The 8th Confession Read online

  Then she stepped outside as free as a chickadee. “Sweet dreams, darlings,” sang the voice in her head. “Sweet dreams.”

  Chapter 26

  IT WAS AROUND LUNCHTIME on Monday when Jacobi loomed over our desks, said to me and Conklin, “I need you both to get over to Broadway and Pierce before the bodies are moved. Boxer, relieve the swing shift and take over the case.”

  “Take over the case?” I said dumbly.

  I shot a look at Conklin. We’d just been talking about the Baileys, who’d been found dead a few hours ago in their bed. We’d been glad we hadn’t caught a case that was guaranteed to be surrounded by media high jinks all the time, live updates on the hour.

  “The mayor is Ethan Bailey’s cousin,” said Jacobi.

  “I know that.”

  “He and the chief want you on this, Boxer. Asked for you by name.”

  As flattering as that was meant to be, I nearly gagged. Rich and I were drowning in unsolved cases, and not only would a high-profile crime be micromanaged by the brass but our other twelve cases would not go away. They’d just get cold.

  “No bitching,” Jacobi said to me. “Yours is to protect and serve.”

  I stared at him, mouth closed so I wouldn’t say bad things.

  But I saw that Conklin was having a whole different reaction. He cleared off a space on his desk, and Jacobi put his butt down, still talking.

  “There’s a live-in housekeeping staff at the Bailey house, and they have their own wing. The head of housekeeping, Iraida Hernandez, found the bodies,” Jacobi said. “You’ll want to talk to her first.”

  I had my notebook out. “What else?” I was in the frying pan, felt the flames lapping at the edges.

  “The Baileys had dinner with a friend last night. Interior designer, name of Noble Blue, might be the last person to see them alive. After Hernandez called nine one one, she called Blue, and Blue phoned the mayor. That’s all we’ve got.”

  Well, there would be more. Lots more.

  The Bailey family history was common knowledge.

  Isa Booth Bailey was a fourth-generation San Franciscan, descended from one of the railroad magnates who’d forged train lines over the prairies in the mid-1800s. Her family was in the billionaire league.

  Ethan Bailey’s line also went back to 1800s San Francisco, but his family had been working-class. His great-grandfather was a miner, and from there his family worked their way up, notch by notch, through everyday commerce. Before Ethan Bailey died sometime in the dark hours, he’d owned “Bailey’s,” a chain of restaurants featuring all-you-can-eat buffets for $9.99.

  Together and separately, they’d been the focus of San Francisco socialites and wannabes. There were rumors of Hollywood lovers, kinky combinations, and all the parties money could buy: red party, blue party, and party hearty.

  I tuned back in to what Jacobi was saying. “This Noble Blue is some kind of fancy fruit. Said he can fill you in on the Baileys’ crowd from soup to nuts. And he’s not kidding about the nuts. Boxer, take anyone you need to work the case – Lemke, Samuels, McNeil. I want updates and I’ll be sticking my nose in.”

  I gave him the evil eye but said, “Fine. You know what I’m praying for?” I took the file out of Jacobi’s hand, stood to put on my jacket.

  Jacobi’s face flattened. “What’s that, Boxer?”

  “That the Baileys left suicide notes.”

  Chapter 27

  CONKLIN TOOK THE WHEEL of our unmarked Chevy, and we pulled out heading north on Bryant. We bucked through stop-and-go traffic until I said, “This is nuts,” and flipped on the siren. Fifteen minutes later, we were parked across from the Baileys’ home.

  The fire department was there, as well as an assortment of marked and unmarked police cars and the CSI mobile that was blocking the front walk.

  There aren’t many Hollywood types in San Francisco, but if we had a star map, the Baileys’ house would be on it. A three-story buff stucco giant with white crossbeams and trim, it was planted on the corner of Broadway and Pierce, running a half block to both the south and the east.

  It looked more like a museum than a house to me, but it had a glamorous history going back to Prohibition, and it was the best that fifteen million bucks could buy: thirty thousand square feet of the city’s most prime real estate.

  I greeted the first officer at the door, Pat Noonan, a kid with stuck-out red ears and a growing reputation for immaculate police work. Samuels and Lemke came up the path, and I put them back on the street to canvass the neighborhood.

  “Forced entry?” I asked Noonan.

  “No, ma’am. Anyone entering the house had to have an alarm code and a key. Those five people over there? That’s the live-in staff. They were all here last night, didn’t hear or see anything.”

  I muttered, “Now there’s a shock.” Then Noonan introduced us to the head housekeeper, Iraida Hernandez.

  Hernandez was a wiry woman, immaculately dressed, late fifties. Her eyes were red from weeping, and her English was better than mine. I took her aside so we could speak privately.

  “This was no suicide,” Hernandez announced defiantly. “I was Isa’s nursemaid. I’m raising her kids. I know this whole family from conception on, and I tell you that Isa and Ethan were happy.”

  “Where are their children now?”

  “Thank God, they spent the night with their grandparents. I want to be sick. What if they had found their parents instead of me? Or what if they’d been home – no, no. I can’t even think.”

  I asked Hernandez where she’d been all night (“In bed, watching a Plastic Surgery: Before and After marathon”), what she saw when she opened the Baileys’ door (“They were dead. Still warm!”), and if she knew anyone who might have wanted to hurt the Baileys (“Lots of people were jealous of them, but to kill them? I think there’s been some kind of horrible accident”).

  Hernandez looked up at me as if she were hoping I could make the bad dream go away, but I was already thinking over the puzzle, wondering if I’d actually taken on some kind of English-style drawing-room whodunit.

  I told Hernandez that she and the staff would be getting rides to the station so that we could take exclusionary prints and DNA. And then I called Jacobi.

  “This wasn’t a break-in,” I told him. “Whatever was going on in this house, the staff probably know about it. All five had unrestricted access, so -”

  “So chances are good that if the Baileys were murdered, one of them did it.”

  “There you go. Reading my mind.”

  I told Jacobi that I thought he and Chi should do the interviews themselves, and Jacobi agreed. Then Conklin and I ducked under the barrier tape and logged in with a rookie in the foyer who directed us to the Baileys’ bedroom.

  The interior of the house was a wonderland of tinted plaster walls, elaborate moldings and copings, fine old European paintings and antiques in every room, each chamber opening into an even grander one, a breathtaking series of surprises.

  When we got to the third floor, I heard voices and the static of radios coming from halfway down the carpeted hallway.

  A buff young cop from the night tour, Sergeant Bob Nardone, walked into the hall, called out to me as we came toward him.

  I said, “Sorry about having to take over, Bob. I have orders.”

  For some reason, I expected a fight.

  “You’re joking, right, Boxer? Take my case, please!”

  Chapter 28

  CHARLIE CLAPPER, head of our crime lab, was standing beside the Baileys’ bed. Clapper is in his midfifties, and having spent half his life in law enforcement, he’s as good as they come. Maybe better. Charlie is no showboater. He’s nitpickingly thorough. Then he says his piece and gets out of the way.

  Clapper had been at the scene for about two hours, and there were no markers or flags on the carpet, meaning no blood, no trace. As techs dusted the furniture for prints, I took in the astonishing tableau in front of me.

  The Baileys lay in their
bed, as still and as unblemished as if they were made of wax.

  Both bodies were nude, sheets and a comforter were draped over their lower trunks. A black lace demibra hung over the massive carved-mahogany headboard. Other clothing, both outer- and underwear, was scattered around the floor as though it had been tossed there in haste.

  “Everything is as we found it except for an opened bottle of Moët and two champagne flutes, which are headed back to the lab,” Clapper told Conklin and me. “Mr. Bailey took Cafergot for migraines, Prevacid for acid reflux. His wife took clonazepam. That’s for anxiety.”

  “That’s some kind of Valium, right?” Conklin asked.

  “Similar. The directions on the bottle were for one tablet to be used for sleep at bedtime. That’s minimal.”

  “How much was in the medicine bottle?” Conklin asked.

  “It was nearly full.”

  “Could clonazepam have a lethal interaction with champagne?”

  “Put her to sleep is all.”

  “So what are you thinking?” I asked Clapper.

  “Well, I look at the positions of the bodies and hope that’ll tell me something. If they were holding hands, I’d be thinking suicide pact. Or maybe something a little more sinister.”

  “Like the killer staged the scene after the victims were dead?”

  Clapper nodded, said, “Exactly. Some kind of forethought or afterthought. But here are two apparently healthy people in their thirties lying in natural sleeping positions. There’s semen on the sheets but no blood, no other substances. And I don’t see any signs of struggle, no marks or wounds.”

  “Please, Charlie, give us something,” I said.

  “Well, here’s what it’s not: carbon monoxide. The fire department did a thorough sweep, and it was negative. Also, the Baileys’ dogs slept here,” Clapper said, pointing to the dog beds near the window, “and both are alive. According to the housekeeper, the dog walker came for them at eight, and when she brought them back, she told Hernandez that the dogs were fine.”

  “Lovely,” I said. “Perfect, really.”

  “I’ll get back to you on the prints and leave the rest to the ME when she gets here. But you’re right, Lindsay. This crime scene is too clean. If it is a crime scene.”

  “And that’s all?”

  Charlie winked. “That’s all. Clapper has spoken.”

  Chapter 29

  THE BAILEYS GOT the best of everything, even in death. We got search warrants without a grilling. First time ever. Then Deputy DA Leonard Parisi came by and asked for a tour of the so-called crime scene.

  His presence told me that if this was homicide and there was a prosecutable suspect, Red Dog was going to try the case himself. I showed him the victims, and he stood silently, respectfully.

  Then he said, “This is ugly. No matter what happened here, it’s grotesque.”

  No sooner had Parisi left when Claire walked in with two assistants. I briefed her as she took photos of the Baileys: two shots from each angle before she touched the bodies.

  “Any thoughts you can share?” I asked as she pulled down the bedsheets, took more pictures.

  “Hang on, baby girl. I don’t know what the hell I’m thinking yet.”

  She harrumphed a few times, asked for help in turning the bodies, said, “There’s no rigor. Lividity is blanching. They’re still warm to the touch. So I would certainly put time of death at twelve hours or under.”

  “Could it be six?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Yeah. They’re rich, thin, beautiful, and dead.”

  Claire then gave me the usual disclaimer: she wouldn’t say anything official until she’d done the posts.

  “But here’s what’s unusual,” Claire told my partner and me. “Two dead folks, the rigor is pretty much the same, the lividity is pretty much the same. Something got these people at the same time, Lindsay.

  “Look at them. No visible trauma, no bullet wounds, no bruising, no defensive wounds. I’m starting to think of poisoning, you know?”

  “Poisoning, huh? Like maybe two homicides? Or a homicide-suicide? I’m just thinking out loud.”

  Claire shot me a grin. “I’ll do the autopsies today. I’ll send out the blood. I’ll let you know what the labs come back with. I’ll tell you what I know as soon as I know it.”

  Conklin and I worked the top floor of the Baileys’ museum of a house while Clapper’s team did the kitchen and baths. We looked for signs of disturbance and we looked for notes and journals, found none. We confiscated three laptops: Isa’s, Ethan’s, and the one belonging to Christopher Bailey, age nine, for good measure.

  We methodically tossed the closets and looked under the beds, then searched the servants’ quarters so the staff could return to their rooms when they got back from the Hall.

  I checked in with Claire as the deceased were being zipped into body bags, and she looked at my frown, said, “I’m not worried, Linds, so relax yourself. The tox screens will give us a clue.”

  Chapter 30

  “HERE WE GO,” said Conklin, nodding in the direction of the fortyish, sandy-haired man in shorts and a hot-pink T-shirt waving to us from a tiki hut, one of several similar cabanas grouped around an oval-shaped pool.

  If there was ever a place where Conklin and I stood out as cops, this was it. The Bambuddha Lounge had been the epicenter for hipster-richies since Sean Penn had held a party here after wrapping his Nixon film. As we crossed the patio, eyes shifted away, joints were snuffed out. I half expected someone to shout, “Cheese it, the fuzz.”

  “I’m Noble Blue,” said the man in pink.

  We introduced ourselves. I ordered mineral water to Noble Blue’s mai tai, and when we were all comfortable, I said, “I understand you had dinner with the Baileys last night.”

  “Can you imagine?” Blue said. “They were having their last meal. In a million years, I would never have guessed. We were at the opera before dinner. Don Giovanni,” he told us. “It was terrific.”

  The word “terrific” got caught in his throat, and tears spilled down his tanned cheeks. He grabbed a tissue and wiped them away. “Sorry,” Blue said. “It’s just that Isa and Ethan saw so many of their friends there. It’s almost as if they’d had a big night out because they knew…”

  “Could they have known?” Conklin asked. “How did they seem to you?”

  Blue told us that they were “a hundred-percent normal.” Isa had flirted at dinner with a man at a nearby table, and, as usual, that made Ethan wild.

  “How wild?” I asked.

  Blue smiled, said, “I don’t mean violent, Sergeant. It was part of their foreplay.”

  Conklin asked, “Can you think of anyone who might have wanted them dead?”

  “No. I mean, not in my wildest. But people felt snubbed just as a matter of fact. Everyone wanted to be around the Baileys, and it just wasn’t possible.”

  Blue brought up committees that Isa chaired and people who were slighted by that. He spoke of other big-name couples and the not-so-friendly competition among them to see who could be mentioned most often in the Chronicle’s lifestyle pages.

  And he went into a kind of rhapsody as he described Isa’s thirtieth-birthday party in Paris, what she had worn, the fact that Barbra Streisand had performed and that their three hundred guests had been treated to a week of exorbitant luxury.

  Conklin had been taking notes, but the three-hundred-name guest list stopped him.

  “There’s a list of the guests somewhere?”

  “Surely there is. I think it was published. You could Google it?” Blue said helpfully. He blew his nose, sipped his drink, and added thoughtfully, “Sure, people hated them. Ethan and Isa attracted envy. Their money. Their fame. And they were both so hot, they perspired pearls.”

  I nodded, but after Noble Blue’s hour-long virtual tour of the Baileys’ lifestyle, I was exhausted by so much information that had yielded so little.

  At the same time, No
ble Blue had managed to hook me. I found that I cared about these two people who’d seemed lucky and blessed until their lives were canceled – as if someone had thrown a switch and simply shut them down.

  I thanked Blue, unfolded my cramped legs, and stepped down from the tiki hut in the center of the Tenderloin.

  “I know less now than when Jacobi lobbed this hot potato to us,” I said to Conklin as we walked out to Eddy Street.

  “You,” Conklin said, unlocking the car.

  “Me, what?”

  He gave me his lady-killer grin, the one that could make me forget my own name. “You,” my partner said again. “Jacobi lobbed this hot potato to you.”

  Chapter 31

  THE COPS on the Bailey investigation were loosely arranged around the grungy twenty- by-thirty-foot squad room we often think of as home.

  Jacobi sat behind my desk, saying into the phone, “They just got here. Okay. As soon as you can.”

  He hung up, told us, “Clapper says there were no suspicious prints in the bedroom or bath. There was nothing interesting in the glasses or the pills or the bottle of champagne.

  “Claire’s on her way. Paul, why don’t you start?”

  Paul Chi is lithe, upbeat, resourceful, and a first-class interrogator. He and Jacobi had interviewed the Baileys’ live-in staff, and Chi gave his report from his seat.

  “First up, the gardener. Pedro Vasquez, forty-year-old Hispanic. Seemed twitchy. He volunteered that he had some porn on his laptop,” Chi said. “But it turned out to be legal-age porn. I spent an hour with him, don’t see a motive, not yet, anyway. His prints were not found in the Baileys’ bedroom. Vasquez told me he’d never been above the ground floor, and at this point, we’ve got no reason to think that’s a lie.

  “Two: Iraida Hernandez,” Chi said, flipping the page in his notebook. “Hernandez is a nice lady.”