The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(56)

We took the stairs down to the lobby, left by the rear door, and speed-walked along the breezeway to Harriet Street, where a standard gray Chevy squad car was parked under the overpass. Conklin took the wheel, and we headed out toward the Mission District.

Over the crackle of the police radio, my partner started to fill me in.

“I spent Friday afternoon at Millie’s favorite homeless shelter.”

“I take it you learned something useful?” I turned up the heat, turned down the radio.

“I did,” Conklin said. “Millie’s maiden name was Renee Millicent Cushing. Thirty years ago she married an accountant by the name of Ronald Dunn.”

“She’s married?” I said. “Jeez. Did anyone notify her husband?”

“He died fifteen years ago of a heart attack. She told us that she has two adult kids—we didn’t ask their names. But I have an address.”

“For?”

“You shall see,” he told me.

We cruised through the gritty commercial section of the Mission, which broke out into the residential community of Eureka Valley. This is an upscale area, lined with the lovely Victorian homes our town is known for.

I was sightseeing as we drove up hilly Collingwood Street—when Conklin pulled the car up to a gray wood-frame house. It was nice, plain, well kept, and it looked like it had been built in the midsixties. There was a green Kia in the driveway with a Berkeley sticker in the rear window.

I said, “Who lives here?”

“Used to be Millie Cushing Dunn’s house. Yeah. I know what you’re going to say. ‘She owned a house?’”

“And it’s a nice house, too.”

“Her husband left it to her with a bunch of money, amount unspecified, but enough that she had plenty to spare,” said Conklin.

I was impressed. “Nice work, partner.”

“Here’s the rest of it. According to the administrator at the shelter, Millie was a social worker. She often posed as a homeless person to gain trust, lived on the street three or four days a week, then stepped it up to 24/7.”

“Odd way to go about gaining trust, huh?”

“I’d say. Ready, Boxer?”

We got out of the car and walked up to the front door. Conklin rang the bell.





CHAPTER 82


A WOMAN IN her midtwenties opened the door about a foot, enough for us to see that she was barefoot, wearing yoga pants and a loose top. I thought that she looked a little like Millie.

“May I help you?” she asked.

Conklin badged her, introduced us, and asked, “Do you know Millie Cushing?”

The woman said, “I’m her daughter. Sophie Dunn. What’s wrong? What happened to my mother?”

Conklin said, “I’m sorry to tell you, but she was shot last week on Mission Street, and unfortunately, she died. It took us this long to find her address. We’re very sorry.”

“She’s dead?”

Sophie Dunn spun away from the doorway and cried out, “No, no, no. That can’t be right. She can’t be dead. She can’t be.”

The door swung open, and we walked Millie’s distraught daughter through the entranceway to a sitting room with a brick fireplace, wall-to-wall bookshelves, and a large window onto a high city view.

She circled the room, still crying out denials.

“This isn’t right. I don’t believe this. How did this happen?” Then she stopped circling and, with tears streaming down her cheeks, said directly to me, “I always hoped that one day I would have my mother back. Do you understand?”

And then, wiping her face with her sleeve, Sophie Dunn collapsed into a chair.

When we were seated across from her, I told her again how sorry we were, that we had known Millie and why.

I said, “Ms. Dunn, I’m confused as to why your mother was living as though she was homeless.”

Sophie got up, paced some more, and eventually got her thoughts and words together enough to confirm what Conklin had learned at the shelter. Millie’s street life had begun after her husband’s death. By the time Sophie was in her teens, Millie was on the street more than she was home.

“I haven’t seen her in over a year,” Millie’s daughter told us, “but when we last spoke, she seemed happy. She liked the people. She would give anyone her last nickel. I can’t even imagine who could have anything against her. But as I’m sure you know, a lot of street people have mental illnesses. My mother included.”

She got up, went to the bookshelf, and came back to her chair with a framed photo taken in front of this fireplace.

I got a glimpse of a family of four: mom, dad, two kids. Normal as could be.

Conklin asked, “Sophie, did your brother stay in touch with your mom?”

“Michael? He hardly stays in touch with me. After he moved out, he got married, got divorced, and kind of lives a small, quiet life. Mom wasn’t at the wedding. He never mentions her.”

“We’ll need to speak to him,” Rich said.

Sophie began crying again. She apologized, left the room, and returned a minute later with tissues and a Post-it note.

She said, “Here’s his number. Good luck getting anywhere with him, though. Michael is a professional introvert.”

Sophie asked when she could see her mother. I gave her the information as well as my card, and we said our good-byes.