14th Deadly Sin

CHAPTER 87

I HAD SOME explaining to do when Joe, the SWAT team, and I got back to the Hall with a confessed killer in cuffs: a killer no one in Homicide had on their radar or even knew existed.

I filled Brady in while Joe waited at my desk.

Brady gave me a very cold stare as I told him that Joe had merely followed up a hunch, that he had been invited into the Hubbell house by the owner, and that she’d given him carte blanche to go into her son’s room.

“Is this something like the hunch that took you into a house where the homeowner put a loaded Winchester rifle to your head?” Brady asked me.

“Yes. It’s exactly like that.”

“Personal feelings aside,” Brady said, “I should write you up for that. It was procedurally unsafe, to say the least. What if you’d gotten shot? What if you’d shot someone? And now Joe does the same dumb-ass thing? Are you running some sort of private police department out of your garage? Don’t you have enough work to do, Boxer?”

That was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer, but I flushed down to my toes. It was humiliating to have Brady kick my ass. Factually, Joe was in the clear. He was nobody, as far as the SFPD was concerned. He hadn’t messed up a case against Hubbell. But now it was official and I had to color strictly within the lines.

I waited a second or two, then said, “Lieutenant, while Hubbell had Joe cuffed and confined, he confessed to killing five people. I’m going to try to get him to say that again.”

Brady tipped so far back in his chair, I thought it would go over. He put his hands over his eyes and threw a sigh so deep and so long, I actually felt sorry for him.

He said, “Get Wang and Michaels. Strichler is their case. They should be in the interrogation. No mistakes, Lindsay. Video everything. From this point on, do it strictly by the book.”

“I get it. And I’m sorry, Brady. I’ll make it up to you.”