Women's Murder Club [10] 10th Anniversary Read online

  “Give me a moment,” said the doctor.

  She parted the curtains around the stall of the ICU where her patient was lying. I saw through the opening that the girl was young and white, with lank auburn hair. An IV line was in her arm and a vital-signs machine blinked her stats onto a monitor.

  Dr. Rifkin exchanged a few words with her patient and then came out and said, “She says that she lost her baby. But given her state of mind, I don’t know if she means that the baby died or that she misplaced it.”

  “Did she have a handbag with her?” I asked. “Did she have any kind of ID?”

  “She was only wearing a thin plastic poncho. Dime-store variety.”

  “We’ll need the poncho,” I said. “And we need her statement.”

  “Give it a shot, Sergeant,” said Dr. Rifkin.

  Avis Richardson looked impossibly young to be a mother. She also looked as though she’d been dragged behind a truck. I noted the bruises and scrapes on her arms, her cheek, her palms, her chin.

  I pulled up a chair and touched her arm.

  “Hi, Avis,” I said. “My name is Lindsay Boxer. I’m with the police department. Can you hear me?”

  “Uh-huh,” she said.

  She half-opened her green eyes, then closed them again. I pleaded with her under my breath to stay awake. I had to find out what had happened to her. And by giving us this case, Brady had charged Conklin and me with finding her baby.

  Avis opened her eyes again, and I asked a dozen basic questions: Where do you live? What’s your phone number? Who is the baby’s father? Who are your parents? But I might as well have been talking to a department-store dummy. Avis Richardson kept nodding off without answering. So, after a half hour of that, I got up and gave my chair to Conklin.

  To say that my partner has “a way with women” is to play up his charm and all-American good looks and cheapen his real gift for getting people to trust him.

  I said, “Rich, you’re on deck. Go for it.”

  He nodded, sat down, and said to Avis in his deep, calm voice, “My name is Rich Conklin. I work with Sergeant Boxer. We need to find your baby, Avis. Every minute that passes puts your little one in more danger. Please talk to me. We really need your help.”

  The girl’s eyes seemed unfocused. Her gaze shifted from Conklin to me, to the door, to the IV lead in her arm. Then she said to Conklin, “A couple of months ago… I called the number. Help for pregnant girls? A man… he spoke with an accent. French accent. But… it wasn’t authentic. I met them… outside my school…”

  “Them?”

  “Two men. Their car was a blue four-door?… And when I woke up, I was in a bed. I saw the baby,” she said, tears gathering in her eyes, spilling over. “It was a little boy.”

  And now my heart was breaking apart.

  What the hell was this crime? Baby trafficking? It was outrageous. It was a sin. Make that a lot of sins. I tallied up two counts of felony kidnapping before we even knew the fate of the baby.

  Conklin said, “I want to hear the whole story from the beginning. Tell me what you remember, okay, Avis?”

  I couldn’t be sure, but it could have been that Avis Richardson was talking to herself. She said, “I saw my baby…. Then, I was on the street. Alone. In the dark.”

  Chapter 4

  I STAYED at Avis Richardson’s bedside for the next eight hours, hoping she’d wake up for real and tell me what had happened to her and her newborn. Time passed. Her sleep only deepened. And every minute that went by made me more certain that this girl’s baby would not be found alive.

  I still didn’t know anything about what had happened to this teenager. Had she given birth alone and left the baby in a gas station bathroom? Had her child been snatched?

  We couldn’t even get the FBI involved until we knew if a crime had been committed.

  While I sat at Avis’s bedside, Conklin went back to the Hall and threw himself into the hands-on work of the case. He reached into the missing persons databases and ran searches for Avis Richardson or any missing Caucasian teenage girls matching her description.

  He interviewed the couple who had brought Avis to the hospital and established the approximate area where they had found her: Lake Merced, near Brotherhood Way.

  Working with the K-9 unit, Conklin went out into the field. Cops and hounds looked for the blood trail that Avis Richardson had surely left behind. If the house where she’d given birth could be located, there’d be evidence there, and maybe the truth.

  As the hounds worked the scent, the crime lab processed the plastic poncho Avis had been wearing. It would hold prints, for sure, but a few dozen people at the hospital had handled that poncho. It didn’t make any sense that she was wearing a rain poncho but no clothes.

  Another mystery.

  I kept vigil with a sleeping Avis. And the longer I sat, the more depressed I became. Where were the worried friends and parents? Why wasn’t someone looking for this young girl?

  Her eyelids fluttered.

  “Avis?” I said.

  “Huh,” she answered. Then she closed her eyes again.

  I took a break at around four in the afternoon, pushed dollar bills into a vending machine, and ate something with peanut butter and oats in it. Washed it down with a cup of bitter coffee.

  I contacted a dozen hospitals to see if a motherless baby had been brought in and got in touch with Child Protective Services as well. I came up with nothing more than a mounting heap of frustration.

  I borrowed Dr. Rifkin’s laptop and went out to VICAP, the FBI’s Violent Crime Apprehension Program database, to see what they had on the abduction of pregnant women.

  I found a few crimes against pregnant women—domestic violence mainly, but no cases that resembled this one.

  After my fruitless Internet crawl, I went back to the ICU and slept in the big vinyl-covered reclining chair beside Avis’s bed. I woke up when she was wheeled out of the ICU and down the hall to a private room.

  I called Brady, told him that we were still nowhere, my voice sounding defensive to my own ears.

  “Anything on the baby?”

  “Brady, this girl hasn’t said boo.”

  When I hung up with Brady, my phone buzzed with an incoming call from Conklin.

  “Talk to me,” I said.

  “The hounds found her trail.”

  I was instantly hopeful. I gripped my little phone, almost strangling it to death.

  “She bled for about a mile,” Conklin told me. “She put down a circular path at the southernmost part of Lake Merced.”

  “That sounds like she was looking for help. Desperately looking.”

  “The hounds are still on it, Lindsay, but the searchable area is expanding. They’re working a grid on the golf course now. The gun club area is next. This could take years.”

  “I haven’t found anything in missing persons,” I said.

  “Me, neither. I’m in the car, calling people with the name Richardson in San Francisco. There are over four hundred listings.”

  “I’ll help with that. You start at A. Richardson. I’ll start at Z. Richardson, and we’ll work toward the middle,” I said. “I’ll meet you at the letter M.”

  When I hung up with Richie, Avis opened her pretty, green eyes. She focused them on me.

  “Hey,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

  I had a white-knuckle grip on the rails of her bed.

  “Where am I?” the girl asked me. “What happened to me?”

  I bit back the words “Ah, shit” and told Avis Richardson what little I knew.

  “We’re trying to find your baby,” I said.

  Chapter 5

  I PUT MY KEY in the lock of the front door to our apartment, and at that precise moment, I remembered that I hadn’t called Joe to say I wouldn’t be home for dinner. Actually, I hadn’t spoken to him in about twelve hours.

  Way to go, Lindsay. Brilliant.

  My border collie, Martha, heard me at the front door, barked, and, w
ith toenails clattering across the wooden floor, hurled herself at my chest.

  I cooed to her, ruffled her ears, and then found Joe in the living room. He was sitting in an armchair, reading light on, with eight different newspapers lying on the floor around the chair in sections.

  He looked at me with reproach in his eyes.

  “Your mailbox is full.”

  “My mailbox?”

  “Your phone.”

  “Is it? I’m sorry, Joe. I had to turn my phone off. I was in the hospital ICU all day. A new case I’m working.”

  “We were supposed to take my folks out for dinner tonight.”

  “Oh my God. I’m sorry,” I said as my stomach dropped toward my toes. Joe had told me that we were going to take them out for some quality time and first-class steak at Harris’. I’d filed that information in a folder at the back of my mind and never looked back.

  “They’re on the flight back to New York.”

  “Honey, I’ll call them tomorrow and apologize. I feel like crap. They’re so great to me.”

  “They’re treating us to a honeymoon. A little luxury shack in Hawaii. When we’ve got time.”

  “Ah, shit. Is that what they said? That makes me feel even more rotten. There’s a baby missing…”

  “Have you eaten?” he asked.

  “Just vending machine stuff. A long time ago.”

  Joe got out of the chair and strolled to the kitchen. I followed him like a puppy that had had an accident on the rug. Taking a chicken breast out of a bowl of marinade, he put a pan on the stove and fired it up.

  “I can do that,” I said.

  “Tell me about your case.”

  I poured myself a giant glass of merlot and left the bottle on the counter. Then I dragged up a stool and watched Joe cook. It was one of my favorite things to do.

  I told him that a teenage girl had been found in the street like roadkill, bleeding out from a recent pregnancy and delivery. That she’d almost died from loss of blood. That she was still barely lucid, so I had spent the past twelve hours running through missing persons files in every state in the union, waiting for her to talk.

  “All we know is that her name is Avis Richardson,” I said to Joe. “Conklin and I have called about two hundred Richardsons in the Bay Area. So far no luck. Wouldn’t you think her parents—or someone—would have reported her missing?”

  “You think she was abducted? Maybe she’s not local.”

  “Good point,” I said. “But still, no hits in VICAP.” I worked on my butter-sautéed chicken. Slurped some wine. I was kind of hoping that between the sustenance and Joe’s FBI-trained mind, some insight would come to me.

  There was a newborn out there somewhere. He might be dying or dead, or in transit to another country. Dr. Rifkin said the gap in Avis Richardson’s memory had to do with whatever medication she had taken and that she didn’t know what kind it was or how long ago she had taken it. There was a chance Avis might never remember more than what she’d already told us. Particularly if she’d been knocked out during the trauma.

  I was hoping that her body had a memory of giving birth and that she was emotionally aware of her terrible loss. That maybe that physical memory would trigger an actual one and she’d remember something critical if we gave her enough time.

  “Joe, despite all that has happened to her recently, why can’t she tell us how to reach her parents? Is she unable? Or unwilling?”

  Joe said, “Maybe she was living on the street.”

  “She was found just about naked. Wearing a two-dollar rain poncho. You could be right.”

  Joe took away my empty plate, loaded the dishwasher according to a system of his own devising, and gave me a bowl of praline ice cream and a spoon. I got up from my stool and wrapped my arms around his neck.

  “I don’t deserve you,” I said. “But I sure do love you to death.”

  He kissed me and said, “Did you try Facebook?”

  “Facebook?”

  “See if Avis has a page. And then here’s an idea. Come to bed.”

  Chapter 6

  “I’LL JOIN YOU in a bit,” I said to Joe’s back as he walked down the hall to our bedroom.

  I took my laptop to the sofa and reclined with my head against the armrest, Martha lying across my feet.

  I opened a Facebook account and did a search for Avis Richardson. After some fancy finger navigation, I found her home page, which wasn’t privacy protected. I read the messages on her wall, mostly innocuous shout-outs and references to parties, all of which meant nothing to me. But I did learn that Avis attended Brighton Academy, a pricey boarding school near the Presidio.

  I called Conklin at around midnight to tell him that we had to track down the head of Brighton, but I got his voice mail. I left a message saying, “Call me anytime. I’m up.” I made coffee and then accessed Brighton’s website.

  The site was designed to attract kids and their parents to the school and, if you could believe the hype and the photos, Brighton Academy was a little bit of heaven. The kids—all of them good-looking and well groomed—were shown studying, onstage in the auditorium, or on the soccer field. Avis was in a couple of those photos. I saw a happy kid who was nothing like the young woman lying in a hospital bed.

  I recognized other kids, ones I’d seen on Avis’s Facebook page.

  I made a list of their names.

  And then I heard a baby crying.

  When I opened my eyes, I was still on the sofa, my laptop closed, with Martha on the floor beside me. She was whining in her dreams.

  The digital clock on the DVR showed a couple of minutes before seven in the morning. I had a terrible realization. This was only my second night in our apartment as a married woman, and it was the first time, ever, that I’d slept in the same house as Joe but not in the same bed.

  I poured out some kibble for Martha, then peeked into the bedroom where Joe was sleeping. I called his name and touched his face, but he rolled over and went deeper into sleep. I showered and dressed quietly and then walked Martha up and down Lake Street, thinking about Joe and our marriage vows and about what it meant to be part of this team of two.

  I would have to be more considerate.

  I had to remember that I wasn’t single anymore.

  A moment later, my mind boomeranged back to Avis Richardson and her missing baby.

  That child. That child. Where was that baby?

  Was he lying in the cold grass? Or had he been stuffed in a suitcase and into the cargo hold of a ship?

  I called Conklin’s cell at 7:30, and this time I got him.

  “Avis Richardson goes to Brighton Academy. That’s one of those boarding schools where parents who live out of state park their kids.”

  “It might explain why no one is looking for her,” Conklin said. “I was just talking with K-9. The hounds are going in circles. If Avis was transported from point A to point B by car, that would have broken the circular trail.”

  “Crap,” I said. “So, she could have delivered the baby anywhere and then been dumped by the lake. No way to know where point A was.”

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” he said.

  “I’ll meet you at the hospital in fifteen minutes,” I said. “Avis Richardson’s memory is all we’ve got.”

  When we got to Avis Richardson’s hospital room, it was empty, and so was her bed.

  “What’s this now? Did she die?” I asked my partner, my voice colored by unadulterated exasperation.

  The nurse came in behind me on crepe-soled shoes. She was a tiny thing with very muscular arms and wild gray hair. I recognized her from the night before.

  “It’s not my fault, Sergeant. I checked on Ms. Richardson, then went down the hall for a quarter of a minute,” said the nurse. “This girl of yours scampered when my back was turned. Appears she took some clothing from Mrs. Klein in the room next door. And then she must’ve just walked the hell out of here.”

  Chapter 7

  AT 8:30 THAT MORNING,
Yuki Castellano was sitting at the oak table in a small conference room in the DA’s Office on the eighth floor of the Hall.

  Predictably, she was anxious.

  Right now, she was running a low-grade anxiety that would heat up as it got closer to the actual start of the trial.

  Today was a big day. And a lot was at stake.

  She’d put in a year of work on this case, and it was all going to happen in less than half an hour. Court would convene. Dr. Candace Martin would go on trial for murder in the first degree, and Yuki was the prosecuting attorney.

  Yuki knew every angle of this case, every witness, every crumb of physical and circumstantial evidence.

  The defendant was guilty, and Yuki needed to convict her, for the sake of her reputation in the office and for her belief in herself.

  Yuki was satisfied with the jury selection. The case folders stored on her laptop were in perfect order. She had exhibits in an accordion file, and a short stack of index cards to prompt her in case she got stuck while giving her opening statement.

  She’d been practicing her opener for several days, rehearsing with her boss and several of her ADA colleagues. She’d rehearsed again with her deputy and second chair, Nick Gaines.

  She had her opening statement down cold, and the case would simply flow from there.

  Just then, Nick came into the conference room, bringing coffee for two, a smile on his face, his shaggy hair hanging over his collar.

  “You look hot,” he said to her.

  Yuki waved away the compliment. She was in what she called her “full-court dress”: a white button-down silk-blend shirt, her late mother’s pearls, a navy-blue pin-striped suit, and short stacked heels. One magenta streak blazed in her shoulder-length black hair.

  “I want to look cool,” she said. “Unflappable. Prepared. And I want to scare the snot out of the defense.”

  Gaines laughed. And then Yuki did, too.

  “What do you say, Nicky? Let’s get there early,” she said.

  The two ADAs walked through the maze of cubicles out to the hallway. They got on the elevator and rode down to the third floor, where doors to the courtrooms lined both sides of the main corridor.