The 9th Judgment

Chapter 99

JACOBI HAD PUT a meaty hand on each of my shoulders and looked into my eyes. “Peter Gordon is the FBI’s problem, Boxer. You did everything you could do. The little boy is safe. Now, take a few days off. Take as much time as you need.”

I knew Jacobi was right. I needed a rest, physically and emotionally. I’d gotten so bad that I jumped when the drip coffeemaker hissed.

On Sunday, Joe and I reached Monster Park halfway through the first quarter. The 49ers were trailing the St. Louis Rams, but I didn’t care. I was with Joe. It was a great day to be sitting along the fifty-yard line. And, yeah, we were carrying guns and wearing Kevlar under our jackets.

A guard had to bump a couple of squatters from our pricey FBI-comped seats, but I forgot about that little skirmish as the screen pass unfolded below.

Arnaz Battle speared the slightly overthrown pass, tucked it in, and followed his blockers downfield. At the Rams’ forty, he cut to the right sideline and raced, untouched, to the end zone.

I was jumping up and down. Joe grabbed me and gave me a great big kiss, five stars at least. I heard someone shout from the tier above, a loudmouth yelling over the crowd noise, “Get a room!”

I turned and saw that it was one of the squatters we’d evicted. He was loaded and he was a jerk. I yelled back, “Get a life!” And, to my amazement, the lout got out of his seat and headed down to where Joe and I were sitting.

And he stood there, towering over us.

“What do you think?” the guy shouted, saliva spraying out of his mouth. “You think because you can afford these seats, you can do anything you want?”

I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I didn’t like what I saw. When a guy goes bug-nuts at a sporting event, the next thing you know, a lot of other guys want in on the action.

“Why don’t you go back to the seat you paid for?” Joe said, standing up. My fiancé is over six feet and solid, but he was not as big as the flabby loudmouth’s three hundred pounds. “We’re missing the game, and you’re making the lady uncomfortable.”

“What lady?” said the jerk. “I see a big-assed bitch, but I don’t see no lady.”

Joe reached out, grabbed the guy’s jacket, and held it tight under his chin. I put my badge up to his face and said, “Big-assed cop, you mean.”

I signaled to the stadium cops, who were jogging down the stairs. As the loudmouth was roughly hustled up the steps over encouraging shouts from the fans around us, I realized I was panting, adrenaline flooding through my veins all over again.

I had been a nanosecond from pulling my gun.

Joe put his arms around me and said, “What about it, Linds? As the man said, let’s get a room.”

“Great idea,” I said. “I’ve got one in mind.”

Chapter 100

THE CURTAINS IN our bedroom were stirring with a light breeze coming in through the cracked-open window. Joe had cooked for us, bathed us, admired my “perfect bottom,” and wrapped me in terry cloth.

He wouldn’t let me do a thing.

I was on my back in the center of the bed, looking up at him, huge and gorgeous in the soft light coming from the desk lamp and the streetlight outside.

“Don’t move, Blondie,” Joe said.

He tossed his towel over the door without taking his eyes off me. My breathing had quickened, and I fumbled with the belt that cinched my robe at the waist.

“What did I tell you, Linds? Doctor’s orders. Don’t move.”

I laughed as he stretched out on the huge bed beside me.

“My nose itches,” I said.

“I’ve got an itch, too.”

“Okay, goofball.”

“Goofball, huh?”

He turned onto his side and kissed my neck, a certain way he has of getting me from zero to sixty. I reached up to put my arms around his neck, and he put them back down. “Lie still.”

He undid my robe and shifted me-and then we were both naked under the covers.

We lay entwined, facing each other, my leg hooked over Joe’s hip, his arms wrapped entirely around me, my cheek in the hollow of his neck. I felt safe and very loved and had a sense of wonder that after all the ups and downs we’d weathered, we’d arrived at this wonderful state.

Joe gathered my hair and twisted it around his hand, then kissed my throat. He reached around me and pulled me closer. I made a small adjustment with my hips so that he could enter me. For a moment, I forgot to inhale. I was at the edge of a precipice, and I didn’t want to stop.

“Hang on a sec,” Joe said, reaching across me to open the drawer in the nightstand. I heard the crinkle of the foil-wrapped packet, and I put my hand on his arm and said, “No.”

“I’m just getting dressed here.”

“No. Really. Doctor’s orders. Don’t.”

“Hon? Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Joe kissed me deeply and, while holding me tight, rolled us both so that I was lying on top of him. I raised myself up and folded my knees along his sides, placed my hands on his chest, and looked into his face. I saw the light in his eyes-his love for me. He put his hands on my hips, and, with our eyes wide open, we rocked slowly, slowly, no hurry, no worry.

There was no place I’d rather be.

No one I’d rather be with than Joe.

Chapter 101

I WAS AT my desk when Brenda buzzed me on the intercom. “Lindsay, there’s a package downstairs for you. Kevin doesn’t want to send it up without you checking it out.”

I took the stairs down to the lobby and found our security guard waiting near the metal detector. He held an ordinary black nylon computer case, my name on a label, many yards of clear packing tape wound around it. I wasn’t expecting a package. And I sure didn’t like the look of this one.

“I ran it through the metal detector,” our security guard said. “There’s metal in here, but I can’t make out what it is.”

“Where did this case come from?”

“I was checking people through, a whole bunch of kids from the law school, looking in camera bags and so forth, and when I turned around, this case was on the table. Nobody claimed it.”

“I’m calling the bomb squad, no offense,” I said.

“None taken,” Kevin said. “I’ll get the head of security.”

I was shaking again, my clothes sticking to me, my bruised shoulder throbbing. The hard crack of exploding bombs went off in my mind, and I thought about Joe saying that it was so easy to make a bomb, it was scary.

I called Jacobi from behind a marble column at the far side of the lobby and told him about the mystery case. I said that Peter Gordon probably had the skills to blow up the Hall of Justice.

“Get out of there, Boxer,” Jacobi said.

“You, too,” I said. “We’re evacuating the building.”

As I spoke, the alarm went off inside the Hall, and the head of security’s voice came over the PA system, ordering all fire wardens to their posts.

The building was emptied-judges and juries and prosecutors and cops and a floor full of jailed detainees all filed down the back staircase and out to the street. I left through the main door and listened to my heart lay down a three-four beat against my eardrums. Within seven or eight minutes, the building was cleared and the bomb truck was parked in front of the Hall.

I watched from behind a cordon of cops as a robot with X-ray plates in its “arms” rolled up the wheelchair ramp and through the front door of the Hall. Conklin and Chi came down to wait it out with me, and together we watched the bomb-squad tech, masked and swaddled in an antifrag, flame-retardant suit, walk behind the robot with his remote control.

I waited for the detonation I was sure would come. Then we waited some more. When I was at the screaming point, Conklin said, “We could be here all night.”

So we went to MacBain’s.

It was like an office party in there. Law enforcement personnel from all disciplines were whooping it up while waiting to hear if they had offices to go back to. I had my hand in the Beer Nuts when my phone rang.

It was Lieutenant Bill Berry from the bomb squad. “Your so-called bomb has been rendered safe.”

I walked with Conklin and Chi to the bomb truck, which was now parked in the lot behind the Hall. I knocked on the door of the van, and when it opened, I took the case from Lieutenant Berry’s hand.

“So, what’s in it?” I asked him.

“Christmas in September,” he said. “I think you’re going to like it.”

Chapter 102

“SOMETHING YOU’RE GONNA like,” echoed Chi. “What would that be?”

“I’m hoping for puppies,” I said.

Conklin held the door, and the three of us joined the throng of workers returning to their offices. We climbed to the third floor, turned right into Homicide, and crowded into Jacobi’s office as he took his swivel chair and sat down heavily.

Jacobi’s space was a pigpen as always, no offense to pigs. I moved a pile of folders from a side chair, Conklin took the chair beside me, knees bumping the desk, and Chi leaned against the doorjamb in his neat gray suit and string tie.

“Apparently this thing won’t blow up,” I said, putting the computer case on Jacobi’s desk.

“Are you going to open it, Boxer? Or are you waiting for an engraved invitation?”

“Okay, then.”

I took latex gloves out of my pocket and wriggled my hands into them, then slit the tape with a shank that Jacobi used as a letter opener and unzipped the bag all the way around.

At first, I didn’t understand what I was looking at. Little suede bags and small boxes and satin envelopes had been stuffed into the body of the case, and more of the same were tucked inside each of the pockets. Paper clipped to one of those pockets was a plain white envelope addressed to me.

I showed the envelope to my colleagues, then peeled up the flap and teased out a sheet of white copy paper that had been folded in thirds.

“Is it interesting?” Jacobi asked.

I cleared my throat and read the letter out loud.

“ ‘Hi, Sergeant Boxer. I did NOT kill Casey Dowling. All of her stuff is in here, and everyone else’s stuff is in here, too. Please tell everyone I’m sorry. I made some bad mistakes because I thought I had no choice, but I will never steal again. Marcus Dowling killed his wife. It had to be him.’

“It’s signed ‘Hello Kitty.’”

I turned the case so that Jacobi could see me open the small packets. Unbelievable jewelry spilled into my gloved hands. Diamonds and sapphires that I recognized as belonging to Casey Dowling, Victorian brooches and pearls that had been Dorian Morley’s, and other jewelry that had belonged to Kitty’s other victims.

I sifted through extraordinary jewels that I’d seen pictured in Stolen Property’s files, and then I noticed a two-inch-long leather box shaped like a pirate’s trunk. I opened the box and saw a lumpy square of tissue paper.

I unfolded the paper, and a loose yellow stone the size of a grape winked up at me from the hollow of my palm. I was staring at the Sun of Ceylon.

“Is that it?” Conklin asked. “Casey Dowling’s cursed diamond?”

Jacobi barely looked at it. He reached for his phone and hit number one on his speed dial-the chief’s number. “Is Tony there? It’s Jacobi. Tell him I’ve got news. Good kind.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Brady coming toward us in a hurry. He was huffing as he called out to me.

“Boxer, don’t you pick up your messages? Listen, earlier today Peter Gordon’s wife walked into the FBI.”

Chapter 103

HEIDI MEYER SAT alone in an interrogation room, exhausted by the physical and emotional effects of trauma upon unimaginable trauma. Her world was changed. She was changed. How had she lived with Pete Gordon and never known who he was? Pictures kept coming into her mind, images of cooking for Pete, reasoning with him, trying to keep his lid on. She had given birth to his children, compensated for his shortcomings and psychic wounds. She’d slept next to him almost every night for the last ten years.

And now her husband had both literally and figuratively blown up their lives.

After Agent Benbow had interviewed her for three hours, he’d left her alone with a fresh cup of tea. Heidi thought about their interview, how she’d emptied every pocket of her memory in order to tell him whatever she knew to help him find her husband before he killed again.

She’d said that Pete had been freaky since coming back from Iraq. She’d said that he was always angry, that he scared the children, and that, yes, he kept weapons in the house and knew how to use explosives.

Heidi had shown Agent Benbow the bruises on her arms and had let a female agent take pictures of the black-and-blue blotches on the insides of her thighs.

And as she sat in the windowless room, it finally became clear to her how much Pete actually did hate her and the children, and that if he had in fact killed all those mothers and their children, it was because they were stand-ins for her and for Steven and Sherry.

She wondered where Pete was now and if he was tracking her, if he’d been watching her when she went into the FBI building, if he was waiting for her to leave. And now that she’d told the FBI everything, what was she supposed to do? Why hadn’t someone told her what to do?

Heidi looked up as the door opened and Agent Benbow came back in with a tall blond woman. He introduced her as Sergeant Lindsay Boxer from the SFPD. Heidi’s eyes watered. She stood and shook Sergeant Boxer’s hand with both of hers.

“You’re the one who found Stevie. Oh my God. I can’t thank you enough.”

“You’re very welcome, Heidi. May I call you Heidi?”

“Sure.”

Benbow left the room, and Sergeant Boxer pulled out a chair. She said, “Catch me up, okay? I haven’t been fully briefed. Where are Steven and Sherry now?”

“They’re with my friend Sarah Wells. We work together at Booker T. Washington High.”

“And where is Sarah?”

“She’s driving around, waiting to pick me up. She can’t go home. Her husband… she’s left him. We have no place to go. Even if my house wasn’t bombed-out, I have to get far away from Pete.”

“Let’s just talk for a little bit,” Sergeant Boxer said.

“Sure. Whatever I can tell you.”

“Have you spoken to your husband since the events at your house?” Sergeant Boxer asked.

“He left me a voice mail. He said that when he was driving around, he was planning to kill Stevie, but then he saw something in Stevie’s face. He said, ‘He looks just like me. But you, Heidi. You look nothing like me at all.’ ”

“That was pretty ugly. What else did he say?”

“He said to tell the authorities that if he didn’t get the five million bucks, he was going to find me and the kids and shoot us. That’s when I contacted Agent Benbow. I gave him my cell phone with Pete’s message still on it.”

Sergeant Boxer nodded and said, “Excellent,” and then asked, “Where do your parents live?”

“My mother was a single mom. She passed away five years ago. Sergeant, what am I supposed to do?”

The door to the interrogation room opened, and Agent Benbow returned. He had a precise haircut and a military bearing, but his expression was sympathetic, almost warm. He took a seat at the head of the table.

“Heidi, you’ve heard of the Witness Protection Programs?” Benbow said. “We want to put you and your kids in the program. You’ll be given documents supporting new names, new identities, and you’ll be given a new place to live.”

“But I’m no good as a witness. I don’t know anything.”

“We’ve put people in the program for far less than being in Peter Gordon’s sights. You have to let us protect you, Heidi. If we can find him, you’ll do very well as a witness. He’s demonstrated violence against you. And you can give a firsthand account of that.”

Heidi’s mind flooded with thoughts. Benbow was saying that, for her own protection, her life as Heidi Meyer was over. That for the safety of her kids, she had to disappear, delete her real life and start over as a new person. It was damned near inconceivable.

Only Sarah could make this bearable.

Heidi told Sergeant Boxer and Agent Benbow about Sarah Wells, her close friend and confidante, Stevie’s godmother. And she was adamant. Sarah had to come into the program with them.

Benbow looked worried, maybe annoyed. “It’s a risk, Heidi. If Sarah contacts her husband or reaches out to anyone she knows, she’ll put you and your kids in mortal danger.”

“I trust Sarah. I love her. She’s my only true family.”

Benbow drummed his fingers on the table, then said, “Okay. We’ll take you to a safe house while we make arrangements. All of you have to leave now, Heidi. No phone calls. No good-byes. You can’t take anything with you but what you’re wearing.”

Heidi was overwhelmed by the enormity of this imminent and complete break with her past-and with the idea of a future without Pete. What would it be like to live without fear, to be with Sarah every night and in the light of day?

They could all have full lives.

Tears filled Heidi’s eyes again and spilled down her cheeks. She covered her face with her hands and let the tears come. When she could speak again, she said to Boxer and Benbow, “Thank you. God bless you both. Thank you.”

Chapter 104

I WALKED WITH Heidi out to the street. She looked up at me, puffy-eyed and dazed, and said, “I don’t know what to tell the kids.”

“I know you’ll find the words. Heidi, do you understand what happens next?”

“We spend the night at the FBI safe house in LA while arrangements are made. Then we fly out-”

“Don’t tell me where you’re going. Don’t tell anyone.”

“We’re dropping off the edge of the earth.”

“That’s right. Is that your friend Sarah?” I asked as a red Saturn pulled up to the curb.

“Yes. There she is.”

Heidi stepped away from me and leaned into the car through the passenger-side window. She spoke to the driver, then said, “Sergeant Boxer, meet my friend Sarah Wells.”

Sarah was a pretty brunette, no makeup, late twenties, wearing oversize clothes. She put a pink rubber ball down on the seat and reached across to shake my hand. She had an impressive grip. She said, “Listen, it’s good to meet you at last. Thanks for everything.”

There was an odd expression on Sarah’s face-as though she were afraid of me. Had she had run-ins with the police?

“Meet me at last?”

“I meant, since you found Stevie.”

“Of course.”

Stevie was in a car seat in the back, sitting beside a little girl. The boy put the flat of his hand on the window and said gravely, “Hi, lady.”

“Hey, Stevie,” I said, putting my hand on the other side of the glass, overlapping his small palm. The girl announced, “Stevie is in love with you.”

I grinned at the two children, then Heidi gave me an effusive and tearful hug. She settled into the car, then reached out her hand to take mine.

“Be happy,” I said.

“You, too.”

A black sedan pulled alongside the Saturn, and Agent Benbow leaned out of the car window. He told Sarah that he’d be in the lead. A second car positioned itself behind the Saturn, and then the three-car caravan drove away, escorting Heidi, Sarah, and the children to the next chapter of their new lives.

I hoped they were going to have good ones.

I watched until the cars were out of sight. I thought about Heidi and wondered how Pete Gordon would react to her disappearance with his children. And I wondered how in God’s name we would find him before he killed again.

Chapter 105

LEONARD PARISI LOOKED particularly ragged the next morning when Yuki and I came to his office requesting a search warrant. Parisi, known as “Red Dog” for his dark-red hair and his tenacity, pawed through the pictures of approximately four million dollars’ worth of stolen jewelry and a copy of the letter from Hello Kitty.

“Do you have any leads on this Kitty person?”

“She buried herself in a crowd coming through the front door. The security camera picked up the mob scene, but we couldn’t see who left the case,” Yuki said.

“Sergeant?”

“We have nothing on her identity,” I told him. “The jewelry is at the lab. So far, we haven’t found prints on anything. All we have is that Kitty returned every last piece. I think that gives her some credibility when she says she didn’t kill Casey Dowling.”

“What the hell do we have security cameras for?” Parisi groused.

Like the rest of us, Parisi had taken vast quantities of crap for his department’s low conviction record in the face of San Francisco’s rising crime rate. That would be our fault-the police, who didn’t bring the district attorney’s office enough evidence for them to build airtight cases.

“So that leaves us with what, Sergeant? The unsubstantiated statement of an anonymous self-confessed jewel thief that she’s not a murderer? You actually think Dowling did it?”

“Kitty was adamant the two times I spoke with her, and I found her convincing.”

“Never mind her. She’s nobody. She’s a ghost. What about Dowling?”

I told Parisi what we had on Caroline Henley, Dowling’s girlfriend of two years. I explained that Dowling’s net worth was in the tens of millions and that since a divorce would cost him plenty, there was a pretty good motive for killing his wife. I said that Dowling’s story had been inconsistent. That his explanation of the sounds, the shots, whether or not his wife had called out to him, had changed over time.

“What else?”

“His hair was wet when we interviewed him right after the shooting.”

“So he showered to get rid of evidence.”

“That’s what we think.”

Red Dog pushed the folder of photos across the desk in my direction. “A shower is not probable cause. Before you search the screen legend’s house and the news media gets hold of it and that gets us sued for defamation, you’d better have something stronger than the burglar says she didn’t do it and Dowling took a shower.

“It’s not probable cause for a warrant, Yuki,” Parisi said. “It’s not going to fly.”

Chapter 106

I YANKED OUT my desk chair and crashed it hard into my trash can, then did it again for the satisfying effect of the clamor. I said to Conklin, “Red Dog won’t ask for a warrant without a damned smoking gun.”

Conklin stared up at me and said, “Funny you should say that. I was watching some old Dowling movies last night. Look at this.”

Conklin rotated his computer screen around to face me.

I sat, wheeled my chair up to the desk, and looked at Conklin’s monitor. I saw what appeared to be a movie-studio publicity still for an old spy flick.

“Night Watch,” Conklin said. “He made this decades ago with Jeremy Cushing. Terrible film, but it was what they called ‘camp.’ It became a cult favorite. Check this out.”

There was Dowling: black suit, sideburns, and a sun-lined squint. And he was holding a gun. “You’re kidding me. Is that a forty-four?”

“A Ruger Blackhawk. It’s a single-action revolver, a six-shooter,” my partner said, clicking on another picture. The famous and now-deceased Jeremy Cushing was giving the gun to Dowling as a keepsake in a handshake photo op. You could almost hear the flashbulbs popping.

Conklin hit a key, and the printer chugged out hard copies of the photos. I picked up the phone and called Yuki. “Grab Red Dog before he goes anywhere. I’m coming back down.”

We arrived at Dowling’s magnificent mansion in Nob Hill before lunch, three cars full of Homicide cops dying to make a collar. I rang the doorbell, and Dowling came to the door in jeans and an unbuttoned white dress shirt.

“Sergeant Boxer,” he said.

“Hello again. You remember Inspector Conklin. And I’d like to introduce Assistant DA Yuki Castellano.”

Yuki handed Dowling the search warrant. “I went to school with Casey, you know,” she said, stepping past Dowling into the vast gilded foyer.

“I don’t think she ever mentioned you. Hey, you can’t-”

Chi, McNeil, Samuels, and Lemke poured into the house right behind us with the determination of cops raiding a speakeasy during Prohibition. I had a flash of panic. Despite what I’d told Parisi-that Dowling would never ditch a souvenir of the last film Jeremy Cushing ever made-now I wasn’t so sure.

“Wait,” Dowling said. “What are you looking for?”

“You’ll know it when we see it,” I said.

I took the winding staircase up toward the master bedroom as the rest of my squad fanned out through the house. I heard the phone ring, then Dowling shouted, his voice throbbing with indignation.

“Well, Peyser, this is what lawyers are for. Come back from Napa right now.”

I entered the movie star’s room. Fifteen minutes later, there wasn’t a drawer or a shelf that hadn’t felt my hand.

I was pulling the mattress off the bed when I sensed more than heard another person in the room. I looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a black housekeeper’s dress.

I remembered her. The day after Casey Dowling was killed, the day Conklin and I came here to interview Marcus, this woman had served us bottled water.

“You’re Vangy, right?”

“I’m an illegal alien.”

“I understand. I… that’s not my department. What do you want to tell me?”

Vangy asked me to follow her to the laundry room in the basement. When we got there, she turned on a light over the washer and dryer. She put her hands on either side of the dryer and pulled it away from the wall.

She pointed to the exhaust hose, a four-inch-wide flexible tube that vented hot air from the dryer to the outside.

“That’s where he hid it,” she told me. “I heard it rattle. I think what you’re looking for is in there.”

Chapter 107

WE WERE IN Interview Room Number Two, the larger of our interrogation spaces, the one with the better electronics. I’d checked the camera and made sure the tape was rolling before bringing Dowling in and offering him the chair facing the glass.

I wanted a full confession-for me, for Conklin, for Yuki, and for Red Dog Parisi. I wanted swift and certain justice for Casey Dowling. And I wanted to close the case for Jacobi.

Dowling had buttoned his shirt and put on a jacket, and he looked completely in control. I had to admire his cool, since his gun was in a clear plastic evidence bag on the table.

Conklin, too, looked completely at ease. I thought he was doing his best not to grin. He’d earned the right, but I wasn’t doing high fives just yet. Dowling loved himself so much, he’d probably convinced himself that no one could touch him.

“My lawyer is on the way,” Dowling said.

There was a knock on the door. I opened it for Carl Loomis, a ballistics tech at the crime lab. I pointed to the bagged gun, and he picked it up, turned to Dowling, and said, “I really enjoy your work, Mr. Dowling.”

“Loomis, the ballistics test is top priority,” I said.

“You’ll have the results in an hour, Sergeant,” he said as he took the evidence bag out of the room.

I turned to Dowling, who was showing me how nonchalant he was by leaning back in his chair, rocking on its hind legs.

“Mr. Dowling, I want to make sure you understand your situation. When the lab fires your gun, the test bullet is going to match the slugs removed from your wife’s body.”

“So you say.”

Conklin said, “Believe this guy? Let’s just book him on suspicion of murder. We’ve got him. He’s done.”

“Tell us what happened,” I said to Dowling. “If you save us the time and cost of a trial, the DA will take your cooperation into consideration-”

“Oh. Cross your heart?”

“Just so you know, the DA goes home at five. That’s in fifteen minutes. Your window to make a deal is closing fast.”

Dowling snorted derisively, and Conklin laughed.

He went out of the room and came back with three containers of coffee, making a big show of adding milk and sugar to his cup, all the while humming the theme song from Night Watch. It was a catchy little ditty that had made the charts even when Dowling and Cushing’s shoot-’em-up movie had bombed.

I saw something come over Dowling’s face as Richie hummed. The nonchalance evaporated. The chair legs came down. Seemed to me that hearing that tune had focused Dowling as nothing else had.

Chapter 108

DOWLING’S CELL PHONE rang. He looked at the caller ID, opened the phone, and said, “Peyser? Where are you? What are you doing? Walking here?”

Dowling paused for his lawyer’s response, then said, “You’re useless. Useless.” He snapped the phone shut and looked at his watch. It was five on the nose.

“Call the DA. I’m talking to you of my own free will,” Dowling said. “I have nothing to hide. Do I need something in writing from you or the DA?”

“Nope,” I said. I pointed to the camera in the corner over my head. “You’re on the record.”

Dowling nodded. He was on camera. A place he liked to be.

“I lied to protect Casey’s reputation,” he said. “Casey found out that I had a girlfriend. She pulled the gun on me. I wrestled it out of her hands, and the gun went off.”

“Before or after the burglar went out the window?” I asked him.

“The burglar left. That’s what gave her the idea. Casey saw an opportunity to shoot me. She grabbed the gun from the night table and started screaming at me. I tried to take it away from her, and it went off. That’s the truth.”

“Mr. Dowling, are you sure you want to tell it that way? Your wife took two bullets, remember? One to her chest. The other to her neck. She was naked and unarmed. There was no gunpowder stippling on her skin. That means you were standing at least five feet away. The angle of those shots is going to bear that out.”

“That’s not how it happened-”

“It’s exactly how it happened, Mr. Dowling,” I said. “Your Ruger is a single-action revolver. You had to pull the hammer each time before you fired.”

I made a gun of my hand. I pulled back the “hammer” I made with my thumb. I said, “Bang.” Then I repeated the action and said, “Bang,” again. “You want to try to convince a jury that was self-defense?”

“It was. It happened just like I said,” Dowling insisted. He was sputtering now, a lisp coming into his speech, but he clung to his story. “She tried to kill me. I got the gun away from her and it went off. Maybe I panicked and fired it twice. I don’t remember. I was frightened,” he said, tears coming now. “I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “I loved her. Ask anyone. I should never have cheated on her. It’s hard, don’t you see? Women come on to me all the time. Casey didn’t understand that.”

The door opened again, this time no knock, and Tony Peyser, Dowling’s confident, thousand-bucks-an-hour attorney, came through the door.

“Don’t say anything, Marc. What’s the charge?” the lawyer asked me.

I was filled with a heady blend of fury and elation. Dowling’s statement was on tape, and the prosecution would use it to tear him apart.

I didn’t even look at the lawyer. I said, “Stand up, Mr. Dowling. You’re under arrest for the murder of Casey Dowling. You have the right to remain silent…”

Conklin cuffed Dowling as I finished reading him his rights. Dowling was still protesting, “It was self-defense!”

“Who knows? Maybe the jury will believe you,” I said, looking into a face that had struck love into the hearts of untold thousands of women. “But you know what I think? You’re a bad actor. You really stink.”

Chapter 109

I DON’T KNOW when I’ve needed a drink more. Cindy met me downstairs at half past six, and I drove us to Susie’s in my Explorer. I was glad to have some time alone with Cindy, and I had a pretty juicy exclusive for her.

The rain was starting to come down pretty hard, the customary evening gale. As my wipers squeegeed the water off the glass, I told Cindy how the “bomb” dropped off at the Hall turned out to be four million in jewels.

“I think Kitty returned the jewelry because she didn’t want that ‘murder during the commission of a robbery’ charge hanging over her head.”

“What did her letter say exactly?” Cindy asked.

“Cindy, you can have the part about Kitty, but we’re charging Dowling with murder in the second. That’s off the record, okay?”

“Fine,” Cindy said. “I’ll get another source on Dowling in the morning. Meanwhile, this is incredible. Hello Kitty returned the goods.”

I grinned at Cindy as I quoted Hello Kitty’s letter, then I parked as close as I could to Susie’s. We both got out of the car and, squealing like little girls, ran a block through the sharp blowing rain.

Walking into Susie’s is pretty much a peak experience every time. We’ve been coming here for years, so the place is packed with memories. The aroma of Susie’s special spicy fish stew was in the air. The band was tuning up, and there was a mob of singles at the bar.

I saw Yuki sitting on a stool, and Cindy and I edged through the crowd until I could tap Yuki’s shoulder. She turned and gave both me and Cindy hugs. Then she introduced us to the bartender. She shouted over the noise.

“Lindsay, Cindy, meet Miles La Liberte. Miles, these are my friends Lindsay Boxer and Cindy Thomas.”

I shook hands with Miles, and as we said our good-byes, Yuki leaned across the bar and kissed him on the lips.

She kissed him!

“I’ve been out of the loop for too long,” I said to Yuki as we passed the kitchen on the way to the back room. “What was that I just saw?”

“Cute, isn’t he?”

Yuki laughed and took menus from Lorraine, and the three of us slid into the booth. I held open the seat next to me for Claire.

“Darned cute,” I said. “And how long has this been going on?”

“A few weeks.”

“So is this… serious?”

“Yeah,” she said, blushing and grinning at the same time.

“Wow,” Cindy said. “You kept that a secret?”

“Good for you, Yuki. A new case and a new boyfriend. A pitcher of brew, please,” I said to Lorraine. “Four glasses.”

“I have an announcement, too,” Cindy said, clasping her hands, leaning across the table, practically falling into my lap. “Rich and I are living together.”

“Whoa. That’s fantastic,” I said-and I felt it. A hundred percent. “He didn’t tell me.”

“I wanted to be the one to tell you,” she said.

The beer came along with a bowl of plantain chips, and Cindy talked about closet space and how the bed was too soft for Rich, and I thought about how long it had been-if ever-since all of us were happy at the same time. I wished that Claire was here to enjoy this.

I turned, looked over my shoulder, and saw her barreling down the narrow passageway toward our booth.

The look on her face could be described only as an eclipse of the sun. A thunderstorm was coming in.

Chapter 110

CLAIRE DIDN’T EVEN say hello.

She slid into the booth, poured a glass of beer, and said, “Sorry I’m late. I was on the medical examiner database, still trying to break the logjam in this Lipstick Psycho disaster. Edmund says I should take the pictures of those dead babies down from the board in my office, but I want to keep them up until that devil is in custody.”

“Did you find anything?” I asked.

“I can’t find a pattern that matches anything in any database but ours. No other mother-child shootings. No lipstick messages. The stippling pattern is unique. What is his motivation, his trigger, his problem? I don’t have a clue. Cindy, could you pass the chips?”

“He says he’s doing it for the money,” Cindy said.

Claire nodded, then put her hand up, signaling that she still had the floor. She snacked and sipped, then picked up her thought.

“Okay. It’s unusual, isn’t it, Linds? A psycho motivated by money? But anyway let’s consider that message Gordon wrote on the windshield of his car: ‘Now I want five million. Don’t screw it up again.’ What’s happening with that?” Claire asked me.

“The FBI has the car, and it’s their case. I’m on call, but Benbow is in charge.”

Cindy said, “What would happen if we came up with something? What if the Chronicle responds to that windshield message with an open letter to the killer, like we did before?”

“Be specific. What are you thinking?” Yuki asked.

“Say Henry Tyler writes the letter. He says, ‘We’ve got the five million and want to set up a drop.’ And he challenges the killer, kind of a ‘back at ya,’ and says, ‘Don’t screw it up again.’”

“And then what?” Yuki asked Cindy. “Another trap? How would it end any differently?”

I hoped for a trap that wouldn’t involve me. I didn’t know if I could do a repeat performance of that horrific day with the cell phone hanging around my neck, never knowing if or when Gordon would take the money and pop me.

But I had to admit what was demonstrably true.

I said, “You’re saying that if the FBI doesn’t do something soon, he’s going to kill more people to make his point.”

“More mothers and kids,” Cindy said.

“Yep, that’s what I’m thinking,” Claire agreed. “I have an interesting idea, different from the last time. I think it could work.”

Chapter 111

IT WAS MY third consecutive night in a surveillance van with Conklin and Jacobi. The vehicle was airless and soundproofed and connected wirelessly to two female undercover operatives near Nordstrom in the San Francisco Centre-they were pushing strollers with baby-sized dolls inside. I was listening to my designated decoy, Agent Heather Thomson, who was humming “Can’t Touch Me,” and Conklin was tracking Connie Cacase, an innocent-looking, street-talking twenty-year-old rookie from Vice.

There were seven other vans filled with cops from three divisions and with FBI agents, each vehicle following and tracking decoys with strollers in malls all around the city.

While the media were sounding the alarm nonstop on the Lipstick Killer, the mayor, the SFPD, and the FBI had declined to publish a message to Peter Gordon. And he had made no contact either.

Was Gordon angry? Stressed? Biding his time? Where was he?

If he was true to his pattern, he was overdue for a kill.

Our van was parked on Sutter, within striking distance of the Sutter-Stockton Garage, a block from Nordstom and two blocks from the Macy’s at Union Square.

Jacobi’s headset was tuned to SFPD Dispatch, and he had an open mic to Special Agent Benbow, who was parked two blocks away at a mobile command center.

Claire’s plan made sense, but it was far from foolproof. We were all set to pounce but had no one to pounce on. Jacobi was checking in with Benbow when I heard shots through my headset. Heather stopped humming.

“Heather!” I called into my mic. “Speak to me!”

“Was that gunfire?” she asked.

“Can you see anything?”

“I’m on Stockton. I think the shots came from the garage.”

I shouted to Jacobi and Conklin, “Gunfire! Agent Thomson is fine. Richie, do you have Connie? Is she okay?”

“Connie’s good.”

“I don’t know what the hell happened, but something bad. Stay tuned,” I said to Jacobi.

I struggled into my vest, made for the back of the van, swung the doors open, and exited at the rear. Conklin was right with me.

Had Peter Gordon surfaced?

If so, what had he done?

Chapter 112

PETE GORDON HAD stalked the woman through the store, watching her cover her kiddo with a blanket up to its chin before she stepped out with the stroller into the cool of the night.

His target was no beauty queen, but she had some mesmerizing tail action, a nice jiggle and sway. Pete gave her a name, Wilma Flintstone, which was perfect. Dotty little dress, hair twisted up, and Pebbles in the stroller. Wilma placed her handbag in the baby carriage and stepped off the curb, heading for the garage at Sutter and Stockton.

Pete knew that garage. It was huge, tons of indoor parking, several stories with an open top floor, visible to the high-rises all around. He was maintaining a steady ten-foot distance between Wilma and himself, keeping his eye on a cluster of security guards on the corner, when a family of four jackasses got behind Wilma and consumed his safety zone.

Pete hung back. He lowered the bill of his cap and, following his target into the garage, kept to the narrow footpath that skirted the ramp. The family blocking his sight line peeled off-and Pete picked up the pace, searching the rows of parked cars for Wilma in the dotty dress.

There were pedestrians all around, the coughs of engines starting up, the squeal of rubber as vehicles cruised down the incline. Pete was starting to worry that he’d lost her when her dress jumped out at him. She was shoving the stroller into the elevator.

The doors closed behind her and the lights above winked upward, then paused on three. Pete moved quickly to the stairs, loping up two flights, not even breathing hard as he reached the third floor.

Drivers browsed the aisles for empty parking spots, but there was no foot traffic around him. Pete brushed his hand across the gun tucked in his waistband, rounded a stanchion, and got a good straight-on look at Wilma.

And she saw him.

Wilma’s face radiated alarm. She stared, bug-eyed, for a long moment, then wrenched the stroller around and ran toward her car, wheels making a frantic whick-whick sound.

“Miss,” Pete called out. “Could you hang on a minute?”

Wilma shouted over her shoulder, “Stay away from me. Stay away.”

Wilma had made him, but there was nowhere for her to go, handicapped as she was by her kiddo.

“Lady, you’ve got it wrong. My cell phone died. Look.”

Her back was up against her VW Passat, one hand on the stroller’s handlebars, mouth hanging open as she looked everywhere for help. The kiddo let out a scream, and Wilma reached into the stroller, and when she straightened up, Pete saw a.22 pointing at him.

He pulled his gun, but it snagged on his shirt. The muzzle was coming up when he heard the shot and felt the punch to his right shoulder. His gun jumped out of his hand and clattered to the concrete floor.

He yelled, “Stupid bitch!” and dove for the weapon. A slug pinged into the floor an inch from his nose. He rolled onto his back with his gun in his left hand.

“Don’t move, Wilma,” he said, taking aim. But his vision was blurring and lights swooped around him. He squeezed off a few rounds, but he didn’t drop her. Wilma was firing again.

She kept firing.

Chapter 113

I WAS RUNNING up Sutter, Jacobi shouting into the cell phone at my ear, “It’s not one of ours!”

“Say again.”

“None of our people are involved. We got a nine one one call. Shots fired in the Sutter-Stockton Garage. Third floor.”

I called ahead to Conklin over the shrill wail of sirens. We were yards from the garage and then we were inside, our feet striking metal treads as we bounded up the stairs with weapons drawn.

We cleared the doorway to the third floor, and I heard a baby screaming. I ran toward that sound. A woman in her twenties was frozen in place, standing only yards from a man lying spread-eagled, faceup on the floor. She was holding a gun.

I approached the woman slowly, leading with my badge, and said, “I’m Sergeant Boxer. It’s okay now. Please hand me your gun.”

“It’s him, isn’t it?” she said, still transfixed, her baby screaming behind her. “The coroner said to carry a gun, and I did it. It’s him, isn’t it? It’s the killer, isn’t it?”

I had to holster my weapon, shake the shooter’s wrist, and pry up her fingers until I’d secured her.22. Yards away, Conklin kicked a gun out of the limp hand of the man on the floor.

I joined Conklin and put my fingers on the downed man’s carotid artery.

“Rich, I’ve got a pulse.”

Conklin called for an ambulance, and cruisers screamed up the ramp. I couldn’t look away from Peter Gordon’s face.

This was the monster who’d executed nine people, five of them children, a killer who’d tormented his family and held an entire city hostage.

His blood was pumping onto the concrete floor.

I didn’t want to lose him. I wanted to see him in an orange jumpsuit, shackled to the defense table. I wanted to hear his fucked-up view of the world. I wanted him to pay with nine consecutive life sentences, one for each of the people he’d killed. I wanted him to pay.

I pressed my hand to the well of blood pumping from his femoral artery. I nearly jumped when Gordon opened sleepy eyes and turned them on me, saying, “Sweet… meat. I think… I’m shot.”

I leaned so close to his face, I could almost feel a breeze as he opened and closed his eyes.

I said, “Why’d you kill them, you son of a bitch?”

He smiled and said, “Why not?” Then he exhaled a ragged breath and died.