The 9th Judgment

by James Patterson; Maxine Paetro

  Heidi told Sergeant Boxer and Agent Benbow about Sarah Wells, her close friend and confidante, Stevie's godmother. And she was adamant. Sarah had to come into the program with them.

  Benbow looked worried, maybe annoyed. “It's a risk, Heidi. If Sarah contacts her husband or reaches out to anyone she knows, she'll put you and your kids in mortal danger.”

  “I trust Sarah. I love her. She's my only true family.”

  Benbow drummed his fingers on the table, then said, “Okay. We'll take you to a safe house while we make arrangements. All of you have to leave now, Heidi. No phone calls. No good-byes. You can't take anything with you but what you're wearing.” Heidi was overwhelmed by the enormity of this imminent and complete break with her past--and with the idea of a future without Pete. What would it be like to live without fear, to be with Sarah every night and in the light of day?

  They could all have full lives.

  Tears filled Heidi's eyes again and spilled down her cheeks. She covered her face with her hands and let the tears come. When she could speak again, she said to Boxer and Benbow, “Thank you. God bless you both. Thank you.”

  Chapter 104 I WALKED WITH Heidi out to the street. She looked up at me, puffy-eyed and dazed, and said, “I don't know what to tell the kids.”

  “I know you'll find the words. Heidi, do you understand what happens next?” “We spend the night at the FBI safe house in LA while arrangements are made. Then we fly out--”

  “Don't tell me where you're going. Don't tell anyone.”

  “We're dropping off the edge of the earth.”

  “That's right. Is that your friend Sarah?” I asked as a red Saturn pulled up to the curb. “Yes. There she is.”

  Heidi stepped away from me and leaned into the car through the passenger-side window. She spoke to the driver, then said, “Sergeant Boxer, meet my friend Sarah Wells.”

  Sarah was a pretty brunette, no makeup, late twenties, wearing oversize clothes. She put a pink rubber ball down on the seat and reached across to shake my hand. She had an impressive grip. She said, “Listen, it's good to meet you at last. Thanks for everything.”

  There was an odd expression on Sarah's face--as though she were afraid of me. Had she had run-ins with the police?

  “Meet me at last?”

  “I meant, since you found Stevie.”

  “Of course.”

  Stevie was in a car seat in the back, sitting beside a little girl. The boy put the flat of his hand on the window and said gravely, “Hi, lady.”

  “Hey, Stevie,” I said, putting my hand on the other side of the glass, overlapping his small palm. The girl announced, “Stevie is in love with you.”

  I grinned at the two children, then Heidi gave me an effusive and tearful hug. She settled into the car, then reached out her hand to take mine.

  “Be happy,” I said.

  “You, too.”

  A black sedan pulled alongside the Saturn, and Agent Benbow leaned out of the car window. He told Sarah that he'd be in the lead. A second car positioned itself behind the Saturn, and then the three-car caravan drove away, escorting Heidi, Sarah, and the children to the next chapter of their new lives.

  I hoped they were going to have good ones.

  I watched until the cars were out of sight. I thought about Heidi and wondered how Pete Gordon would react to her disappearance with his children. And I wondered how in God's name we would find him before he killed again.

  Chapter 105 LEONARD PARISI LOOKED particularly ragged the next morning when Yuki and I came to his office requesting a search warrant. Parisi, known as “Red Dog” for his dark-red hair and his tenacity, pawed through the pictures of approximately four million dollars' worth of stolen jewelry and a copy of the letter from Hello Kitty.

  “Do you have any leads on this Kitty person?”

  “She buried herself in a crowd coming through the front door. The security camera picked up the mob scene, but we couldn't see who left the case,” Yuki said. “Sergeant?”

  “We have nothing on her identity,” I told him. “The jewelry is at the lab. So far, we haven't found prints on anything. All we have is that Kitty returned every last piece. I think that gives her some credibility when she says she didn't kill Casey Dowling.” “What the hell do we have security cameras for?” Parisi groused.

  Like the rest of us, Parisi had taken vast quantities of crap for his department's low conviction record in the face of San Francisco's rising crime rate. That would be our fault--the police, who didn't bring the district attorney's office enough evidence for them to build airtight cases.

  “So that leaves us with what, Sergeant? The unsubstantiated statement of an anonymous self-confessed jewel thief that she's not a murderer? You actually think Dowling did it?”

  “Kitty was adamant the two times I spoke with her, and I found her convincing.” “Never mind her.She's nobody. She's a ghost. What about Dowling?”

  I told Parisi what we had on Caroline Henley, Dowling's girlfriend of two years. I explained that Dowling's net worth was in the tens of millions and that since a divorce would cost him plenty, there was a pretty good motive for killing his wife. I said that Dowling's story had been inconsistent. That his explanation of the sounds, the shots, whether or not his wife had called out to him, had changed over time. “What else?”

  “His hair was wet when we interviewed him right after the shooting.”

  “So he showered to get rid of evidence.”

  “That's what we think.”

  Red Dog pushed the folder of photos across the desk in my direction. "A shower is not probable cause. Before you search the screen legend's house and the news media gets hold of it and that gets us sued for defamation, you'd better have something stronger than the burglar says she didn't do it and Dowling took a shower.

  “It's not probable cause for a warrant, Yuki,” Parisi said. “It's not going to fly.”

  Chapter 106 I YANKED OUT my desk chair and crashed it hard into my trash can, then did it again for the satisfying effect of the clamor. I said to Conklin, “Red Dog won't ask for a warrant without a damned smoking gun.”

  Conklin stared up at me and said, “Funny you should say that. I was watching some old Dowling movies last night. Look at this.”

  Conklin rotated his computer screen around to face me.

  I sat, wheeled my chair up to the desk, and looked at Conklin's monitor. I saw what appeared to be a movie-studio publicity still for an old spy flick.

  “NightWatch,” Conklin said. “He made this decades ago with Jeremy Cushing. Terrible film, but it was what they called 'camp.' It became a cult favorite. Check this out.” There was Dowling: black suit, sideburns, and a sun-lined squint. And he was holding a gun. “You're kidding me. Is that a forty-four?”

  “A Ruger Blackhawk. It's a single-action revolver, a six-shooter,” my partner said, clicking on another picture. The famous and now-deceased Jeremy Cushing was giving the gun to Dowling as a keepsake in a handshake photo op. You could almost hear the flashbulbs popping.

  Conklin hit a key, and the printer chugged out hard copies of the photos. I picked up the phone and called Yuki. “Grab Red Dog before he goes anywhere. I'm coming back down.”

  We arrived at Dowling's magnificent mansion in Nob Hill before lunch, three cars full of Homicide cops dying to make a collar. I rang the doorbell, and Dowling came to the door in jeans and an unbuttoned white dress shirt.

  “Sergeant Boxer,” he said.

  “Hello again. You remember Inspector Conklin. And I'd like to introduce Assistant DA Yuki Castellano.”

  Yuki handed Dowling the search warrant. “I went to school with Casey, you know,” she said, stepping past Dowling into the vast gilded foyer.

  “I don't think she ever mentioned you. Hey, you can't--”

  Chi, McNeil, Samuels, and Lemke poured into the house right behind us with the determination of cops raiding a speakeasy during Prohibition. I had a flash of panic. Despite what I'd told Parisi--that Dowlin
g would never ditch a souvenir of the last film Jeremy Cushing ever made--now I wasn't so sure.

  “Wait,” Dowling said. “What are you looking for?”

  “You'll know it when we see it,” I said.

  I took the winding staircase up toward the master bedroom as the rest of my squad fanned out through the house. I heard the phone ring, then Dowling shouted, his voice throbbing with indignation.

  “Well, Peyser, this is what lawyers are for. Come back from Napa right now.” I entered the movie star's room. Fifteen minutes later, there wasn't a drawer or a shelf that hadn't felt my hand.

  I was pulling the mattress off the bed when I sensed more than heard another person in the room. I looked up to see a dark-skinned woman in a black housekeeper's dress. I remembered her. The day after Casey Dowling was killed, the day Conklin and I came here to interview Marcus, this woman had served us bottled water.

  “You're Vangy, right?”

  “I'm an illegal alien.”

  “I understand. I... that's not my department. What do you want to tell me?” Vangy asked me to follow her to the laundry room in the basement. When we got there, she turned on a light over the washer and dryer. She put her hands on either side of the dryer and pulled it away from the wall.

  She pointed to the exhaust hose, a four-inch-wide flexible tube that vented hot air from the dryer to the outside.

  “That's where he hid it,” she told me. “I heard it rattle. I think what you're looking for is in there.”

  Chapter 107 WE WERE IN Interview Room Number Two, the larger of our interrogation spaces, the one with the better electronics. I'd checked the camera and made sure the tape was rolling before bringing Dowling in and offering him the chair facing the glass. I wanted a full confession--for me, for Conklin, for Yuki, and for Red Dog Parisi. I wanted swift and certain justice for Casey Dowling. And I wanted to close the case for Jacobi.

  Dowling had buttoned his shirt and put on a jacket, and he looked completely in control. I had to admire his cool, since his gun was in a clear plastic evidence bag on the table.

  Conklin, too, looked completely at ease. I thought he was doing his best not to grin. He'd earned the right, but I wasn't doing high fives just yet. Dowling loved himself so much, he'd probably convinced himself that no one could touch him.

  “My lawyer is on the way,” Dowling said.

  There was a knock on the door. I opened it for Carl Loomis, a ballistics tech at the crime lab. I pointed to the bagged gun, and he picked it up, turned to Dowling, and said, “I really enjoy your work, Mr. Dowling.”

  “Loomis, the ballistics test is top priority,” I said.

  “You'll have the results in an hour, Sergeant,” he said as he took the evidence bag out of the room.

  I turned to Dowling, who was showing me how nonchalant he was by leaning back in his chair, rocking on its hind legs.

  “Mr. Dowling, I want to make sure you understand your situation. When the lab fires your gun, the test bullet is going to match the slugs removed from your wife's body.” “So you say.”

  Conklin said, “Believe this guy? Let's just book him on suspicion of murder. We've got him. He's done.”

  “Tell us what happened,” I said to Dowling. “If you save us the time and cost of a trial, the DA will take your cooperation into consideration--”

  “Oh. Cross your heart?”

  “Just so you know, the DA goes home at five. That's in fifteen minutes. Your window to make a deal is closing fast.”

  Dowling snorted derisively, and Conklin laughed.

  He went out of the room and came back with three containers of coffee, making a big show of adding milk and sugar to his cup, all the while humming the theme song from NightWatch. It was a catchy little ditty that had made the charts even when Dowling and Cushing's shoot-'em-up movie had bombed.

  I saw something come over Dowling's face as Richie hummed. The nonchalance evaporated. The chair legs came down. Seemed to me that hearing that tune had focused Dowling as nothing else had.

  Part One SNEAKY PETE Chapter 1 PETER GORDON FOLLOWED the young mom out of Macy's and into the street outside the Stonestown Galleria. Mom was about thirty, her brown hair in a messy ponytail, wearing a lot of red: not just shorts but red sneakers and a red purse. Shopping bags hung from the handles of her baby's stroller.

  Pete was behind the woman when she crossed Winston Drive, still almost on her heels as she entered the parking garage, talking to the infant as if he could understand her, asking him if he remembered where Mommy parked the car and what Daddy was making for dinner, chattering away, the whole running baby-talk commentary like a fuse lit by the woman's mouth, terminating at the charge inside Petey's brain. But Petey stayed focused on his target. He listened and watched, kept his head down, hands in his pockets, and saw the woman unlock the hatch of her RAV4 and jam her shopping bags inside. He was only yards away from her when she hoisted the baby out of the stroller and folded the carriage into the back, too.

  The woman was strapping the boy into the car seat when Pete started toward her. “Ma'am? Can you help me out, please?”

  The woman drew her brows together. Whatdoyouwant?was written all over her face as she saw him. She got into the front seat now, keys in hand.

  “Yes?” she said.

  Pete Gordon knew that he looked healthy and clean and wide-eyed and trustworthy. His all-American good looks were an asset, but he wasn't vain. No more than a Venus flytrap was vain.

  “I've got a flat,” Pete said, throwing up his hands. “I really hate to ask, but could I use your cell phone to call Triple-A?”

  He flashed a smile and got the dimples going, and at last she smiled, too, and said, “I do that--forget to charge the darned thing.”

  She dug into her purse, then looked up with the cell phone in hand. Her smile wavered as she read Pete's new expression, no longer eager to please but hard and determined. She dropped her eyes to the gun he was holding--thinking that somehow she'd gotten it wrong--looked back into his face, and saw the chill in his dark eyes.

  She jerked away from him, dropping her keys and her phone into the foot well. She climbed halfway into the backseat.

  “Oh my God,” she said. “Don't--do anything. I've got cash--”

  Pete fired, the round whizzing through the suppressor, hitting the woman in the neck. She grabbed at the wound, blood spouting through her fingers.

  “Mybaby,” she gasped.

  “Don't worry. He won't feel anything. I promise,” Pete Gordon said.

  He shot the woman again, poof,this time in the side of her chest, then opened the back door and looked at the bawler, nodding off, mouth sticky with cotton candy, blue veins tracing a road map across his temple.

  Womans Murder Club 9 - The 9th Judgment

  Chapter 11

  THE DOWLING HOUSE is on Nob Hill, a sprawling mansion taking up most of the block, ivy growing up the walls, potted topiaries on either side of the large oak door. It couldn't have been more different from the Bentons' humble home.

  Before Conklin could reach for the bell, Jacobi opened the door. His face was sagging from stress. His eyelids drooped, and he almost looked older tonight than he had when we'd both taken bullets on Larkin Street.

  “It happened in the bedroom,” he told me and my partner. “Second floor. After you've taken a look at the scene, join us downstairs. I'll be in the library with Dowling.” The bedroom shared by Marcus and Casey Dowling looked like it had been ripped from the pages of a Neiman Marcus catalog.

  The bed, centered on the west-facing wall, was the size of Catalina, with a buttontucked bronze silk headboard, silk throw pillows, and rumpled satin bedding in bronze and gold. There were more tassels in this room than backstage at the Mitchell Brothers'

  Girls,Girls,Girls!!! review.

  A dainty console table was on the floor, surrounded by broken knickknacks. Taffeta curtains swelled at the open window, but I could still smell the undertones of gunpowder in the air.

  C
harlie Clapper, director of our Crime Scene Unit, was taking pictures of Casey Dowling's body. He flapped his hand toward me and Conklin in greeting and said, “Frickin' shame, a beautiful woman like this.” He stepped back so we could take a look. Casey Dowling was naked, lying faceup on the floor, her platinum hair splayed around her, blood on her palms. It made me think she'd clasped her hands to the chest wound before she fell.

  “Her husband says he was downstairs rinsing dinner dishes when he heard two gunshots,” Clapper told me. “When he came into the room, his wife was lying here. That table and the bric-a-brac were broken on the floor, and the window was open.” “Was anything taken?” Conklin asked.

  “There's some jewelry missing from the safe in the closet. Dowling says the contents were insured for a couple of million.”

  Clapper walked to the window and held back the curtain, revealing a hole cut in the glass.

  “Intruder used a glass cutter, then opened the lock. Drawers look untouched. The safe wasn't blown, so either he knew the combination or, more likely, the safe was already open. Bullets are inside the missus. No shell casings. This was a neat job until he knocked over the table on the way out. We've just gotten started. Maybe we'll get lucky and find prints or trace.”

  Clapper is a pro, with some twenty-five years on the force, a good part of it in Homicide before he went over to crime scene investigation. He's sharp, and he actually helps without getting in the way.

  I said, “So this was a burglary that went to hell?”

  Clapper shrugged. “Like all professional cat burglars, this one was organized, even fastidious. Maybe he carries a gun for emergencies, but packing goes against the type.” “So what happened?” I wondered out loud. “The husband wasn't in the room. The victim wasn't armed--she wasn't even dressed.What made a cat burglar fire on a naked woman?”