Second Chance

Chapter 30

AFTER CLAIRE LEFT, I was buoyed by her discovery.

This was good stuff. Karen knocked and handed me a manila folder. “From Simone Clark.” It was the file from personnel I had requested. Edward R. Chipman.

I slid the file out of the envelope and began to read.

Chipman had been a career street patrolman out of Central who retired in 1994 with the rank of sergeant. He had twice received a Captain's Commendation for bravery on the job.

I stopped at his photo. A narrow chiseled face with one of those bushy Afros popular in the sixties. It was probably taken the day he joined the force. I looked through the rest of the contents. What would make someone want to kill this man's widow? There wasn't a single censure on his record.

For excessive force or anything else. In his thirty-year career, the officer never fired his gun. He was part of the Police Outreach Unit in the Potrero Hill projects and a member of a minority action group called the Officers for Justice, which lobbied for and promoted the interests of black officers.

Chipman, like most cops, had one of those proud, uneventful careers, never in trouble, never under review never in the public's eye. Nothing in there drew the slightest connection to Tasha Catchings or to her uncle, Kevin Smith.

Had I read more into the whole thing than was there? Was this even a serial thing? My antennae were crackling. I know there's something. C'mon, Lindsay.

Suddenly I was hammered back to reality by Lorraine Stafford knocking at my door. “You got a minute, Lieutenant?” I asked her in. The stolen vehicle, she informed me, belonged to a Ronald Stasic. He taught anthropology at a community college down in Mountain View. “Apparently the van was stolen from the parking lot outside where he works. The reason it was late being reported missing was that he went to Seattle for a night. Job interview.”

“Who knew he was going to be away?”

She flipped through her notes. "His wife. The college administrator. He teaches two classes at the college and tutors students from other schools in the area.

“Any of these students show an interest in his van or in where he parked?”

She snickered. “He said half these kids come to class in BMWs and Saabs. Why would they be interested in a six-year-old van?”

“What about that sticker on the back?” I had no idea if Stasic had anything to do with these killings, but his van did have the same symbol on it that had turned up in the Oakland basement.

Lorraine shrugged. “Said he never saw it before. I said I'd check his story and asked if he'd take a lie detector on that. He told me to go right ahead.”

“You better check if any of his friends, or his students, have any weird political leanings.”

Lorraine nodded. “I will, but this guy's totally legit, Lindsay. He acted like he was jerked out of his skin.”

As the afternoon wound down, I had the shaky feeling we were nowhere on this case. I was sure it was a serial, but maybe our best chance was this guy with the chimera embroidered on his jacket.

My phone rang, startling me. It was Jacobi. “Bad information, L.T. We've been outside this damned Blue Parrot place all day. Nothing. So we managed to find out from the bartender the dudes you're looking for are history. They split, five, six months ago. Toughest guy we've seen was some weight lifter wearing a ' Rules' T-shirt.”

“What do you mean by split, Warren?”

“Vamoose, moved on. Somewhere south. According to the dude, one or two guys who used to hang around with them still come in from time to time. Some big redheaded dude. But basically they hit the road. Permanent-mente.”

“Keep on it. Find me the redheaded dude.” Now that the van led nowhere and I had no connection between the victims, that lion-and-snake symbol was all we had.

“Keep on it?” Jacobi whined. “How long? We could be out here for days!” “I'll send out a change of underwear,” I said, and hung up.

For a while I just sat there, rocking back in my chair with a mounting feeling of dread. It had been three days since Tasha Catchings was killed, and three days before that, Estelle Chipman.

I had nothing. No significant clues. Only what the killer had left us. This damned chimera.

And the knowledge... serials kill. Serials don't stop until you catch them.