CHAPTER 24

THE FRONT DOOR OPENED and shut with a soft click. For almost a minute, there was no other noise, as if the intruder were listening as intently as we were.

Finally, I heard a few careful footfalls on the carpet in the hallway. Another long pause, then the prowler moved more confidently.

Built in three tall sections, the screen I hid behind had delicate hinges joining the outer two panels to the middle. Between the hinges there were thin gaps I peered through.

I didn’t see the burglar I’d expected. The man who appeared in the doorway of Judge Pak’s office was a small, muscular Latino in his late thirties. He was wearing a five-thousand-dollar pale gray Italian suit and sporting a puffed-up bleached-blond pompadour that looked varnished in place. Latex gloves covered his hands, and he carried a gym bag emblazoned with the logo for something called Orangetheory Fitness.

I thought he would head for the wall safe in the closet, in which case he was in for a major surprise. But he had another target.

He walked to a small round table next to a bloodred-leather chair in front of blackout drapes. He drew out a phone and snapped a close-up picture of the table legs, then lifted the table and carefully set it aside.

He got down on his knees and pushed at the baseboard; a piece of the parquet floor rose up with an audible click. With a letter opener from the desk, he pried up the square, then set it on the table.

After taking a look around, he turned on his phone’s flashlight app, shone it into the hole, and reached down with his right arm up to his elbow. I heard five beeps followed by a thunk.

He reached farther in and came out with a six-inch stack of Benjamins, the crisp hundred-dollar bills still in bank wrappers. He put them in the gym bag and began scooping out more.

Mahoney had had enough. He pushed open the closet door, gun up, and aimed at the back of the guy’s head. “Freeze!” he thundered. “FBI!”

The guy startled and jerked forward, pushing his arm deeper into the hole and smashing his head into the wainscoting behind the drapes. He collapsed, groaning.

“Don’t move a muscle,” Mahoney said, pulling a zip tie from his pocket. He straddled the man, grabbed his left wrist, put the zip around it, and went for the right.

The guy screamed, “No, no! My fucking shoulder! It’s dislocated!”

“I don’t care,” Mahoney said, finishing the job. He hauled the man up and into the leather chair.

“Oh, man, my head and neck are killing me,” he said, rolling his head around gingerly, his pompadour crushed. “I think I compressed a disk. And I got a concussion. You are going to hear about this in court, FBI whoever you are.”

“Supervising special agent Edward Mahoney,” Ned said, flashing his ID. As I stepped from behind the screen, he said, “This is Dr. Cross. He works for us as a consultant in criminal behavior. And you are?”

“Sheldon Alvarez, attorney,” he said, staring at me slightly cross-eyed and nodding slowly. “Cross. I’ve seen you before.”

“Oh, yeah, where was that?” I asked, thinking I would have remembered the pompadour.

His eyes cleared a little. “At Quantico. I heard you lecture when I did a six-week course for people working for various U.S. attorneys around the country.”

Mahoney said, “You’re with the U.S. attorney here in San Francisco, Sheldon?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “I quit that five years ago. You can’t live here on that kind of bread. I am a wrongful-death litigator.”

I took out my phone to check on Sheldon Alvarez, wrongful-death litigator, as Mahoney said, “Care to explain why you broke a federal crime scene seal, snuck in here, and started looting the judge’s stash?”

He frowned, winced, said, “What looting? The seal was broken. I thought it was another dodge from Bitty, so I came inside.”

“You picked the front lock.”

Alvarez rolled his eyes, winced again, and said, “Bitty forced that issue.”

I looked up from my phone. “Bitty?”

“Bitgaram Pak.”

“And how did he force what issue?”

“He changed the locks on me. Said he was walking the straight and narrow.” Something seemed to sag in him then. “My head really does hurt.”

“We’ll get it looked at after you answer my questions,” Mahoney said.

Alvarez shut his eyes for a moment, and his head lolled slightly. It made me think he might indeed have a mild concussion.

“Wait a second,” he said, opening his eyes sleepily. “What’s this all about? Where’s Bitty?”

“Don’t you read the papers, Counselor?” I asked.

“I’ve been up at a friend’s cabin, nursing my wounds and plotting my revenge after finding the doors locked. What is this then? The gambling? Finally?”

Mahoney said, “Judge Pak is dead, Mr. Alvarez. He was stabbed to death last night in front of the symphony hall.”

He didn’t seem to understand, because he just looked back and forth from Ned to me for several moments before shaking his head. “He can’t be dead.”

“He is, though, I’m sorry,” Mahoney said. “His body’s at the morgue, awaiting autopsy.”

That cut through the fog, and Alvarez broke down sobbing.