The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(35)

“Cindy hooked me up with the Houston PD,” Conklin told me, speaking of his beloved roommate, my pissed-off girlfriend Cindy Thomas. “She’s been on this since 6 a.m. You know, Linds, she sleeps with the police scanner next to the bed,” he said. “Brings it to work, which is where she is now. Don’t get between my girl and her Pulitzer.”

I laughed and sighed at the same time.

Conklin went on. “She says all three victims are known dealers. Victim number one was shot by a single bullet from a long distance.”

“According to Brady’s contact, the shot was fired from a half mile away.”

“Wow. Wow. Wow,” said Conklin. “A half mile away? That’s gotta be some kind of record.”

Conklin got up, walked to the wall, and scrutinized the enlarged photo of the crash: Morris’s Mercedes having come to rest halfway through the rear compartment of the panel van.

He moved a couple of feet to the next photo.

“Victim number two is still unidentified, also shot in his car,” Conklin said. “The light had just changed, and the driver was heading south on San Pedro Avenue when he caught a few rounds to the left arm, chest, and head. Same time as the one in Houston, eight-thirty a.m.”

I got up and took a good long look, trying to work out what had happened from this photo. One of the vehicles had the dead man in the driver’s seat. The other was the recipient of a rear-end collision that had turned the intersection into a four-way gridlock. The photo credit in the corner was from a Channel 7 Eye in the Sky chopper.

“Reminds me of the so-called rehearsal murder at Taco King. That could have been personal,” I said.

“Maybe this one, too,” said Cappy. He was taping up the last photo, victim number three, who’d been taken down in Houston. The photo showed a body spread-eagle on the sidewalk in front of a coffee shop.

Cappy said, “This killing happened across town from the man who ran his car into the parked van. No way it was done by the same hitter. The victim has been ID’d as Linda Blatt.”

“She was a cafeteria worker during the day, delivered dope after hours,” Conklin added. “Had a few dozen packets of crack in her bra.”

My phone tootled. A text from Brady.

Boxer, Houston’s Det. Sgt. Carl Kennedy waiting 4 yr call.

I tapped in the number, broke through the gatekeepers with my authoritative mad-dog-cop-in-a-big-hurry voice.

A man answered.

“Hello, Sergeant Kennedy?”

“Yes. Oh. Sergeant Boxer, good to finally make contact with you. I was with LVPD ten years back. Charlie Clapper and I were in Homicide together. We’re old friends.”

We exchanged mutual admiration for the esteemed head of our crime lab, and then I had to get to it.

“Kennedy, I’ve been on the case for a week now. I know a lot about the San Francisco victims, Paul and Ramona Baron in particular. But we’re not getting traction on their shooter, who looks to be a sniper with incredible skill. Our suspect has gone into hiding. We have a lead of sorts.”

I told Kennedy about Moving Targets, that our suspect, Leonard Barkley, was a member. And I told him that our FBI tech had found the site in a hidden pocket on Tor Browser.

“Getting access to Moving Targets has proven impossible so far, but we’re still working on it. As it turns out, a former cop on our force once had access and played target games. But it appeared to him that the website might hold competitions for kills in real life.”

“Is that right? Here’s some news for you, Boxer,” Kennedy told me. “A small business called Moving Targets has a brick-and-mortar hole-in-the-wall in the strip mall on North Shepherd Drive in Houston.”

“You’re joking.”

“It’s next door to an auto parts store. I’ve passed it a hundred times. Always has a ‘No Walk-Ins’ sign on the locked door. I peeked in through the glass once and saw a dark room with a half dozen folks on computers. I checked tax records to see the name of the company because it looked so sketchy. The name is Moving Targets, but what is it? The company description said ‘Computer repair. By appointment only,’ and they didn’t list a number.

“My caseload heated up,” Kennedy continued, “and I lost interest in this small-time little computer store. Now I’ll do more research. Maybe I’ll pay Moving Targets a visit.”

“That would be great, Kennedy.”

We signed off, and I summed up the whole story for Cappy, Chi, and Conklin. Brenda brought in a fresh pot of coffee, and I got a text from Edmund.

For the first time since my lovely second honeymoon less than two weeks ago, I felt good.





CHAPTER 52





SEVERAL TWO-STORY, brick-and-glass medical buildings stood within a mile of Saint John’s Hospital in Napa.

Joe was inside one of those buildings, sitting in a small chair in an L-shaped waiting room shared by a pediatrician and Dr. Alexander Murray, cardiac surgeon, the man Dave Channing believed had murdered his father.

The pediatric side of the room was awash in primary colors. There was a bulletin board centered on the largest wall, pinned with dozens of children’s crayon drawings, a circus rug on the floor, a pile of blocks, and two little boys playing with toy cars, revving them up: “Vrooooom, vroooom.”

Joe waited in the cardio side of the room. There was no decor to speak of, just a rack of magazines and pharmaceutical company brochures and some NO SMOKING signs on the off-white walls.