3rd Degree

Chapter 88

SAN FRANCISCO WAS IN A PANIC the likes of which I had never seen before. The news stories never seemed to stop. Meanwhile, where the hell were we? Not close enough to the killers, I was afraid.

My whole theory depended on finding some way to make the other victims fit in with the current murders. I was cer-tain there was a connection.

Bengosian was from Chicago. That seemed a long shot to tie in. But I remembered Lightower had gone to Berkeley. His CLO had told us that when we were up at Lightower's com-pany after he was killed.

I placed a call to Dianne Aronoff, Mort Lightower's sister, and caught her at home. We talked and I found out that her brother had been a member of the SDS. In '69, his junior year at Berkeley, he had taken a leave of absence.

Nineteen sixty-nine was the year of the Hope Street raid. Did that mean anything? It just might.

About one o'clock, Jacobi knocked on my window. “I think we found your guy Danko's father.”

He and Cappy had started with the phone book, then matched up the address with a local high school. Danko's father was still in Sacramento. Same address as they had lived in back in 1969. A man had answered when Cappy called. Hung up as soon as the inspectors had brought up Billy Danko's name.

“There's an FBI office down there.” Jacobi shrugged. “Or?”

“Here” - I jumped up, flipping him the keys to the Explorer - “you drive.”