The 9th Judgment

by James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

  “Time to say good-bye, Lindsay,” said the voice in my ear. “Drop the phone over the side and then send the case over. Keep up the good work, princess. Everything will be fine if you don't screw it up now.”

  The wind blew my hair across my face as I dropped the phone, then cast the gun case over the railing. I watched it fall 260 feet straight down into the bay.

  Womans Murder Club 9 - The 9th Judgment

  Chapter 66

  THE GUN CASE hit the water, sent up plumes of spray, sank, then bobbed up again into view. As best as I could tell, there was one man in the motorboat piloting the small vessel through the chop toward the gun case.

  I snapped out of my trance--I was free.

  I stepped behind the rear of the Impala and put up my hand. The driver of a peacockblue Honda sedan leaned on his horn as he flew past me, followed by a Corvette, the guy behind the wheel leering but not pulling over. What did he think? That I was a prostitute?

  I held my ground out there on that highway in my panties, my hand in the stop position, every part of me prickling from the fear of being flattened by a driver with his head up his ass--and then a baby-blue BMW slowed, pulled ahead of the Impala, and braked.

  I leaned into the passenger side. “I'm a cop. I need your phone now.”

  There was a gawking eighteen-year-old boy at the wheel. He handed me his phone, and I pointed to a newspaper on the seat beside him. He passed it to me, and I held the front section to my chest as I called Dispatch, giving my name and shield number. “Lindsay! Oh God. Are you all right? What do you need? Where are you?” I knew the dispatcher, May Hess, self-described Queen of the Bat Phone. “I'm on the bridge--”

  “With that naked suicide?”

  I barked a laugh, then caught myself before I went into hysterics. I told May to get a chopper over the bay PDQ and why--that I needed the coast guard to pick up a boater. May said, “Gotcha, Sergeant. Bridge Patrol will be at your location in thirty seconds, tops.”

  I heard the sirens. With the newspaper fluttering against my chest, I leaned over the railing and watched as the small Boston Whaler motored closer to the floating gun case. A chopper whirred overhead, and the pilot bore down on the motorboat, herding it toward the southern shore.

  The Boston Whaler dodged left and right like a quarter horse at a roping competition, ducked under the bridge, and powered beneath it, the chopper following the boat under the bridge deck, crowding the vessel until it stalled off Crissy Field.

  The Lipstick Killer bailed out of the boat and ran in slow motion through hip-deep water. And then a coast guard vessel closed in on him.

  A bullhorn blared, telling the killer to hit the ground and keep his hands in full sight. Squad cars tore down the beach and surrounded him.

  Gameover,psycho.

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  I WATCHED HARBOR Patrol pull the Pelican case out of the water, and then there was the deafening sound of sirens all around me.

  I turned and saw a fleet of cars--unmarked and black-and-whites--screeching to a halt behind the Impala, and driving those cars were just about every cop I'd ever met, now piling out and heading toward me.

  My attention was drawn to a Land Rover stopping in the opposite lane, somehow making it through the perimeter before the bridge was closed off. A bearded man jumped out of the driver's seat holding a camera with a long SLR lens. He started snapping pictures of me wearing a look of horror on my face, the Chronicleplastered to my chest, pink panties and all.

  To my left, a yell: “HEY!”

  A man burst from the back of a police cruiser, a big hunka guy, built like a football player. He crossed the roadway to the man with the camera and shouted, “Give me that!”

  The big hunka guy was Joe.

  The camera guy refused to give it up, so Joe grabbed him by the throat, extracted the camera from his hand, and threw it over the rail. He left the dude on the hood of the Land Rover and shouted out over his shoulder, “Sue me.”

  Then the man I love ran toward me with a look of anguish on his face. He held out his arms, and I fell against him and began to cry. “We got him,” I said.

  “Did that bastard hurt you?”

  “No. We got him, Joe.”

  “You sure did, honey. It's all over now.”

  Joe put his big jacket around me and folded me into his arms again. Conklin and Jacobi got out of a gray unmarked car and came over to where I stood with Joe, asking in unison, “Are you okay, Lindsay?”

  “Never better,” I chirped, my cheeks wet with tears.

  “Go home,” Jacobi said. “Clean up. Have a meal, then come back to the Hall. We'll take our time booking that freak. Should take us about three hours to print him and do the paperwork. He's all yours, Boxer. No one will talk to him before you do. ”Good job."

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  MY HAIR WAS still wet from my shower when I arrived back at the Hall, geared up and ready to confront the guy who'd humiliated me, terrified me, and killed six innocent people.

  I walked to Jacobi's office and said, “What have we got?”

  “His ID says he's Roger Bosco, former Park Service employee, currently a maintenance man at the San Francisco Yacht Club. No military background, no sheet of any kind. He hasn't asked for counsel.”

  “Let's do it,” I said.

  The observation room behind the glass was packed with cops, brass, and folks from the DA's office. The cameras were rolling. We were good to go.

  The suspect looked up from his seat at the table when Jacobi and I walked into the interrogation room, and I was surprised at his appearance and demeanor. Roger Bosco seemed older and smaller than the man we'd seen on the parking-garage tapes, and he looked confused. He turned his watery blue eyes on me and said, “I was afraid of the helicopter. That's why I tried to get away.”

  “Let's start at the beginning, Roger. Okay if I call you Roger?”

  “Sure.”

  “Why did you do it?”

  “For the money.”

  “Your plan all along was to collect the ransom?”

  “What do you mean, 'ransom'?”

  I pulled out a chair and sat down next to Bosco, trying to look behind the “little guy” act for a cocky, murdering psycho. Jacobi walked slowly behind us, turned, and walked back the other way.

  “I understand that two million is a lot of money,” I said, keeping my temper in check, showing that I could be trusted, that the hours-long mystery tour from hell was forgiven.

  “Two million? I was offered five hundred. I only got the first two fifty.”

  I looked up at Jacobi but could read nothing in his flat gray eyes. I ignored a new and sinking feeling. Bosco had been in a boat heading straight toward the money. It was indisputable.

  “Roger. You've got to help me help you. Explain to me how you planned the killings. I have to say, you are brilliant. It took an entire police force to bring you in, and I respect that. If you can take me through every step, show us that you're cooperating fully, I can work with the DA on your behalf.”

  Bosco's jaw dropped. He looked at me in believable disbelief, turned to look at Jacobi, then turned back to look at me.

  “I don't know what you're talking about. Honest to God, I didn't kill anybody, never in my entire life. You've got the wrong guy.”

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  IT TOOK HOURS of interrogation--me and Jacobi and Conklin calling people at their homes, going over papers in dark offices--in order to check out Bosco's credentials and alibi.

  Yes, Roger Bosco was employed by the Yacht Club. His time was fully accounted for. He'd punched the clock and was seen at work when the Bentons, Kinskis, and Marones were slaughtered.

  I took Bosco out of a holding cell and put him back in the box, this time with coffee, a ham sandwich, and a package of Oreos.

  And he told Jacobi and me h
is story from the top: how a man had approached him at the dock, saying that he was a movie producer shooting an action film and needed a real, live stunt guy to pluck a package out of the bay.

  Bosco told us that he was excited.

  He said he told the guy that he could get a day off work and could use the Boston Whaler and would love to be in a film. So the “producer” instructed Bosco to idle the boat around Fort Baker and watch for a case that would be thrown from the bridge sometime in the afternoon.

  He gave Bosco $250 in advance with a promise of the other half on delivery of the gun case, and he said that he'd be waiting for Bosco outside Greens Restaurant at Fort Mason.

  Did Bosco seriously believe that this setup was for real? Was he dirty, or was he dim? “This producer gave you his name?” I asked.

  “Of course. Tony-something, starts with a 'T.' He was a regular-looking guy,” Bosco continued. “He was about six feet tall and fit. I didn't even notice what he was wearing. Hey. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I have his card.”

  Bosco's soaking-wet wallet was retrieved from booking, and the card was extracted from the billfold section and shown to me.

  It was of the instant, do-it-yourself variety, prepunched and printed on an ink-jet. It wouldn't have passed the credulity test of most people in this town, but Roger Bosco was very pleased that he could back up his story. He was grinning as if he'd found oil in his backyard.

  “Look,” Bosco said, stabbing the runny red logo with a callused forefinger. “Anthony Tracchio. WCF Productions.”

  Jacobi and I took it outside the room.

  “The chief will love this,” Jacobi said wearily, bagging the card. “I'm going to call him and tell him the Lipstick Freak is still out there. And, oh yeah, we've got the money.”

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  THEY WERE IN Cindy's bedroom, the light from the street coming through the blinds, painting bold stripes across the blanket. Cindy snuggled up against Richie and threw her arm across his waist.

  “Oh man,” Rich said. “I never thought I'd say this, but this has never happened to me before. I'm sorry, Cin.”

  “Hey, it's nothing. Don't worry, please,” Cindy said, shaking him gently, kissing his cheek. “Are you okay?”

  “I don't think so. I'm barely past thirty.”

  “You know what I think? You're preoccupied. What's on your mind, Rich? Quick. First thing that comes to you.”

  “Lindsay.”

  “I'll give you a million bucks if you take that back,” Cindy said. She rolled away from Rich and stared up at the ceiling. Was Rich in love with Lindsay? Or was being her partner the same as being in love but in a different form?

  This, she knew: Rich and Lindsay were tight. And she wondered again if their relationship was a red flag telling her that the tracks were out and she should get off the train.

  “Ahh, that came out wrong.” Richie pulled her back to him. “I wasn't thinking of her like that. It's about the Lipstick Sicko making her strip down. That, and how he could've killed her at any time. I'm her partner, Cindy, and I completely failed her.” Cindy sighed and relaxed in Rich's arms, strumming his flat belly lightly with her fingertips.

  “You did everything you could do. I know what you mean, though. Lindsay winked at me outside the Chronicle Building on the way to her rendezvous with that freak. She was trying to assure me that she was going to be okay when there was no way she could know that. I felt utterly helpless.”

  “Exactly.”

  “I wanted to do something, but there was nothing I could do. Nothing.” Rich kissed her palm. “I'm always knocked out by the bravery of women,” he said. “Like you, Cin. Working 'crime.' Living here.”

  Cindy's mind flashed over the “living here” part. She'd moved to this sunny apartment in the Blakely Arms, a great building in a borderline neighborhood, only to learn after her furniture arrived that someone was killing residents of the building. “I'm scared all the time,” Cindy said. “What you're calling bravery, that's me pushing back against my fear of everything. That's how I take care of myself.”

  “Is that what you want? To take care of yourself?”

  “Sure. But that doesn't mean I want to be alone.”

  “No, huh?”

  Rich pulled her tight, and she tilted her head back so she could look into his gorgeous face. She cared about him so much, it almost hurt.

  “We ought to bunk together, you know?” Rich said. “I'd feel better if you weren't here at night by yourself.”

  “You want to move in so you can protect me?”

  “Wait, wait. What I mean to say is, I'm crazy about you, Cindy. Dating and so forth, it's great. But I want to be with you. I want more.”

  “You do, huh?”

  Rich grinned at her. “Scout's honor. I sure do.”

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  SARAH'S ARMS BURNED so much, the pain was like fire, only worse.But she maintained the static hang from her chin-up bar until her muscles simply refused to obey any longer.

  She dropped to her feet and shook out her hands for five minutes. Then, workout over, she went into the living room and settled into Trevor's ugly but incredibly comfortable recliner. She opened her laptop and was grading tests, half listening to the TV, when she heard Kathryn Winstead, Crime TV's most appealing reporter, engaging Marcus Dowling in an emotional interview.

  Looking at Dowling, Sarah felt a shock of pure hatred. Still, she dialed up the sound and studied how much the monster had changed. Dowling had grown a beard and lost weight, and although he looked haggard, he still had the formidable presence of a movie star as he played the grieving husband role to the max.

  Dowling's voice cracked and he even stammered as he told Kathryn Winstead that he was “empty inside.”

  “I wake up soaked with sweat,” Dowling told the reporter. "For a m-m-moment, I think I've had a nightmare and I turn to where Casey should be lying beside me, and then it all comes back and I remember her c-c-calling out to me, 'Marc! Someone is in the room.' And then the shots. Bang.Bang.

  Sarah grabbed the remote and rewound the DVR.

  Whatdidhesay?

  She listened again as Dowling quoted Casey calling out to him. As far as Sarah knew, he had never gone public with Casey's last words before. The funny thing was, Casey hadscreamed out for her husband. That was true.

  Buttherehadbeennoshots Sarah put her laptop aside and went to the kitchen. She washed her face under the faucet, got a bottle of tea out of the fridge, and gulped it down. That movie star had balls the size of coconuts. He was counting on her not to come forward because no one would believe her if she did. It would be Marcus Dowling's word against hers--and she was a thief.

  Sarah returned to the TV, wound back the interview, and watched a sympathetic Kathryn Winstead say to Dowling, “And the police still have no suspects?” “I haven't heard from them in several days, and mean-while Casey's killer is still out there with a fortune in jewels.”

  Sarah snapped off the TV.

  This was classic Samson and Delilah.

  “Terror” wouldn't be home for two hours, and if she used that time efficiently, she'd be able to give Marcus Dowling a haircut. She couldn't allow him to get away with murder.

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  SARAH HEADED TOWARD the phone kiosk at Fisherman's Wharf, one of the largest tourist attractions in the state. Families and herds of students parted around her, surging toward the shops and restaurants at the Cannery, no one even glancing at the young woman in gangsta shorts and a pink “Life is good” sweatshirt pressing quarters into the pay phone.

  She tapped the buttons. The tip-line operator answered and switched the call to the Southern District Police Station, and Sarah asked to be connected to a Homicide inspector.

  “What should I say this is about?”

  “Casey Dowling,” Sarah said. “I k
now who shot her.”

  “One moment, please. Sergeant Boxer is getting off the phone.”

  Sarah thought that the pay-phone call could be traced, but she'd be brief, and from her vantage point, she could melt into the crowd before a cop got anywhere near her. “This is Sergeant Boxer,” a woman's voice said.

  “I'm the one who robbed the Dowling house. I didn't shoot Casey Dowling, but I know who did.”

  “What's your name?”

  “I can't tell you that,” Sarah said.

  “Now there's a shock.”

  “Hello? Are you talking to me?” She put another quarter into the slot.

  “Tell me something I can believe,” said the cop, “or I'm hanging up.”

  “Listen,” Sarah said, “I'm telling you the truth. I'm the burglar. I was looting the safe in the closet when Marcus and Casey came into the bedroom. They had a fight. Then they had sex. I waited for about twenty minutes until Marcus Dowling was snoring, and then I was bailing out the window when I knocked over a table. No one knows about the table, right? Is that proof enough? Because Marcus Dowling keeps saying that Hello Kitty killed Casey--and I didn't do it.”

  “Okay. Okay, I hear you,” Sergeant Boxer said, “but I need more than your anonymous say-so. Come in and make a statement. Then I can help you out of this jam so we can get whoever killed Mrs. Dowling.”

  Sarah could almost see that cop signaling to someone to trace the call. She'd already been on the line too long.

  “Are you kidding? Come in so you can arrest me?”

  “You don't have to come in. I'll come to you. Name the place, and we can talk there.” “Marcus Dowling killed his wife. There. Now we've talked.”