Red Line

by Brian Thiem

  “I still have a few things to discuss with them and then I’ll take Adrian to the jail for booking.”

  “Those few things—might you mean the two recent murders that have been all over the news?” Zimmerman asked.

  Sinclair met his gaze, saying nothing.

  “My clients had nothing to do with those.”

  “And I’m supposed to take your word for this?”

  “I just left Mr. Nadeiri’s house. Since the incident with the young ladies last year, he and his wife have kept a very short leash on their son, and I’m sure we can prove he was elsewhere during the time of the murders.”

  “Parents have been known to lie for their kids.”

  Zimmerman thought for a moment. “I’ll make them available to speak with you. I think you’ll find them both quite honest.”

  “I’ll need to determine that myself,” said Sinclair.

  “I should hope so. Concerning the other matter, my clients truly regret what happened.”

  “Is that why they kept quiet about it for over a year?”

  “Youthful indiscretions, for which Adrian may now be held accountable. Mr. Nadeiri is guilty of protecting his son. What father wouldn’t? And Mr. Griffin of loyalty to his superior and an obligation to protect his company.”

  Sinclair nodded. He wasn’t about to point out that just about every criminal he ever met was able to rationalize the crimes he committed. The only difference was that the wealthy ones had high-priced lawyers to articulate it for them.

  “Why are you doing this—I mean cooperating at this stage instead of waiting until trial to spring it on the DA?”

  “I’d prefer you and the DA don’t overcharge my clients to hold them because of the public pressure for the police to take action on the two recent homicides. I’m helping you to see their innocence, so that you can focus on finding the actual perpetrator.”

  “Assuming this checks out, I appreciate it.”

  Braddock was just hanging up the phone when Sinclair walked back into the office.

  “That was Jankowski. He’s on Woodrow Drive. Call came in as gunshots less than an hour ago. Female victim’s DOA. Her husband’s a doctor, and hanging on the wall next to the body was a peace sign medallion.”

  Chapter 36

  Sinclair examined the pool of blood on the kitchen floor. On his way out of the office, Sinclair had told Braddock to coordinate with Jankowski and split their teams, send Sanchez back to help her finish the interviews, and leave Jankowski at the scene to assist him. That way, Sinclair would take charge of the fresh murder while Braddock cleaned up the old one, and the detectives with the most knowledge of the investigation would lead both tasks.

  “What’ve you got?” asked Sinclair.

  “Two residents called it in,” said Jankowski. “Patrol talked to them. One heard two shots, the other four. Neither saw anything. A few minutes later, Bay Alarm reported an intrusion alarm at this address. Two units were dispatched. The front was secure, so they went around the back and saw the patio door shattered and the victim, a Carol Brooks. They called for medical, checked for a pulse, but found none. Fire department arrived first, started CPR. Ambulance arrived, scooped, and transported. They pronounced her upon arrival at ACH”

  Sinclair stepped closer to the glass door and looked outside to the brick patio where two technicians were taking measurements for the scene diagram.

  “Tech recovered one shell casing outside, nine millimeter, ten feet to the right of the door. Consistent with the shooter firing the first shot outside. Three more casings inside the kitchen. The tech already photographed and recovered them.”

  Sinclair followed Jankowski into the dining room. A heavy oak table with six chairs took up the center of the room, with a matching sideboard against the wall. Above the sideboard, several photographs hung on the wall, one of them showing a couple on a Hawaiian vacation. A peace medallion was draped over the picture.

  “I called you when I saw this,” said Jankowski.

  Sinclair knew a serial killer didn’t normally change his MO. They were creatures of habit, and once they found a method of killing that worked, they stuck with it. But the smarter ones adapted to fit the circumstances. When that occurred, the police seldom linked the cases. Although Sinclair had suspected it when he noticed the medallion on Susan Hammond’s body, there was now no doubt in his mind that the killer was leaving it for the police.

  “Looks like he’s escalating,” said Jankowski.

  “Could be he’s just changing to a more efficient method of killing.”

  “Why’d he stop using the bus bench?”

  “Too risky,” said Sinclair. “A department with more manpower would have staked the place out. Besides, I think he only used the bus bench to get our attention and send a message.”

  “That this was the work of one man, which he can now do with less risk by leaving a medallion.”

  “That’s my guess,” said Sinclair.

  “The rest of the house was undisturbed. No signs of forced entry. All lights in the house were off except for the kitchen. One car in the garage, empty space for another.”

  “Husband?”

  “Dale Brooks. Works the night shift in the ER at Children’s. We sent a marked unit there to take him downtown, but he’d left by the time the unit arrived. The officer that followed the ambulance to ACH found him there. We got him in a car outside.”

  “How’d he find out about the shooting?”

  “Says Bay Alarm called his cell after the alarm activation and told him OPD was en route to a report of gunfire. Children’s ER is tapped into the emergency medical response system, so when he found out an ambulance was dispatched for a female victim, he drove to ACH.”

  Sinclair made a note to verify this later so they could eliminate the husband as a suspect, although nothing so far indicated this was the work of Dale Brooks. Sinclair noticed dirt and debris on the hardwood floor alongside the sideboard. Crouching down, he saw two brown pine needles and a piece of gravel.

  “How many people tramped through the scene before it was secured?”

  Jankowski looked at his notes. “Four patrol officers. Two of them went upstairs and searched to make sure the suspect was gone and there were no additional victims. Plus two paramedics and three firemen for the medical response.”

  Sinclair noted bloody footprints and smears consistent with the huge boots firefighters wore. Compromising a crime scene was never their concern, especially on medical runs. He went out the back door and walked back and forth along the brick patio scanning every inch. He pulled his Surefire flashlight from his pocket and followed its beam down the cement walkway and around the side of the house to the driveway. No gravel or pine needles on the walkway. Four uniforms milled about at the front of the house. He returned to the back and walked to the edge of the patio where a stone path led toward the woods. He bent down and picked up a piece of gravel, rolling it between his fingers, and followed the path to a decorative bench at the edge of the yard. Pine trees towered above him, and a carpet of pine needles extended into the forest where the grass ended.

  Sinclair yelled down the hill. “Has anyone been up here?”

  The evidence technician looked up from his work. “Not that I know of.”

  “Any idea what’s back here?”

  The tech pulled a battered Thomas Street Guide from his briefcase. “The rear yards of houses on Shepherd Canyon Road, then the walking trail that parallels it.”

  “That explains why none of the neighbors saw our suspect or a car.”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “Our suspect came in and left through the woods. He left pine needles and gravel in the house.”

  “You want us to search back here for footprints and any evidence he might have dropped?”

  “You won’t find any footprints on this ground. Probably a waste of time in the dark anyway. Tell the patrol sergeant to have someone canvass the houses on Shepherd Canyon. Maybe a resident saw some
thing.”

  Sinclair found Jankowski sitting in his car. A clean-cut man with a stoic look on his face sat in the backseat. Wearing navy blue scrubs and with styled hair and brilliant white teeth, Dr. Brooks was a young-looking forty. Jankowski briefed Sinclair on what they had covered thus far: personal information about Brooks and his wife and a timeline of their activities throughout the day.

  Sinclair asked the standard questions about enemies, problems with anyone, and anyone who might want to hurt his wife, but as he expected, nothing materialized. Brooks’s voice remained steady, emotionless, like when a doctor tells a mother her son didn’t make it through surgery.

  “Did your wife know Zachary Caldwell?” Sinclair asked.

  “Doctor Caldwell’s son? Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Can you think of any connection between them, anywhere their lives might have crossed?”

  “The only connection was Doctor Caldwell and me.”

  “How well do you know him?”

  “We work together. We’re in different departments but have operated on trauma patients together a number of times.”

  “What about Susan Hammond?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Russell Hammond?”

  “If you’re asking about patients, I might see twenty patients a day in the ER. I don’t focus on names in charts.”

  “Samantha Arquette?”

  “Accident August last year. Car hit her right in front of the hospital. I was in the ER that night.”

  “You remember her?”

  “She wasn’t your typical sore throat or broken arm. Besides, I received constant reminders about her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Her family sued the hospital—wrongful death and medical malpractice. The hospital and my insurance carrier both interviewed me and I was deposed by lawyers.”

  “What happened?”

  “Getting sued is part of a physician’s life these days, especially in emergency medicine. Like most, it settled. The hospital and my insurance paid something.”

  “You were sued individually?”

  “That’s standard. Lawyers name every doctor who touched the patient. Sometimes those who did nothing more than consult.”

  “Was Doctor Caldwell named in the suit?”

  “Probably. He was on-call from neurology that night. After we stabilized the internal injuries, the head trauma was the primary medical concern.”

  “Excuse me.” Sinclair pushed out of the car seat and jogged down the street to his car. He paged through his notes and dialed Russell Hammond’s home phone.

  “Hello.” Hammond’s speech was thick and slurred.

  “This is Sergeant Sinclair, are you able to talk?”

  “Yeah.”

  Sinclair couldn’t blame him for being drunk; if his wife had been murdered, he’d stay drunk for a week.

  “You told me that you do medical malpractice as well as personal injury. Were you involved in the lawsuit involving Samantha Arquette?”

  “Why?”

  “I’m investigating your wife’s murder.”

  “I was the plaintiff’s attorney.”

  “Were Doctors Brooks and Caldwell named in the suit?”

  “Yes, along with four other defendants and the hospital.”

  “Who was your client?”

  “Jane Arquette, the girl’s mother.”

  “You know she’s dead, right?”

  “What?”

  “She committed suicide. You didn’t know?”

  “She was alive when the case settled. That was a while ago. Most of my communication was with her family attorney.”

  “I’ll need his name and number.”

  “I don’t have it at home.”

  “How much did Mrs. Arquette get?” Sinclair asked.

  “There’s a nondisclosure agreement between the parties.”

  “I don’t give a shit.”

  “I really can’t say without permission from the other parties and my client.”

  “Your client’s dead.”

  “I’ll need permission from her estate.”

  “I’ll need to see your files.”

  “They’re in my office. It’s after hours and I’m in no condition to go out right now.”

  No shit, thought Sinclair. “Let’s do this first thing in the morning—eight o’clock, my office, bring your files, and we’ll go from there.”

  “Can we make it nine?”

  “Eight,” said Sinclair, followed by the words others had used with him. “Hammond, I need your head clear, so put a plug in the jug and get some sleep.”

  When Sinclair hung up, he saw Lieutenant Maloney standing alongside his car. After Sinclair filled him in, Maloney asked, “If your theory’s correct, why the year break between the girl’s death and now?”

  Sinclair knew that the normal reason for a lull in a crime spree was because the suspect was sitting in jail somewhere, often on an unrelated crime, and once he got out, the killings resumed; however, that didn’t feel right to him. Samantha’s death and the last three murders were different.

  Before he could talk it through with Maloney, he saw two men coming toward them, the unmistakable shaved head of Chief Brown bobbing a foot above the PIO, George Thomas. Sinclair stood by quietly while Maloney briefed him.

  “I don’t get it,” said Brown. “How are these three murders connected to the lawsuit over the girl’s death a year ago?”

  “I don’t know yet,” said Sinclair. “But we now have a direction.”

  “What if it’s the wrong direction?”

  “Then we look elsewhere. That’s the nature of investigations.”

  “I don’t need a lecture on the nature of investigations,” Brown said to Maloney, as if Sinclair wasn’t there. “I need results.”

  Maloney said nothing.

  “I’ll support this hunch for now,” said Brown. “The hospital administrator offered whatever we need, so I’ll call him and get someone from legal to meet with you in the morning.”

  “Thanks, Chief,” said Sinclair.

  “I’m not doing it for you. I don’t want to be accused of ignoring a possible avenue, even if I think it’s a tangent. But if this doesn’t lead to the killer, we’re going to reassess the direction of the investigation and who’s running it.”

  Brown turned and walked away. Thomas scurried to catch up.

  Maloney gazed at his shoes for a moment. “I sure hope you’re right.”

  Sinclair wandered the scene. Jankowski was still talking to Brooks. Two officers sat in their cars typing on computers. Another stood at the top of the driveway controlling access to the house. Around the back, two officers and the patrol sergeant stood on the patio. Both techs were inside the kitchen with latent print brushes in their hands. Sinclair sat on the bench at the edge of the forest and pulled out his cell. The phone showed it was 11:19 p.m. He had two missed calls.

  He lit a cigar, called Braddock, and briefed her on the latest murder. She and Sanchez had pressed Griffin and both boys, but they denied any knowledge of the recent murders. Sinclair knew her heart wasn’t in it, and he couldn’t blame her. It was tough to push someone to confess to a crime when you didn’t believe they committed it, and with the three of them sitting in homicide when Brooks was killed, it was hard to fathom they were involved. Braddock said they’d have one more go at them before taking final taped statements.

  Sinclair puffed on his cigar. The smoke hung above him in the still air. The murders hadn’t previously made sense because he was looking for a connection between the victims: Samantha, Zachary, Susan, and now Carol. However, he now knew the connection was between Samantha and the victims’ family members: Dr. Caldwell, Attorney Hammond, and Dr. Brooks. Samantha’s death was different from the last three. She was an accident of sorts. Whenever a dope dealer was gunned down in Oakland, one of Sinclair’s first steps was determining which gang the victim belonged to. The murder often stemmed from a precipitating event, suc
h as one dealer selling on another gang’s turf. A series of retaliations, sometimes developing into a major turf war, often followed.

  He’d been looking at this all wrong. The same person didn’t kill all four victims. Samantha’s rape and death was the precipitating event. The others were killed because of what happened to her. However, if that were true, then why weren’t Nadeiri, Shaw, and Griffin targeted? Why the wives and children of the lawyer and doctors? As was common in an investigation, he had more questions than answers. He wondered how deeply NYPD had looked into Jane Arquette’s suicide and whether her death might be a murder as well.

  Chapter 37

  Sinclair grabbed the first suit in the front of his closet, a navy blue pinstripe he’d bought on sale two years ago. Not nearly as nice as the suits Griffin and Zimmerman wore last night, but better than what most other detectives wore. When he started in homicide, he had established a system of hanging the suit he wore that day in the back of the closet. That routine was invaluable on days such as this, when his brain was on autopilot and didn’t need to make any more decisions than absolutely necessary.

  He had set his alarm for six and rolled out of bed with barely two hours of sleep in hopes of catching some NYPD detectives still at their desks with their morning coffee. He ground black French roast beans, made a pot of strong coffee, and called the precinct detective squad that handled the case when Samantha died in the hospital. The detective who worked the case had transferred out, but a clerk summarized the report for him. There was little in it that Sinclair hadn’t heard before and no mention of any relatives of Samantha’s besides her mother, Jane. The detective had met with Jane several times, but only to coordinate between her, the hospital, the medical examiner, and the funeral home. Sinclair had performed investigative assistance before for other departments. The detective’s focus was to facilitate the chain of custody of evidence and information to the requesting agency for their murder prosecution. The NYPD clerk suggested Sinclair call the Nineteenth Precinct, which handled Jane Arquette’s suicide. Sinclair called, but the detectives were out on a robbery that had occurred overnight, so he left a message.