11th hour wmc-11

by James Patterson

  “Where is your husband now, Mrs. Randall?” Conklin asked.

  “He’s upstairs, sound asleep.”

  “We have to talk to him.”

  “Sure. Please stay here. Lots of sleeping kids and I want them to stay that way. I’ll go and wake Will up.”

  More squad cars were streaming onto the block from both directions. Becky Randall understood suddenly that we weren’t conducting a routine canvass.

  She said, “What’s going on?”

  “Please come with me, Mrs. Randall,” I said. I took her arm and guided her firmly onto the outside landing, after which Conklin put his big foot between the woman and her front door.

  I said, “An officer will stay with you until we’ve spoken with your husband.”

  I walked the loudly protesting Becky Randall down the steps and turned her over to Officer Cora. I used the time to get myself together.

  It didn’t matter how many people were going through Randall’s front door. We were all at risk: my baby, my partner, the Randall kids, and the guys who were taking orders from me.

  I followed Conklin across the threshold with my gun in hand, switching on lights as we went through the house. I signaled to the uniforms to fan out on the second floor, and after the main floor was cleared and contained with a cop standing outside every bedroom door, Conklin and I proceeded upstairs to the attic.

  As I had thought, there were two rooms on the attic floor. One of the bedroom doors was open. I could see the entire room from the hallway: there was a young man lying in a hospital bed, a mobile of mirrored stars gently swaying above him.

  He turned his eyes to me, said, “Ahh.”

  I threw on the lights, searched the room, then waggled my fingers at the boy and shut the door.

  The door to the second room was closed.

  Conklin and I flanked the door and then I knocked.

  “Sergeant Randall? This is Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, SFPD. Don’t be alarmed. We just have some questions for you. Please come to the door and open it, slowly. Then step back and put your hands on your head.”

  He said, “ Who is it?”

  I repeated my name, heard floorboards creaking, and then the voice came through the door again.

  “I’m not armed,” he said. “Don’t shoot.”

  The door swung open, and standing a few feet inside the doorway was William Randall. He was wearing blue boxers and his hands were folded on top of his dark hair.

  There was a tattoo on his chest, an eagle with wings spread and two-inch-high letters inked under that emblem. I knew the words, of course. It was the motto of the City of San Francisco,

  and also of the SFPD.

  Oro en paz. Fierro en guerra.

  Gold in peace. Iron in war.

  Apparently it was William Randall’s motto too.

  Chapter 90

  It was a grim scene in the squad room that night.

  Randall’s superiors, past and present, stamped their feet and yelled at Brady for the way Conklin and I had extracted Randall from his home.

  Brady shouted back, “If he’s the doer, he’s killed six people this week. Do you get that?”

  Brady defended us and said that we had done the job right.

  But I was starting to wonder.

  While we were walking Randall out of his house, the busboy had retracted his tentative ID, saying he wasn’t sure he’d picked the right guy out of the six-pack. So while the busboy’s memory was still fresh, Brady called for a lineup.

  Conklin fit Randall’s general description so he was drafted to stand with Randall. Four random justice department workers filled in the ranks.

  I stood behind the glass with the busboy as six men filed across the room and took their places at the height board. Each man stepped forward, turned left, turned right, and stepped back.

  I held my breath as the busboy asked for Randall to step forward again. The busboy ID’d him — then when Meile said, “Are you absolutely sure?” the kid changed his mind and positively ID’d Morris Greene, an assistant DA who’d been pulling an all-nighter before we’d drafted him for the lineup.

  What now?

  Brady’s expression was resolute.

  He said to me, “Pretend he’s David Berkowitz. Pretend he’s Lee Harvey Oswald.”

  The observation room behind the two-way mirror was packed with brass: Brady, Meile, and Penny were there, and a few guys from the top floor I didn’t know.

  I brought coffee for three into the interrogation room, apologized again to Randall for the one-thirty wakeup call with drawn guns as well as the solitary two-hour wait in the box.

  He said, “Look. I’m innocent of any crime. Do your job, but let’s speed it up, okay? My wife and kids are in hell right now. And I’m about two minutes away from turning in my badge and telling all of you to take a flying leap.”

  What had we done by bringing Randall in?

  What could we possibly accomplish?

  We had no witness, no evidence, just a career cop who’d been asleep in his undershorts when we crashed into his house.

  Had Sergeant William Randall killed six people in seven days? Did we have a committed spree killer under lock and key? No pressure at all. With the top floor watching from behind the glass, Conklin and I had to ask the right questions and either clear Randall — or get him to confess.

  Chapter 91

  Randall looked tired and irritated. Conklin and I pulled out chairs and sat across from a man who might have set a new record for murders by a cop.

  I pushed a container of coffee toward him, waited for him to stir in his sugar, then said, “The more you cooperate, the faster this will go, Sergeant. Where were you for the last eight hours?”

  “I arrived home after my shift at approximately six o’clock p.m. I was home all night, as my wife told you.”

  “Do you have another car, Sergeant Randall?”

  “No. My wife has a car.”

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “Department issue only. I don’t want guns in a house with kids and a father-in-law who has no short-term memory.”

  “Did you drive your wife’s car or any car between the hours of six last night and one this morning?”

  “No, I did not.”

  “Did you fire a weapon in the last week?”

  “I like how you ask me that with a straight face.”

  “Did you?”

  “Hell no. You tested my hands, Sergeant. Negative for GSR.”

  That was true.

  Randall’s hands had been negative for gunshot residue, although he could have washed up and probably had. We had had no warrant to search his house or bring in his clothes for analysis. I got up, walked around the room, came back to my chair, and leaned across the table.

  “We have a witness who saw you at Zeus.”

  “I guess he failed to identify me in the lineup.”

  “Others may come forward. When the ME does her post on the body, when CSU finishes processing the alley, we’re going to find physical evidence. You can count on that.”

  “Knock yourself out, Sergeant. I’m not worried.”

  Conklin took his turn.

  “Sergeant. Will. I don’t have to remind you, now is the time to tell us the truth. We’re going to be sympathetic. We’re going to go out of our way to help you. Your victims are criminals. You’ve got friends in high places.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  I sighed, said, “Any idea who the shooter might be?”

  “No idea in the world, but I admire the work he’s doing. He’s cutting through the red tape and putting the scumbags down.”

  Randall looked at me as though daring me to confuse his attitude with an actual confession.

  He said, “I’ve got nothing for you, Sergeant. My kids are scared. My wife is going crazy. Lock me up or let me go.”

  We kept at it for another hour, Conklin and I taking turns, drilling down on his activities of the week before, going back over the same ground, but never
tripping him up. Randall was smart and had as much interrogation experience as I had.

  We’d done a good job and so had Randall. He hadn’t given us a crumb and I couldn’t think of anything else to ask him.

  “You’re free to go,” I said. “Thanks for your cooperation.”

  Randall stood up and put on his nylon windbreaker.

  “I need a lift.”

  Then, as an afterthought, he said, “You should be careful, Sergeant Boxer. You don’t want to take chances with your baby.”

  I took it as a sincere remark.

  Conklin walked Randall out, and when he came back, I was still in the interrogation room. I hadn’t moved.

  “Did he do it?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell.”

  “You know what, Rich? I kind of like the son of a bitch.”

  “He’s a hard-ass,” Conklin said. “Kind of reminds me of you.”

  Chapter 92

  I brought Martha with me to breakfast at a great neighborhood bistro out in Cole Valley called Zazie. Zazie had scrumptious food and a patio garden out back. We came through the front door and the hostess told me she was sorry, but dogs weren’t allowed.

  “Martha is a police dog,” I said.

  “Is she really?”

  The hostess held on tight to her menus, looked down at my small, shaggy border collie, and showed by her dubious expression that she couldn’t believe Martha was in the K-9 Corps.

  I’ve got to hand it to Martha. She looked up, made direct eye contact with the hostess, and conveyed professionalism and sharp canine wisdom with her deep brown eyes.

  I backed her up.

  “See?” I said, holding up my badge. “I’m a cop. She’s my deputy dog.”

  “Okay. She’s a drug sniffer, I guess. I shouldn’t touch her, right? Kinda cute, isn’t she? Should I bring her some water? Sparkling or flat?”

  I had my first grin of the week, then had another when I saw Claire waiting for me at a table at the back of the long, narrow garden enclosed by ivy-covered walls.

  I hugged her. She hugged me. I just couldn’t get enough of that hug. When we finally broke apart, Claire bent and kissed Martha on the nose, making my little pal all waggle-tailed and squirmy. Martha really hearts Claire.

  We sat at the nice long table in the corner of the patio, and Claire moved her newspapers out of the way — but not quick enough.

  “Hey, let me see those.”

  I read the headlines.

  The Post: “Another revenge killing at Zeus,” by Jason Blayney. The Chronicle: “Suspect held in House of Heads mystery,” by Cindy Thomas.

  “It’s true: you can run but you can’t hide.” I handed the papers back to Claire, who said, “So what’s the latest with you and Joe?”

  “You go first, butterfly. I can’t talk until after I’ve had hot chocolate and gingerbread pancakes.”

  “I haven’t been to bed,” Claire said. “Can you tell?” Now that she mentioned it, I realized that she was wearing scrubs.

  I said, “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “Where should I start? Yesterday, seven p.m. We’ve got a full house, of course. Among my other patients, I’ve got a seventeen-year-old boy on the table. Contact muzzle stamp on his temple and soot in the entrance wound. It’s a clear suicide, but his parents aren’t accepting it. Everything I say, they come back with ‘No, Davey would never do that.’”

  “The doors show any signs of a break-in?”

  “I asked the same thing. They said, ‘No, but maybe someone came in through the window.’ He’s got GSR on his hands, Lindsay. I took a sample for testing, just to be safe, but the windows are locked from the inside. It’s obvious and it’s heartbreaking — and then, here comes Mr. Dickenson.

  “He’s got a history of high blood pressure; he starts to feel lethargic and blacks out. His wife gets him to the hospital, and he’s two minutes from a CT scan, which would confirm he’s having a stroke, but no, he codes in the hallway.

  “So now Mr. Dickenson is coming in through the back door of the morgue and I have to do an autopsy he wouldn’t have needed if he’d coded two minutes later. Meanwhile, Davey’s family won’t leave, still insisting that their son was murdered.”

  We took a time-out to order breakfast from our waitress, then Claire picked up where she’d left off.

  “So, I do Mr. Dickenson’s post. I can find nothing wrong with his brain. Hey, where’s the stroke? So I keep going. He didn’t get hit with a stroke. I find a dissecting aortic aneurysm. See, I learned something. Again. Never jump to conclusions.

  “About then, midnight or so, Edmund calls. Rosie is running a really high fever. I say, ‘Take her to the hospital. Go. Now,’ and before I hang up with him, here come new patients through the ambulance bay. Two cars in a head-on collision on Henry, both drivers are DOA.”

  Claire’s phone buzzed on the table and spun like a june bug on its back. She looked at the faceplate, shut off the ringer.

  “How’s Rosie?” I asked as the waitress brought our coffee.

  “She’s fine. Temperature back to normal. Edmund said she’s sleeping now. Both of us panicked, and that’s what you do when you have a little one — as you are about to find out, girlfriend. After the check, I’m outta here, and I’m not going back to work anytime soon. Swear to God. Now, sweetie. Talk to me about Joe.”

  I put down my coffee cup, said to my friend, “He’s called me a hundred times and apparently he’s sleeping in his car, sometimes right outside the apartment. I haven’t said a word to him since I found out about his girlfriend. Not one fucking word.”

  Book Four

  IN FROM THE COLD

  Chapter 93

  I’d just hung Martha’s leash on the coatrack and kicked off my shoes when the intercom buzzed. I looked at the video screen showing the foyer and saw T. Lawrence Oliver downstairs in the entranceway looking into the camera’s eye.

  I was expecting him, but he was early.

  “Be right down,” I said into the speaker.

  A shiny black BMW was at the curb, and Oliver was holding open the back door. Harry Chandler dipped his head so that he could see me, said, “Please get in, Lindsay.”

  I got in and Harry told Tommy Oliver to step out and take a long walk around the block, give the two of us a chance to talk.

  I leaned back in the leather seat and said, “Thanks for coming, Harry.”

  “It’s okay. I wanted to tell you about Connie Kerr in person. I don’t know if I should put up bail for her or not,” he said.

  “Bail isn’t an issue — yet. Connie isn’t under arrest. We’re holding her as a material witness and if we can’t file charges against her by tomorrow afternoon, she walks. Do you want to file any charges?”

  “No. I can’t do that to her. I spent eighteen months in the clink while awaiting trial. Incarceration made a deep impression on me.”

  Chandler told me about his long-ago short-term romance with Connie and said that she had always seemed fragile to him. Crazy — maybe. A killer — no, he didn’t see it. I told Chandler that I appreciated his help, said good-bye, and got out of the car as Tommy Oliver got back into the driver’s seat.

  I was deep in thought and had just put my key into the downstairs lock when I felt a hand on my shoulder. I whipped around, ready to throw a punch or lash out with a kick to the knee.

  It was Joe.

  I stared at Joe; no mugger could have made my heart beat faster. My brain was instantly thrown into shock and confusion. I saw Joe, my husband, the man I love.

  And I was simultaneously hit with a current of revulsion.

  I know I looked as though I could kill, and that must have been why Joe said, “Lindsay, it’s me, it’s me. Take it easy. Let’s talk, okay?”

  “I have nothing to say to you.”

  “I have plenty to say to you, damn it. You’re all wrong about this, Linds, and you have to stop shutting me out.”

  I was flooded with images of June Freundorfer looking
into Joe’s face, and I felt deeply wounded all over again. I had trusted Joe with everything. I was having his baby. I was making a family with him for keeps — and then this. I had never felt so betrayed by anyone in my life. I had to get away from him. I couldn’t stand to look at him for another moment.

  I put both my hands out and shoved him away. He took a step back; I turned the key and opened the door slightly. I wedged myself through the narrow space and slammed the door shut.

  I darted for the elevator, and before the doors even closed, my phone started ringing. I ignored my cell and I ignored the landline that was ringing when I walked into the apartment.

  Both phones went quiet, then the landline rang again, and I checked the caller ID.

  I picked up the phone in the kitchen, said hello to my partner.

  “Sure, Richie. I’ll meet you there.”

  Chapter 94

  Constance Kerr sat with Conklin and me in a very small room at County Jail Number 2 on Seventh Street, only a couple of blocks from the Hall. Connie looked pitiful in her orange jumpsuit, her blondish-gray hair frizzed around her head like Frankenstein’s bride’s.

  “This is a terrible place,” she said. “Horrid. The screaming. The language. It’s too much.”

  I felt bad for her. I really did.

  “What did you want to tell me?” Conklin asked her.

  “I have to get out of here,” she said to my partner. “Tell me what I have to say to get out of here.”

  “Tell us what you know about those heads, Connie, and this time let’s get on the path to truth. I’ll get you started,” I said. She switched her eyes to me as though she’d just realized I was there.

  “I’ve spoken to Harry Chandler.”

  “Yes? How is Harry?”

  “He says you were never his girlfriend.”

  Her laugh was the small feeble cousin of the long guffaws she’d let out previously.

  “He says you stalked him, Connie, stalked him for years.”