, you can buy a McDonald’s sundae or any other ice cream you want. Now you two need to get cleaned up quickly. Mom has to go to work.” “But I’m clean,” Cherries pouted.

She pulled them both off their chairs and hurried towards the restroom. "You didn't get much dirty, but your brother looks like he's been in a battle," Lucille said, dragging her children along the back aisle towards the restroom. She pushed open the door to the women's restroom. It was a McDonald's; no one would mind. She lifted Marcus and sat him on the sink, wiping his ketchup-stained shirt with a damp tissue.

The boy screamed.

“You little rascal, you’re making things worse. You have to clean yourself up. Cherries, do you need to pee?” “Yes, Mom,” the girl replied.

The girl was much cleaner than her brother. They were both five years old, but Marcus couldn't even take his pants off himself. Some of the ketchup stains on his shirt were gradually wiped away.

“Cheris,” Lucille yelled, “you can sit on that potty by yourself, so what’s wrong?” “Mommy, I can’t sit on it,” the child replied.

“Can’t sit up? Who cares about that, my young lady? Take off your pantyhose and squat down to pee.” “Mom, no. Come and see.” Lucille sighed. Those who say the baby won’t hurt must have never had twins. She glanced in the mirror, sighed again, and didn’t bother with grooming herself anymore. She lifted Marcus off the sink, walked to Cherries’ toilet stall, and opened the door.

She called out impatiently, "What are you yelling about?" The little girl stared at the potty.

"My God." Lucille gasped.

On the toilet lid was a baby cradle wrapped in a sheet, and inside the cradle was a baby.

The first part of "Three Times of Soul Stealing" - A Feeling of "After Darkness Comes a Brighter Future"

In this line of work, there are occasional moments of unexpected good fortune. The discovery of the Letteau family's baby at the McDonald's was one such once-in-a-lifetime moment. Everyone in the police station breathed a sigh of relief, a feeling of immense weight lifted from their shoulders.

I called Cindy and asked her for a favor. She said she'd be happy to put some pressure on X/L.

I hung up the phone with Cindy, just as Charlie Clapper knocked on my office door. “Boxer, you’re very attractive.” “Even coming from you, that sounds a bit sexist,” I said with a smile.

Clapper laughed heartily. His crime scene investigation team had been searching the explosion site for a full day and a half, and Clapper looked exhausted.

“Honey, let’s go take a look,” he said, tilting his head to the side to indicate that I should follow him. “Let me give you a feast for the eyes first.”

"They're much smarter than Trajor's men." "You know, I earned this gold shield badge through sheer skill." Charlie led me to his office. Nico from the bomb squad was also in the room, leaning back in Charlie's wooden swivel chair, grabbing something from a Chinese takeout container.

“Alright, we’ve sketched out a rough outline of the explosive device.” Charlie pushed a chair towards me. On a whiteboard, someone had drawn a floor plan of the Letor family’s house. “There are remnants of C-4 explosives all over the site. Just half a pound of that explosive is enough to blow up a plane in mid-air. So, judging from the scale of the explosion, I’d guess about five times that amount. Whoever did it, the explosives were put in a bag like this”—he took out a black Nike sports bag—“and then the bag containing the explosives was placed in one of the rooms inside the house.” “How did you know that?” I asked.

“It’s easy to deduce,” Clapper replied with a smile. He produced a fragment of black nylon with a faint Nike logo on it. “We peeled it off from something stuck to the wall.” “Let’s try our luck and see if we can extract any fingerprints or something?” I asked hopefully.

“Honey, not so lucky,” Clapper said with a laugh. “It was just a bag.” “It was detonated with a very complicated device,” Nico explained. “Remotely detonated, the detonator was attached to the phone.” “Lindsay, there’s a black market for C-4 explosives out there. We’ll investigate any construction site thefts and arms depot robberies,” Charlie Clapper said.

“How are the two kids, Charlie?” “If only they were eighteen, adults,” the head of the crime scene unit said with a grin. “What’s wrong? Are you starting to have feelings for them?” If Clapper were a foot taller and fifty pounds lighter, and hadn’t been married for thirty years, I might one day accept his little flirtations. “Sorry, the child is still very young.” “You mean the Lettour baby?” Charlie’s face darkened.

I nodded. “I need to examine the baby thoroughly, leaving no stone unturned. The baby, the sheets, the cradle—everything needs a careful check.” “I haven’t changed diapers in thirty years,” Clapper sighed, a hint of apprehension on his face. “Oh, I almost forgot…” He pulled a numbered document bag from under a stack of files on the table. “There’s a small room right next to the nursery behind the living room. Someone stayed there the night before the explosion. But we still haven’t found out who it was.” It was that maid, I thought to myself.

“Don’t get too worked up,” Charlie said with a shrug. “Everything here was burned to ashes. This is what we got from the bed.” He tossed me a plastic bag. Inside was a deformed, can-like object, about three inches long.

I picked up the bag and examined it closely, but I couldn't figure out what the cylindrical container could be.

“So that’s what it was for. It must have melted by now,” Clapper said, shrugging. He reached into his jacket pocket hanging on the back of the chair and pulled out something that looked similar.

“It’s an asthma inhaler, Lindsay.” He removed the cap from the can and placed it next to the canister in the evidence bag for comparison. He pressed the button twice, and each time a spray came out of the can and drifted into the air.

"The person living in this house suffers from asthma."

The First Part of "Triple Soul Stealing": The Admired Guardian

Jill Bernhardt sat alone in her dimly lit office for a long time; her colleagues had long since left.

An open case file lay spread out on the table in front of her, and she suddenly realized she had been staring blankly at the same page for over ten minutes. On those days when Steve wasn't away on business trips or working overtime, she would always spend her time in the office. Doing whatever came to mind, just trying to avoid him as much as possible, even when she didn't have a case to work on.

Jill Meyer Bernhardt. The renowned Assistant District Attorney. A guardian angel admired by all.

She herself was afraid to go home.

Slowly, she touched the bruises on her back. They were from the most recent beating. How could this have happened? She often helped women with similar experiences of abuse in court, but now she herself hid in a dark corner, guarding her privacy and weeping alone.

A tear slowly rolled down her cheek. "It all started when I lost my child," she thought to herself. "It all started from that time."

No, her troubles with Steve had started long before that. She knew it. She had just finished law school, while he had just finished his MBA. The differences initially manifested in her clothing. Her outfits often didn't suit his taste or accentuated her physical scars. At dinner parties, his opinions—about politics, her job, or whatever—always prevailed over hers. She always assumed it was because he earned more money and had used his money to pay for the house and the deposit on the BMW.