by John Flynn
Fifteen minutes later, Kate was sitting in the front seat next to her partner. She was clutching a half-empty cup of ice from a street vendor, while she held Miller’s white pocket handkerchief full of ice to her left eye. Over her shoulder, she glimpsed Valdes who was sitting on his hands in the back seat of Miller’s car, his wrists manacled behind him, head bent down dripping blood onto his blue jeans and the cloth interior of the car. All three were still breathing hard.
“Now, when you get home tonight,” Miller said, “you put a steak on that, and it’ll draw all of the blood out.”
“To hell with that,” she replied. Dawson had been through enough that day, and while she appreciated her partner’s words of advice, she had other ideas. “I’m gonna fuckin’ eat that steak. It’s not like I haven’t had a black eye before.”
“Okay, tough guy, have it your way,” he said with a paternal smile. “But you’re going to have a beaut’ in the morning.”
“I earned it fair and square.”
THE SEPTEMBER rain started at three in the afternoon, and was still coming down hard when Miller pulled up in front of Kate’s apartment building at Bayside Village Apartments at seven-thirty. He rolled to a stop at the curb and killed the engine. The only sound was the rain tapping on the roof.
Kate reached around behind the driver’s seat, and grabbed a bag of groceries that were sitting on the floor. “Thanks for the groceries,” she said. “I’ll pay you back next week.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he replied. “Get that car of yours out of hock first. You’re no good to the SFPD on foot patrol.”
“I understand.”
He reached across and took her left hand just as she was about to exit his car; looked at her for a fleeting moment, engaging her eyes, then looked away, almost shyly, seeming embarrassed. “I wanted to tell you how proud I was of you today,” he said with a slight smile.
“What? For getting a black eye?”
“No, but it does give you a lot of character.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I was proud to see the old Kate Dawson out there again today. Rolling with the punches, and getting her licks in. You were such a dynamo when you started with the force, and from what I saw today, you still got it, partner.”
“Thanks, Frank,” she replied. “That really means a lot to me.”
“See you in the morning.”
“Yeah, I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
Kate climbed out of the car, slammed the door and ran through the puddles and rain, her head down, carrying her groceries. On the first floor landing, she found Lenny sitting on a step, waiting for her to return home.
“I heard about what happened,” Lenny said, with a deep look of concern in his face. Like a medical technician, he looked her up and down to make sure she wasn’t seriously injured. He stopped when their eyes met. “I’m so glad that it wasn’t anything too serious.”
Kate formed her free hand into a fist, and said, “It depends on how you feel about a black eye.”
Provolone put his hands up defensively. “Ha, ha. Very funny,” he replied, with a degree of tension in his voice. “You wouldn’t hit a man with glasses, would you?”
She shrugged. “How exactly did you find out?”
“Police scanner. Since you don’t want me following you around to crime scenes, I thought the next best bet was following you on the scanner.”
“You miss the point,” she said. Kate was in no mood to deal with her neighborhood stalker. She was rarely in the mood to deal with him. “I don’t want you following me at all.”
Provolone flashed his most dazzling smile. “But we’re friends. You said so yourself, and friends look out for other friends.”
She shook her head and started climbing the narrow, poorly-lit stairs to her third-floor apartment. The bag of groceries that Miller had bought her seemed to get heavier and heavier as she climbed. She was so tired, and it had been such a long day, she could have fallen asleep right there on the landing. Lenny failed to take the hint that she was tired. He scrambled up the stairs behind her, and then, at one landing, went ahead of her, talking over his shoulder.
“I would never be able to forgive myself if something happened to you,” he continued babbling.
Without much thought or volition, as if her body had been taken over by some ancient voodoo curse, she trudged along like a zombie. Then, as she rounded the corner to her apartment, she dug deep into the pocket of her windbreaker and produced a set of keys. She finally stopped at her door.
“Looks like your secret admirer was here,” he said, disapprovingly. Provolone reached down and picked up the single flower that rested against her front door. “He left you a rose . . . a red rose.”
Kate froze dead in her tracks. For a minute or two, she was silent, standing like a tombstone. Any other woman in the city would have been thrilled to return home from work and find a rose from an admirer. But for Kate, this rose had thorns of a different kind. As she took the flower from Lenny, she felt each one prick her hand. She figured that Monroe must have left it for her, but in the back of her mind, she did consider the possibility that Crystal Rose had left it. Then quickly dismissed the thought. Was the rose a genuine sign of his affection for her, or was he playing another game? Was he trying to tell her that he knew about Crystal Rose? Too many damned questions, and not enough hard evidence for her to answer her own questions.
“You know, if I had known you liked flowers,” Lenny said, interrupting her train of thought, “I would have brought you a whole bouquet.”
His inane dialogue helped to shake her from her trance. She was still in a daze when she put the key into the lock and opened the door to her apartment.
“Good night, Lenny,” she mumbled, entering the darkened room.
“I still think you’re making a mistake, Kate. We could be really good for each other—” He continued talking, right up until the moment when the front door slammed shut on his face.
For the rest of the night, she slept uneasily, with the bed sheets pulled up over her head and her arms holding one of her pillows tightly to her chest.
KATE DAWSON always felt the interrogation room at police headquarters felt cold and unfeeling, like the county morgue. Sparsely furnished with a table, several chairs upholstered in black vinyl and a wastepaper basket from the Department of Public Works, the room had all the character and charm of a medieval torture chamber, minus the Iron Maiden.
At the start of most interrogations, Kate had been trained to handcuff the suspect to the table facing a large two-way mirror. They were purposely left under the bright room light to let their brains soften, while police officials studied them from the other side of the glass. Every interrogation or interview was then recorded by a DVR camera fixed at the front of the room.
The old notions of beating a confession out of a suspect or rigging the pool of suspects with police officers before a line-up had been replaced by a code of conduct, not unlike a suspect’s Miranda rights. Today’s modern police force relied on forensic evidence that was ultimately corroborated or refuted by short interviews and sworn affidavits of the individuals who were involved. Nine out of ten lead suspects were found guilty and sentenced for their crimes without a sweat. The tenth suspect often took longer, but was proven guilty nonetheless.
The next morning, Emmanuel Valdes was brought into the interrogation room by two uniformed police officers, and handcuffed to the table. He had been read his Miranda rights by a cop who spoke both Spanish and English fluently. Valdes had agreed to waive his rights because he said that he didn’t have anything to hide.
In the adjacent room, Kate stared at Valdes through the two-way mirror, trying to follow what the lieutenant had to say. Her black eye stared back at her, reflected in the glass.
“Our suspect’s name is Emmanuel Valdes.
They call him Manny,” Roberts read from the Latino’s rap sheet. “He’s a real sweetheart. Served four months for attempted rape of an eleven year-old when he was seventeen. Then, when he got out, he beat her nearly to death . . . but her parents refused to prosecute.”
Miller and Detectives Ramirez and Jawara also watched Valdes through the two-way mirror as Clark sat at a table, taking notes. Aguilar was noticeably absent.
“He’s been picked up several times on suspicion of sexual assault and a couple of misdemeanor sex offenses, but each time, we’ve had to kick him loose because none of the victims could properly ID him,” Roberts continued. “He also did a year and a half for possession and sale of crack cocaine.”
“What makes you think this is our guy?” asked Ramirez.
“His prints were found all over the last crime scene,” replied Roberts.
“And there’s a connection to the victim, Collins,” added Clark, reading from his notes. “Valdes works for Westmore Construction, a subsidiary of Westmore Real Estate Development Group.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” Jawara interjected.
While Clark, Jawara, Ramirez, and Lt. Roberts continued to discuss the suspect’s apparent connection to Collins and Westmore, Kate walked over to Miller and whispered in his ear, “Come on, Frank. Does he sound like our killer?”
“You tell me,” he replied with a shrug. “You’re the one with the shiner.”
“Valdes does possess the requisite degree of anger, but he just doesn’t have the purpose somehow,” she observed. “Our killer seems to have more imagination. A lot more imagination than he could ever muster.”
“You’re thinking your boyfriend makes a better suspect.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that.”
“What, boyfriend?”
“Yes,” replied Kate with a sigh. “I’m not sure what Monroe is, but he’s definitely not my boyfriend.”
Miller did his best to hide the smirk on his face. “Whatever you say, Kate. Just remember who you’re talking to.”
“Shouldn’t we go talk to our suspect?” she asked.
“Why not?”
Detective Miller entered the interrogation room, flanked by Kate on the right, and surveyed the room with a cool eye before he sat down opposite Valdes, who was already seated at the table. Kate remained in the background, hovering by the two-way mirror, with her arms crossed. The Latino looked like he had been put through a meat grinder: a black eye, assorted cuts and bruises, and a bum leg.
Thank God, Kate acknowledged their good fortune, it hadn’t been any worse. If his injuries had been any more severe, Valdes would have ended up at the hospital under guard, crying for his lawyer. And County would have had to pay for everything, regardless of how sticky the arrest was. Yes, they got lucky, and if their luck continued to hold, maybe they’d force a confession out of him.
Miller opened a folder on the desk, and said, “Well, Manny, I see from your file you’ve had quite a run.”
“I served my time,” said Valdes. “What do you want from me?”
“Attempted rape? An eleven year-old girl? What exactly happened?”
“Tae Kwon Do. Little bitch kicked me right in the balls.”
“That must have really hurt,” Miller said, feigning concern.
“She got hers.”
Kate started to react to the suspect’s callous words about his victim, but then thought better of it.
Miller glanced down at the folder. “Yeah, so I see,” he replied. “You beat her nearly senseless, put her into intensive care at the hospital, then threatened her parents to keep quiet about it.”
“Prove it,” shouted Valdes. “You got nothin’ on me, cop.”
“Striking a police officer is a felony in this state. It’s called Aggravated Assault,” the older detective explained, looking up from the folder. He turned his gaze back on the Latino. “That’s strike three, Manny, you’re out. You’re looking at life in prison with no possibility of parole.”
“Prison ain’t so bad.”
Miller and Valdes held each other’s eye for a moment, then Miller pushed his chair back slowly and stood up. Deliberately, he walked over to his suspect, and looked right down at him.
“Oh, spare me that macho Latino bullshit,” he shouted at Valdes. “A pretty boy like you is going to make some inmate the perfect bitch. You’ll be taking it up the ass two at a time, and no one is going to give a fuck.”
“What the fuck do you care?”
“But then again, maybe it’s not aggravated assault. Maybe you’re going down for Murder One,” added Miller, his voice softer, more serene. “San Quentin. Death row. Spend the rest of your miserable life in a cell no bigger than a toilet, clocking the hours down to your execution.”
“Hey, I didn’t kill nobody!”
“Then why were you running?”
“You said it yourself. I got two priors,” Valdes replied. “You bust me for a third, and I’m history.”
For an instant, Miller and Kate exchanged a glance. Kate realized they had arrested the wrong man, and it was obvious from Miller’s expression that he thought so as well. The older detective returned to his seat at the table, and sat down.
“What can you tell me about Steven Collins?” asked Miller.
“Who?”
He showed Valdes a photograph of Collins.
“Never seen him before in my life.”
Miller wasted no time in producing another photograph. This one, a very graphic image from the crime scene, depicted Collins’ severely beaten body hanging from shackles in the center of his dungeon over a pool of blood. The older detective pressed, “Maybe you remember him a little more like this.”
“Madre de Dios,” Valdes gasped, as he tried to make the four points of the cross while shackled to the table.
“He was murdered sometime Tuesday. His throat was slit, and his dick was cut off and shoved in his mouth,” Miller said matter-of-factly. “Sounds just like the kinda sick, twisted thing a would-be rapist like you would do.”
“No way, man.”
“Well, then, tell me why your prints are all over the crime scene.”
Valdes thought for a moment. “You said the last name was Collins,” he said. “Well, I worked on a place on Divisadero. Right. I think the guy who owned it was Collins or Rollins or something like that.”
“What were you doing in the basement?”
Valdes leaned in, and his eyes never left Miller’s. He said, “Well, that’s what I do. I work construction. A couple of months ago, a guy shows up at the work site, and offers to pay me and another guy five grand to build a dungeon in his basement. He even promises to throw in a bonus if we keep it quiet.”
“You didn’t think that was a little strange?” Kate asked, breaking her silence.
“No, lady, I didn’t,” he replied. “Pay me enough dough, and I’ll build you whatever the fuck you want. I don’t care what you do for kicks.”
Miller showed him the first photo again. “Was this the man who hired you?”
“No. I already told you that I don’t know him,” he repeated, louder this time. “The guy who hired me was about five foot nine, built kinda slight, like a woman. Maybe forty, forty-five. Talked like some kind of fruit.”
Kate and Miller exchanged another telling glance. Valdes had just described Dr. John Monroe.
“I don’t suppose you saw anything else?” Kate asked him. “Noticed anything out of the ordinary? Unusual people?”
“Look, I may be an ex-con, but I do know how to dial 911.”
Without another word, Miller stood up slowly and walked over to the door. He lingered there for a moment, in thought.
Kate stood near the door. She said nothing to him, but had a thin smile on her face. Finally, Miller ope
ned the door and exited, followed immediately by Kate.
TWENTY MINUTES later, Kate lengthened her stride to keep up with Miller as they headed to the central office of the Homicide Bureau. “Collins could have hired him as a consultant,” Miller said, closing the door behind them.
“And Monroe could have killed Collins and the other two men,” Kate replied stubbornly, walking down the long row of desks.
Frank took Kate’s left arm and pulled her up short. “What is it with you and this guy, anyway?”
“Come on, Frank. We can’t just let this one slide,” she persisted, like a fighter trying to wear down his opponent. “You heard what Valdes said. A slight man in his mid-forties.”
“Who talks like a fruit,” he added. “Yeah, that just about describes half the men in this city.”
“Goddammit, why won’t you take me seriously?”
“I just can’t figure you, Kate, and I thought I had pretty much figured you out. One moment, you’re convinced that this guy is the Marquis de Sade and you can’t wait to strap him into the gas chamber; the next, you got a hard-on for his body or his mind or Christ-knows-what and can’t wait to fuck him. Which one is it? Or is it both? Do you even know?”
“I wish I knew,” she replied, honestly.
She twisted free of her partner’s grasp, and took a step or two away from him to reflect. She wished she knew what attracted her to John Monroe. He was handsome, well-educated, and very refined—San Francisco’ s model of a metrosexual. He was also dark and mysterious, and seemed to live life totally on his own terms, with a devil-may-care attitude towards conformity and rules. She was attracted to him and repulsed by him for nearly the same reasons. Her lack of clarity scared her more than she was willing to admit.
“Whatever it is, partner, I’m here for you.”
“Fuck you, Frank,” Kate said, smiling, as she turned and continued walking towards her desk.
“Hey, while we’re still on the subject, Kate, fuck you, too,” Miller joked.
“Feel better now?”
“Immensely.”