Page 35 of Flash and Bang
Thayne stood up as Jarrett shot to his feet beside him. He almost laughed at how desperately his partner wanted to get out of there. “Yes, sir.” He turned and followed Jarrett out of the boss’s office. “What time is our appointment with Chang?” he asked Jarrett.
“At ten thirty. We can stop for coffee if we leave now,” he said, glancing at his watch.
Thayne smiled. “You’re as jumpy as a ferret. It’s decaf for you,” he said affectionately.
Jarrett glanced over at him and smirked. “Uh-huh. Maybe I’ll have one ‘a them green teas you drink.” He put his finger in his mouth as if he weregagging himself.
All Thayne could do was laugh and shake his head.
****
They stopped for coffee and picked up a black Crown Victoria from the motor pool, leaving the rental in the garage below the building so the ATF could return it to the agency. At least they had a little legroom in the Crown Vic, a lot better than the Nissan they’d picked up in San Diego. Until Jarrett replaced his Jeep, he’d be taking the Crown Vic or driving his Harley.
The ATF investigator, Suki Chang, and her newborn daughter lived in Pasadena, close to the LA field office in Glendale, so getting there took only a few minutes. She lived in a nice home and greeted them holding a sleeping baby on her shoulder.
“You must be Special Agents Evans and Wolfe.”
“Yes,” Thayne said pleasantly as they stepped into the foyer of the large house. She closed the door behind them.
“I’m just going to put the baby down. I’ll beright back. Make yourselves at home.” She pointed to a comfortably furnished living room and they headed in there while she went upstairs.
Thayne walked around the room, admiring the silk tapestries, Chinese porcelain vases, and hand-knotted Oriental rugs on the floor. He passed by a low table covered with a red cloth where a small golden Buddha sat. Jarrett came up to stand beside him and they waited silently until she returned a minute or so later.
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. Please have a seat.” She waved at a yellow silk settee and they walked over and sat down on it while she lowered herself to a matching couch across from them. “So you’re here to talk about my investigation of the Chinese New Year fireworks explosion. Did I leave anything out of my report?” She wasn’t smiling and gave off a slightly defensive air although Thayne might have been wrong about the way he was reading her. She sat very still on the sofa, just staring at the two of them.
“Well, we’re not sure,” Thayne said.
“We just got back from San Diego where there was an explosion at a Marine Corps base,” Jarrett added. “We’re just here to see if there are any parallels to be drawn between the two incidents.”
“Parallels,” she said flatly. “Doyouthink there are parallels between Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and the Chinese New Year explosion?”
Thayne cocked his head to the side. “I take it you’ve heard about the Miramar explosion.”
Chang smiled thinly and then reached up, grasping her necklace and running a finger over a pendant. Thayne wondered whether she was deliberately trying to stall.
“I may be on maternity leave but I do keep my ear to the ground.”
Thayne exchanged a glance with Jarrett whose face was impassive. “No problem. So, can you tell us anything that you perhaps left out of the report. Obviously, you explained that you concluded the incident was an accident and didn’t require any additional follow-up,” Jarrett said.
She fingered her necklace. “Yes. That’s what I determined. I don’t know why you think I left something out of my report.” She rushed to explain. “It looks like one of the parade goers sent up a large balloon lantern which was equipped with fireworks which he’d meant to shoot out of the sides of the basket underneath, once it reached a safe altitude. Unfortunately, it only went up about twenty feet before the fireworks ignited which meant that severalpeople in the gathered crowd were injured. But it certainly wasn’t anything malicious.”
“And that’s the report you gave the LAPD as well?” Jarrett asked.
She frowned, dropping her hand from the small gold pendant that hung around her neck. Thayne realized it was a tiny cross. “Why are you asking that?” she said. “Of course that’s the report I gave the LAPD.”
“The reason why I asked what you left out of the report, was that there was no name of the person who sent up the lantern. Did you interview him?”
“Yes, of course I did,” she said tersely. “I didn’t put that in my report?”
Thayne handed her the file. “No, I’m afraid you overlooked that.”
She flipped open the file and read her report thoroughly. “Huh. Well, I may have to go back and review my notes to see if I wrote the woman’s name down.”
“It was a woman who sent up the lantern? I thought you saidhe’dmeant to shoot the fireworks out of the sides of the lantern but they ignited before it got to a proper height and that you interviewed him.”
She nodded. “Yes.” She stared, looking between them for a few seconds. “Oh I see where the confusion is. In Chinese, the pronouns he, she, and it, are often confused when being translated to English because in Chinese there is one word for them. It makes sense in the context it’s used.”
Jarrett glanced at Thayne and then turned back to Chang, giving the woman a small nod. “So it was a woman who sent up this lantern?” he drawled.