Inmate 1577

41

Vail slept fitfully, a direct result of the shock she had gotten last night. Her dreams were filled with memories of New York, her former partner, and the unrelated bank robbery shootout that accelerated her ascendance to the Behavioral Analysis Unit. The latter episode shook her awake in a drenched sweat at 4:20am. Fortunately, her thrashing and subsequent trip to the bathroom to wipe herself down did not wake Dixon.

Before returning to bed, she woke Dixon’s laptop and, keeping the screen brightness turned down to its lowest setting, did a search to see what she could learn about Mike Hartman. She found a press release from three years ago. He was in the Elk City, Oklahoma, resident agency-a substantial step down from his New York assignment when she partnered with him. She was unsure what caused such a demotion; although Hartman was nowhere near the sharpest agent she had worked with, he was serviceable. He had faulted her for a prior hiccup in his career path. Could he blame me for this one, too?

There were no other references to him, which was not unusual. It was, in fact, what she expected to find. Unless agents made the news in a major case, they preferred to stay out of the media-and off Internet search engines.

Vail put the PC back to sleep-and attempted to do the same for herself-but found that simple task elusive. She lay awake for the next two hours before Green Day began blasting from KFOG, the radio station to which Dixon had set the alarm. Her partner wanted to wake up early to squeeze in a workout before heading off to the station.

Vail accompanied her, and while Dixon pumped iron, Vail pumped her legs on the elliptical. Keeping her quads and hamstrings strong, particularly following her knee surgery, was a pledge she had made after all the sprinting and climbing she had engaged in during her Napa exploits.

On the way up the stairs of the Bryant Street entrance, and running about fifteen minutes late, Vail told Dixon she needed to make a pit stop in the restroom. If Dixon thought it strange that she would need to go again, after leaving the hotel only moments ago, she did not let on.

“Make it fast,” she said. “Allman’s waiting on us.”

Instead of walking into the bathroom, Vail exited the stairwell on the third floor and dialed a number she had called so frequently that it stuck in her brain like the hundreds of crime scene images she had been unable to scrub from her memory. A male voice answered.

“I’m looking for Eugenia,” Vail said. “Is she there?”

“Who is this?”

“I need to talk with Eugenia Zachry. Is this her number?”

“I don’t know who you are,” the voice said, a bit more hostile now, “but Eugenia passed on six months ago.” Click.

Vail’s heart slowed and her eyes teared up. Still holding the phone against her ear, she wiped away the moisture with thumb and index finger, then put away her BlackBerry. She wanted to ask the details-how it had happened, what the disposition of Eugenia’s daughter was-but it was best that the man had hung up on her.

Vail took a moment to compose herself, then brought her thoughts back to the present. Eugenia was not the offender’s source of information. But would Eugenia have told anyone about what she had done? Eugenia was, at the end of the day, an informant who made stacks of money selling information of value to others. Or could she have crossed paths with the person who would come to be known as the Bay Killer? Though both were possible, neither was likely-yet at the same time, they could not be definitively ruled out.

Given the law of attraction-if you move in scummy circles, you attract scummy people-it was more than just possible.

She again dialed Eugenia’s number. No answer, no machine.

There was still Mike Hartman. She glanced at her phone and noticed the time. Crap. Allman was supposedly upstairs going through the prior cases.

Vail walked up one more flight and entered Homicide, where the unofficial task force was already assembled and waiting, including Clay Allman.

“Nice of you to join us,” Burden said.

“Sorry-I had to…sorry.” She settled herself atop the worktable and took the manila file from Allman. “This is the first one?”

Allman looked up as he shifted the remaining folders in his hands. “I’d label that one the second. First being the one in ’82. Edgar Newhall.”

Dixon reached over and made a point of counting the files Allman was holding. “You’re saying there are nine prior kills attributed to the same killer?”

“Whoa, hang on a second,” Allman said. “No. That’s not what I said. These are all cold, unsolved cases. I see a few things that are common in them. That’s it. As to whether or not they’re the work of the same killer, well, I think that’s the job of Agent Vail here.” He turned to her.

Burden sat down in his chair, backwards, his chest against the seatback. “Why don’t you walk us through these? Capsule summaries.”

“Fine.” Allman took the folder from Vail, set it on the table and opened it. “You’ve got that ’82 murder, Edgar Newhall, where the killer left the brass key by the body. Key type matches the one found on the current-”

“Yeah, we got that one.”

“Right. So the second one.” Allman slid the top paper aside. “Back in ’84, Terry Lindahl was murdered and his body was found on a ferry at Pier 33. Killed during the night and discovered in the morning by a dock worker. He was tied to the mast.”

“Really,” Vail said. “That’s interesting. Any brass keys?”

“No.”

“COD?” Friedberg asked.

“Blunt force trauma to the face and head.”

“Weapon?” Vail asked.

Allman flipped a page, revealing handwritten notes on yellow legal paper. “Wounds were jagged and bloody, consistent with a ‘vesicular igneous rock’ found at the scene.” He turned the sheet over. “Oh-and there was a stab wound to the left kidney. Knife not found. Could’ve been dumped in the water.”

Dixon said, “Occupation?”

Allman turned another page, then another. “Homeless. They were only able to ID him because his fingerprints were on record. He did time in the state and federal prison systems back in the fifties and sixties.”

“Okay,” Friedberg said, inserting an unlit Marlboro between his lips. “Next one.”

Allman moved on to the next folder. “Oh, yeah. This was a strange one. You may remember this one, Birdie. It was a front-pager. Donald Wright, ’87. He was found in front of an Army surplus store.”

“I do remember that one. Investigation led nowhere.”

“COD?” Vail asked.

“Strangulation. Manual, according to the ME.” He glanced through the file. A yellowed newspaper clipping from the front page of the San Francisco Tribune was preserved in a plastic sleeve. Allman moved it gingerly aside. “And before you ask. No key.”

“And who was this Wright guy?”

“Postal worker.” He moved another newspaper clipping aside. “Oh, yeah. This guy-he was one of the survivors of the shooting when that gunman opened up with a submachine gun in the Oakland sorting facility. That was back in ’85. I think you guys looked into a possible connection, but nothing was found.”

“No stabbing and no head trauma?” Vail asked.

“Nope.”

“Then why did you think this was related to the others?”

Allman sucked on his teeth and stared at the open folder. “Not sure. Can’t remember. Maybe because the body was found in a strange place, like the others? You tell me.”

“Hell if I know,” Vail said with a shrug. “Nothing I see here that would link them.”

“What else do you have?” Dixon asked.

Allman closed the Wright file and spread open the next one. “Billy Duncan. Carpenter. Found with his tongue excised and his mouth propped open by an ice cream stick.”

“Someone didn’t like what Billy had to say,” Vail said.

“No key. COD was…” Allman flipped through the file and found his notes. “Gunshot to the abdomen. He bled out.”

Burden leaned back in his chair. It popped out from underneath him, but he caught himself in time to keep from landing on his rear. He swung the chair around and sat properly in the seat. “Where was Billy found?”

“In a school recreation yard in Berkeley.”

Vail, Dixon, Friedberg, and Burden exchanged shrugs.

“What else?” Vail said.

“How old are all these guys?” Dixon asked.

“Mid-forties to mid-fifties,” Allman said. “I can look through the files and give you-”

“We can do that,” Burden said. “Continue.”

Vail’s vision blurred as she focused on what Allman had just said. That would put them around the same age as the current vics, if they’d lived. There’s something with that. But what?

“What do you think, Karen?”

Vail looked up. “Huh?”

“Any thoughts so far on linkage?” Dixon asked. “What’s the common factor?”

“I’m not sure there is any. Not yet, anyway. I need to spend time with the files. Wait-we don’t have crime scene photos or ME reports, do we?”

“Lost in the fire,” Burden said.

“I’ve got some stuff in the folders,” Allman said. “But nothing approaching what was in the original SFPD files.”

“What year was Billy Duncan murdered?” Vail asked.

“Ninety.”

“Hmm.” Every two to three years. Maybe there is a pattern here. Something I’m not seeing. What?

“Then there’s Martin Tumaco, owner of the Mercury Dream Research Lab. A life preserver had been overinflated and it choked him. His brain was deprived of oxygen and he basically died of brain damage.”

Burden pointed. “I remember that one. A buddy of mine caught that case. He was found in one of the flotation tanks. Went nowhere. No forensics, no leads, no suspects. Zippo.”

“And why did you pull that one?” Dixon asked.

“Just because of the unusual location of the body. And the COD. He was strangled, like the other vic. But it wasn’t manual.” Allman took a breath, then shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the others. Maybe none of these are related. I just had a feeling these all have a connection. But I’m just a reporter covering a beat. You people are the experts. You might decide none of these have anything to do with anything.”

“Did any of these vics have numbers written on their foreheads?” Friedberg asked.

Allman lifted his brow. “No. None of them. I’d definitely remember that.”

“When was this last one?” Vail asked.

Allman pulled open the file again and peered in. “Ninety-five.”

Vail sighed deeply and sat back against the wall. So much for my theory…but then again, this whole exercise is totally inaccurate to begin with. These vics may be related, but they may not be. There could be others Allman missed or doesn’t know about. Or the offender could’ve been in the joint for something completely unrelated, disrupting his pattern. This isn’t helping.

“What happened with that ice cream vendor?” Dixon asked. “The carts at the Palace of Fine Arts?”

Friedberg rubbed at his eyes. “Company called North Beach Vending runs the show. They keep the carts locked away in a storage area behind the building. One of ’em went missing a day before we found the body. They found it in back in storage the day after. I had it brought over to the lab, but we’re not gonna find anything.”

“Who has access to that storage room?” Burden asked.

“Anyone with a bolt cutter. Just a simple padlock.”

Allman laughed. “If you aren’t a serial killer looking to transport a body, I guess there isn’t much of a market for beat-up tin boxes on wheels.”

As Vail was about to suggest they move on, Burden’s phone rang.

He listened, then said, “Yeah, okay. Got it.” He hung up. “We found Roberta Strayhan’s husband.”