11th hour wmc-11

by James Patterson

  “Can I get you anything to eat?” he asked me.

  “I had dinner.”

  “How’s our kid?”

  “We’re both just fabulous.”

  “You were going to work less, sleep more.”

  “Joe. I’m lead investigator on two black-hole cases. What do you expect me to do?”

  “Talk to me.”

  “When did you get home?”

  “An hour ago. Talk to me, Linds.”

  “I’m so frustrated I cannot express it.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  My husband gave me a gorgeous smile, and finally I gave it up. I told Joe about the cop killer, everything that had happened since Chaz Smith, undercover federal agent, had been killed in the men’s room of the music academy.

  I told him about the three drug dealers and our working hypothesis that they had been pulled over by a cop-like man with wigwag lights and probably grille lights too who had almost certainly shot them and torched the car. That he’d used the gun that had killed Chaz Smith, which had been stolen from the property room at the Hall.

  Hardly taking a breath, I filled Joe in on the shooting of Raoul Fernandez in the mall last night. “Four shots to the face in a nice tight pattern, like the guy’s mug was a target and the shooter was standing five feet away.”

  I told my husband about Brady’s theory, that Jacobi was the killer.

  “Jacobi? Our Jacobi? Warren Jacobi?”

  “He says that Jacobi is still holding a grudge about those drugged-up kids shooting us on Larkin Street. That what he’s heard is that Jacobi has never been the same. Brady says, and I have to agree, that Jacobi could have gotten the weapons out of the property room without anyone noticing.

  “And then Brady says that while Jacobi was on leave getting his hip replaced, he had the time and opportunity to take out about eight dealers — that we know about. Oh yeah, and Jacobi had a meltdown last year when some kids OD’d because of some bad horse.”

  “He threw a chair, as I remember.”

  “Right. Big deal. I’ve thrown chairs.”

  “Have you thrown a chair at a person during an interrogation? Have you?”

  I sighed. “No.”

  “When was the last time you saw Jacobi?”

  “About a half an hour ago. I just had dinner with him.”

  Joe said, “If Brady is right — I said if — and Jacobi has gone off the rails, he could be dangerous if he thinks you’re onto him, Lindsay. Dangerous to you.”

  Chapter 62

  “Here’s why I think you’re wrong,” I said. We were in bed now. I rested my cheek on Joe’s chest and kept talking. “Jacobi believes in the law, and going vigilante is not just unlawful but criminal. It carries the death penalty.

  “Jacobi just wouldn’t put himself into that kind of hole, not ever. By the way, he seemed fine to me,” I said. “Relaxed. Looked good. Lost some weight. He’s doing PT. He had a good appetite.”

  Joe got a couple of words in.

  “You asked him what he thought about this Revenge shooter?”

  “I did. He said that Revenge is smart and has access to real-time information about where his victims are. That he might have a police-band radio. Maybe he has informants.”

  “Good points,” said Joe.

  “Jacobi said he thinks the shooter is on a mission, maybe a suicide mission.”

  “That also makes sense. But it doesn’t rule Jacobi out.”

  “I took a chance, Joe. I said that there was talk that the shooter could be a cop. Jacobi said, ‘Could be a cop. Could be a hired gun. Could be a rival drug dealer who is taking out the competition.’”

  “So you didn’t get the feeling he was trying to steer you away? That he was hiding something?”

  “No. But if Jacobi wanted to keep something from me, I think he could do it. I stopped short of asking him to account for his time last night, Joe. I just couldn’t do that.”

  “Good. I’m glad. Keep your head down, blondie.”

  He kissed my forehead. I hugged him tighter. I was scared, frightened about Jacobi, the shooter, and when there’d be another killing. But I felt safe in my husband’s arms. There was nowhere I’d rather be.

  “I talked to Jacobi about the house of heads.”

  “What did he think?”

  “That the typical victim in a situation like this one would be a young streetwalker. You remember that case in Albuquerque?”

  “Those young working girls who were buried in the desert?”

  “That’s the one. I think there were about eighteen of them, late teens to midtwenties, buried without clothes, so they were just skeletons when they were found.

  “There was no identification, no clues to their killer.

  There was a cop in the missing-persons division who had collected DNA, though, so some of those girls were identified.”

  “The killer wasn’t caught, as I remember.”

  “No. Not yet. So, we have identified one of our Jane Does, Marilyn Varick. She wasn’t a known prostitute.”

  “Maybe she was just never picked up for prostitution.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “The stock profile for someone who preys on prostitutes is white male, thirty-five to fifty, has been in trouble with the law.”

  Joe said, “Harry Chandler is about sixty, isn’t he?”

  “Sixty-three. So, if he did it, he wants to be near his victims. And if that’s the case, I don’t see him as the one who dug them up. Someone else is leaving the message.”

  “It’s a very frayed loose end,” said Joe.

  “Isn’t it though?”

  My mind went back to Jacobi. I saw him sitting across from me at LuLu’s, every bit my partner and friend of a dozen years.

  I said, “Jacobi isn’t the shooter, Joe. He couldn’t be. I know him so well.”

  “Do we ever really know anyone?” Joe said.

  Chapter 63

  I swung my legs out of bed at six the next morning, left Joe snoozing as I got my running clothes from the hook behind the closet door.

  Martha and I took a brisk and challenging run through the Presidio and when we got back, sunlight was splashing on the bedroom floor and Joe was still snoring, exactly as I’d left him.

  I closed the bedroom door, showered, put on a pot of Blue Bottle roast, and booted up my laptop.

  My mailbox was flooded with e-mail and spam. I mean flooded; I had mail in triple digits. It took me about fifteen minutes to clear my in-box and get to the day’s headlines. I clicked on the link to the Post and there was Jason Blayney’s front-page story about the Potrero Center shooting.

  I skimmed the story quickly to see if Blayney, that rat, had come up with an angle I should be pursuing or denying, and son of a gun, his story linked to a piece about Joe Molinari.

  When I clicked on the link, I expected to see a follow-up on the DEA task-force story, so I was nearly blown off my seat by the filthy piece of trash Blayney had run under the heading “Fed Takes the Night Off.”

  Blayney was a snake and a liar, but there was no denying that the photo was real. And it was a killer.

  It was a picture of Joe, my Joe, escorting a willowy brunette down a long flight of stone stairs. She was in a long, clingy black gown, her neck sparkling with diamonds, her arm threaded through the crook of Joe’s arm.

  The photo seemed to have caught Joe saying something very charming to this woman. Her face was turned up toward his and a very private smile lit her features.

  Joe looked just as adorable as could be.

  The story read:

  Joseph Molinari, former deputy to the director of Homeland Security, was seen with June Freundorfer Thursday evening at a benefit for cystic fibrosis at the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle. FBI honcho June Freundorfer has long been a bright and glittering fixture at inner-circle Washington, DC, events, and last night’s fete was no exception.

  I skipped down the page, found the sentence that brought it all back home.

 
; Mr. Molinari is the husband of Sergeant Lindsay Boxer of the SFPD

  …

  That was all I could take.

  I slammed down the lid on my laptop, but the afterimage of the photograph remained sharp and clear in my mind. I knew that June Freundorfer had been Joe’s partner for a couple of years and thought that maybe Joe’s relationship with her had been at the center of his divorce.

  I understood that Joe had once been tight with June; I just hadn’t known he was tight with her still.

  Were they involved?

  Did Joe see her when he was in Washington every month or so? Were my hormonal surges making me paranoid? I knew what I was supposed to do about the mood swings: take naps, go for walks, spend time with my spouse, not be so hard on myself.

  But was I thinking clearly? Jason Blayney’s mention that Joe was my husband was a direct and very personal message.

  I went into the bathroom, threw up, took another shower, then went back to the kitchen. Joe had left his BlackBerry on the counter and it was buzzing.

  I could read the faceplate from where I stood: June Freundorfer.

  My hand hovered over the phone, my mind flashing like heat lightning; I had very little time to make this decision.

  The phone rang for the third time.

  Chapter 64

  It was reckless, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  I picked up Joe’s BlackBerry, clicked to answer, and put the phone to my ear. I heard the traffic sounds of a faraway city. It was painful to do it, nearly impossible, but I waited the caller out.

  “Joe?”

  “No, it’s Lindsay,” I said. “Joe’s wife.” I sat down on a bar stool at the counter.

  There was a long silence as the woman’s mind fumbled for a moment. My head was spinning too.

  “Ohhh. Lindsay. Hi. I — is Joe there?”

  Her voice was softer, sweeter than I had imagined.

  “Joe’s sleeping off his jet lag,” I said. “June, I want to know the truth. Are you and Joe having an affair?”

  I suppose I could have eased into it sideways, asked about the charity event the other night, said that I’d seen the photo and that it made me wonder why Joe hadn’t mentioned the black-tie dinner to me. A less direct approach would have given me room to retreat, but retreat was the last thing on my mind.

  My pulse throbbed in my neck as the question hung on a virtual phone line three thousand miles long.

  Are you and Joe having an affair?

  Finally, the woman sighed.

  She said, “Lindsay, maybe this isn’t the best time to discuss this.”

  “So, when would be a good time, June? What works for you?”

  “I didn’t want it to turn out like this. We didn’t want you to know, but I guess there’s no point in lying anymore.”

  The ground seemed to open beneath me and I dropped into the void. I heard, as if from a long distance away, my voice saying to June, “You didn’t want me to know that you’re sleeping with my husband? You’re aware that I’m pregnant?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess that’s all I need to know.”

  “Wait, Lindsay. Joe loves you very much.”

  Her girlish voice was like a frigid wind blowing through my hair. She said, “Joe and I are close, have always been close, but it’s not marriage, Lindsay. It’s just one of those things.”

  I turned the phone off.

  I remember steadying myself with both hands on the counter so that I didn’t fall off the bar stool.

  Was I losing my mind? Had my husband’s mistress just told me that my husband loved me? I had had to hear that from her? That bitch!

  And what did she mean by “just one of those things”? Something inevitable? Chemical? Ordained?

  And Joe.

  How could he have lied to me, cheated on me, made a fool of me and our marriage and everything I felt for him?

  Who was he? Who was this man I had married?

  Joe had said to me last night, Do we ever really know anyone?

  What was I going to do?

  What the hell was I going to do? I had a baby on the way. Our baby.

  Joe’s phone rang in front of me again.

  I stared at June’s name, picked up the phone, clicked to connect, then disconnected instantly. I didn’t want to talk to her and I didn’t want her to leave a message for Joe.

  I grabbed the phone, went to the half bath off the kitchen, lifted the lid off the toilet tank, and dropped the phone into the water. I stared at it. It was ringing again.

  And then it stopped.

  What was I going to do?

  As if a message had floated up from the inky depths of a Magic 8 Ball, I knew.

  Chapter 65

  I turned the doorknob and, using my hip and shoulder as a battering ram, shoved the door open. The racket startled Joe out of his sound sleep.

  I’d wanted to scare him, but I hadn’t thought he would go for his gun. His hand shot under the bed and he was bringing it up when he saw that the intruder was me, a version of me he’d rarely seen. I was so angry.

  “Lindsay. What’s wrong?”

  The shouting began.

  “What’s wrong is you and June Freundorfer. How could you do this to me, Joe?”

  He was sitting up in bed now, looking at me with stark bewilderment.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t bother to lie. She told me everything.”

  “Told you what? Lindsay, we went to a benefit. I didn’t get a chance to tell you about it, but I wasn’t keeping it from you.”

  “A benefit. Isn’t that what it’s called these days? A friend with benefits?”

  “I don’t understand why she called you.”

  “She called you.”

  “I see. So you intercepted the call.”

  I said, “Joe, how could you do this to us?”

  “Lindsay, I’ve done nothing wrong. Nothing.”

  I went into the room, threw open the closet doors. Joe’s suitcase was right there, and as luck would have it, he hadn’t yet unpacked.

  I hauled the bag out of the closet and chucked it onto the floor at Joe’s feet. He stood up and came toward me, his arms open. He was saying stuff, but I had closed myself off from him. I didn’t comprehend him anymore, not what he’d done, not what he was saying. I took pants and a jacket out of the closet, got underwear out of a drawer.

  I wanted to get away from him before I cried.

  “Lindsay. Stop. Just stop. I’m not having an affair with June or anyone else.”

  I whipped around to face him. Adrenaline made me almost blind with rage. I could barely look at him.

  “Why would June lie? She said, ‘It’s just one of those things.’”

  “Our friendship, maybe.”

  “I wish I could believe you, Joe, but you’re a terrific liar. I can’t stand the sound of your voice, so please, just leave. I’ll send your things — wherever you say. Just don’t be here when I get home.”

  I dressed in the bathroom and left the house without saying another word to Joe.

  I felt hollow and sick. I’d never been so betrayed in my life.

  Chapter 66

  We were in the parking lot off Harriet Street, just behind the Hall. I told Conklin that I wanted to drive.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked me. He was looking at me like I was wearing a live fish on my head.

  “I like to drive.”

  “Okay. When you want to tell me what’s eating you, I’m here.”

  He tossed me the keys and a minute later I headed the squad car south into clotted morning traffic, toward Parnassus Heights, an affluent neighborhood near the Haight.

  Beside me, Conklin filled me in on the tip he’d gotten, that Harry Chandler and his son from his first marriage, Todd, did not get along.

  Conklin had done some research and learned that when Todd was quite young, he had changed his last name to Waterson, his mother’s maiden name, and although Todd
had never lived at the Ellsworth compound, he had had access to the place while Chandler was living there with his second wife, Cecily, and for a few years after.

  “Todd Waterson? The TV guy? I had no idea he was Harry Chandler’s son.”

  “Little-known fact.”

  “Well, news to me, anyway. I’ve seen his show. He’s pretty entertaining. What’s his story?”

  “Brainy, big paycheck, and a discreet personal life. I found no gossip about him on the Web.”

  Todd Waterson’s house was on Edgewood Avenue, an unexpectedly shielded and wooded street.

  At Conklin’s direction, I drove through the gated entrance and up a generously landscaped private driveway. I braked in front of the detached garage, took a look at what three million could buy in this neighborhood.

  Todd Waterson’s house was a sprawling, three-level stucco contemporary with Craftsman influences. There were decks and terraces with panoramic views of the bay and the city. The property was secluded and quiet. Very.

  The front door opened as we got to the threshold. Todd Waterson was waiting for us. He was five foot seven in his socks, wearing frayed jeans and a sweatshirt with a PBS logo. He had sandy-colored hair and a face populated by forgettable features: a thin line of a mouth and his father’s gray eyes.

  “I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer,” I said. “This is my partner, Inspector Richard Conklin.”

  “Hello, and by the way, what’s this about?”

  I said, “We’re investigating crimes committed at the Ellsworth compound.”

  “Let me have your numbers, okay? I can’t do this right now.”

  “It can’t wait, Mr. Waterson.”

  “All right. Come in,” he said. “But let’s make it fast, all right? I have to leave for the studio and I can’t be late.”

  Chapter 67

  Conklin and I followed Todd Waterson across his gleaming wooden floors under an airy cathedral ceiling. The walls were at hard angles, cut by beams and banks of floor-to-ceiling windows. Large photos of Waterson interviewing celebrities hung on the milk-white walls.