Second Life (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 4)

by D. F. Bailey

  What could be next, he wondered as he crossed Polk Street. Where would it all end?

  ※

  As the traffic crept forward, Finch laughed to himself when he considered the debate between Kali Rood and Dr. Martin Fast, the eminent geo-science engineer at Stanford University. What began as a civilized discussion about climate change had quickly descended into an argument about God and free choice. Rood, the renowned evangelist and climate fatalist, had tried to shut down the atheist views of Fast with that single knock-out blow.

  We’re just one step away from the angels!

  The words echoed in Will Finch’s mind as he drove his Toyota RAV4 from the City Hall parkade through the Tenderloin District along Turk Street. Kali Rood was a true believer, no doubt about it. But there was something hopeful about her message, the idea that salvation was at hand. However, the message came with a kind of condemnation. If we needed salvation so badly, it implied that humans were failing to survive on their own. It was a well-worn trope that went back thousands of years: The End Is Nigh.

  It was the one point Martin Fast agreed with. In the past twenty years he’d shifted his career focus from green science research to geo-science engineering. He’d been party to an international committee awarded a Nobel Prize in the 1990s. Later he decided that only climate engineering could save the human race from pending catastrophe. Five years ago, in an effort to adjust salt water pH balance, he helped engineer a project that poured hundreds of tonnes of iron sulphate into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Canada. The enterprise earned him both praise and condemnation, and nearly cost him his tenured professorship.

  BEEP-BEEP!

  The driver trailing Finch leaned on his horn and gave Finch a second prolonged blast. Will glared in his rearview mirror at two young men perched in the cab of a black Dodge RAM. A web of tattoos crawled over their shoulders and up their necks. Chimps and bonobos, he mused as he inched forward in the snarled traffic.

  He didn’t much like this neighborhood—who in his right mind did?—but a series of traffic diversions and construction projects funneled the mid-afternoon traffic from the City Hall parking lot into this urban gauntlet of desperation, homelessness and crime.

  Finch took a few deep breaths to release his anxiety along with the lingering malaise of the debate. But just as he felt a moment of liberation, the traffic on Turk Street ground to a full stop. He popped the transmission into park and gazed across the street. Should he cut the engine, or let it idle?

  As he pondered this question, he saw a huge man hunched on a guardrail next to a row of empty playground swings. He wore a tattered chauffeur cap and a Seattle Seahawks hoodie whose dirty cuffs stopped a good four inches above his wrists. The fleece was obviously stolen, borrowed or begged. When the man turned his head Finch recognized something familiar. The bear-like snout, the sneer, the desolate stare.

  It was Toby Squire.

  ※

  A block down the road Finch found a space to park. As he walked back to the corner of Turk and Hyde Streets he tried to suppress his anxiety and collect his thoughts. When he approached the playground he studied the figure leaning against the metal railing. Could it really be Toby Squire? The madman who last year had drowned Giana Whitelaw below the Golden Gate Bridge and then crushed her corpse under his feet. The same man who had hammered Eve Noon into a coma with a steel golf club. The monster who, after a six-hour brain surgery, had managed to escape custody from the San Francisco General Hospital. And then simply disappeared.

  Finch stopped at the playground fence and drew his cell phone from his pocket. With the camera set to video, he called out in a voice meant to wake the dead: “Toby Squire. Is that you?”

  The big man startled. His shoulders tensed as he turned and considered Finch. A suit jacket lay folded across his left forearm. He withdrew his hand from the jacket pocket and took a moment to consider Finch’s voice as he set the jacket on the middle of the iron railing. The stunned appearance on his face suggested that he might be hearing an inner voice, a confused utterance instructing him how to respond.

  “Are you Toby Squire?”

  The giant rose from the railing and walked toward the park gate on Hyde Street. As he ambled forward, Finch noticed Squire’s right leg hitching to the side with every step. The distinctive gait reminded him of the night when Finch chased Squire across the lawn of the Whitelaw estate in Sausalito. Yes, this was Squire. Make no mistake.

  After a brief hesitation Squire hobbled out of the playground and made his way along the sidewalk. Determined to follow him, Finch stopped the video and called Detective Jill DeRosa at the San Francisco Police Department. He’d become acquainted with DeRosa during two interviews in the weeks following Toby Squire’s escape from the hospital last year. She answered on the third ring.

  “DeRosa.”

  “Detective DeRosa, it’s Will Finch.”

  He heard her draw a breath. “What do you need, Finch? And please, no BS about climate crimes.”

  “It’s Toby Squire. I found him in the Turk-Hyde Mini Park. He’s walking on Turk Street just past Hyde. Heading west on the north side.”

  “Toby Squire? You sure?”

  “Yeah. I’m looking at him right now.” On the green light Finch crossed the intersection. He could see the worn chauffeur cap on Squire’s head bobbing above the crowd half a block ahead. “It’s him. I called out to him. Believe me, it’s him.”

  “Incredible.”

  Will could imagine DeRosa standing at her desk, waving her partner over to the phone. “Okay, Finch. I’ll have a team on this in five minutes.”

  “Five minutes?” Finch picked up his pace. When was the last time the SFDP had responded to an emergency in five minutes?

  “Haussmann and me’ll be there. And Finch”—her voice rose with an insistent tone—“you stand down on this. You understand?”

  Finch ended the call. When he saw Squire cross to the south side of Turk, Will continued on the north side and slowed his pace so that he lagged Squire by twenty or thirty feet. Just outside the Vincent Hotel, one of the many flophouses lining the street, he watched Squire hesitate and glance about as if he were lost. He rubbed a hand over the front of his sweatshirt, across the hooked beak of the Seahawks crest.

  Maybe this is the moment, Finch thought as he closed on his prey. He could cross the street, draw the belt from his pants, loop it around the giant’s throat and drag him down to the sidewalk.

  After another pause Squire turned around and hobbled another fifty feet back to Dodge Place, a dead-end alley littered with newspapers scattered by the windstorm that had blown over the peninsula last night. Finch followed him, crossed the road and stood at the T-junction of Turk and Dodge. He looked down the lane, then glanced back along Turk. In the distance he could see the silent flashing of two squad cars racing up the road toward him. He turned back to observe Squire as he wandered half way down the alley and stop just beyond a parked Toyota. His right hand struggled to pull something from his pocket.

  “Toby Squire!” Finch yelled. “Don’t take another step!”

  He began to record a second video as Toby squinted at Finch. He stood as if he were suspended in time, a moment when he tried to decipher where he was and what might become of him. Finch realized that whatever remained of Squire’s intelligence had been diminished by the blow to his head last year in Sausalito. Or perhaps the surgery intended to save his life had left little more than an empty shell.

  Finch heard the doors of the police cars slamming shut.

  “Toby, the police are here,” he said as he continued to run the video camera. “They want to take you into custody.”

  Squire blinked and drew his hand from his pocket. In his fist he held a small pistol.

  “Toby, you want to put that away. The cops will not mess with you if you put that gun down.”

  Finch felt his arm pushed to the side as Jill DeRosa slipped beside him. “Finch, outta here,” she said in a harsh whisper and stepped past him
with Haussmann at her side.

  Two more uniformed policemen followed. When they saw Toby Squire angling the gun in DeRosa’s direction, all four cops drew their weapons.

  “Toby Squire, you need to drop your pistol now. Do you hear me?” Haussmann’s voice boomed with authority.

  Squire shook his head. Not with a look of denial or refusal, but with an air of confusion, as he were saying, I don’t know what we’re doing here. And why are we all holding guns? Then an expression of recognition crossed his face. Ah, yes. So. He turned the pistol in his hand and for a moment Finch assumed he was about to to drop it on the asphalt. Then his appearance shifted again, this time as if he’d discovered a solution that would satisfy everyone. He held the pistol to his right temple. A thin smile drew his lips across his gray, weary face.

  “No, no, no!” DeRosa yelled and lowered her weapon. “Mr. Squire, we will not harm you. Drop your gun. I promise you. We will not hurt you!”

  For two or three seconds it seemed as if Squire would accept the terms of surrender. His wary smile vanished. He pulled the gun away from the side of his head. Haussmann took a step forward. DeRosa was about to holster her pistol. Then Haussmann started to sprint forward. And in that instant, the microsecond between forethought and afterthought, Squire pressed the muzzle of his gun to his ear and pulled the trigger. His body twisted to the left as if the bullet had snapped a steel coil somewhere inside his head. He fell backwards with a faint groan and his cap rolled on its brim a short distance then flipped upside down on the broken asphalt.

  ※

  Finch studied Detective Jill DeRosa as she closed her notebook and clicked her ballpoint pen. He’d given her his statement, ten or twelve lines about how he’d recognized Squire as he drove by and then followed him into the dead-end lane.

  He knew her well enough to know that she’d risen by individual merit through the ranks of one of the toughest police departments in the country. She had an hispanic background, good education and she was smart. The day that she and Will had met she mentioned that she knew Eve Noon—or rather, she knew what Eve had done for women in the force. That familiarity generated some respect for Finch, too.

  “What about Haussmann?” he asked as they stood next to the ribbon of crime scene tape. Finch knew it was his turn to ask a few questions. “Did he find anything on Squire?”

  “Not much. No wallet, no credit cards.” She shrugged as if she needed to decide how much information to pass on to the reporter. “Some cash. A room key at the Vincent.”

  “The flophouse down the road?” Finch tipped his head to the hotel. “What room was he in?”

  She frowned as if he was asking for too much information.

  “Come on, detective. I’m the one who called this in.” His voice carried a note of annoyance, as if he had to remind her of an unspoken quid pro quo.

  “All right,” she whispered. “Two-oh-three. But don’t show up until we’ve swept it. Like at least a day.”

  “You going to canvass the neighborhood?”

  “I’ll check out his room in the Vincent. Anything more depends on what the lieutenant wants.”

  “How much cash was he carrying?”

  “More than enough.” She looked away with an expression that said, you’ve heard all I’ve got to say.

  Finch knew he’d reached his limit. Still, he decided to press for a little more. “What about the revolver? Looked like a .38 Special. Was it a Colt?”

  She sneered with a measure of disdain. Even for a seasoned cop she bore a hard look. She wore her hair pulled tight behind her head, and from time to time her fingers brushed the side of her neck to tend to a heavy bruise.

  They exchanged a look, something Finch didn’t quite understand. Something that inspired DeRosa to continue. Maybe she recalled the trauma that Squire had inflicted on Eve.

  “As you know, we’ve been on the lookout for him for over a year. Ever since he escaped custody following the brain surgery.” Her lips curled in a cynical frown. “No surprise he’d turn up somewhere down here.”

  “Yeah.” Finch shrugged as they sauntered the short distance back to the sidewalk on Turk Street. He could see his car parked a block up the road, the most godforsaken strip of real estate in northern California.

  “The guy was a demented killer. Course, you know that.” She’d been toying with her pen for the last five minutes, twirling it from finger to finger. Now she finally slipped it into her jacket pocket. “Maybe it’s best to let you sift through the ashes. Could make the last chapter to your book.”

  Finch smiled at the thought. His publisher had released Who Shot the Sheriff? three months ago. After hitting the top ten on the New York Times best-seller list, the title had settled into the mid-thirties and held there. The book had already earned out his advance of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Two film options from Hollywood were under consideration. Now Netflix was whispering to his agent. The dream factory inflating the bubble of fame and fortune.

  “Toby Squire wasn’t really part of that story.”

  “No? Well, maybe you should write another.”

  She offered a hearty smile. A grin so deep and generous that it surprised him and for an instant he glimpsed some tenderness beneath her hardened veneer. In the right circumstances she could be engaging. Almost friendly.

  “Maybe.”

  “All right. Let’s let the forensics team do their job,” she said and joined Haussmann at the curb.

  “So that’s it?”

  “Yeah. That closes the file, Finch.”

  Will watched the ambulance depart with Toby Squire’s corpse as the crime scene team completed their assessment. Moments later the two squad cars that had raced through the snarled traffic with such urgency an hour earlier, eased into the traffic and disappeared.

  ※

  As Finch crossed the street and walked toward his car a new thought struck him. The suit jacket in the playground. Toby Squire had been pawing through it, his hand in one pocket when he’d turned to face Finch. He’d looked distracted, almost despondent. What was he up to?

  Will returned to the Turk-Hyde Mini Park. Two hispanic kids were running up and down the slide while their mothers stood near the Hyde Street gate smoking cigarettes. On the green railing opposite the women lay the suit jacket. No one had touched it. As he unlatched the south gate one woman stepped in front of the slide. Before he could reach the rail, she lifted the jacket, tested the weight in one hand as if she were considering what might lie in the pockets.

  “Uh, sorry!” Finch clutched the sleeve in his fist and gave it a light tug. “Someone I know left this here an hour ago. I just remembered it now.” He smiled and pointed down the road to Dodge Place where Squire had shot himself.

  “This yours?” Her face bore a look of disbelief. “You already got a coat.”

  She nodded at his windbreaker, turned her head to one side and looked at the inside label of the suit jacket. As she turned the fabric in her hand, Finch noticed two of her fingers had been sheared away above the second joints.

  “What’s the brand, mister?”

  “Armani.” He smiled without releasing the sleeve.

  She studied the inside pocket tag and pieced together the sequence of letters two at a time. “Ar-ma-ni,” she said with a frown.

  “Right. That’s what I said.” He offered a reassuring look.

  She seemed to consider his claim more seriously but still clutched the lapel with her good fingers. “You’re lucky to get this back. Know that? In this neighborhood nothing sits around here loose for five minutes. You’re lucky I was here keepin’ an eye on it.”

  “Guess I am,” he said and fished a five-dollar bill from his pocket. “Maybe this’ll cover your trouble.”

  “Well, now.” Her mood brightened. “Maybe it will. But another one of those would disappear my troubles altogether.”

  He smiled at that. “What’s your name?”

  She paused with a reluctant frown on her lips. “Alice,
” she said.

  “Alice. I’m Will.” He produced another bill. “Final offer.”

  She released the jacket and slipped the money into a back pocket of her jeans.

  “Makes a fair trade,” Alice said and smiled a broad grin that revealed rows of nicotine-stained teeth.

  “Maybe.” Finch doubted it, but he felt committed to the deal.

  He wrapped the jacket over his arm and walked through the Turk Street gate, along the sidewalk toward his car. Then he spread the jacket on the trunk, carefully straightened the lapels and arms, slipped the middle button into place and took a picture of the jacket with his phone. Something about the jacket made him want to preserve it just the way he’d found it. A feeling, not an idea. He didn’t know what it meant.

  ※ — THREE — ※

  FINCH UNLOCKED THE door to the Alta Street cottage and set his courier bag on the bench next to the antique umbrella stand that Eve had picked up from Heritage Auctions. When he heard the sound of metal clinking in the kitchen sink, he called down the hallway.

  Eve appeared with two fresh-cut roses in her hand. “Look. I found these on the side of Napier Lane. There’s dozens of them.”

  “Looks like you just finished your run.” He noticed the perspiration stains welling around the armpits of her track suit. Since they’d moved into the cottage she’d made a project of exploring the jogging trails and lanes in the neighborhood. The area was famous for its wild parrots. And now, apparently, wild roses.

  The previous owners had renovated the original 1929 cottage and transformed it from an urban hide-away into a twenty-two hundred square foot, two-story dream home with a secluded rooftop deck. Eve loved the location—tucked out of sight just below Coit Tower on the southeast slope of Telegraph Hill—and Will couldn’t get enough of the view that looked past the Financial District onto the bay from the upper deck. The fact that their house was just blocks away from North Beach didn’t hurt. “Our home in the zone,” Eve had said after they signed the purchase agreement. “A match made in heaven. Just like us.”