Women's Murder Club [05] The 5th Horseman Read online

  “Good. Because as soon as I’m out of here, I’m gonna sue your ass for false arrest. And I’m suing you, for tackling me.”

  “Take it easy, Louie. I think you’ve been watching too much Law and Order. Here,” Conklin said, handing Bergin a paper napkin. “You’re a mess.”

  Bergin glowered at Conklin as he dabbed at his face, his palms, wadded up the napkin, and held it in his hand.

  Conklin said, “So, Louie, explain to me and the lieutenant. Why’d you run?”

  “I run every day. It’s exercise, ya little dick.”

  “I’m trying to help you, man. Give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Louie laughed. “Yeah. My new best friend.”

  “Better believe it,” said Conklin. “Maybe you boosted some clothes and sold them. We don’t care about theft, do we, Lieutenant? We’re Homicide.”

  “Maybe you should’ve asked me nice, asswipe, instead of taking me down for a bullshit ‘resisting arrest.’”

  Conklin stood, telegraphing his move, and Bergin lifted his hands to fend off the blow. As Conklin smacked the back of Bergin’s head, the balled-up, bloody napkin went flying, landing softly behind his chair.

  “Show some respect for your public servants,” Conklin said. “Especially when there’s a lady present.”

  Conklin casually reached down, slipped the napkin into his back pocket.

  “Hit me again,” Bergin said, swiveling his huge head, “and I’m going after you for police brutality. You’ve got nothing on me, so either kiss my ass and let me out of here or get me a lawyer. I’ve got nothing to say.”

  My cell phone rang—it was the worst possible time. I glanced down at the caller ID.

  It was Joe.

  “It’s the mayor,” I said, grabbing the phone out of its holster. “I have to take this. Sorry.

  “Yes, sir. We’re interrogating him now.” I turned my back on Conklin and Bergin.

  My man’s voice was sweet in my ear. “I’m on a plane to Hong Kong, blondie,” he said, not missing a beat. “I’ll be heading back next weekend. I could stop over in San Francisco.”

  “Yes, sir. He looks good for it,” I said.

  “So you think you’ll be free?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “You won’t forget.”

  “You’ve got my word.”

  I glimpsed my face in the mirror, scowling even as a smile played at the corners of my mouth.

  “I love you, Lindsay.”

  “You bet, sir. I’ll keep you posted.”

  I clicked off the phone, shook off the effects of that divine twenty-second interlude, and pulled myself back to the present.

  “How does it feel, Louie? You’re Mayor Hefferon’s number one priority.”

  “It feels great.” He grinned.

  Louie was right. We had nothing on him. And once he had a lawyer, we were going to be back to chasing our tails.

  There was a knuckle rap on the glass. I stepped outside into the hallway, where Jacobi was waiting for me.

  “Did you hear? Bergin lawyered up.”

  “He needs a lawyer. A good one,” said Jacobi. “His prints match the one behind Lauren McKenna’s knee.” Jacobi smirked. “That’ll hold him for a while.”

  It was like my whole body was smiling, that’s how good I felt. I grinned at Jacobi, high-fived him, low-fived him, bumped hips, did everything but kiss him on the lips.

  I opened the door, called Conklin outside the box.

  “Louie’s print is a match to the one we pulled from Show Girl’s body. It’s your collar, Richie. Why don’t you do the honors?”

  I was standing with Inspector Conklin when he said, “Louis Bergin, we’re dropping the resisting charge. You’re under arrest for the murder of Lauren McKenna.”

  Chapter 89

  I TOUCHED THE HANDLE of my handgun for luck; then Conklin, Jacobi, and I entered the Keystone Apartments at the Hyde Street entrance. The seven-story all-brick building was near the cable line, a short, straight shot to Nordstrom Square.

  The ancient black man who opened the front door told us that Louie’s roommate was at home.

  “She’s a artist. She always home daytimes.”

  We took the small creaking elevator, found apartment 7F at the front of the building.

  I pressed the doorbell, rapped on the door.

  “Open up. SFPD.”

  I heard scurrying inside, but no one came to the door. I knocked again, this time with the butt of my gun. The sound reverberated down the long, tiled hallway, but still, no one answered.

  I tried the door, but it didn’t budge.

  “Break it down,” I said, standing aside.

  Conklin threw his weight against the thin panel door until the locks splintered the door frame.

  Jacobi went in first, and I was behind him, taking in the small front room, the brown leather sofa, a row of framed pencil drawings above it—pinup girls in classic cars.

  I saw an envelope pinned to the drawing board by the window. It was addressed to Louie.

  “Police,” I called out. “Come out with your hands in the air.”

  I pocketed our search warrant, crossed the small, dark living room, clasping my weapon in front of me. I smelled it a second before Jacobi muttered, “Swamp magnolia.”

  Behind us, Conklin switched on the lights.

  The bedroom was at the end of a short hallway. I gripped the old-fashioned pressed-glass doorknob. It turned, rattling in my hand.

  I opened the door, gave it a gentle shove, letting it swing slowly inside.

  My eyes flicked across the clothes-strewn, rumpled bed to the open window.

  I did a double take—that’s how hard it was to absorb what I saw.

  A beautiful Asian woman of indeterminate age was crouched inside the window frame.

  Her flimsy white peignoir was backlit by dim sunlight. Her sleeves and the fringed layers of her short black hair fluttered in the breeze.

  I was entranced by her open, childlike expression, especially given the dingy surroundings of the room.

  “I’m Lieutenant Boxer,” I said softly, lowering my gun, feeling Jacobi and Conklin at my back, praying that they’d take my lead.

  “What’s your name?” I said. “Come inside so we can talk.”

  The woman’s eyes glittered, some inner thought making her smile. I was looking at her bright, lipsticked mouth when she pursed her lips, almost as if she were blowing kisses.

  “Vroom, vroom,” she said.

  It happened so fast.

  I sprung forward—but I was too late. She went out the window.

  For a long second afterward, I still saw that glowing figure inside the window frame. Then the figure seemed to fly. Her image was burned into the back of my brain.

  Jacobi and Conklin were standing beside me at the window when her body hit the street below.

  Chapter 90

  LOUIE BERGIN HADN’T weathered his twenty-four hours in jail well. His clothes were rumpled, and his scabby, unshaven face made him look like he’d slept in an alley.

  But there was rage in his eyes.

  And now he had a lawyer.

  Oscar Montana was a sharp-faced young turk from the public defender’s office. I’d met Montana before, liked him, and thought Bergin could do far worse.

  “What’ve you got on my client?” Montana said, banging his bronze Halliburton briefcase on the table, then cracking open the locks.

  “We searched Mr. Bergin’s apartment this morning,” Conklin said. “There was a beautiful young woman there. Your girlfriend, right, Louie? Name of Cherry Chu.”

  “She had nothing to do with anything,” Louie muttered.

  Louie’s voice was like the rumbling of a volcano, dangerous, barely containing his fury. Conklin only moved closer, pulling out a chair, sitting two feet from the suspect.

  “No, huh?” Conklin said. “Well, we’re holding her anyway. I think she’s going to flip on you. In fact, she already has.”

&n
bsp; Louie clenched his fists and shook his head defiantly.

  “She’d never say anything against me.”

  “She didn’t have to say anything. We’re holding her for defenestration,” said Conklin. “You know what that is, Louie?”

  “For God’s sake,” Montana said. “What kind of sadist are you, Inspector?”

  Louie looked incredulous. “You’re Homicide and you’re charging her for a sex crime?”

  Conklin leaned back in his chair. “Defenestration is from the Latin meaning ‘out the window.’ Yeah, Louie. We tried to save her, but she jumped. We’re holding her at the morgue. Sorry for your loss.”

  Louie bellowed, “Nooo.”

  His body seemed to inflate, the cords of his neck standing out, his muscles swelling. Then, like Sampson pushing against the temple columns, Louie pressed his hands against the table and started to stand.

  Conklin leaned on Bergin’s shoulder with both hands, forcing him back into the chair.

  “Mr. Montana,” I said, “tell your client to behave or I’ll have him shackled.”

  “Louie. Don’t let them bait you. Just listen.”

  I was listening and watching, too.

  Conklin was thinking fast, moving fast. A natural interrogator. And a brave cop.

  I saw why Jacobi was proud of him. I was proud of him, too.

  “We found out something a little unusual at the morgue,” said Conklin. “Tell you the truth, I was surprised when the ME told us. I mean, Cherry was such a knockout, Louie. Hard to believe.”

  I was watching Louie’s face closely as Conklin snapped first one driver’s license, then another onto the table like playing cards.

  The photos made a startling side-by-side comparison. Looking from one to the other, you could see it clearly. The same eyes, the same cheekbones. The same mouth.

  Conklin kept going. “I had to see these two pictures together to believe it. Kenneth Guthrie. Cherry Chu. They’re one and the same person.

  “I guess he was being Ken when you and he did the killings, right Louie? And when he was Cherry Chu, he was your girlfriend.

  “Your girlfriend,” Conklin said, his voice colored with wonder. “Bro, your girlfriend was a man.”

  Chapter 91

  I WATCHED LOUIE’S FACE change from red to mottled to a bloodless, almost clammy white. He moaned, then started banging his head on the table until his attorney got up from his chair, grabbed Louie’s shoulders. Shook him until he stopped.

  Montana looked up at me, his expression explosive, and it wasn’t an act.

  “Where the hell is your inspector going with this, Lieutenant? Do you have any evidence against Mr. Bergin? If not, pardon me for saying drop dead, and we’ll see you at his arraignment.”

  “We lifted Louie’s print from one of our victims,” I said, “and his DNA is at the lab. Marked ‘rush’ and red-flagged.”

  “He gave you his DNA?”

  “He abandoned it. We collected it,” I said, sitting down beside Louie, talking just to him.

  “Louie, help me understand why you and ‘Cherry’ killed those young women. Inspector Conklin and I, we really want to hear your side of the story. Maybe there’s some kind of mitigating circumstance —”

  “Suck my dick.”

  “Hunh. Well, you were right, Richie,” I said to Conklin. “Louie really doesn’t like women at all, but I do get the feeling he’s drawn to women sexually. You think?”

  “And that’s where Kenny comes in,” Conklin said, rolling with me. “He kinda pimped for him. Isn’t that right, Louie? You did the rapes, and then the two of you snuffed the girls.

  “And after you and your lover killed together, what then? You guys got your jollies? I think the jury is going to hate you for that, don’t you, Lieutenant?”

  “Don’t answer, Louie. Don’t say a word,” Montana said urgently.

  “I think you’re going to tell us everything,” I said to Bergin, “because you’re going to do better with us than you’ll ever do with a jury. And then there’s this.”

  I placed a white number 10 envelope on the table. It was addressed to Louie in smudged blue ink. He could see it, but it was beyond his reach.

  He blinked as he recognized the handwriting.

  I’d been counting on that.

  “The fall to the alley that Cherry took was easy compared to the one you’re going to take,” I said. “Have you thought about what it’s going to be like? Twenty years or so, isolated on death row, waiting your turn for the needle?”

  “That’s enough, Lieutenant,” said Montana, slamming down the top of his briefcase. “Mr. Bergin hasn’t even been indicted for jaywalking —”

  “We’re going to nail Mr. Bergin on three homicides,” I snapped. “But I can offer this much wiggle room.”

  I held my fingers a quarter of an inch apart.

  “Really,” Montana said. “That much?”

  “A young female was found in LA two years ago, dumped alongside the freeway,” I told him. “The DNA in her rape kit matches the DNA we found inside Louie’s victims.

  “If your client tells us about the Car Girl homicides and that victim in LA, we’ll work with the DA. See if we can take the death penalty off the table. You have my word.”

  “We’ll get back to you,” said Montana. “Louie, we’re out of here.”

  “This is a limited-time offer,” I said, putting my hand over the envelope.

  “Can I have that letter?” Louie asked. He was almost sheepish about it.

  In the last few moments, Louie’s expression had melted like candle wax. His eyes were red, his face suffused with pain and loss.

  “This is evidence,” I said, looking into Louie’s big, wet eyes. “But I’ll read you a line or two.”

  I opened the envelope that I’d taken from the drawing board in Louie’s living room, took out five thin pages, inscribed from margin to margin in a neat, rounded hand.

  “I think she was still writing this when we entered your apartment,” I said. “See, the signature is smudged. The ink was still wet.”

  Louie’s mouth was parted. His breathing shallow. His eyes were focused on me.

  “Cherry says here, ‘Forgive me, my love, but I can’t live without you. You were the one dream I ever had that came true. . . .’

  “Well, this is pretty private,” I said, neatening the pages, folding them back into the envelope. “It almost breaks my heart.”

  Louie said, “Tell me what I have to do. I’ll do whatever.”

  “Listen to me,” said Montana, putting a hand on Louie’s arm. “Don’t say a word. Let me do my job. Their only witness against you is dead.”

  Things got a little crazy suddenly. Louie backhanded his lawyer with a loud crack, sending Montana and his chair crashing to the floor. Blood spouted from Montana’s nose.

  I leaped from my seat as Louie stood, clenched his fists, and screamed down at him.

  “Don’t you understand, you little turd? I don’t care if I live or die. My life is over. I’m never going to see her again.”

  He turned his livid eyes on me. “What do I have to say to get that fucking LETTER?”

  “Just tell us what you did.”

  “Okay. I said I’ll do it.”

  I thought my heart would explode from exhilaration.

  I forced my expression to remain neutral even though I was doing jump splits and dancing under a shower of champagne inside my head.

  I stepped outside the room to make damned sure that the camera was still rolling. I returned as Conklin was getting Montana back on his feet.

  “I’ll call the DA,” I said to Louie. “You can have a copy of the letter. Right after we hear your confession.”

  Chapter 92

  JACOBI WAS ON A HIGH just thinking about Louie folding into a big, wet heap—feeling fantastic that he’d been on the team that had brought that psycho down. Both psychos.

  Now, at 8:00 p.m., he was still working, trying to nail another sicko to the wall. />
  Maybe a worse one. Possibly the most dangerous killer ever in San Francisco.

  He steered the unmarked police car north along Leavenworth, keeping track of Dennis Garza’s black Mercedes sports coupe two cars ahead. The fog swirled up eerily from the pavement even as rain pelted down.

  He braked for the red light at Clay, stared at the red-haloed taillights, thinking how Garza seemed to have a pretty damned good life for himself.

  So why would he want to screw himself by playing God at the hospital?

  As the oncoming traffic lit the interior of the car in front of him, Jacobi was startled to recognize Yuki Castellano driving the Acura that was between him and the Mercedes. What the hell?

  Traffic rolled forward, and Jacobi accelerated, keeping both cars in view, his surprise growing into certainty as the Acura followed the Mercedes through every turn. Jacobi considered his two options. Then he flicked on the siren and the grille lights, turning the gray Crown Vic into something that looked and sounded like a demon from hell.

  Ahead of him, the young lawyer glanced into her rearview mirror, pulled her car over to the curb.

  Jacobi slid the Vic in behind her, called Dispatch, asked for an unmarked car to pick up the surveillance. He read out the Mercedes’ plate number and signed off. Pulled up the collar of his tweed jacket and got out of his car.

  He walked up and stooped to the height of the Acura’s passenger window, flashed his light into Yuki’s eyes.

  “May I see your driver’s license?” he said.

  “Okay, okay, Officer. I have it here. What was I doing wrong?”

  “Your license, please.”

  “Sure,” Yuki said, shielding her eyes from the light.

  She turned away, rooting in her handbag, spilling credit cards and change out of her wallet. She seemed very nervous, not herself at all. She finally located her license and handed it over.

  Jacobi took the license to his car. Ran it through the computer, giving her time to think. Then he walked back through the hard, slanting rain and asked Yuki to get out of her car.

  “You want me to get out of my car?”