14th Deadly Sin Read online

  There was an e-mail from Chief Jacobi.

  Yuki, thought you’d like to know that Inspector Brand is on suspension pending an investigation. I’ve got your young Arturo Mendez in protective custody until I can park him someplace safe. Sorry to tell you Li’l Tony Willis passed. As for you, young lady, hell of a job. Hell of a job.

  Yuki’s eyes stung.

  She palmed them and tried to hold back the tears. She thought about Li’l Tony, with tubes in his nose and his arms, asking her to get him moved to another prison. That was all he’d wanted. When she opened her eyes again, she had a new e-mail.

  Yuki, we’re moving as soon as we can to a better place for our child. I am sorry Aaron-Rey never met you. He would have loved you like we do. We will never forget you.

  Love, Bea Kordell

  That was when Yuki really started to cry. She went to the bedroom, undressed, and got into bed. She was sleeping deeply when she was awoken by a kiss on the cheek.

  Brady was sitting next to her, looking at her in a way he hadn’t looked at her since before she took the job at the Defense League. She backed up to the headboard and sat up.

  “I’m a dumb dick,” he said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m dumb, I’ve been a dick, and I’m sorry.”

  She was still mad. She reached for a tissue and blew her nose. She said, “It wasn’t anyone’s fault that we weren’t allowed to talk about our cases.”

  “I could have made tea. We could have watched movies together. Had pillow fights. Something.”

  “I’m not that mad at you,” she said.

  “You are. You should be. You know why I couldn’t take your calls today? Because I was in nonstop meetings. Because you cracked this dirty-cop murder case that I’ve been working—me and the entire Southern Station—”

  “I didn’t do all that.”

  “You kicked the door down, darlin’. We’ve got a chance now of closing this whole nasty thing. Thanks to you.”

  “I’m glad.” She liked his voice. That southern thang. She couldn’t take her eyes away from him, either.

  Brady put his hand along her cheek, under her chin. She looked up at him.

  “I was a dick,” he said, “but it was killing me. I’ve really missed you.”

  “Me, too.” Her voice cracked.

  Brady got up and closed the blinds. He took off his tie, then his jacket, threw them onto the chair, unstrapped his holster, kicked off his shoes, and opened his shirt. He went for the button at his waistband.

  Yuki said, “Wait, Brady. I have to be somewhere.”

  “Really?” he said.

  Yuki laughed. “No.”

  Brady stepped out of his pants and she gazed at him adoringly. He opened the envelope of blankets and sheets and got into bed. Yuki put her arms around his neck, fitted herself against him, and let him take it from there.

  He always knew just what to do.

  CHAPTER 90

  JOE AND I were in bed. It was early, ten something o’clock, but I was too tired to go for a run, too edgy to sleep. Joe yawned and stretched beside me. He was feeling wonderful. In fact, the last time he’d been in this kind of mood was when he’d first seen the face of his baby girl.

  My version of Joe’s day had been terrifying.

  I could still hear his breathless voice over the phone saying I had to come quick—he had Clement Hubbell in custody.

  I had moved like there was a bomb tied to my tail. I got hold of the SWAT commander and said I’d get authorization later. I hoped to hell I could. I’d jumped into the lead SUV for the warp-speed race to Edgehill Mountain, the whole way hoping we would get there in time.

  Now that it was behind us, I pictured SWAT battering down the red door, the hinges popping, the door lying down like a big red tongue on the floor as a dozen men with shields up and guns drawn stormed the kitchen. Joe was at the table with a muffin in his hand, sitting beside a shocked old woman, who’d huffed, “You could have knocked.”

  Joe had started grinning like a kid who’d unlocked the parental controls on the adult entertainment channels—and that was before Hubbell had been booked.

  I was still in post-adrenaline shock and kept thinking about how badly it could have gone. My husband could have died.

  “You’re so tense,” Joe said, stretching out an arm, pulling me toward him.

  “Pretty happy with yourself, aren’t you, hon?”

  He laughed. “You bet I am. After all these years as a desk jockey, I still have the goods.”

  He wrapped both arms around me, and I lifted my face for his kiss. His mouth and hands felt so good, I tried to let my thoughts go, but I couldn’t.

  I was wired: flashing from the Calhoun family massacre, to the Windbreaker cops, to the notes from anonymous cowards accusing me of crossing the thin blue line.

  “Lindsay?”

  “I’m sorry, Joe. My mind’s still cranking. How about in the morning?” I said. “OK?”

  He stroked my hair with his big paw.

  “Course it’s OK. Talk to me,” he said.

  I snuggled up to him and said the cases involving the dirty cops were still making me crazy. “I no longer know who to trust in the SFPD, not even in our own department.”

  I hadn’t been talking long when I realized that Joe’s breathing had deepened and he’d dropped into sleep.

  I got out of bed quietly and went to look in on Julie.

  Little Miss Precious saw me peering into her crib. She burbled and raised her arms. I picked her up and took her to the chair by the window. I held her against my chest and rocked, all the while watching the traffic on Lake Street.

  I saw no suspicious activity.

  No men loitering or sitting in dark cars.

  I rocked my sweetie until she fell asleep, and soothed by the motion of the chair and her breathing, I finally relaxed. I put her down in her crib and covered her up. Then I checked the locks on the front door and made sure the security system was on.

  When all the hatches were battened down, I returned to bed, where my dear husband was alive and well, and maybe dreaming about his ten-star megaday.

  I must have slept, because I woke up and looked at the clock. It was quarter after three. After what seemed like a minute, I looked at the clock again.

  It was 7:45 a.m.

  I had a meeting at eight. I was going to be late.

  CHAPTER 91

  I CALLED JACOBI from my car and told him I was on the way. He barked, “Damn it, Boxer. Get your ass moving. We’re holding the meeting for you.”

  He wasn’t kidding.

  I said, “I’m ten minutes out,” and clicked off before I could bark back at him out of pure hurt-feelings reflex.

  Of course my feelings were hurt.

  Five years ago, when Jacobi and I were partners, we were both shot down in a dark alley in the Mission and almost died. I called in the “officers down” with what I thought would be my next-to-last breath. After that, Jacobi and I were bonded for life.

  Yesterday, in a completely unrelated event, I’d interrogated a serial killer, which had been a lot like walking barefoot on the edge of a knife. I’d gotten the confession on video. All corners had been squared. Our solved cases rate shot up. Big day for the SFPD!

  Today, I was late for a meeting with three men I trusted with my life, who trusted me with theirs. And Jacobi had chewed me out for being late.

  I heard my dead father saying, Toughen up, Princess.

  I have little love for my father, but this was right.

  I had to toughen up. I applied the brakes about twelve inches before I rear-ended a minivan full of kids and dogs at the red light up ahead. I took a breath. A few of them.

  I sat there and got my brains together, and when the light changed, I didn’t flip on the siren. I proceeded toward the Hall within the speed limit. I got to 850 Bryant at 8:46.

  I parked in the all-day lot, tossed the keys to Carl, and crossed the street against the light. I badged secu
rity and took an elevator to the fifth floor.

  When I walked into Jacobi’s office, three grim-faced men were sitting in “antiqued” leather furniture around a glass coffee table. The framed photos on the wall were of Jacobi with various politicos, and there was a shot of the two of us in our dress blues, receiving commendations from our former chief.

  I stepped around Brady’s legs and took the seat next to Conklin. I felt better now. I was surrounded by friends, and I had myself back.

  I said, “Sorry I’m late.”

  Conklin passed me a container of coffee, no longer hot, but I knew he’d stirred in three sugars.

  Brady said, “Chief, you want to tell her?”

  I was saying, “Tell me what?” when Conklin said to me, “Robertson is dead.”

  “Robertson?”

  For a moment I didn’t know who the hell he was talking about, and then I got it. Kyle Robertson, Tom Calhoun’s partner, the fifty-something former beat cop looking for an early retirement as soon as possible.

  “How did he die?” I asked the room.

  Jacobi said, “He left his dog tied to the neighbor’s fence and stuck a note between the chain links. He put his badge on the dining table and then he sat down and ate his gun.”

  “Aw, shit. What did the note say?” I asked.

  “The note said, ‘I’m sorry. Please take care of Bruno. He’s a good boy.’ There was a check for the neighbor, a thousand bucks. Robertson signed and dated the note midnight last night. The neighbor called it in a couple hours ago.”

  “What now?” I asked.

  Jacobi said, “Deciding that is the job at hand.”

  CHAPTER 92

  WHEN JACOBI SAID, “Deciding that is the job at hand,” he meant it was our job, the four of us, to connect the sketchy evidence and bring the bad cops down.

  Brady is a list maker. He had a yellow pad, and he wrote names down on the left-hand side of the page with a red Sharpie.

  Calhoun’s name was first on the list, and Robertson’s name followed. The two had been partners; now both were dead.

  Brady said, “For the sake of argument, let’s say that Robertson killed himself because whatever had closed in on Calhoun was knocking on his door.”

  I said, “When I interviewed Robertson, he vouched for Calhoun, said he was a good kid who’d had no dirty dealings of any kind. I didn’t pick up that he was covering for his partner—or himself. Maybe I got that wrong.” I went on, “Robertson and Calhoun reported to Ted Swanson.”

  Jacobi said, “I called Swanson. He’s going through Robertson’s house now, looking for something that could explain this. He and Vasquez are talking to the neighbors.”

  Conklin brought up Donnie Wolfe, the inside man at Wicker House who had informed the holdup team when the drugs and money would be in the house.

  Conklin said, “Wolfe told us the robbers were cops, that the head dude’s tag was One, and that he was the boss of a six-man Windbreaker crew.”

  Brady wrote One + 5 on the top of his pad.

  Jacobi said, “A witness to the crack house shootings saw a tattoo on the neck of one of the Windbreaker cops. It sounds a lot like Bill Brand’s tattoo.”

  I’d seen that tattoo. WB. Like a Western cow brand.

  Conklin said, “We were working with these guys. Every day. So it comes down to this: Brand, Calhoun, and Robertson are Windbreaker cops, and there may be a couple more we don’t know about. Whitney’s on the radar, too, by association with Brand.”

  Brady said, “It’s a working theory. Brand is on suspension pending investigation. Jacobi and I are meeting with him in an hour. Boxer, you and Conklin talk to Whitney. Lean on him, hard. Whoever talks first gets a deal. The other guy gets the jackpot.”

  Back at my desk, I called Whitney’s cell and left a message, the first of three. Conklin said, “Maybe this has to be done in person. I’ll be right back.”

  And ten minutes later he was.

  “Whitney isn’t in and hasn’t called in,” Conklin said. “But I’m gonna say he already got the message.”

  We headed over to Brady’s see-through office. He looked up and said, “Brand didn’t show.”

  Conklin said, “Likewise, Whitney hasn’t punched in. Hasn’t returned our calls.”

  It was a good bet that Whitney and Brand had split. And without them, we might never find out who had killed Calhoun, who had ripped off Wicker House and killed seven people and a snitch called Rascal Valdeen. We might never know who had killed the dope slingers in the crack house, another half dozen pushers, or the innocent owners of a couple of check-cashing stores. And there was the matter of that mercado shooting. Maya Perez had died along with her unborn child.

  I felt like we were on the verge of everything or nothing. And suddenly, my refried brain kicked up the obvious candidate for the job of “One.”

  I’d thought of him before, but his all-American good looks and kind manner had thrown me off my guard. Currently, he wasn’t on our radar at all.

  I sat down across from Brady so I didn’t have to speak from the open doorway. “What about Swanson?”

  “What are you saying? You think he’s in on this?”

  “Swanson’s a distinguished cop. He was sold to us as a superstar. Calhoun and Robertson reported to him. How could he not be involved?”

  “Trust your gut,” said Brady.

  CHAPTER 93

  MY GUT SAID we shouldn’t go Rambo on Swanson.

  Conklin agreed. “You talk to him. I’ll work on locating Whitney.”

  The Swanson family lived in the Parkmerced apartment development, twenty minutes from the city center in a 150-acre private village with both high-rise flats and town-homes. It was twilight as I drove down the lush, tree-lined streets, passing charming small parks and playgrounds.

  It was easy to think that nothing bad could happen here.

  Swanson lived in a two-tone burnt-orange-and-dark-brown stucco-faced building that looked to be a three-family unit. I’d just braked at the curb when he came out of his front door and down the walk to meet me at the car.

  “Sorry to drop in unannounced,” I told him. “But we have to talk.”

  Swanson said, “Come in, Boxer. Glad to see you, actually.”

  Ted Swanson was disarmingly likable. His whole clean-cut, easygoing manner made my theory of him as the boss of a dirty-cop crew seem ridiculous.

  Once inside his living room, Swanson introduced me to his wife, Nancy, who said, “Come meet the kids.”

  She walked me to the door of the den and I saw three little ones, each under ten years old, lying on beanbag chairs, watching a movie in their pajamas.

  I was introduced to Maeve, Joey, and Pat as “Daddy’s friend from work,” after which Nancy stayed with the kids and I went to the wood-paneled living room furnished in plaid-covered sofas with dense pile carpet underfoot.

  I sat on one of the sofas and turned down Swanson’s offer of “coffee or whatever.” And I was struck by how much he had aged in the last few weeks.

  His face was ashen. His shoulders slumped. He looked like a man who was headed for a heart attack. And that it could happen any minute.

  “I spent the day at Robertson’s house,” Swanson said. “I saw the chair where he shot himself. Thought about what a decent guy he was. Asked myself why he had done it.”

  “What did you make of that?” I asked him.

  I don’t think Swanson heard me.

  He said, “I went through his checkbook. He wasn’t loaded and he wasn’t hurting. I rummaged through the files in his desk. Found the results of his last physical. No diabetes or cancer or heart disease. His blood pressure was a touch high. So is mine.

  “I looked in the medicine chest. Advil. Tums. Something for athlete’s foot.”

  Swanson shook his head.

  I said, “What else?”

  “Vasquez spoke to the neighbor who inherited the dog. Guy’s name is Murray. Murray was Robertson’s drinking buddy. They watched ball games t
ogether. Murray didn’t see it coming. He said Kyle had been moody but not overtly depressed. But I gotta tell you, Boxer, none of us saw this coming. CSI has Robertson’s laptop. Maybe that’ll tell us something.”

  “Ted. Can we get real, here? Kyle Robertson didn’t kill himself on a whim. Was he involved with the robberies we’ve been working? Had he been threatened? Did he have information he wished he didn’t have? I think you know.”

  Swanson’s face sagged. He said, “I could be a target. What happened to Tommy Calhoun’s family could happen to mine. What would you do if you were in my shoes?”

  “I would talk to someone who can help you.”

  “What are you suggesting, Boxer?”

  “You know what I’m getting at. Give me something to work with. Chief Jacobi was my partner. We’ve been tight for more than a dozen years. He’ll listen to me.”

  “I’ve got nothing to say.”

  Swanson was crouching in his seat, leaning over his knees as he talked. “We were working our jobs. Just like you. Maybe Calhoun got too close to something and maybe Robertson knew what it was.”

  “That’s the story you’re going with? You don’t know anything?”

  “I’m going to bed now, Boxer,” he said. “It’s been another rotten day.”

  He was saying he didn’t want to talk to me, but the look on his face told me otherwise. I swear he wanted to confide in me. But we both stood and he walked away from me. I showed myself to the door, and as I passed the den, I heard the children laughing. I was crazy scared for those little kids and for Nancy and Ted Swanson, too.

  Honest to God, I found him believable, even though I didn’t believe him at all.

  CHAPTER 94

  I CAME AWAY from my visit with Ted Swanson thinking he’d been lying, and that was not only disturbing, but it added to my doubts about him.

  He said he was worried about being attacked, but he wouldn’t tell me what he knew. I was frustrated and angry and I couldn’t help thinking about the murder scene at Tom Calhoun’s house, knowing that Swanson was thinking about it, too.