The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(53)

THE FORTY PEOPLE standing under the tent gasped as one.

Even I was shocked, but my reflexes snapped me out of it. At the same time someone shouted, “You asshole,” and two men moved toward the one who’d spat on Paul’s coffin. They each took an arm and pulled the man in canvas away from the gathering—but he stuck out a leg and snagged the tent pole, and the pole bent.

The tent wobbled and slowly, hypnotically collapsed.

Screaming broke out and anger rose up. Men began milling in a loose circle. Jackets came off and were flung to the ground. Provocative curses flew, and the circle of men broke into two groups. It looked to me as though it was Paul’s friends and family against those of Ramona.

There were many obstacles on the hill of the cemetery lawn: trees, headstones, stunned women and children. The local cops were three hundred yards away out on the street. I couldn’t gauge how bad this would get. Guns could come out. Knives. We, the undercover team, would have to prevent violence, and yet if we drew our guns, we could set it off.

I looked for my teammates and made eye contact with Conklin.

My badge hung from a chain around my neck, inside my jacket. I pulled it free and held it up.

“SFPD. Everyone freeze.”

The red-faced man was six feet tall and heavily muscled, and he acted like I wasn’t there. He waved his arms and yelled to the opposing group, “Don’t you see the hypocrisy of burying them together? It’s his fault. Paul corrupted her. She would never be in that box if not for him. He might as well have shot her himself.”

He was shouted down, called names, and that made him even wilder. He was on the move, dodging, weaving, swinging his head around, shouting accusations. And since the collapse of the tent, the media had jumped the tape. They outnumbered the local cops and were now climbing over the walls.

Still yelling “It’s Paul’s fault,” the red-faced man ranged in and around the broken group of mourners.

Charles Greeley was fit, in his late fifties. He’d been watching, but he couldn’t stand still any longer. I watched as he broke away from his wife, a slim woman who looked like her daughter’s death had broken her. Greeley reached the red-faced man and shoved him hard, sending him staggering back and away from the fermenting crowd, hissing, “Anderson. You bastard. Control yourself. This is my daughter’s funeral.”

Greeley pushed Anderson a couple more times, his hands flat against Anderson’s chest, Anderson saying, “Get your hands off me, Mr. Greeley. I don’t want to hurt you,” as the older man backed him into the stone wall.

I saw potential for tragedy. I shouted, “Freeze. Everyone freeze!” but no one was listening.

I was closing in on Anderson when he really snapped.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Greeley.”

A shovel had been leaning against the wall, and now it was in Anderson’s hand. He drew back his right arm and swung the shovel, connecting with Greeley’s shoulder. Greeley cried out and spun into a tombstone, where he crumpled and dropped.

Jacobi helped the dead woman’s father to his feet. Once he was standing, Greeley tried to pull free of Jacobi’s grasp, cursing, “You son of a bitch, Anderson. How fucking dare you?”

I drew my nine and went for Anderson, shouting, “Hands behind your back.”

He started to do it, but as I pulled my cuffs from my jacket pocket, Anderson turned and, seeing an opportunity, punched me square in the face.

I hadn’t seen it coming. I stumbled back, my ankle twisting in my stupid high-heel shoes. I lost my balance and sat down hard on the ground.

Someone reached a hand down to help me up, but as soon as I was standing on my wobbling feet, Anderson swung at me again.

This time I ducked, and then I decked him.





CHAPTER 79





REPORTERS SCRAMBLED ACROSS the sloping field of the cemetery, joined by bystanders, and together they outnumbered the local gendarmes ten to one.

Reverend Grandgeorge held up his hands and asked for the commotion to stop in the name of God, but he had no chance against those who believed deeply that Paul Baron was filth and the others, friends of the Greeleys, who reasonably saw the funeral as sacrosanct.

Barefoot and bleeding, I retrieved my gun from the grass and ordered Anderson to stay facedown on the ground. Conklin intervened. As I rubbed my jaw and tried to clear away the fog behind my eyes, Conklin arrested Anderson for assault on a police officer and read him his rights.

Jacobi helped Anderson to his feet and marched him to the car across the road. The noisy crowd followed.

Conklin said loudly, “Who else wants to go to jail?”

I got into the passenger seat of the unmarked car, and Jacobi took the wheel. He backed out of the churchyard and pointed us southeast toward San Francisco, about an hour away. But he had a hard time keeping his eyes on the road.

“Are your knuckles broken?” he asked. “Let me run you by the emergency room.”

“Jacobi. I’m fine. Really.”

I knew without looking that I had a fat lip, a swollen eye, a scraped cheek, and a pulsing ache in my right ankle. I didn’t think I had broken bones, but I was pissed.

I held my bloody right fist in my lap and picked up the mike with my left hand. I reported to dispatch that we were on our way back to the Hall. The dispatcher’s voice came over the radio along with a big pile of static, and she confirmed.