Inmate 1577

by Alan Jacobson

  “You don’t trust me?”

  “I’d rather not have to answer for missing evidence or unauthorized photos in court.”

  Allman shoved his phone in the satchel, then slipped his arm through the strap and dropped the bag at his feet.

  Vail watched him sprint down the street, then point back at them while talking with the SFPD officer manning the door.

  Burden gave the man a signal, and he admitted the reporter.

  Vail said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

  “Years ago he had complete access. These days, it’s a no-no. But I’ve known Clay a long time. He’s covered dozens of murders in this city, and I’ve never had a problem with him screwing us over.”

  “Then give him a medal,” Vail said. “But it’s got nothing to do with anything. We need to control the release of information.”

  “I’m with Karen,” Friedberg said. “I don’t think it’s smart.”

  Burden turned to face them and shoved his hands in his back pockets. “Look. He’s got integrity and he’s been a friend of SFPD for—what? Thirty years?”

  Friedberg grumbled. “I don’t like people going through my crime scenes. You know that. Never have.”

  “It gives us leverage when we need things in return from him.” Burden checked his watch. “This is the guy I mentioned before, Karen. Back at the Cliff House. The one I thought can help us.”

  “What are the dangers?” Friedberg asked.

  Vail cocked her head. “We certainly don’t want to say anything in the media that could encourage the offender to continue his killing—or escalate and accelerate. If I’m right about our guy being a psychopath, he’s a narcissist. Not acknowledging all he’s done, how great and unusual a killer he is, it could piss him off—and even challenge him. Incite him. Years ago, I interviewed Joseph Paul Franklin, a serial sniper back in the late 70s. As he continued to murder, he was aggravated that his ‘peers’—Bundy and the Unabomber—were getting all the attention. So he decided to kill two young black boys, figuring that would ratchet things up for him, that he’d get more attention—which is what he wanted. And he was right.

  “So back to your question about the press, and the dangers. From what I’ve seen, the offender’s content with the public knowing about him. He seeks it out, like Franklin did. Other than the symbolism, that could be the reason why our offender leaves his male vics in high profile places.”

  “So what if we just have Clay report the facts and leave out the details? Just that Russell and Irene Ilg were found murdered. Nothing about the Cliff House cave, nothing about the brutal torture.”

  “You’re assuming your buddy would do that. But besides that, it could piss off the offender, frustrate him,” Vail said. “And if he’s leaving clues for us that we’re not getting, that could make things worse. But like I said before, it could also force him to contact us somehow, set us straight by leaving more clues. Like bread crumbs.”

  Friedberg turned around. Allman was approaching.

  His face was taut and his lips thin. “I’ve seen a lot of violent shit over the years. But... Jesus Christ, Birdie. What the hell was that?” He turned to Vail.

  Burden shook his head slowly. “No fucking idea.”

  Allman swung his gaze back to Burden. “Really?”

  “Unfortunately, yeah. Really.”

  Vail held up a hand. “I wouldn’t say that—”

  “Well that’s what I’m saying.” Burden’s slumped shoulders spoke louder than his words.

  “So can I print that?” Allman asked.

  “What do you think?” Friedberg almost yelled. “No, you can’t print that.”

  Burden glanced at his friend and gave a slight head shake.

  “Birdie. I’m a reporter, remember? We sell newspapers. I write the stories that go in those papers. Give me something I can use.”

  Vail turned to Burden. “We need to do it right, in a controlled way, saying what we want it to say.”

  “What’s she talking about?” Allman asked.

  Burden looked off at the townhouses in front of him. “Fine. Use this: ‘SFPD is investigating the death of a San Francisco woman that appears to involve foul play.’ Good?”

  “The idea is to sell newspapers, not bore people to death. That totally sucks.”

  “Hey, what can I say? I’m a homicide inspector, not a writer.”

  “You sure I can’t use the ‘No fucking idea’ comment? Don’t worry, I’ll leave out the expletive.”

  Burden looked at him.

  Allman turned away. “How about you give me something, I give you something.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Vail asked. “You know something, you’d better not hold out on us.”

  “Or what, you’ll have me arrested for obstructing an investigation, and then we get to play a little constitutional game of chess?”

  Vail took a step toward Allman, but Burden placed a hand on her shoulder and gave her a slight push back.

  “We already gave you something,” Vail said. “Access. Remember?”

  “What do you have in mind?” Burden asked.

  Vail shrugged off the inspector’s hand. “This is not a negotiation, Burden. Besides, he’s bluffing.”

  Allman ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth. After a moment, he said, “Killer from past returns to haunt city. That’d be the headline. Assuming my editor approves.”

  “What killer from the past?” Vail asked.

  “Shouldn’t you be telling me?” Allman said. “You’re the crack profiler.”

  “And that shows how little you know about what I do, Mr. Crack Reporter. I’m interested in analyzing behaviors a killer engages in with his victims. I’m not a repository of the names of all the killers who’ve ever murdered someone in every city in the world. So. Who’s this killer of the past?”

  Allman turned to Burden. “He was never caught. But I saw something in there that reminded me of him. I think it’s the same guy.”

  “You’ve got our attention,” Vail said. “Go on.”

  “Uh uh,” Allman said with a smirk. “Help me, I’ll help you.”

  Vail wanted to plant the bit with the symbolism, but realized they might be able to get more in return if she played it right. She frowned, then turned. “C’mon, Burden. We’ve got a lot to do and we’re wasting time.”

  “I’ll have to clear this with my lieutenant,” Burden said. “But you can include the vic’s husband. We found him a little while ago.”

  Allman pulled out a pad. “Where?”

  “No, no, no. I gave you something. Now...” Burden said, flexing his fingers in front of Allman.

  “Fine.” Allman bent down and picked up his messenger bag that was lying on the sidewalk. “There’s a key in the vic’s bedroom.”

  Vail blurted a laugh. “A key. Thanks for the tip.” She started to turn away.

  “A key,” Allman repeated. “It’s a weird shape, doesn’t fit any of the locks in the house, and it’s not a car key. And, according to Jackson in there, it was not used to inflict injury on Mrs. Ilg. The key’s clean. No blood on it.”

  “Meaning?” Friedberg asked.

  “Meaning,” Allman said, “the key has no overt purpose for being there. And I believe Agent Vail can tell you that means it has relevance to the killer’s behavior. Isn’t that right, Agent Vail?”

  Vail turned back. “Potentially. What kind of key is it? Where was it found?”

  Allman held up two fingers about three inches apart. “Brass. Big and wide. It looks old, because the brass is tarnished, but it’s not worn. I don’t know if it’s significant, but something’s been filed off the top. It was on the dresser across from Mrs. Ilg’s body.”

  “I saw that,” Friedberg said. “I thought it was just a key.”

  “And this ties in to a prior murder, how?” Vail asked.

  “Back in ’82,” Burden said. “A key like Clay’s describing was found at the crime scene of a male who’d bee
n murdered, his body dumped in San Bruno, outside the federal building.”

  Vail tilted her head. “San Bruno—I’ve seen that. On a sign, I think. Where is it?”

  “Near SFO,” Friedberg said. “San Mateo County. Ever hear of Keith Hernandez, the baseball player?”

  “Wasn’t he on Seinfeld a couple of times?” Vail asked.

  “One of the best first basemen in history. Went to high school in San Bruno.”

  “I’m sure tens of thousands of kids did,” Vail said. “Why do I need to know this? And why did SFPD get the case if it was San Mateo County?”

  “Because,” Allman said, “even though the vic was discovered in San Bruno, he lived in the city.”

  “I want to see that file,” Vail said. “Everything you’ve got.”

  “Yeah, well...” Burden pursed his lips. “I’d like to give it to you, but a lot of homicide files were destroyed in a fire in ’99. What the fire didn’t get, the water from the fire department did. We’ve got some stuff, but it was all dumped in a warehouse. We never had the money to sort through all that garbage. If we need something, we either find the info some other way or one of us spends hours sifting through all that moldy shit. And most of the time we never find what we’re looking for.”

  Allman spread both hands, palm up. “I can help.”

  “And what’s that’s gonna cost us?” Friedberg asked.

  Allman grinned. “Nothing. I’m offering my services as someone doing his civic duty. Of course, if you find it in your hearts to return the favor at some point in this investigation...”

  “How are you gonna help?” Burden asked.

  “That murder was the first scene I covered for the Tribune as the lead reporter. I’ll give you my story, photos, everything I’ve got that the paper’ll let me release. I might even have some other stuff in my archives. And the Trib may have something. I’ll have to see. We were computerized, but we still used onsite servers.”

  “Anything you can give us’ll be appreciated,” Burden said.

  “We had full access to crime scenes back then, so I’ve got a fair amount of stuff.”

  “When can you get it to us?” Friedberg asked.

  “I’ve gotta file this story—the one I can’t say much about—and then I’ll dig around and get it all together.”

  “You can’t say anything about the key,” Vail said.

  Allman jutted his head back. “So let me get this straight, Vail. I give you this all important detail that may provide linkage to a thirty-year-old unsolved case—which all of you missed—and you tell me, a member of the press, that I can’t include that in my story?”

  “That sounds about right,” Vail said.

  “Well, it sounds about wrong to me,” Allman said.

  “Clay.” Burden stepped forward and placed a hand around Allman’s shoulders. “Come here for a sec.”

  Vail watched as Burden and Allman took ten paces, then turned to face one another. “You have a problem with reporters,” she said to Friedberg.

  Friedberg’s face remained still, but his fingers fumbled in his pocket for a cigarette. He extracted one, pulled out a match, and set it alight. “You really want to know?”

  “I’m not just making small talk.”

  “I’ve never told anyone this, and if I didn’t know you from that Crush Killer case, I’d never be telling you.” He took a drag and studied her face. “But I feel like I can trust you.” He blew the smoke out the side of his mouth. “Can I?”

  “I’m a cop, of course you can trust me. But that’s a loaded question. If you’re going to confess to a murder, I’m not sure how that would work out.” Vail thought of a situation exactly like that, something that had occurred only two months ago. The circumstances were different, but the scenario was the same.

  “No, no confession.” He held the cigarette in front of him, examined it a moment, then said, “When I was with the county—remember, I was with the sheriff’s department in Marin. There was this case. A reporter was covering it for the Register. And he was at a crime scene, outside the tape, about twenty yards away.

  “He comes over to me and says he has to talk to me about something. I didn’t know who the hell he was. Then he introduced himself and I knew of him. He used to be with the Trib, taught Clay the ropes. Anyway, he says we should do coffee. I thought he wanted some inside scoop on the case, and I’ve never been one to leak stuff to the press, and I know you gotta be real careful what you say to them because it may end up plastered all over the front page, and if it gets picked up and runs nationally, it could cause problems. But I figure, hey, this guy’s been around a long time in the Bay Area, so sure. I’ll give him the time of day.”

  “So you met with him.”

  “I hadn’t even sat down with my hot coffee before he tells me that he’s gonna report me to my boss. For what, I ask. For planting evidence, he says.”

  “Did you know what he was talking about?”

  “No idea. But I gotta tell you, I felt the anger rising in my head, like bile. You know? So I bite down and hold my mouth, because I was ready to rip him a new asshole. Like, who the hell are you to accuse me of something like that? I’ve been a cop for twenty-three years, and I’ve never done anything wrong on the job. Never. Goddamn boy scout.”

  “So what was the deal?”

  “He said he saw me put something on the vic. I told him I checked inside his belt buckle, when I was looking for his piece, which we later found underneath him, caught in his jacket. See, the skel got off a couple rounds, I returned fire and took him down. But at first we couldn’t find the weapon. I thought it was an automatic, turns out it was a revolver. They never did find any of the slugs he shot, which just added fuel to the fire.”

  “So this reporter thought you planted the revolver on the vic’s body.”

  “Which is stupid. If I was gonna do something like that—which I would never do—but if I was going to, why would I wait till other cops—and the press—are there?”

  “That would be pretty stupid. Unless you didn’t have a chance to do it before they arrived.”

  “I was the only one there. No witnesses to the shooting. I was eventually cleared—that wasn’t the issue. But this asshole implied that he had something on me, and that he’d keep it quiet.”

  “In exchange for something.”

  “See, that’s where it gets muddy. He never asked for anything. But I got the impression that’s what he was saying. It wasn’t until last year that Clay told me he vouched for me and called off the dogs, so to speak. And that was a big deal because Clay doesn’t talk to his former partner anymore.”

  “And he’s never brought it up again.”

  “Nope. But every time I see him, it’s like it’s there, under the surface.”

  “Can it be your imagination?”

  Friedberg realized his cigarette had burned a fair amount; he took a long drag, expelled it slowly. “Yeah. Probably is.”

  “But really, what could he have done to you? No proof. Just his word against yours.”

  “Something like that, no other witnesses, coming from a longtime journalist... He’s not just a Joe on the street who says he saw something.” He nodded knowingly. “Would ruin my career. Even if nothing was done about it, it’d be a thing around my neck for the rest of my career. You think they’d promote a guy who’s been accused of a bad shoot and dropping a piece on the vic? No question, they’d pass me over.”

  “Maybe your anger is misplaced. He hasn’t done anything or said anything in all these years. Right?”

  Friedberg bobbed his head in agreement.

  Vail gave his shoulder a firm pat. “I think you’re okay. Whatever Clay said to him did the trick. And even if this jerkoff were to say something, all these years later, the focus would be on him and why he didn’t come forward as a material witness. Not on you.”

  Burden and Allman had parted ways, Burden heading back in their direction, Allman toward his car. Friedberg tossed his cigarette
to the ground and crushed it with the sole of his dress shoe, then bent over and picked up the butt.

  “We’re good,” Burden said. “He’s gonna withhold any details about that key for a while, at least until there’s another victim.”

  “If there’s another,” Friedberg said.

  “I want to give him that symbolism thing,” Vail said. She moved around Burden and shouted, “Hey. Guitar man.” Allman turned.

  “Why didn’t you speak up before?” Burden asked.

  “We got more from him this way.”

  Allman stepped up to them and nodded at Vail.

  “I just wanted you to know that we do appreciate you giving us that tip on the old case. I’ll give you something in return. Interested?”

  He pulled out a notepad, then clicked his pen. “You really gotta ask?”

  Vail watched as Allman thumbed to a blank page. “The male vic was left in an oceanfront tunnel by the Sutro Baths. There’s symbolism in that. The killer’s got something against the ocean, so this is his way of saying ‘Go to hell’ to people associated with it in some way. I think we’re gonna find that the vic was a former Marine, or he served in the Navy. Something like that.”

  Allman looked up from his pad. “He’s got a beef with the ocean. You’re serious.”

  “We’re serious. Print it or not, your choice.” Print it, goddamn it. Take the bait.

  Allman scanned the faces of Burden and Friedberg, who, Vail thought, gave nothing away.

  He flipped his notepad closed. “If you’ve got something else...more substantive, let me know.” Allman nodded at Burden, then walked off toward his car.

  When he had moved out of earshot, Burden said, “You couldn’t think of anything better?”

  “What was wrong with it?” Vail asked.

  “Oh, nothing much. Just concerned the department will come off sounding like idiots.”

  “I’ll be sure not to take that the wrong way,” Vail said.

  “Don’t be so sure,” Burden said, then stepped into the street en route to his Ford.

  Vail looked at Friedberg. “Did you think it was that bad?”

  Friedberg shoved an unlit cigarette into his mouth, then shrugged. “Hopefully it won’t matter. Maybe we’ll get lucky and this asshole won’t kill again.”