Project Moses - A Mystery Thriller (Enzo Lee Mystery-Thriller Series) Read Free

Lee’s desk.
    •   •   •
    MORE COPS THAN usual were milling around the dingy, cavernous third-floor corridor of the San Francisco Hall of Justice. Lee knew that behind the courtrooms was a rabbit warren of dark passageways and windowless offices. The area was where the judges and their staffs worked and was off limits to the public. Judge Gilbert’s chambers would be buried there someplace.
    Lee pulled out his thin notepad from the back of his waistband. He was wearing faded jeans, a V-neck maroon sweater over a black T-shirt and a beat-up pair of Asics running shoes. He had come to the newsroom planning to sit at his computer all day. As a feature writer, Lee might have to spend one day on a ranch with a horse whisperer and the next following a chimney sweep down a smoke vent. So his dress code was flexible. Lee checked his watch, a Rexall special. He had 15 minutes to the 10 a.m. deadline.
    Two patrolmen standing outside a doorway in black uniforms looked particularly forbidding. Lee walked over.
    “Enzo Lee of the News,” he said. “May I go in there?”
    The cops looked at Lee’s informal attire. They exchanged looks. The bigger one with huge ears, an overdeveloped schnoz and a smug expression smiled insolently and shook his head.
    Lee tried again. “Is this where the judge is? The dead one?”
    They looked at each other again. The big one shrugged and grinned again, a little more malevolently.
    Hell, thought Lee, becoming annoyed. These bastards were going to make it rough and he didn’t have time for it. Pilmann was going to rip him a new one if he didn’t come back with this story.
    “What the hell is the problem here?” he said. “I’m the goddamn Press! I wanna talk to somebody!”
    Dumbocop looked absolutely gleeful now. He grunted mirthfully as he and his buddy began advancing in a pincer movement. Lee tried to think of something to say or somewhere to move.
    “Ah, Christ,” Lee muttered to himself as he slowly gave ground. A slow-motion image flashed into his mind of the two cops flailing away with their sticks while Lee absorbed the punishment. How had the day turned so rotten?
    “Atten-SHUN!”
    The cops froze. Lee hadn’t heard any footsteps or seen the door open. But, in the doorway behind the pair stood a black woman, wearing an amused smile and with her hands on her hips. Lee guessed she was in her late 30s, about his own age. She wore her hair in a profusion of shoulder-length braids and had on glasses with black rims, a dark gray pants suit and held a radio in her right hand.
    “What’s up, boys!” she said, glancing left and then right at the patrolmen in a quick assessment of the situation. She chuckled as she shook her head. The uniformed cops gave her a sour look and grimaced in a poor imitation of a smile.
    She walked into the hallway, letting the door close behind her. Lee left the sentinels behind and walked beside her, savoring the protection.
    “Allow me to introduce myself,” said Lee when they were out of earshot of the two uniformed watchdogs. “Enzo Lee of the News.”
    The woman gave Lee a critical once over. “Where’s Duffy?” she demanded.
    “Brush fire,” said Lee. “Somewhere near San Rafael. You know how quickly townhouses can go up. Stuff burns like dry tinder.”
    “Hmmm,” she said, looking at the reporter even more closely now, starting with the worn Asics and moving up to his face. She raised both eyebrows approvingly.
    Lee had wavy, jet black hair that was beginning to gray at the temples. He was a lean six footer with fine but not delicate features. The Chinese blood from his mother and the European influence of his father had made Lee into something of an ethnic Rorschach. In his travels, natives in such disparate locales as Hong Kong, Istanbul, Guadalajara and Maui would often mistake him for one of their own. A gay friend had once told Lee he looked like the product of a marriage between the actors Sylvester Stallone and B.D.