Two people were in the plaza. A man sat on the edge of a planter, his head bent as he spoke into his phone. A woman leaned against a building wall, smoking a cigarette, maybe waiting for someone or just deep in thought.
Michael spotted the trash can between two planters and walked nonchalantly toward it. It took only seconds to stuff the coat and gloves into the black plastic bag lining the can, and to transfer the gun and spent shells to the pocket of the black jacket that he wore under the coat.
He left the plaza, disappearing into the fog and shadow on Mission.
What a wonderful night.
What a wonderful fucking night.
If he missed her at all, it was because now he had to find another target. And he had an idea who that would be.
That bitch who’d taken his picture on Geary.
Sergeant Lindsay Boxer. He remembered.
She was like his mother. Shaming him for drinking milk from the carton. For taking a few bills from her purse. For his magazines. Shaming him, in front of his sister, their neighbors, his own friends.
And Sergeant Boxer had done the same with the flash of her camera. Exposing him, nailing him there on the street.
She would have to pay for that.
CHAPTER 58
WHILE THE DISHWASHER hummed and sloshed, Joe and I folded laundry at the kitchen table.
I was on autopilot. My hands turned the jumble of shirts and towels into warm cotton packets, but I was thinking of other things. Among them was my mother’s Limoges vase, which Julie had pulled off a table, smashing it into ungluable shards. I also kept rerunning my cringeworthy meeting with IAD’s Hon, and the cherry on top was that I was weak and headachy, a little bit queasy. It was an overall sick feeling that was becoming harder to ignore.
Joe said, “That’s it? No woo-hoo?”
“Aw, geez, Joe, sorry. Say it again. Please?”
He said, “I got a call from the new head of antiterrorism at the Port of San Francisco.”
“Wow. About a job?”
Joe said, “Yep. There’s a new guy, Benjamin Rollins. Ex-marine. He’s looking for a hands-on risk assessment pro, freelance or on staff, to be decided. He’s known to be kind of a dick, but I think I’d like him.”
I said, “He’s ‘kind of a dick’ but otherwise fantastic?”
“Correct,” said Joe. “This isn’t about love. It’s about money.”
“Three cheers for money.”
Joe cheered. I laughed and we went back to folding.
Actually, this breaking news was fantastic. A few months back Joe had been badly injured in a bomb blast, but he was healing well. It wouldn’t be long before Julie would be going to preschool, and Joe needed a job. Even though my thoughts were scattered, I could focus on that.
I said, “So, what’s the next step?”
Joe was telling me about the interview with Security Director Rollins next week when, of course, the phone rang.
It was a weeknight, and to me that meant I was still on duty. I took the phone out of my jeans pocket and glanced at the caller ID. Joe watched me and shook his head no.
“Brady,” I said into the phone. “What’s wrong?”
He jumped right into it.
“A homeless woman was shot dead on Mission near Spear. Same MO as the others. Point-blank range. No witnesses. But here’s something a little different. She was shot on our street.”
“Say that again?”
“She was shot on the south side of Mission. Our beat. Take it away, Lindsay. You’re lead investigator. Call Conklin. And you might want to compare notes with Stevens.”
“When did this happen?”
“Bystander called it into dispatch thirty minutes ago.
Dispatch bounced it to me. Stay in touch.”
“Brady, wait. I need all units, every cop with a pulse.”
“You got it,” he said.
With Brady, I considered it done.
CHAPTER 59
THE FRESH HOMICIDE on Mission Street required a Code 3 high-speed-with-lights-and-sirens response.
I switched on all of that, and while driving through the fog, I worked myself up into a fine lather.
This was it.
I was finally going to have a shot at taking a bite out of the killer’s spree. This shooting was going to get a first-class investigation, which I hoped would end with the doer in an orange jumpsuit, looking at life without parole.
Twenty-two minutes after Brady’s call, I pulled up to a crime scene that was eerily lit by the mistrimmed flashers and headlights of a dozen cruisers lined up at the curb. Unis had set up a perimeter, closing off Mission in both directions for two blocks down to Beale, with barricades at the cross streets.
This was more like it. Thank you, Brady.
I parked, ducked under the tape, and asked a uniformed cop to point me to the first officer.
“That would be Sergeant Nardone. Over there. With the body.”
I knew Bob Nardone. He was meticulous and irreverent, and I was glad he was on the scene. I called out to him and he lifted his hand. I pushed through the loose grouping of units to where he was standing by the victim.
As first responding officer, he was responsible for cordoning off the street, sequestering witnesses, keeping bystanders from trashing the area, and briefing investigators.
Nardone said, “Sergeant Boxer? What brings you out on a night like this?”
“It’s my turn to howl at the moon. What’ve we got?”
“Elderly woman, looks to me like she was down on her luck, and that was before someone pumped about six rounds into her.”
“ID?”
“See the strap? Her bag is under her body. Officer Anthony is talking to the guy who called it in. Tourist in the right place at the wrong time. He saw the body from his car.”
Headlights sent shafts of light across the body. I turned on my torch and Nardone guided me in.
I stepped around the pool of blood outlining the victim, who had fallen onto her side. I snapped photos with my phone, which would do until CSI came in with halogen lights and German lenses.
I heard Conklin calling my name and turned to see him materialize out of the gloom.
I told him what Nardone had told me. He bent to the body and peeled the dead woman’s green hat away from her face.
He said, “Awwww, shit.”
I looked over his shoulder. What I saw was like a hard punch to my heart.
“Oh, no, Rich. No fucking way.”
He said, “Proof that no good deed goes unpunished.”
This was just wrong. How could Millie Cushing, a kind and gentle soul, be dead?
I had to come in for a closer look. Her face and hair were soaked with blood. She’d taken one shot to her forehead and innumerable slugs to her body. The killer had stood close. He’d looked into her face and she’d looked into his. And he’d shot and shot and shot some more, until he was sure she was dead.
This execution was overkill. Overkill meant rage or that the murder was personal—or both.
Millie had come to me because of a wave of murders that had gone largely unnoticed. I’d encouraged her. I’d asked for her help. Standing over her body, I felt literally sick with sorrow and guilt. Had Millie been killed because she was working with me?
“Is this my fault?” I asked Conklin.
Conklin said, “Come on. No. Lindsay, here’s CSI. Let’s give them some room.”
I heard a van door slide open and looked up to see Charlie Clapper step out onto the street. I was so glad that our forensics chief, my good friend, was on the job.
Clapper said to me, “How is it we’re both pulling night shift?”
“I know the victim, Charlie. Millie Cushing. She was my CI. Maybe the killer found out.”
“Or he was looking for a victim,” said Conklin, “and she just happened to cross his path.”
I said, “Sure. Could have happened like that.”
But I was unconvinced.
I crouched down next to Millie’s body. I don’t normally talk to dead people, but this was an exception, and I didn’t care who heard me.
“I’m sorry, Millie. So sorry this happened to you.”
CHAPTER 60
YUKI WAS ENSCONCED in the snug green lady chair in front of the TV.
It was after nine. Two hours ago Brady had said he’d be bringing home Thai food for dinner. So where was he? He hadn’t called. He hadn’t answered his phone. Was he under some kind of siege? Had he fallen into the sack with a lady friend? Or had he just forgotten about her?