The 9th Judgment Read online

  Jacobi caught up to him, shouting, “Jesus Christ, look what you made me do! Are you done now? Are you done?”

  The rattle of the Taser stopped and the fallen man’s horrific sobbing began-and he couldn’t stop. I stooped beside him as Jacobi twisted back his arms and snapped on the cuffs.

  “I’m Sergeant Boxer,” I said, patting the man down. I lifted his wallet from his back pocket and checked his face against his driver’s license photo. The man was Francis Marone.

  “Let me UP. I have to go to them!”

  I said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Marone, not right now.”

  “What happened? Are they okay?” Marone choked out. “I just spoke to Elaine.” He sobbed. “I had to stop for cigarettes, but I told her I’d meet her at the car.”

  “You were talking to her on the phone just now?”

  “I heard her say to someone, ‘What do you want?’ And then I heard-oh God, tell me she’s okay.”

  I said again that I was sorry as Marone cried, “NO, not my girls. Please, please, I have to go to them.”

  Francis Marone was breaking my heart-and this was the savage part: if we ever expected to catch, let alone indict, the killer, we had to protect the crime scene from this man.

  A forest of legs had grown up around me-Tracchio, Conklin, Chi, McNeil. I asked Mr. Marone if there was a friend or relative I could call for him, but he wasn’t listening. Still, I had to know: “Mr. Marone, can you think of anyone who may have wanted to harm your wife?”

  Marone searched my face with his bloodshot eyes before shouting, “I operate a cement mixer! Elaine does PR for a toy store! We’re nobodies. Nobodies.”

  Marone was bleeding from bad scrapes on his forearms. I put my hand on the poor guy’s shoulder and stood aside as Jacobi and Tracchio got him to his feet.

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, man,” Jacobi said.

  I signaled to officers Noonan and Mackey, asking them to drive Marone to the hospital. I promised Marone I’d meet him there as soon as I could. Then I got out of the way as Claire’s van tore up the ramp.

  Chapter 41

  CLAIRE WAS STOWING her camera by the time I made it back up to the fourth tier. She looked into my face, and I saw my own horror reflected in hers. We opened our arms and held on to each other, and this time I didn’t care who thought I was weak.

  “These babies. I can’t take the babies,” I said.

  “It’s not going to be all right,” Claire said into my shoulder. “Even when you catch the bastard, it’s not going to be all right. Not ever again. You know that, right?”

  We broke apart as one of Claire’s assistants asked her if it was okay to start bagging the victims’ hands. The grim work of deconstructing the crime had begun. I said to Claire, “Did you see the letters on the windshield?”

  “Uh-huh. CWF. That’s another kink in the pattern. The ‘C’ and the ‘W’ are still next to each other, so the ‘F’ is moving around. And that’s all I’ve got except for two more DBs to work up who shouldn’t be dead.”

  Claire pulled at my arm, and I stepped out of the way as Clapper’s crime scene-mobile steamed up the rise and stopped beside the ME’s van. CSIs poured out of the back, and Clapper stood over the sickening tableau and said to no one in particular, “Makes you wonder if the Good Lord has just given up on humanity.”

  Cameras flashed and video was shot of the bodies and of the bullet dings in the car both inside and out. Slugs were collected for evidence. Markers were set out, sketches were drawn, and notes were taken.

  I stood aside and watched the CSIs work, thinking about how an hour before, Elaine Marone had been shopping with her husband and her toddler, and now Claire’s team was wrapping their bodies in clean white sheets, zipping up the body bags. I was glad the cold finality of those zippers closing was something Francis Marone would never hear.

  I was wishing again, hoping that the spent slugs would compute, that there would be some useful physical evidence in this bloodbath, when Conklin called out, “Linds. Check this out.”

  I walked over to the Marones’ minivan and saw that my partner was pointing to the three-letter signature on the windshield. He turned his brown eyes on me and said, “That’s not lipstick.”

  I shined my light on the letters and felt my stomach drop.

  “That’s blood,” Conklin said. “He wrote the letters in their blood with his finger.”

  One of Clapper’s techs took close-ups. Another swabbed the letters on the windshield. My flicker of hope burned bright.

  Could it be?

  Had the Lipstick Killer gotten so lost in his madness, he’d left a bloody print behind for the good guys?

  Chapter 42

  AT EIGHT THIRTY that night, Sergeant Jackson Brady faced the motley gang of Homicide inspectors and patrol cops who were grouped around him in our squad room. He jammed a videotape into our old machine and said, “If anyone sees something I missed, shout it out.”

  The screen sparked with a grainy black-and-white image of a man in the lower right corner, walking up the center aisle of the garage, heading toward the Dodge Caravan near the end of the row.

  The images were halting, dark, snowy-the result of bad lighting and cheap tape that had been recycled hundreds of times. Still, we could see the killer. As before, he wore a billed cap and a two-toned baseball jacket. He kept his head down and faced away from the surveillance camera.

  Brady narrated as the pictures rolled.

  “Here, he has his hands in his pockets. As he approaches the victim’s van, he hails Mrs. Marone. What’s he saying? Asking the time, maybe? Or does she have change for a twenty?

  “Now she puts her packages on the van’s backseat and slides the door closed. She goes to the driver’s side, talking on the cell phone to her husband.”

  I watched the screen as the killer moved in on the still-living figure of Elaine Marone. I studied the way he walked, examining his body language and hers. He seemed apologetic as he went toward her, and Elaine Marone didn’t appear alarmed.

  I remembered Brady saying that this guy “passes as ordinary.” And I thought about the most vicious of the serial killers-the ones that movies were made about-and every one of those psychopaths looked ordinary.

  “See, now, the gun is out,” Brady said. “Nine mil, Beretta. Nifty suppressor. She takes a quick look into the backseat, then stretches out the handbag. She’s saying, ‘What do you want?’ She’s trying to buy the killer off, not getting anywhere. The Highlander blocks the camera’s view of their lower bodies, but from the way he’s suddenly bent over, I think she’s kicked him.

  “Now he’s slapping the handbag out of her hand, and there’s the first gunshot. She presses her hand to her upper chest.”

  Brady talked, but I could see for myself that Elaine Marone went for the killer’s gun hand. He grabbed her wrist with his free hand, squeezing it hard, and he wrenched himself free. That’s when he left bruises on her wrist. A second later, Elaine Marone’s body jerked four times, then slumped out of sight.

  The back door of the van was opened, and the killer fired one shot into the backseat, then disappeared from view.

  “Look,” Brady said. “Here’s our shooter again. He’s holding Elaine Marone’s body around the waist with his left arm and using the index finger of her right hand to write his signature on the glass. She didn’t have lipstick,” Brady said, “so he improvised.”

  I asked Brady to roll the tape back, and I watched again as the killer used the dead woman’s hand to write “CWF” in her blood. He used her finger, not his, and besides, the bastard was wearing gloves. My hope for a fingerprint died.

  Brady was saying, “He left the van doors open and arranged the bodies. Now here he is, walking up toward the fifth tier, where the next camera picks him up getting into the elevator. We have the tape from that, too. It’s ten seconds, a close-up of the top of his cap, no logo. Now he exits at street level.

  “Three minutes and forty seconds,” Brady said, pointing the
remote at the monitor, shutting it off. “That’s how much time elapsed from when he drew his gun to when he disappeared.”

  Chapter 43

  WE WERE ON the wide leather couch in the living room, waiting for the eleven o’clock news. My feet were in Joe’s lap, and Martha was snoring on the rug beside me. I was frustrated and beyond exhaustion. I wanted to sleep, but my mind was spinning.

  “A woman came into the Hall today,” I said to Joe. “She told Jacobi that a man approached her outside the Ferry Building the night the Kinskis were killed. Said he was lost. He was wearing a billed cap and a blue-and-white baseball jacket.”

  “She was credible?”

  “Jacobi said she was shaking and had half chewed her lip off. She told Jacobi the guy was creepy. She said she couldn’t help him and walked away with her baby, and he shouted after her, ‘I appreciate the fucking time of day!’ She’s seen the surveillance video and thinks it could be him.”

  “Good news, Linds. A witness, of sorts.”

  “It’s something, but, you know, it could have been anyone wearing a baseball jacket. Joe, WCF, FWC. And now CWF. You’re a puzzle addict. What do you get out of that?”

  “West Coast Freak. Factory Workers’ Coalition. Chief Wacko Freak. Want me to keep going?”

  “No, you’re right,” I said. “It’s gooseberries. The shooter is playing with us.”

  “Listen, before I forget to tell you-”

  “There,” I said, grabbing the clicker off the coffee table, amping up the volume as the familiar face of news anchor Andrea Costella talked above the “Breaking News” banner.

  “We have news tonight about the Lipstick Killer, who was videotaped at a Union Square garage as he was leaving the scene of another horrific double homicide,” she said.

  The video came on the screen, about ten seconds of the shooter entering the elevator car, stabbing the button with a gloved hand, and standing in one place, eyes lowered, until the doors opened and he exited into thin air.

  “An anonymous witness described the shooter to the police, who have made a sketch available to this station,” Costella said. A drawing replaced the videotape on the screen.

  “See?” I said to Joe. “Mr. Ordinary. No-color eyes, no-color hair. Regular features, regular nine mil slugs, no match to anything. But not mentioned to the viewers, he uses a suppressor, professional grade.”

  “Sounds like he’s military. Special Ops. Or he’s a military contractor. Got the suppressor on the black market or overseas.”

  “Yeah. The military angle makes sense. But there are, what, thousands and thousands of former military guys in the city? And half of them fit this guy’s description. Hey, what’s this?” I asked as another video came on the screen.

  I watched with my mouth open as a handheld camera bumped along behind Claire. It was recording her leaving the morgue, heading to the parking lot just outside her office. Reporters fired questions about the victims and asked her if there was anything she could tell the people of San Francisco.

  Claire turned her back to the cameras and got into her new Prius. She started it up, and I thought that was it-Get lost, you vultures-but she buzzed down the window, rested her elbow on the frame, and looked squarely at the cameras.

  “Yes, I have something to tell the people of San Francisco, and I’m not speaking as the chief medical examiner. I’m speaking as a wife and a mother. Are we clear?”

  There was a chorus of yeses.

  “Moms, keep your eyes open,” Claire said. “Don’t trust anyone. Don’t park in lonely places, and don’t get near your car unless there are other people around. And, no kidding, get a license to carry a handgun. Then carry it.”

  Chapter 44

  PETE GORDON SAT in the kitchen, laptop in front of him on the red Formica table, his back to the porch where Sherry was doing stupid puppet tricks for her brother. The stink bomb was shrieking with joy or fright, Pete really didn’t know which, because it was all like having a screwdriver jabbed through his eardrum.

  Pete yelled over his shoulder, “Keep it down, Sherry! In a minute, I’m going to take off my belt.”

  “We’ll be quiet, Daddy.”

  Gordon returned to the letter he was composing, a kind of ransom note. Yeah. He liked thinking of it that way. He was a pretty good writer, but this had to be crystal clear and without any clues to his identity.

  “An open letter to the citizens of San Francisco,” he wrote. “I have something important to tell you.”

  He thought about the word “citizens,” decided it was too stiff, and replaced it with “residents.” Much better.

  “An open letter to the residents of San Francisco.” Then he changed the second line: “I have a proposition to make.” Suddenly there was a shrill scream from the porch, and Sherry was shushing the stink bomb and then calling in through the window, “Daddy, I’m sorry, please don’t get mad. Stevie didn’t mean it.”

  The baby was crying on both the inhale and the exhale, un-fucking-relenting. Pete clenched his hands, thinking how much he hated them and everything about the life he lived now. Look at me, Ladies and Gentlemen, Captain Peter Gordon, former commando, currently Househusband First Class.

  What a frickin’ tragedy.

  The only thing that gave him joy anymore was working on his plan. Thinking how, after he’d wasted Sherry and the stink bomb, it was going to give him great, great pleasure to show the princess who he really was. He could hardly wait to silence her nagging. Pete, sweetie, don’t forget to pick up the milk and don’t forget to take your meds, okay? Hey, handsome, did you make lunch for the kids? Make the bed? Call the cable guy?

  He imagined Heidi’s face, pale in the middle of all that red hair, eyes like yo-yos when she realized what he had done. And what he was going to do to her.

  Hi-hi, Heidi. Bye-dee-bye.

  Part Three. THE TRAP

  Chapter 45

  SARAH WELLS CROUCHED in the shrubbery between the huge Tudor-style house and the street, her clothes blending into the shadows. She was having a three-dimensional flashback of the Dowling job-how she’d hidden in the closet while the Dowlings made love, later knocking into that table of whatnots during her narrow frickin’ escape. And then the worst part-the murder accusation hanging over her.

  She considered quitting while she was ahead. On the other hand, the Morley house was a prize.

  The three-story white home with dark beams and bay windows belonged to Jim and Dorian Morley, the Sports Gear Morleys who owned a chain of athletic stores up and down the coast. She’d read everything about them on the Web and seen dozens of photos. Dorian Morley dressed to impress and owned a stunning jewelry collection that she kept in constant use.

  Sarah had made special note of Mrs. Morley telling a Chronicle reporter that she loved to wear diamonds every day, “even around the house.”

  Imagine. Everyday diamonds.

  Which is why Sarah had put the Morleys on her to-do list, done several run-throughs to check out the traffic patterns at nine p.m. in their neighborhood, and pinpointed where to stash her car and where to hide. On one of her drive-bys earlier in the week, she’d even seen Jim Morley leaving the house in his Mercedes. He was stocky and muscular-the kind of build people called “brawny.”

  Sarah definitely did not want to run into Jim Morley tonight. And she wouldn’t. The Morleys were having a Big Chill party in their backyard and would be treating their friends to a live performance of a retread rock-and-roll band from the ’60s. She could hear the first set now, electric guitars twanging over screeching mics.

  What a fantastic cover of sound.

  Fifteen minutes ago, one of the valets had parked the last guest’s car down the hill and was now hanging out in the street with his buddy. Sarah could hear their muted laughter and smell the cigarette smoke.

  She was going to do it. She’d made up her mind. And there was no better time than now.

  Sarah glanced up at the Morleys’ bedroom window, and, after taking a breath, sh
e darted out from the sheltering shrubbery and ran twenty feet to the base of the house. Once there, she executed a maneuver like the one she’d practiced many times on the climbing wall at the gym. She jammed the left toe of her climbing shoe against the clapboard, gripped the drainpipe of the gutter with her right hand, and stretched up to the window ledge.

  Halfway through the ten-foot climb, her left foot slipped, and she hung, heart pounding, body splayed vertically against the wall, right hand gripping the drainpipe, desperate not to pull down the gutter and create a clamor that would end with a shout or a rough hand at her back.

  Quit now, Sarah. Go home.

  Sarah hung against the wall for interminable seconds.

  Her forearms were like cables from hours of just hanging by her hands from the bar across her closet doorway-not just until she couldn’t hold on for another instant but until her muscles failed and she peeled off the bar. She’d strengthened her fingers by squeezing a rubber ball when she drove her car, watched TV-any spare moment at all. But despite her strength and determination, there was still some light from the moon, and Sarah Wells was not invisible.

  As she clung to the wall, Sarah heard a car stop around the corner of the house and voices of new guests coming up the walk. She waited for them to enter the house, and when she figured it was safe, she took her hand off the drainpipe and reached for the molding below the window. When she had a firm grip, she pulled herself up until she was able to hook a leg onto the sill of the westernmost window of the Morleys’ bedroom.

  She was in.

  Chapter 46