Rogue Justice (9 page)

"I called my news director from the hospital," Jia-li said. "Brought him up to speed. He's on his way in to the station now. It'll give us all a jump on the story. So, thank you again."

"No problem," Steiger said, quickly calculating in his head the OT he'd clocked. Probably enough to cover the cost of a long overdue overhaul on his vintage Harley. "Listen," he added with a hearty laugh, "I get why you wanted to high-tail it out of the ER. I took a bullet in the shoulder last year chasing down a murder suspect. Nothing serious, but they admitted me anyway, department policy. Spent two days getting poked and prodded by Nurse Ratched. I swear the miserable old battle-ax had never cracked a smile in her life until she yanked me out of bed the first time. That seemed to get her juices flowing."

Jason nodded. "You're nobody till somebody shoots you, right, detective? I remember that line from some old movie. So, did you catch the guy?"

"Yeah, we aced him," Steiger replied. "Found the murder weapon stuffed under the back seat of his car. I mean, this dude knows he's royally screwed, right, so I give him my best Ricky Ricardo impression. I say, 'Son, you got some
'splainin'
to do.'"

Jia-li and Jason laughed out loud.

"We got lucky on that one," Steiger added. "It happens sometimes, dunkers we call them. And speaking of luck, you two must have a touch of the Irish in ya, too. While you were getting checked out, I spoke with the chief petty officer, the guy who piloted the chopper. Good man, I've worked with him before. He told me he played a wild hunch, decided to search the waters around Lopez Island first. Sure enough, there you were."

"What's the saying?" Jia-li interjected. "Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good? In this case I'm sure it was a little of both. I can't say enough about him and those other guys, a solid bunch of pros. We owe them our lives. You too, detective. I don't see any way we could've made it through the night, not the way the temperatures were dropping."

"That's why they pay me the big bucks," Steiger said with a straight face.

Moments later,
he pulled in front of a brick fortress on Dexter Avenue, home to King 5 TV. The windowless building was massive and occupied an entire city block. He inched up over the curb, parking the Chevy where he always parked in traffic-challenged Seattle—on the sidewalk.

The news director met them at the front door, vibrating like a tuning fork. Steiger could hear the feverish thrill in his voice, practically read his mind. This was what guys like Ned Calkins lived for, to blow the lid off the ratings pressure cooker, to break the
really
big one. He had probably created space already for all the Emmys and other prestigious awards his team would surely rack up.

But nothing was going to happen until Steiger had taken statements from his witnesses. He would then decide what facts, if any, should be held back from the public to protect the integrity of the case. A case that now allegedly included robbery, assault, attempted murder, four dead thugs, and a ravenous pack of sea monsters.

Jesus,
he thought,
the only thing missing is the marching band and pom-pom girls.

They walked through a cavernous lobby hung with images of the interconnected history between the station and its city, scaled a long flight of stairs, and entered a glass-encased conference room. It looked out on the bullpen, a large warren crowded with reporters' desks, most piled high with files and reports. Beyond that was the control room, the station's nerve center. At this hour, there were only a few people milling about.

Calkins made small talk, thanked the detective for rescuing his superstar anchor, and exited the room. When the door closed, Steiger gathered Jia-li and Jason around one end of the oval conference table. He then pulled a microcassette recorder from his coat pocket and set it in front of him. There were much fancier recording devices on the market—like smartphones—but he preferred his trusty Sony. He nodded toward the young couple and pushed the "record" button.

Following an awkward silence, Jia-li took a deep breath and began to speak. Her voice trailed off from time to time, and she choked up at certain points, but her account of their harrowing, eighteen-hour ordeal was remarkably lucid and undeniably riveting.

Steiger listened intently as she described in intimate detail the pirates' cold-blooded attack, the violent storm, and the colossal whales that saved the day, as surely as the cavalry did in the movies. He carefully observed her body language, too. Facts and evidence were crucial in any investigation, but it was often instinct that cracked a case. Forget polygraph machines or truth serum, too. He had his own BS meter and it didn't take much to set it off—a nervous twitch, subtle eye movement, or, his favorite, unconscious rubbing of the nose. If the lovely reporter even
thought
about stonewalling him, he would know.

As the incredible tale unfolded, however, his skepticism melted away.

He believed this woman.

When she finished her statement, Steiger glanced at his watch, realized he had barely blinked in the half hour it had taken her to tell her improbable tale. Thirty years as a cop, he mused. He thought he'd seen and heard it all... until now. "Anything to add, Mr. Taylor?"

Jason leaned forward, rubbed his swollen jaw. "Yeah, actually there is something, detective. Since my lovely fiancée here won't ever say it, I'd like the record to reflect how incredibly courageous she was through all of this. As God is my witness, those pirates were meaner than junkyard dogs. And the whales? Nuclear subs on steroids."

Jia-li wrapped her slender fingers around Jason's forearm, squeezed gently.

He smiled. "She's a hero in my book. And so are you, detective. Thank you."

Steiger gathered up his things. "No problem. Look, I'll likely have more questions later on, but that's it for now."

"Sure," Jia-li said. "Can I ask you something before you go?"

"Shoot."

"I know Ned talked to you about releasing the story—the timing, I mean. What are you thinking at this point?"

"Like I told him, Ms. Han, I need to run all this by the brass downtown. But unless those goofs masquerading as pirates come back from the dead, I'd say bring it on. I'll call you later this morning with a definitive answer. Fair enough?"

They all stood, shook on it.

Five minutes later, Steiger walked out the front door of the building, jumped into his cruiser, turned the ignition, and rolled the vehicle off the sidewalk. Despite the long night, he was on his game, like the great athlete who throws down a 360 tomahawk jam at the buzzer to ice the championship. Easing into traffic, he snatched the mike and keyed it. "Dispatch," Steiger said with a satisfied grin. "This is 624. I'm on my way in."

Chapter 9

29 March, 1:45 AM PDT

Marin County, California

After stopping for a drink at the Buckeye Roadhouse in Mill Valley, Chandler and Savannah were ready to call it a night. The pub was crowded and because of that, they'd tabled the distasteful discussion involving Samson. No telling who might be listening in. Instead they talked about Savannah's parents—both retired musicians living in Darien, Connecticut—and her 25
^th
college reunion coming up in the fall.

She had graduated at the top of her class from Smith College with a degree in art history, added a master's degree a year later, and made plans to go into teaching. Law enforcement hadn't even been on her radar, but a police officer friend suggested she give it a shot. She did, found she liked the work, the challenge, the chase. Eventually, she was recruited by the FBI, her knowledge of the eccentric world of art giving her a leg up on most of her colleagues in the art-theft unit. Savannah quickly became drawn to a criminal enterprise with estimated losses running as high as $6 billion a year, making stolen art the third largest illegal trade, behind drug trafficking and arms smuggling. She was good at the job, too, though it had ended rather badly.

Twenty minutes after leaving the popular watering hole, Rizzo headed down Belvedere Avenue, negotiating a series of twists and hairpin turns over an impossibly narrow road. Swerving to miss a deer, he hung a left on Cliff Road, made another left at the bottom of the hill, then pulled up in front of a charming clapboard doll house. The home was nestled among tall trees and lush foliage that seemed, even in moonlight, to wrap it in a blanket of green.

Chandler gave Rizzo his marching orders for the following morning and followed Savannah inside. The décor of the home, like its owner, conveyed a sense of casual elegance and charm. They climbed two flights of stairs to a cozy loft with jaw-dropping views—Mount Tamalpais to the north; Golden Gate Bridge to the west; San Francisco to the south.

"I really should sell the place," Savannah said, her eyes fixed on the glittering skyline. "And I will, one of these days. But this view, Mitchell, it's heavenly. If ever there was a shining city on a hill, that's got to be it."

Chandler nodded. Savannah's lovely home had, in fact, fueled much of the controversy that swirled around her FBI career. According to an internal report never made public, she had befriended an odd collection of rogues and aristocrats known to populate the art underworld. She said they were recruited as snitches. Her boss accused her of helping them unload stolen goods—namely, a priceless Van Gogh cut from its frame in a Cairo museum—and snagging a piece of the action. The allegations were never proved and Savannah stubbornly refused to acknowledge that most of the money had come from a trust fund set up by her grandparents. But the incriminations lingered and she eventually resigned, moving into the corporate world. Chandler had never pushed her on the "real" story. One day he would. It intrigued the hell out him.

Savannah ambled over to a small, well-stocked bar. "Listen, how about a nightcap? Cognac okay?"

"Perfect, make mine a double." Chandler took off his jacket, loosened his tie, and stretched out his lean, six-foot-four-inch frame on the leather sofa. The recessed lighting threw a soft glow over the baby grand piano in the corner, reminding him of how beautifully his mother once played. On the far wall, a small library collection had been neatly arranged in a floor-to-ceiling bookcase. An original work by Monet hung above the marble fireplace, a gift he'd given Savannah on her forty-fifth birthday.

Savannah dropped in a CD and soon returned carrying two glasses, the soulful sounds of Kenny "Blues Boss" Wayne filling the room. She handed one snifter to Chandler, set hers on the end table next to the sofa. "I'm gonna freshen up a bit, slip into something more comfortable. Why don't you kick back, relax. We'll figure this thing out with Samson, okay?" She leaned down, gave him a lingering kiss on the lips, then disappeared down the stairs.

Chandler took a long pull of Cognac, set his glass down on the table. He began rubbing both temples to ease the grip of a gnawing headache. He leaned back and closed his eyes, soon lost in that netherworld between wakefulness and sleep. But his mind soon began spinning again and, when he sat back up, his gaze landed on the latest edition of
Vanity Fair
. Glancing at the striking woman on the cover, he did a double-take. She was sitting on the aft deck of a commercial fishing boat dressed in a khaki safari shirt, cut-off blue jeans, and no shoes. Her streaked red hair was short and spikey, her flashing green eyes the color of a tropical sea. They seemed almost luminescent. She had been blessed with a generous bust and her tanned, graceful legs seemed to go on forever. A tattoo of an Arctic wolf appeared prominently on her left forearm.

Intrigued, Chandler immediately flipped to the story. He began reading and couldn't stop.

COVER STORY

A Force of Nature

Hungry Sharks. Hostile Seas. A Man Overboard.

How a Courageous Boat Captain Pulled Off the Impossible.

By Lynda Wilding, Photographs by David Samuels

Captain Zora Flynn. The name conjures up all kinds of images. Conventional is certainly not one of them. And her high-seas heroics—snatching a helpless fisherman from the jaws of death—can only be described as astonishing, a triumph of the human spirit, already the stuff of legend.

But does the myth match the reality?

Let's start by examining the facts, which are indisputable. The statuesque redhead did indeed save a man's life by diving into frigid Alaskan seas teeming with great white sharks. And she was armed only with a pistol, a weapon which had very limited range underwater—a few feet at most. It was, to be sure, an act of supreme heroism. But the question everybody seemed to be asking was why? Why would an apparently sane person perform such an insane act?