10th Anniversary

Chapter 43

THAT SUNDAY was all mine.

I had ordered eggs and hash browns at Louis’, a greasy spoon on Point Lobos Avenue. It was a great barn of a place, built in 1937 on a cliff overlooking the ocean. True, Louis’ drew tourists, but it was still a local hangout, especially in the early morning.

The day was still too young for tourists, so Louis’ was full of regulars, mostly runners and walkers from the coastal trail at Lands End, now relaxing and reading papers at the counter. Nobody was bothering anyone.

I sighed with contentment.

From my seat in a booth, I had a view of the Sutro Baths at Lands End and I could also see my parking spot in front of Louis’ and Martha in the driver’s seat of my Explorer. Before coming here, we’d made a stop at Crissy Field so that Martha could run on a sandy beach and swim in the surf of the bay.

“Careful, the plate’s not,” the waitress said, setting down my breakfast. She refilled my chunky brown mug with fresh-brewed Colombian java.

“Thanks. It looks perfect,” I said.

My cell phone rang, just as I picked up my fork. Why was I so goddamned popular? I looked at my phone, but didn’t recognize the name on the caller ID. Who was W. Steihl?

Should I take the call? Or should I let it go to voice mail?

I flipped a quarter and smacked it on the back of my hand. I took a peek.

“Boxer,” I said with a sigh into the phone.

“Sergeant Boxer, this is Wilhelmina Steihl. Willy. I met you the other day at Brighton?”

Now, I remembered her. Willy Steihl was one of Avis Richardson’s school friends. She had shiny black hair to her shoulders and steel-rimmed glasses, and she wore bright red lipstick.

I also remembered how hesitant she was to talk to Rich and me a few days ago, but from the sound of her voice, she had something urgent to tell me now.

“I couldn’t say anything when you were here,” Willy Steihl said to me. “People would have figured out that I was the rat.”

“Let’s not worry about being a rat,” I said. “Rats can be heroes, too. Do you know where we can find Avis’s baby?”

“No, no, I don’t know that. I’m a friend of Larry Foster? He said I should call you. Are you near a computer?”

“No, but my phone is pretty slick. What should I look up?”

“I want to show you some pictures. On Facebook. But I don’t want to give you my password.”

The kid was worrying about a password — something she could change in a couple of keystrokes — but I didn’t want to go balls to the wall with her. Willy was a minor. She didn’t have to talk to me at all.

“What if I meet you at your dorm?” I said. I signaled to the waitress to bring me my check.

“Not there. I don’t want anyone to see me talking to you,” Willy said.

I stifled a groan and told her I’d meet her at the entrance to 850 Bryant in an hour.

“I’ll be there,” Willy told me.

Was she going to help me find Avis’s baby? Or was this going to be another lead to nowhere?

I put a ten and a fiver on top of the check and left Louis’ still hungry.

Chapter 44

IT WAS JUST ABOUT TEN and an overcast sixty-four degrees when I rolled the window down a few inches for Martha and left my car in the lot across from the Hall.

Willy Steihl was not outside the large granite cube where I worked, so I waited on the corner, tapping my foot as traffic breezed by at a steady clip even for a Sunday.

Ten minutes later, a cab draw up curbside and I opened the door for young Willy Steihl. She said hi and, keeping a good six feet between us, followed me through the double glass doors into the red-marbled lobby of the Hall of Justice.

Willy took off her belt, put it in a tote, and went through the scanners at the entrance. I badged security and took the girl with black hair, black clothes, and a bite-me expression up to the squad room, where the swing shift was at work.

I asked Sergeant Bob Nardone if I could use my desk, and he said, “Sure, Boxer. And I should do what? Work on my air computer?”

“Get up, Nardone. Heat up your coffee. Take a break. We won’t be long.”

I commandeered the desk chair, and Willy Steihl stood beside me as I logged on to my account. Then I gave the girl my chair so she could enter her information on my computer.

She hunched over the keyboard as she typed in her password and ID, saying, “Give me a second, okay? I’m opening the folder I was telling you about.”

I was drumming my fingers on my desk as Willy Steihl tapped on the keys. Finally she said, “Got it.”

I turned the monitor toward me and stared at a picture of a soccer game. Kids were flying across the field, the ball was in play, and people were cheering at the sidelines. A typical high-school sports event.

“See,” she said. “This was us against the Warriors. I was taking pictures of Larry.”

She enlarged the picture, focusing not on the field but on the people watching the game. I saw Avis Richardson with her profile to the camera, wearing Burberry-plaid pajama bottoms and a school sweatshirt that effectively hid her pregnancy.

She was standing very close to a tall, dark, and handsome man who, to my eyes, was definitely not a student.

Willy clicked the mouse and another picture came up, then another, and with each picture she enlarged the frame and closed in on Avis Richardson. In one of the pictures, I saw that Avis’s hand was tucked into the hand of the good-looking man.

“Who is that?” I asked Willy.

“That’s Mr. Ritter. He teaches sophomore English,” she said.

“What are you implying, Willy? Don’t make me guess.”

The girl squirmed in the chair.

“Willy. Do not waste my time.”

I wanted to give her a good shake, but she made up her mind without more help from me.

“We all knew that Avis and Mr. Ritter were close,” she said. “She got excellent grades in English, so we thought she was his favorite student, or maybe they were really close. You know what I mean? Because Avis lied when she told you that she was dating Larry Foster.

“She wasn’t dating him. I am.”

Chapter 45

WILLY STEIHL had dropped a bomb.

She was leading me to believe that there was a relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her English teacher. What the hell was that? Statutory rape, that’s what it was, a crime that could come with jail time for Mr. Ritter if he was convicted. And, if he’d been involved in the death of a baby? He’d be serving life in a federal prison.

I said to Willy, “Apart from these pictures, is there anything else you can tell me? Did Avis say anything to you about Mr. Ritter? Have you ever seen them alone together?”

Willy Steihl shrugged, then shook her head no. She looked as though she were trying to disappear through the back of the chair.

“Willy, this is very helpful and it’s also very serious. Could Mr. Ritter be the father of Avis’s baby?”

“I don’t know. I just wanted you to see the pictures and draw your own conclusions, okay?”

Not okay.

“A baby is missing, Willy. Try to imagine what Avis must be feeling. What her parents are going through. That little boy is helpless. He may be alone. He may be dying. If you know anything that could help us find him, you have to tell me. It’s your obligation. In fact, if you know something and don’t tell me, that makes you an accessory to a crime.”

“I shouldn’t have come,” said the girl in black, scrambling out of the chair, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. “I don’t know anything. I have to get out of here.”

I hadn’t been subtle. I’d hammered the kid and threatened her, and now she was done. I wished for the thousandth time that I had even 10 percent of Conklin’s tact. I offered Willy a lift back to school, but she said, “I’ll get a taxi. Don’t mention me to anyone, please.”

“I have to use my judgment, Willy.”

She looked at me like I was going to sink my fangs into her neck and then left the squad room without closing out her Facebook account.

Sergeant Nardone swooped in like a condor. I told him to keep his pants on, then took the opportunity to pry.

I tapped on the keyboard, did a search for photo tags for Ritter, and found more pictures of the English teacher on Willy’s home pages and on those of her friends.

According to the Web chat and notes written on virtual walls, Ritter was frequently discussed by the girls in Willy’s circle. Many of them commented on his good looks and his manner in class and speculated about what he’d be like in bed.

I clicked on the link to Avis Richardson’s home page. I’d seen her page when Joe suggested it, but now I was looking with a specific purpose. I scrutinized photos of Avis mugging with Larry Foster, doing shots with girlfriends at parties, and cheering at sporting events — but there was not one picture of her with Jordan Ritter.

I cut and pasted what I might need later into an e-mail that I then sent to myself. After that, I closed down the computer and gave Nardone back his chair.

“You’re a gent, Nardone.”

“Don’t mention it, Boxer. By the way, I ate your Cheetos in the bottom drawer.”

“I knew that,” I said, pointing to the orange prints on a drawer pull. Nardone laughed. “You’re good,” he said.

I called Richie twice on my way out to my car. Both times I got his voice mail, and after the second time, I left a message. “I’ve got a lead, Rich. Good one. Call me.”

Next, I called Jordan Ritter. I told Ritter I was working the abduction of Avis Richardson and hoped he could give me some insights into her personality.

Ritter said, “I don’t know her all that well, but sure, I’ll be happy to help.”

Jordan Ritter lived only a few blocks from Brighton Academy. I drove Martha home, then headed east along California to Broderick.

It was still early on Sunday afternoon when I parked my car on the pretty residential block near the corner of Broderick and Pine. The building where Ritter lived was a three-story apartment house, Italianate, clay-colored, trimmed in white, with two columns of bay windows.

He lived on the ground floor.

I rang the bell in the alcove and said my name into the speaker. Ritter’s footsteps got louder as he came to the door.

Chapter 46

JORDAN RITTER OPENED THE DOOR of his apartment, placed one palm on the doorjamb, and, taking his time, looked me over.

I was doing the same to him.

Ritter was in his early thirties, fit, unshaven, good hair, good teeth, and was wearing a T-shirt and Burberry pajama bottoms. I’d seen Avis Richardson wearing pajamas just like those.

A trend? A coincidence? Or had Avis been wearing her boyfriend’s pj’s?

“Well, look at you,” he said.

The nervy bastard was hitting on me.

“Mr. Ritter? I’m Sergeant Boxer,” I snapped. I also flashed my badge.

“Come in. Can I get you some coffee? I just made it.”

I said, “Sure,” and walked around him into the apartment.

The place had a prepackaged look, as if it had been rented furnished or bought all in one day in a department store. I followed Ritter through the living room, noticing the Sunday paper on the floor and a couple of coffee mugs on the low table in front of the couch.

Anyone with an online degree in Forensics for Dummies could’ve figured out that Ritter had had a sleepover guest. Or else he was cagey and had staged a red herring for my benefit.

In the kitchen Ritter said, “Cream and sugar, Sergeant?”

“Black will be fine.”

“Like I said on the phone,” Ritter said, “I hardly know Avis. She’s in my class this year, but apart from her grades — which were excellent — I don’t know much about her.”

I followed Ritter back into the living room and took a chair opposite the one he sprawled in.

“I think we both know that’s not true,” I said.

Ritter laughed.

“You’re saying I’m lying? Golly. That’s bold.”

“Mr. Ritter, let’s just get to the point, okay? So I can get out of here and you can have your weekend back. How well did you know Avis Richardson? I have witnesses who say the two of you were very close.”

“Aw, come on. A lot of girls like me. It’s a cliché for schoolgirls to get crushes on their teachers. I didn’t even notice Avis. That’s the truth.”

“I have photos that show otherwise.”

“Photos. Of what? Oh, now I get it. Willy Steihl has been talking to you. Don’t you know, Sergeant, how jealous these girls can get? Willy has been stalking me for most of the year.”

“Is that so?”

“That’s so. There are no incriminating photos of me and Avis because I hardly know her. Is there anything else?”

“Yes. In case the baby shows up, I’d like to prove that it isn’t yours.” I pulled a buccal swab kit from my pocket and said, “It’s a cheek swab. Takes less than a second.”

“I can’t do something like that, Sergeant. I mean, if I’m a suspect, you should talk to my dad. He’s listed in the phone book under attorneys-at-law.”

“I’ll note that you didn’t want to cooperate. That’s all for now.”

“Well, thanks for stopping by, Sergeant.”

I put my card on his coffee table between the two coffee cups and left Ritter’s apartment. My phone rang as soon as I strapped into my car. Rich.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey-hey,” he sang into the phone.

“Congratulations, partner,” I said. “Don’t screw it up.”

He thanked me, told me that he was the happiest guy in the world. When I could get a couple of words in, I told him about my morning.

“You’re saying that you suspect Ritter of getting Avis pregnant?”

“I’ve got a picture on Facebook of Avis and Ritter holding hands. All that means is that he’s a liar, which is something and nothing at the same time. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

“You bet,” he said.

It was now a week since Avis had gotten into a black or dark blue sedan driven by a French-speaking man, taken a drive to somewhere or nowhere, and had her baby in a field by the lake or in a bed lit by an aluminum lamp.

It would be a miracle if her baby was still alive.

Chapter 47

“AVIS ISN’T HERE,” Paul Richardson said when he let me into their suite. He invited me in and offered me a drink, which I turned down. It was only three in the afternoon, but he was swaying on his feet as he made his way around the coffee table to an armchair.

“Avis wanted to go out and see her friends,” Sonja told me. “She was feeling better and said she wanted to ‘hang out.’”

I wondered if she’d been hanging out with Jordan Ritter just before I arrived at his door.

“She’ll be back here for dinner,” her father said to me. “And she wants to go back to class tomorrow. I guess there’s no reason to say no.”

“Is there any news, Sergeant? Please give me some hope,” Sonja Richardson said. Avis’s mother looked wrung out and had her arms wrapped tightly around her body as if to hold herself together.

“We have almost nothing to go on,” I told her. “There was no ad on Prattslist that matched the one your daughter said she answered. I can’t explain that, can you?”

“She’s like any kid. She makes things up. I don’t know if you should believe her or not.”

“Has she ever mentioned her English teacher? Mr. Jordan Ritter.”

“Dear?” Sonja Richardson asked her husband. “Has Avis mentioned Jordan Ritter?”

Paul Richardson was swirling his drink and didn’t look up or answer.

“I don’t think I’ve heard her talking about him recently, although I remember she was happy about being in his class,” Sonja Richardson said. “He’s a novelist, you know. And Avis thinks she’d like to write someday. Why are you asking about Mr. Ritter? Does he know something?”

“His name came up. I met him. He says he hardly knows Avis. Which is what she says about him, too.”

Sonja Richardson touched the corner of an eye with a tissue. “I guess we just have to get used to the idea that the baby is gone. But it’s hard, Sergeant. We never saw him. We don’t even know for sure if he’s alive or dead.”

When I got home at dusk, Joe was on the doorstep. I saw his wonderful smile from a hundred feet away. I ran and threw my arms around his neck and jumped into his arms, locking my legs around his waist. Joe’s hug was the warmest, safest place in my world.

“Let’s make a baby,” I said.

“If it involves sex, I’m in,” Joe said.

It did. And he was.

Chapter 48

AFTER CINDY TOOK a couple of giddy laps around the office to show off her sparkly new engagement ring, she closed her office door and got to work. Line one was flashing, and she answered it as she logged on to her crime-tipsters blog.

She announced her name into the mouthpiece, and the man on the other end of the line announced his.

“This is Red Sanchez.”

“Ray Sanchez?”

“Red. The color. I think I saw something that could help you with that story you wrote about the guy raping women.”

“Okay, I’m listening. Whatcha got?”

Cindy adjusted her headphones and mic, opened a blank page in Word, and typed Red Sanchez in the top-left-hand corner with the phone number she took off the caller ID.

“That large woman who was on the TV?”

“I know who you mean,” Cindy said.

Sanchez was talking about Inez Fleming.

“They didn’t show her face, but I recognized her anyway.”

“When did you see her?” Cindy asked.

“It was night before last. I was walking my dog on Baker Street, right near the corner of Clay. Sadie is old. If I don’t walk her when she whines, it’s a mess on the carpet and my wife goes crazy —”

“Mr. Sanchez.”

“Call me Red.”

“Red, when you saw the woman you think might have been the one who was interviewed on TV, what was she doing?”

“She was doing nothing. That woman was out. I mean O-U-T. I thought she was drunk. Maybe she was drunk. The driver was half holding her up, half dragging her toward an apartment building. Here. I got the address. It’s not too far from my place.”

Sanchez read off the numbers of a house address on Baker Street. It was a few numbers from Inez Fleming’s home address, but then, Inez had woken up in an alley near her building. Cindy typed the house number on her file.

“Red, what do you mean ‘driver’? Driver of what?”

“Sorry. I thought I said it was a taxi. Like one of those minivan types.”

”What color was this minivan?” she asked. “Any marks or signs, or maybe you saw a phone number on the van’s door?”

Sanchez said, “It was a regular yellow-cab-color minivan. I think I did see something, like an ad on the back of it. Like for a movie. The name eludes me. I’ll think about it.”

“What about the driver? Did you get a good look at him?”

“Nah. I was putting my newspaper down for Sadie. I saw this man, he had dark hair, I think. Yeah, I know, that’s quite a clue. Anyway, this man was half dragging this lady along the sidewalk. I thought, ‘Man, is she drunk,’ and by the time my dog had done her business, both of them were gone.”

Cindy thanked Sanchez and asked him to call again if he remembered anything else. Then she called Richie.

“Sweetheart? I think I’ve got a lead on the serial rapist.”

Chapter 49

YUKI AND NICK Gaines were leaving her office on the way to court that Monday morning, a half hour early, as Yuki insisted they be.

Nick looked Yuki up and down and said, “Something’s different about you this morning.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re smiling,” he said.

“You’re saying I don’t smile?”

“You don’t smile on the way to court. Huh. I know what it is. You had sex, didn’t you? I’m staring at post — boom boom glow, right?”

Yuki laughed. “No. Shut up. I had a doughnut. I’m on a sugar high and you’re not the Mentalist. I hope Angela Walker shows up. What did you think? Did she sound solid to you?”

“She sounded eager. It would be crazy if she didn’t show.”

They were now walking the long green-floored corridor that was the feeder artery to the courtrooms. Panels of fluorescent buzzed overhead. Yuki tipped her chin up to signal Nicky as she passed the woman sitting on one of the backless benches along the wall, talking to a bailiff.

It was Angela Walker, their surprise witness.

Walker was forty, had spun-sugar, strawberry-blond hair piled on top of her head, and was wearing a V-necked French-blue sweater and a dark blazer and tailored pants. Yuki thought, If Angela Walker’s testimony is half as good as she looks, this witness will do fine.

Yuki and Nick entered 3B, walked to the prosecution table, and nodded to Hoffman and his second chair, Kara Battinelli, one of those brainy grads a couple of years out of Boalt Law.

Battinelli gave Yuki a cat-that-got-the-cream look — which Yuki returned in kind.

Nick set up his laptop and Yuki’s and got them both squared away before the proceedings began.

The bailiff, a bald and expressionless man in a green uniform, called court into session, and Judge LaVan entered the packed courtroom, wearing a scowl. The gallery rose and then sat, causing a rustle to bounce and boomerang off the oak paneling. When the room was quiet again, LaVan greeted the jury.

Then, he said, “Ms. Castellano. You’re up.”

Yuki stood and asked that Ms. Angela Walker be called.

All eyes swiveled toward the aisle as a woman who, even to Yuki’s eyes, looked edible made her languid way to the witness stand and was sworn in.

Chapter 50

“MS. WALKER,” YUKI said to her lovely looking witness, “do you know the defendant, Dr. Candace Martin?”

“I’ve never met her. But of course I know who she is.”

“Did you know her husband, Dennis Martin?”

“Yes. I was seeing Dennis for a couple of years. Until about a month before his death.”

Yuki tucked her hair behind her ears and said to Walker, “By ‘seeing’ Dennis Martin, do you mean you were having a sexual relationship with him?”

“Yes. I saw him two, three nights a week.”

“And you knew he was married?”

“Yes. Yes. I knew. But he told me his marriage was a sham. He was staying with his wife for the sake of the kids.”

Yuki liked what the witness was saying and the way she was saying it. She was calm and sounded credible and honest.

“Ms. Walker, can you tell the court why your relationship with Mr. Martin ended?”

“He told me he was seeing someone else and that it was serious. He said he just couldn’t contain the messiness of his social life anymore.”

“Did you believe him?”

“Oh yes. He was a hound. A goat. A snake. A shark. A skunk. Pick your animal, and that was Dennis.”

“And where were you when Dennis was killed?”

“Sydney, Australia. As far away from him as I could get.”

“Ms. Walker. Did you call the Martin house while you were in Sydney?”

“I hate to admit it, but I called Candace. Might have set this whole debacle into motion.”

“Really. Could you be more specific?”

“I was heartbroken. I wanted to get back at Dennis, so I called Candace and told her about my two-year affair with her husband. And I told her that he was still seeing someone.”

“Did you know who Dennis was seeing?”

“Nope. Didn’t have a clue.”

“And how did Candace Martin react to your phone call?”

“She was really cold. She said, ‘You’re right. He’s an animal. Someone ought to put him down. I might do it myself.’”

“Thank you. Your witness,” Yuki said, walking away.

Chapter 51

PHIL HOFFMAN STOOD UP behind the defense table. He looked well rested and at the top of his game, a study in gray pinstripes and old school tie.

Yuki took note of the way the jurors looked at Phil. They liked him.

“Ms. Walker, you don’t like Candace Martin, do you?” Hoffman asked.

“I don’t dislike her. Like I said, I’ve never met her.”

“Well, you clearly had no regard for her. You were sleeping with her husband for two years, knowing full well that he had a home, two young children, and a wife. Isn’t that right?”

“Your Honor, counsel is leading the witness.”

“Sustained. Don’t do that, Mr. Hoffman.”

“Sorry, Your Honor.”

Hoffman jingled the coins in his pocket, turned back to the witness, and asked, “Do you have any regard for the defendant?”

“Not really.” The woman squirmed in her seat. Patted her hair.

“In fact,” said Hoffman, “you don’t care if Candace lives or dies. Excuse me. Let me make that a question. Ms. Walker, do you care if Candace Martin lives or dies?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Would it be fair to say about you that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?”

“Your Honor!” Yuki said.

Hoffman smiled and said, “I have nothing further for this witness.”

Chapter 52

YUKI WAS AT the bar in MacBain’s when Cindy breezed in, looking like she’d sprouted wings. She was obviously that over-the-moon happy. Yuki hugged her friend and said, “I hope this high you’re on is contagious.”

“Me, too,” said Cindy.

Yuki grinned and patted the stool next to her, and as Cindy flung herself onto the seat, Yuki said, “Tell me all about that bended-knee proposal in front of God and all his angels.”

Cindy laughed and Yuki leaned in to hear all about it — and Cindy didn’t spare any detail.

Yuki had always liked Rich. It was rare to find a guy who was both movie-star gorgeous and not in love with himself. Yuki knew Rich to be the opposite of a narcissist. He was a genuinely sweet guy of the old-fashioned, chivalrous kind. Perfect man for Cindy.

And now Yuki was dating a cop, too.

A married one.

“Hey, I’ve done all the talking,” Cindy said. “I think that’s a first. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Yuki blurted, “I’m going out with Jackson Brady.”

“No. You are not,” Cindy said. “Are you kidding me?”

Yuki took a look around to make sure Brady hadn’t come inside the saloon while she wasn’t looking.

“I swear. It’s true.”

“Holy cow,” Cindy said, the shocked look on her face saying that she was way impressed. “Tell me everything. Don’t leave out a word.”

Yuki laughed, then filled her friend in on the whole story: the conferences with Brady regarding the Martin case, their first date at First Crush, a cool wine bar and restaurant, perfectly named. And she told Cindy about her date with Brady Friday night at Renegade.

“He told me things about himself that were pretty revealing.”

“Did you sleep with him?” Cindy asked.

“Everyone is so interested in my sex life. Why?”

“Well, did you?”

“No. No, I didn’t. But I wanted to.”

“When are you seeing him again?”

“Well … if I remember correctly, Saturday night,” Yuki said, with a coy smile.

“Hah! Well, I have a feeling you’re going to have another chance to get his clothes off. Jeez. You’d better tell me all about it, girlfriend. I’m not kidding. This, I gotta hear.”

The waiter carried their drinks to a small table by the window. He brought their lunches right after that, saying, “Please be careful. These plates are hot. Can I get you ladies another drink?”

Yuki passed on a second beer and removed the onions from her burger and cut it in half. “I find Brady tremendously attractive,” she said.

“Who doesn’t?” said Cindy, taking aim at her fries with a ketchup bottle, thwacking the bottom. “He’s like Don Johnson in that old show Miami Vice. Tubbs. No, Crockett.”

“One problem,” Yuki said.

“Only one?”

“He’s married. Lindsay says.”

“Wait. He’s married? And he didn’t tell you?”

“No, but he will. Don’t forget what I do for a living.”

“Be careful, Yuki. You’re hooked, you’re cooked. That plate is hot.”

“I’m on it,” Yuki said. “I am.” She finished most of her burger, checked her watch, and pictured setting off Judge LaVan if she was late. “Crap. I’ve got to go.”

“I’ll get the check,” Cindy said.

“But I’m taking you out to lunch.”

“Next time,” Cindy said.

Yuki dabbed her lips with a napkin, kissed Cindy’s cheek, and rubbed her engagement ring with her thumb as if making a wish on Aladdin’s lamp. With Cindy’s laughter in her ears, Yuki ran out of the bar.

Chapter 53

YUKI’S WITNESS LOOKED surprised but pleased to find himself the center of attention.

“Mr. White, you own a store called Oldies But Goodies on Pierce?” she asked him.

“Yes, that’s right. On Pierce near Haight.”

“And what do you sell in your store?”

“Lots of different things. Jukeboxes. Musical instruments. Vinyl LPs. Odds and ends.”

“Do you sell guns?”

“Rarely, but yes.”

“In April of last year, did you sell a twenty-two-caliber Smith and Wesson handgun to Mr. Dennis Martin?”

“Yes. He had a license to carry. I checked it and I checked his driver’s license. It was him.”

“Your Honor,” Yuki said, “I’d like to admit this receipt, which documents the sale of a twenty-two Smith and Wesson handgun to Dennis Martin.”

Yuki handed the sales slip up to the judge, who passed it to the clerk, who showed it to Phil Hoffman.

“Any objections, Mr. Hoffman?” LaVan asked.

“None.”

“People’s exhibit number thirty is admitted into evidence,” LaVan said.

Yuki asked, “When did you contact the police, Mr. White?”

“Last week. When I saw the story about this trial in the paper. I recognized Mr. Martin’s picture.”

“Thank you, sir. Your witness,” Yuki said to opposing counsel.

Hoffman stood, walked across the well, and greeted the witness.

“Mr. White, I think you know that the serial number of the gun you sold Mr. Martin is not on the sales receipt. Did you file a transfer of registration, as required?”

“I’m not a gun dealer. I’m in the antiques business. I bought that gun as part of a box lot at an auction last year.”

“So you didn’t comply with the law?”

“Like I just said, I didn’t even know there was a gun in the box I bought for thirty bucks. I’m not a gun dealer. I work alone in the store. Man comes in, sees the gun in the case. He also bought a fountain pen. And a book on electricity from the 1920s. These things are memorabilia. I wrote up a receipt. I didn’t know I had to file anything. Look, I checked his gun license. I don’t think a lot of people with my kind of business would even have done that.”

Stephen White cast his eyes toward Yuki as if to say, “Did I just get into trouble here?”

Hoffman continued his cross-examination.

“So, to be clear, you didn’t write down the serial number of the gun you sold to Mr. Martin on the receipt. Do you have the serial number anywhere?”

“Extremely doubtful.”

“So there’s no way to know if the gun you sold Dennis Martin is the gun that killed him, isn’t that right?”

“I didn’t say I did know.”

“That’s all, Mr. White. Thank you.”

The judge folded his hands on his desk. “Redirect, Ms. Castellano?”

“Yes, Your Honor.”

Yuki opened the folder in front of her, pulled a photograph from the file, and walked toward the witness. This was going just the way she’d hoped it would.

“Mr. White. This is a picture of the murder gun, a Smith and Wesson twenty-two. Is this the type of gun you sold to Mr. Martin?”

“Yes.”

“How many of these guns did you sell in April last year?”

“I sold just the one.”

“How many twenty-two Smith and Wesson guns did you sell in the entire year?”

“I sold just the one.”

“To Mr. Dennis Martin?”

“Yes, exactly like I said. I wrote his name on that receipt.”

“Thanks, Mr. White. I’m finished, Your Honor.”

Yuki kept her expression neutral as she walked back to the prosecution table, but she was doing handsprings in her mind.

White was a very credible witness. He’d checked Dennis Martin’s gun license and driver’s license and he’d positively identified Dennis Martin from his photo. And he’d positively sold Dennis Martin a gun.

It wasn’t proof — but it was damning testimony.

Yuki waited for Stephen White to step down from the box and then called her next witness.

Chapter 54

I STOOD IN THE BACK of the packed courtroom watching Yuki interrogate level-two investigator Sharon Carothers, the CSI who had tested Candace Martin’s hands for GSR less than a half hour after Dennis Martin was gunned down.

I’d known Carothers for about four years and had worked a dozen cases with her, and I had never known her to make a mistake. She went strictly by the book but knew how to look around corners without breaking the rules.

“Ms. Carothers, are you the lead investigator on the Martin case?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Did you test Dr. Martin’s hands for gunshot residue at approximately six-forty-five on the night of September fourteenth?” Yuki asked.

“I did. The test was positive for GSR.”

A woman sitting near the wall broke into a fit of wet coughing that seemed like it would never quit. Yuki waited it out, every last sputter, then asked, “Ms. Carothers, did you ask the defendant if she fired the gun that was found on the scene?”

“Yes, I did. She said she had.”

“And what was her explanation for firing the gun?”

“She had one explanation before I tested her hands and a more detailed explanation afterward.”

“She had two explanations?” Yuki said, turning to shoot Candace Martin a look. Had that look been a gun, it would’ve gone bang.

I was torn, both rooting for Yuki and at the same time feeling compassion and fear for Candace Martin. A lot of people I knew and respected had bet their careers on their belief that Candace Martin had killed her husband. Could they all be wrong?

Why was my gut telling me that she was innocent?

Yuki said to her witness, “Please tell us about those two explanations.”

Carothers turned unblinking eyes on the jury and said, “Before I did the test for GSR, Dr. Martin told me that an intruder shot her husband. After the test, she repeated that an intruder had shot her husband but added that when she called out to her husband, the intruder dropped the gun and took off. She said that she picked up the gun and ran after the intruder. That she had fired out toward the street to scare him off.”

I left the courtroom quietly. I was still nowhere on the Richardson case and Brady had made it superclear to me that the Candace Martin case was closed.

What he didn’t know was that I had gone through the Martin case file last night. I had read all of Paul Chi’s notes and had found a lead I wanted to check out. I needed to check it out so that I could shut down Candace Martin’s voice in my head saying, “I didn’t kill him, Sergeant. Please help me. I’m on trial for my life.”

Chapter 55

WHAT I HAD GLEANED from Chi’s notes was that Caitlin and Duncan Martin had a piano teacher who came to their home to give them lessons twice a week.

His name was Bernard St. John.

Chi had interviewed St. John during the Martin investigation, and according to his notes, St. John had no idea who the killer was. In fact, he’d made a point of saying that he did not believe that Candace Martin shot her husband.

Chi had never interviewed St. John again, but because the piano teacher felt so strongly that Candace Martin was innocent, I wanted to hear from him how and why he had formed that opinion.

St. John’s rented apartment was in a Victorian house in the mostly residential 2400 block of Octavia Street. He was expecting me, and when I rang the bell on the ground floor, he buzzed me in.

I sized St. John up at his doorway.

He was in his early forties, five foot eight, with a slim build and spiky hair. I followed him into his apartment and saw that he clearly liked drama in his furnishings. The parlor was gold with red draperies, faux zebra-skin rugs were flung about, and a very nice Steinway grand sat near the bay window.

After offering me a chair, St. John sat down on a tassel-fringed hassock and told me he was glad that I had called.

“But I don’t understand why the police want to talk to me now,” he said. “No one wanted me as a witness.”

“You weren’t in the Martin house the night of the murder, were you?”

“No. I wasn’t there. I saw no gun. Heard no threats,” he said with a shrug.

“From what you said in our phone call, I take it that you were privy to certain behaviors in the household that you thought might be important.”

“Well, I have some thoughts and observations, Sergeant. I certainly do. Starting with when Candace had breast cancer a couple of years ago.”

St. John needed no encouragement to fill me in on the last two years of his employment with the Martins, a story laced with petty complaints and gossip. Still, the fact that he was a gossip didn’t make him a bad witness.

On the contrary.

“Candace was bitchy to everyone when she was in chemo,” he said. “Especially to Ellen.”

“Ellen Lafferty. The children’s nanny.”

“That’s right,” St. John told me. “I don’t know when it started, but it was well over a year ago when Ellen confided in me,” St. John said. “She told me that she was having an affair with Dennis.”

“Why didn’t you tell this to the police?”

“I didn’t think it was important. Is it?”

“I’m not sure. But tell me — why did you say to Inspector Chi that you didn’t think Candace was capable of shooting her husband?”

“She’s a doctor. ‘First, do no harm.’ Killing Dennis would have harmed everyone in the house. And look. It did.”

I closed my notebook and thanked St. John for his time. As I left his apartment, I thought about Phil Hoffman telling me that what he knew about Ellen Lafferty could cause the charges against Candace Martin to be dismissed.

Candace had speculated that her husband had been sleeping with Ellen Lafferty, and now Bernard St. John had confirmed that part of her theory.

Had Lafferty gotten jealous, as Candace had suggested?

Was Ellen Lafferty the so-called intruder who killed Dennis Martin?

Chapter 56

I THOUGHT PAUL Chi might still be steamed at me for questioning the slam-dunk first-degree murder charge against Candace Martin. If he wasn’t fuming now, he would be after I told him I was still turning over stones on his case, that I still wasn’t prepared to let it go.

It was about 5 p.m. when I brought him a latte and sat down across from him at his very tidy desk in the squad room.

Chi looked at me, his expression absolutely blank, and said, “You still trying to pry open my closed case?”

I nodded. “You just have to let me get this out of my system,” I said. “If you were me, you’d do the same.”

“You’re the boss.”

“You remember Bernard St. John?” I asked him.

“The piano teacher. How could I forget that guy?”

“I just spoke with him.”

“I’m not pissed off, Lindsay. I just want to understand you better. Fifty homicides a year come through here. We solve only half of them. And that’s in a good year. So, here we got one that we actually close. Why has this case gotten to you?”

“I can’t explain it.”

“Can’t explain an insult to me, McNeill, Brady, the SFPD as a whole, and the DA’s entire office? You think this is going to score us any points with the DA?”

“I’ve got to do this, Paul. If Candace Martin is guilty, my poking around isn’t going to change that.”

“But you don’t think she is guilty, do you?”

“I don’t know.”

Chi grinned. A rare occurrence. Like a blue moon in June.

“What’s funny?” I asked him.

“I like this about you, Lindsay. You never give up. But you know, Brady doesn’t have a sense of humor.”

“I’ll deal with him when I have to.”

Chi shrugged and said, “So what did Bernard St. John tell you?”

“That Dennis Martin was sleeping with Ellen Lafferty. Lafferty confided in him.”

“Whoa-ho. Well, there’s your motive, Sergeant. You’re making the case against Dr. Martin even stronger. Candace found out her husband was sleeping with the nanny, so she shot him. Motive as old as the history of mankind.”

“Or — what if it was the other way around?”

“You think Lafferty was the shooter?”

“It’s not so crazy, Paul. I want to talk to you about that contract killer. Gregor Guzman.”

Chi just shook his head and sighed.

“Doggedness suits you, Lindsay. Okay, what do you want to know about Gregor Guzman?”

“Tell me everything you’ve got.”

Chapter 57

AS CHI TAPPED on the computer keyboard, he told me, “Eleven hits are attributed to Guzman — that’s eleven unsolved that match his MO.”

I scooted the chair so close to Chi’s desk, I could see my reflection in the monitor.

“It’s a very elegant MO,” Chi was saying. “First, he’s stealthy. He’s never seen and he leaves no evidence. Two, he always uses a twenty-two and his kill shots are head shots. His first shot does the job. His second shot is almost on top of the first. I’d say that second shot is just for insurance. He’s a hell of a marksman.”

“Dennis Martin took two shots to the chest.”

“That’s correct.”

Chi hit some keys on his computer and brought up a series of photos of the elusive hit man. The first was a grainy black-and-white still shot that had been lifted from a video of a man leaving Circus Circus, the famous casino in Vegas.

The next photo was of a balding man in a car, taken by a tollbooth surveillance cam outside of Bogotá.

The third picture was of possibly the same man in a dark suit, standing beside an advertising kiosk, watching the crowd enter a public building. The picture was titled, “Lincoln Center, New York.”

The last picture was the money shot.

It was taken at night with a long lens pointed at the passenger-side window of a dark SUV, time-dated September 1 of last year. Candace Martin was in profile in the passenger’s seat. The way her hair fell obscured part of her face.

Next to her in the driver’s seat was a balding man who had turned to face her. His features were difficult to make out because of the shadow inside the car’s interior.

It was hard to say if the man pictured was Gregor Guzman or even if the woman in the passenger seat was Candace Martin.

“How sure are you that this man is Guzman?” I asked Chi.

“All pictures of Guzman are educated guesswork. We have no official photos to compare them to, but the face-recognition software found an eighty-three percent correlation between the four photos I just showed you.”

“Paul, if your case hung on this picture in the SUV, Candace Martin would walk.”

“The DA wanted to use it. It shows premeditation. I gotta admit something to you, Lindsay.”

“I’m right here, Paul. And I’m listening.”

“Apart from this piece-a-crap picture with Candace Martin, no one in law enforcement has reported seeing Gregor Guzman in the past three years. Who knows if he’s even alive?”

Chapter 58

CINDY STOOD AT the windy corner of Turk and Jones just before six that evening. The Tenderloin was a rough neighborhood, arguably the worst in San Francisco.

As a light rain came down, the homeless pulled up their hoodies, hunched over their shopping carts, crouched under the eaves of the rent-by-the-hour Ethel Hotel and Aunt Vicky’s, the down-and-dirty gay bar next to it.

Cindy buttoned her coat and pulled up her collar, staring at the cab company across the street that took up the northeast corner of the intersection. There were two plate-glass windows at the street level, each with a flickering neon sign, one reading QUICK EXPRESS TAXI, the other, CORPORATE ACCOUNTS WELCOME. There was nothing welcoming about that storefront.

Rich had told her to meet him in a coffee shop a couple of doors down, but Cindy couldn’t wait. She called Rich, and when she got his voice mail, she left him a message and then crossed Turk against the light.

As she approached Quick Express, Cindy noticed the cab company’s vehicle entrance on Turk: a cave of an opening that sheltered a ramp down to the lower parking levels. Yellow cabs were lined up at the curb. Men stood in the drizzle, smoking on the sidewalk, taking swigs from paper bags.

Cindy walked up to the window and saw the dispatch office on the other side of the glass, much like a ticket office in a movie theater but bigger. She knocked on the glass.

The man in the office was regular height, in his forties, with dark hair and a pale moon face. He was wearing a rumpled plaid shirt and khakis. He looked agitated as he worked the phone lines while delivering blunt instructions into a radio mic.

Cindy had to speak loudly over the sound of incoming radio calls.

“I’m Cindy Thomas,” she said into the grill. “Are you the owner here?”

“No, I’m the manager and dispatcher, Al Wysocki. What can I do for you?”

“I’m a reporter at the Chronicle,” she said. She dug her press pass out of her handbag and held it against the window.

“What’s this about?”

“One of your drivers might have saved someone who was having a heart attack. The person who called the paper only remembers that the driver was in a taxi minivan,” Cindy lied.

“You got a name?”

“No.”

“And what’s the driver look like?”

“All this person remembers is that the minivan had a movie ad on it.”

“Gee. A movie ad,” Wysocki said. “Okay, look. We have six vans in the fleet. Three are in. Three are out. But you understand, none of the drivers has a call on any of these cabs. They drive what’s here when their shifts start.”

“May I take a look anyway? It shouldn’t take long.”

“Knock yourself out.”

Wysocki told Cindy that the garage had three levels — the main floor, which she was on, and two subterranean levels. Two of the vans were on the first floor down, and the third was on the second floor down.

Cindy thanked the man and began her tour of the parked taxis in the dark, grimy, stinking-from-gas-fumes underground garage. Twenty minutes later, she’d located all three vans, none of which had a movie ad on its side.

She took the stairs back to the main floor and left her card with the dispatcher, taking his card in return.

“Okay if I call you again?”

“Feel free,” said Wysocki, who grabbed his microphone and barked a street address to a cabbie.

Cindy left the garage through the front door on Turk and found Richie waiting for her on the street corner.

“You were suppposed to wait for me in the coffee shop,” he said.

“I’m sorry, Rich. I was a bit early so I thought I’d follow up on something. Honey, this is just legwork. And this is just a cab company.”

“A cab company, and you suspect a cabbie of being the last person to see a woman who was drugged and raped.”

“Well, none of the cabs here is the one.”

“I don’t like the chances you take to get a story, Cindy,” Rich said, opening the passenger-side door for her. “This is mugger’s alley. I’m dropping you home. Then I’ve got to meet Lindsay.”

Cindy looked up at her fiancé, stretched up onto her toes, and kissed him. She said, “You’re very damned overprotective, Richie. And this is the weird part: I kind of like it.”

Chapter 59

CONKLIN AND I met with the Richardsons once again in their pricey suite at the Mark Hopkins, with its billion-dollar nightscape of Nob Hill and Union Square. The view embraced the Transamerica Pyramid and skyscrapers of the Financial District, San Francisco Bay, and the western span of the Bay Bridge, reaching to Treasure Island.

I’ve lived in San Francisco my whole life, and I’ve rarely seen the city from a vantage point like this.

I stared out at the lights while Conklin told the Richardsons that we needed an uninterrupted hour with Avis. He said it would be easier on Avis if we talked to her here rather than down at the Hall. And he said that being with her alone might produce more truth-telling than talking with her while her parents were present.

Sonja Richardson said, “I don’t think she has anything left to tell,” but both parents agreed to let us talk to Avis alone.

Now the parents were having “light dining” upstairs at Top of the Mark, and Avis was in the kitchenette, looking at me over her shoulder with fierce antipathy.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” she groused. She opened the refrigerator and took out a bowl of dip, then rummaged in the cupboard and put her hand on a bag of chips. “I told you everything I know.”

“Come over here and sit down, Avis,” Conklin said.

She looked surprised at the tone Conklin had taken with her, which was actually mild compared with the images I was having of grabbing her by the scruff of her neck and throwing her against a wall.

Avis took a defiant minute to gather her snack, along with a bottle of soda, and bring it into the sitting area, where she spread everything out on the coffee table.

“Tell us about your English teacher,” I said.

“Mr. Ritter?”

“You’ve got more than one English teacher?”

“Mr. Ritter is okay. Not my favorite, but I get good grades in English. I have a talent for writing.”

“Is Jordan Ritter the father of your child?”

“That’s insane! I hardly know him.”

I was sitting in a chair at her level, my hands clasped, my elbows resting on my knees. I leaned over the coffee table and said to the teenager, “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“What?”

“I said, Do you think I’m stupid?”

“What difference does it make who the father is anyway?”

I said, “That’s it. Avis, stand up. Inspector Conklin, cuff her. Avis Richardson, you’re under arrest for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and child endangerment. If we find his body, we’ll change that charge to murder.”

“Oh my God, what are you doing?” she said as the cuffs closed around her wrists. “My baby’s not dead. He’s not dead.”

“Tell us about it at the station. Let’s go,” I said.

“Here. I’ll talk here,” she said.

I nodded to Rich and he took off the cuffs. The girl threw herself back onto the couch, and then she started telling a version of the story that I hadn’t heard before. I didn’t know if she was telling the truth.

But truly, her story was taking a turn for the weird.

Chapter 60

“IF YOU TELL ME A FIB,” I said to Avis Richardson, “or a half-truth or even an exaggeration — if you tell me any kind of lie at all — I will know it. And when that happens, you’re going to jail.”

“I’ll tell you the truth,” she said. “I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Start talking,” I said.

“You’re right about Jordan. He is the father of my baby. He has great genes.”

Genes? Jeans? This kid was criminally deluded. I was afraid that if I opened my mouth, I’d lash out at her.

I put my hands through my hair and took a moment to get a grip on my anger. I couldn’t remember when I’d felt so frustrated, but I didn’t want to shut this kid down by letting her see the fury in my eyes. It was the time to let Conklin work his magic with women.

Conklin said, “Is the baby alive, Avis? Do you know where he is?”

“He’s alive. I don’t know where he is, though.”

Conklin said, “Okay, Avis. Let’s see if we can figure it out together.”

“A lot of what I said before was true. I hid my pregnancy. I didn’t even tell Jordan about it for five months. Then I told him, and he started to go asshole on me. ‘How do I know it’s even mine?’”

“Men can be jerks,” Conklin said.

Avis nodded. “I went out to Prattslist and found an ad.”

“There was no ad,” I said.

“It wasn’t the ad I told you about,” Avis said. “It was a different ad and it was only three weeks ago. I contacted these two women. A couple. They were looking for a baby and they would pay twenty-five thousand dollars.”

“Names?” I said.

“Toni and Sandy.”

“That’s it?” I said.

“You contacted two women,” Conklin said to the teenage idiot on the couch. I looked at the door. With luck, the kid would tell us everything we needed to know before her parents came home.

Right now, Jordan Ritter was facing jail time. Avis Richardson was looking at juvie. And the last thing we needed was a thousand-dollar-an-hour lawyer sticking his fingers in the pie.

“They picked me up a block from the school, but — but they didn’t drug me or anything. They said they had a place where I could give birth in peace. I fell asleep in the back of the car.”

“When you woke up,” Conklin said, “did you know where you were?”

“Not at all. It was dark. It was remote. I was in labor. I got into bed and for about six hours, I screamed my head off. I gave birth to the baby. I held him. He was absolutely the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. And then I gave him to Toni and Sandy. They were nice and they really wanted him.”

I’d reached my limit. Did this child care at all about her son? No.

I shouted, “That’s the last you saw of that baby? You have nothing else to tell us? Is any of what you told us true? If you gave birth with these nice women in attendance, explain to us why you were found bleeding out near the lake.”

“That part was all my fault,” said Avis Richardson.

Chapter 61

HALLELUJAH. Avis Richardson was finally about to take some responsibility. If she admitted something that led us to her baby, I thought I could possibly forgive her for driving us crazy for the past week.

How about it, Avis? Gonna give us a break?

I went to the fridge in the kitchenette, brought back a bottle of soda, and poured three glasses, no ice.

“Toni said she and Sandy would stay with me until I felt well,” Avis told Conklin and me. “Then they were going to take the baby home.”

“Did they say where home was?” Conklin asked.

“Nuh-uh,” Avis said.

I was still comparing and contrasting Avis’s new story with what she’d told us before, and the two versions hardly matched up.

The French-speaking man was on the cutting-room floor. The kidnapping was history. The father of her baby was her English teacher. Avis had answered an ad from two women, and now Avis said she had given up her baby voluntarily.

Was she capable of telling the truth? Toni and Sandy. I wondered if she’d made up those names on the spot.

“When I was in that house, right after I had the baby, Toni gave me her phone so I could call Jordan and tell him to come and get me,” Avis said. “But when I handed the phone to Toni so she could give him directions, Jordan hung up.”

Incoming phone calls would show up in Jordan Ritter’s phone records. So maybe we would yield something.

“I just wanted to get out of there. I didn’t want to be around the baby, so I waited for an opportunity and sneaked out the back door. I hitched a ride as far as Brotherhood Way, but the people who gave me the ride were going east, so I got out.

“What kind of car, Avis? Did you get the name of a person or a plate number? We’re trying to connect the dots. Get me?” I said.

“I wasn’t thinking of anything like that. I’d just run away, and I was still in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t have my handbag, my phone, nothing, and I was starting to bleed again. And then I was bleeding really hard. I didn’t expect that.”

Finally the girl was starting to show signs of distress. She was sweating, wringing her hands. Thinking of her own pain.

Conklin said, “Can you go on, Avis? Or do you need to take a break?”

“I’m okay,” she said. “There’s not much more to tell. I found a rain poncho in the weeds near the lake, so I took off my clothes and put it on. I was feeling faint as I walked and I fell down a few times. A car stopped for me and took me to the hospital. I met you,” she said, trying to give me an evil eye.

“Is Jordan in trouble because I’m underage?”

“Jordan will be fine,” I lied. “The most important thing, Avis. More important even than Jordan Ritter, is to find out where your baby is and if he’s okay.”

That was the truth.

Where was that baby?

If these women were real and not more characters from Avis Richardson’s creative-writing workshop, had they kept him?

Was he in a warm room somewhere covered with a little blue blanket? Did he have a full tummy? A teddy bear? Was he safe?

Or had he been smuggled out of the country with heroin in his colon, gutted as soon as he reached shore?

“How did they pay you?” I asked.

Please, God, let them have given this naive little girl a check.

“They didn’t pay me. I didn’t want the money. That would’ve been illegal, right? To sell my baby? I didn’t sell him. So, what are you going to do now?” Avis asked Conklin.

“Everything is going to be all right,” Conklin told her.

Really? For whom?

Chapter 62

WHEN WE LEFT the Mark Hopkins, Avis was being comforted by her parents. They barely looked up when Conklin said we’d call later, and we left their suite.

My partner and I had a little confab outside my car — or rather, he listened to me rant about the stupidest, most morally challenged girl on the planet — and then we headed out to our respective homes for the night.

I called Quentin Tazio from my cell phone on the drive home.

Quentin is a police resource, a tech consultant who has been described as a “brain in a bottle.” He lives in a dungeon of his own devising, a dark and drab two-floor flat tricked out with a million dollars in computer equipment.

It’s how he spent his inheritance from his father, and it had made Quentin absolutely the happiest man I knew.

I told QT, as he liked to be called, about the ad on Prattslist, the call to Jordan Ritter’s phone, and the two names, Sandy and Toni, which may have been real names, nicknames, or pseudonyms the women made up to use on Avis.

Maybe, for once, Avis had told us the truth to the extent that she knew it.

I cooked dinner for Joe and had a jumbo glass of merlot with my pasta. We went for a long walk with Martha and I told my husband the latest episode in the Avis Richardson story.

Joe said, “I have a hunch QT is going to find something for you, Linds.”

Joe has first-class, FBI-trained hunches.

I had a great night’s sleep wedged between Joe and Martha, and when I got to the Hall at 8:30 a.m., I discovered that QT had called.

I called him back, and while I waited for him to get my message and return my call, Brady asked me to come to his office and update him on Richardson. I gave him a detailed but concise report, and he asked good questions. I only wished I had something worthwhile to tell him.

“Get traction on this thing, or we’ll send it down the line to Crimes Against Persons and move on,” he said.

My phone was ringing when I got back to my desk. I was hoping it was QT, but I saw from my caller ID that it was Dean Hanover of the Brighton Academy.

“Boxer,” I said, picturing the man with the polka-dot bow tie in his buttoned-up office.

“Sergeant, I’m glad I reached you.”

“Is something wrong?”

“Avis Richardson is missing,” the dean told me. “She came back to school yesterday, but she wasn’t in her dorm room this morning. Now I just found out that one of our teachers is missing, too. Jordan Ritter didn’t show up to class this morning. That’s very unusual for him. Both of them are gone. No note, no nothing. They’re just gone.”

Chapter 63

LESS THAN TWENTY-FOUR hours earlier, Phil Hoffman had been in his office, rehearsing his defense strategy, when a phone call from the SFPD radically upped his client’s chances for acquittal. It had sure felt to him like an act of God.

Now he stood behind the defense table in Judge LaVan’s courtroom and said, “The defense calls Bernard St. John.”

Bernard St. John entered the courtroom. He was wearing an expensive chalk-striped suit and a blue silk shirt. Not a spiked hair was out of place. After he had been sworn in and was seated, Hoffman approached the witness stand.

As expected, Yuki shot to her feet. “Your Honor,” she said, “we only learned about this witness last night and haven’t had a chance to do any investigation.”

Hoffman said to the judge, “I only became aware of this witness myself yesterday evening, and we sent an e-mail to Ms. Castellano immediately.”

LaVan peered through his glasses, looking down from the bench, and said, “Ms. Castellano, you’ll have your chance to question the witness. Mr. Hoffman, you may proceed.”

“Thank you, Your Honor. Mr. St. John, what kind of work do you do?”

“I play the piano for events, and I am also a piano teacher.”

“Are you currently employed as the Martin children’s piano teacher?”

“No. I was let go four months ago. The children were busy with a number of activities, and piano lessons were apparently not a priority.”

“What was your job with the Martins before you were let go?”

“I mostly taught Caitlin,” St. John said. “But Duncan was learning his scales and some beginners’ songs.”

“When did you first start working for the Martin family?”

“Two years ago last month.”

“And do you have a friendship with other people who worked for the Martins?” Hoffman asked.

“Yes, I do,” said St. John.

“Were you friends with Ellen Lafferty, the children’s nanny?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And did Ms. Lafferty confide in you about a connection she had with Mr. Martin?”

“Yes. A little over a year ago.”

“What did she tell you at that time?”

“She said that she’d been having an affair with Mr. Martin. It had begun when Dr. Martin had surgery for breast cancer and was undergoing chemotherapy. Ellen said that at first she was just sleeping with Mr. Martin because he seemed so sad.”

Hoffman waited out the titters that rippled across the gallery then asked his witness to continue.

St. John said, “By the time Ellen told me about the affair, she said she had fallen in love with Dennis and didn’t know what to do.”

“Hearsay, Your Honor,” Yuki said.

“I’m going to allow it, Ms. Castellano. Go ahead, Mr. Hoffman.”

“Did Ms. Lafferty ever mention this romantic relationship with Mr. Martin again?”

“Yes. She showed me gifts he gave her. And before he … died, Ellen told me again that she was painfully in love with him — her word — and in love with the children, too.”

“And why didn’t you come forward with this earlier, Mr. St. John?”

“The police only asked me if I had witnessed any hostility between Dr. Martin and her husband. I said that I’d overheard fights. And they wanted to know if I was in the house the night of the murder. I wasn’t. I hadn’t been there in days.”

“Did you tell the police that you thought Dr. Martin had killed her husband?”

St. John said, “No. I told them I didn’t think she had killed her husband. The Martins were both under pressure, but I knew Candace wouldn’t kill the children’s father, and that’s what I told the police.”

“Do you think Ms. Lafferty was angry about being the other woman?”

Yuki stood up. “Speculation, Your Honor. Speculation, leading the witness, as well as sneakiness and calculation.”

“The jury will disregard,” LaVan said. He pointed his gavel at Hoffman. “No more of that.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” Hoffman dipped his head, hid a smile from the judge, and said, “I’m finished with this witness.”

Chapter 64

YUKI SCRIBBLED A NOTE to Nicky on her pad: “Do you know anything about this piano man?”

Gaines scribbled back, “Not one thing.”

Christ. St. John hadn’t supported the cops’ theory of the case, so he’d been ignored. Now she’d been blindsided. Clearly, Hoffman had been trying to tell her about Ellen’s affair with Dennis Martin when she’d blown him off.

Yuki fought the panic that was rising from her stomach and busied herself with her note cards as she thought through this surprise bombshell.

What St. John’s testimony meant was that Ellen Lafferty had motive. And since Dennis Martin had a gun — evidence that Yuki herself had introduced — it followed that Ellen could have found the gun. If so, Lafferty had had the means to shoot Dennis Martin. Motive? Maybe. Opportunity? Every single day.

Dammit.

First rule any litigator learned was you don’t ask questions if you don’t know the answers. She was flying absolutely blind.

Yuki got to her feet and said, “Good morning, Mr. St. John.”

“Good morning.”

Yuki rounded the prosecution table, talking as she walked toward the witness.

“All I want from you are facts,” Yuki said. “Not what someone told you. Not what you heard.”

“Ms. Castellano,” LaVan said wearily. “I’m wearing the robes, not you. I give the instructions, not you. If you have a question, I suggest you ask it.”

“Yes, Your Honor. Mr. St. John, please answer my questions with what you know firsthand.”

“Sure. Okay. I understand that,” St. John said.

Yuki sent up a quick prayer to her dead mother, then said, “Mr. St. John, did you ever see Mr. Martin and Ms. Lafferty in what would be called a compromising position?”

“Having sex, you mean?”

“Yes. Or kissing. Overtly sexual behavior.”

“No. I only know what Ellen told me.”

“Thank you. That’s all I have for this witness, Your Honor.”

“You may stand down,” said the judge.

Chapter 65

PHIL HOFFMAN STOOD UP from his chair beside Candace Martin. “Your Honor, we call Ellen Lafferty to the stand.”

Ellen Lafferty entered the courtroom with her head up and confidently strode down the center aisle.

All eyes were on the pretty, young woman, impeccably and modestly dressed in a dark gray suit, a gold cross hanging at her throat. She looked to be just the kind of person you would entrust with your children.

Phil Hoffman did his best to hide his anticipation. Ellen Lafferty had been Yuki Castellano’s star witness against his client. With the information he now had, he was going to destroy Lafferty on the stand and turn her into a witness for the defense. But he had to do it in such a way that the jury didn’t see him as a monster.

After Lafferty had been sworn in and was seated, Phil approached the witness box. He greeted his new witness and then asked his first question.

“Ms. Lafferty, how would you describe your relationship with Dennis Martin?”

“In what regard, Mr. Hoffman?”

“I think that my question was pretty clear. Let me repeat it. What kind of relationship did you have with Dennis Martin?”

“He was the children’s father. And I took care of the children. That was all that mattered to me.”

“Your Honor, permission to treat the witness as hostile.”

LaVan swiveled his chair ninety degrees and said, “Ms. Lafferty, for you as well as for the members of the jury to know, a hostile witness is one for the opposing side — in this case, a witness for the prosecution — who when examined by the other side — in this case, the defense — might not be forthcoming.

“In designating you a hostile witness, Ms. Lafferty, I’m giving Mr. Hoffman permission to ask leading questions. You have sworn to tell the truth. Don’t forget that.”

“I won’t, Your Honor.”

Hoffman fixed his eyes on Lafferty and said, “Were you having an affair with Mr. Martin?”

“Oh my God.”

“Yes or no? Were the two of you having an affair?”

“Yes.”

“Could you speak loudly enough for the jury to hear you?”

“Yes. I was. We were.”

“And when did this sexual relationship begin?”

Tears welled up in Ellen Lafferty’s eyes and spilled down her cheeks. “Two years ago last April.”

“So, more than a year before Mr. Martin was shot?”

“Uh-huh. Yes.”

“And were you still seeing Mr. Martin at the time of his death?”

“Yes.”

“You admit you were having a sexual relationship with a married man in the home where he lived with his wife and children. Isn’t that right?”

“Yes.”

“And when Ms. Castellano had you on the stand, you didn’t think it was important to tell us about this affair?”

“No, I didn’t.”

“And how did you feel about Dr. Candace Martin?”

“I think she’s cruel.”

“Were you jealous of Dr. Martin?”

There was a pause as Lafferty’s eyes went everywhere. To Yuki. To the jury. To Candace Martin.

“Answer the question, Ms. Lafferty,” Hoffman said. “Were you jealous of Dr. Martin’s marriage to your lover?”

“Your Honor, do I really have to answer that?”

“Yes, you certainly do, Ms. Lafferty.”

Lafferty sighed, clasped the cross at her neckline, and finally spoke, her words sounding loud in the hushed courtroom. “I wished that I had her life. But I would not have done anything to hurt her.”

“How about Mr. Martin? He wasn’t leaving his wife, was he? Would you have done something to hurt Mr. Martin?”

“No, no. Never. I loved him.”

“And how did Mr. Martin feel about you? Had he promised to divorce his wife and marry you?”

“Why are you doing this to me? You see what he’s trying to do, Judge?” Lafferty said. “He’s trying to make it look like I’m the murderer, when it’s her who did it.”

“Ms. Lafferty, please answer the question.”

Lafferty choked and began openly sobbing. It was as if she’d been saving up these tears for so long, the crack in the dam became a fissure and the lake just came barreling through.

Chapter 66

PHIL HOFFMAN jingled the keys and coins in his pants pockets. “Do you need a moment?” he asked Ellen Lafferty.

She nodded. Hoffman gave her a box of tissues and when his witness was more composed, he said, “Let me repeat my question. Did Mr. Martin tell you that he wanted to leave his wife and marry you?”

“Yes. He told me that a few times. Often, I would say.”

“Did he firm up those plans, Ms. Lafferty?”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand.”

“It’s pretty simple, really. Did Dennis Martin start a divorce action against his wife?”

“No.”

“Did he take you out with his friends?”

“No. I wouldn’t have expected that.”

“Did you and he set a wedding date, for instance?”

“Dammit, no. He didn’t give me a time or a place. I was taking care of his children. I saw him every day. He told me that he loved me and that he despised her. I thought he was going to leave her because he said he would. And I believed that until the day he died.”

“Or — did he break off his relationship with you, Ms. Lafferty? Did he tell you to bug off? Did he treat you like just another one of his used-up girlfriends and tell you that he was staying with his wife? Is that why you were angry with him?”

“No. We were together and in love.”

“The bastard lied to you, didn’t he?”

“No.”

“Were you mad enough at him to shoot him, Ms. Lafferty? Was this a crime of passion?”

Yuki said, “Your Honor, counsel is badgering the witness to death.”

“Sustained. The jury will disregard the defense’s last run-on question. Mr. Hoffman, that’s twice. Do you have anything further for this witness? Or do you want to be sworn in so you can testify yourself?”

Ellen Lafferty gripped the edge of the witness box and said fervently, “I didn’t kill him, I didn’t. I am telling the truth. I would never have hurt Dennis. Never, never, never.”

“Just like you would never, never, never lie? Right, Ms. Lafferty?”

“That’s right. I would never lie.”

“Did Candace Martin have a gun in her hand when you left the house on the night of the murder?”

“I think so. I thought so. I don’t know anymore.”

“Right. But you would never, never, never lie. Thank you. I have no further questions.”

Chapter 67

A SHOCK OF ANGER blew all the dread and fear right out of Yuki. The defense had annihilated her damned witness, annihilated her and planted the seeds of reasonable doubt.

Yuki didn’t know if she could rehabilitate a would-be home wrecker and probable liar, but she knew that her entire case might depend on it.

Yuki barely saw Nicky’s note: “You go, girl.”

She got to her feet and walked to the witness box that wrapped around the witness. She put her hand on the arm of the box as if to communicate to Ellen that she was placing a comforting hand on her arm.

“Ms. Lafferty, did you kill Mr. Martin?”

“No. I did not.”

“Did the Martins fight?”

“All the time.”

“Did you see a gun in Candace Martin’s hand on the night of the murder?”

“I thought so. It was so long ago. And it happened so fast. I don’t know for sure anymore.”

“Okay. Were you telling the truth to this jury when you said you thought Candace Martin shot and killed her husband?”

“Yes, that is God’s honest truth.”

“The prosecution has no more questions for Ms. Lafferty.”

Phil Hoffman watched the witness step down, wipe her eyes with a tissue, and head out to the rear of the courtroom. She was still crying as she went through the doors.

It was only eleven-fifteen.

Before the jury had a chance to even think of feeling sorry for Ellen Lafferty, Phil Hoffman would launch the next bomb.

Chapter 68

PHIL HOFFMAN SAID, “The defense calls Dr. Candace Martin.”

For a moment, Yuki thought she’d heard him wrong. But when Candace Martin edged out from behind the defense table, wearing her game face, a two-thousand-dollar Anne Klein suit, and eight-hundred-dollar Ferragamos, Yuki knew that Hoffman was running the table.

Candace wasn’t required to testify.

Judge LaVan had told the jury that the defendant was not obliged to take the stand and that the jury could not hold that against her.

So for Phil to call his client as a witness in her own defense was an act of either desperation or supreme confidence.

Hoffman didn’t seem desperate at all.

Candace Martin put her hand on the Bible, and when asked if she swore to tell the whole truth, she said, “I do.” Then she sat down in the chair facing the gallery and gave her attention to her attorney.

“Dr. Martin,” Hoffman said, “some of this has been established, but for the benefit of continuity, were you at home when your husband was killed?”

“Yes.”

“Where were Caitlin and Duncan?”

“They were each in their own rooms.”

“And so that the jury can place everyone in the house, where was Cyndi Parrish, your cook?”

“She was upstairs in her room.”

“And where was Ellen Lafferty?” Hoffman asked.

“I don’t know where she was. She said good night to me about fifteen minutes before Dennis was shot.”

“And where was Dennis just before the incident?”

“I don’t know that either. I didn’t see him. I went to the bedroom wing, passed the kids’ rooms and said hello to each of them. Then I went down that hallway to my office. That’s where I was when Ellen said that she was leaving.”

“What were you doing in your office that evening?”

“I was returning calls.”

“And were you still in your office when you heard shots?”

“Yes. I was about to call a patient’s wife. It wasn’t going to be good news. I had taken off my glasses and was massaging my temples, like this.”

Dr. Martin took off her glasses and put them down on the armrest. She rubbed her temples with her thumb and third finger of her left hand.

“I had the phone in my other hand,” she said, making a claw of her right hand as if she were clutching a receiver.

Yuki thought that this demo was a pretty ingenious way to visually put a cell phone in Candace Martin’s hand instead of a gun, and she had to admire Hoffman for coming up with it.

“Please tell the jury what happened when you heard the shots,” Hoffman said. He stepped aside so that he wouldn’t obstruct the sight line between his client and the jurors.

Candace Martin listed the timeline just as Hoffman had done in his opening statement. She said that she ran to the foyer, found her husband on the floor, blood pooling near his chest, and checked his pulse.

She went on to say that she wasn’t wearing her glasses but heard the clatter of something metallic falling to the floor. She realized it was a gun at the same time that she saw someone in the shadows moving toward the front door.

Yuki watched Candace Martin’s face for tells, facial tics or eye movements, and she listened for lies. She found Candace believable.

And she thought that the jury would believe her, too.

In a few minutes Yuki would have to discredit this heart surgeon, this good mother, and undo the work Phil Hoffman had done, polishing a halo and affixing it to the crown of Candace Martin’s pretty blond head.

Yuki knew what she had to do.

She wondered if she could do it.

Chapter 69

PHIL HOFFMAN was winding up his direct examination of Candace Martin, trying to rein in any visible sign of the rush he was feeling. The gamble was paying off. Candace was the perfect witness for herself: Concise. Clear. Consistent.

And, of course, innocent.

“When you found Dennis on the floor and realized that he had expired, what did you do?” Hoffman asked.

“I remember grasping the gun. I had never held a gun before, but I saw someone leaving the house. The front door was open. Instinctively, I wanted to stop whoever had shot my husband. I ran after the intruder. I yelled, ‘Stop!’ a couple of times,” Candace Martin told the jury. “And then I fired.”

“Did you hit anyone, Dr. Martin?”

“No. I didn’t see anyone outside. I just fired high to make sure he didn’t come back. Then I came back into the house, locked the front door, and went back to Dennis. By that time, the kids had come out of their rooms and were crying. It was horrible. Horrible. I sent Caitlin to her room, and Duncan went upstairs to Cyndi’s room.”

“What happened after that?”

“I called nine one one. The police came in a few minutes.”

“Please tell the jury how you were feeling.”

“Me? I was almost paralyzed with shock and grief. And then, unbelievably, everything got worse. Shall I go on?”

“Please do.”

The doctor nodded, swallowed hard, and resumed speaking.

“It was the routine end of a routine day. Suddenly — gunshots. Someone had come into my house and killed my husband. When the police arrived, they started questioning me. I had to leave my children at the most traumatic moment in their lives. I had to walk past my dead husband and get into a patrol car so that I could be interviewed at the police station.

“I was questioned for eight hours, then held overnight. In the morning, I was charged with a murder I didn’t commit.

“I was terrified then — and I’m terrified now. The fear never leaves me. Because I’m also afraid for my children and I’m not with them.”

Yuki thought, Holy crap. Candace Martin had had the jury at I do. Under the best of circumstances, they would have a hard time seeing the killer in this woman. Yuki scribbled a note to Nicky that sent him to his laptop. He was opening files as Hoffman thanked his client.

“Your witness,” Phil Hoffman said.

Chapter 70

YUKI RAN HER FINGER down the section of the transcript on Nicky’s laptop, her deposition of Candace Martin from a year before. Then she stood and walked toward the witness.

“Dr. Martin, did you love your husband?”

“Yes.”

“But you had been having an affair for more than a year before he was killed.”

“Yes.”

“How do you feel about Felix Ashton, your lover?”

“Objection. Relevance,” Hoffman said from his seat.

“Overruled. Dr. Martin, please answer the question,” said the judge.

“I have a lot of affection for Felix.”

Yuki said, “Mr. Ashton testified that he loves you. But you don’t return his feelings?”

“I don’t know how to quantify my feelings for Felix.”

“Did your husband tell you how he felt about you having an affair?”

“Not specifically.”

“Did it upset him? Did it make him angry?”

“I don’t think he cared if I had an affair,” Candace Martin said. “If he did, it would only have made him a hypocrite.”

“Well, your lover testified that your husband followed the two of you around. Is that true?”

“Yes. But, I don’t think Dennis cared that I was seeing Felix. He was just trying to get me to agree to a divorce.”

“And you wouldn’t give it to him?”

“I wouldn’t accept his terms.”

“So you subscribe to the theory that it’s better for the children if a couple stays together — even if they are both having affairs — than if they divorce?”

“Your Honor,” Hoffman said from his seat, “counsel is badgering the witness.”

“Sustained. Get to your point if you have one, Ms. Castellano.”

“Yes, Your Honor.” She walked to the center of the well, then turned back around to face the witness, the distance between them making it necessary for Candace Martin to speak loudly. Yuki said, “Ellen Lafferty testified that she was having an affair with your husband. Were you aware that they were involved?”

“Not until she testified.”

“Were you jealous of the attention your husband lavished on other women?”

“No. I was used to it.”

“So despite the fact that you loved him, his philandering in your own home didn’t infuriate you? That’s remarkable,” Yuki said.

“Don’t bother to object, Mr. Hoffman,” LaVan said. “Ms. Castellano, your opinions are out of order. Don’t do that again. Ask your questions, and let’s move on.”

“I’m sorry, Your Honor. Dr. Martin, let me make sure I understand your testimony.

“You were having an affair. You admit your husband was habitually unfaithful. And yet you maintain that you loved him. You were photographed with a known hit man. You found your husband’s gun —”

Yuki made a gun with her thumb and forefinger, moved in toward the witness, and from five feet away pointed her “gun” at Candace Martin, saying, “And when you had an opportunity to kill him, you shot him dead.”

Yuki squeezed the imaginary trigger and jerked the imaginary gun as if it were kicking back. And she ignored Hoffman, who was shouting his objections, and ignored the bang of the gavel — a sound as effective as if the bullets she’d fired with her hand were real.

She spoke over the commotion, saying, “And so, Dr. Martin, after your husband was dead, you fired a few rounds into the air to explain away the gunshot residue on your hands. Isn’t that true?”

“Your Honor,” Hoffman shouted, “Ms. Castellano just gave her summation. Apart from her disingenuous ‘Isn’t that true?’ there wasn’t a question in that entire herd of bull,” Hoffman said. “I move that this entire cross-examination be stricken —”

“For God’s sake,” Candace Martin said, gripping the arms of the witness box, leaning forward, the cords of her neck standing out as she shouted at Yuki over her lawyer’s voice.

“If I were going to kill Dennis, why would I do it in my own home, where my children would see it? This travesty is the fault of bad police work and insane, rabid prosecution. Take a look at yourself, Ms. Castellano. I was angry at Dennis, but I didn’t kill him. Just like I would never kill you.”

Chapter 71

THE JUDGE SLAMMED down his gavel again and again, bellowing, “Order! Mr. Hoffman, get your client under control,” he commanded, which only added fuel to the conflagration that was already consuming the courtroom.

Yuki stood in the well with her hands clasped in front of her, hoping the disturbance would rage on.

Even if her cross was stricken, even if she was fined, she had turned a blowtorch on Candace Martin’s cool demeanor. The doctor’s vehement protests that she wouldn’t kill her husband had lost their punch.

The motive to kill was there.

Her going ballistic had demonstrated to the jury that she could have lost her cool and gunned him down.

The judge banged his gavel once more, and at last the ruckus died down. He straightened his glasses, peered down at Yuki, and said, “Anything else, Ms. Castellano? Or have you done enough for one day?”

Yuki said, “I have nothing further for the witness.”

Hoffman said, “Redirect, Your Honor.”

But the judge wasn’t listening anymore. His attention had gone to his cell phone. His face was pale.

A second time Hoffman told the judge that he wanted to reexamine the witness.

“It’ll have to wait,” said Judge LaVan. “I have to visit someone at the hospital, immediately.

“Dr. Martin, you may step down. Court is adjourned for the day. Ms. Castellano. Mr. Hoffman. Be in my chambers at eight a.m. tomorrow morning. Don’t be late.

“We’ll pick up the pieces then.”

Chapter 72

I WALKED INTO Brady’s office first thing in the morning, hoping to have the quickest meeting on record.

Brady put down his phone and said, “Boxer, I’m going to have to pull you off Richardson and send it down to Crimes Against Persons. Look at what’s come in in the past week,” he said, tilting his chin toward the whiteboard in the center of the squad room, legible through the glass walls of his office.

Six open cases were listed in black letters. Closed cases were always written in red. There were no closed cases.

“Lieutenant, we’re getting some real movement on Richardson,” I said, pulling out a chair, sitting down across from the big guy. His sunny hair was pulled back, but there was no wedding band on his ring finger. I thought about Yuki, no bigger than a bird, wrapped in the arms of this cop I barely knew, and I was afraid for her.

Yuki was a brilliant, gutsy prosecutor — and at the same time an absolute loser at picking men.

Brady was staring back at me, waiting for me to speak.

“Quentin Tazio found a connection that could crack this case,” I said.

“QT’s our computer consultant, right?”

“He’s the best.”

I told Brady that through the wizardry of telephony and electronic databases, QT had tracked a phone call to Jordan Ritter from the Lake Merced area during the time Avis Richardson was delivering her baby.

“According to Avis, she asked one of the two women who had assisted in the delivery to lend her a phone so she could call her boyfriend.

“The phone used to call Jordan Ritter belongs to Antoinette Burgess, age forty, used to be a schoolteacher. She lives in Taylor Creek, Oregon. Population three thousand forty-two.”

Brady said, “You think Burgess may have the baby?”

“Avis says Burgess was there when the baby was born.”

“I’m starting to feel a little hopeful. Seem okay to be hopeful, Boxer?”

I nodded and told Brady that Burgess didn’t have a record and that I wanted to meet her. If she had the baby, I would get him out of Taylor Creek before sirens and helicopter and SWAT made an intervention dangerous.

“Conklin is going to stay here and work on locating Avis and her boyfriend,” I told Brady. “Claire Washburn is coming with me. We’re both working off the meter.”

“Work on the meter,” Brady said. “Let’s wrap this up. I’ll contact the local authorities in whatever the largest town is near Taylor Creek. I’ll do it now.”

“Lieutenant. With all due respect, I think we should get a feel for the situation first.”

Brady and I went a few rounds about the logistics, but I could tell he was excited. After I assured him that I would call him as soon as I reached Taylor Creek and give him postings throughout the day, he gave me the green light.

I got out of Brady’s office, relieved that I was still on the case. I knew that this one lead to a woman who lived in Oregon was probably my last chance to find Avis Richardson’s missing child.

And it might be the baby’s last chance, too.