by Rick Mofina
This was odd.
Molly had been on the crime beat long enough to sniff out an unmarked police car. She’d settle this right now. She’d get the damn plate. She started toward the vehicle, half a block away. She saw a flash of hands, heard an ignition.
“Hey!” She jogged toward it.
Tires squealed, the car lurched from its spot, pulled a 180-degree turn, then disappeared.
NINE
The clerk at the twenty-four-hour corner store stared at his early morning customer, thinking how the dude was transfixed by the newspapers he’d just bought. Look at him, just standing there reading.
“Yo, sir?” The clerk scratched his eyebrow, the one pierced with the captive bead ring. “Your change.”
“Keep it.”
The customer rolled his papers, tucked them under his arm, and left.
His home wasn’t far from the store. Sipping take-out coffee, he walked in fear and anticipation. Recent events had unleashed forces beyond his control, propelling him toward the point in his life where soon he’d unmask the truth about himself.
For now, he had work to do.
He quickened his pace until he reached the place where he lived. It was quiet. He liked it here but was prepared to relocate if circumstance compelled him to do so. He was adept at moving fast.
Inside, he kept the curtains drawn, blocking out the sun. He preferred darkness as he sat alone before his television, finishing his coffee by the light of Bay Area morning newscasts. He assessed each paper’s reports on Inspector Cliff Hooper’s murder. The Star’s headline stretched six columns above the fold. HOMICIDE DETECTIVE FOUND SLAIN AT HOME.
Both the Star and Chronicle had full coverage with front-page reports, keying to more stories and pictures inside. He locked on a photo in the Star of Tom Reed with his arm around Molly Wilson at the Hall of Justice.
The veins in his neck spasmed.
Take it easy.
He looked away in time to catch another TV news update on the homicide. This one carried file footage from Vince Vincent’s show, Crime Scene, and focused on Molly Wilson.
His heart rate ascended. Molly.
Look at her.
She took his breath away. Her face, her hair, the fragrant softness of her skin, the sound of her voice. The way she moved. Something celestial lit her from within. His stomach knotted whenever he imagined being with her.
Again.
Why had he been condemned to this torment? If only they’d never met. Molly had resurrected an entity he thought he’d entombed years ago in the darkest catacombs of his mind. With her touch she had brought a dangerous ghost to life.
Bleeder.
Go back. Please. There has to be another way. He rubbed his sweating hands on the cushioned arms of his chair. He feared Bleeder. Bleeder controlled him. He struggled but it was futile. Bleeder, please. Please, Bleeder, stop. There’s still time to go back before any more harm is done. Please. After what happened with Amy. All those years ago. You promised you would never come back. Never. I’m begging you to leave, before you make things worse.
Bleeder cackled from the darkness.
Forget about that old business, sport. Amy was a mistake. Amateur stuff. Still, no one ever found out, did they?
Leave me alone.
Now, Molly. She’s different. And I’m wiser.
Shut up.
Look at her. You’ve never known anyone like her.
Stop.
She’s the reason you sent for me. You need me.
That’s not true.
Don’t lie to me, sport. She’s triggered your unfulfilled desires and you will not relent until you possess her totally. That’s where I come in.
Stop.
Too late. No turning back now. Look at the news. You’ve set it all in motion.
No.
Molly’s rightfully yours. She stepped into your world just like Amy did. It went bad with Amy. A mistake. But don’t worry, we won’t let that happen with Molly. I’m back to help you get it right this time. In fact, I’ll take over from here.
Bleeder, please, I’m begging you. Don’t.
Relax, sport. You do your job. I’ll do mine. And nothing will stand in our way. We’ll give Molly a little more time to put the pieces together. To realize that what we did to Hooper, we did for her.
She’s the prize.
Soon we’ll claim her.
TEN
It was the first bunch of flowers that puzzled Tom.
Those long-stemmed roses for Molly that had arrived in the newsroom the morning after Hooper’s murder. He’d practically bumped into the delivery guy at the elevator. If they were sent in condolence, how had they arrived so soon? More flowers came later but that was to be expected. It was a bit strange, he thought, knotting his tie before his bathroom mirror.
What did the card say? The card. Where’d he put it? Tom sifted through the closet laundry hamper for the shirt he’d worn yesterday. Looked in the pocket. Not there.
“Dad, check this out.” Zach called Tom into his room where a model of U.S.S. New Jersey was under construction on his desk. He was impressed with Zach’s craftsmanship. No glue blobs anywhere. As Zach got older his work had become flawless. Tom had taught him to use patience with his model building and the pieces would eventually all come together. The way most of his stories did.
“Looking good, son. Real good.”
“Do you think you can help me with the superstructure later, Dad?”
“You bet.” Tom bent down to examine Zach’s neat work on the turrets and guns. He patted Zach’s shoulder and his son beamed.
“Tom.” Ann approached them from the hallway. She was wearing a tailored suit. He loved how the fine gold necklace he’d given her for their last anniversary looked with her V-neck top. “Phone. It’s Irene Pepper.” She passed him their cordless. “Zach, honey, go finish your breakfast.”
“Hi, Irene,” Tom said.
“Nice job on today’s piece. Have you seen the paper yet?”
“Not yet.” Tom resumed rummaging in a futile search for the card.
“We absolutely killed everybody. Good work. You think Molly might give us a first-person account today?”
“I don’t know. It just seems early. Have you talked to her?”
“Just briefly. I never raised the story with her. I was wondering if you, being close to her, would sound her out on it?”
In the silence that followed Tom felt the heat of Pepper’s determination to pull a story from Molly. He forced himself to hold his tongue.
“Dad!” Zach called from the kitchen. “You’re on TV!”
“Irene, can I talk to you when I get in?”
She let a beat pass.
“Fine.”
In the kitchen, Tom saw himself on the portable TV on the counter. Zach lifted his face from his cereal bowl and boosted the volume.
“We have to get going, Zach,” Ann said from the table where she was going through the morning papers as Live Action Bay News broadcast the last of its interview with Tom Reed, senior crime writer, the San Francisco Star, according to the graphic under his head.
“And tell us, Tom, do police have any suspects in Inspector Hooper’s homicide?”
“No. Not that they’re saying. They’ll examine everything at the scene, retrace Hooper’s final steps--” he said as the item ended.
Zach thudded down the hardwood hallway. Ann collected her keys and her bag. “I tried to call Molly last night,” Ann said. “Her line was busy. How do you think she’s doing?”
“Holding up, I guess. You know how these things go better than anyone.”
She nodded and he stroked her hair. Her color was natural again. Nothing obvious told of the events that had befallen her several months ago. How she’d been out running an errand when, in a heartbeat, she was staring down the barrel of a gun. Ann had been trapped in an armed robbery where a police officer was murdered before her eyes. She was terrorized by his killers. The scar of her experience wa
s not visible. But Tom saw it in her face. Heard it in her voice. She’d changed. Fear now nested in her heart and he did all he could to assure her she was safe.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said.
“I know.”
But Tom saw the concern rising in her eyes.
“Covering crime, getting close to horrible things, it’s my job. It’s what I do.”
“I know. It’s fine. I’m okay. Really.”
Ann no longer wanted him to quit. She didn’t want him to stop being what he was. Her therapy sessions had helped her accept that.
“Ready, Mom.” Zach slung his pack over his shoulder, hugged his dad, and thudded to the door.
“Give my love to Molly.” She kissed Tom good-bye.
He switched off the set, then made one futile sweep of the house for the card before leaving.
On his way to the Star, he decided to swing by Hooper’s neighborhood and knock on a few doors.
A retired lawyer was convinced he’d seen a man leaving the apartment just before Molly found him. “A white man with a dark shirt,” he told Tom. But he was unsure of the time. A few doors down a mother with two small children thought she’d seen a white man in a light-colored shirt near Hooper’s place.
Tom wasn’t sure what to make of it when he got to his desk and began prospecting through his notebooks, newspapers, press statements, and cassette tapes for the card that had accompanied Molly’s flowers. He was rifling through it all when Simon Lepp appeared holding a file.
“What’ve you got there?” Tom asked.
“I was in the news library, going through some of Hooper’s cases, then I tried calling around to see if there was any bad blood. It’s something worth checking.”
“Sure.”
“Tell me, do you know if they’re going to release what they found at the scene?”
“What do you mean?”
“Trace evidence, anything from the forensic or ballistics report. I know this stuff from the science beat.”
“Depends. Usually they hold back on that kind of thing.”
“I’m just wondering what motivated this homicide.”
“Maybe the guy who killed Hooper is a nut job.”
“Could be psychotic. Maybe,” Lepp said. “Maybe not. Could be Hooper’s death is related to something entirely different.”
“Such as?”
“A message, a lesson? Maybe it was to settle a score.”
“A score with who?” Tom said.
“Maybe it’s related to one of his old cases.” Lepp shrugged.
“Maybe.” Tom gave up searching for the card and went to the newsroom kitchen for a coffee. Hank Kruner, a weathered old copy editor who’d worked under Pepper on the national desk, pulled him aside to offer some free advice.
“Heard what happened the other day with you and Pepper and the scanners.”
“Did you?”
“Irene hates to be challenged. And you not only challenged her,” Kruner said, “you averted a disaster that was her doing. Violet was not pleased about us being so late on that cop murder. You proved Irene wrong. Again. Like you did with your undercover story when she was on national.”
Tom nodded.
“Watch your back with her,” Kruner said. “Watch it good.”
Back at his desk, Tom’s line rang. It was Irene Pepper, demanding he come to her office. When he arrived she swiveled in her high-backed chair, tapping her pencil against her nails.
“I’d like to change our approach to the Hooper murder,” she said.
“Change it how?”
“You agree this story is huge.”
“Absolutely.”
“I want you to lead a reporting team on it.”
Tom said nothing. Her pencil tapping stopped as she assessed him. “I’ve recently discovered something about you,” she said. He noticed a personnel department folder on her desk. “You’re one of the highest paid reporters in the newsroom.”
She let the fact hang in the air.
“Well, there’s my Pulitzer nomination, the fact that I break national exclusives, and, oh yeah, Violet Stewart gave me a raise so I wouldn’t take offers from other papers.”
“Ancient history. What’ve you done lately?”
“I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he said. “Just let me do what I’m paid to do. Let me chase the leads I’m developing on Hooper.”
“You have leads? What leads?”
“I’ve got some calls out. Just let me do what I do best rather than babysit a team. You be the manager. I’ll be the reporter.”
“All right. Tell you what. I’ll cut you loose to chase exclusives, on one condition.”
“Which is?”
“Press Molly about that first-person piece. I’m not giving up on that.”
Tom eyed her briefly, reining in his distaste before returning to his desk, where he called Molly’s apartment.
Della answered.
“How’s Molly doing?” he asked.
“She’s a bit shaky but functioning.”
“Can I talk to her?”
“She’s out with Cliff’s sister and Ray Beamon picking out a casket.”
Tom said nothing.
“You sound funny,” Della said. “Is Irene getting to you?”
“Just a little tired of all the BS.”
“Aren’t we all?”
“Tell me something. Remember when you took the flowers from Molly’s desk to her place last night? She ever guess who sent them?”
“Naw. She’s been getting so many she can’t keep track--you know the D.A., the tactical team, newsroom people, fans. Why do you ask?”
“Something you said got me thinking. The first flowers came so early, like almost instantly.”
“Right.”
“Who would send her flowers so fast after she’d found Hooper?”
“I agree, they were fast, but someone’s got to be first. Besides, who’s to say they were about Cliff? Maybe they were for something else. You know, a story. We get that sometimes. Her show with Vince Vincent or something else in her life. I mean, without the card it’s hard to say who sent them and for what reason.”
“I found the card last night under her desk, but I lost it before I could read it.”
“Then it’s a mystery. Listen, I’ll tell Molly you called. I have to go.”
Tom tried to sort out his frustrations. First with Pepper, then over the fact that he’d lost the card. Well, if he was going to work this story, he should track down Sydowski. Standing to leave, he bumped his keyboard and an envelope appeared.
The card.
There it was. A blank envelope. Unsealed. He turned it over in his hand thinking there was no harm in looking. He opened it. The flat, square card inside had an embossed frame and a flowered corner. Written in longhand with a blue pen was the message Please think of me. I’m thinking of you.
No signature.
ELEVEN
A nocturne by Chopin floated through the Chevy’s six speakers as Linda Turgeon drove them back to Hooper’s neighborhood in the rain. Sydowski’s gut twisted as he stared at the latest ballistics reports, because the only thing he could see was Beamon’s scraped knuckles.
Ray was his suspect.
But Sydowski wasn’t prepared to reveal his suspicion to anyone. If Turgeon hadn’t come to it already, she would soon enough. Their sworn duty was to gather the evidence for a solid case. And that was what they would do. Problem was, he didn’t have a single shred of anything he could use to challenge Ray.
Not yet.
As the car’s wipers flapped, Sydowski chewed hard on a Tums and went back to the reports. They knew Hooper’s gun hadn’t been fired. And they hadn’t found the murder weapon. The bullet pried from Cliff’s apartment wall and the bullet recovered from his hemorrhaged brain were confirmed as being .40-cal Winchester SXT Talons. The standard issued to all SFPD officers. It was also available to the public.
“What about the lands, grooves, and t
wists? Were the bullets fired from a .40-cal Beretta?” Turgeon asked.
It was the weapon issued force-wide.
“One of the rounds was badly damaged,” Sydowski said. “Ballistics still has more work to do, then there’s imaging and the databases to check against other unsolveds. Other pistols besides a Beretta can also fire this kind of bullet.”
“Still, your thinking on this is that Cliff knew the shooter.”
“He was punched. That’s an intimate type of assault.”
“Right.”
“If he didn’t fight back, it fits with the possibility of it being someone he knew. Maybe he tried to talk his way out of it.”
“So it’s personal.”
“And it could be something else entirely.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.”
Sydowski said the fact that OCC and Management Control were quick to pounce on Hooper’s case troubled him. What did they know about Hooper? Maybe everything. Maybe nothing. If it was an execution, then Hooper had been a threat to someone. Hoop had been a cop long enough to make a lot of people unhappy. But who would be stupid enough to kill him and think they’d get away with it?
Molly had given them the names of old boyfriends, guys she’d dated for a significant time. None of them held any grudges or were the jealous type, she said. Sydowski and Turgeon had confirmed their whereabouts and quickly cleared them.
They retreated into their own thoughts, listening to Chopin, until they arrived in Upper Market. The rain had stopped. Blankets of thick silvery clouds cast a pall over the neighborhood.
The criminalists had called them to the scene.
They headed along the wet sidewalk to Hooper’s building and Sydowski pulled together what he knew to walk himself through Hooper’s final moments. Hooper had gone home after his day at the detail. He was to meet Molly Wilson later. Neighbors saw his car out front, indicating he was home. They also saw a male, or males, visit. A white man was seen leaving. Fairly linear, so far, Sydowski thought as they passed through the gate and made their way to the rear and up the stairs.