The 20th Victim Read online

  I said, “There’s a cruiser outside. Officer Carol Ma Fullerton is your contact. Here’s her number.”

  I used a fridge magnet to attach the note to the door. “She’ll get you what you reasonably need,” I said. “Meaning, groceries. Keep the shades down and stay off the phone. Fullerton or her alternate can take you and your dog to the park once a day.”

  “When can I get out of here?”

  “Look, Randi. If you prefer, I can put you in jail and hold you as a material witness.”

  That was true, but only for forty-eight hours. Cops are allowed to lie, and I don’t think my nose grew even half an inch.

  “I’m gonna need tampons,” she said.

  “I’ll tell Officer Fullerton on my way out. There’s a drugstore about a block from here.”

  Randi joined her dog on the sofa, put her feet on the coffee table, and clicked on the TV.

  “You got HBO here?”

  “Make yourself comfortable, Randi. Keep your phone charged in case we need to make contact.”

  “And ice cream,” she said. “Double chocolate chip.”

  Would Leonard Barkley try to find her at their actual home on Thornton? Had he followed us as we moved her to this swell safe house? What were his plans?

  Randi would never tell me.

  She was playing with her dog’s ears and watching the first season of The Sopranos when I let myself out.

  Chapter 89

  Cindy was in her office writing a victim account of a carjacking, while tuning in to her police scanner at the same time.

  She was on deadline and deep into her writing when someone knocked. It was Henry Tyler, saying, “Returning your call.”

  Cindy invited him in and told him she’d have the story for him shortly.

  “I only need a teaser on the front page,” she said, “then maybe half a page anywhere in the B section.”

  “I’m leaving tonight at six. On the dot.”

  “You’ll have it before then.”

  Cindy went back to her draft of the story, checking the quotes against her interview transcripts—when the police scanner went crazy. She dialed it up. Something was happening and it sounded big. This was why she kept her scanner with her at home and work and in between like it was her flesh and blood.

  First thing she heard clearly was a call for backup, followed by dispatch saying that backup was on the way. Then there was a string of four-codes: officer needs emergency help, send ambulance, requested assistance responding, and send ambulance again.

  Officer needs emergency help was like an electric shock to her spine.

  She speed-dialed Rich, pressed the phone to her ear, and listened for him to pick up. No answer.

  Cindy looked through her glass wall. McGowan was not at his desk. She sent him a text message saying, Hold the fort. I’ll be back in an hour.

  She wanted to call Rich again but throttled the impulse. If he was at his desk, he’d call her. If he was out, he was busy. A new voice came over the radio, an officer asking dispatch to repeat the location.

  The dispatcher answered: “The Sleep Well Motel, 2701 San Bruno Avenue.”

  Cindy couldn’t tell what was happening, but her instincts were on high alert. She felt a big story coming to life in Portola. If she got clear road, she could be at the Sleep Well in fifteen minutes max.

  Cindy slipped her phone into her handbag, zipped up her baseball jacket, and slung the bag over her shoulder. Last, she tucked her radio under her arm and exited the office. Her curiosity and imagination caught fire. She overrode her throttled impulse and called Rich again. This time she left a message.

  “Call me, Rich. Let me know that you’re okay.”

  She unlocked her blue Honda, plugged the radio into the lighter jack, connected her phone to the Bluetooth app, and buckled in. It was normally a ten- to fifteen-minute drive from the Chronicle to Portola, but that didn’t count traffic jams.

  Paying almost full attention to the road, Cindy took every shortcut, ran every yellow light, and when she finally arrived at the crime scene, there was nothing to see but tattered yellow tape.

  Something had happened here, but what?

  Cops were taking down the tape. Motel guests were pulling out of the parking lot.

  She headed to the motel manager’s office.

  Chapter 90

  Cindy read the nameplate on the counter.

  MR. JAKE TUOHY, MANAGER.

  Tuohy was broad and balding, and his body language spoke loudly, conveying What now? and Who cares? But Cindy thought she could turn him to her side. She unzipped her jacket, tossed her hair, and introduced herself.

  “I’m Cindy Thomas from the San Francisco Chronicle, and I wonder if you could—”

  Tuohy interrupted. “Let me see your card.”

  Cindy handed him one from her jacket pocket. She glanced over his head and saw the framed picture on the wall of a gutted deer hanging head down from a tree, Tuohy standing beside it, grinning.

  Cindy zipped up her Windbreaker as he pinned her card to the bulletin board over the coffee station.

  He turned around and patted down the flyaway hair in his horseshoe-shaped fringe. His smile was absolutely chilling.

  “What do you want to know?” he said.

  “Everything. Why don’t I just let you tell me what happened here?”

  She pulled out her phone, pressed Record, and put it on the counter between them. She said, “Can you spell your name for me?”

  He said, “I could, but I won’t. Turn that off.”

  Cindy sighed, then complied.

  “Sorry,” she said. “It’s my job to cover this story.”

  “Do not use my name. I will deny I ever spoke to you.”

  “Deal. Let me start over. What can you tell me?”

  “There was a guy staying here last night,” said Tuohy. “What I heard is that he shoved our cleaning woman down the stairs. We’re insured. But her papers are wonky. I don’t know for sure. Not my business. Oh. A couple of cops got injured.”

  “Shot?”

  “Shot? No. Who told you that?”

  The manager wouldn’t give her the name of the cleaning woman or of the man who’d booked the room, or the names of the police officers, saying, “I don’t want to lose my job, understand?”

  “Of course,” Cindy said. “I feel the same way. Thanks for your time.”

  Cindy shook off the yucky feeling of the last five minutes and walked out to the street, where a couple of uniforms were taking down the tape. She didn’t know any of them, but she found one who didn’t look like a hard-ass. She was in her thirties, wore a wedding band, and still knew how to smile.

  Cindy checked the name on her badge—Officer W. Link—and introduced herself to her, saying that she was head crime writer at the Chronicle.

  She said, “By chance, do you know Inspector Rich Conklin of Homicide? He’s a close friend. Was he involved in the incident?”

  The cop said, “Yeah, he responded to the call. He’s fine.”

  Cindy exhaled her relief and asked, “Could you tell me what happened here?”

  “I will because your close friend is on the Job, but do not quote me. I’m not authorized to speak to anyone about an open case, let alone the press.”

  “All right, Officer L-i-n-k.”

  “Ha-ha. No, I mean it. Really.”

  “No problem. I promise to keep your name out of the story.”

  She gave her a stern look.

  “I swear.”

  She extended her hand and they shook on it.

  Then Link told her what she had heard. None of it was firsthand, but it was a scoop. Big one.

  “It was that guy Barkley, who fired at the cops, I think. And he escaped. The thinking is that he could be one of those drug dealer killers, but I have not heard that officially. ‘Unconfirmed, unidentified person says,’ right, Ms. Thomas?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Good. Word is that after this incident went down, he stol
e a squad car and disappeared again. I also heard that he used to be a Navy SEAL.”

  “Wow, and thanks, Anonymous Source Close to the Police Department.”

  Link grinned.

  “I mean it. Thanks very much.”

  Cindy groaned through the traffic jam on Highway 101, and after parking her car in the garage across from the Chronicle, she headed upstairs and went directly to Tyler’s office.

  “Got a minute?” she asked.

  “For you? Take two minutes.”

  “Henry, I got a scoop on background.”

  “Better than the carjack piece?”

  Cindy said, “I can do both.” Then she laid out what she knew about the incident at the Sleep Well Motel.

  “Get going,” said Tyler. “You have three hours.”

  Cindy went to her office and set up her scanner on the windowsill. She’d gathered a lot of information on Barkley since his wife fired on police, giving her husband a chance to escape. She had a research file on the sniper victims, and Link had confirmed what she’d heard—that Barkley had been a Navy SEAL.

  At her request McGowan had gathered a stack of research on the SEALs, and now, as if she’d called him up, McGowan was at her door.

  “Need help?”

  “I’m drafting something,” she said. “Tyler wants to see it by six. Now that we’re working together, I’d like your input before that.”

  “Okay, Cindy. I’ve checked the news feeds. There’s nothing about the Sleep Well Motel.”

  Damn it. She hadn’t told him about that. He had police contacts of his own. Or he’d been snooping with his ear to Tyler’s office door.

  “Good,” she said. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”

  She opened her research folder and highlighted portions of the research she’d need. She could do this.

  She could do it fast and well.

  Chapter 91

  It was three o’clock when Cindy was ready to write.

  Headline: POLICE SKIRMISH AT THE SLEEP WELL MOTEL.

  Copy: “Anonymous sources close to the SFPD tell the Chronicle that one of the snipers suspected of murdering ten or more people in five cities in under two weeks’ time attracted the attention of two SFPD officers today at the Sleep Well Motel in Portola.

  “The suspect, who has not yet been positively identified, was staying at the Sleep Well when the police engaged him. We can’t know what he was thinking, but when challenged, the suspect tried to flee. Again, when stopped, the suspect hurled a motel employee down a stairway into the police officers, seriously injuring one of them, and then stole a police vehicle.”

  Moving now into the body of the piece, Cindy wrote: “It’s been said that the suspect is highly skilled in hand-to-hand combat and cutting-edge weaponry. Anonymous sources close to the SFPD have told the Chronicle that the subject is a former Navy SEAL.”

  Cindy filled in the background of this elite branch of the military, who were experts in combat diving and land warfare, having trained for five years in weapons and demolition, patrolling and marksmanship and fast rope rappelling, culminating in advanced levels of tactical training.

  She noted that the SEALs had come into their own in 1944 during the D-day landings, and highlighted their work in Vietnam, Grenada, Desert Shield and Desert Storm, and the killing of Osama bin Laden.

  “If there are active or retired Navy SEALs in this coordinated ‘war on drugs,’” Cindy wrote, “it would explain the precision targeting and the long-distance accuracy of the killings in the early morning.”

  She was ready to wind up the story and stopped to consider the kicker. She would love a quote, and Rich had been at the scene. If he even said “No comment” on the record, it would be better than no quote at all.

  She called him again, begging the ringing phone, “Come on, Richie. Please pick up.”

  And her call went to voice mail.

  It was quarter to six. Looking through her glass wall, she caught McGowan’s eye. She put up a hand so that he didn’t barge in, and she sent him a text.

  I need another moment.

  She lowered her head and fired herself up to write an emotional finale:

  “When the first five sniper victims were killed, it was difficult to see a pattern in the shootings or the victims themselves: a celebrity couple, a dentist taking his young son to school, a store owner on his way to work, a professional baseball player in the twilight of his career. It made no sense—until it did. The shootings were not random. There was a connection between them. The victims were all involved in dealing drugs.

  “Popular opinion was polarized but over the last few days has become weighted in favor of the shooters, cheering them on. One of the shooters, self-identified as Kill Shot, sent an email to this reporter’s crime blog, announcing the urgent need for a ‘new war on drugs.’ That the civilian law-and-order approach had failed to stop the sale of drugs, and that, in fact, more people were dying from drug abuse every year.

  “It gives this writer no pleasure to report to the Chronicle’s readers that this past week two police officers were killed by sniper vigilantes. This afternoon the unnamed subject of this article disarmed two police officers, and, as reported, they were injured, one of them seriously.

  “We call for an end to this vigilante activity.

  “It’s unlawful, it’s dangerous to innocent citizens, and since guilt had not been proven in a court of law, all of these snipers’ victims were not guilty.

  “It’s time for voters and those of us with the power of the pen to take a stand against this criminal movement.”

  Cindy checked the time. Five to six. No time to double-check it, but that’s why she was sending the article to McGowan. She watched as he read it on his screen, and while he did that, she texted Tyler. I’m just doing a quick polish, she wrote. I need thirty seconds.

  McGowan knocked on her door.

  “Well,” she said. “What do you think, Jeb?”

  “In three words? It’s. Not. News.”

  Cindy said, “Well, I guess we’ll see if Henry agrees.”

  She attached the Sleep Well Motel story to an email and sent it to Tyler. She turned her back on McGowan and listened to her scanner while she waited, and then her computer pinged. She looked and was elated to see that it was the return mail from Tyler. She couldn’t open it fast enough.

  Tyler wrote, “It’s thin. Wait until the SEAL/shooter, if that’s what he is, is in custody. Or until you get a new interview with Kill Shot. Have McGowan keep going with the victim profiles that are confirmed by police.”

  McGowan held the elevator door for her.

  “What did he say?”

  Cindy showed him her fist, then rotated it and pointed her thumb down.

  The elevator door opened and they got out.

  “See you tomorrow,” Cindy said.

  She didn’t wait for a reply.

  Chapter 92

  I love what I do, but these past weeks have made me wish I’d become a schoolteacher, like my mom wanted me to be.

  After the Sleep Well Motel witness roundup and the transfer of Randi Barkley to her cozy unjail, I’d collaborated with Conklin on a seven-page report for the brass. Following that, we’d gone to Zuckerberg San Francisco General to check in on Nardone and Healy, as well as Bettina Sennick, the motel housekeeper.

  Nardone and Sennick were being released in the morning.

  Healy was still in the ICU.

  Leonard Barkley, damn him, was still at large.

  I got home at around eight. Mrs. Rose had fed Julie, but she was still awake, and hungry again. So we split a bowl of leftover noodle soup. Plus a salad. I insisted on greens. Plus a glass of wine for me. Because I deserved it. Plus a cookie for Julie because she demanded it. And one for me, just because.

  By nine Julie was sleeping with Martha and Mrs. Mooey Milkington. I was standing in the shower, still streaming adrenaline out to my fingertips. The hot water beat at my bruises, but my mental and muscular tension was unre
lenting.

  I was occupied with my hydrotherapy and churning thoughts when I heard Joe calling me.

  “Lindsayyy. I’m hooome.”

  I yelled toward the bathroom door. “Don’t come in!”

  “You’re joking.”

  “I have to prepare you first.”

  “Prepare me? I’m starting to worry.”

  “Aw, nuts,” I said. “Come on in.”

  Joe slowly inched the door open, so that by the time he was fully standing in the doorway, I was ready to scream. I parted the curtain just enough to show my face. He stared.

  “What happened, Blondie?”

  “Can I tell you later? It’s not that interesting and I’d rather you go first.”

  Joe brought a towel over to the shower, pulled back the curtain, turned off the taps, and wrapped me in a white terry-cloth bath sheet. He helped me step over the side of the tub and took me into his arms. His tenderness so moved me that tears welled up and spilled over, and then cry, I did.

  “What happened, sweetie?” he said. “Don’t tell me you walked into a door.”

  “I got punched in the face.”

  “Look at me, Lindsay.”

  I looked into Joe’s eyes and remembered when, not long ago, while he was attempting to rescue people from a bombed glass-and-steel building, a second bomb had gone off. A heavy structure had fallen on his head, and I had thought I would lose him. The operation to relieve the pressure on his brain had been successful. He was as smart and funny as always. His brain was intact, and now he also had a winding scar road from the top of his head to behind his left ear.

  “Lindsay?”

  I returned to the moment and my dear husband kissed each of my eyes and then my split lip very carefully.

  I said, “Please take me to bed.”

  Joe picked me up as if I were weightless and carried me to our king-size pillow-top mattress. He laid me down and stripped off his clothes. Then he got under the covers and took me into his arms again, this time stroking me while I only wrapped my arms around his neck.

  He made love to me tenderly, but I was in a different kind of mood. I was reeling from adrenaline overload. I felt the punch to my face and the one I’d thrown. I was charged up about Barkley—the beating he’d given to Healy and that he’d gotten away, again. I was enraged about that and couldn’t find relief.