The 17th Suspect Read online

  I looked at her. The assertion sounded like the opening to an old episode of Murder, She Wrote, but I had to take it seriously. The woman was distressed. And I’m a cop.

  We were blocking the entrance to the Hall. Attorneys and clerks and other cops were trying to get past me, some rudely, some urgently. I stepped aside.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Millie Cushing. I pay my taxes.”

  I let that one go. If she lived in San Francisco, she had a right to ask me for help.

  “This murder,” I said. “What can you tell me about that?”

  “Well, I didn’t see the murder happen, and I didn’t see the victim’s body, but I knew him. Jimmy Dolan wasn’t the first one to get shot dead on the street, and he’s not going to be the last, either.”

  Was Millie Cushing of sound mind? I couldn’t tell.

  I said, “You know what? The morning shift is just starting and our squad room is going to be noisy. Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”

  CHAPTER 10

  I LED MILLIE to Café Roma, a small chain coffee shop on Bryant, up the very long block and across the street from the Hall. We found a small booth near the plate-glass window, and the waitress took our orders; coffee for Millie, tea and dry toast for me.

  I said, “Millie, order whatever you want.”

  Millie took the cue and ordered eggs, toast, potatoes, sausage, and bacon. She laughed, saying, “I guess that will hold me for the weekend.”

  When the waitress left the table, I asked Millie to tell me everything she knew about the murder that had brought her to the Hall that morning looking for me.

  She leaned across the small table and began her story.

  “The murder happened outside Walton Square,” she said. I knew the park well. It was in the Financial District, not far from Southern Station’s beat.

  Millie said, “It happened very early on Monday morning. This nice man named Jimmy Dolan was shot on the sidewalk on Front Street. Right here,” she said, tapping the center of her chest. “Two and done.”

  “How did you learn about this?” I asked.

  “You wouldn’t think so, but we’re a tightly knit community. Jimmy was shot at four fifteen or so in the morning, and three hours later it was common knowledge on the street. And that’s by word of mouth and very few cell phones, you know.”

  “Community?”

  “Homeless,” she said. “For some it’s temporary. For others it’s a permanent way of life. The point is, we know one another. We keep tabs. We exchange news at the shelters and places we go on the street.”

  Breakfast came and Millie tucked in.

  I excused myself while she was occupied to call my partner, Rich Conklin, to tell him that I was running late but would be in soon.

  I went back to my seat and sugared my tea. Millie was well into her scrambled eggs.

  I said, “Millie. The police were called?”

  “What I heard is they came, but they never asked around or did anything but wait until the meat wagon arrived. Jimmy deserves more than to be shoveled up and stuffed into a box. He deserves justice. The man was a poet. A good one. And before the voices got to him, he was a college professor. To the cops, he’s trash.”

  I murmured, “Sorry to hear this,” and asked Millie to go on.

  “Like I said, shootings are happening all over. Jimmy was one of I don’t know how many of us who have been killed, and I tell you, Sergeant, being with you is the safest I’ve felt in a year.”

  “A year?”

  I resisted an impulse to reach across the table and take her hands. If she was delusional, I was buying right in.

  When the table was cleared, Millie said thanks to a coffee refill and picked up where she’d left off. It felt like she’d been waiting a long time for someone to listen to her. To help her.

  “It’s obscene,” Millie said. “I can’t be exact, but I can count three other killings, Sergeant Boxer, and none of them have been properly investigated. I saw your picture in the paper after the bombing, and I felt something for you. Like a connection.”

  As we stood to go, I told Millie I would follow up, giving her my card.

  “Do you have a phone?”

  “Sometimes I forget to charge it,” she said. But she pulled an old flip phone from her pocket and showed me.

  I forced some small bills on her, then told her I’d look into the case of Jimmy Dolan. I paid the tab and headed back to the Hall.

  I thought about Millie as I walked. She was well spoken. Seemed educated and sane. Her story and Millie herself were believable.

  I wondered how she’d ended up on the street.

  As I climbed the Hall of Justice steps, I felt light-headed. I had lied to Millie when I said I’d had breakfast. I’d gulped coffee and kissed my family good-bye, expecting to have another cup of coffee at my desk. Honestly, I hadn’t felt hungry, which wasn’t normal for me. I took the elevator to the fourth floor and entered the Homicide squad room.

  After saying “hey” to Conklin, I went to the break room and snagged the last donut in the box. Someone had hacked off a piece of it. In my humble opinion, that was an irrelevant detail.

  It was chocolate-glazed chocolate, the very best kind. I bit into it. It was good.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE HOMICIDE SQUAD room is a square gray bull pen with our receptionist just inside the door, our lieutenant’s glassed-in office in the back corner with a window onto the freeway. In between, on both sides of the narrow center aisle, are a handful of desks used by the other Homicide inspectors. There has been some talk that we’ll be moving to newer quarters within the decade, and I hope it’s more than gossip.

  Conklin and I have facing desks at the front of the room, equidistant from the entrance and the break room. I shucked off my jacket, threw it over the back of my chair, and dropped into the seat.

  Conklin said, “You have chocolate right here.”

  He pointed to the right side of his mouth.

  I sighed, grabbed a tissue, and, under his direction, rubbed at the spot.

  “Okay now?” I asked him.

  Conklin and I have known each other for years. He was a beat cop who told me he’d like to be in Homicide. When positions in our department reshuffled, my former partner, Warren Jacobi, got a promotion and Rich Conklin and I became a team.

  Known around the Hall as Inspector Hottie, Conklin is in his midthirties, brown eyed, brown haired, good lookin’ and good doin’, altogether just about the perfect American boy next door. We love each other like siblings without the rivalry, complement each other’s strengths, and shore up the other’s weaknesses.

  In confrontational situations, interrogations for instance, I’m the one throwing fastballs and Richie is the “good cop,” telling me to take it easy. Wink-wink. He’s especially good with women. They trust him on sight.

  Conklin gave me a thumbs-up after assessing the chocolate. He said, “You going to tell me about your mystery breakfast?”

  Phones were ringing. The overhead TV was on low, but not mute, and people were talking over the ambient noise.

  I said, “A homeless woman named Millie Cushing tagged me as I was coming through the door. She wanted to tell me that a series of homeless people have been shot to death over the last year or so, and that the cops haven’t done anything about it.”

  “First I’ve heard of this,” Rich said.

  “The shootings have been happening in Central Station’s beat, that’s why.”

  “Aw, jeez,” my partner said. “This isn’t good.”

  While the citywide Homicide Detail is located here at Southern Station, a vestigial Homicide Detail operates out of Central Station, the result of a redistricting before my time. Officially called a station investigative team, Central Homicide sweeps up homicides that are called into their district during the graveyard shift.

  That’s fine with me. God knows we have enough crimes to solve right here in our own house.

 
I told my partner what Cushing had told me: that a man named Jimmy Dolan had been shot sometime in the wee hours down on Front Street. Since I hadn’t heard about any killings of street people on our beat—and I would have—it could only mean that all of these shootings had happened in Central.

  “I promised Millie I’d look into what she says is an ongoing pattern of homeless shootings, no arrests,” I concluded.

  Rich was already tapping on his keyboard, searching for a report of a homicide outside Sydney G. Walton Square.

  “Got it,” he said. “Victim: James Dolan, white male, fifty, shot twice in the chest at approximately four a.m. No witnesses to the shooting. Investigation ongoing. Body at Metro Hospital morgue.”

  I said, “That’s the guy. Who was assigned to the case?”

  “Sergeant Garth Stevens and Inspector Evan Moran. I don’t know them. You?”

  “I know of Stevens,” I said. “He’s been on the job for twenty-five years.”

  “Stevens and Moran work graveyard shift,” Conklin said.

  I called Sergeant Stevens before Conklin and I clocked out for the day, and was put through to his desk at Central. He knew my name, said he’d even worked with my father, Marty Boxer, back in the day. My father was a bad-news cop and a worse husband and dad, but I let the comment slide with a “No kidding.”

  I said, “Sergeant, you’re investigating that shooting at Walton Square early this morning?”

  “Yeah. Vagrant took a couple of rounds to the chest. Killed instantly. Why do you want to know?”

  “A citizen got hold of me and said there may have been several incidents like this one. Does that sound right?”

  “You have a suspect in this shooting?” he asked, answering my question with one of his own.

  “No.”

  “Then don’t worry about this, Sergeant. Moran and I are on it. Nice chatting with you.”

  And then he hung up.

  I put the receiver back in the cradle and said to Conklin, “Stevens blew me off.”

  “Typical,” said Conklin. “Old-timer. Get offa my cloud.”

  I had a bad feeling about it. It wasn’t just that the old-timer had been rude; maybe he had a reason for blowing me off. Maybe there was something he didn’t want me to know.

  CHAPTER 12

  YUKI WAS HUNCHED over her computer rereading transcripts of her interviews with some of Marc Christopher’s associates from the Ad Shop.

  Parisi had warned her that their case pretty much rested on the video, and she agreed. The recording was powerful. Yuki thought that if it was true the DA could get a grand jury indictment with a ham sandwich, then Marc Christopher’s rape video was a five-star seven-course meal with a vintage wine.

  No doubt she could get a grand jury indictment; if they went to trial, the rape video had to go into evidence and had to be shown to the jury.

  Giftos would try to get the video excluded. That way, if he put Hill on the stand, the jury would hear both versions of the sex act. Only one juror had to agree that the rape was staged, and Briana Hill would be found not guilty.

  Yuki had to find more evidence to shore up her case if the video was thrown out, but how?

  No one else had been in the bedroom with Hill and Christopher. The cops had photographed fading bruise marks on Marc’s wrists and ankles, but apparently, Marc hadn’t told anyone that he had been raped until weeks after the fact.

  Now she wondered if anyone else had had a sexual encounter with Briana Hill that could be called rape.

  As she reread the interview transcripts, she was looking for something that she might have missed, a comment that she should have probed, a tell that she had let slide.

  She called up the transcript of senior art director Lyle Bevans. He was forty-two, had worn red-rimmed glasses and an untucked plaid shirt over his jeans, had long hair, and had smelled like weed. He had seemed to enjoy the meeting with the ADA and been willing to spend as much time as she would allow.

  She had interviewed him because he had frequent and recent experience working with both Christopher and Hill.

  Yuki highlighted the relevant parts of the transcript, including the part where Bevans told her that Briana Hill was hot and demanding. “She’s a sex bomb.”

  Yuki: Mr. Bevans, did Ms. Hill use inappropriate sexual advances to manage or manipulate her staff?

  Bevans: I would say that she’s all woman with a masculine determination to git ’er done. You looked at her, you thought about sex, and she carried a gun. That was sexy, too.

  Yuki: You say that you heard about Marc Christopher’s accusation that she’d raped him. What was your reaction to that?

  Bevans: You’re asking me if I think she could have done it? Yeah, if I had to make a wager. I’d bet she made him her bitch.

  Yuki: Did you ever see her make inappropriate demands on Marc Christopher?

  Bevans: They were dating. You know that, right? So, did she slap his butt once? Yeah. Sure. I saw that.

  Yuki opened the next transcript, the interview with Bill Keely, CEO of the Ad Shop and Briana Hill’s superior. She remembered that Keely’s wardrobe was gray, his haircut was Republican, and his work history was account management, not creative. Briana Hill had a dotted-line reporting relationship to him. He had made the final decision in hiring her, and recently he had put her on waivers.

  Keely: I didn’t want to suspend her. But this situation is a distraction, and our clients don’t want any association with her.

  Yuki: How would you describe her worth to the firm?

  Keely: A+. Hardworking. Corporate values. Delivered a great product. I don’t know her personally. So, is that all?

  Yuki: Almost. Were there any complaints about her being sexually provocative or aggressive with agency staff?

  Keely: I heard some hallway gossip that I put down to sexism. She was a good-looking woman in a power position. But no complaints came to me officially.

  Yuki opened the transcript of her interview with Maria Cortes, the production department assistant. Cortes had worn tight jeans, a black shirt, and great lace-up boots, and had tattoos on her hands and neck. If Keely would be the last to know if Hill was guilty of sexual harassment, Cortes would be the first. She reported directly to Hill and was the go-to person for the whole production staff.

  Cortes: Briana is tough. She has to be. She’s not a rapist, that I can tell you. Men like her. She likes them. They flirt with her, too. But she’s honest and has a good heart.

  Yuki: You like her?

  Cortes: I do. And I like Marc, too.

  Yuki: What do you think of the rape accusation against Ms. Hill?

  Cortes: I’d like to say it was all a misunderstanding.

  Yuki: Thanks, Ms. Cortes. I appreciate your time.

  Parisi called Yuki on her private line. “I thought you’d still be there.”

  “I’m reviewing my notes now,” she said. “I have another interview in five minutes that could be a decider. I’ll have a point of view in the morning.”

  “I’ll be standing by,” said the DA.

  CHAPTER 13

  PAUL YATES WAS about thirty, lanky, with thinning hair and a thick beard, conveying an overall pleasant good-guy appearance. He shook her hand.

  “I’m Paulie.”

  She offered coffee and Yates asked for orange soda.

  “Coffee or water. That’s what I’ve got,” she said with a laugh. “Your choice.”

  He said, “Water would be great.”

  “Hang on a sec,” she said.

  She went out to the kitchen, got a glass bottle of water out of the fridge, and returned with it to her office.

  “Premium H2O,” she said, passing the bottle to Yates. “Comes from the heart of a glacier, I think. Or else the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir. I don’t really know,” she said with a grin.

  He grinned back and thanked her, and Yuki showed Yates the tape recorder.

  “I’ll be taping. Any problem?”

  “None that I can think of
.”

  Yuki switched on the small recorder. Yates got comfortable in the chair across the desk from her and then reached over the desk and turned one of the framed photos toward him.

  “Nice-looking guy,” said Yates. “Your husband?”

  Yuki took the photo out of his hand, put it back under her desk lamp, and said, “Let’s talk about you.”

  “If we must,” he said.

  Paul Yates had come to San Francisco from Spokane five years before. He currently had a girlfriend, Amy, and they shared a rescue dog, Bosco. Yates was a copywriter at the Ad Shop and had won an award for last year’s Skipperoo dog food campaign. He knew Marc, but they didn’t hang out together.

  Yuki said, “Paulie, I need to ask you about Briana Hill.”

  “Okay. Shoot.”

  “Did Marc tell you that she had raped him?”

  “No. I only heard about it when the police started interviewing people at the agency.”

  “And what did you think when you heard there had been a sexual assault?”

  “I try to ignore gossip and office politics. I’ve never known of anything good to come out of either.”

  “Good call,” Yuki said with a smile. “Why do you think Marc thought I should speak with you?”

  “Probably because I went out with Briana. Before Amy. Before Marc, too.”

  Yuki asked, “Can you tell me about dating Briana?”

  “There’s not much to tell,” said Yates. “I only went out with her once.”

  “Did you have sex with her?”

  “Christ. You want me to talk about that?”

  “Please.”

  His expression tightened. He scowled.

  He said, “What happens if I tell you? You’re going to ask me to testify, aren’t you?”

  “Paul. I can’t say at this minute. Tell me what happened with you and Briana Hill. You’re in my office of your own volition. You’re here to help me, but you aren’t required to talk to me unless you committed a crime. Did you commit a crime?”

  “Hell no. Unless going out with a psycho is a crime.”