The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(34)

Why? She hadn’t been robbed. She hadn’t put up a fight. She’d simply been shot to death at close range.

Who did it?

We had no witnesses, no forensics, no motive, no videotape, and it wasn’t our case. But we did have our CI, Millie Cushing, the most productive confidential informant with whom I’d ever had the pleasure of working.

Millie had called me last night within minutes of the murder, and it was her call that had sent me and my partner out into the night.

“It’s the same pattern, Lindsay,” Millie had said. “It’s another execution. Lou was homeless. She frequented Union Square. Someone is trying to rub us out,” Millie said before her voice melted into sobs.

“Millie? Does Lou have a last name?”

“I don’t know it.”

And then she hung up.

Dressed for work with a gun, a weatherproof jacket, and sturdy shoes, I kissed my family good-bye. Conklin was waiting for me outside his apartment in the rain and the dark, and we sped off to 77 Geary with lights and sirens.

The first units on the scene had taped off a small perimeter, and Conklin and I took charge of it as we waited for the red carpet to be rolled out for Moran and Stevens—or anyone in Central’s Homicide Unit.

When my patience ran out, I radioed Central dispatch to report, “No investigators are on the scene. It’s raining. CSI has to get here fast.”

We waited a total of two hours and fifteen minutes, and because I had called it in, the ME’s van and CSI mobile arrived.

It’s basic crime scene procedure that homicide investigators have to see the scene before the body is moved, so we all waited. When they finally showed, I greeted Garth Stevens at the door to his vehicle.

I said, “I took crowd photos and called CSI.”

He said, “I guess you’re going to win the Wonder Woman of the Year award.”

“What’s wrong with you?” I asked him.

He opened his car door, and I stepped away and watched him and Moran mosey over to the dead body. No rush. The shooter was long gone and so were the witnesses. Stevens had all the time in the world.

I was raging as I drove Conklin home and then lay awake most of the night, aggravated to obsession because of those two freakin’ cops from Central. When I woke up this morning, I was still obsessing and I had a throbbing headache. I left Joe asleep in bed, and I took care of the best baby girl in the whole wide world until Joe was on his feet.

Then I gulped aspirin with unadulterated caffeine and flew out the front door like Wonder Woman.

So I was in a state of high anxiety as I sat across from Conklin at our ancient gray desks. I downloaded the photos from my phone and spun my monitor around so Conklin could see my nighttime panorama of the crowd, banked three deep opposite the Geary Street crime scene.

The next shots on my chip were of the dead woman, ID’d by Millie as Lou, currently known as Lou Doe. She was slumped against a brick wall, two bullet holes punched through her poncho, glistening in the rain.

I switched back to the crowd shots.

“Maybe someone saw something and will say something,” I said, looking at the spectators’ faces.

“Push in on the faces,” Conklin said.

I zoomed in on the onlookers, whose faces had been caught in midexpression by my flash. Many of their eyes were shaded by their umbrellas or raincoat hoods. I’d sent this bleak lineup to CSI last night. Maybe facial recognition software would hit on a known criminal.

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

World peace would also be amazing, but I had no control over that.

I said to my partner, “I’m going to take this to Brady. Again.”

“Look,” he said. “In case there’s any doubt in your mind, I want you to go after Stevens and Moran. I’m with you all the way.”

“I didn’t doubt that for a second,” I said.





CHAPTER 50


I LOOKED ACROSS the squad room, over the heads of Homicide cops at their desks, to Brady’s glass-walled corner office. A visitor sat across from him with his back to me.

“Who’s he with?” I asked Conklin. “Wait. It’s Jacobi. That’s even better.”

“Wait until he’s gone, why don’t you?”

“I’m walking the plank,” I said. “I can’t help myself.”

“I’ll come, too,” said Conklin.

I said, “You should probably stay here and man the lifeboat.”

“Watch yourself,” said Conklin.

I knew full well that if Brady got involved in Central’s string of unsolved homicides, there could be an interdepartmental squabble that would be unpleasant for him.

I hated to put pressure on Brady, but I had to do something about a very bad situation that was getting worse. I’d already crossed Central’s line in the sand and had dragged my partner over it, too. With good reason.

A spree killer was executing people unimpeded, and no one seemed eager, willing, or able to stop him from killing again.

How did an interdepartmental squabble stack up to that?

I walked down the bull pen’s center aisle and knocked on Brady’s glass door. I didn’t wait for an invitation. Jacobi stood up when I entered the small office, saying, “Hey, Boxer. How ya doing? I’m just leaving.”