Women's Murder Club [06] The 6th Target Read online

  The police activity had excited the crowd, and a thousand people shifted between the Ferry Building and the farmer’s market, taking pictures, asking cops what had happened. It was as if they could smell gunpowder and blood in the air.

  I ducked under the barrier tape cordoning off the dock, nodded to cops I knew, looked up when I heard Tracchio call my name.

  The chief was standing at the mouth of the Del Norte.

  He was wearing a leather blazer and Dockers, and sporting his signature Vitalis comb-over. He signaled to me to come aboard. Said the spider to the fly.

  I headed toward him, but before I got five feet up the gangway, I had to back up and let two paramedics pass with a rolling stretcher bouncing between them.

  I dropped my eyes to the victim, a large African American woman, her face mostly covered with an oxygen mask, an IV line running into her arm. Blood soaked the sheet tucked tightly over her body.

  I felt a pain in my chest, my heart catching on a full second before my brain put it together.

  The victim was Claire Washburn!

  My best friend had been shot on the ferry!

  I grabbed the gurney, stopping its forward motion and causing the brassy blond paramedic bringing up the rear to bark at me, “Lady, out of the way!”

  “I’m a cop,” I said to the paramedic, pulling open my jacket to show her my badge.

  “I don’t care if you’re God,” said the blonde. “We’re getting her to the ER.”

  My mouth was hanging open and my heart was pounding in my ears.

  “Claire,” I called out, walking quickly now alongside the stretcher as the gurney rumbled over the gangway and onto the asphalt. “Claire, it’s Lindsay. Can you hear me?”

  No answer.

  “What’s her condition?” I asked the paramedic.

  “Do you understand that we have to get her to the hospital?”

  “Answer me, goddamn it!”

  “I don’t freaking know!”

  I stood helplessly by as the paramedics opened the ambulance doors.

  More than ten minutes had passed since I’d gotten Tracchio’s call. Claire had been lying on the deck of the ferry all that time, losing blood, trying to breathe with a bullet hole ripped into her chest.

  I gripped her hand, and tears immediately filled my eyes.

  My friend turned her face to me, her eyelids fluttering as she forced them open.

  “Linds,” she mouthed. I moved her mask aside. “Where’s Willie?” she asked me.

  I remembered then — Claire’s youngest son, Willie, was working for the ferry line on the weekends. That’s probably why Claire had been on the Del Norte.

  “We got separated,” Claire gasped. “I think he went after the shooter.”

  Chapter 5

  CLAIRE’S EYES ROLLED UP, and she slipped away from me. The knees of the gurney buckled, and the paramedics slid the stretcher out of my grasp and into the ambulance.

  The doors slammed. The siren started up its blaring whoop, and the ambulance carrying my dearest friend headed into traffic toward San Francisco General.

  Time was working against us.

  The shooter was gone, and Willie had gone after him.

  Tracchio put his hand on my shoulder. “We’re getting descriptions of the doer, Boxer —”

  “I have to find Claire’s son,” I said.

  I broke away from Tracchio and ran toward the farmer’s market, scanning faces as I pushed past the slow-moving crowd. It was like walking through a herd of cattle.

  I looked into every fricking produce stall and in between them, raked the aisles with my eyes, searching desperately for Willie — but it was Willie who found me.

  He shoved his way toward me, calling my name. “Lindsay! Lindsay!”

  The front of his T-shirt was soaked with blood. He was panting, and his face was rigid with fear.

  I grabbed his shoulders with both hands, tears welling up again.

  “Willie, where are you hurt?”

  He shook his head. “This isn’t my blood. My mom’s been shot.”

  I pulled him to me, hugged him to my chest, felt some of my terrible fear leaving me. At least Willie was okay.

  “She’s on her way to the hospital,” I said, wishing I could add, She’ll be fine. “You saw the shooter? What does he look like?”

  “He’s a skinny white man,” Willie said as we bumped through the mob. “Has a beard, long brown hair. He kept his eyes down, Lindsay. I never saw his eyes.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Like, maybe a few years younger than you.”

  “Early thirties?”

  “Yeah. And he’s taller than me. Maybe six foot one, wearing cargo pants and a blue Windbreaker. Lindsay, I heard him say to my mom that she was supposed to stop the shooting. That it was her job. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Claire is chief medical examiner of San Francisco. She’s a forensic pathologist, not a cop.

  “You think it was personal? That he targeted your mom? Knew her?”

  Willie shook his head. “I was helping to tie up the boat when the screaming started,” he told me. “He shot some other people first. My mom was the last one. He had a gun right up to her head. I grabbed an iron pipe,” he said. “I was going to brain him with it, but he shot at me. Then he jumped overboard. I went after him — but I lost him.”

  It really hit me then.

  What Willie had done. My voice was loud, and I grabbed his shoulders.

  “What if you’d caught up with him? Willie, did you think about that? That ‘skinny white man’ was armed. He would have killed you.”

  Tears jumped out of Willie’s eyes, rolled down his sweet, young face. I relaxed my grip on his shoulders, took him into my arms.

  “But you were very brave, Willie,” I said. “You were very brave to stand up to a killer to protect your mom.

  “I think you saved her life.”

  Chapter 6

  I KISSED WILLIE’S CHEEK through the open patrol-car window. Then Officer Pat Noonan drove Willie to the hospital and I boarded the ferry, joining Tracchio in the open front compartment of the Del Norte’s top deck.

  It was a scene of unforgettable horror. Bodies lying where they’d fallen on the thirty or forty square yards of bloody fiberglass deck, footprints leaving tracks in all directions. Articles of clothing had been dropped here and there — a red baseball cap was squashed underfoot, mixed with paper cups and hot dog wrappers and newspapers soaked in blood.

  I felt a sickening wave of despair. The killer could be anywhere, and evidence that might lead us to him had been lost every time a cop or a passenger or a paramedic walked across the deck.

  Plus, I couldn’t stop thinking about Claire.

  “You okay?” Tracchio asked me.

  I nodded, afraid that if I started to cry, I wouldn’t be able to stop.

  “This is Andrea Canello,” Tracchio said, pointing to the body of a woman in tan pants and a white blouse lying up against the hull. “According to that fellow over there,” he said, pointing to a teenager with spiky hair and a sunburned nose, “the doer shot her first. Then he shot her son. A little kid. About nine.”

  “The boy going to make it?” I asked.

  Tracchio shrugged. “He lost a lot of blood.” He pointed to another body, a male Caucasian, white haired, looked to be in his fifties, lying halfway under a bench.

  “Per Conrad. Engineer. Worked on the ferry. Probably heard the shots and tried to help. And this fellow,” he said, indicating an Asian man lying flat on his back in the center of the deck, “is Lester Ng. Insurance salesman. Another guy who could have been a hero. Witnesses say it all went down in two or three minutes.”

  I started picturing the scene in my head, using what Willie had told me, what Tracchio was telling me now, looking at the evidence, trying to fit the pieces into something that made sense.

  I wondered if the shooting spree had been planned or if something had set the shooter off and, if so, wh
at that trigger had been.

  “One of the passengers thinks he saw the shooter sitting alone before the incident. Over there,” Tracchio told me. “Thinks he was smoking a cigarette. A package of Turkish Specials was found under a table.”

  I followed Tracchio to the stern, where several horrified passengers sat on an upholstered bench that wrapped around the inner curve of the railing. Some of them were blood spattered. Some held hands. Shock had frozen their faces.

  Uniforms were still taking down the witnesses’ names and phone numbers, getting statements. Sergeant Lexi Rose turned toward us, saying, “Chief, Lieutenant. Mr. Jack Rooney here has some good news for us.”

  An elderly man in a bright-red nylon jacket stepped forward. He wore big-frame eyeglasses and a digital Minicam about the size of a bar of soap hanging from a black cord around his neck. He had an expression of grim satisfaction.

  “I’ve got him right here,” Rooney said, holding up his camera. “I got that psycho right in the act.”

  Chapter 7

  THE HEAD OF THE Crime Scene Unit, Charlie Clapper, crossed the gangway with his team and came on board moments after the witnesses were released. Charlie stopped in front of us, greeted the chief, said, “Hey, Lindsay,” and took a look around.

  Then he dug into the pockets of his herringbone tweed jacket, pulled out latex gloves, and snapped them on.

  “This is a fine kettle of fish,” he said.

  “Let’s try to stay positive,” I said, unable to conceal the edge in my voice.

  “Cockeyed optimist,” he said. “That’s me.”

  I stood with Tracchio as the CSU team fanned out, putting out markers, photographing the bodies and the blood that was spattered everywhere.

  They dug out a projectile from the hull, and they bagged an item that might lead us to a killer: the half-empty packet of Turkish cigarettes that had been found under a table in the stern.

  “I’m going to take off now, Lieutenant,” Tracchio told me, looking down at his Rolex. “I have a meeting with the mayor.”

  “I want to work this case — personally,” I said.

  He gave me a hard, unblinking stare. I’d just pushed a hot button on his console, but it couldn’t be helped.

  Tracchio was a decent guy, and mostly I liked him. But the chief had come up through the ranks by way of administration. He’d never worked a case in his life, and that made him see things one way.

  He wanted me to do my job from my desk.

  And I did my best work on the street.

  The last time I’d told Tracchio that I wanted to work cases “hands-on,” he’d told me that I was ungrateful, that I had a lot to learn about leading a command, that I should do my goddamned job and feel lucky about my promotion to lieutenant.

  He reminded me now, sharply, that one of my partners had been killed on the street and that only months ago, Jacobi and I had both been shot in a desolate alley in the Tenderloin. It was true. We’d both nearly died.

  Today, I knew he couldn’t turn me down. My best friend had a slug through her chest, and the shooter was free.

  “I’ll work with Jacobi and Conklin. A three-man team. I’ll have McNeil and Chi back us up. Pull in the rest of the squad as needed.”

  Tracchio nodded reluctantly, but it was a green light. I thanked him and called Jacobi on my cell. Then I phoned the hospital, got a kindhearted nurse on the line who told me that Claire was still in surgery.

  I left the scene with Jack Rooney’s camera in hand, planning to look at the video back at the Hall, see the shooting for myself.

  I walked down the gangway and muttered, “Nuts,” before I reached the pavement. Reporters from three local TV stations and the Chronicle were waiting for me. I knew them all.

  Cameras clicked and zoomed. Microphones were pushed up to my face.

  “Was this a terrorist attack, Lieutenant?”

  “Who did the shooting?”

  “How many people were killed?”

  “Give me a break, guys. The crime just happened this morning,” I said, wishing these reporters had grabbed Tracchio or any one of the other four dozen cops milling around the perimeter who’d love to see themselves on the six o’clock news.

  “We’ll release the names of the victims after we’ve contacted their families.

  “And we will find whoever did this terrible thing,” I said with both hope and conviction. “He will not get away.”

  Chapter 8

  IT WAS TWO O’CLOCK in the afternoon when I introduced myself to Claire’s doctor, Al Sassoon, who was standing with Claire’s chart in hand at the hub of the ICU.

  Sassoon was in his midforties, dark haired, with laugh lines fanning out from the corners of his mouth. He looked credible and confident, and I trusted him immediately.

  “Are you investigating the shooting?” he asked me.

  I nodded. “Yes, and also, Claire’s my friend.”

  “She’s a friend of mine, too.” He smiled, said, “So here’s what I can tell you. The bullet broke a rib and collapsed her left lung, but it missed her heart and major arteries.

  “She’s going to have some pain from the rib and she’s going to have a chest tube inside her until that lung fully expands. But she’s healthy and she’s lucky. And she’s got good people here watching out for her.”

  The tears that had been dammed up all day threatened to overflow. I lowered my eyes and croaked, “I’d like to talk to her. Claire’s assailant killed three people.”

  “She’ll wake up soon,” Sassoon told me. He patted my shoulder and held open the door to Claire’s room, and I walked inside.

  The back of Claire’s bed was raised to make it easier for her to breathe. There was a cannula in her nose and an IV bag hanging from a pole, dripping saline into a vein. Under her thin hospital gown, her chest was swaddled in bandages, and her eyes were puffy and closed. In all the years I’ve known Claire, I’ve never seen her sick. I’ve never seen her down.

  Claire’s husband, Edmund, had been sitting in the armchair beside the bed, but he jumped to his feet the moment I walked in the door.

  He looked awful, his features twisted with fear and disbelief.

  I set down my shopping bag and went to him for a long hug, Edmund saying into my hair, “Oh, God, Lindsay, this is too much.”

  I murmured all the things you say when words are just plain inadequate. “She’ll be on her feet soon, Eddie. You know I’m right.”

  “I wonder,” Edmund said when we finally stepped apart. “Even saying she heals up okay. Have you gotten over being shot?”

  I couldn’t answer. The truth was, I still woke up some nights sweating, knowing I’d been dreaming again about that bad night on Larkin Street. I could still feel the impact of those slugs in my mind, remembering the helplessness and the knowledge that I might die.

  “And what about Willie?” Edmund was saying. “His whole world turned inside out this morning. Here, let me help you with that.”

  Edmund held the sides of the shopping bag apart so that I could extract from it a big silver get-well balloon. I tied the balloon to the frame of Claire’s bed, then reached over and touched her hand. “Has she said anything?” I asked.

  “She opened her eyes for a couple of seconds. Said, ‘Where’s Willie?’ I told her, ‘He’s home. Safe.’ She said, ‘I gotta get back to work,’ then she conked out. That was a half hour ago.”

  I searched my mind for the last time I’d seen Claire before the shooting. Yesterday. We’d waved good-bye in the parking lot across from the Hall as we’d left work for the day. Just a casual flap of our hands.

  “See ya, girlfriend.”

  “Have a good one, Butterfly.”

  It had been such an ordinary exchange. Taking life for granted. What if Claire had died today? What if she had died on us?

  Chapter 9

  I WAS GRIPPING CLAIRE’S HAND as Edmund returned to the armchair, switched on the overhead TV with the remote. Keeping the sound on low, he asked, “You’v
e seen this, Lindsay?”

  I looked up, saw the disclaimer — “What you’re about to see is very graphic. Parental discretion is advised.”

  “I saw it right after the shooting,” I told Edmund, “but I want to see it again.”

  Edmund nodded, said, “Me, too.”

  And then Jack Rooney’s amateur film of the ferry shooting came on the screen.

  Together, we watched again what Claire had lived through only hours before. Rooney’s film was grainy and jumpy, first focusing on three tourists smiling and waving at the camera, a sailboat behind them, and then a beauty shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

  The camera panned across the ferry’s open top deck, past a gaggle of kids feeding hot dog buns to the seagulls. A little boy wearing a backward red baseball cap was drawing on a table with a Sharpie. That was Tony Canello. A lanky bearded man sitting near the railing plucked at his own arm dis-tractedly.

  The shot froze, and a spotlight encircled the bearded man.

  “That’s him,” Edmund said. “Is he crazy, Lindsay? Or is he a premeditated killer, biding his time?”

  “Maybe he’s both,” I said, my eyes pinned to the screen as a second clip followed the first. An ebullient crowd clung to the railing as the ferry pulled into dock. Suddenly the camera swung to the left, focusing on a woman, her face screwed up in horror as she grabbed at her chest and then collapsed.

  The little boy, Tony Canello, turned toward the camera. His face had been digitally pixilated by the news producers so that his features were a blur.

  I winced as he jerked and spun away from the gunman.

  The camera’s eye jumped around crazily after that. It looked as though Rooney had been bumped, and then the picture stabilized.

  I covered my mouth and Edmund gripped the arms of the chair as we watched Claire stretch out her hand toward the shooter. Even though we couldn’t hear her over the screams of the crowd, it was clear that she was asking for the gun.