The 6th Target

Chapter 3

I WAS OFF DUTY that Saturday morning in early November, called to the scene of a homicide because my business card had been found in the victim's pocket.

I stood inside the darkened living room of a two-family house on Seventeenth Street, looking down at a wretched little scuzzball named Jose Alonzo. He was shirtless, paunchy, slumped on a sagging couch of indeterminate color, his wrists cuffed behind him. His head hung to his chest, and tears ran down his chin.

I had no pity for him.

"Was he Mirandized?" I asked Inspector Warren Jacobi, my former partner who now reported to me. Jacobi had just turned fifty-one and had seen more homicide victims in his twenty-five years on the job than any ten cops should see in a lifetime.

"Yeah, I did it, Lieutenant. Before he confessed." Jacobi's fists twitched at his sides. Disgust crossed his timeworn face.

"Do you understand your rights?" I asked Alonzo.

He nodded and began sobbing again. "I shouldn'ta done it, but she made me so mad."

A toddler with a dirty white bow in her hair, wet diapers sagging to her dimpled knees, clung to her father's leg. Her wailing just about broke my heart.

"What did Rosa do to make you mad?" I asked Alonzo. "I really want to know."

Rosa Alonzo was on the floor, her pretty face turned toward the flaking caramel-colored wall, her head split open by the iron her husband had used to knock her down, then take her life.

The ironing board had collapsed around her like a dead horse, and the smell of burned spray starch was in the air.

The last time I'd seen Rosa, she'd told me how she couldn't leave her husband because he'd said he'd hunt her down and kill her.

I wished with all my heart she'd taken the baby and run.

Inspector Richard Conklin, Jacobi's partner, the newest and youngest member of my squad, walked into the kitchen. Rich poured cat food into a bowl for an old orange tabby cat that was mewing on the red Formica table. Interesting.

"He could be alone here for a long time," Conklin said over his shoulder.

"Call animal control."

"Said they were busy, Lieutenant." Conklin turned on the taps, filled a water bowl.

Alonzo spoke up.

"You know what she said, Officer? She said, 'Get a job.' I just snapped, you understand?"

I stared at him until he turned away from me, cried out to his dead wife, "I didn't mean to do it, Rosa. Please. Give me another chance."

Jacobi reached for the man's arm, brought him to his feet, saying, "Yeah, she forgives you, pal. Let's take a ride."

The baby launched a new round of howls as Patty Whelk from Child Welfare came through the open door.

"Hey, Lindsay," she said, stepping around the victim, "who's Little Miss Precious?"

I picked up the child, took the dirty ribbon out of her curls, and handed her over to Patty.

"Anita Alonzo," I said sadly, "meet the system."

Patty and I exchanged helpless looks as she jostled the little girl into a comfortable position on her hip.

I left Patty rummaging in the bedroom for a clean diaper. While Conklin stayed behind to wait for the ME, I followed Jacobi and Alonzo out to the street.

I said, "See ya," to Jacobi and climbed into my three-year-old Explorer parked next to six yards of garbage out by the street. I'd just turned the key when my Nextel bleeped on my belt. It's Saturday. Leave me the hell alone.

I caught the call on the second ring.

It was my boss, Chief Anthony Tracchio. An unusual tightness strained his voice as he raised it over the keening sound of sirens.

"Boxer," he said, "there's been a shooting on one of the ferries. The Del Norte. Three people are dead. A couple more wounded. I need you here. Pronto."

Chapter 4

I HAD A REALLY BAD FEELING, thinking ahead to whatever hell had brought the chief out of his comfy home in Oakland on a Saturday. The bad feeling mushroomed when I saw half a dozen black-and-whites parked at the entrance to the pier, and two more patrol cars up on the sidewalk at either end of the Ferry Building.

A patrolman called out, "This way, Lieu," and waved me down the south driveway leading to the dock.

I drove past the police prowlers, ambulances, and fire rigs, and parked outside the terminal. I opened my door and stepped out into the sixty-degree haze. About a twenty-knot breeze had whipped up a stiff chop on the bay, making the Del Norte rock at her mooring.

The police activity had excited the crowd, and a thousand people shifted between the Ferry Building and the farmer's market, taking pictures, asking cops what had happened. It was as if they could smell gunpowder and blood in the air.

I ducked under the barrier tape cordoning off the dock, nodded to cops I knew, looked up when I heard Tracchio call my name.

The chief was standing at the mouth of the Del Norte.

He was wearing a leather blazer and Dockers, and sporting his signature Vitalis comb-over. He signaled to me to come aboard. Said the spider to the fly.

I headed toward him, but before I got five feet up the gangway, I had to back up and let two paramedics pass with a rolling stretcher bouncing between them.

I dropped my eyes to the victim, a large African American woman, her face mostly covered with an oxygen mask, an IV line running into her arm. Blood soaked the sheet tucked tightly over her body.

I felt a pain in my chest, my heart catching on a full second before my brain put it together.

The victim was Claire Washburn!

My best friend had been shot on the ferry!

I grabbed the gurney, stopping its forward motion and causing the brassy blond paramedic bringing up the rear to bark at me, "Lady, out of the way!"

"I'm a cop," I said to the paramedic, pulling open my jacket to show her my badge.

"I don't care if you're God," said the blonde. "We're getting her to the ER."

My mouth was hanging open and my heart was pounding in my ears.

"Claire," I called out, walking quickly now alongside the stretcher as the gurney rumbled over the gangway and onto the asphalt. "Claire, it's Lindsay. Can you hear me?"

No answer.

"What's her condition?" I asked the paramedic.

"Do you understand that we have to get her to the hospital?"

"Answer me, goddamn it!"

"I don't freaking know!"

I stood helplessly by as the paramedics opened the ambulance doors.

More than ten minutes had passed since I'd gotten Tracchio's call. Claire had been lying on the deck of the ferry all that time, losing blood, trying to breathe with a bullet hole ripped into her chest.

I gripped her hand, and tears immediately filled my eyes.

My friend turned her face to me, her eyelids fluttering as she forced them open.

"Linds," she mouthed. I moved her mask aside. "Where's Willie?" she asked me.

I remembered then – Claire's youngest son, Willie, was working for the ferry line on the weekends. That's probably why Claire had been on the Del Norte.

"We got separated," Claire gasped. "I think he went after the shooter."

Chapter 5

CLAIRE'S EYES ROLLED UP, and she slipped away from me. The knees of the gurney buckled, and the paramedics slid the stretcher out of my grasp and into the ambulance.

The doors slammed. The siren started up its blaring whoop, and the ambulance carrying my dearest friend headed into traffic toward San Francisco General.

Time was working against us.

The shooter was gone, and Willie had gone after him.

Tracchio put his hand on my shoulder. "We're getting descriptions of the doer, Boxer -"

"I have to find Claire's son," I said.

I broke away from Tracchio and ran toward the farmer's market, scanning faces as I pushed past the slow-moving crowd. It was like walking through a herd of cattle.

I looked into every fricking produce stall and in between them, raked the aisles with my eyes, searching desperately for Willie – but it was Willie who found me.

He shoved his way toward me, calling my name. "Lindsay! Lindsay!"

The front of his T-shirt was soaked with blood. He was panting, and his face was rigid with fear.

I grabbed his shoulders with both hands, tears welling up again.

"Willie, where are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "This isn't my blood. My mom's been shot."

I pulled him to me, hugged him to my chest, felt some of my terrible fear leaving me. At least Willie was okay.

"She's on her way to the hospital," I said, wishing I could add, She'll be fine. "You saw the shooter? What does he look like?"

"He's a skinny white man," Willie said as we bumped through the mob. "Has a beard, long brown hair. He kept his eyes down, Lindsay. I never saw his eyes."

"How old is he?"

"Like, maybe a few years younger than you."

"Early thirties?"

"Yeah. And he's taller than me. Maybe six foot one, wearing cargo pants and a blue Windbreaker. Lindsay, I heard him say to my mom that she was supposed to stop the shooting. That it was her job. What's that supposed to mean?"

Claire is chief medical examiner of San Francisco. She's a forensic pathologist, not a cop.

"You think it was personal? That he targeted your mom? Knew her?"

Willie shook his head. "I was helping to tie up the boat when the screaming started," he told me. "He shot some other people first. My mom was the last one. He had a gun right up to her head. I grabbed an iron pipe," he said. "I was going to brain him with it, but he shot at me. Then he jumped overboard. I went after him – but I lost him."

It really hit me then.

What Willie had done. My voice was loud, and I grabbed his shoulders.

"What if you'd caught up with him? Willie, did you think about that? That 'skinny white man' was armed. He would have killed you."

Tears jumped out of Willie's eyes, rolled down his sweet, young face. I relaxed my grip on his shoulders, took him into my arms.

"But you were very brave, Willie," I said. "You were very brave to stand up to a killer to protect your mom.

"I think you saved her life."

Chapter 6

I KISSED WILLIE'S CHEEK through the open patrol-car window. Then Officer Pat Noonan drove Willie to the hospital and I boarded the ferry, joining Tracchio in the open front compartment of the Del Norte's top deck.

It was a scene of unforgettable horror. Bodies lying where they'd fallen on the thirty or forty square yards of bloody fiberglass deck, footprints leaving tracks in all directions. Articles of clothing had been dropped here and there – a red baseball cap was squashed underfoot, mixed with paper cups and hot dog wrappers and newspapers soaked in blood.

I felt a sickening wave of despair. The killer could be anywhere, and evidence that might lead us to him had been lost every time a cop or a passenger or a paramedic walked across the deck.

Plus, I couldn't stop thinking about Claire.

"You okay?" Tracchio asked me.

I nodded, afraid that if I started to cry, I wouldn't be able to stop.

"This is Andrea Canello," Tracchio said, pointing to the body of a woman in tan pants and a white blouse lying up against the hull. "According to that fellow over there," he said, pointing to a teenager with spiky hair and a sunburned nose, "the doer shot her first. Then he shot her son. A little kid. About nine."

"The boy going to make it?" I asked.

Tracchio shrugged. "He lost a lot of blood." He pointed to another body, a male Caucasian, white haired, looked to be in his fifties, lying halfway under a bench.

"Per Conrad. Engineer. Worked on the ferry. Probably heard the shots and tried to help. And this fellow," he said, indicating an Asian man lying flat on his back in the center of the deck, "is Lester Ng. Insurance salesman. Another guy who could have been a hero. Witnesses say it all went down in two or three minutes."

I started picturing the scene in my head, using what Willie had told me, what Tracchio was telling me now, looking at the evidence, trying to fit the pieces into something that made sense.

I wondered if the shooting spree had been planned or if something had set the shooter off and, if so, what that trigger had been.

"One of the passengers thinks he saw the shooter sitting alone before the incident. Over there," Tracchio told me. "Thinks he was smoking a cigarette. A package of Turkish Specials was found under a table."

I followed Tracchio to the stern, where several horrified passengers sat on an upholstered bench that wrapped around the inner curve of the railing. Some of them were blood spattered. Some held hands. Shock had frozen their faces.

Uniforms were still taking down the witnesses' names and phone numbers, getting statements. Sergeant Lexi Rose turned toward us, saying, "Chief, Lieutenant. Mr. Jack Rooney here has some good news for us."

An elderly man in a bright-red nylon jacket stepped forward. He wore big-frame eyeglasses and a digital Minicam about the size of a bar of soap hanging from a black cord around his neck. He had an expression of grim satisfaction.

"I've got him right here," Rooney said, holding up his camera. "I got that psycho right in the act."

Chapter 7

THE HEAD OF THE Crime Scene Unit, Charlie Clapper, crossed the gangway with his team and came on board moments after the witnesses were released. Charlie stopped in front of us, greeted the chief, said, "Hey, Lindsay," and took a look around.

Then he dug into the pockets of his herringbone tweed jacket, pulled out latex gloves, and snapped them on.

"This is a fine kettle of fish," he said.

"Let's try to stay positive," I said, unable to conceal the edge in my voice.

"Cockeyed optimist," he said. "That's me."

I stood with Tracchio as the CSU team fanned out, putting out markers, photographing the bodies and the blood that was spattered everywhere.

They dug out a projectile from the hull, and they bagged an item that might lead us to a killer: the half-empty packet of Turkish cigarettes that had been found under a table in the stern.

"I'm going to take off now, Lieutenant," Tracchio told me, looking down at his Rolex. "I have a meeting with the mayor."

"I want to work this case – personally," I said.

He gave me a hard, unblinking stare. I'd just pushed a hot button on his console, but it couldn't be helped.

Tracchio was a decent guy, and mostly I liked him. But the chief had come up through the ranks by way of administration. He'd never worked a case in his life, and that made him see things one way.

He wanted me to do my job from my desk.

And I did my best work on the street.

The last time I'd told Tracchio that I wanted to work cases "hands-on," he'd told me that I was ungrateful, that I had a lot to learn about leading a command, that I should do my goddamned job and feel lucky about my promotion to lieutenant.

He reminded me now, sharply, that one of my partners had been killed on the street and that only months ago, Jacobi and I had both been shot in a desolate alley in the Tenderloin. It was true. We'd both nearly died.

Today, I knew he couldn't turn me down. My best friend had a slug through her chest, and the shooter was free.

"I'll work with Jacobi and Conklin. A three-man team. I'll have McNeil and Chi back us up. Pull in the rest of the squad as needed."

Tracchio nodded reluctantly, but it was a green light. I thanked him and called Jacobi on my cell. Then I phoned the hospital, got a kindhearted nurse on the line who told me that Claire was still in surgery.

I left the scene with Jack Rooney's camera in hand, planning to look at the video back at the Hall, see the shooting for myself.

I walked down the gangway and muttered, "Nuts," before I reached the pavement. Reporters from three local TV stations and the Chronicle were waiting for me. I knew them all.

Cameras clicked and zoomed. Microphones were pushed up to my face.

"Was this a terrorist attack, Lieutenant?"

"Who did the shooting?"

"How many people were killed?"

"Give me a break, guys. The crime just happened this morning," I said, wishing these reporters had grabbed Tracchio or any one of the other four dozen cops milling around the perimeter who'd love to see themselves on the six o'clock news.

"We'll release the names of the victims after we've contacted their families.

"And we will find whoever did this terrible thing," I said with both hope and conviction. "He will not get away."

Chapter 8

IT WAS TWO O'CLOCK in the afternoon when I introduced myself to Claire's doctor, Al Sassoon, who was standing with Claire's chart in hand at the hub of the ICU.

Sassoon was in his midforties, dark haired, with laugh lines fanning out from the corners of his mouth. He looked credible and confident, and I trusted him immediately.

"Are you investigating the shooting?" he asked me.

I nodded. "Yes, and also, Claire's my friend."

"She's a friend of mine, too." He smiled, said, "So here's what I can tell you. The bullet broke a rib and collapsed her left lung, but it missed her heart and major arteries.

"She's going to have some pain from the rib and she's going to have a chest tube inside her until that lung fully expands. But she's healthy and she's lucky. And she's got good people here watching out for her."

The tears that had been dammed up all day threatened to overflow. I lowered my eyes and croaked, "I'd like to talk to her. Claire's assailant killed three people."

"She'll wake up soon," Sassoon told me. He patted my shoulder and held open the door to Claire's room, and I walked inside.

The back of Claire's bed was raised to make it easier for her to breathe. There was a cannula in her nose and an IV bag hanging from a pole, dripping saline into a vein. Under her thin hospital gown, her chest was swaddled in bandages, and her eyes were puffy and closed. In all the years I've known Claire, I've never seen her sick. I've never seen her down.

Claire's husband, Edmund, had been sitting in the armchair beside the bed, but he jumped to his feet the moment I walked in the door.

He looked awful, his features twisted with fear and disbelief.

I set down my shopping bag and went to him for a long hug, Edmund saying into my hair, "Oh, God, Lindsay, this is too much."

I murmured all the things you say when words are just plain inadequate. "She'll be on her feet soon, Eddie. You know I'm right."

"I wonder," Edmund said when we finally stepped apart. "Even saying she heals up okay. Have you gotten over being shot?"

I couldn't answer. The truth was, I still woke up some nights sweating, knowing I'd been dreaming again about that bad night on Larkin Street. I could still feel the impact of those slugs in my mind, remembering the helplessness and the knowledge that I might die.

"And what about Willie?" Edmund was saying. "His whole world turned inside out this morning. Here, let me help you with that."

Edmund held the sides of the shopping bag apart so that I could extract from it a big silver get-well balloon. I tied the balloon to the frame of Claire's bed, then reached over and touched her hand. "Has she said anything?" I asked.

"She opened her eyes for a couple of seconds. Said, 'Where's Willie?' I told her, 'He's home. Safe.' She said, 'I gotta get back to work,' then she conked out. That was a half hour ago."

I searched my mind for the last time I'd seen Claire before the shooting. Yesterday. We'd waved good-bye in the parking lot across from the Hall as we'd left work for the day. Just a casual flap of our hands.

"See ya, girlfriend."

"Have a good one, Butterfly."

It had been such an ordinary exchange. Taking life for granted. What if Claire had died today? What if she had died on us?

Chapter 9

I WAS GRIPPING CLAIRE'S HAND as Edmund returned to the armchair, switched on the overhead TV with the remote. Keeping the sound on low, he asked, "You've seen this, Lindsay?"

I looked up, saw the disclaimer – "What you're about to see is very graphic. Parental discretion is advised."

"I saw it right after the shooting," I told Edmund, "but I want to see it again."

Edmund nodded, said, "Me, too."

And then Jack Rooney's amateur film of the ferry shooting came on the screen.

Together, we watched again what Claire had lived through only hours before. Rooney's film was grainy and jumpy, first focusing on three tourists smiling and waving at the camera, a sailboat behind them, and then a beauty shot of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The camera panned across the ferry's open top deck, past a gaggle of kids feeding hot dog buns to the seagulls. A little boy wearing a backward red baseball cap was drawing on a table with a Sharpie. That was Tony Canello. A lanky bearded man sitting near the railing plucked at his own arm dis-tractedly.

The shot froze, and a spotlight encircled the bearded man.

"That's him," Edmund said. "Is he crazy, Lindsay? Or is he a premeditated killer, biding his time?"

"Maybe he's both," I said, my eyes pinned to the screen as a second clip followed the first. An ebullient crowd clung to the railing as the ferry pulled into dock. Suddenly the camera swung to the left, focusing on a woman, her face screwed up in horror as she grabbed at her chest and then collapsed.

The little boy, Tony Canello, turned toward the camera. His face had been digitally pixilated by the news producers so that his features were a blur.

I winced as he jerked and spun away from the gunman.

The camera's eye jumped around crazily after that. It looked as though Rooney had been bumped, and then the picture stabilized.

I covered my mouth and Edmund gripped the arms of the chair as we watched Claire stretch out her hand toward the shooter. Even though we couldn't hear her over the screams of the crowd, it was clear that she was asking for the gun.

"What bravery," I said. "My God."

"Too damned brave," Edmund muttered, running his hand over the top of his silvering head. "Claire and Willie, both of them, too damned brave."

The shooter's back was to the camera as he pulled the trigger. I saw the gun buck in his hand. Claire grabbed at her chest and went down.

Again, the point of view shifted to horrified faces in a roiling crowd. Then the gunman was on the screen in a crouch, his face turned away from the camera. He stepped on Claire's wrist, shouting into her face.

Edmund cried out, "You sick son of a bitch!"

Behind me, Claire moaned in her bed.

I turned to look at her, but she was still asleep. My eyes flashed back to the television as the shooter turned and his face came into view.

His eyes were down, his beard swallowing the lower half of his face. He was coming toward the cameraman, who finally lost his nerve and stopped filming.

"He shot at Willie after that," Edmund said.

And then, there I was on the TV screen, my hair tangled from my race through the farmer's market, Claire's blood transferred from Willie's T-shirt to my jacket, a wide-eyed look of shocked intensity on my face.

My voice was saying, "Please call us with any information that could lead to this man."

My face was replaced with a freeze-frame shot of the killer. The SFPD phone number and Web address crawled under a title in big letters at the bottom of the screen.

DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?

Edmund turned to me, his face stricken. "Have you got anything yet, Lindsay?"

"We have Jack Rooney's video," I said, stabbing my finger at the TV. "We have nonstop media coverage and about two hundred eyewitnesses. We'll find him, Eddie. I swear we will."

I didn't say what I was thinking: If this guy gets away, I shouldn't be a cop.

I stood, gathered up my shopping bag.

Eddie said, "Can't you wait a few minutes? Claire will want to see you."

"I'll be back later," I told him. "There's someone I have to see right now."

Chapter 10

I LEFT CLAIRE'S ROOM on the fifth floor and took the stairs to the Pediatric ICU on two. I was bracing myself for what was sure to be an awful, heart-wrenching interview.

I thought about young Tony Canello, watching his mother taking a bullet an instant before being shot himself. I had to ask this child if he'd ever seen the shooter before, if the man had said anything before or after firing the gun, if he could think of any reason why he and his mom had been targeted.

I shifted my shopping bag from my right hand to my left as I took the last flight of stairs, knowing that how I handled this interview was going to stay with this little boy forever.

The police department keeps a stash of teddy bears to give to children who've been traumatized, but those small toys seemed too cheap to give to a kid who'd just seen his mother violently killed. I'd stopped off at the Build-A-Bear Workshop before coming to the hospital and had a bear custom-made for Tony. Before it was dressed in a soccer outfit, a fabric heart had been stitched inside the bear's chest, along with my wish that Tony would get well soon.

I opened the door to the second floor and stepped into the pastel-painted corridor of the Pediatric Unit. Cheery murals of rainbows and picnics lined the walls.

I found my way to the Pediatric ICU and flashed my badge for the nurse at the desk, a woman in her forties with graying hair and large brown eyes. I told her that I had to talk to my witness and that I wouldn't take more than a couple of minutes.

"You're talking about Tony Canello? The little boy who was shot on the ferry?"

I said, "I have about three questions. I'll make it as easy on him as possible."

"Ah, I'm sorry, Lieutenant," the nurse said, holding my eyes with hers. "His surgery was touch and go. The gunshot wound involved several major organs. I'm sorry to tell you we lost him about twenty minutes ago."

I sagged against the nurses' station.

The nurse was speaking to me, asking if she could get me anything or anyone. I handed her the shopping bag with the Build-A-Bear inside and asked her to give it to the next kid who came into the ICU.

Somehow, I found my car in the lot and headed back to the Hall of Justice.

Chapter 11

THE HALL IS A GRAY granite cube of a building that takes up a full block on Bryant Street. Its grungy and dismal ten floors house the superior court, the DA's offices, the southern division of the SFPD, and a jail taking up the top floor.

The medical examiner's office is in an adjacent building, but you can get there by way of a back door in the Hall's ground floor. I pushed open the steel-and-glass doors at the rear of the lobby, exited out the back of the building, and headed down the breezeway that led to the morgue.

I opened the door to the autopsy suite and was immediately enveloped by frosty air. I walked through the place as if I owned it, a habit encouraged by my best friend, Claire, the chief medical examiner.

But of course Claire wasn't on the ladder taking overhead shots of the deceased woman on the table. The deputy chief, a fortysomething white man, five eight or so with salt-and-pepper hair and black horn-rimmed glasses, had taken her place.

"Dr. G.," I said, barreling into the autopsy room.

"Watch where you're stepping, Lieutenant."

Dr. Humphrey Germaniuk had been in charge of the ME's office for about six hours, and already stacks of his papers lined the walls in neat rows. I used the toe of my shoe to straighten the pile that I'd accidentally dislodged, lined it up just right.

I knew Germaniuk to be a perfectionist, fast with a joke, and great on the witness stand. In fact, he was as qualified to be CME as Claire was, and some said that if Claire ever stepped down, Dr. G. would be a shoo-in for her job.

"How's it going with Andrea Canello?" I asked, nearing the body on the autopsy table. Dr. G.'s "patient" was nude, lying faceup, the gunshot wound centered between her breasts.

I leaned in for a closer look, and Dr. Germaniuk stepped between me and the dead woman's body.

"No trespassing, Lieutenant. This is a cop-free zone," he cracked – but I could see he wasn't kidding. "I've already had a suspected child abuse, a traffic fatality, and a woman whose head was opened up with a steam iron.

"The ferry victims are going to be an all-day sucker, and I'm just getting started. If you have any questions, ask me now. Otherwise, just leave your cell number on my desk. I'll call you when I'm done."

Then he turned his back on me and began to measure Andrea Canello's gunshot wound.

I stepped away, my head throbbing from the angry outburst I was keeping in check. I couldn't afford to alienate Dr. G., besides which, he was within his rights. Without Claire, the already understaffed ME's office was in a state of emergency. Germaniuk barely knew me, and he had to protect his department, his job, the rights of his patients, and the overall integrity of the investigation.

And he had to autopsy every one of the ferry victims himself.

If a second pathologist got in on this multiple homicide, a good defense attorney would pit the two pathologists against each other, look for inconsistencies that would undermine their testimonies.

Assuming we would find the psycho who killed these people.

And also assuming we would bring him to trial.

It was almost four in the afternoon. If Andrea Canello was Germaniuk's first ferry victim, his all-day sucker was going to be an all-night sucker, too.

Still, I had my own problems. Four people were dead.

The more time that passed, the more likely the ferry shooter would get away.

"Dr. G."

He turned from his diagram and scowled.

"Sorry if I came on too strong, but the shooter killed four people, and we don't know who he is or where to find him."

"Don't you mean three?" Germaniuk said. "I have only three victims."

"This woman's little boy, Tony Canello, died a half hour ago at San Francisco General," I told him. "He was nine. That's four dead, and Claire Washburn is sucking air through a chest tube."

A wave of sympathy swept the indignation from Dr. Germaniuk's face. The edge was gone from his voice when he said, "Tell me how I can help you."

Chapter 12

DR. GERMANIUK USED A SOFT PROBE to gently explore the wound that had torn through Andrea Canello's chest. "It looks like a K-5 right through the heart. I wouldn't swear to it until the firearms examiner says so, but it looks to me like she was shot with a.38."

It's what I'd thought from the video, but I wanted to be certain. Jack Rooney's camera lens had swung away from Andrea Canello as soon as she was shot. If she'd lived for a moment, if she knew her killer, she might have called out his name.

"Could she have lived after she was shot?"

"Not a chance," Germaniuk told me. "Slug to the heart like that, she was dead before she hit the deck."

"That's some shooting," I said. "Six slugs, five direct hits. With a revolver."

"Crowded ferry boat, lots of people. Bound to hit some of them," said Dr. G. matter-of-factly.

We both looked up when the stainless steel doors to the rear of the autopsy suite banged open and a tech wheeled a gurney inside, calling out, "Dr. G., where do you want this?"

The body on the stretcher was sheeted, about fifty inches long. "This" was a child.

"Leave him," Germaniuk said to the tech. "We'll take it from here."

The doctor and I stepped over to the gurney. He pulled the sheet down.

Just looking at the dead child was enough to tear out my heart. Tony's skin was a mottled blue color, and he had a freshly stitched twelve-inch incision across his skinny little chest. I fought an impulse to put my hand on his face, touch his hair, do something to comfort a child who'd had the bad luck to be standing in a madman's line of fire.

"I'm so sorry, Tony."

"Here's my card," Germaniuk said, digging it out of his lab coat pocket, putting it in my hand. "Call my cell phone if you need me. And when you see Claire… tell her I'll come to the hospital when I can. Tell her we're all pulling for her – and that we're not going to let her down."

Chapter 13

MY SQUAD HAD MOVED their chairs and herded up around me. They were throwing out questions and trying out theories about the Del Norte shooter when my cell phone rang. I recognized the number as Edmund's and took the call.

Edmund's voice was hoarse and breaking when he said, "Claire just came out of X-ray. She's got internal bleeding."

"Eddie, I don't get it. What happened?"

"The bullet bruised her liver… They have to operate on her – again."

I'd been lulled by Dr. Sassoon's smile when he'd said that Claire was as good as home free. Now I felt nauseated with fear.

When I arrived at the ICU waiting room, it was half full of Claire's family and friends, plus Edmund and Willie and Reggie Washburn, Claire and Edmund's twenty-one-year-old who'd just flown in from the University of Miami.

I hugged everyone, sat down beside Cindy Thomas and Yuki Castellano, Claire's best girlfriends and mine, the four of us making up the entire membership of what we half jokingly call the "Women's Murder Club." We huddled together, waiting for news in that cheerless room.

Throughout the long, tense hours, we camouflaged our fear by topping one another's kick-butt Claire stories. We downed bad coffee and Snickers bars from the vending machines, and during the early morning hours, Edmund asked us to pray.

We all joined hands as Eddie asked God to please spare Claire. I knew we were all hoping that if we stayed close to her and had enough faith, she wouldn't die.

During those grueling hours, I flashed back to the time I'd been shot – how Claire and Cindy had been there for me.

And I remembered other times when I'd waited in rooms much like this one. When my mom had cancer. When a man I'd loved had been shot in the line of duty. When Yuki's mom had been felled by a stroke.

All of them had died.

Cindy said, "Where is that son-of-a-bitch shooter right now? Is he having a smoke after his dinner? Sleeping in a nice soft bed, planning another shooting spree?"

"He's not sleeping in a bed," Yuki said. "Ten bucks says that dude is sleeping in a Maytag box."

At around five in the morning, a weary Dr. Sassoon came out to give us the news.

"Claire's doing fine," he said. "We've repaired the damage to her liver, and her blood pressure is picking up. Her vital signs are good."

A cheer went up, and spontaneously we all started to clap. Edmund hugged his sons, tears in all their eyes.

The doctor smiled, and I had to admit – he was a warrior.

I made a quick trip home to take a sunrise run around Potrero Hill with Martha, my border collie.

Then I called Jacobi as the sun rose over the roof of my car. I met him and Conklin at the elevator bank inside the Hall at eight.

It was Sunday.

They'd brought coffee and donuts.

I loved these guys.

"Let's get to work," I said.

Chapter 14

CONKLIN, JACOBI, AND I had just settled into my glass-cubicle office in the corner of the squad room when In-spectors Paul Chi and Cappy McNeil entered the dingy twenty-by-thirty-foot workspace that's home base to the twelve members of the homicide crew.

Cappy easily weighs two hundred fifty pounds, and the side chair creaked when he sat in it. Chi is lithe. He parked his small butt on my credenza next to Jacobi, who was having one of his not-infrequent bouts of coughing.

With all the seats taken, Conklin chose to stand behind me, his back against the window and its view of the on-ramp to the freeway, one foot casually crossing the ankle of the other.

My office felt overcrowded, like a shot glass stuffed with a fistful of crayons.

I could feel heat coming off Conklin's body, making me too aware of his six-foot-one, perfectly proportioned frame, his light-brown hair falling over his brown eyes, his twenty-nine-year-old looks reminding me of a Kennedy cousin crossed with maybe a U.S. Marine.

Chi had brought the Sunday Chronicle and placed it on the desk in front of me.

The shooter's photo, a fuzzy still shot taken from Jack Rooney's low-resolution movie footage, was on the front page, and under it was the caption DO YOU KNOW THIS MAN?

We all leaned in to study that furred face again.

The shooter's dark hair hung around to his jaw, and his beard hid everything from his top lip down to his Adam's apple.

"Jesus Christ," said Cappy. We all looked at him.

"What? I'm saying he looks like Jesus Christ."

I said, "We won't be getting anything back from the lab on a Sunday morning, but we have this."

I took the photocopy of the brown-wrapped package of Turkish Specials out of my in-box.

"And we have all this."

I put my hand on the two-inch pile of witness statements, phone messages, and e-mail printouts that our PA, Brenda, had taken off the SFPD Web site yesterday.

"We can divvy it up," said Jacobi.

Loud discussion followed, until Chi said emphatically, "Hey. Cigarettes are big business. Any place that's going to sell a brand like Turkish Specials is going to be one of your mom-and-pop stores. And one of those moms or pops might remember this shooter."

I said, "Okay. You guys run with it."

Jacobi and Conklin took two-thirds of the witness statements out to their desks in the squad room and got on the phones while Chi and McNeil made a few calls before hitting the streets.

Alone in my office, I looked over what Brenda had gathered on the victims – all solid citizens, every one.

Was there a connection between the killer and any of the people he'd shot?

I started dialing the numbers on the witness statements, but nothing in the first few calls lifted me out of my seat. Then I reached a fireman who'd been standing only ten feet from Andrea Canello when the shooter opened fire.

"She was yelling at her kid when the shooter popped her," the witness said. "I was about to tell her to take it easy. The next minute, uh, she was dead."

"What was she saying? Do you remember?"

" 'You're driving me crazy, buddy.' Something like that. Terrible to think… Did the boy make it?"

"I'm sorry to say, no, he didn't."

I made more notes, trying to fit fragments together into pieces, pieces into a whole. I slugged down the last of my coffee and dialed the next person on my list.

His name was Ike Quintana, and he had called late yesterday afternoon, saying maybe he'd been friends with the shooter some fifteen years before.

Now Quintana said to me, "It looks like the same guy for sure. If that's him, we were both at Napa State Hospital in the late '80s."

I gripped the phone, pressing my ear hard against the receiver. Didn't want to miss a syllable.

"You know what I mean?" Quintana asked me. "We were both locked up in the cuckoo's nest."

Chapter 15

I SCRIBBLED A STAR next to Ike Quintana's phone number.

"What's your friend's name?" I asked him, pressing the receiver against my ear. But suddenly Quintana was evasive.

"I don't want to say, in case it turns out not to be him," he said. "I have a picture. You can come over and look, if you come now. Otherwise, I have a lot of things to do today."

"Don't you dare leave home! We're on our way!"

I went out to the squad room, said, "We've got a lead. I have an address on San Carlos Street."

Conklin said, "I want to keep working the phones. New videos of the shooting have been e-mailed to our Web site."

Jacobi stood, put on his jacket, said, "I'm driving, Boxer."

I've known Jacobi for ten years, worked as his partner for three before I was promoted to lieutenant. During the time Jacobi and I were a team, we'd developed a deep friendship and an almost telepathic connection. But I don't think either of us acknowledged how close we were until the night we were shot down by coked-up teenagers. Being near death had bonded us.

Now he drove us to a crappy block on the fringes of the Tenderloin.

We looked up the address Ike Quintana had given me, a two-story building with a storefront church on the ground floor and a couple of apartments on top.

I rang the doorbell, and a buzzer sounded. I pulled at the dull metal door handle, and Jacobi and I entered a dark foyer. We climbed creaking stairs into a carpeted hallway smelling of mildew.

There was a single door on each side of the hallway.

I rapped on the one marked 2R, and a long half minute later, it squeaked open.

Ike Quintana was a white male, midthirties. He had black hair sticking up at angles and he was oddly dressed in layers. An undershirt showed in the V of his flannel shirt, a knitted vest was buttoned over that, and an open, rust-colored cardigan hung down to his hips.

He wore blue-striped pajama bottoms and brown felt slippers, and he had a kind of sweet, gappy smile. He stuck out his hand, shook each of ours, and asked us to come in.

Jacobi stepped forward, and I followed both men into a teetering tunnel of newspapers and clear plastic garbage bags filled with soda bottles that lined the hallway from floor to ceiling. In the parlor, cardboard boxes spilled over with coins and empty detergent boxes and ballpoint pens.

"I guess you're prepared for anything," Jacobi muttered.

"That's the idea," said Quintana.

When we reached the kitchen, I saw pots and pans on every surface, and the table was a layered archive of news-paper clippings covered by a tablecloth, then more newspaper layers and a tablecloth over that, again and again making an archeological mound a foot high.

"I've been following the Giants for most of my life," Quintana said shyly. He offered us coffee, which Jacobi and I declined.

Still, Quintana lit a flame on the gas stove and put a pot of water on to boil.

"You have a picture to show us?" I asked.

Quintana lifted an old wooden soapbox from the floor and put it on the pillowy table. He pawed through piles of photographs and menus and assorted memorabilia that I couldn't make out, his hands flying over the papers.

"Here," he said, lifting out a faded five-by-seven photo. "I think this was taken around '88."

Five teenagers – two girls and three boys – were watching television in an institutional-looking common room.

"That's me," said Quintana, pointing to a younger version of himself slouched in an orange armchair. Even then, he had layered his clothing.

"And see this guy sitting on the window seat?"

I peered at the picture. The boy was thin, had long hair and an attempt at a beard. His face was in profile. It could be the shooter. It could be anyone.

"See how he's pulling at the hairs on his arm?" Quintana said.

I nodded.

"That's why I think it could be him. He used to do that for hours. I loved that guy. Called him Fred-a-lito-lindo. After a song he used to sing."

"What's his real name?" I asked.

"He was very depressed," Quintana said. "That's why he checked into Napa. Committed, you know. There was an accident. His little sister died. Something with a sailboat, I think."

Quintana turned off the stove, walked away. I had a fleeting thought: What miracle has prevented this building from burning to the ground?

"Mr. Quintana, don't make us ask you again, okay?" Jacobi growled. "What's the man's name?"

Quintana returned to the table with his chipped coffee cup in hand, wearing his hoarder's garb and the confidence of a rich man to the manor born.

"His name is Fred. Alfred Brinkley. But I really don't see how he could have killed those people," Quintana said. "Fred is the sweetest guy in the world."

Chapter 16

I CALLED RICH CONKLIN from the car, gave him Brinkley's name to run through NCIC as Jacobi drove back to Bryant Street.

Chi and McNeil were waiting for us inside MacBain's Beers O' the World Pub, a dark saloon sandwiched between two bail-bond shacks across from the Hall.

Jacobi and I joined them and ordered Foster's on tap, and I asked Chi and McNeil for an update.

"We interviewed a guy at the Smoke Shop on Polk at Vallejo," said Chi, getting right into it. "Old geezer who owns the place says, 'Yeah, I sell Turkish Specials. About two packs a month to a regular customer.' He takes the carton off the shelf to show us – it's down two packs."

Conklin came in, took a seat, and ordered a Dos Equis and an Angus burger, rare.

Looked like he had something on his mind.

"My partner gets excited," said Cappy, "by a carton of cigarettes."

"So who's the fool?" Chi asked McNeil.

"Get to it, okay?" Jacobi grumbled.

The beer came, and Jacobi, Conklin, and I lifted our glasses to Don MacBain, the bar's owner, a maverick former SFPD captain whose portrait hung in a frame over the bar.

Chi continued, "So the geezer says this customer is a Greek guy, about eighty years old – but 'hold on a minute,' he says. 'Let me see that picture again.' "

Cappy picked up where Chi left off. "So I push the photo of the shooter up to his snoot, and he says, 'This guy? I used to see this guy every morning when he bought his paper. He's the guy who did the shootings?' "

Jacobi called the waitress over again, said, "Syd, I'll have a burger, too, medium rare with fries."

Chi talked over him.

"So the Smoke Shop geezer says he doesn't know our suspect's name but thinks he used to live across the street, 1513 Vallejo."

"So we go over there -" Cappy said.

"Please put me out of my misery," Jacobi said. His elbows were on the table, and he was pressing his palms into his eye sockets, waiting for this story to pay out or be over.

"And we got a name," Cappy finished. "The apartment manager at 1513 Vallejo positively IDed the photo. Told us that the suspect was evicted about two months ago, right after he lost his job."

"Drumroll please," said Chi. "The shooter's name is Alfred Brinkley."

It was sad to see the disappointment on the faces of McNeil and Chi, but I had to break it to them.

"Thanks, Paul. We know his name. Did you find out where he used to work?"

"Right, Lieu. That bookstore, uh, Sam's Book Emporium on Mason Street."

I turned to Conklin. "Richie, you look like the Cheshire cat. Whatcha got?"

Conklin had been leaning back in his chair, balancing it on its rear legs, clearly enjoying the banter. Now the front legs of his chair came down, and he leaned over the table. "Brinkley doesn't have a sheet. But… he served at the Presidio for two years. Medical discharge in '94."

"He got into the army after being in a nuthouse?" Jacobi asked.

"He was a kid when he was at Napa State," said Conklin. "His medical records are sealed. Anyway, the army recruiters wouldn't have been too picky."

The fuzzy image of the shooter was starting to come clear. Scary as it was, I knew the answer to what had been messing with my mind since the shooting.

Brinkley was a sure-shot marksman because he'd been trained by the army.

Chapter 17

AT NINE THE NEXT MORNING, Jacobi, Conklin, and I parked our unmarked cars on Mason near North Point. We were two blocks from Fisherman's Wharf, a tourist area crammed with huge hotels, restaurants, bike rentals, and souvenir shops, where sidewalk vendors were setting up their curbside tag sales.

I was feeling keyed up when we entered the cool expanse of the huge bookstore. Jacobi badged the closest desk clerk, asking if she knew Alfred Brinkley.

The clerk paged the floor manager, who walked us to the elevator and down to the basement, where he introduced us to the stockroom manager, a dark-skinned man in his thirties, name of Edison Jones, wearing a threadbare Duran Duran T-shirt and a nose stud.

We arrayed ourselves around the stockroom – concrete walls lined with adjustable shelves, corrugated metal doors opening to the loading dock, guys rolling carts of books all around us.

"Fred and I were buddies," Jones said. "Not like we hung out after work or anything, but he was a bright bulb and I liked him. Then he started getting weird." Jones dialed down the volume on a TV resting atop a metal table crowded with invoices and office supplies.

" 'Weird' like how?" Conklin asked.

"He'd say to me sometimes, 'Did you hear what Wolf Blitzer just said to me?' Like the TV was talking to him, y'know? And he was getting twitchy-like, humming and singing to himself. Made management uneasy," Jones said, lightly running a hand across his T-shirt. "When he started missing work, it gave them a reason to ax him.

"I saved his books," Jones told us. He reached up to a shelf, pulled down a box, set it on the table.

I opened the flaps, saw heavy stuff in there by Jung, Nietzsche, and Wilhelm Reich. And there was a dog-eared paperback of The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes.

I picked the paperback out of the box.

"That was his pet book," said Edison. "Surprised he didn't come back for it."

"What's it about?"

"According to Fred, Jaynes had a theory that, until about three thousand years ago, the hemispheres of the human brain weren't connected," Jones said, "so the two halves of the brain didn't communicate directly."

"And the point is?" Jacobi asked.

"Jaynes says that back then, humans believed that their own thoughts came from outside themselves, that their thoughts were actually commands from the gods."

"So Brinkley was… what?" Jacobi asked. "Hearing voices from the television gods?"

"I think he was hearing voices all the time. And they were telling him what to do."

Jones's words sent chills out to my fingertips. More than forty-eight hours had passed since the ferry shooting. While dead ends piled up, Brinkley was still out there somewhere. Taking orders from voices. Carrying a gun.

"You have any idea where Brinkley is now?" I asked.

"I saw him hanging out in front of a bar about a month ago," Jones said. "He was looking pretty ragged. Beard all grown out. I made a joke that he was returning to the wild, and he got a wacky expression on his face. Wouldn't look me in the eye."

"Where was this?"

"Outside the Double Shot Bar on Geary. Fred doesn't drink, so maybe he was living in the hotel over the bar."

I knew the place. The Hotel Barbary was one of the several dozen "tourist hotels" in the Tenderloin, rent-by-the-hour rooms used by prostitutes, junkies, and the nearly destitute. It was one step above the gutter, and not much of a step.

If Fred Brinkley had been living at the Hotel Barbary a month ago, he might still be there now.

Chapter 18

THE WEATHERMAN SAID it would rain, but the sun was high and milky overhead. When Fred Brinkley held out his hand, he could see right through it.

He headed for the dark of the underground, jogging down the steps into the Civic Center BART, where he used to go when he still had his job.

Brinkley lowered his eyes, marking off his paces on the familiar white marble-tiled floor with black granite borders, walking steadily across the mezzanine, not looking up at the corporate slaves buying their tickets and flowers and bottled water for their commute. He didn't want to pick up any thoughts from their hamster-wheel brains, didn't want to see the prying looks coming from their hooded eyes.

He took the escalator down to the tunnels, but instead of feeling calmer, he realized that the deeper he went, the more agitated, angry, he became.

The voices were on him again, calling him names.

Ducking his head, Brinkley kept his eyes on the floor, and he sang inside his mind, Ay, ay, ay, ay, BART-a-lito-lindo, trying to quash the voices, trying to shut them down.

As soon as he got off the escalator on the third level down, he realized his mistake. The platform was packed with deadheads going home from work.

They were like thunderclouds, with their dark coats, their eyes boring into him, closing in and trapping him where he stood.

Pictures he'd seen on the wall of TVs in the electronics-shop window streamed into Fred's mind: the images of himself, shooting the people on the ferry.

He did that!

Brinkley sidled through the crowd, mumbling and singing under his breath until he stood at the edge of the platform, standing on one square only, his toes curled over the void.

Still, he felt the hate and condemnation all around him, and his own fury rose. The white tile walls seemed to pulse and billow. Fred could see, out of the corners of his eyes, people turning toward him, reading his mind.

He wanted to yell, I had to do it! Watch out. You could be next.

He stared down onto the rails, not moving or looking at anyone, keeping his hands in his pockets, the right one curled around Bucky.

They know, the voices roared in unison. They see right through you, Fred.

A sharp voice called out from behind him, "Hey!" Brinkley turned to see a woman with a sharp jaw and tiny black eyes shaking a finger at him.

"He's the one. He was on the ferry. He was there. That's the ferry shooter. Someone call the police."

Things were breaking up now. Everyone knew the bad thing he'd done.

Dog shit. Loser.

Ay, ay, ay, ayyyyyyy.

Fred pulled Bucky out of his pocket, waved it above the crowd. People all around him screamed and shrank away.

The tunnel roared.

Silver-and-blue bullet cars streaked into the station, the noise obliterating all other sound and thought.

The train stopped, and clots of people boiled out of the cars like rats, others washing back in, buffeting Fred like a tide, slamming him into a pylon.

Knocking the breath right out of him.

Freeing himself, wading against the throng, Fred made his way to the escalator. In long, bounding strides, he bolted up past the rodent people on the moving stairway, finding his way up to the air on the street.

The voice inside his head yelled, Go! Get your ass out of here!

Chapter 19

THE DIGITAL CLOCK on the microwave read 7:08. I was physically wrung out and mentally fried after combing the Tenderloin all day, coming up with nothing more than a list of all the places where Alfred Brinkley didn't live.

I wasn't just frustrated, either. I felt dread. Fred Brinkley was still out there.

I put a Healthy Choice macaroni and cheese into the microwave, pressed the minute button five times.

As my dinner revolved, I ran the day through my mind again, searching for anything we might have overlooked in our tour of six dozen sleazy hotels, the interviews with useless desk clerks and scores of low-rent tenants.

Martha brushed up against me, and I stroked her ears, poured dog chow into a bowl. She lowered her head, wagged her plumey tail.

"You're a good girl," I said. "Light of my life."

I had just cracked open a beer when my doorbell rang.

What now?

I limped to the window to see who had the audacity to ring my bell – but I didn't know the man staring up at me from the sidewalk.

He was clean shaven, half in shadow – holding up an envelope.

"What do you want?"

"I have something for you, Lieutenant. It's urgent. I have to deliver this to you personally."

What was he? A process server? A tipster? Behind me, the microwave beeped, alerting me that dinner was ready.

"Leave it in the mailbox!" I shouted down.

"I could do that," said my visitor. "But you said on TV, 'Do you know this man?' Remember?"

"Do you know him?" I called.

"I am him. I'm the one who did it."

Chapter 20

I HAD AN INSTANT of stunned confusion.

The ferry shooter was at my door?

Then I snapped to.

"I'll be right there!" I shouted down.

I grabbed my gun and holster from the back of a chair, clipped my cuffs to my belt. As I rounded the second-floor landing, I called Jacobi on my cell phone, knowing full well that I couldn't wait for him to arrive.

I could be walking into a shooting gallery, but if the man downstairs was Alfred Brinkley, I couldn't chance letting him get away.

My Glock was in my hand as I cracked the front door a couple of inches, using it as a blind.

"Keep your hands where I can see them," I called out.

The man looked volatile. He seemed to hesitate, move back into the street, then forward toward my doorway. His eyes darted everywhere, and I could make out that he was singing under his breath.

God, he was crazy – and he was dangerous. Where was his gun?

"Hands up. Stay where you are!" I yelled again.

The man stopped walking around. He raised his hands, flapping his envelope side to side like a white flag.

I scanned his face, trying to match what I saw against my mental picture of the shooter. This guy had shaved, and he'd done a poor job of it. Wisps of beard showed dark against his pale skin.

In every other way, I saw a match. He was tall, skinny, wearing clothes similar or identical to those worn by the shooter about sixty hours ago.

Was this Alfred Brinkley? Had a violent killer simply rung my doorbell to turn himself in? Or was this a different kind of lunatic, looking for a spotlight?

I stepped out onto the moon-shadowed sidewalk, gripping my Glock in both hands, pointing at the man's chest. The unwashed smell of him wafted toward me.

"It's me," he said, staring down at his shoes. "You said you're looking for me. I saw you on TV. In the video store."

"Get on the ground," I barked at him. "Facedown, with your fingers entwined on top of your head where I can see them."

He swayed on his feet. I shouted, "Get down – do it now!" and he dropped to the sidewalk and placed his hands on his head.

With my gun pressed to the back of his skull, I ran my hands over the suspect's body, checking for weapons, images from Rooney's video flickering through my mind the whole time.

I pulled a gun from his jacket pocket, stuck it into the back of my waistband, and searched for more weapons. There were none.

I holstered my Glock and yanked the cuffs from my belt.

"What's your name?" I asked, dragging back each stick-thin arm until the cuffs snapped around his wrists. Then I picked the envelope up from the sidewalk and stuffed it into my front pocket.

"Fred Brinkley," he said, his voice filling with agitation. "You know me. You said to come in, remember? 'We will find whoever did this terrible thing.' I wrote it all down."

The pictures from the Rooney video looped in my head. I saw this man shoot five people. I saw him shoot Claire.

I took his wallet from his hip pocket with a shaking hand, flipped it open, saw his driver's license by the dim light of the streetlamp across the road.

It was Alfred Brinkley.

I had him.

I read Brinkley his rights and he waived them, saying again, "I did it. I'm the ferry shooter."

"How did you find me?" I asked.

"Your address is on the Internet. At the library," Brinkley told me. "Lock me up, okay? I think I could do it again."

Jacobi's car pulled up just then, brakes squealing. He bolted out of the driver's seat with his gun in hand.

"You couldn't wait for me, Boxer?"

"Mr. Brinkley is cooperating, Jacobi. Everything is under control."

But seeing Jacobi, knowing that the danger was over, sent waves of relief through me, making me want to laugh and cry and shout woo-hoooo all at the same time.

"Nice work," I heard Jacobi say. I felt his hand on my shoulder. I gulped air, trying to calm myself as Jacobi and I got Brinkley to his feet.

As we folded him into the backseat of Jacobi's car, Brinkley turned toward me.

"Thank you, Lieutenant," he said, his crazy eyes still darting, his face crumpling as he broke into tears. "I knew you would help me."

Chapter 21

JACOBI FOLLOWED ME into my office, our nerves strung so tight we could have played them like guitars. As we waited for Brinkley to be processed, we hunched over my desk, drinking coffee, talking over what we needed to do next.

Brinkley had confessed to being the ferry shooter, and he'd refused counsel. But the written statement he'd given me was a rambling screed of nonsense about white light, and rat people, and a gun named "Bucky."

We had to get Brinkley's confession on the record, show that while Alfred Brinkley might be mentally disturbed, he was rational now.

After I called Tracchio, I phoned Cindy, who was not only my good friend but top dog on the Chronicle's crime desk, to give her a heads-up on Brinkley's capture. Then I paced around the squad room, watching the hands of the clock crawl around the dial as we waited for Tracchio to arrive.

By 9:15 Alfred Brinkley had been printed and photographed, his clothes swapped out for a prison jumpsuit so that his garments could be tested for blood spatter and gunshot residue.

I asked Brinkley to let a medical tech take his blood, and I told him why: "I want to make sure you're not under the influence of alcohol or drugs when we take your confession."

"I'm clean," Brinkley told me, rolling up his sleeve.

Now Brinkley waited for us in Interview Room Number Two, the box with the overhead video camera that worked most of the time.

Jacobi and I joined Brinkley in the gray-tiled room, pulling out the chairs around the scratched metal table, taking our seats across from the killer.

My skin still crawled when I looked at his pale and scruffy face.

Remembered what he'd said.

"I'm the one who did it."

Chapter 22

BRINKLEY WAS JUMPY. His knees were thumping the underside of the table, and he had crossed his cuffed wrists so that he could pluck at the hairs on his forearm.

"Mr. Brinkley, you understand that you have the right to remain silent?" I asked him. He nodded as I took him through Miranda once more. And he said 'yes' when I asked, "Do you understand your rights?"

I put a waiver in front of him, and he signed it. I heard a chair scraping in the observation room behind the glass, and the faint whir of the camera overhead. This interview was on.

"Do you know what day of the week this is?"

"It's Monday," he told me.

"Where do you live?"

"BART stations. Computer stores. The library sometimes."

"You know where you are right now?"

"The Hall of Justice, 850 Bryant Street."

"Very good, Mr. Brinkley. Now, can you tell me this: did you travel on the Del Norte ferry on Saturday, the day before yesterday?"

"Yep, I did. It was a really nice day. I found the ticket when I was at the farmer's market," he said. "I don't think it was a crime to use that ticket, was it?" he asked.

"Did you take it from someone?"

"No, I found it on the ground."

"We'll just let it slide, then," Jacobi told Brinkley.

Brinkley looked calmer now and much younger than his years. It was starting to irk me that he seemed childish, even harmless. Like some kind of victim himself.

I had a thought about how he would come across to a jury. Would they find him sympathetic?

"Not guilty" by reason of the likability factor as well as being freaking insane?

"On the return trip, Mr. Brinkley -" I said.

"You can call me Fred."

"Okay, Fred. As the Del Norte was docking in San Francisco, did you pull a gun and fire on some of the passengers?"

"I had to do it," he said, his voice breaking, suddenly strained. "The mother was… listen, I did a bad thing. I know that, and I want to be punished."

"Did you shoot those people?" I insisted.

"Yes, I did it! I shot that mother and her son. And those two men. And that other woman who was looking at me like she knew everything inside my head. I'm really sorry. I was having a very nice time until it all went wrong."

"But you planned this shooting, didn't you?" I asked, keeping my voice level, even giving Brinkley an encouraging smile. "Isn't it true that you were carrying a loaded gun?"

"I always carry Bucky," Brinkley said. "But I didn't want to hurt those people. I didn't know them. I didn't even think they were real until I saw the video on TV."

"Is that right? So why'd you shoot them?" Jacobi asked.

Brinkley stared over my head into the glass of the two-way mirror. "The voices told me to do it."

Was that the truth? Or was Brinkley staging his insanity defense right now?

Jacobi asked him what kind of voices he was talking about, but Brinkley had stopped answering. He dropped his chin toward his chest, mumbling, "I want you to lock me up. Will you do that? I really need some sleep."

"I'm pretty sure we can find you an empty cell on the tenth floor," I said.

I knocked on the door, and Sergeant Steve Hall came into the interrogation room. He stood behind the prisoner.

"Mr. Brinkley," I said as we all came to our feet, "you've been charged with the murders of four people, attempted murder of another, and about fourteen lesser crimes. Make sure you get a good lawyer."

"Thank you," Brinkley said, looking me in the eyes for the first time. "You're an honorable person. I really appreciate all you've done."

Chapter 23

THE NEWSPAPER WAS WAITING outside my front door the next morning, the headline huge over Cindy's byline: FERRY SHOOTER IN DRY DOCK.

When I arrived at the Hall of Justice, a knot of reporters was waiting for me.

"How do you feel, Lieutenant?"

"Fantastic," I said, grinning. "Doesn't get any better than this."

I answered questions, praised my team, and smiled for a few pictures before going into the building, taking the elevator to the third floor.

When I walked through the gate to the squad room, Brenda struck a little gong she kept at her station and then stood up and hugged me. I could see the flowers on my desk from across the room.

I gathered everyone together and thanked them for all they'd done, and when Inspector Lemke asked if I could give lessons in how to conjure up murderers, we all cracked up.

"I've got the nose-twitching part down pat," he said, "but nothing happens."

"You gotta twitch your nose, cross your arms, and blink at the same time!" Rodriguez shouted.

I was pouring coffee for myself in the lunchroom before diving into the thick pile of paperwork taking up half my desktop when Brenda peeked around the doorway, saying, "The chief is on line one."

I went to my office, moved a huge basket of flowers from my desk. Glanced at the small card sticking up between the roses. There were a whole lot of X's and O's on the note from Joe, my wonderful guy.

I was still smiling when I pressed the blinking button on my phone, the chief's voice all mellow, asking me to come upstairs to his office.

"Let me get the team," I said, but he told me, "No, just come by yourself."

I let Brenda know I'd be back in a few minutes and took the stairs to Tracchio's walnut-paneled office on the fifth floor.

The chief stood up when I entered, reached his meaty hand across his desk, grasping mine, saying, "Boxer, bringing down that wackjob makes this a good day for the SFPD. I want to thank you again for your excellent work."

I said, "Thanks, Chief. And thanks for backing me up." I was readying to leave – but an embarrassed look came over the chief's face, a look I hadn't seen him wear before.

He gestured for me to sit down and he did the same, rolling his chair back and forth on the acrylic rug-protector a couple of times before locking his hands across his midsection.

"Lindsay, I've come to a conclusion that I've been fighting tooth and nail."

He was going to give me more manpower?

A bigger overtime budget?

"I've watched firsthand how you worked this case, and I'm impressed at how much tenacity and determination you showed in the investigation."

"Thanks -"

"And so I have to admit that you were right and I was wrong."

Right about what?

My mind raced ahead of his words, trying to gain a half second on him – and failing.

"As you've told me," Tracchio continued, "you belong on the street, not chained to a desk. And I get it now. I finally understand. Simply put, administrative work is a waste of your talent."

I stared at the chief as he put a badge down on the desktop in front of me.

"Congratulations, Boxer, on your well-earned demotion to sergeant."

Chapter 24

SUDDENLY I WAS DIZZY with disbelief.

I heard Tracchio speaking, but it was as if his desk had shot back through the wall and he was talking to me from somewhere over the freeway.

"You'll have a dotted-line reporting relationship to me. Keep your current pay grade, of course…"

Inside my head, I was screaming, Demotion? You're demoting me? Today?

I made a grab for the edge of his desk, needing to hold on. I saw Tracchio fall back into his chair, the expression on his face telling me that he was as stunned by my reaction as I was by his announcement.

"What is it, Boxer? Isn't this what you wanted? You've been nagging me for months -"

"No, I mean, yes. I have. But I wasn't expecting -"

"Come on, Boxer. What are you telling me? I spent all night clearing this up and down the line because you said it's what you wanted."

I opened my mouth, closed it again. "Give me some time to get my head around this, okay, Tony?" I sputtered.

"I give up," Tracchio said, picking up his stapler and banging it down on his desk. "I don't understand you. I never will. I give up, Boxer!"

I don't remember leaving the chief's office, but I do remember a long walk to the stairway, a strained smile on my face as people called out their congratulations when I passed their desks.

My mind was cycling on a short loop.

What the hell had I been thinking?

And what did I want?

I found the stairwell and was leaning heavily on the banister, making my way down to the squad room, when I saw Jacobi coming up the other way.

" Warren, you're not going to believe this."

"Let's get out of here," he said.

We took the stairs to the ground floor and out onto Bryant, heading toward the Flower Mart.

"Tracchio called me last night," Jacobi said as we walked. I looked up at him. Jacobi and I have never had any secrets from each other, but I read pain on his face, and that jolted me.

"He offered me the job, Lindsay. Your job. But I told him I wouldn't take it unless it was okay with you."

The rumble under my feet was surely the Caltrain coming into the station, but it felt like an earthquake.

I knew what I was supposed to say: Congratulations. Brilliant choice. You'll be great, Jacobi.

But I couldn't get out the words.

"I need some time to think, Jacobi. I'm taking the day off," I sputtered.

"Sure, Lindsay. Nobody's going to do anything unless -"

"Maybe two days."

"Lindsay, stop! Talk to me."

But I was gone.

I jaywalked across the street. Got my car out of the lot and drove down Bryant to Sixth, and from there got onto 280 South, heading toward Potrero Hill.

I jerked my phone off my belt and autodialed Joe's cell phone as I drove, listened to the ring tone as I floored my Explorer and took it into the fast lane.

It was one p.m. in Washington.

Pick up, Joe!

The ring went into his voice mail, so I left a message: "Call me. Please."

Then I phoned San Francisco General.

I asked the operator to put me through to Claire.

Chapter 25

I WAS HOPING TO HEAR Claire's voice, but Edmund answered the phone. He sounded as if he'd spent another night sleeping in a chair.

"How is she?" I asked through the crimp in my throat.

"Having another MRI," he said.

"Tell Claire we got the shooter," I said. "He confessed, and we've got him locked up."

I told Edmund that I'd check in with Claire later, then I dialed Joe again. This time I got the voice mail at his office, so I tried him at home.

Got his voice mail there, too.

I braked at the light on Eighteenth Street, tapped my fingers impatiently against the steering wheel, stepped on the gas as the light turned green.

An old memory came into my mind – the day I'd been promoted to lieutenant on the heels of bringing down the "bride and groom killer," a psycho who'd surely earned a top-ten ranking in the Most-Depraved-Criminal Hall of Fame. At the time, I viewed my promotion as pretty much a political appointment. No woman had held the job before. I'd stepped up, let them pin a gold shield on me, without ever knowing if the power and responsibility of the job were what I wanted.

I guess I still didn't know.

I had asked to be put back on the line, so of course Tracchio didn't understand my reaction. Shit. I didn't understand it myself.

But sometimes you couldn't know a thing until you were there.

A dotted-line reporting to Tracchio was bullshit.

I'd be going backward in rank.

Could I handle taking orders from Jacobi?

"I told him I wouldn't take it unless it was okay with you," he'd said.

I needed to talk to Joe.

I pulled the phone back from the passenger seat and hit redial, the sound of Joe's voice on his outgoing message calling up so many memories: the storybook trips we'd taken together, our lovemaking, little things about Joe that I adored – every moment savored because I didn't know when I'd see him again.

What I wouldn't give to be in his arms tonight, to have him wrap me up in his love, and to feel his ability to see the real me. His touch could make the bad feelings go away…

I clicked off my phone without leaving a message, called Joe's other two numbers – same thing.

I pulled my car into a parking spot, set the hand brake, and sat there stupidly, looking at nothing, wishing that I could see Joe.

And then a bright idea broke through.

Hey, I can.

Chapter 26

I DIDN'T LOOK LIKE ANYONE ELSE in the flight lounge, all men in gray suits and red or blue ties – and me. I'd dressed in a new butter-colored cashmere V-neck, tight jeans, and a waist-skimming tweed jacket. My hair gleamed like a halo. Men stole glances, gave my ego a boost.

As I waited for the plane to board, I checked things off in my mind: That Martha's dog sitter was on duty. That I'd locked up my gun and badge in my dresser drawer. That I'd left my cell phone in my car. Actually, leaving my cell phone was an oversight, but I didn't need a shrink to tell me that by shedding my hardware, I was telling the Job to go straight to hell.

I was traveling light, but I had brought the essential stuff: lipstick and my round trip business-class ticket to Reagan National that Joe had given me with his keys and a note saying, "This is your 'come-to-Joe' pass and it's good anytime. XOXO, Joe."

I felt a little reckless as I boarded the plane. Not only was I leaving town with a major conflict unresolved but something else was giving me the jitters.

Joe had made surprise visits to me, but I'd never dropped in unannounced on him.

The glass of preflight champagne helped settle me down, and as soon as the plane lifted off, I lowered my seat into the reclining position and slept, waking up only when the pilot's voice announced our imminent descent into DC.

Once on the ground, I gave a cab driver Joe's address in northwest DC.

A half hour later, the cab swooped around the plantings and fountains in front of the deluxe, L-shaped Kennedy-Warren Apartment Complex. And only minutes after that, I stood in the densely carpeted top-floor hallway of the historic wing, ringing Joe's doorbell.

Well, I'm here.

When he didn't answer, I rang the bell again. Then I slipped the first key into the lower lock, used the second key on the dead bolt, and opened the door.

I called out, "Joe?" as I stepped into his unlit foyer. I called again as I approached the kitchen.

Now I was asking myself, Where was Joe?

Why hadn't he answered any of his phones?

The kitchen opened into a large, attractive area that was both a dining and a living room. Hardwood floors glowed under the stream of light pouring through the windows at the far end, and I saw a terrace beyond.

I noted that the richly upholstered and dark-wood furnishings were in neat, apple-pie order.

My second look made my heart slam to a stop.

A woman was curled up on a sofa, turned toward the windows, reading a magazine, the white cords of an iPod dangling from her ears.

I was too shocked to move.

Or speak a word.

Chapter 27

MY HEART RATE ZOOMED as my focus narrowed to the woman on the couch, a sandwich and cup of tea beside her on the coffee table.

I took in her black tank top and workout pants, the thick, blond-streaked hair knotted behind her head, her bare feet.

My body felt bloodless except for the tingling in my finger-tips. Had Joe been leading a double life while I was in San Francisco, waiting for his calls and visits?

My face flushed with anger but also shame. I didn't know whether to shout or run.

How could Joe have been cheating on me?

The woman must have caught my reflection in the glass. She dropped her magazine, put her hands to her face, and screamed.

I screamed, too. "Who the hell are you?"

"Who are you!" she shouted back, her hair tumbling out of its knot as she ripped the iPod out of her ears.

"I'm Joe's girlfriend," I said. I felt naked and raw, wishing I had a badge to flash at her. Any badge.

Oh, Joe, what have you done?

"I'm Milda," she said, jumping up from the couch, leading me into the kitchen. "I work here. I clean house for Mr. Molinari."

I laughed, not out of humor but out of shock.

She yanked a check out of her pants pocket and stuck it out for me to see.

But I was barely focusing on her. Images from the last few days were flying around inside my head.

And now this young woman's presence was undoing whatever hold I had over my emotions.

"I finished early and I just thought I'd sit for a few minutes," she said as she washed the dishes she'd used. "Please don't tell him, okay?"

I nodded numbly. "No. Of course not."

"I'm leaving now," she said, turning off the taps. "I don't want to be late to pick up my son, so I'm going now, okay?"

I nodded.

I went down a hall, pushed open the door to the bathroom. I opened the medicine chest and scanned the boxes and bottles, looking for nail polish, tampons, makeup.

Coming up empty, I went to the bedroom, a large carpeted space with a view of the courtyard. I threw open Joe's closet door, checked the floor for women's shoes, ran my hands through the rack. No skirts, no blouses. What was I doing?

I knew Joe, didn't I?

I turned back to the bed and was about to undo the bedding and inspect the linens when I saw a photo on the night table. It was of me and Joe six months ago in Sausalito, his arm around me as the breeze whipped my hair across my face. We both looked in love.

I pressed my hands to my eyes.

I was so ashamed. The sobs simply poured out of me. I just stood there in Joe's bedroom and cried.

And then I left and went back to California.