The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club #17)(7)

From the woman’s dress she looked to me like she was living on the street. I had change from a ten in my jacket pocket, and I pulled out some bills, but she waved them away.

“I don’t need any money. Thank you, though. What I need is your help, Sergeant. I want to report a murder.”

I looked at her. The assertion sounded like the opening to an old episode of Murder, She Wrote, but I had to take it seriously. The woman was distressed. And I’m a cop.

We were blocking the entrance to the Hall. Attorneys and clerks and other cops were trying to get past me, some rudely, some urgently. I stepped aside.

“What’s your name?” I asked.

“Millie Cushing. I pay my taxes.”

I let that one go. If she lived in San Francisco, she had a right to ask me for help.

“This murder,” I said. “What can you tell me about that?”

“Well, I didn’t see the murder happen, and I didn’t see the victim’s body, but I knew him. Jimmy Dolan wasn’t the first one to get shot dead on the street, and he’s not going to be the last, either.”

Was Millie Cushing of sound mind? I couldn’t tell.

I said, “You know what? The morning shift is just starting and our squad room is going to be noisy. Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”





CHAPTER 10


I LED MILLIE to Café Roma, a small chain coffee shop on Bryant, up the very long block and across the street from the Hall. We found a small booth near the plate-glass window, and the waitress took our orders; coffee for Millie, tea and dry toast for me.

I said, “Millie, order whatever you want.”

Millie took the cue and ordered eggs, toast, potatoes, sausage, and bacon. She laughed, saying, “I guess that will hold me for the weekend.”

When the waitress left the table, I asked Millie to tell me everything she knew about the murder that had brought her to the Hall that morning looking for me.

She leaned across the small table and began her story.

“The murder happened outside Walton Square,” she said. I knew the park well. It was in the Financial District, not far from Southern Station’s beat.

Millie said, “It happened very early on Monday morning. This nice man named Jimmy Dolan was shot on the sidewalk on Front Street. Right here,” she said, tapping the center of her chest. “Two and done.”

“How did you learn about this?” I asked.

“You wouldn’t think so, but we’re a tightly knit community. Jimmy was shot at four fifteen or so in the morning, and three hours later it was common knowledge on the street. And that’s by word of mouth and very few cell phones, you know.”

“Community?”

“Homeless,” she said. “For some it’s temporary. For others it’s a permanent way of life. The point is, we know one another. We keep tabs. We exchange news at the shelters and places we go on the street.”

Breakfast came and Millie tucked in.

I excused myself while she was occupied to call my partner, Rich Conklin, to tell him that I was running late but would be in soon.

I went back to my seat and sugared my tea. Millie was well into her scrambled eggs.

I said, “Millie. The police were called?”

“What I heard is they came, but they never asked around or did anything but wait until the meat wagon arrived. Jimmy deserves more than to be shoveled up and stuffed into a box. He deserves justice. The man was a poet. A good one. And before the voices got to him, he was a college professor. To the cops, he’s trash.”

I murmured, “Sorry to hear this,” and asked Millie to go on.

“Like I said, shootings are happening all over. Jimmy was one of I don’t know how many of us who have been killed, and I tell you, Sergeant, being with you is the safest I’ve felt in a year.”

“A year?”

I resisted an impulse to reach across the table and take her hands. If she was delusional, I was buying right in.

When the table was cleared, Millie said thanks to a coffee refill and picked up where she’d left off. It felt like she’d been waiting a long time for someone to listen to her. To help her.

“It’s obscene,” Millie said. “I can’t be exact, but I can count three other killings, Sergeant Boxer, and none of them have been properly investigated. I saw your picture in the paper after the bombing, and I felt something for you. Like a connection.”

As we stood to go, I told Millie I would follow up, giving her my card.

“Do you have a phone?”

“Sometimes I forget to charge it,” she said. But she pulled an old flip phone from her pocket and showed me.

I forced some small bills on her, then told her I’d look into the case of Jimmy Dolan. I paid the tab and headed back to the Hall.

I thought about Millie as I walked. She was well spoken. Seemed educated and sane. Her story and Millie herself were believable.

I wondered how she’d ended up on the street.

As I climbed the Hall of Justice steps, I felt light-headed. I had lied to Millie when I said I’d had breakfast. I’d gulped coffee and kissed my family good-bye, expecting to have another cup of coffee at my desk. Honestly, I hadn’t felt hungry, which wasn’t normal for me. I took the elevator to the fourth floor and entered the Homicide squad room.