“Mr. Janssen? That the killer?” Maduri said as a hoodie’d figure cut into the parking lot heading to the store or on out the other exit to Henry Street. Maduri hit the gas, swung a right, circled around and into the lot from the back. “There he is. By the first line of cars. Do you see him, Mr. Janssen? Is that the killer?”
Janssen dragged his attention from the blonde and looked out the window. “Nah, not him.”
“Are you sure?”
“Not him.”
“Not him how?”
“How... what?”
Maduri glanced in the rearview mirror in time to catch the boy’s smart-ass grin; the sarcasm was for the girlfriend. Only witness, Maduri reminded himself yet again. Have to keep him on our side. “How’s the killer different, Mr. Janssen? Shorter, taller, fatter? More hair, less? Different clothes?”
“There was something... odd... about him. He was a little guy.”
“How little?”
“Five two, maybe.”
Five two doesn’t even make the chart! Probably he meant five six or five eight. Janssen was a good six feet. From his view anyone under five eight was a shrimp. “Short, huh? That all?”
“He seemed spooked, you know, like he couldn’t decide which way to go.”
“But he ended up running down Vine to Shattuck, right?”
Janssen just nodded, shrugged at the girl beside him.
“That right, Miss Kozlovski?”
“To this street? Sorry, I don’t know this part of the city. My boyfriend’s car—”
“Former boyfriend,” Janssen put in.
In the rearview, Maduri saw her jaw go tight. Janssen did not. The kid was, Maduri thought, an idiot. He eased the black-and-white out of the parking lot back onto Shattuck just as a fire engine hit the siren behind him. He jerked to a stop.
Shelby shot him a glance that said, You get to the point when you block out even that. Not good!
“The shooter, Miss Kozlovski, how would you describe him?” Maduri was yelling over the fading siren.
“By the time I got there,” she yelled back, “he was gone!”
“Citizens of Berkeley,” Shelby grumbled as the siren faded away, “they bitch about everything. But a guy guns a man down and trots off and not a single concerned citizen bothers to follow him.”
Maduri shot a panicked glance at the detective. Don’t give up, damnit!
As if she caught his vibe, Lisa Kozlovski said, “Maybe this will help. I heard someone say you wouldn’t want to meet him in a dark alley—”
“Which you took to mean...?”
“Bigger. I mean like more substantial. I’d say bulky too” — she turned to Janssen — “don’t you think, Bri?”
Janssen hesitated as if he was scanning the still shots in his mind before agreeing with her. As opposed to the decision he was weighing. Hesitantly, he placed his hand on her thigh, the way Maduri used to test the burners for heat on the ancient electric stove.
“Mr. Janssen?”
“Yeah.”
The girl poked an elbow into his rib and he grinned, seemed to be squeezing her thigh, though Maduri couldn’t be sure. “Yes, officer, she’s right. He was stockier. That’s why it was so odd, see, that he was bouncing around trying to decide what to do. Only a minute. Less than that, I think. I was looking at the guy lying on the sidewalk.”
Maduri shot a glance at Shelby, but the detective was off in his own world.
Maduri pulled into the intersection and hung a left. Circling back on Walnut, paralleling Shattuck, eyeing the ivy-covered hurricane fence that surrounded a block of university plantings. Good place for a perp to leap into. But dicey if anyone spotted him. Maduri aimed the spotlight at the vines, on the small chance it’d jolt the perp. Nothing.
Janssen’s head was turned toward the vines, but what he was eyeing was the girl.
Look for the perp, damnit! Maduri forced himself to inhale slowly. “Mr. Janssen, I want you to do an exercise for me. While you’re scanning the sidewalks, run through what happened when you got to Peet’s.”
“When I arrived on the scene?”
“Yeah, exactly. But keep looking out the window.”
“Like patting my head and rubbing my stomach.”
Patience! “Sure. So...?”
“Well, you know, I got coffee and left and—”
“What was Peet’s like — crowded, noisy, half-empty?”
“Pretty empty. I only had to wait behind one guy in line before I ordered, and he was just getting regular, not like Lisa and her macchiato.” He grinned at her, raking his fingers softly up and down her thigh.
“Keep checking the sidewalk, Mr. Janssen.”
“Oh, yeah, sure.”
“So you got your coffee—”
“Espresso.” His head twitched toward her but he caught himself before letting his gaze leave the window. “It was in a paper cup. I walked outside—”
“How did it strike you out there?”
“You mean, set the scene?”
“Exactly. You’re doing great.” The car was back at the Peet’s corner now, on Walnut. Crime scene tape was strung across the entry to the Walnut Square walkway. Tech lights shone off shop windows. The bark of radios cut through the buzz of talk.
Maduri hung a left onto Vine. Janssen was on the passenger side, looking toward the far side of the street across from Peet’s as he would have been when he came out the door with his espresso. In front of the coffee shop, the scene techs were laying down markers. Maduri didn’t want Janssen seeing that, coloring his memory of the scene.
An update flashed on the computer screen. Shelby’d read it, said nothing.
“So, Mr. Janssen, light? Dark, warm, cold, crowded...?”
“Well, you know, it was getting to be night. I remember now I was surprised. I mean I wasn’t in there more than a couple of minutes, but it seemed lots darker when I came out. And, you know, wet, like now. Like moist, but not raining.”
“You’re doing great. Were there people on the sidewalk?” Where was the suspect Callahan nabbed? Anyone else? Anyone who could be the killer?
“A couple, I think. Like I said, it was dark and cold and no one was hanging around, not like they do in the morning. These were, like, people going someplace.”
Maduri stopped at the light at Shattuck. “Where was Lampara, the victim? When you came out. Before the shots.”
“Dunno. He could have been... I didn’t pay attention to him till I heard the shots. Till I heard him groan. When I saw him go down.”
The girl squeezed his arm, but for the first time he didn’t seem to notice her.
“Tell me about it. See it. No, don’t close your eyes. See it in your mind. Keep looking out the window.” Maduri turned left onto Shattuck as he had minutes earlier. “That guy, in front of the Cheeseboard? Did you see him at Peet’s?”
“No,” Janssen responded so quickly it surprised him.
“Go on, Mr. Janssen. You walk out of Peet’s. You’re holding your cup. Did it have a lid?”
“It was just an espresso. I wasn’t going to be drinking it that long.”
“Okay, so you walk out...?”
“I come out the door there on the corner. I turn left, downhill. I get, like, to the Peet’s window, no farther. Like three steps from the doorway. I hear — wait! — I hear someone yell, ‘Mr. Lampara!’ and then the shot.”
This is it! Maduri struggled to keep his voice even. “What did it sound like? Man, woman, high, low, accent? Hear it now!”