Free White Ghost by Steven Gore Page B

from the underground garage. Gage rose and once again offered his condolences to a grieving sibling.
    â€œWe’re looking into a number of things,” Gage said, after they sat down, “and one of them is the death of your brother.”
    â€œThe detective came by this morning to look around Haitien’s room,” Winston said, “but he didn’t spend much time and didn’t take anything.” He smirked. “I guess when he didn’t find drugs or guns or a gang sweatshirt and matching cap he lost his enthusiasm.”
    Gage let the sarcasm pass. He knew part of the reason SFPD was stumbling around in the investigation was because he had yet to share what he knew with them. And he couldn’t. Spike Pacheco, the last of his generation in the homicide unit, had retired and Ramon Navarro, the best of the new generation, had been cross designated as a federal agent and sent to Michoacán to help the Mexican police and DEA in investigating cartel murders.
    Delay would do no harm anyway. Gage never accepted what was called the forty-eight-hour rule when he was in homicide, and even if there was such a rule, he knew that discovering the truth about Peter Sheridan’s death would be the exception.
    â€œDid the detective ask you anything?”
    â€œNot this time. The night my brother was killed he asked if Hai-tien had any enemies or gang affiliations. But it was less like he was investigating a crime and more like he was drawing a line on a flowchart or filling in a blank, and ignoring the possibility that the answer might be none of the above.”
    Winston inspected Gage’s face through his wire rim glasses. “Are you trying to fill in a blank, too?”
    Gage shook his head. “Our focus is on who killed your brother and why, not on blank filling, and we have some ideas we’re working on.”
    â€œWhich are?”
    â€œI’m sorry, but I’m not ready to share them.”
    Winston reddened, opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. Finally he nodded and said, “I did some Internet research about you after Sylvia left this afternoon, so I know the kind of work you do. And I called a friend’s father who’s a lawyer with a big firm in Beverly Hills. He said they hired your firm last year on a government contracting fraud case in Iraq and that you recovered something like forty million dollars. He was surprised you were interested in just a homicide.”
    â€œThere’s no such thing as just a homicide . A life is a life.”
    Winston shrugged. “You know what I mean. Because my brother did some things he shouldn’t have almost twenty years ago, the police seem to be blaming him for his own death.”
    Gage imagined Ah Ming had been thinking the same thing, that Ah Tien brought it on himself.
    â€œWe’d like your help, but we don’t want you telling anyone what we’re doing. If the wrong people start thinking we’ve figured out this homicide might be connected to something they want hidden, they’ll come after us.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œNot even your mother?”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œNot even your friend whose father is a lawyer in Beverly Hills?”
    Winston smiled and nodded. “What do you need?”
    â€œTo start with, your brother may have brought a briefcase back with him from New York.”
    â€œThere’s one in his room, but I don’t know how long it’s been there. The detective looked inside, but he just left it. I guess he didn’t find anything important. You can have it if you want.”
    â€œDoes your brother have an office at the Great Asia Import and Export in LA?”
    â€œJust a cubicle in a room with other sales reps. I’m going back to UCLA tomorrow and I can see whether his supervisor will let me take what’s there that belongs . . . I mean . . . belonged to him.”
    Gage tilted his head toward Sylvia. “She’ll fly down with