The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(37)

I pulled on the handle, walked down the short gray corridor, and found Claire in her office, on the phone. She gestured for me to sit down and I did.

After a minute she hung up and pulled a file out of a desk drawer.

“I’m going to take a wild guess you’re here about the Geary Street victim—even though your name isn’t on the case file.”

“Never mind. Let’s hear it,” I said.

“As you know, there was no ID on the victim’s body, and so far there have been no inquiries about a victim who looks like her. It’s early yet. Someone could miss her in another couple of days, and I have room to keep her for a little longer.”

Claire opened the folder and read to me from her findings.

“Manner of death: homicide. Cause of death: two 9 mm rounds, one to the heart, the other to the left lung, only a few inches away from the first. The shooter came in close. Gunpowder on her rain slicker shows that he or she was no more than two feet away.”

“I’m wondering. Did he know her?” I mused out loud.

“The post showed that she was in poor health. Arterial plaque, fatty liver, diabetes, lungs full of tar. I reckon she was in her late forties, but her organs tell a story of neglect and bad habits. Anyway. She was killed by lead to her heart.”

“What was in her shopping bags?” I asked.

“Soda cans. A soiled blanket. Dirty clothes.”

“Clapper is waiting for the rounds. If someone comes looking for her, call me, okay?”

“Will do. You okay, Linds?”

“Never better,” I said. I leaned across her desk and kissed my best friend good-bye.





CHAPTER 53


I WAS EARLY for my 4:30 meeting with Internal Affairs’ Lieutenant Johnny Hon, upstairs on the fifth floor. I knew of Hon, but we’d never met. IAD was opaque, the most secretive department in the SFPD.

Neither Brady nor Jacobi had tried to stop me, and now I was flying blind on my own.

I sat in the reception area and flipped through a left-behind copy of the Chronicle while getting my fractured thoughts in order. I had a realization. Ever since Jacobi had told me that I looked like crap, I’d been feeling that way, too. According to my loose waistband, I’d lost weight; my holster was at the tightest setting and still felt uncomfortably loose. And the headache I’d had this morning was back and had brought its younger brother.

Was I putting myself under too much pressure? Was I becoming a nervous wreck?

Before I could follow this thought, a gray-haired man of about fifty entered the room and spoke my name.

I stood up, saying, “That’s me.”

“I’m Johnny Hon,” he said.

We shook hands. I followed the IAD lieutenant to his office and sat in the chair across from his desk. The room was devoid of personality: white walls, plain wooden desk, some framed certificates on the wall. No photos or personal items.

The lieutenant was all business.

He said, “I got a call from Chief Jacobi. He speaks very highly of you, Sergeant.”

“We’ve been through the wars together.”

“So he said. He was vague about why you wanted to see IAD. Why don’t you lay out the issue for me?”

I told him that I had come to register a complaint about two homicide investigators from Central Station, giving an almost verbatim recitation of what I’d told Jacobi and Brady this morning. A tipster had called my attention to killings of homeless people that had not been solved by Central Station’s Sergeant Stevens and Inspector Moran, who appeared to be working the cases with an utter lack of urgency.

I told Hon what I knew about the dead poet at Walton Square, and about my own experience with Stevens and Moran at the Pier 45 and Geary Street murder scenes.

I said, “I accessed whatever information I could find, Lieutenant. I have Stevens’s report on the three crimes, all in progress. And I’ve also gathered up the reports I filed and an autopsy report on Laura Russell, the Pier 45 victim, from the ME.”

I reached across the desk and handed him a folder.

“So, what are you saying exactly, Sergeant? You think Stevens and Moran are goldbricking?”

“Something like that. Maybe they’re padding their over-time. I don’t know. But I do know that they don’t seem too eager to nail a serial killer who may be executing vagrants and planning to continue his spree.”

Hon nodded, said, “Do you have any evidence that Stevens and Moran are dragging their feet or scamming the system or committing a crime?”

“Lieutenant, what could be a legitimate motive for letting these homicides slide?”

“So, what I’m hearing is that you have nothing but unsubstantiated theory. They could be working feverishly behind the scenes and may even be following a suspect or a lead, and you wouldn’t know that, would you?”

I said, “They keep telling me to bug off. Why? I may have seen something. I may have a theory.”

“Could they suspect a political motive? That 850 Bryant is trying to put Central out of the homicide business?”

“Maybe,” I said. “But they’d be wrong. I care about the unworked homicides. I care about a killer who hasn’t been caught.”

“Okay. I’ll accept that. And how would you have reacted if Stevens and Moran had shown up at your crime scene?”