Thrill Kill

by Brian Thiem

  Sinclair and Braddock walked to a nondescript white van parked on Rhode Island Street at the rear entrance of the three-building complex that housed more than a hundred showrooms. They slid open the door and climbed into the tight quarters. Cummings, Roberts, and a plainclothes SFPD officer were sitting in front of a narrow built-in table that ran the length of the van’s cargo compartment. Two police radios squawked simultaneously. One was the SFPD channel for the geographical district they were in, and the other sounded like an FBI surveillance net.

  Roberts introduced Sinclair and Braddock to the SFPD officer and said to Cummings, “It’s twenty-five after, should we send Danielle in?”

  Cummings keyed the radio mic. “Let’s send the CI in,” he said, using the slang for confidential informant, even though it didn’t exactly fit Danielle’s status.

  A voice that Sinclair recognized as Archard’s acknowledged over the radio.

  Two minutes later, an agent with the FBI surveillance team that was set up inside the building’s atrium whispered over the radio, “CI is at the breakfast bar, getting coffee. Subject still not in sight.”

  Cummings turned on another radio. Rustling sounds and distant voices, normal for concealed body microphones, came over the speaker.

  The surveillance channel crackled. “Woman about sixty with platinum hair entering via front entrance. Appears to be our subject. Carrying an umbrella and a Starbuck’s cup. Approaching the CI.”

  Sinclair heard Danielle’s voice over the body wire. “Hi, Helena.”

  “Danielle, sweetheart, you look lovely,” the other voice, which had to be Helena, said. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  Danielle laughed. “Not much.”

  “Let’s get the business out of the way,” Helena said.

  “This is all of it,” Danielle said. “The money for last night and the advance for the weekend.”

  “The CI handed the subject an envelope,” a voice said over the surveillance channel. “Subject placing it into a handbag on her lap. Looking down, probably counting it. Handing an envelope back to the CI.”

  “Twenty-four hundred,” said Helena. “Did you ever dream you’d make this much for doing what most women do for free?”

  “Last night was easy money,” Danielle said. “But he wanted a morning fuck and it took him forever to come.”

  Sinclair gave a thumbs-up to Braddock. Danielle was a natural at this. Her mentioning that she had sex with the client, as long as it wasn’t followed by an admonishment by Helena, would play well with a jury.

  Danielle continued, “I’m a bit nervous about the weekend.”

  “Nothing to be nervous about, honey,” Helena said. “Did you ever go away with a boyfriend?”

  “Sure,” Danielle said. “A weekend in Napa and Carmel. Once I went to Cabo for a week with an old boyfriend.”

  “It’s the same thing, except Mr. Gutierrez is paying you for your time.”

  “But when a man’s paying me, I feel like I’m required to do . . . well, you know.”

  “When that boyfriend took you to Napa, did he pay for the weekend?” Helena asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Did you feel obligated to make him happy?”

  “I guess.”

  “Spending a weekend with a client is like that,” Helena said. “A normal call is about the sex. An overnight is about the sex as well as companionship. A weekend will be primarily about companionship.”

  “You think?”

  Helena chuckled. “Oh, honey, there’s going to be some physical requirements, but no man can fuck continuously for three days. Think of him as a very generous boyfriend whose generosity you want to reward.”

  “So I should do whatever he wants.”

  “Sweetheart, you never have to do anything you don’t feel comfortable with. I’m sure you’ll be going out to dinner and probably lounging around the pool drinking cocktails. He might be a golfer and send you off to the spa. Suck his dick or fuck him once or twice a day. That’s all it takes to keep a man happy. The rest of the time, just enjoy yourself.”

  “We’ve got enough.” Cummings slammed open the van door and jumped out.

  Sinclair followed Cummings as he jogged into the building. Roberts and Braddock brought up the rear. They entered an atrium filled with dozens of tables covered with blue-and-white checkered tablecloths. Archard was converging on Danielle and Helena from their right.

  Cummings changed his gait to a brisk walk and flashed his badge when he was ten feet from the table. “Federal agent. Ladies, put your hands on the table where I can see them.”

  Helena reached into her purse. Sinclair grabbed her wrist and slowly pulled her hand out. She was holding a cell phone. Braddock stepped forward and removed it from Helena’s hand.

  “Are we under arrest?” Helena asked.

  “Yes,” Cummings said. He then faced Danielle. “Come with us, young lady.” He grabbed Danielle’s right arm, while Archard lightly took her left and led her toward the back exit.

  Helena began to rise. Sinclair pushed her back down.

  “What am I under arrest for?”

  Roberts’s cell phone rang, and he stepped away to answer it. Braddock took Helena’s purse away from her.

  “We’ll talk about it downtown,” Sinclair said.

  “I demand I be allowed to call my lawyer,” Helena said.

  “Downtown,” Sinclair replied.

  Chapter 17

  A few minutes after noon, Sinclair and Braddock entered room 201, an interview room at the back of the homicide office. Six by eight feet, the room contained a small metal table and three straight back chairs. Helena Decker stood when they entered. According to the information Sinclair had been able to gather on her, she was fifty-eight years old, five-foot-ten, and weighed 160 pounds. She had a residence address in Sausalito, a picturesque town in Marin County just on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge. DMV records showed she owned a brand-new Mercedes and a year-old Range Rover. Her only entry in the state criminal history system was for a prostitution arrest in San Francisco thirty years ago.

  “When can I make my phone call?” Helena said.

  “Soon,” Sinclair said. “Let’s sit and talk.” Sinclair and Braddock sat at opposite ends of the table and had Helena sit between them.

  “I know my rights, and I have the right to call my attorney.”

  “You have the right to make two phone calls when you’re booked,” Sinclair said. “It can take up to twelve hours for that to happen.”

  “What are you arresting me for?”

  “Sections two-sixty-six-H and I, pimping and—”

  “I know what they are,” she said. “Danielle’s a snitch, huh?”

  “I’m not interested in talking about what you did,” Sinclair said. “I’m not reading you your rights. I don’t even want to arrest you.”

  “Then open the door and let me go.”

  “We called your agency two days ago and tried to get you to talk to us, but no one called us back.”

  Helena crossed her arms across her chest. “I will not acknowledge that any so-called agency is mine.”

  Sinclair slid a photo of Dawn from his portfolio and placed it in front of Helena. “She worked for your escort service. She was murdered. I want to know who she saw.”

  Helena looked up in the corner of the room. “Is that camera on?”

  “Yeah, it’s always on.” The department had recently installed video cameras in every interview room and established a policy requiring the recording of all interviews with suspects and witnesses.

  “Lawyer,” she said.

  “I don’t want to book you and see you prosecuted for this,” Sinclair said.

  “Then don’t.”

  “One of Dawn’s clients might be the killer. Do you want him to get away with it? Maybe kill another girl?”

  “You don’t get it. If I were connected to an escort service, which I’m not saying I am, to disclose clients’ identities would be the u
ltimate sin.”

  “I guess I have to book you and see if sitting in a jail cell changes your mind.”

  “Let me call my lawyer. Playing Let’s Make a Deal is part of her job description.”

  Sinclair and Braddock left Helena alone in the room and returned to their desks. Sinclair called Roberts, who said he was with a team of FBI and IRS agents at the escort service’s office and call center in a San Mateo business park, just south of San Francisco. Roberts told him that the Feds had had a major task force poised for action. When Helena uttered the necessary words, Cummings passed it on to agents waiting in the federal building. They added a few lines to a search warrant affidavit. Twenty minutes later, two agents and an assistant U.S. attorney were sitting in a federal judge’s chambers. Once he signed the warrant, different teams hit various locations throughout the Bay Area, including the call center and Helena’s house. They also sent priority messages to a dozen financial institutions, ordering them to freeze accounts connected to Helena and the escort service.

  “That’s a lot of resources for the Feds to throw at one woman for tax evasion,” Sinclair said. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “I’m telling you what I can,” Roberts said.

  “They’re just using me and my murder case, aren’t they?”

  “I’d like to think of it as a cooperative effort,” Roberts said. “We didn’t have anywhere near the people and money at OPD to do what they accomplished.”

  “How’d they turn a prostitution and pimping case into a federal crime?”

  “Danielle gave Helena payment for her to travel over state lines to engage in prostitution.”

  Sinclair didn’t know whether to feel angry at how his old partner and the Feds used him or applaud them for their ingenuity, but knowing the Feds had a different agenda worried him.

  He explained his stalemate with Helena and asked, “Have you and your Fed friends found any client files that are cross-referenced by escort name?”

  “Everything’s computerized,” Roberts said. “Not a piece of paper in the whole place. When we tried to question the workers, all they would say was ‘lawyer.’ The FBI’s computer forensics people shut down the system and cut Internet connections so no one can remotely delete the data. They’ll send the computers back to the FBI lab. Their first step will be to clone the hard drives. Then they’ll analyze the data from the copied drives to protect the integrity of the original computers.”

  “How long will it take for me to get the data on Dawn’s clients?”

  “The Feds move slow,” Roberts said. “Even if they overnight the evidence back east, I doubt they’ll start work on it until after the weekend. That is if there’s not a backlog or other priority cases.”

  “Can they make us a copy of the hard drives so we can look at it ourselves?”

  “I’ll ask,” Roberts said.

  “What should I do with Helena?”

  “Up to you. The Feds won’t want to talk to her until they make their case. That will be months, and I’m sure that process will begin with the AUSA who’s assigned to the task force talking with her lawyers,” Roberts said, referring to the assistant US attorney. “That transporting women across state lines for the purposes of prostitution charge is just a placeholder. They’ll be focusing on the income tax evasion, RICO, and public corruption angles.”

  “Public corruption?” Sinclair asked, surprised.

  Roberts was quiet for a few counts, and Sinclair could tell he had revealed something he shouldn’t have and was formulating a way to backtrack.

  “You have to assume some politicians or government officials will show up on the client list,” Roberts said.

  Sinclair felt like kicking himself for being so naïve. The Feds were after the client list, a gold mine of influential people involved in an assortment of criminal activity much more serious than prostitution. But he couldn’t dwell on that now. “So, if she’ll deal, you have no problem with me dropping the pimping charges?”

  “I’d use it as leverage and keep it hanging as long as you can. In the long run, the DA would probably defer to the Feds and be glad to dump it.”

  After Sinclair ended the call with Roberts, he and Braddock moved Helena to the soft interview room, a windowed office next to the lieutenant’s office. In addition to the metal table and three chairs as in the other interview rooms, the soft interview room also had a sofa, an end table, and a working telephone. “Call your attorney,” Sinclair said. “If we can work something out, I’ll release you pending further investigation.”

  Helena looked around the room. “No cameras in here? Is the phone tapped?”

  “If I recorded a conversation between you and your attorney, I’d go to prison.”

  They left Helena alone in the room. Five minutes later, she tapped at the window and Sinclair stuck his head through the doorway. Helena placed her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone. “My attorney wants to know if she comes down here, that there’s some place she and I can talk?”

  Out of the thousands of people Sinclair had arrested over the years, he could count on one hand the number of suspects he allowed to talk with an attorney before booking. It was a waste of time, because lawyers never allowed their clients to make a statement to the police except in the rare occasions when they were clearly innocent of all charges and the attorney could convince the investigator of that fact. If lawyers wanted to talk to someone Sinclair had arrested, they could visit the suspect in the jail.

  “Why should I waste my time setting up your little conference,” Sinclair said, “just so your lawyer can tell you to retain your right to remain silent?”

  “Because she knows I don’t want to sit in jail and we have to give you something to prevent that from happening.”

  “Tell her yes.”

  Helena brought the receiver to her mouth. “He says okay. Yes, the homicide office.” She hung up and looked at Sinclair. “She’ll be here within the hour.”

  Braddock escorted Helena back to room 201, while he went to the snack bar in the basement of the PAB and got sandwiches for Braddock, Helena, and himself.

  Sinclair took his smoked turkey sandwich into the lieutenant’s office and brought him up to date on the events of the last twenty-four hours.

  When Sinclair finished, Lieutenant Maloney said, “Any idea how many client names are on that computer?”

  “If the IRS is right about the business netting five million a year, there could be a thousand, maybe lots more depending on how far back the records go.”

  Maloney picked up his phone and punched in four numbers. “Marlene, I need to see the chief . . . Now . . . I’ll be there.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Sinclair said.

  “Back in the early nineties, OPD vice did an escort service operation in conjunction with San Jose and SFPD. We collected two file cabinets full of records and created a list of all the escorts and customers. Each department got a copy, supposedly so they could call whoever was necessary as witnesses to prosecute the operators of the business in the three different jurisdictions. The lists included politicians, prominent athletes, influential executives, even judges. Soon, each DA’s office had a list. Copies went to the FBI and state DOJ. Before you knew it, dozens of the customer lists existed, lawyers were filing motions to get certain people’s names redacted, and every news outlet was filing Freedom of Information requests for copies of the list. It was a nightmare, with allegations of favoritism and claims of blackmail by police and prosecutors.”

  Sinclair had heard rumors of the list when he worked vice-narcotics. One of the old-timers bragged that he had a copy, but Sinclair had figured it was just another legend that had evolved over the years. “I’m just looking to identify a killer,” Sinclair said. “I don’t intend to embarrass anyone.”

  “Yeah, but it’s like commercial fishing with gill nets,” Maloney said. “You might be trying to catch salmon, but the nets snag all kinds of other fish at the same time.”

  Chapter
18

  Sinclair had finished typing page two of what he knew would end up being a five- or six-page crime report detailing the arrests of Danielle Rhodes and Helena Decker when Braddock interrupted him. “Helena’s finished talking with her lawyer, and I put her back in two-oh-one. The lawyer would like to talk with us alone.”

  Sinclair followed Braddock into the soft interview room. A fortyish white woman with jet-black, shoulder-length hair wearing an expensive dark-gray suit with a knee-length skirt thrust out her hand when they entered. “Sergeant Sinclair, my name is Bianca Fadell.”

  He detected a hint of a British accent in her voice. Her hand was slight, almost bony, but rendered a firm handshake. She offered a business card on thick paper with elegant, raised letters. Sinclair began, “Ms. Fadell—”

  She cut him off. “Please call me Bianca.” She smiled, showing teeth that only professional bleaching could get so white. She resumed her seat at the table. Braddock and Sinclair pulled out chairs and sat across from her.

  Sinclair asked, “Is Ms. Decker willing to cooperate?”

  “She is. I understand you want a list of Dawn Gustafson’s clients. I can get that for you if the District Attorney will provide a signed letter declining to prosecute my client.”

  “That’s not the way it works here,” Sinclair said. “The DA’s office only files charges on cases the police bring to them. If I don’t bring them the case, they don’t even know about it.”

  “I can guarantee the DA knows about this case already.” Bianca brushed her hair behind her ear, revealing a diamond stud of well over a carat and a heavy gold hoop dangling below it. “I’m sure that you have enormous sway with the DA’s office on most investigations; however, I suspect the determination as to how this matter will be adjudicated will be made at their highest level and may have little to do with what’s best for your homicide investigation.”

  “Then why are you even talking with me?” Sinclair asked.

  She leaned forward and made eye contact with Sinclair. “You control whether my client goes to jail or goes home today. In addition, certain parties actually desire justice for Dawn’s murder, even if those responsible should turn out to be a client of the agency.”