by Brian Thiem
Sinclair had seen dozens of stun guns. Along with tear gas, they were legal for anyone except convicted felons and could be bought at thousands of places around the state. Although Dr. Gorman was probably right about the assailant being a strong male, Sinclair could think of several scenarios where a smaller, weaker person could hold a stun gun to Caldwell for three seconds, so this theory only told him that his suspect was probably a relatively strong man—not a hell of a lot to go on.
Sinclair stepped back as Gorman grabbed a scalpel and made a Y-shaped incision across the corpse’s chest, another across the top of the chest, and a vertical cut from the neck to the pubic bone. A coroner’s assistant stepped in with long-handled pruning shears. Although Sinclair thought of the lifeless forms lying on the autopsy tables as no more human than he thought of a hamburger as a big, brown-eyed cow, the sound of the ribs and breastbone crunching grated on him like the sound of a drill in a dentist office.
Gorman lifted off the breastplate—the sternum with attached ribs—exposing the thoracic cavity, and scooped out a beaker of blood and divided it between three plastic jars with printed labels. He pulled out the organs one at a time and placed them on a wood cutting board that was resting on the corpse’s thighs. He poked, prodded, and sliced each one and finally cut a piece, placed it into another labeled jar, and discarded the organ in a stainless steel pan. He spent more time with the heart, carefully turning it over in his hands and cutting sections away while examining it closely.
“There’s no evidence of heart disease or trauma to indicate an immediate cause of death,” Gorman said. “My determination will have to wait for the toxicology results.”
“Can you rush that? It would be nice to know what killed him.”
Gorman plopped the heart into the pan and looked at Sinclair. “I’ve given you all I can at this time. Toxicology results take up to six weeks for a reason. Very strict protocols must be followed.”
Sinclair sighed. “I know, Doc. It’s just that if some doper ended up unconscious in the ER, the hospital would draw blood and within an hour know whether he ODed on cocaine or barbiturates. My vic’s a doctor’s kid. He was found next to a hospital. It would be nice to know if he died from street drugs or something that came from the hospital.”
Sinclair pulled off his mask as he headed for the door.
“Sergeant,” Gorman called out.
Sinclair turned.
“My son is a pathologist at Children’s Hospital. He and Dr. Caldwell are friends. Their wives socialize and their sons attended school together. If someone were to advise you of preliminary toxicology results, with the understanding they were unofficial, is it possible to guarantee that such information would never appear in a report and never be attributed to the source?”
“I deal with confidential informants all the time. I would never betray one.” Sinclair untied the gown and reached in his shirt pocket. “I’ll leave my card just in case someone needs it.”
Chapter 7
Men and women dressed in suits alongside others in shorts and T-shirts scurried along the sidewalks between the PAB and the county courthouse on the opposite side of Washington Street. Others jaywalked across Seventh Street, disappearing into one of the bail bonds agencies or the storefront lawyer offices.
Sinclair walked past police transportation, where a hundred police cars filled a lot under the steady drone of traffic on the Nimitz Freeway overhead, and spotted a Channel 6 News van down the block, just beyond the side door to homicide. He had called Liz when he left the coroner’s office, trusting she would make their meeting appear as a chance encounter to avoid any appearance of favoritism.
A stunning blonde swung her long legs from the passenger seat of the van and lowered herself onto four-inch stilettos. She tugged her form-fitting skirt down and adjusted her pink blouse so that just a touch of cleavage showed. Although she didn’t quite stop traffic, a number of pedestrians stopped to watch her.
“Sergeant Sinclair, do you have a moment?”
Sinclair wondered what it would be like to embrace and kiss his girlfriend when meeting in public and not worry about her perfect makeup. He looked up and met her eyes. She liked standing two inches taller than him.
“You look gorgeous, as always.”
“What can you tell me?” Her smile remained, but the voice was all business.
“I’ll give you his name on the record, but the rest of this you didn’t get from me.”
“Fair enough,” she said, pulling a reporter’s spiral notebook from her Prada handbag.
Sinclair gave her a quick rundown.
“Will you do an on-camera?”
“Only what’s in the press release.”
She waved toward the van, and a broad-shouldered man walked their way cradling a heavy video camera. He was at least as tall as Liz in her heels, with sandy blond hair that nearly covered his ears. Sinclair could tell he maintained the three-day stubble he sported on his face with an electric trimmer.
“Matt, this is Eric. He’s our new cameraman.”
“I’ve heard lots about you,” Eric said. His ice-blue eyes gave Sinclair the once over.
Most camera operators were disheveled middle-aged men who wore baggy cargo pants and T-shirts stretched across big bellies. This guy looked like he could work on the other side of the lens.
Eric turned to Liz. “How about the police building as background?”
On camera, Sinclair recited the same verbiage from the press release, adding Zachary’s name. He looked into the camera, ignoring Liz’s smile, which would make most men say more than they intended.
“You spoke to his parents. How are they taking this?”
Although he thought, How the hell do you think they’re taking it? Sinclair played along. “They’re quite distraught, as one would expect. I do request that the media respect their privacy for the next few days.” Sinclair knew they would edit his last sentence out and stick a microphone in their faces as soon as they could, but he could later tell the Caldwells he’d asked the media to leave them alone.
“Zachary lived in Contra Costa County. Do you know what he was doing in Oakland at that time of night?”
“No, but if anyone saw him or knows anything that might help, please call Oakland Police.”
Sinclair looked from the camera to Liz. “I gotta get back to work.”
Liz swept her hand across her throat, and Eric lowered the camera.
“Thanks, Eric. I’ll meet you back at the van.”
Once Eric was out of earshot, she reached out and brushed her fingertips across the back of Sinclair’s hand. He felt the sexual energy in her touch.
“Your new camera jockey’s a step up from your last one.”
“If you like that tall, rugged, handsome look,” she said. “Jealous?”
Sinclair smiled. “Should I be?”
“No way. I’d blend in too much with another blond. I contrast better with the moderately tall, dark, and handsome types. Besides, even in my CFM pumps, he’s taller than me, and you know I can’t have that.”
“CFM?”
“That’s what these shoes say to the male world.”
“You’re going to give me a heart attack.”
“Coming over tonight?”
“I’ll try.”
“You know, my pumps are just doing their job when they flirt with other men.”
She winked as he turned toward the stairs.
*
Sinclair told Braddock about the autopsy and then wheeled his chair alongside hers to look at the laptop computer open next to her desktop monitor. “Facebook, Braddock?”
“Zachary’s account. There’s a hundred postings and comments about his death over the last two hours, but none before the school announced his death. Nothing useful so far, but I’ll continue to monitor it. If any of his friends know anything, they’ll probably start posting.”
Braddock clicked the mouse a few times and a Twitter homepage appeared. “He has two hundred f
ourteen followers. Last night at eight-twenty-nine, he tweeted this.”
Sinclair read the message on the screen: HW dun G4C *$.
“Huh?”
“Homework done, going for coffee at Starbucks. After that, three replied saying they’d see him there. When we interview his friends, we’ll need to ask everyone their screen names.”
“Like asking a gangbanger his street name,” Sinclair said. “How many people could have seen his tweet?”
“All two hundred fourteen of his followers.”
“One of them could be our killer.”
“It’s possible, but that’s a lot of people to identify and eliminate,” she said. “Then there’s Facebook, where he has over four hundred friends.”
“On Facebook, you have to approve someone as your friend before they can see your postings, correct?”
“Yeah, but look how easy it is,” Braddock said as she switched to her desktop computer, where a Facebook profile of a young girl popped up.
“Who’s this?”
“It’s one of the profiles I created when I worked child exploitation. Her name’s Mandy, she’s fourteen. The pedophiles loved her. I got the photos to create her identity from a Kmart back-to-school flyer. An hour ago, Mandy requested to be friends with twenty of Zachary’s Facebook friends. Already, seven of them approved her.”
Sinclair leaned back in his chair. “Great,” he sighed.
“I made a list of kids we might want to talk to today. Those Zachary met for coffee, others his mother says are his best buds, and a few of his online pals. We should try to catch as many as we can at school before it lets out.”
“Let’s roll in five,” he said.
Sinclair stepped into the lieutenant’s office and briefed him on the autopsy. “With the addition of the stun gun, I see no way around making this a number,” said Sinclair.
“The chief won’t be happy.”
“Remind him it wasn’t you who killed this kid.”
“I don’t take it personal, Matt. It goes with the job.” Maloney picked up an interoffice envelope from his desk, slid out several pages of paper, and handed them to Sinclair. “This is your copy. The department was served this morning, exactly one year from the day of the shooting.”
Sinclair recognized the paperwork, the federal district court letterhead. The department, the chief of police, and Sinclair were being sued in federal court for unlawful death, civil rights violations, and an assortment of other official-sounding offenses. He noted the name of the plaintiff—Alonzo Moore’s mother.
“I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.”
“The city gets sued on even the most righteous shootings,” said Maloney.
“And mine was far from that.”
“I told you that at the time.”
“The chief won’t be happy.”
“The city attorney’ll call you. Don’t worry about being listed as a defendant. That’s just a formality. It’s the deep pockets they’re after.”
On the way back to his desk, Connie handed him a fat magic marker and a quarter sheet of paper. Sinclair wrote 76 on the paper, circled it, and added his and Braddock’s initials on the bottom right. He removed 75 from the bulletin board and stuck the current number in its place. The city was on pace to top a hundred murders again for the ninth year out of ten. Still, it was way behind the early nineties, when one year Oakland hit 175. He guessed you could call that improvement.
The tradition of posting the most recent homicide number on the board had been around as long as Oakland had a homicide unit. To politicians and media, the number of murders was a barometer they used to measure the department as well as the overall condition of the city. When reporters or department brass called the unit for the current number for the year, as occurred several times a day, whoever answered the phone merely had to glance at the board. All numbers the standby team accumulated remained on the board during the week they were on call, which told the lieutenant with a glance if the team was becoming overwhelmed. When investigators solved a case, they put a diagonal red line through the corresponding number and stuck it back on the board for a few days. Sinclair knew a red line on 76 was a long way away.
He shrugged on his coat, stuffed the case packet in his briefcase, and followed Braddock to the door. Maloney waved him back into his office.
“I just got off the phone with the chief. He’s wondering if you’re up to this.”
“What did you tell him?”
“He ordered you to test.”
“Right now? That’s bullshit, Lieutenant. We’re up to our ass—”
“It’s in the contract, Matt.”
“I know exactly what’s in the contract,” said Sinclair. “The department can order me to test any time it wants for a fucking year. One dirty test and I lose my stripes for good and work the rest of my days in whatever bullshit do-nothing job the chief determines. He’s fucking with me and you know it.”
“It doesn’t matter,” said Maloney. “The city physician’s expecting you. Stop there on your way to Danville.”
Chapter 8
The man spotted Susan’s car in the parking lot for the Lafayette Ridge Trail as he drove up Pleasant Hill Road. It was the second of her regular running trails that he checked. He turned around in the Springhill Elementary School driveway and parked beside her Lexus SUV.
He had followed Susan Hammond enough to know her routine. She’d leave the law office where she worked with her husband around one and drive home to Lafayette. One day she went to a nail salon, another she got her hair done, another she went shopping. At four every day, she’d drive to a trail and take off on a run. She’d return to her car in forty to fifty minutes, grab a Gatorade, and walk for five minutes to cool down. She’d then drive straight home. She was a creature of habit, which made his task easy.
His watch read 4:50 when Susan jogged down the dirt trail from the ridge. For a woman in her midfifties, she was amazingly fit, but like many avid runners, she seemed to be all skin and bones. Her thighs weren’t much bigger than his arms, and she didn’t have much in the way of a butt or breasts under her yellow nylon running shorts and tank top. She slowed to a walk the moment she hit the pavement and clasped her hands behind her neck to allow her chest to fully expand with each breath. Peering through the side window of the van, he saw the sweat glistening off Susan’s body as she came toward him.
The chirp of the Lexus’s door lock was his signal. He yanked open the side door and launched himself out of the van.
She turned toward him, startled. “Hey—” slipped from her lips as he grabbed her and pushed the stun gun against her ribs. She fought hard for such a thin woman, but he pressed the trigger until she went limp. He held her against his chest as he scanned the area for anyone watching.
He pulled her into the van and shut the door. He zip-tied her arms and legs, duct-taped her mouth, and then fastened her arms to one seat bracket and her legs to another with additional zip ties, a lesson he learned when Zachary began kicking on the drive from Danville to the bus bench. He climbed into the driver’s seat, merged onto the 24 Freeway, and headed to Oakland. Just before the traffic slowed several miles from the Caldecott Tunnel, Susan recovered from the electrical shock and started to struggle, but he turned around in his seat and offered her another taste of the stun gun.
Twenty minutes later, he pulled into the parking lot of the Golden State Motel at Fifty-Fourth and San Pablo. He had found the place his first day in Oakland. Most of the twenty rooms in the two-story tan stucco building were rented by the week to prostitutes, pimps, drug dealers, and hustlers. It was the kind of place where people didn’t get involved in anyone’s business, unless it was to buy crack, a stolen television, or a girl by the act, the hour, or the night. Exactly the kind of place he had been looking for.
He parked the van in front of his room and crawled into the back. He flicked open a heavy lock-blade knife. “Listen, I’m going to release your legs so you can walk. If you struggle or try
to run, I’ll stick this in your heart. Understand?”
She nodded. He cut her loose and hoisted her out of the van. Once he was sure no one was paying attention, he walked her into room number eight and strapped her to a wood chair with additional zip ties. He slid a chair in front of her and sat down. “You must be parched. Promise not to scream and I’ll bring you a drink.”
She uttered “okay” through the tape covering her mouth.
He opened a small refrigerator on the other side of the room and returned with a Powerade and a Coke. “Your pick,” he said.
She nodded at the sport drink.
“Remember, if you try anything, I will hurt you.” He pulled the tape off her mouth and cut the tie that bound her left wrist to the chair. He twisted off the top and handed her the bottle.
She lifted the bottle to her mouth, took several long gulps, and brushed her hair from her face with a shaking hand. Her voice quivered. “Why? Why are you doing this?” She took several more swallows, dribbling some of the liquid down her chin as her hand trembled.
He took a sip of the Coke. “It’s not personal.”
“Not personal?” she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. “You kidnapped me and tied me to a damn chair.”
“It has nothing to do with you.”
She threw the bottle at him. The plastic container bounced harmlessly off his chest.
“You’re crazy,” she screamed. “Let me go!”
He tore a fresh strip of duct tape off the roll and tried to stick it over her mouth, but she slapped his hand. He grabbed her head, but she twisted away. With her free hand, she batted at his hands. He reached around the back of her head, grabbed a handful of hair, and yanked her head back. “Enough,” he yelled.