The 17th Suspect Page 18

  I thought about Michael Dunn’s glancing looks. Like he wanted to study me yet avoid my eyes.

  But I had looked at him, and now I was thinking that I’d seen him before.

  It would drive me crazy until I figured out when and where.

  CHAPTER 84

  BACK AT OUR desks, I said to Conklin, “Does Michael Dunn look familiar to you?”

  “Reminds me a little of Jimmy Fallon, maybe.”

  “You think?”

  The feeling I was having that I’d seen Dunn before intensified. I kept comparing him in my mind with his sister and mother, but even though they all had hazel eyes, I just didn’t feel that was it.

  And then something clicked.

  I opened the folder on my computer where I’d filed the shots I’d snapped of the crowd behind the tape on that rainy night on Geary Street. I scrutinized all of them before I stabbed my finger at the face of a man who strongly resembled Michael Dunn. Millie had looked startled when I showed these same photos to her. Had she seen her son in that crowd?

  “Come over here, Richie.”

  “Yes, boss.”

  He came around, looked at where I was pointing.

  “Is this Michael?”

  The man at the end of a row of bystanders wore a knit cap and a charcoal-gray ski jacket. His right hand was in his pocket, and he was holding an umbrella handle with his gloveless left hand.

  Water dripped from the umbrella spokes.

  “Could be him, Boxer. The picture is awful grainy, and it’s hard to really see his face with that hat pulled down over his eyebrows. But I see what you mean.”

  I zoomed in on the hand gripping the handle and focused in on the man’s wedding ring.

  I said to Richie, “You noticed his ring, right?”

  “Silver with gold on the edges.”

  “Correct,” I said. “Is this the same ring?”

  “It’s possible,” my partner said. “But with this lighting? The shadows, the headlights, a lot of contrast for a phone shot. I want to look at his face again.”

  I adjusted the picture on the screen and said, “Well?”

  “Let’s go to the videotape,” Rich said.

  He went to his desk, picked up the phone, and tapped in a couple of numbers, saying, “Maybe we’ll catch Benny.”

  Benny is our interview room AV tech, among other roles.

  “Benny,” Conklin said into the mouthpiece. “This is urgent. I need a still shot of the dude Boxer and I just talked to in Interview 1. Find me the best frontal face shot and a profile if you’ve got one. You mind? I’ll wait.”

  He hung up and drummed his fingers on the desk.

  I knew he and I were both having the same thought. The lab could do a little facial-recognition magic on the two images, compare the Michael Dunn we’d just interviewed with the unknown man under the umbrella on Geary.

  While we waited for Benny, I did a database search for everything related to Michael Dunn. I didn’t find much. He had no arrest sheet, no prints on file, not even a traffic violation.

  And then I got a hit.

  I said, “Holy moly,” and rotated my monitor so Rich could read a line of type in the database. Michael Dunn of Union Street, San Francisco, had a registered 9mm Kimber handgun.

  “Good catch,” said Rich.

  “Thanks, bud.”

  It was a good catch. Michael Dunn had purchased a gun of the same caliber as the one that had killed several homeless people, including Dunn’s mother, Millie Cushing.

  The lab had kept the bullets taken from the bodies of Jimmy Dolan, Laura Russell, Lou Doe, and Millie Cushing. Ballistics had logged them all as cold hits. All had been fired from the same gun, a gun that had not been used in a crime or otherwise entered into our system.

  It wasn’t a gotcha—yet. But if the mystery man on Geary Street was our Michael Dunn, and he had a weapon that matched the type that had fired bullets into his mother’s body, that would be enough probable cause to arrest him on suspicion of murder.

  Had those bullets come from Michael Dunn’s Kimber? We really needed to get his gun.

  CHAPTER 85

  IT WAS 8:30 A.M. the morning after our interview with Michael Dunn.

  Conklin and I sat together in a parked squad car near the intersection of Leidesdorff and Commercial Streets in the Financial District. The Transamerica building was directly behind us, and we were within shouting distance of the red-and-white-brick three-story office building where Dunn worked as a paralegal.

  We had confirmation from the lab that the man in our interview room was the same as the one I’d snapped standing across the street from the body of that poor dead woman on Geary.

  Michael Dunn hadn’t said a word to us about the scene on Geary. Why wouldn’t he mention that he’d seen the body, as similar as it was to what he now knew about his mother’s death?

  We could ask him and hold him as a material witness for forty-eight hours while we got an ADA to get us a search warrant for his apartment.

  But neither Rich nor I could bear to sit at our desks while waiting for an ADA to find a judge to sign a warrant. Not while our one suspect, Michael Dunn, was walking around with a gun.

  Our plan was simple and entirely legal. We would pick Dunn up and bring him back to the Hall for questioning about the shooting of Lou Doe at 77 Geary.

  That would buy a little time, and maybe Dunn would give up information we could use to arrest him for murder.

  Dunn had told us that he was a creature of habit. Every morning he got to his office by nine, he spent his day doing legal research, and at the close of business he went home. What he’d called his “Groundhog Day life.”

  I hoped today would be just another Groundhog Day for Michael Dunn.

  I turned the police radio down to a hiss and watched the early-morning traffic on Leidesdorff, a charming street a few blocks from Sydney G. Walton Square, eight or nine blocks from both 77 Geary and the spot on Mission Street where Millie Cushing had been gunned down just over a week ago.

  It had been very loud on Mission after Millie died. I remembered every minute of that night with high-definition clarity. I had stood there in the fog, surrounded by hundreds of flashing red and blue lights, with the shrieks of law enforcement vehicle sirens speeding toward the murder scene from all points.

  If he was strolling around the area at that time, Michael could have seen the light show. Hell, he could have called dispatch himself.

  CHAPTER 86

  I FELT THE adrenaline rush before my brain made the connection.

  Michael Dunn was walking toward his office building right on time.

  I said to Richie, “There. See him?”

  The man who more or less resembled Jimmy Fallon was passing the intersection at Commercial Street, heading toward us on Leidesdorff in the direction of the three-story building where he worked nine to six, five days a week.

  He wore a knit cap over his brow, and both hands were shoved into the pockets of his windbreaker. He looked straight ahead and passed our backup team without noticing them.

  I grabbed the radio mike and said to Nardone, “Bob. Suspect is on foot walking north on Leidesdorff, just passed you, wearing a black jacket, black knit hat.”

  “Copy that,” Nardone said.

  “Stay in your car until I need you.”

  Conklin and I got out of the squad car and walked toward Dunn, stopping him on the sidewalk.

  I said, “Mr. Dunn. Glad we found you. We need to ask you some more questions.”

  “I have a meeting at nine fifteen,” he said. “Why don’t I get back to you?”

  He started to walk past us, but Conklin put out a hand to block his passage.

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Dunn,” Conklin said. “This is very important. We have some photos to show you, and we need you to help us clear up a few questions. Has to be right now. This just can’t wait.”

  “Am I under arrest?”

  “Why would you ask that?” I asked.

&nb
sp; “Because you’re coming at me like I’m a suspect.”

  “Mr. Dunn. Michael,” I said. “We need your help. The longer it takes to find whoever shot your mother, the greater the likelihood that the case will go cold or that the shooter will kill someone else.”

  Dunn planted his feet, and from the rage on his face, I thought he was going to punch me or run.

  “Get away from me,” he said. “Get the hell away from me.”

  There was a blur as his arm shot out and connected with my shoulder. The shock of the blow knocked me off balance. I staggered back but managed to keep my footing.

  I unclipped my cuffs from my belt and shouted, “Put your hands behind your back. Michael Dunn, you’re under arrest for assaulting a police officer.”

  Dunn switched his eyes to the cuffs and started babbling at me. He made no sense. I didn’t know what he was thinking or saying, but one thing I did know. The gun that I wanted so badly?

  It was in his hand and it was pointed at me.

  I rushed him and yelled, “GUN!”

  CHAPTER 87

  CARS WERE SPEEDING past him—Michael heard them —but his vision was breaking into choppy split seconds, like old-fashioned film caught in the cogs of a projector.

  One moment the cop called Boxer was coming at him. He hated her. She was just like his mother. She should be punished, so no one would have to suffer like he had.

  But the other cop was blocking his way.

  Get away from me. Get away.

  He gave her a shove as he clasped the butt of his beloved gun.

  Everything became blurred in his mind. Mother. Why? Why don’t you love me?

  She was coming back at him, so he aimed at her.

  She shouted, “GUN!”—and he squeezed the trigger. He felt the shock in his hand travel up to his shoulder and ring the bell of his heart. Her partner came toward him with his gun out, shouting, “Drop the gun!”

  Michael laughed and fired again. Brakes squealed. The shot rang out, metal against metal. His thoughts were fleeting images. His mother.

  Why don’t you love me? Why didn’t you love me?

  He was down on his back. Someone stepped on his hand. His gun spun away. He rolled and reached for it. He couldn’t. Quite. Get it.

  Mom. Where are you now?

  Loud words came at him. He didn’t understand. Faces were huge in front of his eyes. His cheek was against the pavement. Someone shouted his name. A kick landed on the side of his head. Another in his gut. His wrists were clamped and pinched behind him. He was dragged up to his feet. He saw someone he knew.

  Roger Duncan. The boss.

  He heard Duncan say, “Hey. What’s going on here?”

  Michael called out, “I did it, Roger. I killed my mother. I don’t need a lawyer.”

  His true self was coming out. He had never felt so free, so alive. There was a hand on his head. Pushing him down. You bitch. You’ve always been a bitch. He said it to HER. Motherrrrr.

  A car door slammed.

  Duncan knocked on the window, his face as big as the moon, saying in a muffled voice, “Michael. I’ll meet you at booking. Don’t say anything to anyone.”

  He was living in real time, with real sound and images. Michael saw it all clearly now. He said, “It’s okay, Duncan. I killed my mother. I shot them all.”

  Michael was thrown back against the seat. He welcomed it. He started to hum a song about a puppy with a waggly tail.

  He was free at last. Life was good.

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER 88

  I WAS AT my desk in the squad room when I opened the little shopping bag and took out the note and the foil-wrapped packet.

  Conklin was putting on his windbreaker. He said, “Cappy and I are running across the street for lunch. Come with us.”

  “Rain check,” I said.

  “Prime rib special. All you can eat. Seven bucks.”

  I peeled back the aluminum foil and peeked between the slices of bread. Meat loaf. The note read, “Eat. Love. Joe.”

  That was priceless.

  When I had come home last night, Joe had taken one look at me, hugged me, pulled off my outerwear and gun, and sat me down. Then he pulled off my shoes and poured me a drink.

  “Talk to me,” he said.

  Once I started talking, I couldn’t stop. Joe listened to every word about the Michael Dunn takedown that morning: His discombobulated name-calling as I confronted him. The wild shots he’d fired, one of which put a new part in Sergeant Nardone’s scalp. And his confession to everything but the Kennedy assassination as we locked him in the squad car.

  “Dunn is in a cell by himself, under close guard, pending his arraignment,” I concluded. “People on the street can breathe a little more easily tonight. Me, too.”

  Joe dished up the meat loaf and fixings, and as I ate, he told me about his Mr. Mom day: ducks in the park; Julie’s new word, panda; a playdate for Martha. And a haircut for him that I admired. I got up from the table to run my fingers through the thick new growth of hair that hid the long, bumpy scar at the back of his head.

  “Good haircut,” I said.

  “It’s for my interview,” he said.

  Even as Joe was excited at the prospect of getting back to work himself, I knew some part of him wanted me to take a desk job, have another baby, stop mixing it up with crazy people with guns.

  I’d tried to imagine it, but the picture just wouldn’t gel.

  That night I ate dinner with two glasses of a nice Chianti. I slept without moving all night, like a rock or a log or a candle that had been burned at both ends.

  Now, at my desk, I saw that the meat loaf Joe had made with loving hands was making an encore.

  “I’m in brown-bag mode,” I said to my partner. “Thanks anyway.”

  As Conklin made his exit, he passed Yuki coming through the gate. Normally tightly wrapped and focused, she looked frazzled. She pulled out Conklin’s now-empty desk chair and dropped into the seat.

  “Brady’s in a meeting upstairs,” I told her.

  “I know,” Yuki said. “I came to see you.”

  CHAPTER 89

  “EXCELLENT TIMING,” I said to Yuki. “I’m lunching at my desk. What’s going on?”

  Yuki ran her hands through her hair and gladly accepted half of my sandwich.

  Then she said, “My case is going sideways, Linds. I’m starting to think that my star witness is a big fat liar. If that’s true, the whole case against Briana Hill might be a lie, and if so, I have to jam on the brakes, and I mean right now.”

  “Back up a little,” I said. “What lies are you talking about?”

  Yuki leaned across Conklin’s desk and spilled her fears: that Marc had added fabricated details to his original story of the assault while he was under oath.

  “But then it got worse,” Yuki said. “James Giftos turned up some old phone messages from Marc to Briana that sounded like he could have been blackmailing her.”

  “Really? You’re serious?”

  Yuki went on, saying, “Lindsay, do you remember what I told you about Paul Yates?”

  I said, “He’s the one that had a bedroom encounter with Briana Hill and claimed that she threatened him with a gun.”

  “Right. Not quite a corroboration, but Yates’s testimony of attempted rape with a gun validated Marc’s story. Now I’m questioning Yates’s story, too,” Yuki said. “I want to talk with him again, drill down hard on his story, and either de-bunk it or settle down the questions in my mind.”

  “Sounds right.”

  Yuki said, “I’ve called Paul at home and at work. I’ve left messages and I’ve texted him, but he hasn’t gotten back to me. Why not? So before I turn nothing into something, can you run Marc Christopher and Paul Yates through NCIC for me? Both of them.”

  I said, “Yeats like the poet?”

  “Y-a-t-e-s,” she said. “Paul G.”

  I accessed NCIC, the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, and typed in Marc Chri
stopher. It took only a few minutes to assure myself that Marc Christopher wasn’t in it. He was clean.

  “I’ve found nothing on Marc,” I told Yuki.

  “Okay. Good,” she said. She got to work on the meat loaf on rye.

  I typed in Paul G. Yates and let the software run. I was about to say, “Nothing on him, either,” when Paul Gentry Yates popped up in the Supervised Release file. It was an arrest sheet from ten years ago, when Paul Yates was a college kid of nineteen.

  “Yuki. I found something you’re going to want to see.”

  I pressed keys and the printer chugged out the arrest report. I wheeled my chair around, took the report out of the tray, and handed it to Yuki.

  She read it, then looked up at me with shock on her face. “I’ve got to get this to Red Dog,” she said. “Fast.”

  CHAPTER 90

  YUKI SHOVED HER chair back from Conklin’s desk and ran, calling back to Lindsay, “I have to be back in court in thirty minutes.”

  Lindsay yelled, “Good luck,” as Yuki made for the fire exit and ran down one flight to the third floor.

  It was a short dash along the corridor to Parisi’s office.

  The DA was in a closed-door meeting, but Yuki couldn’t wait and Len wouldn’t want her to. She announced to his gatekeeper, “It’s urgent,” and, without waiting for a reply, swept past Toni’s desk and barged into her boss’s office, announcing, “I’ve got to speak with you right now.”

  Parisi told the two men in his office to hang on a minute, stepped out into the corridor, and asked Yuki what was wrong.

  “Paul Yates,” she said. “He tried to extort a professor when he was in college.”

  “And? Where does that go?” Parisi asked.

  “Okay,” Yuki said. “Ten years ago, when he was at UCLA, Yates threatened to expose his sociology professor for using inappropriate language unless he gave him a passing grade. The professor addressed it head-on and took it to the dean, who called the cops. Yates was arrested. Judge gave him a year of probation, and Yates was kicked out of school.”