Women's Murder Club [09] The 9th Judgment Read online

  So we went to MacBain’s.

  It was like an office party in there. Law enforcement personnel from all disciplines were whooping it up while waiting to hear if they had offices to go back to. I had my hand in the Beer Nuts when my phone rang.

  It was Lieutenant Bill Berry from the bomb squad. “Your so-called bomb has been rendered safe.”

  I walked with Conklin and Chi to the bomb truck, which was now parked in the lot behind the Hall. I knocked on the door of the van, and when it opened, I took the case from Lieutenant Berry’s hand.

  “So, what’s in it?” I asked him.

  “Christmas in September,” he said. “I think you’re going to like it.”

  Chapter 102

  “SOMETHING YOU’RE GONNA like,” echoed Chi. “What would that be?”

  “I’m hoping for puppies,” I said.

  Conklin held the door, and the three of us joined the throng of workers returning to their offices. We climbed to the third floor, turned right into Homicide, and crowded into Jacobi’s office as he took his swivel chair and sat down heavily.

  Jacobi’s space was a pigpen as always, no offense to pigs. I moved a pile of folders from a side chair, Conklin took the chair beside me, knees bumping the desk, and Chi leaned against the doorjamb in his neat gray suit and string tie.

  “Apparently this thing won’t blow up,” I said, putting the computer case on Jacobi’s desk.

  “Are you going to open it, Boxer? Or are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”

  “Okay, then.”

  I took latex gloves out of my pocket and wriggled my hands into them, then slit the tape with a shank that Jacobi used as a letter opener and unzipped the bag all the way around.

  At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Little suede bags and small boxes and satin envelopes had been stuffed into the body of the case, and more of the same were tucked inside each of the pockets. Paper clipped to one of those pockets was a plain white envelope addressed to me.

  I showed the envelope to my colleagues, then peeled up the flap and teased out a sheet of white copy paper that had been folded in thirds.

  “Is it interesting?” Jacobi asked.

  I cleared my throat and read the letter out loud.

  “ ‘Hi, Sergeant Boxer. I did NOT kill Casey Dowling. All of her stuff is in here, and everyone else’s stuff is in here, too. Please tell everyone I’m sorry. I made some bad mistakes because I thought I had no choice, but I will never steal again. Marcus Dowling killed his wife. It had to be him.’

  “It’s signed ‘Hello Kitty.’”

  I turned the case so that Jacobi could see me open the small packets. Unbelievable jewelry spilled into my gloved hands. Diamonds and sapphires that I recognized as belonging to Casey Dowling, Victorian brooches and pearls that had been Dorian Morley’s, and other jewelry that had belonged to Kitty’s other victims.

  I sifted through extraordinary jewels that I’d seen pictured in Stolen Property’s files, and then I noticed a two-inch-long leather box shaped like a pirate’s trunk. I opened the box and saw a lumpy square of tissue paper.

  I unfolded the paper, and a loose yellow stone the size of a grape winked up at me from the hollow of my palm. I was staring at the Sun of Ceylon.

  “Is that it?” Conklin asked. “Casey Dowling’s cursed diamond?”

  Jacobi barely looked at it. He reached for his phone and hit number one on his speed dial—the chief’s number. “Is Tony there? It’s Jacobi. Tell him I’ve got news. Good kind.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brady coming toward us in a hurry. He was huffing as he called out to me.

  “Boxer, don’t you pick up your messages? Listen, earlier today Peter Gordon’s wife walked into the FBI.”

  Chapter 103

  HEIDI MEYER SAT alone in an interrogation room, exhausted by the physical and emotional effects of trauma upon unimaginable trauma. Her world was changed. She was changed. How had she lived with Pete Gordon and never known who he was? Pictures kept coming into her mind, images of cooking for Pete, reasoning with him, trying to keep his lid on. She had given birth to his children, compensated for his shortcomings and psychic wounds. She’d slept next to him almost every night for the last ten years.

  And now her husband had both literally and figuratively blown up their lives.

  After Agent Benbow had interviewed her for three hours, he’d left her alone with a fresh cup of tea. Heidi thought about their interview, how she’d emptied every pocket of her memory in order to tell him whatever she knew to help him find her husband before he killed again.

  She’d said that Pete had been freaky since coming back from Iraq. She’d said that he was always angry, that he scared the children, and that, yes, he kept weapons in the house and knew how to use explosives.

  Heidi had shown Agent Benbow the bruises on her arms and had let a female agent take pictures of the black-and-blue blotches on the insides of her thighs.

  And as she sat in the windowless room, it finally became clear to her how much Pete actually did hate her and the children, and that if he had in fact killed all those mothers and their children, it was because they were stand-ins for her and for Steven and Sherry.

  She wondered where Pete was now and if he was tracking her, if he’d been watching her when she went into the FBI building, if he was waiting for her to leave. And now that she’d told the FBI everything, what was she supposed to do? Why hadn’t someone told her what to do?

  Heidi looked up as the door opened and Agent Benbow came back in with a tall blond woman. He introduced her as Sergeant Lindsay Boxer from the SFPD. Heidi’s eyes watered. She stood and shook Sergeant Boxer’s hand with both of hers.

  “You’re the one who found Stevie. Oh my God. I can’t thank you enough.”

  “You’re very welcome, Heidi. May I call you Heidi?”

  “Sure.”

  Benbow left the room, and Sergeant Boxer pulled out a chair. She said, “Catch me up, okay? I haven’t been fully briefed. Where are Steven and Sherry now?”

  “They’re with my friend Sarah Wells. We work together at Booker T. Washington High.”

  “And where is Sarah?”

  “She’s driving around, waiting to pick me up. She can’t go home. Her husband… she’s left him. We have no place to go. Even if my house wasn’t bombed-out, I have to get far away from Pete.”

  “Let’s just talk for a little bit,” Sergeant Boxer said.

  “Sure. Whatever I can tell you.”

  “Have you spoken to your husband since the events at your house?” Sergeant Boxer asked.

  “He left me a voice mail. He said that when he was driving around, he was planning to kill Stevie, but then he saw something in Stevie’s face. He said, ‘He looks just like me. But you, Heidi. You look nothing like me at all.’ ”

  “That was pretty ugly. What else did he say?”

  “He said to tell the authorities that if he didn’t get the five million bucks, he was going to find me and the kids and shoot us. That’s when I contacted Agent Benbow. I gave him my cell phone with Pete’s message still on it.”

  Sergeant Boxer nodded and said, “Excellent,” and then asked, “Where do your parents live?”

  “My mother was a single mom. She passed away five years ago. Sergeant, what am I supposed to do?”

  The door to the interrogation room opened, and Agent Benbow returned. He had a precise haircut and a military bearing, but his expression was sympathetic, almost warm. He took a seat at the head of the table.

  “Heidi, you’ve heard of the Witness Protection Programs?” Benbow said. “We want to put you and your kids in the program. You’ll be given documents supporting new names, new identities, and you’ll be given a new place to live.”

  “But I’m no good as a witness. I don’t know anything.”

  “We’ve put people in the program for far less than being in Peter Gordon’s sights. You have to let us protect you, Heidi. If we can find him, you�
�ll do very well as a witness. He’s demonstrated violence against you. And you can give a firsthand account of that.”

  Heidi’s mind flooded with thoughts. Benbow was saying that, for her own protection, her life as Heidi Meyer was over. That for the safety of her kids, she had to disappear, delete her real life and start over as a new person. It was damned near inconceivable.

  Only Sarah could make this bearable.

  Heidi told Sergeant Boxer and Agent Benbow about Sarah Wells, her close friend and confidante, Stevie’s godmother. And she was adamant. Sarah had to come into the program with them.

  Benbow looked worried, maybe annoyed. “It’s a risk, Heidi. If Sarah contacts her husband or reaches out to anyone she knows, she’ll put you and your kids in mortal danger.”

  “I trust Sarah. I love her. She’s my only true family.”

  Benbow drummed his fingers on the table, then said, “Okay. We’ll take you to a safe house while we make arrangements. All of you have to leave now, Heidi. No phone calls. No good-byes. You can’t take anything with you but what you’re wearing.”

  Heidi was overwhelmed by the enormity of this imminent and complete break with her past—and with the idea of a future without Pete. What would it be like to live without fear, to be with Sarah every night and in the light of day?

  They could all have full lives.

  Tears filled Heidi’s eyes again and spilled down her cheeks. She covered her face with her hands and let the tears come. When she could speak again, she said to Boxer and Benbow, “Thank you. God bless you both. Thank you.”

  Chapter 104

  I WALKED WITH Heidi out to the street. She looked up at me, puffy-eyed and dazed, and said, “I don’t know what to tell the kids.”

  “I know you’ll find the words. Heidi, do you understand what happens next?”

  “We spend the night at the FBI safe house in LA while arrangements are made. Then we fly out—”

  “Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell anyone.”

  “We’re dropping off the edge of the earth.”

  “That’s right. Is that your friend Sarah?” I asked as a red Saturn pulled up to the curb.

  “Yes. There she is.”

  Heidi stepped away from me and leaned into the car through the passenger-side window. She spoke to the driver, then said, “Sergeant Boxer, meet my friend Sarah Wells.”

  Sarah was a pretty brunette, no makeup, late twenties, wearing oversize clothes. She put a pink rubber ball down on the seat and reached across to shake my hand. She had an impressive grip. She said, “Listen, it’s good to meet you at last. Thanks for everything.”

  There was an odd expression on Sarah’s face—as though she were afraid of me. Had she had run-ins with the police?

  “Meet me at last?”

  “I meant, since you found Stevie.”

  “Of course.”

  Stevie was in a car seat in the back, sitting beside a little girl. The boy put the flat of his hand on the window and said gravely, “Hi, lady.”

  “Hey, Stevie,” I said, putting my hand on the other side of the glass, overlapping his small palm. The girl announced, “Stevie is in love with you.”

  I grinned at the two children, then Heidi gave me an effusive and tearful hug. She settled into the car, then reached out her hand to take mine.

  “Be happy,” I said.

  “You, too.”

  A black sedan pulled alongside the Saturn, and Agent Benbow leaned out of the car window. He told Sarah that he’d be in the lead. A second car positioned itself behind the Saturn, and then the three-car caravan drove away, escorting Heidi, Sarah, and the children to the next chapter of their new lives.

  I hoped they were going to have good ones.

  I watched until the cars were out of sight. I thought about Heidi and wondered how Pete Gordon would react to her disappearance with his children. And I wondered how in God’s name we would find him before he killed again.

  Chapter 105

  LEONARD PARISI LOOKED particularly ragged the next morning when Yuki and I came to his office requesting a search warrant. Parisi, known as “Red Dog” for his dark-red hair and his tenacity, pawed through the pictures of approximately four million dollars’ worth of stolen jewelry and a copy of the letter from Hello Kitty.

  “Do you have any leads on this Kitty person?”

  “She buried herself in a crowd coming through the front door. The security camera picked up the mob scene, but we couldn’t see who left the case,” Yuki said.

  “Sergeant?”

  “We have nothing on her identity,” I told him. “The jewelry is at the lab. So far, we haven’t found prints on anything. All we have is that Kitty returned every last piece. I think that gives her some credibility when she says she didn’t kill Casey Dowling.”

  “What the hell do we have security cameras for?” Parisi groused.

  Like the rest of us, Parisi had taken vast quantities of crap for his department’s low conviction record in the face of San Francisco’s rising crime rate. That would be our fault—the police, who didn’t bring the district attorney’s office enough evidence for them to build airtight cases.

  “So that leaves us with what, Sergeant? The unsubstantiated statement of an anonymous self-confessed jewel thief that she’s not a murderer? You actually think Dowling did it?”

  “Kitty was adamant the two times I spoke with her, and I found her convincing.”

  “Never mind her. She’s nobody. She’s a ghost. What about Dowling?”

  I told Parisi what we had on Caroline Henley, Dowling’s girlfriend of two years. I explained that Dowling’s net worth was in the tens of millions and that since a divorce would cost him plenty, there was a pretty good motive for killing his wife. I said that Dowling’s story had been inconsistent. That his explanation of the sounds, the shots, whether or not his wife had called out to him, had changed over time.

  “What else?”

  “His hair was wet when we interviewed him right after the shooting.”

  “So he showered to get rid of evidence.”

  “That’s what we think.”

  Red Dog pushed the folder of photos across the desk in my direction. “A shower is not probable cause. Before you search the screen legend’s house and the news media gets hold of it and that gets us sued for defamation, you’d better have something stronger than the burglar says she didn’t do it and Dowling took a shower.

  “It’s not probable cause for a warrant, Yuki,” Parisi said. “It’s not going to fly.”

  Chapter 106

  I YANKED OUT my desk chair and crashed it hard into my trash can, then did it again for the satisfying effect of the clamor. I said to Conklin, “Red Dog won’t ask for a warrant without a damned smoking gun.”

  Conklin stared up at me and said, “Funny you should say that. I was watching some old Dowling movies last night. Look at this.”

  Conklin rotated his computer screen around to face me.

  I sat, wheeled my chair up to the desk, and looked at Conklin’s monitor. I saw what appeared to be a movie-studio publicity still for an old spy flick.

  “Night Watch,” Conklin said. “He made this decades ago with Jeremy Cushing. Terrible film, but it was what they called ‘camp.’ It became a cult favorite. Check this out.”

  There was Dowling: black suit, sideburns, and a sun-lined squint. And he was holding a gun. “You’re kidding me. Is that a forty-four?”

  “A Ruger Blackhawk. It’s a single-action revolver, a six-shooter,” my partner said, clicking on another picture. The famous and now-deceased Jeremy Cushing was giving the gun to Dowling as a keepsake in a handshake photo op. You could almost hear the flashbulbs popping.

  Conklin hit a key, and the printer chugged out hard copies of the photos. I picked up the phone and called Yuki. “Grab Red Dog before he goes anywhere. I’m coming back down.”

  We arrived at Dowling’s magnificent mansion in Nob Hill before lunch, three cars full of Homicide c
ops dying to make a collar. I rang the doorbell, and Dowling came to the door in jeans and an unbuttoned white dress shirt.

  “Sergeant Boxer,” he said.

  “Hello again. You remember Inspector Conklin. And I’d like to introduce Assistant DA Yuki Castellano.”

  Yuki handed Dowling the search warrant. “I went to school with Casey, you know,” she said, stepping past Dowling into the vast gilded foyer.

  “I don’t think she ever mentioned you. Hey, you can’t—”

  Chi, McNeil, Samuels, and Lemke poured into the house right behind us with the determination of cops raiding a speakeasy during Prohibition. I had a flash of panic. Despite what I’d told Parisi—that Dowling would never ditch a souvenir of the last film Jeremy Cushing ever made—now I wasn’t so sure.

  “Wait,” Dowling said. “What are you looking for?”

  “You’ll know it when we see it,” I said.

  I took the winding staircase up toward the master bedroom as the rest of my squad fanned out through the house. I heard the phone ring, then Dowling shouted, his voice throbbing with indignation.

  “Well, Peyser, this is what lawyers are for. Come back from Napa right now.”

  I entered the movie star’s room. Fifteen minutes later, there wasn’t a drawer or a shelf that hadn’t felt my hand.

  I was pulling the mattress off the bed when I sensed more than heard another person in the room. I looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a black housekeeper’s dress.

  I remembered her. The day after Casey Dowling was killed, the day Conklin and I came here to interview Marcus, this woman had served us bottled water.

  “You’re Vangy, right?”

  “I’m an illegal alien.”

  “I understand. I… that’s not my department. What do you want to tell me?”

  Vangy asked me to follow her to the laundry room in the basement. When we got there, she turned on a light over the washer and dryer. She put her hands on either side of the dryer and pulled it away from the wall.