“I know he is.” The rotund CSU man sighed. He hoisted himself up and shuffled over to a counter. He picked up a small zip-lock sandwich bag with a dark, flattened bullet in it.
“Here's your slug, Lindsay. Took it out of the wall behind where Art Davidson got dropped. One shot. Lights out. Check with Claire if you like. The sonofabitch can definitely shoot.”
I lifted up the shell and tried to pull a reading.
“Forty caliber,” Clapper said. “My first read is that it's from a PSG-One.”
I frowned. “You're sure about this, Charlie?” Tasha Catchings had been killed with an M16.
He pointed toward a scope. "Be my guest, Lieutenant. I figure ballistics must be a lifelong study of yours.
“I didn't mean that, Charlie. I was just hoping for a match on the Catchings girl.”
“Reese is still working on it,” he said, grabbing a chip out of the Doritos bag. “But don't bet on it. This guy was clean, Lindsay. Just like at the church. No prints, nothing left behind. The tape machine's standard, could've been bought anywhere. Set off by a long-distance remote control. We even traced what we thought to be his route up there through the building and dusted everything from the railings to the window locks. We did turn up one thing... ” “What's that?” I.
He walked me over to a lab counter. “Partial sneaker print. Off the tar on the roof where the shots came from. Looks like a standard shoe. But we did take out some traces of a fine white powder. No guarantees it even came from him.”
Powder?"
“Charlie,” Charlie said. “That narrows it down to about fifty million possibilities. If this guy's signing his pictures, Lindsay, he's making it tough to find.” “He signed it, Charlie,” I said with conviction. “It was the shot.”
“We're sending the nine-one-one tape out for a voice reading. I'll let you know when we get it back.”
I patted him appreciatively. “Get some sleep, Charlie.”
He lifted the Doritos bag. “Sure, I will. After breakfast.”
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 36
I WENT BACK to the office and sank disappointedly back behind my desk. I had to know more about that chimera.
I was about to dial Stu Kirkwood at the hate crimes desk when a cadre of three men in dark suits came into the squad room.
One of them was Mercer. No surprise. He had been on the morning talk shows, pushing for calm. I knew facing tough questions without concrete results didn't sit well with him.
But the other, accompanied by his press liaison, was a man I had never seen on the floor in seven years in Homicide.
It was the mayor of San Francisco.
“I don't want the slightest bit of bullshit,” Art Fernandez, San Francisco's two-term mayor, said. “I don't want the standard protecting the ranks, and I don't want any misplaced reflex to control the situation.” He shifted his eyes on a narrow track between Mercer and me. “What I want is an honest answer. Do we have a read on this situation?”
We were crammed into my tiny glass-enclosed office.
Outside, I could see staffers standing around, watching the circus.
I fumbled under my desk to get my pumps back on. “We do not,” I admitted.
“So Vernon Jones is right.” The mayor exhaled, sinking into a chair across from my desk. “What we have is an out-of-control spree of hate-driven killings on which the police have no handle, but the FBI may.”
“that's not it,” I replied.
“That's not it?” he arched his eyebrows. He looked at Mercer and frowned. "What is it I don't understand?
“You've got a recognized hate group symbol, this chimera, at two of the three crime scenes. Our own M.E. believes the Catchings girl was the intended target of this madman.”
“What the lieutenant is saying,” Mercer cut in, “is that this may not be simply a hate crime issue.”
My mouth was a little cottony, and I swallowed. “I think it's deeper than a hate crime spree.”
“Deeper, Lieutenant Boxer? Just what is it you believe we have?”
I stared straight at Fernandez. “What I think we have is someone with a personal vendetta. Possibly a single assailant. He's couching his murders in the MO of a hate crime.”
“A vendetta, you say,” Carr, the mayor's man, chimed in.
“A vendetta against blacks, but not a hate crime. Against black children and widows... but not a hate crime?” “Against black cops,” I said.
The mayor's eyes narrowed. “Go on.” I explained that Tasha Catchings and Estelle Chipman had been related to cops. “There has to be some further relationship, though we don't know what it is yet. The killer is organized, haughty, in the way he's leaving his clues.” I do not believe a hate crime killer would leave their mark on the hits. The getaway van, the little drawing in Chipman's basement, that cocky nine-one-one tape. I don't think this is a hate crime spree. It's a vendetta - calculated, personal."
The mayor looked at Mercer. “You go along with this, Earl?”
“Protecting the ranks aside... ” Mercer smiled tightly.
“I do.”
“Well, I don't,” Carr said. “Everything points to a hate crime.”
There was silence in the cramped room; the temperature suddenly felt like 120 degrees.
“So it seems I have two choices,” the mayor said. “Under the Hate Crimes Legislation, Article Four, I can call in the FBI, who, I believe, keep a close watch on these groups.”
“They have no fucking idea how to run a homicide investigation,” Mercer protested.
“Or... I can let the lieutenant do her job. Tell the Feds we got it all handled ourselves,” the mayor said.
I met his eyes. “I went to the academy with Art Davidson. You think you want to catch his killer any more than I do?” “Then catch him,” the mayor said and rose. “Just so we know what's at stake,” he added.
I was nodding glumly when Lorraine burst through my door. "Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant, but it's urgent. Jacobi called in from Vallejo. He said make the place up nice and neat for an important guest. They found the biker from the Blue Parrot.
“They found Red.”
Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance
Chapter 37
ABOUT AN HOUR LATER, Jacobi and Cappy entered the squad room. They were pushing a large redheaded biker type, his hands cuffed behind his back.
“Look who decided to drop in.” Jacobi smirked.
Red jerked his arms defiantly out of Cappy's grip as the policeman shoved him into Interrogation Room 1, where he tripped over a wooden chair and crashed to the floor.
“Sorry, big fella.” Cappy shrugged. “Thought I warned you about that first step.”
“Richard Earl Evans,” Jacobi announced. “AKA Red, Boomer, Duke. Don't feel insulted if he doesn't stand up and shake hands.” “This is what you thought I meant by no contact?” I said, looking cross but inside delighted that they had brought him in.
“The guy's got a CCI sheet so long it begins with ' me Ishmael.'” Jacobi grinned. “Theft, aggravated mischief, attempted murder, two weapons charges.”
“Behold,” exclaimed Cappy, producing a dime bag of marijuana, a five-inch hunter's blade, and a palm-sized Beretta.22-caliber pistol out of a Nordstrom's shopping bag.
“He know why he's here?” I asked.
“Nah,” Cappy grunted. “We busted him on the gun charge. Let him cool his jets in the backseat.”
The three of us crowded into the small interrogation room facing Richard Earl Evans. The creep leered up at us with a smug grin, sleeves of tattoos covering both arms. He wore a black T-shirt with block letters on the back: “If You Can Read This... the Bitch Must've Fallen Off!”
I nodded, and Cappy freed him from the cuffs. “You know why you're here, Mr. Evans?”