Women's Murder Club [02] 2nd Chance Read online

Suddenly, I was hammered back to reality by Lorraine Stafford knocking at my door. “You got a minute, Lieutenant?”

  I asked her in. The stolen vehicle, she informed me, belonged to a Ronald Stasic. He taught anthropology at a community college down in Mountain View. “Apparently the van was stolen from the parking lot outside where he works. The reason it was late being reported missing was that he went to Seattle for a night. Job interview.”

  “Who knew he was going to be away?”

  She flipped through her notes. “His wife. The college administrator. He teaches two classes at the college and tutors students from other schools in the area.”

  “Any of these students show an interest in his van or in where he parked?”

  She snickered. “He said half these kids come to class in BMWs and Saabs. Why would they be interested in a six-year-old van?”

  “What about that sticker on the back?” I had no idea if Stasic had anything to do with these killings, but his van did have the same symbol on it that had turned up in the Oakland basement.

  Lorraine shrugged. “Said he never saw it before. I said I’d check his story and asked if he’d take a lie detector on that. He told me to go right ahead.”

  “You better check if any of his friends, or his students, have any weird political leanings.”

  Lorraine nodded. “I will, but this guy’s totally legit, Lindsay. He acted like he was jerked out of his skin.”

  As the afternoon wound down, I had the shaky feeling we were nowhere on this case. I was sure it was a serial, but maybe our best chance was this guy with the chimera embroidered on his jacket.

  My phone rang, startling me. It was Jacobi. “Bad information, L.T. We’ve been outside this damned Blue Parrot place all day. Nothing. So we managed to find out from the bartender the dudes you’re looking for are history. They split, five, six months ago. Toughest guy we’ve seen was some weight lifter wearing a ‘Rock Rules’ T-shirt.”

  “What do you mean by split, Warren?”

  “Vamoose, moved on. Somewhere south. According to the dude, one or two guys who used to hang around with them still come in from time to time. Some big redheaded dude. But basically they hit the road. Permanent-mente…”

  “Keep on it. Find me the redheaded dude.” Now that the van led nowhere and I had no connection between the victims, that lion-and-snake symbol was all we had.

  “Keep on it?” Jacobi whined. “How long? We could be out here for days!”

  “I’ll send out a change of underwear,” I said, and hung up.

  For a while I just sat there, rocking back in my chair with a mounting feeling of dread. It had been three days since Tasha Catchings was killed, and three days before that, Estelle Chipman.

  I had nothing. No significant clues. Only what the killer had left us. This damned chimera.

  And the knowledge… serials kill. Serials don’t stop until you catch them.

  Chapter 31

  PATROLMAN SERGEANT ART DAVIDSON responded to the 1-6-0 the minute he heard the call. “Disturbance, domestic violence. Three oh three Seventh Street, upstairs. Available units respond.”

  He and his partner, Gil Herrera, were only four blocks away on Bryant. It was almost eight; their shift was over in ten minutes.

  “You want to take it, Gil?” said Davidson, glancing at his watch.

  His partner shrugged. “Your call, Artie. You’re the one with the wild party to go to.”

  Some wild party. It was his seven-year-old’s birthday. Audra. He had called in on break, and Carol had said if he got home by nine-thirty, she’d keep her up for him so that he could give her the Britney Spears makeup mirror he had picked out. Davidson had five kids, and they were his life.

  “What the hell.” Davidson shrugged. “It’s what we get paid the big bucks for, right?”

  They hit the siren, and in less than a minute, Mobile 2-4 pulled up in front of the dismal and dilapidated entrance to 303 Seventh, the tilted sign of the defunct Driscoll Hotel hanging over the front door.

  “People still camping out in this dump?” Herrera sighed. “Who the hell would live here?”

  The two cops grabbed their nightsticks and a large flashlight, and stepped up to the front door. Davidson pulled it open. Inside, the place smelled of feces, urine, probably rats. “Hey, anybody here?” Davidson called out “Police.”

  Suddenly, from above, they heard the sound of shouting. Some kind of argument.

  “On it,” Herrera said, bounding up the first flight.

  Davidson followed.

  On the second floor, Gil Herrera went down the hall, banging his flashlight on doors. “Police, police…”

  In the stairwell, Davidson suddenly heard the sounds again—loud, frantic voices. A crash, as if something had broken. The noise came from over his head. He headed up two flights of stairs on his own.

  The noises grew even louder. He stopped in front of a shut door. Apartment 42. “Bitch…,” someone yelled. The sound of a plate shattering. A woman seemed to beg, “Stop him, he’s going to kill me. Stop him, please…. Somebody help me. Please.”

  “Police,” Art Davidson responded, and drew his gun. He yelled, “Herrera, up here. Now!”

  He threw all his weight against the door. It opened. The inside was dimly lit, but from an interior room, more light and the arguing voices… closer… screaming.

  Art Davidson clicked his gun off safety. Then he barged through the open door into the room. To his amazement, no one was in there.

  There was dim yellow light angling from an exposed bulb. A metal chair with a large boom box on it. Loud voices coming from the speakers.

  The words were the same ones he’d heard earlier. “Stop him, he’s going to kill me!”

  “What the hell?” Davidson squinted in disbelief.

  He walked over to the stereo, knelt down, and turned off the power. The loud, blaring argument came to a halt.

  “What the fuck…?” Davidson muttered. “Somebody playing games.”

  He looked around. The pitiful room looked as if it hadn’t been occupied in a while. His eyes were drawn to the window, then beyond it, across an alley, to a facing building. He thought he saw something. What was it?

  Ping…

  His eye caught the tiniest pinprick of a yellow spark, so quick it was like the snap of a finger, the blink of a firefly on a dark night.

  Then the window splintered and a blunt force slammed into Art Davidson’s right eye. He was dead before he hit the floor.

  Chapter 32

  I HAD JUST ABOUT GOTTEN HOME when the distress call crackled in: “Available units, proceed to three oh three Seventh, near Townsend.”

  1-0-6… officer in trouble.

  I pulled my Explorer to the curb. Listened to the call. EMS’s to the scene, the district captain called in. The quick, urgent exchanges convinced me the situation was critical.

  The hairs on my arms were standing up. It was an ambush, a long-distance shot. Like La Salle Heights. I threw my car in gear and executed a quick U-turn down Potrero, slamming onto Third Street and heading for downtown.

  When I pulled up four blocks from Townsend and Seventh, bedlam reigned. Barricades of blue-and-whites, flashing lights, uniforms everywhere, radios crackling in the night.

  I drove ahead, holding my police ID out the window, until I couldn’t go any farther. Then I left my car and ran toward the center of the commotion. I grabbed the first patrolman I could find. “Who is it? Do you know?”

  “Patrol cop,” he said. “Out of Central. Davidson.”

  “Oh, shit…” My heart sank. I felt nauseated. I knew Art Davidson. We had gone through the academy at the same time. He was a good cop, a good guy. Did it mean anything that I knew him?

  Then a second wave of fear and nausea. Art Davidson was black.

  I pushed my way through the crowd toward a rundown tenement where a ring of EMS trucks were parked. I ran into Chief of Detectives Sam Ryan coming out of the building, holding a radio to his ear.
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br />   I pulled him aside, “Sam, I heard it was Art Davidson…. Any chance…?”

  Ryan shook his head. “Chance? He was lured here, Lindsay. Rifle shot to the head. Single shot, we think. He’s already been pronounced.”

  I stood to the side, a whirring wail growing louder and louder inside my skull, as if some private, unknowable fear had revealed itself only to me. I was sure it was him. Chimera. Murder number three. He only needed one shot this time.

  I brandished my badge to the uniformed cops at the entrance and hurried into the run-down building. Some EMS techs were coming down the stairs. I kept going past them. My legs felt heavy, and I could hardly breathe.

  On the third-floor landing, a uniformed cop barreled past me, shouting, “Coming down. Everybody get out of the way.”

  A couple of medical techs appeared—and two more cops carrying a gurney. I couldn’t turn my head away. “Hold it here,” I said.

  It was Davidson. His eyes still and open. A crimson dime-sized peephole above his right eye. Every nerve in my body seemed to go slack. I remembered that he had children. Did these murders have something to do with kids?

  “Oh, Jesus, Art,” I whispered. I forced myself to study his body, the bullet wound. I finally touched the side of his forehead. “You can take him down now,” I said. Fuck.

  I made my way to the next floor somehow. A crowd of angry plainclothesmen was gathered outside an open apartment. I saw Pete Starcher, an ex-homicide detective who worked with IAB, coming out.

  I went up to him. “Pete, what the hell happened?”

  Starcher had always had an edge for me. He was one of those cynical old-timers. “You got business here, Lieutenant?”

  “I knew Art Davidson. We went through school together.” I didn’t want to give him any inkling of why I was here.

  Starcher sniffed, but he filled me in. The two patrolmen were responding to a 911 in the building. There was only this tape recorder there. It was all set up, orchestrated. “He was suckered. Some sonofabitch wanted to kill a cop.”

  My body grew numb. I was sure it was him. “I’m going to look around.”

  Inside, it was just like Starcher had said. Spooky, weird, unreal. The living room was empty. Walls stripped of paint, and cracks in the plaster. As I wandered into the adjoining room, I froze. There was a pool of blood soaked into the floor; blood had splattered on the wall where the bullet had probably lodged. Poor Davidson. A portable tape deck sat on a folding chair in the center of the room.

  I looked to the window, a hanging pane of splintered glass.

  Suddenly, everything was clear to me. There was a cold spot at the center of my chest.

  I went to the open window. I leaned out, looked across the street. There was no sign of Chimera, or anybody. But I knew…. I knew because he had told me—the shot, the victim. He wanted us to know it was him.

  Chapter 33

  “IT WAS HIM, LINDSAY, WASN’T IT?”

  Cindy was on the phone. It was after eleven. I was trying to pull my wits together at the end of an insane, horrible night. I had just come in from taking Martha on a late walk. All I wanted was to take a hot shower and wash the image of Art Davidson’s body out of my mind.

  “You have to tell me. It was the same guy, Chimera. Wasn’t it?”

  I threw myself onto my bed. “We don’t know. There was nothing at the scene.”

  “You know, Lindsay. I know you know. We both know it was him.”

  I just wanted her to let me be and curl up in bed. “I don’t know,” I said wearily. “It could be.”

  “What caliber was the gun? Did it match Catchings?”

  “Please, Cindy, don’t try to play detective on me. I knew the guy. His partner said it was his kid’s seventh birthday. He had five children.”

  “I’m sorry, Lindsay,” Cindy finally came back in a softer, gentler voice. “It’s just that it’s like the first murder, Lindsay. The shot that no one else could make.”

  We sat awhile on the phone without talking. She was right. I knew she was right. Then Cindy said, “You’ve got another one, don’t you, Lindsay?”

  I didn’t answer, but I knew what she meant.

  “Another pattern killer. A cold-blooded marksman. And he’s targeting blacks.”

  “Not just blacks.” I sighed.

  “Not just blacks…?” Cindy hesitated, then she came back in a rush. “The Oakland crime reporter got a rumor out of Homicide there. About the Chipman widow. Her husband was a cop. First Tasha’s uncle. Then her. Now Davidson makes three. Oh, Jesus, Lindsay.”

  “This stays with us,” I insisted. “Please, Cindy. I need to sleep now. You don’t realize how hard this is for us.”

  “Let us help, Lindsay. All of us. We want to help you.”

  “I will, Cindy. I need your help. I need all of your help.”

  Chapter 34

  I THOUGHT OF SOMETHING during the night. The killer had called 911.

  I got right on it in the morning. Lila McKendree ran Dispatch. She had been on the board when the Davidson call came in.

  Lila was plump, rosy cheeked, and quick to smile, but no one was more professional, and she could coolly juggle serious situations like an air-traffic controller.

  She set up the tape of the actual 911 call in the squad room. The entire detail huddled around. Cappy and Jacobi had come in before heading back out to Vallejo.

  “It’s on a three-loop reel,” Lila explained. She pressed the playback key.

  In a few seconds, we were going to hear the killer’s voice for the first time.

  “San Francisco Police, nine one one hotline,” a dispatcher’s voice said.

  There wasn’t another sound in the squad room.

  An agitated male voice shot back, “I need to call in a disturbance…. Some guy’s doing an O. J. on his wife.”

  “Okay…,” the operator replied. “I’ll need to start with your location. Where is this disturbance taking place?”

  There was an interfering background noise like a TV or traffic, making it difficult to hear. “Three oh three Seventh. Fourth floor. You better send someone out. It’s starting to sound real bad.”

  “You said the address was three oh three Seventh?”

  “That’s right,” the killer said.

  “And who am I speaking with?” the operator asked.

  “My name’s Billy. Billy Reffon. I live down the hall. You better hurry.”

  We all looked around, surprised. The killer gave a name? Jesus.

  “Listen, sir,” the dispatcher asked, “are you able to hear what’s going on as I’m talking to you?”

  “What I can hear,” he said, “is some spook getting the living shit beat out of her.”

  The dispatcher hesitated. “Yes, sir. Can you determine if there’s been any physical injury so far?”

  “I’m no doctor, lady, I’m just trying to do the right thing. Just send someone!”

  “Okay, Mr. Reffon, I’m calling a patrol car now. What I want you to do is exit the building and wait for the officers. They’re on the way.”

  “You better move quick,” the killer said. “Sounds like someone’s about to get hurt.”

  After the transmission ended, there was the follow-up recording of the outgoing dispatch call.

  “The call came from a mobile phone,” Lila said, shrugging her broad shoulders. “No doubt cloned. Here, it’s starting up again on a three-cycle loop.” In a moment the tape came on a second time. This time, I listened closely for what the voice could tell me.

  I need to call in a disturbance…. It was a worried voice, panicked but cool.

  “The guy’s a good fucking actor,” Jacobi huffed.

  My name’s Billy. Billy Reffon….

  I clenched the edges of my wooden chair as I listened to the dispatcher’s well-intended instructions. “Exit the building and wait for the officers. They’re on the way.” All the while, he was sitting behind a rifle scope, waiting for his prey to show up.

  You better mo
ve quick, he said. Someone’s about to get hurt.

  We listened to the recording one more time.

  This time, I heard the mocking indifference in his voice. Not even the slightest tone of compunction for what he was about to do. In the last warning, I even detected a hint of a cold chuckle: Quick… Someone’s about to get hurt.

  “That’s all I have,” Lila McKendree said. “The killer’s voice.”

  Chapter 35

  THE DAVIDSON MURDER changed everything.

  A bold headline in the Chronicle shouted, “MURDERED COP THOUGHT TO BE THIRD IN TERROR SPREE.” The front-page article, with Cindy’s byline, cited the accurate, long-range rifle shots and also the symbol used by active hate groups that had been found at the scenes.

  I headed down to the CSU lab and found Charlie Clapper curled up behind a metal desk, wearing a lab coat, munching on a breakfast of Doritos chips. His salt-and-pepper hair was oily and tousled, and his eyes sagged like heavy bags. “I’ve slept at this desk twice this week.” He scowled. “Doesn’t anyone get killed during the day anymore?”

  “In case you didn’t notice, I haven’t been getting my normal beauty rest the last week either.” I shrugged. “C’mon, Charlie, I need something on this Davidson thing. He’s killing our own guys.”

  “I know he is.” The rotund CSU man sighed. He hoisted himself up and shuffled over to a counter. He picked up a small zip-lock sandwich bag with a dark, flattened bullet in it.

  “Here’s your slug, Lindsay. Took it out of the wall behind where Art Davidson got dropped. One shot. Lights out. Check with Claire if you like. The sonofabitch can definitely shoot.”

  I lifted up the shell and tried to pull a reading.

  “Forty caliber,” Clapper said. “My first read is that it’s from a PSG-One.”

  I frowned. “You’re sure about this, Charlie?” Tasha Catchings had been killed with an M16.

  He pointed toward a scope. “Be my guest, Lieutenant. I figure ballistics must be a lifelong study of yours.”