by Rick Mofina
“Frank? Frank Yarrow?”
“It’s so good to see you. It’s been so, so long.” She swallowed, glanced around.
“I already told you over the phone that this is a bad time for me.”
“Please, hear what I’ve got to say, then I’ll go.” When Molly hesitated he added: “It won’t take long, I have to catch a plane.”
Inside her apartment he sat on her living room sofa while she disappeared to her bedroom and pulled on a sweatshirt. She emerged, patting her face with a towel. She got a bottle of water, then sat in her sofa chair a good distance from him. He was dressed in a sport coat, denim shirt, faded jeans. His body looked as lean and firm as it did when they’d first met. A few tiny wrinkles near his blue eyes, tanned face, strong voice.
“I know this is probably the worst time to talk about us.”
“It’s not good,” she said. “I don’t know why you do this. Over the years, you’ve written to me, called me, always tried to stake this nonexistent claim to me.”
“I know but please just hear me out.”
“I wish you would stop this and go back to Texas, or Kansas.”
“Kansas City. I’m working as a corporate security consultant.”
“Fine. Great. But you’ve got to stop this, okay? Stop writing, stop calling. Just stop it.”
“We had something.”
“We were kids, Frank. It was a long time ago.”
“But that’s just it, don’t you see? We were kids, but since then our lives have taken so many turns in so many ways. I need you to know that I realize how wrong I was back then. Wrong about the way I reacted toward you. And the more I recognized that, the more I got thinking about second chances in life, thinking about you.”
“Stop thinking about me.”
“The way things have gone for me, how could I not think about you?”
“You’re not listening.”
“I had to see you. When I learned that you weren’t married I took that to mean there was hope. I had to see you. I was in San Francisco on business when I heard about the murder on the news. I’m so sorry for you. That’s why I showed up at the service. I wanted to be there for you. I’m trying to let you know that I think our time has come. There are so many signs--”
“Please stop this. I’ve heard this before, and you should leave now.”
“In my whole life you were the only girl who ever cared about me. The only woman I ever truly loved.”
Her eyes stung.
“Then you left me. Left for college, your career. It nearly killed me.”
“You went on with your life. You got married.”
“It didn’t work. She wasn’t you. We just got divorced. I thought my life was coming to an end. Again. And when something like that happens, it forces you to think back on your mistakes, you know?”
She looked away.
“Listen. You’re hurting from your divorce. I’m not the answer. You may think I am because you’re hurting. But I’m not. You just have to go through this alone. Ride it out. We can’t go back in time. We can’t live in the past. Listen to me. I’m not going to change my mind and I’m not interested. Please understand that.”
His fingers trembled ever so slightly as he rubbed his lips.
“All I’m asking for is a little understanding here. I’m asking you to open your mind to the possibility of us giving things a second chance.”
“No.”
“Hold on,” he said. “Don’t answer now. Take some time. Think it over. I’m leaving town tonight. I’ll be back in a few weeks. I’ll see you then.”
“No. Don’t. I’ve listened. Now leave and don’t come back. I won’t change my mind.”
He didn’t move. He stared at her for a long moment.
“All I’m asking for is for you to think things over.”
She went to the door and opened it.
He stood, ran a hand through his hair, then came to her and stopped within inches.
“Just think things over. That’s all I’m asking.”
He looked at her for several more seconds before he left.
She closed the door, locked it, leaned against it, then slid to her floor. She pulled her knees to her chest, thrust her face into her towel, and sobbed.
EIGHTEEN
Sydowski took in the headline of Tom Reed’s front-page story in the morning edition of the Star. He unbuttoned his collar as he read at his desk in the homicide detail.
“Who would betray us?”
Turgeon was still reading over his shoulder, holding two mugs of fresh coffee.
“Anybody could’ve leaked it.”
“Why do a thing like this and why now?”
Turgeon set the mugs down and sat on a corner of Sydowski’s desk.
“Maybe it was someone who wanted to make OCC and the internal people look like they’re obstructing us by getting in our faces.”
“Then they’ve failed. This creates the impression that these guys swooped in on us because Hooper was dirty and the department was moving to cover it up.” Sydowski took a hit of coffee. “We don’t need this dumped on us. Not now.” Sydowski spotted Gonzales. “You read this?” he asked.
“First call came to my home at five-thirty. The chief’s an early riser.”
“Somebody’s messing with us,” Sydowski said.
“Well, shove this crap aside. We’ve got a case status meeting,” Gonzales said. “Everybody, let’s go.”
The detectives made their way to room 400, the larger meeting room, where they were joined by other investigators and brass who dropped in from their offices on higher floors. They revisited the autopsy and latest ballistic reports during a meeting that was short and tense because of the leak to the Star. Immediately afterward, Turgeon and Sydowski headed for Diamond Heights.
“I hate where this case is going,” Turgeon said. “But I think we need to test guns, and you know what I’m talking about.”
Sydowski and Turgeon knew that whatever was said in their car stayed in their car.
“No, we don’t have to test guns.”
“We don’t?”
“Not yet.”
“Why don’t you just come out and say it?”
“Ray’s our suspect.”
Turgeon let out a long hard breath. “Do you think he did it?”
“I don’t know. I’ve got a lot of questions. But you have to understand, we need hard evidence. Something to challenge him with.”
“I know.”
“If I go at him now and he gets a lawyer, it’s over. I’ve got to build my case against him. So far, I’ve got nothing but a gut feeling telling me Ray’s hiding something and it looks real bad for him.”
“So test Ray’s Beretta against the recovered rounds. If the rounds came from his weapon, end of story.”
“They didn’t come from his service gun.”
“How do you know?”
Sydowski held up a thin file folder. “What’s that?”
“Ballistics report from six months ago. Ray fired two shots at an armed drug-dealing 187 suspect who drew down on him and Hooper when they went to question him, remember?”
“Oh yeah. The Financial District. Two rounds into the wall. The guy gave it up.”
“I just got the report on that. Ballistics comparison shows Beamon’s Beretta did not fire the .40-cal round that killed Hooper. So we don’t have to test his service weapon.”
“What about his off-duty gun?”
“It’s a .32 Smith and Wesson,” Sydowski said.
“A .32, which means Ray’s guns weren’t involved.”
“Which means nothing. Ray could’ve used another gun.
A throw-down.”
“So that’s all we have.”
“No. Ray’s right knuckles had fresh bruises the morning after the murder. The M.E. said Cliff was punched by someone using their right hand.”
Turgeon glanced at Sydowski.
“I thought Ray scraped his knuckles working on his Barracu
da the night Hoop was murdered.”
“That’s what he said. He also said he never left his house that night.”
“And?”
“I think he’s lying and I’m going to prove it.”
NINETEEN
Sitting on his rear balcony, Ray Beamon took another sip of beer and looked at the city lights winking below his bungalow perched on a northern slope of Bernal Heights.
On the table beside him there was a thick brown envelope with the words For Ray handwritten by Hooper’s sister, Andrea. It had arrived by courier. Beamon put off opening it because he’d been thinking of Molly. Ever since they’d buried Hoop next to the cherry orchard near Lodi, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.
Finishing his beer, he drew the back of his hand across his mouth, then went to the refrigerator for another. His house was small, but it came with a view and a garage where he could work on his Barracuda. His neighbors, the two lesbians who lived across the street, had shown up with a tower of prepared meals for him after reading about Hooper’s murder. Nice people, Beamon thought, grabbing a cold beer and returning to the balcony.
He touched the sweating bottle to his forehead, twisted off the cap, glanced at the envelope as the distant scream of sirens rose from the Outer Mission. He felt as if something were closing in on him.
Funny.
After the 1906 earthquake, people moved here to feel safe in the wake of disaster. Now here he was, feeling the world descending on him. All right. He opened the envelope. Inside, a handwritten note said:
Ray, I think Cliff would want you to have these. Love, Andrea.
It was folded around a dozen color snapshots taken about a year ago at an FBI party. There they were, the three of them. Molly between Beamon and his partner. Hooper had only been dating Molly for two or three months. He shuffled through the pictures to a nice shot of Hooper with his arm around Molly among a few of the feebies goofing around with the guys from Homicide. Here was one of Beamon and Molly smiling at each other. Just friends. Right. He pulled one picture closer and stared into Hoop’s eyes.
It had all started at this party.
Sure, he knew Molly from crime scenes. And he agreed with every other cop in San Francisco, she was easy to look at. She was always all business at scenes. Always. Until that night, at that party. It was the first time he had gotten close to her without a corpse nearby.
She came to him like a dream, taking his hand, pulling him up to slow-dance with Hooper pushing him. “Go on, she doesn’t bite, Ray.” Hooper loved it. Just friends. Having a good time. Until Beamon slid his arms around her and pulled her tight. Felt her hands on his shoulders, drank in her fragrance. Looked into her eyes. Feeling something electric, feeling his heart stop as if a trigger had been pulled.
He’d never meant for this to happen.
But it did happen. Fate had set it all in motion that weekend when Molly had called his place looking for Hoop.
“He went fishing in Nevada with two ATF guys.”
“I thought he was working on your car with you,” Molly said. “We were going to drive down the peninsula this afternoon. I wanted to pick up some antiques.”
In the silence that followed, Ray offered to take her.
And Molly accepted.
The afternoon stretched into the evening. They took a moonlight stroll along the Pacific. Stopped for dinner at a little place, had some wine, walked on the beach, things got warm. They got a room and nearly broke the bed.
God, in all of his life, he’d never known anything like this could happen.
Hooper never knew.
Beamon couldn’t think straight. Christ. She became an obsession. He wanted to see her again. Needed to see her. He knew she was going with Hoop but Beamon yearned to date her. It was exciting. It scared the hell out of him.
Then it got worse.
A short time ago he and Hooper were working on a fresh homicide. Walking between doors on a canvass somewhere in the Sunset when Hooper dropped his bombshell.
“I know I’ve only been with her a few months but I feel Molly’s the one. I’m going to ask her to marry me. I’d like you to be my best man.”
Beamon was speechless. He didn’t know what to do. What to say.
“Did I surprise you?” Hooper asked.
“Sure did, partner. Congratulations.”
“So will you do it, buddy?”
“I’d be honored to be your best man.”
A grin lit up Hooper’s face as he shook his hand. But Beamon knew at that point that he was going to have to do something. He didn’t know what. And before he could decide, things went crazy. Went to hell on Hooper’s last day. Beyond Beamon’s control. God, it wasn’t supposed to end like this. Not with Hooper murdered. OCC, Management Control, Sydowski.
Oh, Jesus, Beamon never thought it would end like this.
He had to tell Molly what really happened.
She had a stake in this, too. There were degrees of guilt, he thought, rubbing his knuckles and feeling the soreness, the scrapes against his skin.
TWENTY
Surrounded by candlelight, Molly Wilson was floating, adrift in the fragrant water of an herbal bath, when the apartment buzzer shattered her calm. She ignored it but the visitor kept buzzing, forcing her to towel off quickly, slip on her robe, and pad to her intercom.
“It’s me. I need to see you,” Beamon’s voice crackled.
“It’s late, Ray,” she said after letting him in. She smelled alcohol. “I’m making you coffee. I hope you didn’t drive.”
He followed her to the kitchen.
“I’m not drunk.” Beamon saw the snapshots fanned out on Molly’s counter. Copies of what Hooper’s sister had sent him. He met her gaze. She was waiting for his reaction. No words were needed. The pictures took care of that.
“Molly, I wanted to see you.”
“I want to know why,” she said. “Why would someone kill him?”
Beamon took her shoulders.
“You’ve got to hang on. We’ll get through this.”
The kettle hit the boiling point and whistled. She poured two cups.
“Do you think Sydowski will find the person who did it?” He peered into his black coffee.
“I don’t know. They’ve pushed me off the case.”
“Sydowski and Gonzales said it wasn’t right to have you helping. Procedurally. It’d be a conflict, or something.” Molly said.
“Yeah, well, Sydowski’s coming after me. I could feel his eyes on us at the funeral.”
“You? Why? That makes no sense. He’ll just want you to go over old cases, search for threats or vendettas to build his suspect pool. That’s basic. That’s what the Star’s been doing.”
He looked at her for several moments.
“You never told me how it was for you, being the one who found him.”
“I get nightmares.”
“You never told me exactly how you found him.”
“No,” she said. “Only Sydowski and Turgeon. I never told Tom, or my friends.”
“You can tell me.”
“I can’t.”
“I’m his partner, I’ve a right to know.”
“Talk to Sydowski.”
“Molly, please. It might help me find out what happened. Understand what happened. Maybe it’ll help the case.”
“Don’t do this.”
She turned her back to him. Beamon waited several long moments before he asked: “Did you tell Sydowski about us?”
“God, no.”
“Reed?”
“No. No one.”
“Guess you have a lot of secrets to keep.”
Molly turned around.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m sorry. I’m not thinking clearly,” he said.
“Why do you think Sydowski’s coming after you?”
“Molly. Come on. A victim’s murdered in his home. You track down everyone in his circle. Nearest and dearest. You know that,” Beamon rubbed his
tired eyes. “I haven’t been able to sleep. I’ve been thinking about all of our old cases and I come up empty. It’s driving me crazy. I want so bad to get to the truth.”
Molly studied his hands, his pained face.
“Is there something more you want to tell me?”
“No.” He turned away, blinking. “Yes.” He turned back. “What happened with you at the church, at the service?”
“What do you mean?”
“When you were speaking, you stopped as if you were afraid.”
She closed her eyes as if to make the subject vanish.
“I saw an old friend. A guy I’d just as soon forget. He’s gone out of my life. Look, it’s really late.”
Beamon placed his hand over hers and she felt a warm current course through her. “You’re so beautiful.”
“Don’t do this.”
Strands of hair slipped from behind her ear and curtained wildly over her face. Their eyes met. He reached up and tucked her hair back, she touched her cheek to his warm palm. Her robe had loosened, exposing the top of her cleavage. She didn’t move to cover it. Instead she pulled away from him and stood by the sink to look at the lights of the Golden Gate glittering in the distance.
“You have to go,” she said to his reflection in the window.
He placed his large hands on her shoulders and kissed her neck softly, causing her skin to tingle. He turned her around and they kissed, long and deep, her lips parted. His hands opened her robe, landing on her naked skin, exploring her, caressing her, making her pulse quicken. She released a moan.
“We have to stop. I can’t do this. It’s not right.”
Beamon’s eyes narrowed and he stared hard at her.
“Are you having second thoughts about us?”
“No. It’s just that we shouldn’t be thinking of ourselves now. We should be helping find Cliff’s killer.”
“I took risks for you.”
“What? What risks? What are you talking about?”