16th Seduction Read online

  The third hour was dedicated to one case in particular: the teenage girl I’d shot to death because I’d had no choice. Warren Jacobi had been my partner then, and that cute young lady had led us on a high-speed car chase through the Tenderloin. As I said, she was cute. Deceptively so. When caught, she got out of her father’s sixty-thousand-dollar car and reached for her learner’s permit. She pulled out a gun.

  She shot me and Jacobi. I was in bad shape and Jacobi was worse, unconscious and bleeding out onto the asphalt.

  The young lady was still shooting when I managed to free my gun from its holster and return fire.

  A fifteen-year-old would-be cop killer had gone down. Despite my entirely justifiable self-defense shooting, her rich family had sued me for wrongful death, and I’d been tried in civil court.

  It was a horrible experience. Those same feelings of frustration and injustice were coming over me now.

  I answered Hoyt’s questions about the shooting.

  I had fired in self-defense.

  I regretted that I’d had to kill that girl, but the situation had demanded it.

  Yes, yes, yes, I had shot several other people in the last few years, and all those shootings had been fully justified and there had been no resulting disciplinary or legal action.

  I stayed cool and went on to answer many questions about my critically important first-time meeting with Connor Grant. I said explicitly that I was sure I had heard him correctly when he told me that he had blown up Sci-Tron.

  “I asked him to repeat himself. He elaborated on his boasts. I read him his rights and asked him if he understood. He said he did. I turned him over to patrolmen I knew, who brought him to my CO, who was waiting for him in booking.

  “Everything I said and did was by the book.”

  “His word against yours, but we have your husband’s sworn statement, and that will be considered,” said Hoyt. “I think we have enough for today.”

  Tape recorders were turned off. Carol and I left the conference room first, and when we were walking up the stairs, she said to me, “Perfect job, Lindsay. You answered honestly and with conviction. I don’t see anything here but a dismissal of the complaint.”

  I couldn’t even smile. I remembered when Parisi, Yuki, Brady, and I had had the same slam-dunk feeling that Grant’s on-scene confession would convict him. Now I knew what the science teacher could do in a court of law.

  If Hoyt wanted to bring the charge forward, he would do it. If Parisi, for political reasons, had to let it go to the police commission, I could be sacrificed for the greater good of clearing the department’s name.

  I would be fired, made an example of, humiliated, and I would likely never have a job in law enforcement again.

  The end.

  CHAPTER 73

  THAT WEEKEND JOE and I relaxed within the landscaped embrace of Pacifica Rehab’s garden patio. He was in his wheelchair, I was stretched out in a high-quality ergonomic lounger beside him, and while we talked together, we were watching Julie.

  Our little bambina was in the kiddie pool with three other kiddos, including Joey, a boy of four who had made up a sea monster game. He was in the starring role and had instructed the others to evade and scream. Fearless, Julie sat on the steps, slapped the water, and giggled. Joe and I laughed, too. It was all sunshine with a side of butterflies in the garden, but as I told Joe about my interrogation by Internal Affairs, my mind spiraled down into a darker place.

  I said, “I was grilled on a spit, and Hoyt just kept basting me, jacking up the flame. Sorry to even have to tell you about it.”

  “You’ll be okay, and I hope they want to interview me. But I know this is very stressful. I’m here. Tell me everything.”

  “Okay,” I said. “So Hoyt curls his lip and says to me, ‘I don’t understand your answer, Sergeant. The scene was chaotic. You’re so certain that you remember Mr. Grant’s utterance verbatim?’

  “I said, ‘It wasn’t an utterance, Mr. Hoyt. It was a speech. It was a brag. It was a confession without coercion.’

  “He complimented me on the alliteration. Then he said, ‘Sounds a little rehearsed, Sergeant. Let me ask you something else. Have you ever made a mistake on the job? Arrested the wrong person? Shot someone dead? How many people have you killed, Sergeant Boxer? Three? More than that? Fewer than ten?’

  “He knew how many, Joe. It was a tactic.”

  “Of course it was. Keep going.”

  I took a breath and told Joe what I could bear to remember. “‘Why were you demoted from lieutenant to sergeant? Why were you passed over for the job as chief of police? Why should we believe anything you say about anything?’”

  Joe sighed. “Sorry, Linds. Look, the public wants cops to take lunatics off the street, and you did that. Your responsibility stops there.”

  As we talked about our personal lunatic, I realized that I still hadn’t fully accepted what Grant had said to the jurors when he told them that the scope of the Sci-Tron bombing was way beyond the abilities of a ninth-grade science teacher.

  So had he really done it?

  If so, how?

  And how had he managed to annihilate Red Dog Parisi at trial?

  We’d never really known Connor Grant. He’d been investigated by the FBI. By DHS. And still, what we knew about the science teacher could cover the face of a three-inch-square Post-it note.

  Joe and I had barely touched our sandwiches and chips. He said, “All done?”

  “I’ll get it, Joe,” I said, referring to the remains of our lunch.

  He said, absolutely deadpan, “Allow me.”

  And then the best and most amazing thing happened. Joe got out of his wheelchair and onto his feet as if nothing had ever been wrong with him. He walked. He emptied the remains of our lunch into the trash, stowed the trays in the receptacle, and then he spun around and did a little dance.

  Julie flew up out of the pool like a June bug and yelled, “Daddy!” Joe opened his arms and she ran toward him, chirping, “Daddy dance.”

  They danced. He twirled her under his arm. They made up their own moves. From first step to last, the prancing and twirling went on for only a minute. But it was the cutest damned minute of my life.

  CHAPTER 74

  NEDDIE WAS STILL hurting like crazy from when that giant son of a bitch had blocked him, making him fall and hit his head on the pavement. His head was still radiating with pain.

  He had no intention of letting anyone know.

  He went through the whole weekend being Nutty Neddie, playing cards and doing stoopid Neddie tricks, but he was sore in more ways than one.

  When he’d been leaving the grown-up football player on Union Street, he’d seen a man jump out of a car at the light and head over to the dead or dying man.

  Had the man from the car seen his face? Well, shit, didn’t matter. Neddie had gotten clean away.

  Now it was after dinner in Ward Six-Six-Six and just before lights-out. Neddie, Mikey, Quarter to Ten, Fred Mouse, and Oscar were going to trade stories.

  Oscar was in the bathroom when Mikey leaned over to where Neddie was settling into his bunk and dropped a bombshell.

  He said, “I told Dr. Hoover a story about you, Neddie. A true one.”

  Neddie was zapped with a jolt of fear like a lightning strike that ran up his spine to the back of his head, then branched out to his fingertips. He felt dizzy. He tried to focus on Mikey.

  “What story?” he managed to ask.

  Neddie hoped that Mikey would say that he had told Hoover a Johnston Correctional story; Johnston was fact—published, documented, condemned. No harm could come to Neddie over a Johnston story. But—reality check, Neddie. Mikey hadn’t told Hoover about Johnston. Hoover knew all about Johnston.

  Mikey said, “I told Dr. Hoover that you go flying at night and stay out until almost morning.”

  Mikey was smart enough to read Neddie’s face and see trouble coming. He started backing up, until he was between two lockers across from the be
ds. A split second later Neddie sprang off the side of the bed, his shadow rising up against the wall like a bodyguard three times his height.

  Neddie closed in. Mikey peed himself.

  “Why’d you do that, Mikey? What did you do that for?”

  “Don’t hurt me,” he squealed. “Don’t hurt me, Neddie.”

  Neddie slapped a locker door. Kicked it. Then, as Mikey went into a crouch, Neddie grabbed his hair with one hand, gripped his jaw with the other, forcibly extracting him from his hiding place, then ran him headfirst into a wall. As he fell to the floor, Mikey loosed one long, undulating wail.

  “You’re going to take it back,” Neddie barked into his friend’s ear.

  Mikey cried, “You hurt me. You hurt my arm.”

  Mike’s yowling and the metallic clanking of the lockers had stirred up everyone up in and around Ward Six. Fred Mouse was squeaking, “Yip-yip-yip.” Quarter to Ten was spinning, and Randy was way under his bed, keening as if his throat had been slit.

  And now Nurse Mimi was in the doorway.

  From behind her, Dr. Hoover pushed his way into the room.

  He yelled, “Freeeeeeze.”

  Neddie stepped away from Mike, who had collapsed in a damp, pee-smelling heap of dummy. Nurse Mimi went to Mike, and he wailed, “Neddie broke my arm.”

  Dr. Hoover loomed above Neddie and said, “Your privileges are suspended, Edward. Effective now.”

  Neddie joined the big fat baby chorus, crying in his peculiar high-pitched whine.

  “He started it. I didn’t mean to hurt him. It was an accident. I’m sorry, Mikey.”

  Nurse Mimi said, “Dr. Hoover, I believe him. Neddie never acts up. He’s a sweetie, aren’t you, dear?”

  Hoover said to Mike, “Michael, you’re going to Saint Vartan’s, okay? Nurse Mimi, get a chair and take Mike to the ER.”

  He turned back to Neddie and said, “Edward, you’re confined to the infirmary at night until further notice. Give me the keys to the alley.”

  “Keys? No, Dr. Hoover. Please. The keys are mine.”

  Hoover stuck out his hand. “Now, Edward.”

  Neddie took his precious keys, his flight pass, from the hook in his locker and handed them to the doctor.

  “Get your pillow.”

  Neddie plucked his pillow from his bed, and clutching it, he walked ahead of Dr. Hoover down the speckled lino hallway, past the nurses’ station to the men’s infirmary.

  “When can I come out, Dr. Hoover? When can I have my privileges back?”

  “Behave, Edward. I’ll come for you in the morning and we will have a talk. Leave everything else to me.”

  “Yes, okay, okay, Doctor.”

  Neddie sat on the edge of the bed, assuming a posture that made him appear as meek and as harmless as a small, middle-aged loony tune could look. The infirmary door closed and locked.

  He waited for the peephole to open and close, and once he was finally alone, Neddie held on to his head, and when he couldn’t suppress the pain, he raged around the very small room, which was four times the size of the dog kennel he’d slept in at Johnston. He knew that his situation had hit a patch of bad weather. Dangerous winds. Electric thunderstorms. Isolated tornados. None of that would get in his way.

  Did Hoover think that he was such a dummy that in all these long years at the Bin, he’d never gotten spare keys? If Hoover knew where he’d gotten the sux, he’d probably kill himself.

  Neddie flapped his arms and raged and made plans.

  CHAPTER 75

  I WAS HALFWAY into my drive to the Hall through morning rush when Claire called.

  “I’ve got good news and I’ve got bad news.”

  I couldn’t read her tone of voice. I jerked the wheel, leftright, to avoid a pothole and continued up Masonic Avenue.

  “Bad news first,” I said. “Give it to me straight. I can handle anything and I prove it every single day.”

  Claire laughed. “You’re my hero, Lindsay.”

  “Yeah, yeah, hit me, Butterfly.”

  “Ready? There were no usable prints on the run-over, crushed-to-powder sux vial and no DNA on it, either.”

  “Oh, great. I’m having a hard time imagining the good news.”

  “Brace yourself. I know where that vial came from. The lot number told me so.”

  “Ya-hooo.”

  This wasn’t a case of good news. This was a case of fantastic, groundbreaking, possibly case-breaking news.

  “You’re my hero,” I said to Claire.

  “Oh, shut up,” she said. And then we both laughed.

  As soon as I arrived at the squad room, I briefed Rich and Brady, who stood up, clapped his hands together, and said, “Get on outta here. Don’t forget to phone in.”

  Rich and I stopped at Claire’s office for a photocopy of the vial label with the lot code. And then we took off.

  Saint Vartan’s is a big, well-respected teaching hospital that takes up the whole block between Pine and Bush. When I say it’s big, I mean fourteen floors, three hundred beds, physicians, and a thousand employees.

  That big.

  After my partner and I cleared the expected bureaucratic steeplechase, we met with Dr. Merrilee Christianson, the director in charge of the hospital’s in-house pharmacy.

  Dr. Christianson was a tightly wrapped sixtysomething woman, all business, moderately defensive as she explained the storage and dispensing system at Saint Vartan’s in-house pharmacy. She ticked off the protocols, including the passwords, key cards, and required records every time a unit of medication was moved from locked drawers and cabinets to mobile carts.

  Conklin said, “Dr. Christianson, we’re trying to track the source of a vial that was sold to Saint Vartan’s and was found on the street. It may be evidence in a murder. Please take a look.”

  I handed her the copy of the sux vial label, with its ten-number code highlighted in yellow.

  “Can you wait?” she asked.

  She left her desk and returned only ten minutes later.

  “This product expired last year. This lot was destroyed.”

  I said, “All except for this vial?”

  “Naturally,” she huffed, “I can’t account for individual vials, but what remained of this case lot is on our ‘Destroyed In-House’ list.”

  Conklin, the best guy with women I’ve ever met, pushed his brown hair out of his eyes and asked a number of questions: “Where and how are expired drugs destroyed?” “Was it possible for those vials to be stolen after they left the pharmacy?” “Could they have been lifted, for instance, from the OR?” “How long is sux effective after its expiration date?”

  Dr. Christianson replied in depth.

  No one could have stolen the vial from the dispensary without leaving a trail, and no such trail had lit up the tracking software. That went for the surgery unit, too. Saint Vartan’s had a facility in the basement, an incinerator cleared by the DEA, that was dedicated to destroying expired drugs. Records were meticulously made and maintained, of course.

  “Of course,” Conklin said.

  Christianson went on, “Sux would still be effective for five to eight months after expiry. After that the potency would be diminished.”

  “But it would still paralyze an individual who was injected with it?” I asked.

  “Of course. But we would never use a drug after the manufacturer’s expiry date, okay? I’ve got to get back to work,” she said with finality.

  Conklin asked to see the drug disposal facility so we could complete our report. Christianson made a call, and Kelly Caine, a young pharmacy assistant, took us down to the B Level.

  The elevator doors opened.

  I wasn’t prepared for my first look at what lurked beneath Saint Vartan’s. The basement wasn’t just huge. It sprawled. It had high ceilings and many Alice-in-Wonderland doors.

  It had the look of an underground city.

  CHAPTER 76

  I TRIED TO take in the vast, humming, industrial-grade basement level
under Saint Vartan’s.

  The off-white painted walls were notched at intervals with intersections and blue doors that led to the boiler room, cooling apparatus, maintenance services, kitchen facilities, laundry. Pipes and tubes scaled the twenty-foot-high ceilings, which were paneled with fluorescent lighting that bleached this mechanical underworld and polished it to a high shine.

  Along with the thumping of the major pumps and the chopping of fans, there was traffic aplenty: maintenance workers, kitchen workers, and orderlies pushing wheelchairs and gurneys. Electric carts streaked past.

  Let me just say that the almost futuristic, machine-driven quality of the place was a little creepy.

  I looked to Conklin to see how he was taking it and saw that Kelly Caine had fixed her big brown eyes on Inspector Hottie and had sidled up inside his personal zone.

  I butted in.

  “The incineration facility?” I reminded her.

  “Right this way.”

  We followed the young woman down the main corridor, came to an intersection, and turned right down a spur of hallway to a door marked FURNACE ROOM. We peered through a window in that door and saw a large, blocky furnace in use. A maintenance worker opened the adjacent storage room for us.

  A logbook was prominently positioned beside a computer on a long table. Shelves wrapping around three sides of the room were stacked with drugs that had been consigned to the fire. There were locks on both doors, and an operator was present “most of the time,” according to Kelly.

  I asked, “What does ‘most’ mean?”

  “Eighteen hours a day. But the doors are always locked, a hundred percent.”

  But maybe the man with the key took a break now and then. My excitement over tracking the sux to its last known whereabouts had cooled. What now?

  As we walked back toward the elevator, Kelly was saying to Conklin, “You’re here about that Stealth Killer, right?”

  He said, “Could be. Any thoughts on that?”

  “Well,” Kelly said, blinking up at my partner, “I probably shouldn’t say this, but I saw an aide sneaking around down here a couple weeks ago after the storage room was closed for the day.”