A/N 1/17/2020: In Chapter 33, I said that the other victims of the major pile up on I-5 went to Ronald Reagan. As much as I have researched what was and was not present/available in Los Angeles or existed there in 1997, I failed to look up Ronald Regan Medical Center's completion of construction date (which was 1999) Oops! Murphy's Law: It's always the one thing you didn't do!

I hope this isn't information overload, but some of the characters demanded to be heard.

Chapter Thirty Nine:

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA

When Inez and Thompson got to the office, Angela Kim, was pouring over a map with Mike Radakovich, highlighting the areas already searched by grids. Cam Morales and Rafi Espinosa, were on their phones and Gail Ivers was working on the deep background checks Thompson had requested.

Captain Mallory came out of his office when he spotted them, a crisply folded white shirt tucked under his arm. He was still wearing the Hawaiian shirt he'd donned for the family weekend at the beach bungalow. No one took any notice. Other than Angela, who had been on duty this morning when she got the call from Inez, everyone else was dressed in 'left whatever they were doing on their Saturday off' casual.

"Okay, what do we know so far?" Mallory asked, hoisting himself onto an empty corner of Thompson's desk. "Kim?"

"Starting at LAX, Uniforms have questioned every store and gas station owner on either side of Century Boulevard going east and then north on La Cienega parallel to the 405 and then just past where the 405 veers northwest. No positive results so far, but we're due for another report in about fifteen."

Momentarily distracted by Cam leaving the briefing to take a phone call at her desk, Inez asked, "Anything on the sketch from Kay's description of the man in the shadows at E's apartment?"

"So far, no one from the apartment building or the surrounding businesses has been able to ID the guy," Mike said. "Got no hits from the other departments we sent it to but might take 'til Monday to get anything back on it."

"What about the ME, we have any results from Flores?"

Rafi shook his head. "I'll check in with her when we finish here."

Mallory said, "That's a lot of what we don't know. What do we think we know? Theories?"

Rafi shuffled through the papers on his desk and unearthed a legal pad. "Conjecture mostly, possibilities that would apply to most of us. The usual robbery, random for no reason, crazies. Recent cases that stand out are the stabbing of Karima Al-Fasi and the trafficking raid. The man's made more than a few pimps pissed off enough at him to warrant some attention so I would add that likelihood to complete the trifecta."

"I'm leaning on the side of the traffickers, myself," said Inez. "And that means organized crime…He may still be a target as well as Thompson."

Thompson didn't offer up any disagreement. He and Inez had discussed it on the way from the hospital. Even though it might fuel the media machine's conspiracy theory factories, it was the most logical. And the ramifications could not be ignored. The only crimp in that theory was that E had managed to walk away not only alive, but with comparatively minimal damage.

Cam returned to the group. "We found the crime scene."

Saturday, November 1, 1997 – Los Angeles, CA – Cedars-Sinai

The sun had set by 5:00 p.m. and the last sliver of light had faded by 5:15 p.m.

On the streets of Los Angeles, traffic was still at the ever amusingly termed 'rush hour' in a slow moving cacophony of horn-honking, police sirens, ambulances, and pedestrian chatter. Tour buses passed from one sight-to-see to another on Beverly Boulevard.

None of that could be heard in the hospital room at Cedars-Sinai, situated unobtrusively away from normal hospital traffic, where Detective Enos Strate was sleeping. Under their lids, his eyes were nearly still, his breathing and pulse slow and steady. He was not dreaming. There was a uniformed officer outside his door.

Down the hall, the small waiting room suite had been equally as quiet all afternoon. Soonie and Daisy had been waiting there, in limbo, with the pachyderm that had arrived with them twelve hours earlier. Mrs. Huang had been there the last three and a half hours, keeping it from reaching unmanageable proportions.

While both Soonie and Daisy had alternately paced the room, perused magazines without reading them, and repeated both activities several times, Mrs. Huang had just sat there – silently, patiently - steadfast. She had only left her chair a couple to times to use the bathroom across the corridor, each time had been when a nurse came in to check if they needed anything. She had done the same when the family services representative was in the room.

Perhaps it was living so close to the 38th Parallel most of her life that caused Soonie to imagine that Mrs. Huang was maintaining a demilitarized zone. And she silently blessed her for it.

It was getting late in the day and likely time for a woman her age not to be sitting in a hospital waiting room. Afraid of being left alone with Daisy, and the elephant, she really did not want Mrs. Huang to leave. She was afraid if they were left alone for any length of time, she would not be able to say what she meant. Or that she would say something she did not mean or say something that would hurt Enos. Or say too much and ruin any chance for her to be with him.

Daisy seemed demonstrative and forthright. Soonie was not. At least not to the extent she thought she would be a match for Daisy, and definitely not today. After the emotional roller coaster ride life had sent her on over the last three and a half days, she was drained. Her confidence was shaky. As much as she had promised herself that Daisy would have to fight to get him back, she was terrified that in her present state, she would just end up being a paper tiger.

Was that something Mrs. Huang had picked up on?

Buried so deep for most of her life under layers of archaic tradition, she had held onto her self-confidence only by leaving the country of her birth. It had taken more courage than she had even imagined she possessed at the time. Even when she had gone back to Seoul for Jae-Sung's wedding to that foul, wretched woman, her father had avoided her. He was the patriarch of the family in a patriarchal culture. It was the traditional way. Even in the last years before the twenty first century began, it was still a widely accepted way.

If not for the encouragement of her very modern and forward thinking Uncle Sang-jun, she might never have been able to file for divorce from an arranged marriage to a man she could never love and walk away from the father who had shunned her since. And she had had to leave behind the younger, half-brother she loved dearly. Jae-sung had been her father's pride, his life, and his legacy. Now he was gone.

As much as she loved her native country, she had vowed never to go back.

"Mrs. Huang," she said, "you must be tired. Would you like someone to take you home?" It was not Mrs. Huang's fault they were in this situation.

"Thank you, young one. I am alright for the moment. I will stay for a while if that is permitted."

"Of course," Soonie said. But perhaps you would be more comfortable in one of those chairs." She pointed to the recliners on the other side of the room.

"Perhaps you are right," she admitted, and rose with little effort to make her way quietly to the recliner.

Soonie suddenly realized that she had not mentioned Daniel once since she had been there.

While Soonie had been contemplating what kind of colossal disaster might occur if she and Daisy were to be left alone together, Daisy was working on figuring out who Kay was…to Enos.

In spite of her earlier reaction, she wasn't ready to accept a scenario that allowed for Enos to have feelings for another woman. Ten years he had waited. Had he been seeing other women all that time? Was that part of what wasn't in the letters?

Nothing in their phone calls had even suggested it. Or was she just not hearing it?

Suddenly she was hit with the image of a painfully forced smile and a broken-hearted wave as he walked, no ran, from Hazzard - and her - as fast as that jet plane could take him.

The 'what-if's and the 'can't-be's had been hitting her from every direction off and on for hours. Things had seemed so much clearer when she got on the plane in North Carolina yesterday morning. Good Lord, had it only been thirty six hours?

Had she driven him into the arms of another woman before she could even find out if he really was what she wanted? After danglin' that carrot in front of him all those years and just assuming he would always be there, did she even have the right to call anyone the 'other' woman?

No. It didn't make sense. Uncle Jesse would declare it to be sigogglin.' All the evidence suggested otherwise. That was the reason she had asked if they worked together – like, undercover or something. She had not been able to get back to that question since. One of the most useful skills her graduate studies had taught her was how to organize and support a hypothesis.

She wasn't ready to accept that Enos could be having a relationship with another woman and there was credible support for that argument.

Mrs. Huang appeared to be acquainted with Kay. Yet, she had said nothing about her while prattling on about all things Enos and Daniel. Maybe she was like their neighbor, Granny Bunch, lucid one minute and fruity as a nut cake the next.

Detective De Pina had asked Kay about some investigation of missing children and referenced Ukrainian clients. Then there was this isolated part of the hospital with security and De Pina telling her it was not a good idea to venture out.

And the kicker was that Enos had told her it was not a good time for her to be there right now and she needed to get on a plane and go back to Hazzard.

There wasn't much to go on from the encounter in the hallway last night. Her memory of it was like one would interpret a dream, with benefit of a slightly more objective viewpoint and the new information overload since.

When Mrs. Huang had heard something in the hallway, she smiled and said, "He's home a little earlier than I expected."

When she and the sweet old lady both went out into the hallway, they caught some woman in a slinky, eggplant colored, strapless, evening dress (that was split up the side exposing her leg up to her thigh) opening the door to Enos' apartment.

"What are you doing?" Daisy demanded. She had never been one to hold back. Her first instinct was to jump into the fray, sometimes to her own detriment.

The woman was speechless and stared at them like a deer in the headlights. That lasted a good minute.

Finally, Mrs. Huang said, ever so softly, as if she knew the woman, "Where's Enos?"

"He…is downstairs. He should be up in a few minutes."

Then, after some slight hesitation, as if trying to decide what to do, the woman reached into the room and turned on the light. "Perhaps it would be better if we waited for him inside."

Daisy looked at Mrs. Huang for some guidance. "I believe it will be alright. Ms. Mun is known to me. You should wait for Enos inside."

Normally, Daisy would have been suspicious to the point of refusing to go inside until Enos showed up, but he had written about Mrs. Huang. He trusted her.

While the woman held the door open, Mrs. Huang encouraged her, "It might be better for you to wait in there."

Total disbelief had robbed Daisy temporarily of her usual swagger. She walked past the woman with a skeptical glance, and cautiously stepped inside. If Enos didn't show up to explain things in five minutes, she was going to swagger all over her.

But the woman didn't follow her in right away. Once Daisy was inside, she closed the door until there was only a long sliver of the hallway visible, and stayed outside in the hallway. She could hear very low, muffled female voices, but nothing of what was being said.

Then, the woman opened the door, came into the apartment, and closed the door all the way. She seemed distracted when she asked, "If you would care to sit down, I am sure he will be here soon."

After Daisy sat down on the small sofa, Ms. Mun sat in a small padded chair to her right, the one with a view of the door. Daisy was struck with a sudden inability to know what to say or do next. It took another two minutes of excruciating silence before the door opened again and Enos walked in.

Mrs. Huang was right, he did look handsome all gussied up in that tux.

The woman shot up from the chair like someone had lit a firecracker under it. Daisy could not even begin to interpret the look that passed between them. It just seemed strange at the time. Still seemed strange because they looked a little too much like Boris and Natasha with him in a James Bond tuxedo and her in that purple dress.

Before Enos could say anything, the woman she know knew as Kay said, "I must be going."

She glided past Enos in her three inch heels without even looking at him and made a beeline for the open door and was in the hallway by the time Enos turned back to Daisy and said, "Daisy, stay here," when Daisy looked as if she was going to say something.

He had said it so forcefully and authoritatively, like she had heard him speak to Rosco on the phone, that she sat back down on the couch and complied without protest. He rushed into the hall, closing the door behind him.

The experience had definitely knocked the Daisy slap out of her as she was left alone in his apartment, an apartment which she had never been in before, in the silence, just staring at the closed door.

Soonie was thinking of last night as well. Encountering Daisy in the hallway had been the last thing she, or Enos, had expected. Enos believed that Daisy didn't love him, at least, not that way, and maybe never had. In his own roundabout, sometimes awkward way, he had said as much. But she couldn't get too far away from the question she couldn't ignore. Why had Daisy shown up in L.A. without any warning? And now she knew that Daisy had the engagement ring with her. Was that what used to hang on the chain that was still around her neck?

Last night's Halloween Ball had been a lavish, formal affair and Enos had navigated it like he had been doing it all his life. It had been held to raise funds for the National Center for Missing and Exploited children, a non-profit near and dear to him. He excelled at talking people into donating because he was passionate about rescuing victims of that particular brand of evil. And now, being with him through his investigation into the death of fourteen year old Radmila Kozlova, it had become an important issue for her as well.

Having just finished Dvorak's Symphony 9. Largo theme, the last of her three solos of the evening, she received the phone call from her uncle. She had tried to prepare herself for it, but when Enos found her putting her violin in its case, tears were streaming down her face.

They had left immediately after and were in his truck when he reached over and squeezed her hand. "We were goin' to San Francisco in the mornin' anyway. Do you wanna to go tonight instead? It's only a six hour drive."

And that is how they ended up in front of his apartment around 9:45 p.m.

As soon as they had exited the truck, with the intention of going upstairs to get his jacket and a couple of other items, a man came out of the shadows. Enos had pulled her behind him until he recognized him. He did not call the man by name, just gave her his keys and asked her to go upstairs to his apartment and wait for him. She had been hesitant and uneasy at first, but he assured her it was alright.

Just as she turned the key, Mrs. Huang's door opened and she and Daisy came face to face.

She was stunned to the core. If Mrs. Huang had not asked where Enos was, she was not sure what would have happened. It galvanized her, as much as it could, into action – anything but the awkwardness she was afraid Enos would walk into any minute.

Her mind going in a million different directions at once, and with the assist from Mrs. Huang, she got Daisy into the apartment. After that, she went back into the hallway where Mrs. Huang was waiting.

Soonie was not even sure how to approach the subject, but Mrs. Huang - all seeing, all hearing, all knowing - said, "She arrived at about 7:30. I had no idea you would be coming back here with him. You have never come back with him before. Not at night, I mean."

"It is not your fault," Soonie assured her, closing her eyes and opening them again. As much as she wanted to ask more, explain more, there was no time. Enos would get off that elevator any minute. "I do not want him walking in without some sort of warning. I hate to ask you, but can you wait at the elevator and explain to him?"

"I will take care of it," Mrs. Huang said, in her sweetest grandmotherly voice, as she patted Soonie's hand.

The next three or so minutes were like time just stopped. She furiously went over the options and tried to decide what she would do when he walked through the door. Finally, when he did, she just left as quickly as she could. The elevator had not started its ascent in the shaft when Enos was next to her.

"Soonie. I don't know what to say. I didn't have any notion she…"

He had never lied to her before and she had no reason to believe that he ever would. Just being close to him gave her more resolve.

"I know. But I cannot stay. You…you need to talk to her alone. I cannot tell you what to say. You have to decide."

When the elevator door opened, she made a move toward it and he caught her by her shoulders.

"Soonie, you can't go out there at this time of night alone. At least wait with Mrs. Huang until a taxi gets here."

She bent to the wisdom and followed him back into the hallway. When Mrs. Huang opened the door, Soonie turned to him, put her hand timorously on his chest and said, in Spanish, "I am going to go on to San Francisco tonight. I love you. Call me when you have sorted it out."

Before he could stop her, she disappeared into Mrs. Huang's apartment and that was the last time she saw or talked to him.

By the time Inez arrived in the waiting room at six o'clock, the elephant had reached mammoth proportions.

A/N: Dvorak's Symphony 9. Largo theme was adapted in the spiritual-like song "Goin' Home" (often mistakenly considered a folk song or traditional spiritual) by Dvorak's pupil William Arms Fisher, who wrote the lyrics in 1922 - Wikipedia