11th Hour Read online

  Dick Varick stood, jammed his hands into his pants pockets, and walked to one of the glass walls. He looked out at the Japanese maples and the sharp shadows they cast across the back lawn. Then he turned to face me.

  “I’m sorry I lied to you about not having seen her. I didn’t want to tell Ginny. And now I have, in the worst possible way.”

  “So this drawing is of Marilyn?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he said. “How did she die?”

  “We don’t know, not yet.”

  “You have to tell me what you know.”

  “Come sit down,” I said.

  Dick Varick returned to his chair and leaned forward with his hands pressing hard on his knees, his eyes on mine.

  I had been dreading this moment. How do you tell parents that their daughter’s head had been removed from her body — and that you don’t know how she was killed, by whom, or even the physical location of her body?

  “Some human remains were disinterred at the Ellsworth compound.”

  As soon as I mentioned the Ellsworth compound, Varick became agitated. He interrupted me to tell me what he’d read in the papers and to ask if Marilyn was one of the victims of that crime.

  I told him what little I knew.

  I asked, “Did Marilyn ever mention Harry Chandler?”

  “No. Is he responsible? Did that miserable bastard —”

  “I’m asking because her remains were found on his property. That’s all. Did Marilyn tell you or give you a sense that someone wanted to hurt her?”

  “No, she said she was living with friends. Sergeant, I hardly knew my daughter when I saw her. All traces of the young woman I’d known and loved was gone. She was an addict. She wanted money for drugs. She didn’t even ask about her mother.”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’d like the names of the friends you spoke with when you were looking for her.”

  “She was thirty-three,” Varick said, typing names and contact information into his iPhone. I gave him my e-mail address and he sent the list to me. “She wasn’t a teenager,” Varick said. “I couldn’t call the police and have her brought home.”

  “I understand.”

  “Do you want me to come and identify her?”

  “Contact the medical examiner,” I said. I wrote down the phone number on the back of my card, and then Dick Varick walked me to his front door.

  He looked years older than he had only half an hour before, shaken, hopeless, the father of a murdered child.

  I got into my car and tried to contain my own feelings — but I couldn’t do it. I drove down the block and halfway up the next one before I pulled over, put my head down on the steering wheel, and sobbed.

  Chapter 47

  THERE WERE TWO newspapers outside my front door the next morning: the Chronicle, with its headlines about the G8 meeting and the San Francisco city budget, and the Post, with its sixty-four-point headline in thick black ink:

  BODY COUNT AT THE HOUSE OF HEADS: 613 DEAD; 613 VICTIMS!

  Story by Jason Blayney, of course.

  I read the first couple of paragraphs despite the bile backing up in my throat and going all the way up to my eyes.

  The Post has learned that the heads unearthed at the Ellsworth compound were accompanied by an index card with the number 613 written by hand.

  As of six this morning, the SFPD crime lab is still working the site, and if the number is indicative of the total death toll, the disinterred heads retrieved so far are just the first of a large number of victims that could make this crime the work of the worst mass killer in history.

  What crap! What total flaming bull-crap!

  Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, who is the lead detective on this case, has not returned our calls …

  I called Brady, left him a voicemail, and he called back while I was in the shower, naturally. He left a message saying he was heading into a meeting and that he’d see me at the press conference.

  “City Hall, room two hundred,” his voice told me. “Don’t be late.”

  I dressed a little above my pay grade, buffed my shoes, and even put on lipstick. I kissed my dog good-bye and when I got into my car, I called Cindy and told her to meet me outside City Hall.

  I drove to Van Ness, parked in an underground lot on McAllister, then walked across Civic Center Plaza. I knew I was putting myself at risk. But I owed Cindy a break.

  I saw her standing under a linden tree thumbing on her BlackBerry. I called out to her and she put her phone away and came toward me, her blue eyes frisking my expression for clues.

  I gave her a hug and she hugged me back.

  We walked together through the park toward the formidable and impressive beaux arts building where the mayor’s office was located and where much of the city’s business was conducted.

  “Here’s the deal. I’m an anonymous source,” I said. “Seven heads were disinterred from the Ellsworth garden. All were female, buried at different times over approximately a ten-year span. Those numbers that were written on index cards —”

  “One hundred and four and six thirteen. I can say that?”

  “Yes.”

  “What about the identity of that Jane Doe whose picture we ran yesterday?”

  “Her name was Marilyn Varick, age thirty-three, unemployed, former surfing champion. Good enough?”

  “Excellent. Thank you, Linds.”

  We went up the steps to the imposing entrance to City Hall. I squeezed Cindy’s arm, then stepped away from her and headed into the rotunda.

  The press conference was about to start.

  Chapter 48

  ROOM 200 AT City Hall is arranged like a courtroom. There’s the dais and the built-in wooden chairs, then a railing that sets the audience apart from the main action. The walls are painted cream, and there are video screens so that even those in the back of the room can see you sweat.

  I stood on the dais and watched the gallery fill with press. Cindy took a seat in the third row and immediately bent her head over her laptop.

  When the rear doors closed, the mayor stepped forward, adjusted the mike, greeted the press. Then he filled them in on an OIS, an officer involved in a shooting, that had happened last night in the Mission.

  He played a 911 tape, then showed a dash-cam video of a man running at the cops with a sword, refusing to back away until he was finally, fatally, gunned down.

  There was a brief silence in room 200, then hands shot up. The mayor fielded questions about the shooting, then took questions about the SFPD, specifically about the crime rate and why so many crimes were unsolved.

  When the mayor had had enough, he introduced Lieutenant Jackson Brady and left the stage.

  Brady advanced to the podium with his crib sheet and, holding it rigidly in front of him, began his prepared remarks.

  “Three known drug dealers were shot last night on Schwerin Street and their car was set on fire. The men were dead when the fire started and the blaze pretty much obliterated all forensic evidence.”

  Brady listed the victims’ names and said that the police were looking for the shooter; he said that the preliminary ballistics tests of the slugs found in the dead men’s bodies showed they were a match to the ones removed from the body of drug dealer Chaz Smith.

  “We still have no leads to the shooter’s identity, but he does have a pattern. His victims are all drug dealers. The investigation is on the front burner. And that’s all I have for you now.”

  Hands went up like an acre of beans sprouting in time-lapse photography, but Brady ignored them and said, “Sergeant Boxer will brief you on the case involving the remains at the Ellsworth place. Sergeant?”

  And then he took a place to my right and all I could do was step forward.

  Chapter 49

  I CAN GIVE a speech when I have to, but I’d rather be on slops for a week than face the media in a formal setting. Fifty or sixty pairs of eyes focused on me as I took the microphone.

  I said, “Good morning,” then got into it.


  “Monday morning, two skulls were discovered at the back door of the main house in the Ellsworth compound. These skulls were unearthed by a person or persons unknown who dug them out of the back garden and may have gotten onto the property by breaking the lock on the front gate. Along with the two skulls were two index cards with the hand-printed numbers one hundred and four and six thirteen.”

  Someone shouted, “That’s for the number of heads that were buried, right?”

  “No,” I said. “We have no reason to believe that there are hundreds of heads. CSU has disinterred seven heads from the Ellsworth compound, all female, all unidentified, but we are working with forensics on attaching names to these victims and should have news later this week.”

  “What about the identity of the Jane Doe whose picture ran in the Chronicle?”

  “We’re withholding her name until we have a positive ID. We expect to have that information for you shortly.”

  “What about Harry Chandler? Is he a suspect?”

  “Mr. Chandler is cooperating fully with the police and he is not charged with any crimes.”

  I felt like I was in a batting cage facing an automated pitching machine set on kill. Sweat beaded at my hairline. My voice caught in my throat as overlapping comments and questions came flying at me.

  “But the heads were buried in Chandler’s backyard.”

  “Where are the bodies?”

  “Is it true that you have witnesses?”

  “What happened to the bodies?”

  “How were the victims killed?”

  I avoided a few more inside fastballs, then Brady came to my rescue. He waved his hands and said, “Thank you, that’s all for today.”

  I left the room through the back door. I went along the hallway, took the stairs down, then exited into the astonishingly beautiful rotunda.

  I was glad to get into the sunshine, and the farther I got from room 200 the better. I was heading toward the garage when my phone buzzed. I looked to see — it was a text from Cindy.

  You did good.

  I smiled and put my phone back in my jacket pocket, then heard a man’s voice call my name.

  Naturally, Jason Blayney had followed me. I should have made a bet, because I would have won money on it.

  “No comment,” I said to Blayney. “I’m done commenting for the day.”

  “Have lunch with me,” he said. “Please.”

  Chapter 50

  I WANTED TO straighten Blayney out, on or off the record — and I wanted to know why he was on my case.

  He saw me hesitate and set the hook. “How about St. Francis Fountain? They have a fabulous breakfast menu.”

  He was talking about a classic old-timey eatery on the corner of Twenty-Fourth and York, built almost a hundred years ago.

  I said, “Okay, okay, okay.”

  I followed Blayney to the Fountain, parked my car where I’d be able to see it through the plate-glass window, and went inside.

  The diner had a soda fountain on one side of the room, straight-backed wooden booths on the other side, and tables and chairs in the window apse. Blayney called out to me from the window table and I slid into a chair across from him.

  The waitress came with the laminated menus listing your standard diner fare: burgers, club sandwiches, malts, and shakes.

  I ordered decaf and toast. Blayney went for the big man’s breakfast: pancakes, chorizo hash, fried potatoes, high-octane java.

  While we waited for the food, Blayney told me all about himself: his education, his job with the Times, his opportunity at the Post, and his determination to rule crime journalism.

  The food came, and he talked while he ate, kept talking until there was nothing on his plate but a smear of syrup.

  Then he placed his utensils on the upper right rim of the plate and told me that he believed in supporting the police department. And that he also believed that people have a right to know how the police department does its job.

  “It’s my duty to tell them the truth,” he said earnestly.

  “What were you doing when you told your readers that six hundred and thirteen people had been killed?”

  “Okay, that was my editor who did that,” Blayney said. “If I go a couple of days on a story without news, he’ll boost what I do have. So the number six thirteen becomes six hundred and thirteen victims. You can’t tell me otherwise, can you? Let me ask that another way — what does the number mean exactly?”

  “Jason, that number is exactly the kind of detail we don’t release, and if it wasn’t for your story, I would not have mentioned it today. When the nutjobs start confessing to crimes they didn’t commit, details, like handwritten index cards, are how we exclude them. Do you understand? So, by putting six hundred and thirteen out there, you made our job much harder. Maybe six hundred and thirteen times harder.”

  “Well, I’m sorry. I really am. I had to run with something. Give me something now. I can make you the heroine of this story,” Blayney said.

  “I’m not looking for that, Jason. I’m not a hero. I’m not superhuman. My partner and I, all of the SFPD, we’re doing our best, working as hard as humanly possible. Print that, will you?”

  I dug a five out of my pocket and put it down on the table.

  I left the diner thinking it had been a mistake to go there. I’d wanted him to give the good guys a break, but that wouldn’t give him the brazen headlines that sold papers.

  I could almost see his next story: a photo of my back as I went to my car and a quote, “Sergeant Boxer tells this reporter, ‘I’m doing the best I can.’”

  Chapter 51

  BY THE TIME I got back to my desk, Cindy’s featured story about the press conference was the front page of the Chronicle online.

  Cindy’s headline:

  ONE ELLSWORTH VICTIM IDENTIFIED; SFPD STILL SCRAMBLING.

  I scanned the article.

  Cindy’s lede was about Marilyn Varick, her background, her triumphs. The second paragraph detailed her more recent decline. There was a picture of Marilyn coming out of the ocean with her surfboard, and then Marilyn Varick was left behind as the article steamed ahead.

  Although Marilyn Varick has been identified, six victims remain unnamed. Sergeant Lindsay Boxer of Homicide admitted this morning that the SFPD still has no suspects and no leads to solving the crimes committed at the Ellsworth compound.

  I finished reading Cindy’s irritating story and wondered if I was paranoid.

  I said to Conklin, “I’m starting to pick up a bash-Boxer trend in the media. Do I look like a piñata to you?”

  He glanced up, said, “A little bit. Your bangs, maybe. Why do you ask?”

  He laughed. I stuck out my tongue and said, “Well then, I’m going to be the best piñata I can be.”

  Just then, Brady’s door opened. He stood there and stared across the bullpen, then called the two of us into his office.

  Brady looked like he’d been sleeping facedown on his desk. His skin was ashen and he had swollen bags under his eyes. Whatever was on his mind, I could tell it was bad.

  Brady said, “I just got a heads-up that Chaz Smith’s society wife is going public. Big-time. Prime time. Her interview with Katie Couric is going to air tonight.”

  I grabbed the one side chair and Conklin leaned his tail-bone against the credenza. He asked, “What’s the gist of the story?”

  “Mrs. Smith says that her husband was an undercover cop. That the SFPD screwed up, of course. Narcotics is going to take the heat for Smith, but his murder is going to get connected to the ones last night in the hood, and therefore, Homicide will also take a beating.”

  I looked at the stacks of personnel folders on his desk. Brady saw me looking and went on. “I asked for a rundown of all police personnel who have been suspended or canned. Or who have had some sort of major meltdown due to either a one-off incident or the cumulative wear and tear of being a cop.

  “I went over every cop’s file in every department.”

 
; He dragged his chair out from behind his desk and dropped into it. He sighed, then looked at me and Conklin. “It makes me sick to have to say it, but the person on the top of my list is your old partner, Boxer. Yours too, Conklin. Warren Jacobi.”

  I almost had a meltdown myself.

  Spots blinked on and off in front of my eyes and I thought for a minute that I was going to faint.

  Jacobi was on medical leave. He hadn’t punched a time clock in months. He was tough, but he was not a vigilante. I refused to believe otherwise.

  I finally managed to say, “Boss, that’s not possible. With all due respect, you don’t know Warren Jacobi. At all.”

  Chapter 52

  MY RELATIONSHIP WITH Jacobi went back ten years. He was my partner for most of that time, and we were nothing short of great together. We averaged fourteen hours a day sitting side by side in a car or face-to-face across our desks.

  I laughed at his crude jokes and he told me I was brilliant, since I thought he was funny. We solved some terrible crimes together and became the closest of friends. It got so that we moved as though we were operating with the same brain.

  Then something happened that brought us even closer together. In fact, it bonded us with blood.

  We’d been watching a late-model Mercedes parked in a bad neighborhood. When it took off at seventy miles an hour, we followed. It was a chase that ended when the top-of-the-line luxury sedan crashed and flipped in a dark and desolate alley.

  Two kids were in the car, both sky-high on meth. The older was a fifteen-year-old girl with a pixie haircut, a pink sweater, and I think some kind of sparkly makeup on her cheeks. Her brother was two years younger and he was injured.

  Both of them were crying and bloody and afraid we would tell their father that they had taken his car. Jacobi and I put one and one together, got two scared teens, called for medics, and put our weapons down.