by Brian Thiem
“You mean my partner missed one round?” said Braddock.
Maloney grinned. “The other one took out the window, remember?”
“Any blood?” asked Sinclair.
“Too badly burned to tell. The crime lab will have to determine that, but two rounds exited through the windshield. Who knows where the third one ended up. SFPD notified all the local hospitals. SF General’s just down the street, but no gunshot walk-ins so far.”
“Let me know if you hear anything else.”
Maloney nodded. “The chief will be here in about an hour. The sheriff called him personally. Said it would look bad if he didn’t show up—one of his officers being shot at and all.”
Sinclair relit his cigar. “So he’s coming just to check on me. How sweet.”
“Be respectful,” Maloney said. “By the way, Liz Schueller’s waiting outside the tape to see you. She says she’s not working.”
“Any idea when they’ll be done with me here?”
“I’ll check after the chief leaves.” Maloney waded back into the crowd of investigators.
“You know the procedure,” said Braddock. “You’re both a victim and the subject of this investigation. You can’t be involved or privy to the details.”
“I’m wasting time sitting here.”
“Why don’t you visit with Liz for a while?”
Sinclair knew that cops don’t visit with their girlfriends at the scene of officer-involved shootings. They take care of business stoically until their commander releases them and then go home and release whatever emotions necessary in the privacy of their homes. Girlfriends bring emotions to a scene where the cop involved in a shooting is fighting to control his. Sinclair didn’t want Liz there. He didn’t want other cops seeing Liz trying to comfort him, and he didn’t want other cops seeing him having to comfort her.
“I’m already accused of giving her special treatment. How would it look, me walking out there just to say hi?”
“Her boyfriend was almost killed,” said Braddock. “I’ll escort her in.”
A few minutes later, Liz slid into Sinclair’s car and buried her face in his neck. He felt her hot tears on his skin. “I was so worried.” She choked out the words between sobs.
Sinclair held her until she quieted. She pulled away and wiped her eyes with a tissue. “How are you?”
Sinclair stared out the windshield. “Okay.”
She smiled and dabbed her eyes again. “I hate how we parted last night.”
“I had a lot going on inside my head.”
“About the case?” she asked. “Or about us?”
Their relationship and how she used it in her career was the last thing he wanted to discuss. “Have your media friends out there been told what happened?”
“Nothing formal, but it’s obvious you were the intended target and the bus bench killer is responsible.”
“I’ve been warned not to comment.”
“I’m not asking you to.” She turned in her seat to face Sinclair, but he continued to look straight ahead. “We knew when we started seeing each other that our careers might clash.”
Sinclair puffed on his cigar and blew the smoke out the open window. “I can’t wrap my head around this conversation right now.”
Liz reached out and took his right hand in both of hers. “Where will you stay?”
“The lieutenant’s working on something.”
“Stay with me while you get through this.”
“This guy’s still after me. It wouldn’t be safe.”
“I’m not worried. I’ve always felt safe when sleeping with the toughest cop in Oakland.”
Liz kissed him deeply and exited the car. Braddock walked her to the other side of the crime scene tape, the eyes of every cop following her as she walked by.
Sinclair had finished another cup of coffee and smoked his cigar to the nub by the time Chief Brown walked his way, followed by two deputy chiefs, the captain of the personnel and training division, and Maloney.
“I’m glad you’re okay,” said Brown, looking at the scorched apartment building behind Sinclair. “The press would have had a field day if this killer claimed the life of one of our officers.”
“I appreciate your concern, Chief.”
Brown didn’t recognize his sarcasm or decided to ignore it. He turned to Maloney and his staff. “What do we do about the murder investigations?”
“As I briefed you,” said Maloney, “we’re following up on—”
“I mean about Sinclair. We can’t leave him on the case.”
“That’s exactly what this prick wants,” said Sinclair. “I’m getting close and that’s why he did this.”
“Or maybe it’s because you insulted him like some kid in a schoolyard pissing match.”
Maloney cleared his throat. “Sergeant Sinclair could have chosen his words more carefully at the press conference, but we’d be sending the wrong message by pulling him. The rank and file look up to Sinclair. You’d lose a lot of support, Chief, if you replaced him.”
“We’ll tell the troops it’s for Sinclair’s safety,” said Brown.
“The department would look weak,” said Maloney. “Besides, Matt’s our best chance for stopping this killer.”
The chief glared at Maloney. “If this man comes after him again and there’s collateral damage, the mayor will hang me out to dry.”
“Then we need to find him first,” said Sinclair.
Brown turned to Maloney. “We’ll leave him as the lead investigator, but he’s restricted to the building. You’ve got plenty of other people to do the field work.”
Sinclair was preparing to object when Maloney put a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll make it work.”
Chapter 48
After a long shower, Sinclair changed into the jeans and polo shirt he kept in his locker and made his way upstairs. The homicide office was buzzing with activity and noise. Every member of the homicide section was there, along with a cluster of uniformed officers and a dozen officers and supervisors in plainclothes. SWAT officers dressed in their black BDUs, pistols hanging at fingertip level in thigh holsters, flexed their arms and legs like a football team getting ready for a big game.
The room fell silent as Sinclair stepped inside. Beginning with a senior SWAT sergeant, they converged on him to shake his hand, slap his back, and offer encouragement: “We’ll get this fucker,” “Tell us how we can help,” “He’ll regret the day he was born.”
Everyone in the room was there because the bus bench killer had violated the code of the streets—you don’t mess with a cop’s family or home.
Years before Sinclair even considered becoming a cop, the Oakland narcotics unit had initiated a long-term investigation into the Hells Angels’ methamphetamine trade. After months of work, the narcs had picked off several underlings in the outlaw gang and were starting to disrupt their drug trade. One morning, an officer on loan from the traffic division for the investigation received a large envelope in the mail. Inside were photographs of the officer’s home, his wife, and his children on their way to school and playing in the front yard, with a note reading, Nice family. Best regards, Sonny.
Whether Sonny Barger, the president of the Oakland chapter, had personally ordered the threat was never determined. Nor did it matter to the members of the department. The Hells Angels had declared war. Officers swept through every house and business associated with the motorcycle gang, stopped every car or motorcycle they owned, and dragged every hang-around, associate, prospect, and full-patch member they could find to jail, many requiring a detour through the emergency room. Although the DA threw out most of the arrests, since the cops mostly ignored the legalities of probable cause, search warrants, and due process, the code was reestablished.
The officer who had received the threat was Jack Braddock, and Cathy was one of the children in the photographs.
Sinclair knew the difference with the current situation. The department had no target on which to unleash its wrath. Nevertheless,
everyone in the room looked to Sinclair for direction. He gathered the SWAT and uniformed officers and told them that he’d received a tip about the killer buying heroin somewhere in Oakland—a necessary lie to protect Dr. Gorman—and sent them out to scour the streets for anyone who might have seen a man fitting the broad description of the killer or van. It was a long shot, but it gave the street cops something to focus on. Sinclair assigned a group of investigators, mostly from the robbery and assault units, to run out every van listed in crime reports, field contacts, and traffic tickets. Every investigator dreaded the monumental task of sorting through thousands of computer hits with little chance of success, but none complained. Braddock meanwhile briefed a group of property crimes investigators about the recovery of the torched van and sent them to San Francisco to knock on doors in the area, with the hope that someone saw something or the killer had a connection to that area.
Once the crowd thinned in the office, Sinclair spotted Heather Kim sitting on a desk in the corner, swinging her legs to an imaginary beat. Kim was a veteran street cop who had been working the downtown walking patrol for several years. She was also on the board of directors for the police officer’s association.
“My turn?” she asked with a big smile.
Sinclair waved her over to his desk.
“I’m here wearing my OPOA hat,” she said. “Your lieutenant said the department will come up with funds to get you a hotel room. With OPD’s wonderful efficiency, that might take days, so in the meantime, the association will get you a room at the Marriott.”
“I don’t need anything that fancy,” said Sinclair.
“They have a state-of-the-art security system and professional staff, and they gave me a suite for the price of a regular room. We’ll list you under a fake name and have two plainclothes officers outside your room.”
“I don’t need protection.”
“The chief ordered it and the watch commander already has a list of twenty volunteers.”
“I’d feel stupid having fellow cops standing outside my room while I sleep.”
“The department’s paying overtime, but every officer on the department would do it for free on the off chance the asshole shows up and they get to take him out.”
Braddock, who had been sitting quietly at her desk, said, “He’ll do it, Heather. And we appreciate the help.”
“If we can catch this asshole, none of this’ll be necessary,” said Sinclair.
“In the meantime, you need a safe place to sleep,” said Kim. “I’ll also work with your insurance company. They’ll probably provide money for emergency housing and other expenses. What else?”
“He needs to go shopping,” said Braddock. “He won’t feel like a homicide dick again until he’s wearing a suit.”
“This’ll be fun,” said Kim. “Me and you taking a studly man shopping. We’ll be the envy of all the girls.”
“Great,” said Sinclair. “A chick outing.”
Kim turned serious. “My cousin’s boyfriend works at Macys. He can set it up so we’re in and out in no time.”
Jankowski came through the door just as Kim was leaving. “I just finished speaking to a detective from NYPD Nineteenth Precinct.”
“About time,” said Sinclair.
“He wasn’t much help. Except for the initial scene and preliminary interviews, his partner did the follow-up alone, and because of who the family was, he kept it all hush-hush.”
“Why won’t his partner talk to us?”
“He’s super evasive about that. He says he’s trying to find his partner, as if he’s a parolee-at-large or something.”
“Something weird’s going on there.” Sinclair felt the intolerable twist in his gut that always meant one thing—he was being played. What were they hiding? Why was NYPD stonewalling them?
“He says they’re positive the Arquette family had nothing to do with Jane’s suicide.”
“Pardon me for not trusting NYPD, but I want the facts so I can form my own conclusion.”
“After I told the detective what happened to you, his tone changed.”
“Does that mean he’ll get off his ass and help?”
“He said he’ll call his boss at home for authorization to work it from his end.”
“If another agency asked us for help on a case like this, we’d drop everything and do whatever they needed.”
“We complain about politics here in Oakland,” said Jankowski. “It’s nothing compared to a place like New York. Cops make detective based on politics and they only keep their gold shields if they play politics.”
Sinclair was about to suggest they talk to Lieutenant Maloney to see if he’d use his rank and call the NYPD brass when he heard Lieutenant Maloney yell from across the room. “Sinclair, Braddock, my office.”
Chapter 49
Sinclair staggered into Maloney’s office. He hadn’t moved from his computer in two hours, and every muscle in his body ached. His knees burned and his feet throbbed. A tall, slim man dressed in the tan uniform of the California Highway Patrol sat in Maloney’s guest chair.
“This is Officer Clark with the MAIT team,” said Maloney, referring to the CHP’s Multidisciplinary Accident Investigation Team. “He was observing an autopsy on what they assumed was a fatal accident when the coroner noticed something.”
Clark told them about responding to a multicar collision around three in the morning. A woman had fallen or had been pushed from a red Mini Cooper, which caused a six-car pile-up. Ambulances transported five people to ACH for a variety of injuries, the woman code blue and pronounced upon arrival.
“When I got to the coroner’s office,” said Clark, “they showed me two flex-cuffs that were transported with the body. The paramedics said her ankles and wrists were bound with them. They cut them to render treatment. The coroner pointed out a peace sign medallion around her neck and told me that is a signature of your killer.”
Sinclair felt lightheaded. The killer was to some extent replicating what had happened to Samantha and Jane. Samantha was hit by a car just like this victim. Samantha was drugged, as was Zachary. Jane committed suicide, and Susan’s death by cutting her wrists was a classic suicide method. He grabbed the back of the chair alongside the one Clark was sitting at. “You got an ID on her?”
“No ID. She was wearing blue scrubs, so we’re guessing she works in the medical field.”
“Description?” asked Sinclair, feeling better and letting go of the chair.
“Female white, late twenties, five-six, one-fifty, brown, and brown.”
“That doesn’t fit any of the people we’re protecting, but I’ll check with O’Connor to make sure,” said Sinclair. “Did you recover the Mini Cooper?”
“It fled the scene. Male white driver, no further description. We’ve got a comm order out for it.”
“Wearing scrubs,” said Sinclair, thinking aloud. “The van dumped near San Francisco General. Maybe he needed transportation and snatched a nurse or someone driving by.”
“Then why the flex cuffs and medallion?” asked Braddock.
“You’re right.” Sinclair shook his head. His brain was operating at half speed. “We need to get her photo to SF General, see if anyone can ID her.”
“The body’s pretty mangled,” said Clark, “but the face is identifiable.”
Sinclair moved toward the door. “Let’s go.”
“Matt, you need to stay here,” said Maloney.
“This is a homicide. It’s my case. I need to identify the victim, visit the crime scene—”
“The scene’s gone, Sergeant,” said Clark. “We opened the freeway hours ago.”
Braddock said, “I’ll take a photo of the victim at the coroner’s office, send it to the team working the area of the van, have them show it around the hospital.”
“I need to interview the witnesses,” said Sinclair. “Someone saw enough to ID the driver as a white male. They must know more.”
“Our officers asked the right question
s,” said Clark. “If there was more, we’d have gotten it.”
“It’s my case, damn it. I’m the one who needs to do the asking.”
“Matt,” Maloney said.
Sinclair looked at the lieutenant. Maloney met his gaze but said nothing more. Sinclair felt the eyes of everyone on him.
Maloney turned to Clark. “We’ll assume jurisdiction of the investigation. How soon can you get us copies of your reports, photos, and scene work?”
A phone in Clark’s pocket chirped. He listened for a minute. “That was dispatch. A unit spotted a red Mini Cooper on the Nimitz Freeway in Hayward and lit him up. The car took off, but we caught him on the city streets after a minor accident. Driver’s a nineteen-year-old African American male.”
“The driver’s black?” said Sinclair.
“Yeah, the driver told our arresting officer he found the car with the key fob in it on East Eighteen Street in Oakland. There was a purse in the car with hospital ID and a driver’s license in the name of Melissa Mathis, age twenty-seven, address in San Francisco.”
“Mathis?” asked Sinclair.
“Yeah, why?”
“Shit.”
“What?” asked Maloney.
“The lawyer from Children’s that I talked to yesterday—Phyllis Mathis. I’ll bet she’s got a daughter named Melissa.”
Chapter 50
Sinclair propped his leg on the toilet seat in the Marriott Hotel suite and applied a fresh bandage over the deepest cut. It had started bleeding a few hours ago when he stretched at his desk. Now it throbbed. His knees were scabbed over. He replaced the bandages on his feet. Although they were still tender, they didn’t hurt as much as earlier. He popped two Tylenol and walked to the dressing area. The plush carpet felt good on his bare feet.
Sinclair removed two white shirts from their packaging and hung them in the closet so that the wrinkles would fall out enough by morning and he wouldn’t need to iron them. Ironing was a skill he never acquired. He looked at the light gray pants and jacket—“suit separates,” the personal shopper at Macy’s called them. He had bought a regular suit as well, but the alterations wouldn’t be complete until Monday.