Thieu, standing himself, knew he'd been dismissed, but wanted to be sure that he and Gerson understood one another. "If you'd like," he repeated, "I could stay on awhile this morning to brief them."
But Gerson waved that off. "Thanks, but you're into OT now as it is. If you finish your write-up, that and the IR here ought to be enough to get them started. They have specific questions, they can always ask you later."
Cuneo wasn't sure that he liked the operating theory of the case, the very one Thieu had asked about. Cuneo had correctly identified the exact problem that had concerned Thieu. While there was an admittedly strong coincidence factor in Creed being involved in two homicides within Thirty-two in the past week, that very fact didn't compel Cuneo to believe that the cases were in fact related. It seemed to him that the only way the two had to be related was if the suspects had known that Creed had identified them.
"And how could they have known that?" He and Russell and Gerson were in the lieutenant's office an hour after Thieu had gone home and he was twitching his legs to some inner beat as he talked. "If the two are related, that's what had to happen, didn't it? I mean, they had to know Creed was a threat, right?"
"Right," Russell said. "So they knew."
"That's my point. How? I can't see him being so dumb. What did he do? Stop by the Ark and tell the three guys he'd picked 'em out?"
"Maybe not, but close." Gerson had no problem with it. "Come on, Dan. Look, the kid's involved in his first real homicide. He's the star witness, for Christ's sake. He's going to tell somebody. He's proud as hell of it. Right?" He looked to Russell.
And Russell agreed. "And that somebody told somebody else till it got back to Terry. Hell, it took four days as it was. That's plenty of time. More than enough."
Cuneo's legs stopped their jumping. "All right," he said. "If it sings so good for you both, I can run with it. But if that's the theory, we can settle it once and for all pretty quick."
Russell was right up to speed. "Ballistics," he said.
Cuneo gave him a nod. "We've got the bullet that did Silverman, too. Two bullets, same gun, and we've got connections. Connections, we get a warrant in a heartbeat and go on a treasure hunt."
After they'd left Gerson's office, Russell went over to the homicide computer and emailed the crime lab with the request, noted "Homicide-URGENT." The bullets from both scenes would by now have been filed away in the evidence lockup in the Hall's basement. Once the crime lab had physical possession of them-and a regular shuttle service ran between the Hall and the lab-they could do the actual comparison with an electron microscope. It shouldn't take more than fifteen minutes.
With any kind of luck, they could get it done today.
While Russell did the computer work, Cuneo checked their messages and found that Roy Panos had called early last night-he had some terrific 49ers tickets for this weekend that he couldn't use. If the guys were interested, why didn't they all meet at John's Grill down in the heart of Thirty-two, have an early lunch, pick up their tickets?
Of course, the call had been before Creed's death, so Cuneo called Roy back to make sure he felt he could handle a social lunch. Exhausted-he'd barely slept-Roy still wanted to meet with the inspectors. Maybe he could give them some thoughts on Creed while it was still early enough to do some good. If even by inadvertence he knew or had heard anything that might help them in finding out who'd killed Matt, he wanted them to pump him for it.
Finally, finally, finally, Cuneo and Russell got clear of the Hall. At five minutes to ten, they were parked across the street from the Ark, waiting for their chance to brace John Holiday at last. Find out where he'd been last night as well.
At a quarter after, Cuneo got out of the car and banged on the bar's door for fifteen or twenty seconds.
Quarter to eleven, and Russell couldn't endure another moment in the car with his hyperkinetic partner. He checked the door to the Ark again, then walked to the corner and around it to the alley that ran to the back entrance. It, too, was closed. There was no light within, no sign of any life.
They'd told Roy Panos they'd meet him at John's at 11:30, and ten minutes before that Cuneo turned on the ignition and put the car in gear. "How's the guy make a living, he never opens his shop?"
"Maybe he's not coming in at all," Russell said. "Maybe he's on the run."
Cuneo looked across, pointed a finger at him, pulled the imaginary trigger.
John Holiday's conquest stories to friends such as Dismas Hardy had lately been fabrications. The truth was that he had fallen in love and didn't want to appear to have been a fool if it didn't work out.
While Cuneo and Russell waited for him to show up at the Ark, he was in Michelle's wonderful apartment-a modest but extremely well-kept one-bedroom unit on the back, non-tourist straight side of the "crookedest street in the world," Lombard. The place was only on the second floor of her building, but the street fell off in a cliff, so out the picture window she had a million dollar unimpeded view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge. She'd started living in these three rooms while she was in college, eighteen years ago, and rent control had kept her there-in today's San Francisco, she couldn't have found an unfurnished lean-to for what she was paying. A freelance writer, Michelle occasionally published in national magazines and regularly in some of the local neighborhood papers and advertising supplements. She also had a couple of very nice steady jobs doing restaurant reviews, and these helped bridge the income gap by providing dinners out for her and, often, a guest.
The first communication between Michelle and Holiday had been faceless, via email. In fact, because Michelle signed her pieces "M. Maier," Holiday hadn't even known he was writing to a woman. In early summer, in an ad rag called the Russian Hill Caller, she reviewed a small new place called Tapa the Bottom-a Spanish tapas restaurant located at the foot of Russian Hill. Michelle's food pieces often had a kind of M.F.K. Fisher quality, where snatches of philosophy, cultural history, or personal experience would thicken the usual thin broth of menu and decor description, and this article had stirred up feelings in Holiday that he'd suppressed for a long time.
He'd spent his honeymoon with Emma on the Costa Brava in Spain, at a small fishing village called Tossa de Mar, about forty miles north of Barcelona. For Holiday, the very air there at that time had seemed imbued with promise, with a sense that everything in his life now was going to work out, that the emptiness of his early life was over forever. And that short season of hope had been steeped in saffron, garlic, oregano, onions.
As soon as Holiday finished the article, he'd beelined to Tapa the Bottom, where he felt himself transported by nearly every bite. Escargots in pepper sauce, baby octopus, the Spanish tortilla-really an omelette of onion, egg and potato-the crusty bread smeared with tomato and garlic. When he got back home, flushed with a full bottle of chilled rose, he emailed M. Maier through the Caller to express his gratitude for the recommendation. He ended by adding, without much thought, "Happiness has been a bit elusive for a while, but while I was eating there, I was happy."
She'd written him back the next day, and they'd started corresponding regularly, breaking ground. Eventually, since they knew they must be neighbors, they agreed to meet. Michelle showed up in what turned out to be her usual outdoor attire, an army-navy coat over loose-fitting paramilitary camo garb, combat boots and a weird hat, one of her misshapen collection of thrift store headwear. In her heavy black-rimmed eyeglasses, with the hat pulled low and her tousled dark hair falling over her face, and wearing no makeup of any kind, she had attracted no undue attention.
Holiday had enjoyed the lunch, and though Michelle was nice enough, she wasn't the kind of woman he chose to pursue anymore. Clearly not a casual person, she brimmed with passion-thoughts and feelings, ideas, wit. Not his type, not since Emma. And certainly not the type he'd been taking lately to bed.