The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(46)

CHAPTER 66


SERGEANT GARTH STEVENS stood up, put his hands in his pockets, and smiled.

He looked cool, composed, and confident. There was no murder too heinous, no charge against him too dire, to disturb his good mood. Noooo problems at all.

“Lieutenant Hon,” he said. “Gentlemen. I can make this real short. My partner, Evan Moran, and I work graveyard shift for Central Station, Homicide. Over the last six months a number of people have been shot in areas, as Sergeant Boxer put it, where homeless people congregate. We have worked seven of these cases.

“While being called to those street crimes, we have also been called to gang killings, domestic homicides, liquor store shootings, and hit-and-runs. Same day of the Geary Street murder, we were called to a home where a five-year-old boy had drowned his baby sister.

“In short, we’ve been busy and have closed 70 percent of our cases, which is a high-water mark for the entire SFPD. We have not made similar progress in these homeless murders, but it’s not because we were sleeping in our cars. Our squad is small and sometimes shorthanded. We get to our crime scenes as fast as we can, and we work the scenes in a professional manner.

“I have filed my report as well as the reports of the first-responding officers, CSI, and the medical examiner. Lieutenant Levant has been kept up to speed on all of my cases, and he has not found me or my partner negligent in any of them.

“If I may, I wish to put forth a theory as to why this series of possibly related crimes has gotten Sergeant Boxer into such a twist.”

“Go ahead,” said Hon.

“Okay,” said Stevens. “I was a psychology major back when I went to Fordham. Skipping ahead, I became a police officer for the SFPD. Back in those early days I was friends with Sergeant Boxer’s father, Marty. I even knew Lindsay, here, when she was a child.”

“Can we move it along, Stevens?”

“Yes, sir. Sergeant Boxer didn’t get along with her father. This isn’t gossip. It’s common knowledge, and maybe she has valid reasons. Regardless, I think she has transferred her anger at Marty Boxer to me. I think she sees me, she sees him. And she sees red.”

As Stevens had said, I saw red. Blood red. I was flooded with rage.

“Okay,” said Hon. “Thank you, Stevens.”

“One more thing,” said Stevens. “I’m requesting that the Cushing case be transferred to Central. My partner and I are conversant on this string of shootings and therefore have a better chance of closing the lot of them if we have all of the information.”

Hon said, “Duly noted.”

Stevens sat down.

Somehow the hearing ended and I left the room under my own power. I took the stairs down to the squad room.

Conklin was there.

“How’d it go?”

“I don’t have any idea,” I said. “I don’t have a clue in the world.”





CHAPTER 67


WHEN I PULLED open the door to MacBain’s, a wave of lunchtime chatter washed over me.

Most days the laughter and exuberant din recalled the good times I’d spent there. But not today.

Today I needed to see Claire.

I looked for her, hoping she’d nailed down the small table near the window, then Syd tapped me on the shoulder and pointed. I followed her finger with my eyes. Claire was at a table in the back, half hidden by the bar.

I parted the crowd with my hip and shoulder and made my way toward my best friend.

“I’m starving,” she shouted when she saw me.

Food wasn’t on my top twenty list of concerns, but I said, “Let’s order. What’re we waiting for?”

Claire grinned, waved Syd down, and placed our order in the fewest possible words, “The usual.” Meaning deluxe burgers and a double order of fries.

“The fish tacos rock,” said Syd.

“Maybe some other time,” Claire said.

She put her elbows on the table and I did the same, both of us leaning in so we could talk without shouting.

Claire said, “So, what’s the verdict?”

She was asking about the IAD decision. She knew what was at stake. Had I been suspended for a month—or worse? Had Sergeant Stevens been sidelined? Who was going to track down the person killing homeless people in our city?

And now I knew the answers to all of the above. I told Claire, “Brady says that the panel recommended no action.”

“None? That’s great, right?” she asked.

“Yes and no. Stevens wasn’t disciplined and neither was I. So that makes me feel like I blew this whole thing up, and for what? ‘No action recommended’?”

“Okay,” Claire said. “I get it. But you weren’t wrong. This is how it turned out. So work the Cushing case as best you can.”

The best I could do was under a lot of pressure. Time had been lost. The killer was a ghost, of a lethal variety. Serial killers have distinct MOs. Some have a preferred victim type or method of killing or a favorite location. Some have unique signatures: markings left on the bodies or methods of disposal or even letters to the press.

This killer’s MO was to shoot a defenseless vagrant at close range in the dark, and in a location without a surveillance camera. And then, poof. Gone with the wind.

That this psycho had gotten so close to his victims told me that they weren’t afraid of him. None had screamed, run, put up a fight. Maybe he knew them. Maybe he was one of them.