She rolled out of bed and looked at the clock again. No time for a run. She ducked into the closet and pulled a dark blue T-shirt off its hanger. It had SFPD stenciled in bright yellow across the front. She tossed it to him. “It’ll help you blend.” She headed for the bathroom. “There better be hot water left.”
Sabrina’s cell rang. It was Mathews. Again. She let it go to voicemail. He’d called her four times in the past hour and a half. Probably to give her a direct order to stay away from the Sawyer girl’s autopsy.
Michael rode shotgun, not saying much. He just scrolled through what she thought might be text messages with a slight frown on his face. She wanted to ask what was wrong but didn’t. She pulled into the parking lot, backed into a spot that gave him a clear view of the door.
She dropped the keys into his hand and climbed out of the jeep. Crossing the lot quickly, she hurried into the building, down a hall that smelled faintly of floor wax under the heavier, cloying aroma of formaldehyde.
Her cell rang: Mathews again. She ignored it and hurried down the hall. She rounded the corner and stopped short. Strickland sat in a folding chair outside the autopsy room with his head in his hands. Two uniforms stood on either side.
One of them turned, saw her standing at the end of the hall. He motioned for his partner to look sharp. Strickland’s head came up. He saw her and stood before saying something to the two officers. The two men didn’t look happy, but when he came forward, they stayed put.
The closer Strickland got, the clearer she could see the expression on his face. Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
“What’s going on?” She looked over his shoulder at his armed escort. He didn’t answer right away, just looked at her like he was seeing her for the first time. Like she was a total stranger. “Answer me, Strickland. What’s happening?”
“Mathews wants you back at the station.” He cleared his throat. “Sanford was found dead in his truck, early this morning. These officers are here to take you in for questioning.”
44
A week ago, Michael’s plan had been simple. Take Sabrina back to Jessup—by force if necessary—expose her for who she really was, and wait.
She’d changed everything with two little words.
I’m sorry.
He’d have to be quick; he only had four days left. Not nearly enough time, but he’d worked in tight spaces before. If he couldn’t get the job done within those time constraints, he’d have to get her out of there—hide her. She’d fight him, but he didn’t care. For once, he was going to think of someone besides himself, and he was going to do it before it was too late to save them. He’d failed Frankie—he wouldn’t fail Sabrina.
He called Tom, let it ring. “Wander-Inn, this is Tom.” “Anything new?” he said.
“Not much. Still no sign of Carson. Zeke finally agreed to file the missing person’s after I got Lucy’s sister involved and he put a … what did he call it—a bow-low? Out on her car.”
“BOLO. It means be on the lookout,” he said, reminded again that Tom was just a normal guy. He felt guilty for dragging him into this mess, but he’d do it all over again if given the choice. “I’m catching a flight in the morning, bringing someone that might be able to help. Is it okay if we stop by the diner?”
“Yeah, I’ll be here. Who is it?”
“She’s a cop—Homicide. She’s got a case that might match up to Frankie’s. I’ll explain everything when we get there.” He meant to say goodbye but when he opened his mouth, he said, “Tom … did you ask Melissa to marry you?” He had no idea where the question came from or why he felt it was important enough to ask.
“Who told you that?” Tom said. “Did you?”
The pause was long. “Yeah. I gave her my mother’s wedding ring, and she said yes. We stayed up half the night talking, making plans, and then I left her house. Next thing I know, I’m waking up in the hospital a few weeks later with a half-dozen holes punched in me and she’s long gone. So much for true love.” He laughed, but it was an angry sound. “Call me when you land.” He hung up.
Michael dropped his phone in his lap, stared out the windshield and thought. More puzzle pieces, more loose ends.
Suddenly, she was there. Sabrina, walking, head held high, being escorted from the building by two uniforms. They put her in the back of a squad car and drove away. He jumped in the driver’s seat and followed.
45
Lifting her eyes from the worn conference table bolted to the floor, Sabrina found Captain Mathews’s hard stare. Central Station chatter said he’d been a detective with IA before making the jump to Homicide captain. The way he was looking at her, Sabrina had no trouble believing he’d earned his promotion by crucifying other cops.
“I don’t know what happened to Sanford. Last I saw him, he was being dragged away after physically assaulting me.” Her tone was calm, her posture relaxed, but her eyes were spitting fire at the man in front of her.
“Way he told it, you provoked him,” he said.
“I provoked him by breathing. He has—had—a long history of hating me.”
“Sanford made speculative comments about your sexuality. Challenged you in front of your peers. Did that make you angry?” She could see Mathews was totally loving this.
“You mean was I pissed off that he kept calling me a dyke, loudly, to anyone who would listen? No. I could care less what he or anyone else in this precinct thinks about me.” Her message was clear—that includes you, asshole.
“He confronted you here and at your home. Threatened you repeatedly. Assaulted you. Why didn’t you lodge a formal complaint? File assault charges?”
“He needed help, not me throwing more bullshit at him.” Her eyes shifted to Richards leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest as he looked at her.
“Where were you last night?”
“I. Was. At. Home.”
“Alone?”
She took a deep breath. Let it out slowly. “No. Valerie was there.”
Mathews cracked a smile. “You mean your girlfriend?”
She didn’t even bother to answer.
“Can anyone else corroborate your story, Vaughn?” Richards said. She thought of Michael, but instinct told her to keep him out of it.
She shook her head. “No.”
Mathews shot her a nasty smirk and opened a manila file folder. “You got quite the temper.” He flipped a couple pages. “Says you broke a suspect’s arm in your first year—”
“He pulled a gun on my partner.”
“You have three career kills—”
She shot a look at Richards. “I was SWAT. I was in the sniper rotation. Everyone knows we have more—”
“So obviously, you’re not morally opposed to taking a human life.”
“I’m a cop. I do my job,” she said, surging to her feet, meeting Mathews’s glare.
“Vaughn,” Richards said quietly, but it was enough to plant her ass back in her seat.
Without a word, Mathews opened another, thinner, manila folder and pulled out a stack of 8x10 glossies. He fanned them across the table between them. Looking down, she saw what had been done to Sanford.
He was sitting upright in his truck, slumped to one side. He’d been horribly beaten, his crumpled face aimed up at her—it was dented, the bones caved in, skin splattered with blood. A bat, she thought. Only a bat, heavy and swung with rage, could’ve delivered this level of blunt-force trauma.
“Whoever did this is either ten kinds of stupid or the cockiest asshole I’ll ever have the pleasure of arresting.” Mathews picked up the photo and replaced it with another. “See this?” His finger hit the picture, nudged it her way. Beneath it she could see a wooden bat propped against the bench seat between Sanford’s knees.
She closed her eyes, didn’t want to look at it. She could still feel the twinge in her elbows as they extended, the jolt of connection sing up her arms.
She forced herself to open her eyes and look again. The bat was hers. The one she kept propp
ed up behind the front door of the trailer she used to live in with her mother. The one she used to threaten her mom’s johns when they got belligerent.
Rusty red smears coated its surface, covered almost every inch, overlapping the black that stained it. Blood—old under new. The rust-colored smears belonged to Sanford. The black stains were older, seeped in to the wood, trapped within the grain. They belonged to Pete Conners.
His finger hit the picture again, and it snapped her back to the present. She looked up to see Mathews smiling down at her. “Your boyfriend left the bat behind.”
46
Sabrina leaned back in her seat, refused to look away from him, but said nothing. The day she’d killed Pete was spotty, like her memory had been punched full of holes. She remembered running down the hall, the sound of his heavy footsteps as he chased after her. She’d almost made it, had actually closed her hand over the knob, when he’d shoved her into the front door. Sprawled against it, her arms went wide, and there it was … her hand closed over the bat as she rounded on him in a two-fisted grip that dropped him like a stone. She hadn’t checked to see how badly he was hurt. She’d assumed he was dead, and she hadn’t cared.
She just ran.
“CSU has it right now. They’re pulling prints and taking samples. Only a matter of time before I can prove it was you.” Mathews waited a beat, then two, before he straightened.
He was right. It was only a matter of time—her prints were on that bat. Beneath the rust-colored stains belonging to Sanford. CSU would find them. Under normal circumstances, it would take weeks, but Sanford was a cop—she had days at best.
Before she had time to form an excuse or voice a denial, Mathews pulled the picture and replaced it with another. This one was a knee to chest close-up.
Sabrina forced herself to look past the blood. Sanford’s shirt was completely covered in blood, dried, crusty, and dark. Stab marks marred the fabric in a random scatter—dozens of them.
Stuck to his forehead was a red cellophane bow. Studying the picture, she could see something had been placed in his hand. She wanted to ask what it was, but she kept quiet. Mathews would tell her eventually. She didn’t have to wait long. He slid a photo in front of her. It was a close-up of a gift tag shaped like a birthday cake. Same red ribbon. Same gift tag. Any lingering doubt she might’ve had about who and why evaporated. She knew the answer to both. On the tag was another handwritten message.
Who’s next?
Its meaning was clear. Sanford had been a warm-up. He was flexing his muscles, giving her a brutal reminder of what he was capable of. He was going to kill everyone she knew. Everyone she cared about.
Before she could process what she was seeing and what it meant, Mathews rifled through the stack of photos and pulled one to the top. “This is my personal favorite,” he said, tossing it across the table at her. It was a close-up of Sanford’s mouth, yanked open to show that his tongue had been crudely cut out. “Coroner found it shoved up his ass,” he said, reading the silent question on her face.
“You think I did this? You really think I did this?” Her eyes searched out Richards, looking for an ally. He looked away from her, like he no longer trusted his judgment when it came to her.
“What I think is that you got tired of taking Sanford’s shit,” Mathews said. He stood and took a trip around the table. It was an old interrogation tactic, meant to disorient and intimidate her. She fought the insane urge to laugh.
“What are you talking about?” She wanted to scoop up the pictures and turn them over. If she did, it would be taken as a sure sign of her guilt.
“Michael Koptik.” Mathews dropped the name like a bomb.
Oh, shit. “Who? Wait—you mean that guy from the park yesterday? What does he have to do with this?”
He paused in front of her. “Yup—that guy from the park. Know him?”
She looked him in the eye. “No.”
He nodded. “Got a call from the patrol sergeant over at Ingleside yesterday afternoon. Said one of his uniforms—Bertowsky—had some things to say about you. Said a couple things happened that didn’t sit well with him.” Mathews took another trip around the table. She didn’t even bother to try and follow his progress. “First thing was that the dog you claimed was yours responded to the suspect you collared. Wagged his tail, licked him. Like he knew him.”
“Noodles is a friendly dog … kinda dumb too. He’d probably even like you.”
Mathews smiled down at her and kept circling. “Funny. The dog is dumb … but smart enough to alert on a DB in the woods.”
“Maybe he just has bad taste in men.”
Richards cleared his throat and she looked up. The look he gave her told her to cool it. She’d have better luck winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
“I’m glad you find this so amusing, Inspector. He also said that you seemed certain that it was a woman under all those leaves, even though all you admitted to seeing was a foot.”
“I don’t know many men who paint their toenails lime green.”
He shrugged. “This is San Francisco. Then he told me you and Koptik seemed awful cozy—standing real close together, talking.”
“I was reading him his rights and questioning him as a person of interest in a murder investigation.”
“Right … which I’m confused about, because then you just let him go. Even gave him back the knife that was identified as a possible murder weapon.”
“I had the coroner do a field comparison. She determined that the knife in question didn’t even come close. I had no reason to hold the suspect, so I returned his property and released him.” It was true, but she still felt like a liar. She tried not to think of the stainless-steel pen she’d slipped him through the wire mesh.
“And then he left.” He stopped circling. “With your dog.” He sat across from her, folded his hands and placed them on the table. “I think you know Michael Koptik. I think you’re in some sort of relationship with him.”
“I’m confused; I thought I was a lesbian.”
Her challenge brought an angry flush to his face. “I think he’s as sick as they come, and I think the two of you killed that girl in the park. Together.”
“I’m still confused. Did I kill Sanford, or did I kill Kaitlyn Sawyer?”
“I think you had a hand in killing both of them.”
Her eyes shot across the room, landed on Richards. She shook her head. “You can’t be serious. Why would I do that?”
“Trial run. I think you had plans to kill Sanford all along—that’s why you refused to press charges. If he was in lock-up, you couldn’t get to him.” Mathews placed his hands flat on the table and stood, towering over her.
She looked up at him. “If I had anything to do with killing that girl, why would I call it in at all?”
He smiled at her. “To see if you could get Koptik out of custody if he got caught.”
She’d had enough. “Am I under arrest?” Her question was met with silence.
“Right,” she said. “All you have is a complaint about my abuse of personal space during the questioning of a potential suspect and a stranger-licking dog. No actual proof that I’ve done anything.” She stood slowly, facing Mathews down with a slight lift to her mouth. “So … I’m gonna leave now.”
She was almost to the door before he hit her with what she knew was coming. “Your vacation’s just became a suspension without pay pending the outcome of our investigation. Strickland will be reassigned. Any further involvement with the Sawyer case, or you, will result in his immediate termination. You’re gone, Vaughn—the suspension is just a formality, but if the two of you so much as breathe on each other, I’ll charge him with accessory after the fact.” He sounded happy, like it was his birthday, Christmas, and the Fourth of July, all rolled into one. “And don’t even think about running. If you so much as walk past a bus stop, I’ll have you picked up for absconding.”
Suddenly, her plans to go back to Jessup looked a hell of a lot harder to pu
ll off, but Mathews wasn’t finished.
“I want your badge. Now.”
She took a deep, steady breath. She looked at Richards, still leaning against the wall next to the door. She unclipped her badge from her waistband and placed it in his hand.
“I didn’t kill him,” she said quietly, looking him straight in the eye. Richards shifted his jaw like he wanted to say something but, in the end, remained silent.
47
She felt naked. Stripped without her gun and badge. Her SIG P220s were still sitting in a weapons locker in the therapist’s office. She needed to get them.
She crossed the Homicide bullpen as fast as she could, aware that everyone in the room was watching her leave. They all knew what she was being accused of, and she could tell by the looks on their faces that more than a few of them believed she was guilty.
“Vaughn.” She looked up to see Strickland sitting at his desk, waiting for her. She ignored him, kept walking toward the elevator. He got up to follow her. “Vaughn.” He was getting louder.
“Damn it, Vaughn—stop.” He was shouting at her now, obviously unconcerned with the audience. She pushed the Down button for the elevator and waited. He stood three feet away, staring at her. She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She did neither.
The elevator slid open, and she walked in, pushed the button for the lower level. The doors began to slide shut. Strickland dove in after her.
“Leave me alone.” She shook her head, refused to look at him. He ducked down into her line of sight. “Well, we both know that’s not gonna happen.”
She sighed, looked him in the eye. “Talk fast. Once those doors open, I’m not saying another word to you.” Jamming her hands into the pocket of her coat, she found the locker key she’d tossed in there yesterday. Gripped it like a lifeline.
“Okay.” He reached past her and hit the Emergency Stop button. The elevator slowed, then stopped with a slight jerk. “What’s going on?”
The Sabrina Vaughn series Set 1 Page 19