20th Victim: (Women’s Murder Club 20) (Women's Murder Club)

by James Patterson

  Like himself, Dave was closing in on fifty. Had he tired of being Ray’s disappointing, damaged child? Had he come up with a plan to get away from his father—for good?

  CHAPTER 40

  THERE WAS AN empty corner office at the end of the fourth-floor corridor that had once belonged to a crooked cop who didn’t need it anymore or ever again.

  I told Brady my plan to turn that office into a war room for the Baron case, and he said, “Be my guest.” Then I told him I was going to form a task force with the primaries on the sniper shootings in other cities.

  Brady said, “You’re about to learn what it means to herd cats.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “It’s a hell yes,” he said.

  He took the elevator up to Jacobi’s former office on five and didn’t look back. A half hour later Rich and I had taped up photos of the deceased on the war room walls, our computers had been moved to our new office, and we each had a mug and a thermos full of coffee.

  We arranged for a conference call with Detective Richards from Chicago, Detective Noble in LA, Chi and McNeil from out on the street, and Conklin and myself on whatever lines we could grab at that hour, all of us telephonically together at noon.

  Richards’s victim was the small smoke shop owner, Albert Roccio. Richards had been miserly with whatever he had gleaned about the shooting, telling us that so far he hadn’t made any progress. Noble had taken the lead in the case of Fred Peavey, killed by a single shot outside his son’s school. He was coming late to his case and had sounded eager to be part of our team.

  McNeil and Chi were the lead investigators on Jennings’s assassination at the Duboce Avenue Taco King.

  Jennings, the first to die, had been shot from a distance through his windshield. His rear window had been marked with the word Rehearsal, written with a finger in the dust on the window. However, Jennings had been shot slightly later than 8:30, like the other victims. It was unclear whether Jennings was part of the same collection of executed drug dealers.

  Conklin and I were under the most pressure. Paul and Ramona Baron, unlike the other victims, were well known and had a fan base of rich and influential citizens. Those friends were talking to the press and clogging the mayor’s phone lines with demands for an arrest of the killer or killers, pronto.

  I thought Brady was right that egos would be involved in this task force, but I also believed that to varying degrees the “cats” wanted to be herded if it would result in closing their cases.

  Rich and I had an immediate and specific goal.

  At one o’clock we’d be meeting with Miranda White Barkley and her attorney, who would be pushing to get his client released and had a fair chance of getting his way. We had no evidence that Randi had participated in the murders.

  Still holding her as a material witness, we would have to release her at 2:00. I hoped that by the time the conference call ended, we’d have the leverage we needed to get Randi to talk.

  I wasn’t just hopeful, I was damned-well determined.

  CHAPTER 41

  TED SWANSON’S FORMER office had been cleaned, but no flowery air freshener could eradicate the stink of that dirty cop who’d cost the lives of eighteen people.

  He was at Chino for life, but that was old stinking news.

  I closed the door to our new war room, with its large gray desk and two phone consoles, and my partner and I booted up our laptops.

  I clicked on a news link and read the chyron running along the lower edge of my screen: SFPD has no leads in the deaths of Ramona and Paul Baron.

  Great. Tell me something I don’t know.

  A box with an arrow appeared in the upper right with the title “The Mysterious Deaths of Paul and Ramona Baron.”

  “Richie. Come here.”

  I double-clicked on the arrow and was immediately alarmed to see a slide show of images of the Barons’ office after they’d been murdered. There were close-ups of the bullet holes in the casement windows, Ramona’s desk chair, the bloodstained carpet, and the taped outline of Paul’s body across the surface of the partners desk.

  The voice-over reporter was saying, “Acting chief of police Jackson Brady tells Real Crime News that he can’t comment while the Baron case is under investigation.”

  I stabbed the Mute button with my finger and said to Conklin, “Did you see that? Someone leaked the crime scene photos, for God’s sake.”

  “Taking a wild guess here. A CSI was bribed.”

  “Huh,” I said. “Nice little severance package for someone.”

  I had Clapper’s mobile on speed dial. I left him a message, and then I stewed about this wide-open case and kicked it around with Conklin.

  I said, “Graphic photos of blood and bullet holes, and the shooter’s defense attorney tells a judge that the jury pool has been poisoned. If it ever comes to a judge and jury.”

  “You’re not looking at the bright side.”

  “You’re a riot, Richie.”

  All we had was a suspect who’d been photographed holding a gun sight and was currently as free as fog. According to Randi White Barkley, her husband had PTSD. He’d run from the police out of fear. My theory was a little different. Barkley had run because he’d killed two prominent citizens and we were onto him. The odds were ten to nothing that he was preparing to kill again.

  Still. We had his car, his wife, his laptop, his fingerprints, and his dog. Cops were on his doorstep. Maybe if Randi asked him to come in, he would do it.

  I had a question for Richie, the eternal optimist.

  “Check me on this. The Barons’ murders actually link up with the shootings at the same time in other cities, right?”

  “So it seems. Roccio, yes. Peavey, yes. Eight thirty a.m.”

  “So in your view, selling drugs—major league or minor—is at the root of the murders?”

  “Well, do you believe in coincidences?” he asked me.

  “Let me get back to you on that.”

  Detective Richards of Chicago PD had shown a distinct disinclination to share information about his victim, Albert Roccio, but he’d agreed to take our call at noon. I said to Conklin, “Here we go.”

  I tapped Richards’s contact on my phone.

  A woman answered, saying, “Detective Wilkens. May I help you?”

  “I’m Sergeant Boxer. Detective Richards is expecting my call,” I said.

  “He just ran out, but he’ll be back in a few.”

  I left my number as Brenda poked her head into the room. “I’ve got Inspector McNeil for you.”

  Cappy’s husky voice, filtered through the car radio mike and whatever he was eating.

  “Boxer, you ready for a big pile of nothing much?”

  “Bring it.”

  He laughed, said, “Ready, set, go.”

  And then he reported in.

  CHAPTER 42

  I PICTURED CAPPY swiping his bald head with his forearm, replacing his ball cap, setting it just right.

  He spoke into the mic, saying, “Okay, so here’s what we know from working the Taco King.

  “Jennings was a regular. His movements were known. If someone wanted to take him out, they could find him. So he was prob’ly a target, not a random ‘rehearsal,’ and that goes to motive.

  “We spoke with Woody Moynihan. ’Member him? First baseman, .300 batting average until he took a hundred-mile-per-hour fastball to his head.”

  I said, “Does Moynihan have an idea who shot Jennings?”

  My cell phone buzzed, Brenda texting, Detective Noble is on line three.

  I asked Cappy to hang on, punched the button on the console, said hello to the LAPD homicide detective who was primary on the LA shooting.

  Conklin punched line three on his own console and at the same time activated speakerphone. “Cappy,” he said. “Talk to me. Boxer has another call.”

  “Fine, tell her Jennings was peddling pills to friends. Moynihan says actually he was a customer, but it coulda been a wide circle. Friends of fri
ends. Conklin. You still there?”

  “I’m all yours,” said Conklin.

  “Okay. I talk to myself, but not on the phone. So Moynihan has no idea who woulda capped Jennings, but there’s a variety of reasons someone might have gone crazy and offed his dealer. It happens, you know. Narcotics might have a line on it.”

  I was listening to Cappy and at the same time thinking how Narcotics was a shell of its former self. There were jobs that had to be filled, and this was a great example of why.

  Noble said, “Hello?”

  I turned my attention back to Noble, saying, “Right here.”

  He said, “We’ve doubled up our manpower on this school shooting.”

  “Excellent. What have you got so far?”

  Noble said, “The parents at Little Geniuses, where Peavey was popped, are going, uh, ballistic. We’ve been bringing them in, giving them a chance to air their complaints and fears of their kids being shot, and hoping maybe someone would finger a suspect.”

  “How’s that going?”

  Chi’s voice came over the speaker, bringing Conklin up to date on the stakeout at Barkley’s house.

  I tried listening to Chi, but Noble was excited and drew me in.

  “Fred Peavey was a dentist,” said Noble, “and some of the other parents were posing as patients of his. I’ve confirmed he was writing scrips for painkillers. I spoke to ten people myself. Nobody wanted him dead. They liked him. We checked them out, and honest to God, except for some with an opioid addiction, they all live in Mister Rogers’ neighborhood.”

  Another drug connection, I thought. This one, pharmaceuticals.

  Chi was telling Conklin that he’d briefed Brady on the Barkley house stakeout: cars around the block and a team in the house next door with a clear view of all entrances.

  “No sign of Barkley,” Chi said. “The dog was impounded pending release to its owner. Maybe you can use that with the wife.”

  Cappy’s voice crackled over the line again.

  “I checked out Barkley and his lady. Both of them served in Afghanistan, Boxer. They’re both expert shooters. Hey. We’re blocking traffic. I’ll call you or you call me. Ten-four.”

  A new text from Brenda. Detective Richards on two.

  I punched the button and said, “This is Boxer, Detective Richards. You’re conferenced in with our team.”

  Richards got right to it.

  “We have no suspects in Roccio’s murder, but to your theory of the case, we looked for a drug connection.”

  I said, “My partner is here. Richards, meet Conklin.”

  Richards said “How ya doin’?” to Conklin, then told us that a half kilo of heroin had been secreted in Roccio’s car.

  “He was dealing big and small.”

  According to Richards, Roccio sold the H on the phone, and the customers came into the store, bought a magazine, and took the H with them. Same with X and marijuana. Kids coming into his smoke shop would bring a magazine to the cash register and give Roccio a pair of twenties, and Roccio would stick a joint into the centerfold.”

  Conklin said, “That could’ve been the easiest sting in the world.”

  Richards said, “I got a meeting. Nice chatting with you.”

  Conklin said, “Wait. Hang on, Richards. Any suspects? Any other victims?”

  “In a word, no and no. Roccio wasn’t the only drug slinger in Chicago, okay? We’ve got gangs. Organized variety.”

  “I hear you.”

  “Later,” said Richards.

  The line went dead. All of them did. So much for herding cats. I stared at Rich and he stared at me, the unspoken question lying like a dead fish in the space between us.

  What now?

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Shit. It was Noble.

  I apologized, asked him to go on.

  “It’s okay. I was going to say we ran their names. Look in your inbox. I sent you a rundown on Peavey’s friends and associates, a mixed bag of moms and dads, white and blue collar, some military types and a couple of patrol cops.”

  There was a knock on the door as Noble was saying, “Alibis for 8:30 a.m. on the day of the shooting are tight, and no motives we can see. Peavey hasn’t ever been sued or arrested. He gets four and half stars for his dental work. So maybe our shooting isn’t related to the others. But we’ll keep going until we hit a wall.”

  Maybe Jennings and Peavey were random. What about the Barons and Roccio?

  Random or planned to the second, what was the point of any of these killings and where was this going?

  How was it going to end?

  CHAPTER 43

  I LOOKED UP to see Mike Stempien, our FBI computer tech, coming through the door.

  He looked as excited as if he’d found a can of gold coins under his sink. He definitely had something to tell us. Conklin stood up, and Stempien took his chair at the desk and opened a laptop.

  “This,” he said, “belongs to the Barkleys.”

  I said, “Mike. I want to hear everything, but we’ve got a meeting upstairs with Mrs. Barkley and her attorney.”

  “This’ll take one minute. You’re going to want to see this before your meeting.”

  Conklin and I were standing at the edges of the desk.

  Stempien said, “This was on the kitchen counter. I pulled up the last sites the Barkleys visited and found—ta-da.”

  He turned the laptop so we could see it better.

  What appeared to be a video game from the Pac-Man era filled the screen. There was a drawing of a carnival wheel of fortune in the center, and a chat box off to the right. Mike said what I was thinking. “I haven’t seen a game like this since the ’90s. But then I got the feeling there was more to it than it seemed.”

  “How so?”

  “This site doesn’t have an internet address. If you want to play, you’ve got to know your way around anonymous browsing and posting. Meaning, there’s a browser called Tor, which stands for the Onion Routing. It’s got different layers. One layer knows only what the next layer is. You can’t see the whole picture. The address isn’t something like Google.com or CNN.com. It’s like ABQ3d.

  “A jumble of letters gets you to a point. Your connection’s not so quick because you’re bouncing all over the world, and that means you’re not going to have the speed to load a site with fancy graphics. Then it’s like you need to be in the secret circle to know what site to go to. So if this is just an archaic video game, why the mystery?”

  “So a mystery wrapped in an enigma,” Conklin said.

  I said, “That wheel is a gambling device, right? Are bets being made for prizes?”

  I reached down and moved the curser over the wheel, and it started to rotate and make a faint clicking sound. When the wheel stopped, a number flashed at the top of the page.

  “So look, Mike. I just got points?”

  “Points. Status. A better chance than a different player? My initial feeling was that this site is in disguise for something illegal. Drugs. Or some kind trafficking. But I was able to make out some of the encrypted chat. The name of the website is the same as the game on it: Moving Targets. And then I got a different feeling.”

  “What? What kind of feeling?”

  “Don’t hold me to it, because … well, because. I’m still just turning things over, but I think Moving Targets is a website for hitters. It seems that many of them, from the slang they use, are military or police. The kills they were chatting about could have been your drug dealers. Lots of excitement about the precision of the attacks, about the ‘scores.’ At least that’s the vibe on the site.”

  I was almost panting with anxiety and anticipation. Had Stempien found the key to the shootings in the Barkleys’ computer?

  “Can you tell which of the Barkleys was playing?”

  “From the activity on their laptop, they both played. But was it just a game? Or was it reflected in real life?”

  “Can you figure it out?” I asked.

  He was quiet for a m
oment, thinking about it.

  “We’ll see,” he finally said. “No guarantees.”

  CHAPTER 44

  CONKLIN HELD THE elevator door for me, then reached over and pressed the button for the seventh floor.

  I stared up at the row of floor numbers as I collected my scattered thoughts. A couple of minutes from now we would be talking to Randi White Barkley and her attorney, Lynn Selby. We had a hint of leverage, knowledge that someone in the Barkley household played a suspicious video game. It wasn’t much and it was late in coming. Still.

  I played it out inside my head, our ADA addressing the judge, saying, Your Honor, we’re charging Miranda White Barkley with shooting two rounds over law enforcement’s heads and possibly playing a violent video game.

  Yeah, right.

  The doors slid open, and we walked out onto the worn gray tiles and crossed to Bubbleen Waters, desk sergeant and local karaoke singer of note. We exchanged greetings, and Sergeant Waters presented the log. I signed us in, and we followed a guard down a long corridor ringing with inmate voices and the clanging of doors and the echoing sounds of our footsteps.

  We stopped at the gate to the small, barred room with a table and four chairs in the center, and the guard let us in.

  Randi didn’t look up. She wore the standard orange jumpsuit and cuffs and had braided her hair into one long plait hanging down her back. She’d gotten help, no doubt, as her wounded arm was bound in a bulky and conspicuous bandage.

  Randi’s attorney, Lynn Selby, was a public defender with a future. She was blond, with pale-pink lipstick and a light-gray suit, but I knew her, and although she looked like a pussycat, she had a bulldog’s bite.

  There were stiff greetings all around, and after we’d taken our seats, Selby said sweetly, “Assuming there are no new charges against Mrs. Barkley, your forty-eight hours expires in an hour.”