Women's Murder Club [06] The 6th Target Read online

  He handed out assignments, asked for questions — got none. Chairs scraped as everyone scrambled. I looked over the new list of pervs Conklin and I were assigned to interview.

  I got up from my desk and crossed the scuffed linoleum floor to Jacobi’s office door.

  “Come in, Boxer.”

  “Jacobi, there were two people involved in the abduction. There was the guy who did the coercing and then there was a driver. Pretty odd, don’t you think, for a pedophile to partner up?”

  “Got any other ideas, Boxer? I’m wide open.”

  “I want to go back to square one. The witness. I want to talk to her.”

  “After all these years, I can’t believe you want to double check an interview of mine,” Jacobi groused. “Hang on. I have her statement right here.”

  I sighed as Jacobi moved his coffee, his Egg McMuffin, his newspaper, lifted a pile of manila folders. He sorted through those, found the one he was looking for, flapped it open.

  “Gilda Gray. Here’s her number.”

  “Thanks, Lieu,” I said, reaching for the folder. I felt a pang, as if I’d made a slip of the tongue. I’d never called Jacobi “Lieu” before. I hoped he’d missed it, but no. Jacobi beamed at me.

  I smiled at him over my shoulder, walked back to the face-to-face desk arrangement I have with Conklin. Dialed Gilda Gray’s number and got her on the phone.

  “I can’t come in now. I’ve got a presentation with a client at nine thirty,” she protested.

  “A child is missing, Ms. Gray.”

  “Look, I can tell you everything in about ten seconds over the phone. I was walking our dog on Divisadero. I was following her, getting the newspaper into position, when the little girl and her nanny crossed the street.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “My attention was on Schotzie. I was looking down, lining up that newspaper, you know? I thought I heard a child call out — but when I looked up, all I saw was someone in a gray coat sliding open a door to a black minivan. And I saw the back of the nanny’s coat as she got inside.”

  “Someone in a gray coat. Gotcha. Did you see the person at the wheel?”

  “Nope. I put the newspaper in the trash, and I heard the van turn the corner. Then, like I’ve said, I heard a loud pop and saw what looked like blood splattering against the back window. It was horrible . . .”

  “Anything you can tell me about the man in the gray coat?”

  “I’m pretty sure he was white.”

  “Tall, short, distinguishing features?”

  “I didn’t pay any attention. I’m sorry.”

  I asked Ms. Gray when she could come in and look at mug shots, and she said, “You’ve got mug shots of the backs of people’s heads?”

  I said, “Thanks anyway,” and hung up.

  I looked into Conklin’s light-brown eyes. Got lost there for half a second.

  “So we’re still on perv patrol?” he asked.

  “Yeah, we are, Rich. Bring your coffee.”

  Chapter 52

  KENNETH KLASSEN WAS WASHING his silver Jaguar when we parked on the uphill slope outside his home on Vallejo.

  He was a white male, forty-eight, five ten, your average-to-good-looking porno auteur with artificially enhanced features: good hair weave, quality nose job, aquamarine contact lenses, dental veneers — the works.

  According to his sheet, Klassen had been caught in an online chat-room sting setting up a date with someone he thought was a twelve-year-old girl — turned out to be a forty-year-old cop.

  Klassen had cut a deal with the DA. In exchange for ratting out a child pornographer, he got a lengthy probation and a hefty fine. He was still making adult porn, which was completely legal, even in the upscale neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

  A look of delight brightened Klassen’s face as Conklin and I left our Crown Vic on the curb and came toward him.

  “Well, well, well,” he said, shutting off the hose, looking from me to Conklin and back to me. Sizing us up.

  Then his smile hardened as he made us as cops.

  “Kenneth Klassen,” I said, flashing my badge, “I’m Sergeant Boxer. And this is Inspector Conklin. We have some questions for you. Mind if we come inside?”

  “Come wherever you like, Sergeant.” Klassen smirked, holding the hose gun in front of himself as if it were cocked and ready to go.

  “Shut up, asshole,” Conklin said mildly.

  “Joke, Officer,” Klassen said, grinning. “I was just kidding around. Come on in.”

  We followed Klassen up the front steps; through an oaken door, a spiffy foyer, and a contemporary parlor; and out to a glass conservatory extending off the kitchen. Ferns, gardenias, and large pots of cacti abounded.

  Klassen offered us wicker-basket chairs suspended by chains from overhead beams, and a Chinese man of indeterminate age appeared at the edge of the room, crossed his left hand over his right wrist, and waited.

  “Can Mr. Wu get you anything, Officers?” he asked.

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “So what brings you into my life on this otherwise magnificent morning?”

  I balanced uncomfortably on the edge of the basket chair and got my notebook out as Conklin walked around the conservatory, picking up the odd piece of erotic statuary, moving potted plants a couple of inches here and there.

  “Make yourself at home,” Klassen called out to Conklin.

  “Where were you on Saturday morning?” I asked.

  “Saturday,” he said, leaning back, patting his hair, a look coming over his face as though he were remembering a particularly sweet dream.

  “I was making Moonlight Mambo,” he said. “Shot it right here. I’m directing a series of twenty-minute films. What I call ‘bedroom shorts.’ ” He grinned.

  “That’s just great. I’d like the names and phone numbers of everyone who can vouch for your whereabouts.”

  “Am I suspected of something, Sergeant?”

  “Let’s just say we think of you as a ‘person of interest.’ ”

  Klassen leered at me as though I’d paid him a compliment. “You have lovely skin. You don’t spend a penny on makeup, do you?”

  “Mr. Klassen, don’t screw around with me. Names and phone numbers, please.”

  “No problem. I’ll print out a list.”

  “Good. Have you seen this child?” I asked, showing him the class photo of Madison Tyler that I’d kept in my jacket pocket for the last three days.

  I hated to let Klassen pass his slimeball eyes over Madison’s lovely face.

  “That’s the newspaper guy’s kid, right? I’ve seen her on the news. Look,” Klassen said, smiling, nearly blinding me with his sparkling choppers, “I can make this very easy for all of us, all right? Come with me.”

  Chapter 53

  THE ELEVATOR IN KLASSEN’S PANTRY was a knotty-pine box about the size of a double-wide coffin. Conklin, Klassen, and I stepped inside, and I lifted my eyes to where the number board should have been, seeing only the numbers “one” and “four” — no stops in between.

  The car opened on the top floor, a bright forty-by-fifty-foot space with furniture, lights, rolled-up carpets, and backdrops stacked against the walls. A high-tech computer station took up a back corner.

  It was a wide-open space, but I scanned it anyway for signs of a child.

  “It’s all done digitally these days,” Klassen was saying. He straddled a stool in front of a flat-screen monitor. “You shoot it, download it, and edit it all in one room.”

  He threw a switch, rolled his mouse, and clicked an icon labeled Moonlight Mambo.

  “This is the rough cut I shot on Saturday,” Klassen told us. “It’s my time-dated alibi — not that I need one. I started shooting at seven, and we worked the whole day.”

  Latin music came through the computer’s speakers, then images jumped onto the screen. A young dark-haired woman wearing something black and scanty lit candles in one of the now-disassembled bedroom sets.


  The camera panned the room, stopping at the bed — where Klassen fondled himself and uttered cornball come-ons as the woman did a seductive striptease.

  “Ah, jeez,” I muttered.

  Conklin stepped between me and the computer monitor.

  “I’ll take a copy of that,” he said.

  “My pleasure.” Klassen slipped a CD out of the drawer, put it in a red plastic case, and handed it to Conklin.

  “You have any pictures or films of children on this computer?”

  “Hell, no. I’m not into kiddie porn,” Klassen huffed. “Besides being in violation of my deal, it’s not my thing.”

  “Yeah, that’s terrific,” Conklin said smoothly. “So now I’d like to take a quick search through your computer files while the sergeant walks through your house.”

  “Looks like a neat place, Mr. Klassen,” I said. “I love what you’ve done with it.”

  “What if I say it’s not okay?”

  “We’ll take you in for questioning while we get a warrant,” Conklin told him. “Then we’ll impound your computer and search your house with dogs.”

  “The stairs are that way.”

  I left Conklin and Klassen at the computer console and strolled downstairs, poking my head into every room, opening doors, checking closets, looking and listening, hoping with all my heart to find a little girl.

  Mr. Wu was changing the sheets in a second-floor bedroom when I showed him my badge and the picture of Madison Tyler.

  “Have you seen this little girl?” I asked him.

  He shook his head vigorously — no. “No children here. Mr. Klassen not like children. No children here!”

  Ten minutes later, I was taking deep breaths of cold, clean air on the front steps when Conklin joined me, closing the heavy oaken door behind him.

  “Well, that was fun,” I said.

  “His alibi is going to check out,” said Conklin, folding a list of names and numbers into his notebook.

  “Yeah, I know it will. Rich, you think that guy is straight?”

  “I think he’ll twitch for anything that moves.”

  Klassen was in his driveway when Conklin and I got into our squad car. He lifted a hand, gave us another cheese-eating smile, said, “Buh-bye.”

  He was whistling to himself, buffing the silver haunch of his Jaguar, when our humble Ford shot away from the curb.

  Chapter 54

  CONKLIN AND I SAT ACROSS from each other in the squad room. Beside my phone was a pile of unreturned messages from various tipsters who’d reported seeing Madison Tyler everywhere — from Ghirardelli Square to Osaka, Japan.

  Dr. Germaniuk’s autopsy report of Paola Ricci was open in front of me. Bottom line — cause of death: gunshot to the head. Manner of death: homicide.

  Dr. G. had stuck a Post-it note to his report. I read it out loud to my partner.

  Sergeant Boxer,

  Clothing went to crime lab. I did a sexual-assault kit, just to say I’ve been there, but don’t count on it coming back with anything positive due to total submersion, etc. Bullet was through and through. No projectile recovered.

  Regards, H. G.

  “Dead girl. Dead end,” Conklin said, running his hands through his hair. “The kidnappers have no problem with murder. And that’s all we know.”

  “So what are we missing? We have a half-baked sighting from a witness who gave us nondescriptions of the perps and the car. We have no plate number, no physical evidence from the scene — no cigarette butts, no chewing gum, no shell casings, no tread marks. And no freaking ransom note.”

  Conklin leaned back in his chair, said to the ceiling, “The perps acted like muscle, not like sexual predators. Shooting Paola within a minute of capturing her? What’s that?”

  “It’s like the shooter was itchy. High on crack. Like the job was subbed out to gangbangers. Or Paola was excess baggage, so they offed her. Or she put up a fight and someone panicked,” I said. “But you know, Richie, you’re right. Totally right.”

  His chair creaked as he returned it to an upright position.

  “We have to turn this investigation on its head. Work on solving Paola Ricci,” I said, planting my hand palm down on the autopsy report. “Even dead, she could lead us to Madison.”

  Conklin was putting in a call to the Italian Consulate when Brenda swiveled her chair toward me. She covered the mouthpiece of her phone with her hand.

  “Lindsay, you’ve got a caller on line four, won’t identify himself. Sounds . . . scary. I asked for a trace.”

  I nodded, my heartbeat ticking up a notch. I stabbed the button on the phone console.

  “This is Sergeant Boxer.”

  “I’m only going to say this once,” said the digitally altered voice that sounded like a frog talking through Bubble Wrap. I signaled to Conklin to pick up on my line.

  “Who is this?” I asked.

  “Never mind,” said the voice. “Madison Tyler is fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Say something, Maddy.”

  Another voice came over the line, breathy, young, broken. “Mommy? Mommy?”

  “Madison?” I said into the phone.

  The frog voice was back.

  “Tell her parents they made a big mistake calling the police. Call off the dogs,” said the caller, “or we’ll hurt Madison. Permanently. If you back off, she’ll stay alive and well, but either way, the Tylers will never see their daughter again.”

  And then the phone went dead.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  I jiggled the hook until I got a dial tone, then I slammed the phone down.

  “Brenda, get the Call Center.”

  “What was that? ‘They made a big mistake calling the police?” Conklin shouted. “Lindsay, did that little girl sound like Madison?”

  “Jesus Christ, I couldn’t tell. I don’t know.”

  “What the hell?” Conklin said, hurling a phone book against the wall.

  I felt dizzy, physically sick.

  Was Madison really fine?

  What did it mean that her parents shouldn’t have called the police? Had there been a ransom demand or a phone call that we didn’t know about?

  Everyone in the squad room was looking at me, and Jacobi was standing behind me, literally breathing down my neck, when the radio room called back with the result of the phone trace.

  The caller had used a no-name cell phone, and the location couldn’t be traced.

  “The voice was altered,” I told Jacobi. “I’ll send the tape to the lab.”

  “Before you do that, get the parents to listen to it. Maybe we can get a positive ID on the child’s voice.”

  “Could still be a sicko getting his rocks off,” Conklin said as Jacobi walked away.

  “I hope that’s what it is. Because we’re not ‘calling off the dogs.’ Not even close.”

  I couldn’t say what I was thinking.

  That we’d just heard Madison Tyler’s last words.

  Chapter 55

  BRENDA FREGOSI HAD BEEN the homicide squad assistant for some years and, at only twenty-five years old, was a natural mother hen.

  She was clucking sympathetically as I spoke to Henry Tyler on the phone, and when I hung up, she handed me a message slip.

  I read her spiky handwriting: “Claire wants you to come to the hospital at six this evening.”

  It was almost six now.

  “How did she sound?” I asked.

  “Fine, I think.”

  “Is this all she said?”

  “This is what she said exactly: ‘Brenda, please tell Lindsay to come to the hospital at six. Thanks a lot.’ ”

  I’d just seen Claire yesterday. What was wrong?

  I drove toward San Francisco General, my mind swirling with terrible, sinking thoughts. Claire once told me this thing about brain chemistry, the nub of it being that when you’re feeling good, you can’t ever imagine feeling bad again. And when you’re feeling bad, it’s impossible to imagine a time when y
ou won’t be circling the drain.

  As I sucked on an Altoids, a little girl’s voice was crying, “Mommy,” in my head, and it was mixed up with the bad knee-jerk reaction I had to hospitals ever since my mother died in one almost fifteen years ago.

  I parked in the hospital lot on Pine, thinking about how good it had been having Joe to talk to when I felt this low, frustrated from three days of staggering blindly into dead ends.

  My thoughts turned back to Claire as I stepped into the hospital elevator. I stared at my fried reflection in the stainless steel doors. I fluffed my bangs uselessly as the car climbed upward, then when the doors slid open, I stepped out into the antiseptic stink and cold white light of the post-op unit.

  I wasn’t the first to arrive at Claire’s room. Yuki and Cindy had already moved chairs up to her bed, and Claire was sitting up, wearing a flowered nightgown and a Mona Lisa smile on her face.

  The Women’s Murder Club was assembled — but why?

  “Hey, everyone,” I said, walking around the bed, kissing cheeks. “You look gorgeous,” I said to Claire, my relief that this wasn’t a life-support emergency bringing me almost to the point of giddiness. “What’s the occasion?”

  “She wouldn’t tell until you got here,” Yuki said.

  “Okay, okay!” Claire said. “I do have an announcement to make.”

  “You’re pregnant,” said Cindy.

  Claire burst out laughing, and we all looked at Cindy.

  “You’re crazy, girl reporter,” I said. A baby was the last thing Claire needed at age forty-three, with two near-grown-up sons.

  “Give us a clue,” Yuki blurted out. “Give us a category.”

  “You guys! Stomping on my surprise with your cleats on,” said Claire, still laughing.

  Cindy, Yuki, and I swiveled our heads toward her.