Second Chance

Chapter 19

FIRST THING THE FOLLOWING MORNING, I called Stu Kirkwood, who ran a hate crimes desk assigned to the police department. I asked him, personally, for any leads on these types of groups that might be operating in the Bay Area. My people had talked to Stu earlier, but I needed action fast.

So far, Clapper's CSU team had scoured the area around the church with nothing to show for it, and the only thing we came back with on Aaron Winslow was that no one had a negative thing to say about him.

Kirkwood informed me over the phone that a few organized supremacist groups operated out of Northern California, offshoots of the Klan or some crazy neo-Nazi skinheads. He said that maybe the best thing would be to contact the local chapter of the FBI, who kept a much more active eye on them. Gay bashing was more his thing.

Bringing in the FBI at this stage didn't fill me with enthusiasm. I asked Kirkwood to give me what he had, and an hour later he came up, carrying a plastic bin crammed with blue and red folders. “Background reading.” He winked, dropping the bin heavily on my desk.

At the sight of the mass of files, my hopes sank. “You got any ideas about this, Stu?”

He shrugged sympathetically. “San Francisco's not exactly a hotbed for these groups. Most of what I gave you here seems pretty benign. They seem to spend most of their time hoisting back a few beers and shooting off ammo.”

I ordered up a salad, figuring I'd spend the next couple of hours at my desk with a bunch of nutcases railing against blacks and Jews. I pulled out a handful of files and opened one at random.

Some sort of militia group, operating up in Greenview, near the Oregon border. The California Patriots. Some summary information supplied by the FBI: Activity Type: Militia, sixteen to twenty members. Weapons Assessment: Minor, small to semiautomatic arms, over-the-counter. On the bottom it had: Threat: Low to Moderate.

I skimmed through the file. Some printed materials with logos of crossed guns, detailing everything from population shifts from “the white, European majority,” to media cover-ups on government programs to promote test-tube fertilization of minorities.

I couldn't imagine my killer buying into this claptrap. I didn't see him on the same wavelength at all. Our guy was organized and bold, not some pumped-up backwoods bozo.

He had gone to elaborate lengths to hide the murders in the MO of a hate crime. And he had signed them.

Like most serials, he wanted us to know.

And to know there would be more.

I leafed through a few more files. Nothing jumped out at me. I was starting to have the feeling this was a waste of time.

Suddenly Lorraine burst into my office. "We caught a break, Lieutenant. We found the white van.