The 17th Suspect Read online

  Millie had called me last night within minutes of the murder, and it was her call that had sent me and my partner out into the night.

  “It’s the same pattern, Lindsay,” Millie had said. “It’s another execution. Lou was homeless. She frequented Union Square. Someone is trying to rub us out,” Millie said before her voice melted into sobs.

  “Millie? Does Lou have a last name?”

  “I don’t know it.”

  And then she hung up.

  Dressed for work with a gun, a weatherproof jacket, and sturdy shoes, I kissed my family good-bye. Conklin was waiting for me outside his apartment in the rain and the dark, and we sped off to 77 Geary with lights and sirens.

  The first units on the scene had taped off a small perimeter, and Conklin and I took charge of it as we waited for the red carpet to be rolled out for Moran and Stevens—or anyone in Central’s Homicide Unit.

  When my patience ran out, I radioed Central dispatch to report, “No investigators are on the scene. It’s raining. CSI has to get here fast.”

  We waited a total of two hours and fifteen minutes, and because I had called it in, the ME’s van and CSI mobile arrived.

  It’s basic crime scene procedure that homicide investigators have to see the scene before the body is moved, so we all waited. When they finally showed, I greeted Garth Stevens at the door to his vehicle.

  I said, “I took crowd photos and called CSI.”

  He said, “I guess you’re going to win the Wonder Woman of the Year award.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” I asked him.

  He opened his car door, and I stepped away and watched him and Moran mosey over to the dead body. No rush. The shooter was long gone and so were the witnesses. Stevens had all the time in the world.

  I was raging as I drove Conklin home and then lay awake most of the night, aggravated to obsession because of those two freakin’ cops from Central. When I woke up this morning, I was still obsessing and I had a throbbing headache. I left Joe asleep in bed, and I took care of the best baby girl in the whole wide world until Joe was on his feet.

  Then I gulped aspirin with unadulterated caffeine and flew out the front door like Wonder Woman.

  So I was in a state of high anxiety as I sat across from Conklin at our ancient gray desks. I downloaded the photos from my phone and spun my monitor around so Conklin could see my nighttime panorama of the crowd, banked three deep opposite the Geary Street crime scene.

  The next shots on my chip were of the dead woman, ID’d by Millie as Lou, currently known as Lou Doe. She was slumped against a brick wall, two bullet holes punched through her poncho, glistening in the rain.

  I switched back to the crowd shots.

  “Maybe someone saw something and will say something,” I said, looking at the spectators’ faces.

  “Push in on the faces,” Conklin said.

  I zoomed in on the onlookers, whose faces had been caught in midexpression by my flash. Many of their eyes were shaded by their umbrellas or raincoat hoods. I’d sent this bleak lineup to CSI last night. Maybe facial recognition software would hit on a known criminal.

  Wouldn’t that be amazing?

  World peace would also be amazing, but I had no control over that.

  I said to my partner, “I’m going to take this to Brady. Again.”

  “Look,” he said. “In case there’s any doubt in your mind, I want you to go after Stevens and Moran. I’m with you all the way.”

  “I didn’t doubt that for a second,” I said.

  CHAPTER 50

  I LOOKED ACROSS the squad room, over the heads of Homicide cops at their desks, to Brady’s glass-walled corner office. A visitor sat across from him with his back to me.

  “Who’s he with?” I asked Conklin. “Wait. It’s Jacobi. That’s even better.”

  “Wait until he’s gone, why don’t you?”

  “I’m walking the plank,” I said. “I can’t help myself.”

  “I’ll come, too,” said Conklin.

  I said, “You should probably stay here and man the lifeboat.”

  “Watch yourself,” said Conklin.

  I knew full well that if Brady got involved in Central’s string of unsolved homicides, there could be an interdepartmental squabble that would be unpleasant for him.

  I hated to put pressure on Brady, but I had to do something about a very bad situation that was getting worse. I’d already crossed Central’s line in the sand and had dragged my partner over it, too. With good reason.

  A spree killer was executing people unimpeded, and no one seemed eager, willing, or able to stop him from killing again.

  How did an interdepartmental squabble stack up to that?

  I walked down the bull pen’s center aisle and knocked on Brady’s glass door. I didn’t wait for an invitation. Jacobi stood up when I entered the small office, saying, “Hey, Boxer. How ya doing? I’m just leaving.”

  “Please stay,” I said. “I want to talk with you both.”

  Jacobi sat back down. I was washed over with love for him, for all the years on stakeouts together, the night when we’d both almost died of gunshot wounds in an alley, the days when he’d reported to me and we’d exchanged offices and I’d reported to him. I remembered a perfectly beachy day when he’d stood in for my father and given me away to Joe.

  My feelings for Brady were also strong. We’d stood shoulder to shoulder under fire, and I’d witnessed his remarkable bravery and strong leadership many times. When we weren’t on duty, he was Yuki’s husband and my good friend.

  But in this situation that I’d created there was a chain of command. And between the three of us, I was the lowest link.

  I took the chair closest to the door and said, “Sorry to crash your meeting, but there was another homeless killing last night.”

  “That woman on Geary,” said Jacobi. “What do you know about it?”

  Brady sighed, leaned back in his chair.

  “Go ahead, Boxer. Tell him.”

  I said, “Let me back up a little ways, Jacobi. Chief.”

  I started with Millie Cushing, the woman who had tagged me outside the Hall a few weeks ago to tell me about the murder of a homeless man near Walton Square. I followed that up with a brief rundown of the shooting of another vagrant on Pier 45.

  “It took Central’s investigators, Stevens and Moran, nearly two hours to arrive. During that time the scene was corrupted by passersby and witnesses evaporated. I’ve checked. There are no suspects on either the Walton Square or the Pier 45 killing. My CI believes that there is a serial killer putting down the homeless. I agree with her.”

  Jacobi said, “She’s homeless, too?”

  I said, “That’s right,” and went on.

  “Conklin and I went to the Geary Street scene, and as before we had to take charge.

  “It’s a pattern, Chief. This is the third homeless killing that we know about, and my CI says there are more. She says that cops stroll in after the scene degrades, and witnesses and suspects have taken off without a trace. I say it looks like this killer is on a roll.”

  I took a breath. Jacobi was looking at me fondly, but Brady was annoyed and he showed it.

  “Boxer. Are you done?”

  “That was the short version,” I said.

  “I’m not going to Lieutenant Levant to complain that it took his guys two hours to arrive at a crime scene,” Brady said. “No good will come of it, I promise you that.”

  Jacobi said, “Is that what you want to do, Boxer, go to Levant? How about if Levant complains to Brady that you’re interfering in his crime scenes? How would that play out?”

  “We have to do something,” I said, louder than I intended.

  Brady said, “Jesus Christ.”

  “Drop it, Lindsay,” Jacobi said. “I know that that’s not what you want to hear, but listen to yourself. Levant is going to call this politics, and it will sure look like it.”

  “Are you kidding, Jacobi? You think I’m political?
Me?”

  “No. I said how it’s going to look.”

  I couldn’t stop myself now. “So you’re saying I should drop this and mind my own business?”

  Jacobi said, “I’m sorry to come down on you like this, but we’re your friends. Think what Levant is going to say and do.”

  Then he stood up and said to Brady, “This is Lindsay when she gets her stubborn on.” He turned to me. “Not to pile on, Boxer, but you look pale. Are you okay?”

  I glared at him. “I feel fucking wonderful. Can’t you tell?” I took a deep breath. “I’m going to file a report with Internal Affairs.”

  Brenda Fregosi, our squad’s assistant, was outside Brady’s door, either to see what the hell was going on or to bring news to Brady. Either way I was blocking Jacobi’s exit. I left the office. Nobody tried to stop me.

  CHAPTER 51

  HOURS AFTER MY dustup with Brady and Jacobi, Conklin and I huddled with Millie Cushing inside Interview 2. She was our only key to the murders of three people. Conklin was meeting her for the first time, and he made the right impression. He found a blueberry donut in the break room, fixed her coffee the way she liked it, and adjusted the thermostat to her preferred temperature.

  Millie beamed at him, enjoying the attention, then she answered his questions.

  “I have two grown-up kids. My life didn’t turn out exactly as planned, but I have no complaints. I help out at some of the shelters, and they help me out, too. I met Lou at the Columbus Avenue shelter.”

  Millie looked good. Her blondish-grayish hair was fluffed, and her turtleneck and sweater and trousers all looked laundered.

  I told our CI that this meeting was being taped for the record, and that Conklin and I were fighting to insert ourselves into a case that was out of our jurisdiction.

  Conklin said, “It would help if we knew more about Lou, like what her movements were the night she was killed. First thing we’ve got to know is if someone had a beef against her or if she witnessed a crime.”

  “You know I want to help. But if I start asking too many questions …”

  She didn’t have to finish the sentence.

  “Got it,” said Conklin. “We don’t want you to put yourself in danger.”

  I was thinking that if this were our case, we would take Lou’s picture to homeless shelters, ask around, do the job of detective work.

  I bit down on a sigh, then said, “Millie, I took pictures of the crowd of onlookers on Geary last night. They’re pretty grainy, and the light was terrible. But will you take a look at the printouts and see if anyone seems familiar?”

  I put the envelope on the table. Millie dug into her bag and pulled out her reading glasses. Then she moved the photos to her and began a close examination of the crowd. While she was absorbed, I scrutinized my informant.

  I had searched her name on the internet and our own databases and had found nothing on her, not a driver’s license or an address or a warrant for her arrest. I supposed that without a computer or a car or a house or a criminal history, there was little record of a life. She’d told Richie that she had grown kids, but not where they lived. Cushing wasn’t a common name, but it wasn’t one of a kind, either.

  It was possible that Millie Cushing wasn’t even her name.

  “I don’t recognize anyone in this photo,” she said, shuffling it to the bottom of the stack. I watched her look over the second photo, and it seemed to me that her eyes snagged on one of the faces in the crowd.

  “You know someone in that picture?” I asked.

  “No. I thought I did for a second, but no.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yep. Sure as can be.”

  Millie looked through the remainder of the enlargements and returned them to me, saying, “I don’t see many street people in that crowd. Everyone’s wearing nice clothes, umbrellas, hats. They look like solid citizens. Every one of them.”

  We thanked Millie, and while Rich was walking her out, I pulled out the second photo from the group, the one that had caused Millie to give it a second look. This section of onlookers was standing behind the tape, three rows deep. I counted fourteen men, six women in the shot. All were wearing hats or hoods, or holding up umbrellas.

  I peered at each face, looking for what? A guilty expression? A crazed grin? Or maybe one of those faces would jog my memory. I’d seen all of those people in real life. Had one of them said or done anything that I could have noticed at the time and forgotten?

  And then something kicked in.

  One of the men did stand out in the crowd. He was in the back row, at the end of the line, wearing a black knit cap. He looked angry.

  He could have been justifiably pissed off that there had been a shooting. Or maybe he hadn’t liked my phone flashing in his face. Or, hell, could be that the umbrella beside him was dripping water down his neck. Or something else. Like maybe that there were cops at his murder scene.

  I memorized his face and the nineteen others in that photo, while waiting for forensics to run the whole batch of maybe sixty people through facial recognition.

  Drilling in on faces. That was something I could do.

  CHAPTER 52

  BACK AT MY desk, I got Charlie Clapper on the line.

  Clapper is head of our forensics lab, a former LAPD homicide cop, and a real law enforcement treasure.

  No pleasantries were exchanged or required.

  “I got back the DNA on the coat Conklin found in the trash near Pier 45.”

  “Good. And?”

  “There was DNA on it, all right. It’s been fondled, worn, or slept in by innumerable people, making the tests useless. Like a bedspread from a thirty-dollar-a-night motel.”

  “Yahoo,” I said.

  “On to the next,” said Clapper. “Facial recognition didn’t give us a hit on any of the faces in your crowd shots, Boxer. But it was a good try.”

  “Thanks for pricking my balloon,” I said. “What about the ballistics?”

  “That’s more interesting,” Clapper said. “The rounds in Laura Russell matched those in Jimmy Dolan, the deceased from the Sydney G. Walton area four weeks ago.”

  “So. Same shooter,” I said.

  “Same gun was used,” he said. “But it’s a cold hit.”

  A cold hit. Bullets matched each other but didn’t match any gun on record. I thanked Clapper, told him that there was a new body at the ME’s office, a Jane Doe, and likely another couple of rounds would be coming to the lab today.

  I just had to make it happen.

  Conklin was on the phone with the Columbus Avenue shelter. I signaled to him that I was going down to the ME’s office, then I split. I took the fire stairs to the lobby, ditched out the back door, trotted down the breezeway to the office, and pulled open the glass doors.

  The receptionist was Gregory, the latest in a long list of people who averaged about three months behind Claire’s reception desk before the grimness and tedium of the job drove them to greener pastures.

  After the face-off Greg and I had on his first day, we’d reached an understanding. Claire was never too busy to see me, and Greg no longer went bureaucratic when I showed up.

  I said, “Greg, I have to see Claire.”

  About eleven people sitting in the reception area—cops, ADAs, family of the deceased—gave me the evil eye.

  Honestly, I couldn’t blame them.

  Greg said, “Dr. Washburn is on the phone.”

  “I’ll just be a minute,” I said. “Or less.”

  Greg pressed the buzzer to the inner sanctum.

  I pulled on the handle, walked down the short gray corridor, and found Claire in her office, on the phone. She gestured for me to sit down and I did.

  After a minute she hung up and pulled a file out of a desk drawer.

  “I’m going to take a wild guess you’re here about the Geary Street victim—even though your name isn’t on the case file.”

  “Never mind. Let’s hear it,” I said.

  “
As you know, there was no ID on the victim’s body, and so far there have been no inquiries about a victim who looks like her. It’s early yet. Someone could miss her in another couple of days, and I have room to keep her for a little longer.”

  Claire opened the folder and read to me from her findings.

  “Manner of death: homicide. Cause of death: two 9 mm rounds, one to the heart, the other to the left lung, only a few inches away from the first. The shooter came in close. Gunpowder on her rain slicker shows that he or she was no more than two feet away.”

  “I’m wondering. Did he know her?” I mused out loud.

  “The post showed that she was in poor health. Arterial plaque, fatty liver, diabetes, lungs full of tar. I reckon she was in her late forties, but her organs tell a story of neglect and bad habits. Anyway. She was killed by lead to her heart.”

  “What was in her shopping bags?” I asked.

  “Soda cans. A soiled blanket. Dirty clothes.”

  “Clapper is waiting for the rounds. If someone comes looking for her, call me, okay?”

  “Will do. You okay, Linds?”

  “Never better,” I said. I leaned across her desk and kissed my best friend good-bye.

  CHAPTER 53

  I WAS EARLY for my 4:30 meeting with Internal Affairs’ Lieutenant Johnny Hon, upstairs on the fifth floor. I knew of Hon, but we’d never met. IAD was opaque, the most secretive department in the SFPD.

  Neither Brady nor Jacobi had tried to stop me, and now I was flying blind on my own.

  I sat in the reception area and flipped through a left-behind copy of the Chronicle while getting my fractured thoughts in order. I had a realization. Ever since Jacobi had told me that I looked like crap, I’d been feeling that way, too. According to my loose waistband, I’d lost weight; my holster was at the tightest setting and still felt uncomfortably loose. And the headache I’d had this morning was back and had brought its younger brother.

  Was I putting myself under too much pressure? Was I becoming a nervous wreck?