The 6th Target

Chapter 49

CINDY THOMAS LEFT her Blakely Arms apartment, crossed the street at the corner, and began her five-block walk to her office at the Chronicle.

Two floors above Cindy's apartment, facing the back of the building, a man named Garry Tenning was having a bad morning. Tenning gripped the edges of the desk in his workroom and tried to stifle his anger. Down in the courtyard, five floors below, a dog was barking incessantly, each shrill note stabbing Tenning's eardrums like a skewer.

He knew the dog.

It was Barnaby, a rat terrier who belonged to Margery Glynn, a lumpen, dishwater-blond single mother of god-awful Baby Oliver, all of them living on the ground floor, usurping the back courtyard as if it were theirs.

Again, Tenning pressed on his special Mack's earplugs, soft wax that conformed exactly to the shape of his ear holes. And still he could hear Barnaby yappa-yappa-yipping through his Mack's.

Tenning rubbed the flat of his hand across the front of his T-shirt as the dog's brainless yapping ripped the fabric of his repose. The tingling was starting now in his lips and fingers, and his heart was palpitating.

Goddamn it.

Was a little quiet too much to ask?

On the computer screen in front of him, neat rows of type marched down the screen – chapter six of his book, The Accounting: A Statistical Compendium of the Twentieth Century.

The book was more than a conceit or a pet project. The Accounting was his raison d'être and his legacy. He even cherished the rejection letters from publishers turning down his book proposal. He lovingly logged these rejections into a ledger, filing the originals in a folder inside his lockbox.

He'd get his laugh when The Accounting was published, when it became a critical reference work for scholars all over the world – and for generations to come.

Nobody would be able to take that away from him.

As Tenning willed Barnaby to shut the hell up, he ran his eyes down the line of numbers – the fatal lightning strikes since 1900, the inches of snowfall in Vermont, the verified sightings of cows sucked into the air by tornadoes – when a garbage truck began its halting clamor up the block.

He thought his fricking skull would crack open.

He wasn't crazy, either.

He was having a perfectly reasoned response to a horrific assault on the senses. He clapped his hands over his ears, but the squeals, screeches, galvanized shimmies, came through – and they set off Oliver!

The goddamned baby.

How many times had he been interrupted by that baby?

How many times had his thoughts been derailed by that shitty-ass rat dog?

The pressure in Tenning's chest and head was building. If he didn't do something, he would explode.

Garry Tenning had had it.

Chapter 50

EVEN WITH QUIVERING FINGERS, Tenning quickly tied the laces of his bald-treaded Adidas, stepped out into the hallway, and locked the apartment door behind him, pocketing his big bunch of keys.

He used the fire stairs to get down to the basement level – he never took the elevator.

He passed the laundry room and entered the boiler room, where the senior furnace mumbled in its pipes and the hateful new furnace roared with freshly minted enthusiasm.

An eighteen-inch length of pipe with a rusted ball joint affixed to one end leaned against the concrete-block wall. Tenning hefted it, socked the ball joint into the cupped palm of his hand.

He turned right, walking down the incline toward the blinking light of the EXIT sign, murderous ideas igniting in his mind like a chain of firecrackers.

The lock bar on the exit door opened against his forearm. He stood for a minute in the sunshine, getting his bearings. Then he turned the brick corner of the building, heading toward the patio of keystones and the planters that were added since the building's conversion.

Seeing Tenning coming toward him, Barnaby started yapping. He lunged at the leash connecting his collar to the chain-link fence.

Beside him was the baby carriage, where Oliver Glynn fretted in the dappled shade. He was howling, too.

Tenning felt a flame of hope rush through him.

Two birds with one stone.

Clutching the valve-capped pipe, he edged along the side of the building toward the shrieks and howls of the Nasty Little Animals.

Just then, Margery Glynn, her bland blond hair knotted up and stabbed into place with a pencil, stepped out of her apartment. She bent low, displaying several square feet of milky-white thigh, and lifted Oliver out of his carriage.

Tenning watched, unseen.

The baby quieted instantly, but Barnaby only changed his tune, his excited yips stabbing, stabbing, stabbing.

Mistress Margery shushed him, put one hand under the baby's ass, and pressing his wet face to her deflated bosom, carried him inside her apartment.

Tenning advanced on Barnaby, who paused midyowl and licked his chops, hoping for a pat perhaps or a run in the park. Then he sent up his yapping alarm – again.

Tenning lifted his club and swung it down hard. Barnaby squealed, made a feeble grab for Tenning's arm as the club rose high against the cloudless sky and then slammed down a second time.

The rat dog was completely still.

As Tenning stuffed its body into a garbage bag, he thought, RIBP.

Rest in bloody peace.

Chapter 51

THREE DAYS HAD PASSED since Madison Tyler had been taken from Scott Street and her nanny murdered only a few yards from Alta Plaza Park.

We were all in the squad room that morning: Conklin, four homicide inspectors from the night tour doing overtime, Macklin, a half-dozen cops from Major Crimes, and me.

Macklin looked around the small room and said, "I'll make this quick so we can get to work. We've got nothing. Nothing but the talent in this room. So let's keep doing what we're doing, good solid police work. And for those of you who pray – put in a word for a miracle."

He handed out assignments, asked for questions – got none. Chairs scraped as everyone scrambled. I looked over the new list of pervs Conklin and I were assigned to interview.

I got up from my desk and crossed the scuffed linoleum floor to Jacobi's office door.

"Come in, Boxer."

"Jacobi, there were two people involved in the abduction. There was the guy who did the coercing and then there was a driver. Pretty odd, don't you think, for a pedophile to partner up?"

"Got any other ideas, Boxer? I'm wide open."

"I want to go back to square one. The witness. I want to talk to her."

"After all these years, I can't believe you want to double check an interview of mine," Jacobi groused. "Hang on. I have her statement right here."

I sighed as Jacobi moved his coffee, his Egg McMuffin, his newspaper, lifted a pile of manila folders. He sorted through those, found the one he was looking for, flapped it open.

"Gilda Gray. Here's her number."

"Thanks, Lieu," I said, reaching for the folder. I felt a pang, as if I'd made a slip of the tongue. I'd never called Jacobi "Lieu" before. I hoped he'd missed it, but no. Jacobi beamed at me.

I smiled at him over my shoulder, walked back to the face-to-face desk arrangement I have with Conklin. Dialed Gilda Gray's number and got her on the phone.

"I can't come in now. I've got a presentation with a client at nine thirty," she protested.

"A child is missing, Ms. Gray."

"Look, I can tell you everything in about ten seconds over the phone. I was walking our dog on Divisadero. I was following her, getting the newspaper into position, when the little girl and her nanny crossed the street."

"Then what happened?"

"My attention was on Schotzie. I was looking down, lining up that newspaper, you know? I thought I heard a child call out – but when I looked up, all I saw was someone in a gray coat sliding open a door to a black minivan. And I saw the back of the nanny's coat as she got inside."

"Someone in a gray coat. Gotcha. Did you see the person at the wheel?"

"Nope. I put the newspaper in the trash, and I heard the van turn the corner. Then, like I've said, I heard a loud pop and saw what looked like blood splattering against the back window. It was horrible…"

"Anything you can tell me about the man in the gray coat?"

"I'm pretty sure he was white."

"Tall, short, distinguishing features?"

"I didn't pay any attention. I'm sorry."

I asked Ms. Gray when she could come in and look at mug shots, and she said, "You've got mug shots of the backs of people's heads?"

I said, "Thanks anyway," and hung up.

I looked into Conklin's light-brown eyes. Got lost there for half a second.

"So we're still on perv patrol?" he asked.

"Yeah, we are, Rich. Bring your coffee."

Chapter 52

KENNETH KLASSEN WAS WASHING his silver Jaguar when we parked on the uphill slope outside his home on Vallejo.

He was a white male, forty-eight, five ten, your average-to-good-looking porno auteur with artificially enhanced features: good hair weave, quality nose job, aquamarine contact lenses, dental veneers – the works.

According to his sheet, Klassen had been caught in an online chat-room sting setting up a date with someone he thought was a twelve-year-old girl – turned out to be a forty-year-old cop.

Klassen had cut a deal with the DA. In exchange for ratting out a child pornographer, he got a lengthy probation and a hefty fine. He was still making adult porn, which was completely legal, even in the upscale neighborhood of Pacific Heights.

A look of delight brightened Klassen's face as Conklin and I left our Crown Vic on the curb and came toward him.

"Well, well, well," he said, shutting off the hose, looking from me to Conklin and back to me. Sizing us up.

Then his smile hardened as he made us as cops.

"Kenneth Klassen," I said, flashing my badge, "I'm Sergeant Boxer. And this is Inspector Conklin. We have some questions for you. Mind if we come inside?"

"Come wherever you like, Sergeant." Klassen smirked, holding the hose gun in front of himself as if it were cocked and ready to go.

"Shut up, asshole," Conklin said mildly.

"Joke, Officer," Klassen said, grinning. "I was just kidding around. Come on in."

We followed Klassen up the front steps; through an oaken door, a spiffy foyer, and a contemporary parlor; and out to a glass conservatory extending off the kitchen. Ferns, gardenias, and large pots of cacti abounded.

Klassen offered us wicker-basket chairs suspended by chains from overhead beams, and a Chinese man of indeterminate age appeared at the edge of the room, crossed his left hand over his right wrist, and waited.

"Can Mr. Wu get you anything, Officers?" he asked.

"No, thanks," I said.

"So what brings you into my life on this otherwise magnificent morning?"

I balanced uncomfortably on the edge of the basket chair and got my notebook out as Conklin walked around the conservatory, picking up the odd piece of erotic statuary, moving potted plants a couple of inches here and there.

"Make yourself at home," Klassen called out to Conklin.

"Where were you on Saturday morning?" I asked.

"Saturday," he said, leaning back, patting his hair, a look coming over his face as though he were remembering a particularly sweet dream.

"I was making Moonlight Mambo," he said. "Shot it right here. I'm directing a series of twenty-minute films. What I call 'bedroom shorts.' " He grinned.

"That's just great. I'd like the names and phone numbers of everyone who can vouch for your whereabouts."

"Am I suspected of something, Sergeant?"

"Let's just say we think of you as a 'person of interest.' "

Klassen leered at me as though I'd paid him a compliment. "You have lovely skin. You don't spend a penny on makeup, do you?"

"Mr. Klassen, don't screw around with me. Names and phone numbers, please."

"No problem. I'll print out a list."

"Good. Have you seen this child?" I asked, showing him the class photo of Madison Tyler that I'd kept in my jacket pocket for the last three days.

I hated to let Klassen pass his slimeball eyes over Madison's lovely face.

"That's the newspaper guy's kid, right? I've seen her on the news. Look," Klassen said, smiling, nearly blinding me with his sparkling choppers, "I can make this very easy for all of us, all right? Come with me."

Chapter 53

THE ELEVATOR IN KLASSEN'S PANTRY was a knotty-pine box about the size of a double-wide coffin. Conklin, Klassen, and I stepped inside, and I lifted my eyes to where the number board should have been, seeing only the numbers "one" and "four" – no stops in between.

The car opened on the top floor, a bright forty-by-fifty-foot space with furniture, lights, rolled-up carpets, and backdrops stacked against the walls. A high-tech computer station took up a back corner.

It was a wide-open space, but I scanned it anyway for signs of a child.

"It's all done digitally these days," Klassen was saying. He straddled a stool in front of a flat-screen monitor. "You shoot it, download it, and edit it all in one room."

He threw a switch, rolled his mouse, and clicked an icon labeled Moonlight Mambo.

"This is the rough cut I shot on Saturday," Klassen told us. "It's my time-dated alibi – not that I need one. I started shooting at seven, and we worked the whole day."

Latin music came through the computer's speakers, then images jumped onto the screen. A young dark-haired woman wearing something black and scanty lit candles in one of the now-disassembled bedroom sets.

The camera panned the room, stopping at the bed – where Klassen fondled himself and uttered cornball come-ons as the woman did a seductive striptease.

"Ah, jeez," I muttered.

Conklin stepped between me and the computer monitor.

"I'll take a copy of that," he said.

"My pleasure." Klassen slipped a CD out of the drawer, put it in a red plastic case, and handed it to Conklin.

"You have any pictures or films of children on this computer?"

"Hell, no. I'm not into kiddie porn," Klassen huffed. "Besides being in violation of my deal, it's not my thing."

"Yeah, that's terrific," Conklin said smoothly. "So now I'd like to take a quick search through your computer files while the sergeant walks through your house."

"Looks like a neat place, Mr. Klassen," I said. "I love what you've done with it."

"What if I say it's not okay?"

"We'll take you in for questioning while we get a warrant," Conklin told him. "Then we'll impound your computer and search your house with dogs."

"The stairs are that way."

I left Conklin and Klassen at the computer console and strolled downstairs, poking my head into every room, opening doors, checking closets, looking and listening, hoping with all my heart to find a little girl.

Mr. Wu was changing the sheets in a second-floor bedroom when I showed him my badge and the picture of Madison Tyler.

"Have you seen this little girl?" I asked him.

He shook his head vigorously – no. "No children here. Mr. Klassen not like children. No children here!"

Ten minutes later, I was taking deep breaths of cold, clean air on the front steps when Conklin joined me, closing the heavy oaken door behind him.

"Well, that was fun," I said.

"His alibi is going to check out," said Conklin, folding a list of names and numbers into his notebook.

"Yeah, I know it will. Rich, you think that guy is straight?"

"I think he'll twitch for anything that moves."

Klassen was in his driveway when Conklin and I got into our squad car. He lifted a hand, gave us another cheese-eating smile, said, "Buh-bye."

He was whistling to himself, buffing the silver haunch of his Jaguar, when our humble Ford shot away from the curb.

Chapter 54

CONKLIN AND I SAT ACROSS from each other in the squad room. Beside my phone was a pile of unreturned messages from various tipsters who'd reported seeing Madison Tyler everywhere – from Ghirardelli Square to Osaka, Japan.

Dr. Germaniuk's autopsy report of Paola Ricci was open in front of me. Bottom line – cause of death: gunshot to the head. Manner of death: homicide.

Dr. G. had stuck a Post-it note to his report. I read it out loud to my partner.

Sergeant Boxer,

Clothing went to crime lab. I did a sexual-assault kit, just to say I've been there, but don't count on it coming back with anything positive due to total submersion, etc. Bullet was through and through. No projectile recovered.

Regards, H. G.

"Dead girl. Dead end," Conklin said, running his hands through his hair. "The kidnappers have no problem with murder. And that's all we know."

"So what are we missing? We have a half-baked sighting from a witness who gave us nondescriptions of the perps and the car. We have no plate number, no physical evidence from the scene – no cigarette butts, no chewing gum, no shell casings, no tread marks. And no freaking ransom note."

Conklin leaned back in his chair, said to the ceiling, "The perps acted like muscle, not like sexual predators. Shooting Paola within a minute of capturing her? What's that?"

"It's like the shooter was itchy. High on crack. Like the job was subbed out to gangbangers. Or Paola was excess baggage, so they offed her. Or she put up a fight and someone panicked," I said. "But you know, Richie, you're right. Totally right."

His chair creaked as he returned it to an upright position.

"We have to turn this investigation on its head. Work on solving Paola Ricci," I said, planting my hand palm down on the autopsy report. "Even dead, she could lead us to Madison."

Conklin was putting in a call to the Italian Consulate when Brenda swiveled her chair toward me. She covered the mouthpiece of her phone with her hand.

"Lindsay, you've got a caller on line four, won't identify himself. Sounds… scary. I asked for a trace."

I nodded, my heartbeat ticking up a notch. I stabbed the button on the phone console.

"This is Sergeant Boxer."

"I'm only going to say this once," said the digitally altered voice that sounded like a frog talking through Bubble Wrap. I signaled to Conklin to pick up on my line.

"Who is this?" I asked.

"Never mind," said the voice. "Madison Tyler is fine."

"How do you know?"

"Say something, Maddy."

Another voice came over the line, breathy, young, broken. "Mommy? Mommy?"

"Madison?" I said into the phone.

The frog voice was back.

"Tell her parents they made a big mistake calling the police. Call off the dogs," said the caller, "or we'll hurt Madison. Permanently. If you back off, she'll stay alive and well, but either way, the Tylers will never see their daughter again."

And then the phone went dead.

"Hello? Hello?"

I jiggled the hook until I got a dial tone, then I slammed the phone down.

"Brenda, get the Call Center."

"What was that? 'They made a big mistake calling the police?" Conklin shouted. "Lindsay, did that little girl sound like Madison?"

"Jesus Christ, I couldn't tell. I don't know."

"What the hell?" Conklin said, hurling a phone book against the wall.

I felt dizzy, physically sick.

Was Madison really fine?

What did it mean that her parents shouldn't have called the police? Had there been a ransom demand or a phone call that we didn't know about?

Everyone in the squad room was looking at me, and Jacobi was standing behind me, literally breathing down my neck, when the radio room called back with the result of the phone trace.

The caller had used a no-name cell phone, and the location couldn't be traced.

"The voice was altered," I told Jacobi. "I'll send the tape to the lab."

"Before you do that, get the parents to listen to it. Maybe we can get a positive ID on the child's voice."

"Could still be a sicko getting his rocks off," Conklin said as Jacobi walked away.

"I hope that's what it is. Because we're not 'calling off the dogs.' Not even close."

I couldn't say what I was thinking.

That we'd just heard Madison Tyler's last words.

Chapter 55

BRENDA FREGOSI HAD BEEN the homicide squad assistant for some years and, at only twenty-five years old, was a natural mother hen.

She was clucking sympathetically as I spoke to Henry Tyler on the phone, and when I hung up, she handed me a message slip.

I read her spiky handwriting: "Claire wants you to come to the hospital at six this evening."

It was almost six now.

"How did she sound?" I asked.

"Fine, I think."

"Is this all she said?"

"This is what she said exactly: 'Brenda, please tell Lindsay to come to the hospital at six. Thanks a lot.' "

I'd just seen Claire yesterday. What was wrong?

I drove toward San Francisco General, my mind swirling with terrible, sinking thoughts. Claire once told me this thing about brain chemistry, the nub of it being that when you're feeling good, you can't ever imagine feeling bad again. And when you're feeling bad, it's impossible to imagine a time when you won't be circling the drain.

As I sucked on an Altoids, a little girl's voice was crying, "Mommy," in my head, and it was mixed up with the bad knee-jerk reaction I had to hospitals ever since my mother died in one almost fifteen years ago.

I parked in the hospital lot on Pine, thinking about how good it had been having Joe to talk to when I felt this low, frustrated from three days of staggering blindly into dead ends.

My thoughts turned back to Claire as I stepped into the hospital elevator. I stared at my fried reflection in the stainless steel doors. I fluffed my bangs uselessly as the car climbed upward, then when the doors slid open, I stepped out into the antiseptic stink and cold white light of the post-op unit.

I wasn't the first to arrive at Claire's room. Yuki and Cindy had already moved chairs up to her bed, and Claire was sitting up, wearing a flowered nightgown and a Mona Lisa smile on her face.

The Women's Murder Club was assembled – but why?

"Hey, everyone," I said, walking around the bed, kissing cheeks. "You look gorgeous," I said to Claire, my relief that this wasn't a life-support emergency bringing me almost to the point of giddiness. "What's the occasion?"

"She wouldn't tell until you got here," Yuki said.

"Okay, okay!" Claire said. "I do have an announcement to make."

"You're pregnant," said Cindy.

Claire burst out laughing, and we all looked at Cindy.

"You're crazy, girl reporter," I said. A baby was the last thing Claire needed at age forty-three, with two near-grown-up sons.

"Give us a clue," Yuki blurted out. "Give us a category."

"You guys! Stomping on my surprise with your cleats on," said Claire, still laughing.

Cindy, Yuki, and I swiveled our heads toward her.

"I had some blood work done," said Claire. "And Miss Cindy, as usual, is right."

"Ha!" Cindy cried out.

Claire said, "If I hadn't been in this hospital, I probably wouldn't have even known I was pregnant until I started having contractions."

We were all yelling now. "What did you say?" "You're not putting us on?" "How far along are you?"

"The sonogram shows that my little one is fine," said Claire, serene as a Buddha. "My wonder child!"

Chapter 56

I HAD TO PULL MYSELF AWAY from the celebration, overdue as I was for Tracchio's meeting back at the Hall. As I entered his office, the chief was offering leather-upholstered armchairs to the Tylers, while Jacobi, Conklin, and Macklin dragged up side chairs, circling the wagons around the chief's large desk.

The Tylers looked as if they'd been sleeping standing up for the last eighty-four hours. Their faces were gray, their shoulders slumped. I knew they were painfully suspended between hope and despair as they waited to hear the audiotape.

A tape recorder was set up on Tracchio's desk. I leaned over and pressed the play button, and a terrifying, evil voice alternating with mine filled the room.

A little girl's voice cried out, "Mommy? Mommy?"

I pressed the recorder's stop key. Elizabeth Tyler reached out toward the tape recorder, then turned, grabbed her husband's arm, buried her face into his coat, and sobbed.

"Is that Madison's voice?" Tracchio asked.

Both parents nodded – yes.

Jacobi said, "The rest of this tape is going to be even more difficult for you to hear. But we're feeling optimistic. When this call came in, your daughter was alive."

I pressed the play button again, watched the Tylers' faces as they heard the kidnapper say that Madison was fine but that she would never be seen again.

"Mr. and Mrs. Tyler, do you have any idea why the kidnapper said you 'made a big mistake calling the police'?" I asked.

"No idea at all," Henry Tyler snapped. "Why would they feel threatened? You've turned up nothing. You don't even have a suspect. Where is the FBI? Why aren't they trying to find Madison?"

Macklin said, "We are working with the FBI. We're using their sources and their databases, but the FBI won't actively work this case unless we have some reason to believe that Madison was taken out of state."

"So tell them that she was!"

Jacobi said, "Mr. Tyler, what we're asking is, did you receive a communication from the kidnapper telling you not to call the police? Anything like that happen?"

"Nothing," said Elizabeth Tyler. "Henry? Did you hear from them at the office?"

"Not a word. I swear."

I was thinking about Paola Ricci as I looked at the Tylers. I said, "You told us that Paola Ricci was highly recommended. Who recommended her?"

Elizabeth Tyler leaned forward. "Paola came to us directly through her service."

"What kind of service is that?" Macklin asked, stress showing in the grinding of his jaw.

"It's an employment agency," said Elizabeth Tyler. "They screen, sponsor, and train well-bred girls from overseas. They get their work papers and find them jobs. Paola had tremendous references from the agency and from back home in Italy. She was a very proper young woman. We loved her."

"The service gets their fees from the employers?" Jacobi asked.

"Yes. I think we paid them eighteen thousand dollars."

The mentioning of money sent a prickling sensation along the tops of my arms and a swooping feeling in my stomach.

"What's the name of this service?" I said.

"Westbury. No, the Westwood Registry," said Henry Tyler. "You'll speak to them?"

"Yes, and please don't say anything about this call to anyone," Jacobi cautioned the Tylers. "Just go home. Stay near your phone. And leave the Westwood Registry to us."

"You'll be in touch with them?" asked Henry Tyler again.

"We'll be all over them."

Chapter 57

CINDY WAS ON THE PHONE with Yuki, loading the dishwasher as she talked.

"He's just too funny," Cindy said about Whit Ewing, the good-looking reporter from the Chicago Tribune she'd met about a month ago at the Municipal Hospital trial.

"The guy with the glasses, right? The one who tore out of the courtroom by way of the emergency exit? Set off the alarm?" Yuki chuckled, remembering.

"Yeah. See… and he can goof on himself. Whit says he's Clark Kent's nerdy younger brother." Cindy laughed. "He's been threatening to fly into town and take me out to dinner. He's even angling to be assigned to the Brinkley trial."

"Oh, so wait a minute," Yuki said. "You're not thinking of doing what Lindsay did. I mean, Whit lives in Chicago. Why start up an LDR when they're so freaking doomed?"

"I'm thinking… it's been a while since I've had any, uh, fun."

"Been a while for me, too." Yuki sighed. "I not only don't remember when, I don't remember with whom!"

Cindy cackled, then Yuki put her on hold so she could take an incoming call. When Yuki came back on the line, she said, "Hey, girl reporter, Red Dog wants me. Gotta scoot."

"Go, go," Cindy said. "See you in court."

Cindy hung up and turned on the dishwasher, then emptied the trash can. She tied a knot in the bag, went out into the hallway, and hit the elevator call button, and when the car clanked to a stop, she checked to make sure it was empty before she got in.

She thought again about Whit Ewing, and about Lindsay and Joe, and about how long-distance relationships were, by definition, roller-coaster rides.

Fun for a while, until they made you sick.

And now here was another reason to have a boyfriend who stayed in town – the sheer creepiness of living in this building alone. She hit B for "basement," and the newly paneled old elevator rocked as it descended. A minute later, Cindy stepped out into the dank bowels of the building.

As she walked toward the trash area, she heard the sound of a woman crying, a sobbing that echoed and was joined by the screaming of a baby!

What now?

Cindy rounded a bend in the underground vault of the building and saw a blond-haired woman about her own age holding a baby over her shoulder.

There was a black trash bag lying open at the woman's feet.

"What's wrong?" Cindy asked.

"My dog," the stricken woman cried. "Look!"

She bent, spread open the mouth of the trash bag so that Cindy could see the small black-and-white dog that was covered with blood.

"I left him outside for only a few minutes," she said, "just to take the baby into my apartment. Oh, my God. I called the police to report that someone had stolen him, but look. Someone who lives here did this. Someone who lives here beat Barnaby to death!"

Chapter 58

IT WAS WEDNESDAY MORNING, 8:30 a.m., four days after Madison Tyler's abduction. Conklin and I were parked in a construction zone near the corner of Waverly and Clay, steam from our coffee condensing on the car windows as we watched the traffic weave around double-parked delivery vans, pedestrians spilling into the narrow, gloomy streets of Chinatown.

I was eyeballing one building in particular, a three-story redbrick house halfway down Waverly. Wong's Chinese Apothecary was on the ground floor. The top two floors were leased to the Westwood Registry.

My gut was telling me that we'd find at least partial answers in that house – a link between Paola Ricci and the abduction… something.

At 8:35 the front door to the brick house opened and a woman stepped out, took the trash down to the curb.

"Time to rock and roll," said Conklin.

We crossed the street and intercepted the woman before she disappeared back inside. We flashed our badges.

She was white, thin, midthirties, dark hair falling straight to her shoulders, her prettiness marred by the worry lining her brow.

"I've been wondering when we'd hear from the police," she said, one hand on the doorknob. "The owners are out of town. Can you come back on Friday?"

"Sure," Conklin said, "but we have a couple of questions for you now, if you don't mind."

Brenda, our squad assistant, swoons over Conklin, says he's a "girl magnet," and it's true. He doesn't work it. He's just got this natural, hunky appeal.

I watched as the dark-haired woman hesitated, looked at Conklin, then opened the door wide.

"I'm Mary Jordan," she said. "Office manager, bookkeeper, den mother, and everything else you can think of. Come on in…"

I shot a grin at Conklin as we followed Ms. Jordan across the threshold and down a hallway to her office. It was a small room, her desk at an angle facing the door. Two ladder-back chairs faced the desk, and a framed picture of Jordan surrounded by a dozen young women, presumably nannies, hung on the wall behind her.

I found Jordan's apparent anxiety noteworthy. She chewed on her lower lip, stood up, moved a stack of three-ring binders to the top of a file cabinet, sat down, picked at her watch strap, twiddled a pencil. I was getting seasick just watching her.

"What are your thoughts on the abduction of Paola and Madison Tyler?" I asked.

"I'm at a complete loss," Jordan said, shaking her head, and then she continued, barely pausing to take a breath.

Jordan said that she was the registry's only full-time employee. There were two tutors, both women, who worked when needed. Apart from the co-owner, a fifty-year-old white man, there were no men associated with the registry and no minivans, black or otherwise.

The owners of the Westwood Registry were Paul and Laura Renfrew, husband and wife, Ms. Jordan told us. At the moment, Paul was calling on potential clients north of San Francisco and Laura was off recruiting in Europe. They'd left town before the kidnappings.

"The Renfrews are nice people," Jordan assured us.

"And how long have you known them?"

"I started working for the Renfrews just before they relocated from Boston, about eight months ago. The business isn't breaking even yet," Jordan went on. "Now, with Paola dead and Madison Tyler… gone… that's not very good publicity, is it?"

Tears filled Mary Jordan's eyes. She pulled a pink tissue from a box on her desk, blotted her face.

"Ms. Jordan," I said, leaning across her desk, "something's eating at you. What is it?"

"No, really, I'm fine."

"The hell you are."

"It's just that I loved Paola. And I'm the one who matched her up with the Tylers. It was me. If I hadn't done that, Paola would still be alive!"

Chapter 59

"THE RENFREWS HAVE AN APARTMENT down here," Ms. Jordan said as she walked us around the administrative floor. She pointed to the green-painted, padlocked door at the end of a hallway.

"Why the padlock?" I asked.

"They lock up only when they're both away," Jordan said. "It's a good thing. This way I don't have to worry about the girls poking around where they don't belong."

The bumping sound of footsteps came through the floor above.

"The common room is over there," Jordan said, continuing the tour. "The conference room is on your right, and the dorm is upstairs," she said, looking up at the wooden stairway.

"The girls live at the registry until we place them with families. I live up there, too."

"How many girls are here?" I asked.

"Four. After Laura gets back from her trip, we'll probably bring over four more."

Conklin and I spent the remainder of the morning interviewing the young women as they came downstairs, one by one, to the conference room. They ranged in age from eighteen to twenty-two, all European, with good-to-excellent English.

None had a clue or a suspicion or a bad thought about the Renfrews or about Paola Ricci.

"When Paola was here, she said her prayers on her knees every night," a girl named Luisa insisted. "She was a virgin!"

Back at Ms. Jordan's desk, the Renfrews' office manager threw up her hands when we asked her if she had any idea who might have kidnapped Paola and Madison. When she answered a ringing phone, Conklin asked me, "Want me to bust that padlock?"

"Want your next career to be with the sanitation department?"

"It could be worth it."

"You're dreaming," I said. "Even if we had probable cause, Madison Tyler isn't in there. The den mother would spill."

We were leaving the house, walking down the front steps, when Mary Jordan called out, caught up with us, clutched Conklin's arm.

"I've been debating with myself. This could be gossip or just plain wrong, and I don't want to make trouble for anyone," she said.

"You can't worry about that, Mary," Conklin said. "Whatever you think you know, you've got to tell us."

"I'd just started with the Renfrews," Jordan said, darting her eyes to the door of the house, then back to Conklin.

"One of the girls told me something and made me swear not to tell. She said that a graduate of the registry left her employers without notice. I'm not talking about bad manners – the Renfrews had her passport. That girl couldn't get another job without it."

"Was the missing girl reported to the police?"

"I think so. All I know is what I was told. And I was told that Helga Schmidt went missing and was never heard from again."

Chapter 60

THE TENANTS' MEETING HAD HEATED UP to a full boil by the time Cindy got there. A couple hundred people, more or less, were crammed into the lobby. President of the Board Fern Galperin was a small, pretty woman with wire-frame glasses, her head barely visible over the crowd as she tried to quell the clamor.

"One at a time," Ms. Galperin shouted. "Margery? Please go on with what you were saying."

Cindy saw Margery Glynn, the woman she'd met in the garbage room yesterday, sitting on a love seat, jammed between three other people.

Glynn cried out, "The police sent me a form to fill out. They're not going to do anything about Barnaby, and Barnaby was family. Now I feel even more at risk because he's gone. Should I get another dog? Or should I get a gun?"

"I feel as scared and sick as you do," Galperin said, clutching her own small dog to her bosom. "But you can't be serious about getting a gun! Anyone else?"

Cindy put down her computer bag, whispered to a striking brunette woman standing next to the refreshment table, "What's going on?"

"You know about Barnaby?"

"Afraid so. I was in the garbage room when Margery found him."

"Nasty, huh? Barnaby was kind of a pest, but for somebody to kill him? It's certifiably crazy. What is this… New York?"

"Catch me up, will you? I'm new here."

"Sure, okay. So Barnaby wasn't the first. Mrs. Neely's poodle was found dead in a stairwell, and that poor woman blamed herself because she'd forgotten to lock her door."

"I take it someone in the building doesn't care for dogs."

"I mean, yeah," the brunette woman continued. "But there's more. A month ago, Mr. Franks, a real nice guy who lived on the second floor, had a moving van come, like, in the middle of the night. He left Fern a packet of threatening letters that had been slipped under his door over a number of months."

"What kind of threats?"

"Death threats. Can you believe it?"

"Why didn't he call the police?"

"I guess he did. But the letters were anonymous. The cops asked a few questions, then let the whole thing drop. Typical crap."

"And I assume Mr. Franks had a dog?"

"No. He had a stereo. I'm Debbie Green, by the way." The woman smiled broadly. " 2F." She shook Cindy's hand.

"I'm Cindy Thomas. 3B."

"Nice to meet you, Cindy. Welcome to A Nightmare at the Blakely Arms."

Cindy smiled uncertainly. "So aren't you scared?"

"Kinda." Debbie sighed. "But my apartment is fantastic… I'm dating someone now. I think I've talked him into moving in."

"Lucky you." Cindy turned her attention back to the meeting as a stooped elderly gentleman was recognized by the board president.

"Mr. Horn."

"Thank you. What bothers me the most is the stealth," he said. "The notes under the doors. The murdered pets. I think Margery is on to something. If the police can't help us, we must form a tenants' patrol -"

Voices erupted, and Ms. Galperin cried out, "People, raise your hands, please! Tom, you have something to say?"

A man in his thirties stood up. He was slight and balding, standing far across the room from Cindy.

"A tenants' patrol scares the hell out of me," he said. "Who-ever is terrorizing the Blakely Arms could sign up to be on a patrol – and then he wouldn't have to sneak around. He could walk the halls with impunity. How scary would that be?

"About three hundred eighty-five people live in this building, and more than half of us are here tonight. The odds are nearly fifty-fifty that our own private terrorist is in this room. Right now."

Chapter 61

YUKI HAD NEVER SEEN Leonard Parisi mad before. "Red Dog," as he was called, was red haired, tall, more than two hundred pounds, usually affable and avuncular – but right now his dark eyes were pumping bullets as he pounded the conference table with his fist.

Platters of leftover Chinese food jumped.

The five new ADAs around the table looked shocked, with the exception of David Hale, who'd had the bad judgment to remark that the Brinkley case was a "slam dunk."

"There's no such thing as a slam dunk," Parisi roared. "O. J. was a slam dunk."

"Robert Durst," said Yuki.

"Bingo," Parisi said, staring around at all of them. "Durst admitted that he killed his neighbor, chopped him into a dozen parts, and dumped him into the ocean – and a jury of his peers found him 'not guilty.'

"And that's our challenge with Brinkley, David. We have a taped confession and more witnesses than we can count. The crime was caught on tape. And still, it's not a slam dunk."

"But, Leonard," Hale said, "that tape of the crime makes the killer in the act. It's admissible and indisputable."

Parisi grinned. "You're quite the bulldog, David. Good for you. You all know about Rodney King?" Parisi asked, loosening his tie.

"Rodney King, a black parolee, refused to exit his car after he was stopped for speeding. He was pulled out of his vehicle and struck fifty-six times by four white cops – a massive, bloody beating, all caught on videotape. The case went to trial. The cops were acquitted, and so began the race riots in LA.

"So the tape didn't make the case a slam dunk. And maybe this is why: First time you see the Rodney King tape, you're horrified. Second time, you're outraged. But once you see it for the twentieth time, your brain has been around every corner of that scene, and you remember it, sure, but the shock power's gone.

"Everyone in this country with a television set has seen Jack Rooney's tape of Alfred Brinkley shooting those people over and over and over again. By now it's lost its shock power. Understand?

"That said, the tape is in. We should win this case. And we're going to do everything we can to put Brinkley on death row.

"But we're going against a smart and tenacious attorney in Barbara Blanco," Parisi said, leaning back in his chair. "And she isn't working this crap public-defender job for the money. She believes in her client, and the jury is going to feel that.

"We've got to be prepared for anything. And that's the end of today's lecture."

A respectful silence fell over the conference room. Len Parisi was definitely "da man" around here.

"Yuki, anything we forgot to go over?"

"I think we're covered."

"Feeling good?"

"Feeling great, Len. I'm ready to go. Can't wait."

"Sure. You're twenty-eight. But I need my beauty sleep. I'll see you here at seven thirty a.m. Everyone else, stay tuned. We'll have a postmortem at close of day tomorrow."

Yuki said good night to her colleagues and left the room, feeling charged up and lucky that tomorrow morning, she'd be Leonard Parisi's second chair.

And despite Parisi's cautionary rant, Yuki did feel confident. Brinkley wasn't O. J. or even Robert Durst. He had no star wattage, no media appeal. Only weeks ago he was sleeping on the street with a loaded gun in his pocket. He'd killed four total strangers.

No way a jury would chance letting that maniac back on the streets of San Francisco again. Would they?