The 19th Christmas Read online

  I sighed again. A shower and sleep sounded pretty good to me.

  “Sure. Just remember to tell him or her that you’re not under arrest.”

  “I’m crashing, Sergeant. Everything hurts.”

  “Megan, why are you protecting him? He’s a known criminal. He’s been tagged as a murderer. Could you think of yourself, help the police, and tell us where to find Loman?”

  “I don’t know who that is.”

  Be her friend. Be her friend, I counseled myself.

  “I’ll get you some Advil,” I said.

  I walked out to the short hallway between the two interview rooms and closed the door behind me to see Rich there with Lieutenant Brady.

  My partner’s hair was wet. He’d changed his clothes. And he and our good friend were laughing their asses off.

  Chapter 46

  The way I felt right now, watching Brady and Conklin snort and guffaw was like grabbing a downed electric line in the rain. A surge of unexpected fury shot through me.

  What the hell was this? I’d been working for three days straight. I could count the number of hours I’d slept on one hand. And the two of them were having a good ol’ time.

  I glanced at the mirrored observation window with its direct view into Interview 2.

  Had they been watching me interrogate Rafferty? Were they laughing at me?

  I said, “What’s the joke? I haven’t had a good laugh since last Thursday.”

  Conklin pointed at the opposite window, the one with the view into Interview 1, where he’d been grilling Corey Briggs. He sputtered, still laughing, finally getting that I wasn’t amused.

  “Briggs said that he and Megan were waiting for an earthquake. Then they were going to drive to Union Square…” More helpless laughing.

  Brady added, “They were going to hit the boutiques. The van was their getaway car.”

  Another jolt of rage just about lit me up.

  “You believe them?”

  “Nooooo,” said Brady and Conklin in unison.

  I said, “Brady, I got nothing from Rafferty. Maybe Inspector Charming can get her to squeal. I’m going home. Don’t call. Don’t write. I’m done.”

  I jerked the band out of my ponytail, pulled the sweatshirt away from my neck to let out the steam, and marched toward the Homicide bullpen.

  Shit. If I didn’t find a cop to drive me home, I was going to have to ask Joe to pick me up. I didn’t think he’d be talking to me—and he would probably be pissed for days.

  As I marched down the hall to the squad room, I heard Brady calling out to me.

  “Boxer. Wait up.”

  I ignored him and stiff-armed the door—and ran right into Jacobi.

  “Boxer,” he said. “Brady, Conklin—you, too. The shit is about to hit the fan.”

  “Loman?” Brady asked him.

  “Bingo,” Jacobi answered. “It’s not over yet.”

  Chapter 47

  Loman leaned back on the sofa and sighed appreciatively.

  His wife, Imogene, would love this place. It was a great condo in an upscale neighborhood, high-ceilinged, furnished sparingly with some good modern art, and equipped with high-tech everything—including a great security system that Dick had dismantled in under five seconds.

  But Imogene didn’t push for luxury.

  She loved the husband she believed him to be—a hardworking man who sold gold necklaces to department stores and made just enough for them to get by. He smiled to himself. They’d be getting by in Zurich by the end of the week, living in a great rental under assumed names, wanting for nothing. Just the way he’d planned.

  But there was something he had to do first.

  Loman listened to the dishwasher chugging through its cycle in the open-plan kitchen. There was a wine bottle and a half-full wineglass on the dining room table. And here in the living room, the modern, artificial Christmas tree stood near the sliding glass doors that led out to the deck. Beautiful setup.

  Loman shifted his eyes to the middle-aged man in pajamas and a blue velveteen robe who was duct-taped to an armchair. He said to his old friend, “Arnie, you’re planning to go see your kids over Christmas, am I right?”

  Arnold Sloane didn’t answer. He appeared to be organizing his thoughts, maybe rehearsing a last-minute pitch. Loman was a reasonable man, but he couldn’t imagine Arnie coming up with an explanation that would excuse the betrayal. It had cut deep.

  Loman got up and went over to Sloane, pulled the T-shirt they were using as a gag down onto Sloane’s neck, and said, “Arnie. Look. I want to understand you better. Why’d you do it? Why’d you even think you would get away with it? A hundred thirty K isn’t much to me. Hell, I would have just given it to you. But using a fake email address, picking a drop-off in a parking lot? You shouldn’t have blackmailed me to begin with. But then what? You thought I wouldn’t know it was you? Answer me. What were you thinking?”

  Sloane said, “Why are you putting on this charade, Lomachenko? Just get it over with. I concede. You win.”

  Dick Russell, Loman’s right-hand man, came out of Sloane’s home office and entered the living room. He was wearing purple latex gloves, microfiber booties over his shoes, a hairnet. He’d been working on the safe with some whiz-bang electronic tool.

  He put four stacks of banded bills down on the coffee table, saying, “That’s about two hundred Gs, Willy. Here’s a satchel I found on the floor—and here’s the combination for the safe at Milano’s. He kept it in a box with his coin collection.”

  Loman said, “Leave the combination on the table, Dick. Give the cops something to think about.”

  Russell addressed the man duct-taped to his chair. “How ya doing, Mr. Sloane? Going to apologize to Mr. Loman?”

  “Go to hell, Dick.”

  “Very original,” Russell said. “But I’ll give you this for free. You’ve got balls.”

  Loman gagged Sloane again. Patted the top of his head and said, “Don’t worry. This will be over soon.”

  Loman knew Arnold Sloane from when they were both in sales, before Sloane became the manager of Milano’s, an upmarket jewelry store. Arnie made only about a hundred fifty thousand a year, but he skimmed. And he’d fenced some things for Loman.

  Then he’d gotten greedy.

  The wholesale value of the merchandise in the Union Square store averaged about sixteen million on any given day, but even with the combination to the safe in his hand, Loman wasn’t about to hit Milano’s. Too risky.

  Loman was happy enough for Sloane’s nest egg. He would distribute the cash to his crew for their work and their silence. And this home invasion would mess with the cops’ minds and keep them busy.

  In a couple of minutes, after he and Dick had left Arnie Sloane’s place, Loman would attach another one of Dick’s gizmos to his spanking-new burner phone. It would disguise both his voice and the pings to the cell tower. He’d call in a tip to the police about hearing shots fired at this address.

  By then he and Russell would be on to the real deal, the job he’d been planning for the past seven years of his life.

  Chapter 48

  Loman leaned back on the sofa and told Russell, “Go ahead, my friend. Enjoy.”

  Russell smiled. He was better at construction than destruction, but he was open to the experience. He took a folding knife out of his pocket and went to work.

  First, he slashed a few abstract paintings and opened up the love-seat upholstery, then he gathered up some art glass vases and dropped them one at a time onto the stone hearth. Made a nice mess of it. Mess wasn’t his favorite thing, but this was fun.

  Next, he walked down the hallway to the master bedroom, opened all of the drawers, and tossed some things on the floor. Then he shredded Sloane’s nice suits and ties, knocked the TV off the dresser. It would look to the police like a home invasion with motive.

  Loman had turned up the music and was looking out at the deck garden through the sliders.

  “Willy. What next?” />
  Loman turned to face him. He was holding a .45 in his hand.

  His boss was pointing a gun at him.

  Russell froze, paralyzed with shock. He imagined the shot going through his head, pictured himself falling to the floor, becoming part of another of Loman’s violent tableaux.

  This is not fucking happening.

  Russell knew that he was useful until he wasn’t needed anymore. But Loman still needed him. Didn’t he?

  He shouted, “What are you doing? No kidding, Willy. Don’t be crazy.”

  He watched Loman’s expression. Reversing course was in character for Loman. Loman repositioned the gun and presented it butt-first to Russell.

  “How could you think such a thing, Dick? You hurt my feelings. Now take the gun.”

  Ten feet away, Sloane lunged against the duct tape, rocking the armchair forward and back, whimpering through his gag.

  Loman said to Russell again, “Take it.”

  Russell refocused, moving from seeing himself as a bloody corpse to trying to process what Loman wanted him to do. He had never agreed to shoot anyone—but clearly, this was what Loman had in mind.

  He understood that if he didn’t finish the job, Loman would shoot him, put Sloane away, and walk out the door. Russell’s best chance of surviving the night, of cashing in and disappearing on his own terms, depended on his following this order.

  Loman asked nicely, “Got a problem, Dick?”

  Russell said, “Our deal, Willy. We have an agreement. I’m Mr. Inside, remember?”

  “You’re as far inside as you can be without being up Arnie’s ass. Dick. Think about it. This is the only way I can trust you.”

  Russell didn’t have to think hard.

  He saw himself taking the gun and shooting Loman, but he doused the thought. Loman was his ticket to happily-ever-after. Without Loman, he was a man without a plan.

  Fucking Loman. Russell reached out and took the gun, got a two-handed grip on it, and aimed at Sloane’s chest. Sloane yelled wordlessly through the gag.

  “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!”

  Russell fired.

  Sloane bucked, almost knocking over the chair, a forceful reaction in contrast to the soft puff of the suppressed gunshot. Russell fired again and Sloane’s body jerked. He was dead when the third round went into his torso. He didn’t twitch.

  Russell stared, briefly mesmerized by the growing bloodstains around the bullet holes in Sloane’s shirt.

  He’d done that. He was a murderer.

  Loman said, “Good job, Dick. But you got some blood on you. Go put on one of Arnie’s shirts and be sure to take yours with us. Make it snappy, eh, buddy? We gotta go.”

  Loman was satisfied. By killing Sloane, Russell was all in. Loman clapped his hands together sharply, getting his partner’s attention.

  “Wake up, Dick. The job of the century is waiting.”

  Chapter 49

  Conklin and I followed Jacobi to Caselli Avenue and parked behind him in front of number 22.

  The curb was already jammed with CSI and medical examiner vans and a herd of black-and-whites. Cherry lights strobed, and the crackle of car radios sounded like a hissing crowd at Candlestick.

  I got out of the car and looked up.

  At eleven whatever p.m., the clouds had blocked out the moon and stars, leaving a fathomless black sky. Up and down the curving, tree-lined block, reindeer lawn vignettes and roof decor twinkled.

  By contrast, every window in number 22 Caselli blazed with halogen lights from our crime scene unit.

  The uniformed officer standing outside the door was David Thompsett, a bright kid hoping to get into Homicide one day. He reminded me of Conklin when I first met him.

  Thompsett looked at me and did a double take.

  “Sergeant. You okay?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Uh, honestly? You look like you’ve been sleeping in the trunk of your car.”

  I laughed, sounding slightly hysterical to my own ears.

  “I wish,” I told him. “Sleep is a distant memory. What have we got here, Officer?”

  Thompsett ran the scene for Jacobi, Conklin, and me.

  “The vic is a white man in his sixties, duct-taped to a chair. Three shots to the chest. He’s still there.”

  “Who called this in?” Conklin asked him.

  “Anonymous tipster called 911, said that he heard gunshots and saw the shooter flee on foot. Said he recognized him as Mr. Loman.

  “I knew the name from the APB,” Thompsett said. “My partner and I responded and found the front door closed but unlocked. We called for backup and went in. Hogan and I took a quick look around, checked to make sure the victim was dead. CSI got here an hour ago.”

  Thompsett handed the sign-in log to Jacobi, said, “Nice to see you, Chief. How’re you doing?”

  “Fired up. Ready to go.”

  I worked out the timeline while Jacobi signed us in. Dispatch had forwarded the 911 call to Homicide. Jacobi had picked up the call while Conklin and I were interviewing Rafferty and Briggs.

  How had the caller recognized Loman?

  Who was Loman to the victim?

  Thompsett said, “Let me get Lieutenant Hallows for you.”

  He phoned CSI’s night-shift supervisor, Lieutenant Gene Hallows, who came out to the front step to meet us. He cautioned us to follow directly behind him. “It’s a bloody mess in there. Watch your feet. Don’t sneeze,” he said, handing out the shoe-cover booties and latex gloves.

  I got it. Don’t corrupt his crime scene.

  Chapter 50

  We three cops stood in the foyer as CSI’s Lieutenant Hallows filled us in on the fresh new crime scene.

  He said, “My first impression is that this is the work of professionals. The dead man is Arnold Sloane, store manager at Milano’s Fine Jewelry. Sloane has finished his dinner for one and refilled his wineglass, and that’s when someone rings the doorbell.

  “He either looks through the peephole or is expecting company. In any case, he knows this person or, more likely, persons. They come in or they push in, hold a gun on him, duct-tape him to the chair, gag him with a T-shirt. Then they go through the rooms.”

  I said, “It was a robbery?”

  Hallows nodded. “Looks like it. They threaten Mr. Sloane and he gives up the safe combination. The safe in his den was opened without tools or explosives. And there’s a little gratuitous vandalism. Either staging a robbery scene for our benefit or working out a grudge. So they break up his stuff, take a knife to the pictures, and slice up his clothes. Some sadism here, I think. He knows what’s going on. Maybe praying that after they rob him, they’ll leave. Or what? He knows what’s going to happen. He can’t even bargain with them. So he sits in the chair and then they go ahead and shoot him.”

  Hallows is a tough old dog, but he was disturbed by what he had seen.

  “Damn psychos.” He shook his head.

  I looked past Hallows and saw the body of an older man duct-taped to an upholstered armchair, a gag made out of a T-shirt tied around his head. Three gunshot wounds bloomed red on his pajamas.

  Hallows said, “Shell casings were removed by the shooters. They were careful. Maybe we’ll have something for you to go on in a couple of days.”

  Jacobi said, “Thanks, Lieutenant. Can you give us the tour?”

  I realized with a shock that we were the damned primaries on this homicide. This was our case. Mine and Conklin’s.

  We walked past the techs processing the living room: making sketches of the layout, putting down markers next to blood spatter, shooting photos, and taking prints.

  Hallows brought us to the bedroom and showed us the empty safe in the closet and the slashed clothing. We went back to the living room, walking carefully behind Hallows, seeing the horror of a cold, professional murder done at close range.

  When the ME’s techs came in to remove the body, we got out of the way.

  Once Conklin, Jacobi, and I were standing outside in th
e dark again, I asked Jacobi, “Say the tipster wasn’t blowing smoke—what’s Sloane’s connection to Loman?”

  Jacobi said, “Maybe somehow Loman knew that Sloane might have millions in his safe.”

  Really? Was this Loman’s big heist?

  A man had been murdered and robbed, not in a museum or a bank or an art gallery, but in an eleven-hundred-square-foot condo in the Castro District.

  If the killers had left anything of forensic value behind, CSI would find it. The whodunit detective work was going to be first up for SFPD. But Conklin and I were still on the Loman task force. We needed help to secure the crime scene right now.

  I conferred with my partner and then took Officer Thompsett aside. As first officer, he and his partner could stand in as primaries until we had forensics.

  “Until detectives are assigned, this is your case, Officer,” I said. “Draft some uniforms and canvass the neighborhood. Keep records of everything. Call me or Conklin if you get a lead.”

  “Will do, Sergeant.”

  I got into the squad car, called Brady, and reported in. I thought of calling Joe, but it was too late. I leaned against the passenger-side window and dropped into a dream about Chris Dietz. I was facing him down that long sixth-floor hallway, and he had TEC-9s pointed at me, one in each hand.

  My gun jammed.

  Dietz taunted me as he fired, and I knew that this was finally it. Death at the Anthony Hotel.

  I was startled awake.

  It was still deep night. I was inside the squad car and Conklin was saying my name.

  “What’s wrong?” I snapped at him.

  “Time to go,” he said. “Sorry, Linds. We have to go.”

  Chapter 51

  Brady peered at his watch with bleary eyes.

  Was that right? He shook his wrist, looked at his watch again. The second hand was still sweeping jerkily around the face.

  It was three minutes shy of midnight.

  He lifted his eyes and looked out at the squad room through the glass walls of his office. There wasn’t another soul in the Homicide bullpen, and that was also true of Robbery, Vice, Narcotics, and Organized Crime.