23rd Midnight, page 17
part #23 of Women's Murder Club Series
Joe was out with Julie, picking up takeout dinner from Lucky Duck Best Chinese Food. I wasn’t even slightly hungry, but I could still push rice around my plate with chopsticks, distracting my daughter so that she didn’t read my mind. I could no longer read my own mind. It was that freaking chaotic inside my head.
Cindy had been missing for three days and it had been five hours since I’d heard from Blackout as if his email, video, and phone call were a ticking box of roses delivered to my desk.
I dozed off in the chair and was awoken by a blast of exuberance: Joe calling me, Martha woofing, Julie singing “Mommy we are home” to the tune of “Dashing through the snow.” I got up and hugged her, took the bags of food from Joe, and as he made tea, I dished up the shrimp with broccoli and chicken yat gaw mein. As we exchanged looks, I noticed that Joe’s expression mirrored my own.
He looked confused, worried, and like he had something to tell me.
I asked Julie to go wash her hands before dinner, please, and signaled to Joe that we should go to his home office. Once inside, I closed the door.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“Short version for now,” he said. “Blackout posted a video on YouTube.”
“No.”
Joe took out his phone, tapped on the screen, and said, “Brace yourself, Blondie.”
He handed me the phone.
CHAPTER 76
I DIDN’T KNOW how much more bracing I could stand. Was I about to watch Blackout murder Cindy? But the image on the small screen was not of Blackout at all. It was of a woman tightly tucked in a sitting position, knees up, head down, inside the kneehole of an old desk. This could have been one of the metal desks we’d seen in Blackout’s warehouse videos.
Was it really Cindy?
What I could see of the woman’s hair looked blond. She appeared to be wearing jeans and the baby-blue sweatshirt she’d worn when Blackout dragged her across the floor. Was she alive? I couldn’t tell. Blackout appeared, unmasked and his natural voice came up under the photo. This is what the YouTube audience had seen and heard.
He said, “Heads up to Warden Hauser and Sergeant Boxer. Here’s the deal. You spring Evan Burke and I’ll tell you where to find Cindy Thomas. I’ll call you, Sergeant.”
Blackout’s face was replaced with a close-up of Cindy at the Poisoned Pen signing. This was exactly as I remembered her; sitting behind a card table heavily stacked with books, pen in hand, smiling up at a reader. She looked radiant.
Joe said, “This has gone viral. It’s on TV news, too.”
I found my phone on the sink in the bathroom, battery dead. I took it to the living room, plugged it in, and found missed calls. Oh, my God, oh my God, they were all worried. Henry Tyler, Brady, Alvarez, Clapper, Claire, and three calls from Richie.
Julie was at the table banging her fork against the side of her plate.
“You have to feed me. It’s your job.”
I did my best to eat fast while tasting nothing.
Cindy, Cindy, Cindy.
I kept seeing her at that table, signing copies of You Never Knew Me, smiling up at her fans. I’d seen no danger. Not a bit. Blackout must have taken this photo from Cindy’s phone. Or had Blackout been inside the store, standing right next to me?
Twenty minutes later, Julie was in her daddy’s chair watching the Disney Channel and I had Joe to myself again.
We spoke across the table.
Joe said, “Steinmetz is putting me on this case as a nine-to-five liaison between the bureau and your team. Blackout is radioactive and he will not stop until he is caught.”
“Joe. Is she still alive?”
“I think so but who knows? He likes the attention. And he’s slick. We don’t know where he is, who he is, but we’ve got manpower to throw against him now that Steinmetz is on board.”
That night, after I tossed, flopped around, kicked off blankets to the point of waking Joe, I took my phone into the living room. In between returning calls, I read stories about Cindy in news feeds and newspapers across the country. All about Cindy Thomas. How had she been captured? Who was she to the fugitive Blackout? Police are turning over every stone.
Dawn lit up Lake Street. I felt half dead, but I couldn’t wait to get to work.
CHAPTER 77
BY TEN THAT morning, Brady and I—along with Team Blackout and two FBI special agents—were in our war room, that depressing corner office lined with dirty windows and morgue shots taped to whiteboards leaning against the southern wall.
The FBI liaisons were Joe and his former partner Mike Wallenger, both of whom had started their careers with the Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico. Mike was bearded, pushing fifty, and at six three as big as Joe. The last time I’d seen Mike, we were at the flash point of a major drug sting involving tunnels from Tijuana to San Diego, hundreds of kilos of fentanyl and a half dozen refrigerated trucks loaded with trafficked military weapons.
All told, six people had died.
But this was a different time and instead of drug mules and FBI sharpshooters, we were faced with one anonymous killer who was using me as his conduit to the cops, and Cindy as the bait.
As team leader, I began the meeting with a review of the Blackout tapes that had been combined into one horrible sequential reel. It started with Ralph Hammer getting his head blown apart, continued through the killing in Pasadena and inside the car outside Vegas. Then Blackout’s warehouse and apartment series and closing with his offer.
Burke for Cindy.
On our demand for proof of life, Blackout was silent.
Wallenger asked me to run the video again, pausing when he and Joe asked me to stop the forward motion for closer looks. They noted Blackout’s methods, checked off the murder locations of the scenes on maps. This was all old news to me, but Wallenger had fresh eyes on the victims and the crime scenes. There was a chance he would see something we’d missed, but our most current “lead” was yesterday’s news: Blackout’s worship of Evan Burke.
Today we had federal backup and Henry Tyler had offered a twenty-five-thousand-dollar reward for information leading to the recovery of Cindy Thomas, no questions asked.
All we needed was a plan of action. But until I heard from Blackout, we couldn’t even draft one.
CHAPTER 78
BRADY SAID, “MIKE, Joe, I’d like to hear your thoughts.”
Wallenger said, “Okay, sure.”
He took off his jacket, hung it over the back of his chair, and I pressed Record on my phone.
The senior FBI special agent said, “We’ve got unimpeachable video evidence of Blackout committing multiple murders including one showing that he has or had Ms. Thomas in a warehouse, location unknown. From what I saw, this guy is strong, fairly young, and proficient with a number of weapons. That leads me to think he may have been trained in the military, any service and really any country.
“This series of unrelated kills, including an unarmed woman and particularly one with an infant speaks to psychopathy. We know that not all psychopaths are murderers, and not all murderers are psychopaths, but psychopathy is a hallmark of serials. In other words, he doesn’t give a damn about human life. He gets off on the thrill of the kill.”
Wallenger continued. “From watching Blackout do his murders, he doesn’t have a preferred victim type.”
”The Fleets were an offering of some sort to Evan Burke,” I said. “From the autopsy notes on Johnston, he didn’t die fast. His killer used two weapons to put him down. The woman in Pasadena and the man outside Vegas were victims of opportunity.”
Joe added, “Blackout’s been careful. Again that goes to a possible military background. There was little traffic, pedestrian or auto, when he’s taken his victims. He wears gloves and leaves no forensic evidence behind.
“Taking life with his hands, with or without a weapon, is what turns him on. Getting Burke’s attention seems to drive him. Does he want Burke’s approval or is this a competition in Blackout’s mind? Is he trying to demonstrate that he’s worthy or better? That he’s the man.”
Wallenger and Joe made sense, but we had little to go on. Chi and Michaels found nothing in the alley where Blackout may have been spotted. The SFPD radio room was trying and failing to trace Blackout’s calls, leaving his real name and location still unknown. And we had no leads to Cindy.
There was a knock on the door. Brady opened it for Brenda. I was expecting lunch but Brenda handed me a note that read, “Blackout just called. He’s sent you another video.”
CHAPTER 79
I CLICKED ON the latest email from Blackout, subject header “Blackout Calling.” There was no note. With Joe beside me and the team looking over my shoulders, I downloaded the video.
I was in Blackout’s head, looking through his eyes. The ambient light was dim. It was early. Before dawn. It took a moment for me to realize that Blackout was inside a car, looking into a rearview mirror. The reflection in the glass was of Victorian row houses behind and across the street from his car.
Blackout’s gloved hand came into the frame and he adjusted the mirror so that it was centered on several flights of wooden stairs. A figure was descending them, a woman with long, dark hair. Joe reached out a finger and pointed, saying, “There’s the baby.”
Got it. This was Catherine and Josie Fleet. And they were coming down a path I knew. “Macondray Lane,” I said of the picturesque tree-lined path down the steep hill from Leavenworth that joined with the stairs and ended on Taylor Street.
Now, Blackout was on the move. The driver’s door opened and we watched from his point of view as he crossed Taylor on course to intersect paths with Catherine Fleet.
Blackout’s view of Catherine on the staircase bobbed as he strode across toward her, reaching the steps and starting up. And then he fell. I saw Catherine’s boots on the wooden treads. He looked up past her trousers and the baby in a carrier on her chest. He focused on Catherine Fleet’s face. I saw concern there and heard it in her voice.
“Oh, my gosh, are you all right?”
Again the images swooped and jostled. Blackout was struggling to his feet.
“I’m good,” said Blackout. “Embarrassed is all. I try to impress with finesse.”
I thought, “Don’t fall for it,” even as I knew she had.
I didn’t fully see what happened next because of the camera’s choppy movement. And then I saw Blackout’s gloved fist fill the frame. I thought he was going to punch Catherine until I saw the canister in his grip. He pressed the lever with his thumb, sending a fine spray into the woman’s eyes. She cried out and sat down hard, asking what he had done to her.
Blackout didn’t answer, and the camera view whipped from her face to the stairs above, to the street below and back to Catherine. He was checking for witnesses while she was trying to get the pepper spray out of her eyes. The baby screamed and the video kept rolling.
Blackout was behind Catherine now, his left biceps were a vise around her neck. He spoke softly, gently. Don’t fight me, Catherine. It’ll all be over soon. Shhh, shhh, I’ve got you.
He brought his right arm around and pulled on his left fist, tightening his grip around Catherine’s neck and pressing on it with his full weight as the baby wailed. All the life drained from Catherine.
Blackout picked her up, carried her in his arms with the crying baby still strapped to her chest. He crossed the street to his car. It was a gray Ford sedan but he didn’t look at the plates so I didn’t get a glimpse of a number or a letter or even if it was a California tag. His eyes were on the unlatched trunk.
He worked the trunk lid open with his foot and laid the dead woman into a nest of blankets. Little Josephina Fleet screamed. Blackout reached in to finish off the baby when a voice called out.
Blackout swung his gaze away from the woman and child and located the voice in the predawn light. Maybe fifteen feet away, just downhill from where Blackout stood at the rear of his car, was an elderly man in shorts and a tennis shirt, a phone in his hand.
“Pardon me. Do you need some help there?”
“Enter Jacob Johnston,” said Cappy.
The man’s expression changed from “Do you need help?” to understanding. He was witnessing a crime.
The video cut out.
My phone rang and I picked up.
Blackout’s distorted video voice came over my phone.
“Sergeant? How do you like it?”
“Why did you send it now?”
“I wanted you to see, that’s why. My best video so far, I think. My homage to Burke. But look. I’ve already told you to release Burke in exchange for Cindy. Don’t make me say, ‘Or else.’ Aw shit. Or else, Sergeant. How badly do you want her?”
“Badly. Very damned badly, you fuck.”
He laughed. Then, “I could send you an email with the location for the swap.”
I had just started to say, “It’s not up to me!” when there was a click and then, I was yelling into a dead phone.
CHAPTER 80
YUKI WAS IN court on Friday morning for Lewis Sullivan’s sentencing. He had been found guilty of all charges, but the sentence for each of those charges was left to the discretion of the judge. Judge Froman, not the jury, would decide what punishment would fit the crime.
Yuki had been the first to speak that morning.
She had summarized her case to Judge Froman, saying, “Despite Lewis Sullivan’s apparent clean arrest record until the horrific final battering of his wife, he had been terrorizing her for years. She called the police but was too frightened of him to press charges. He threatened her in this courtroom, Your Honor, because he didn’t get his way. He has terrified his children. He wreaked bloody mayhem on his wife, crippling and blinding her for life, and was found guilty of attempted murder. We ask the court to sentence him to the maximum for all charges, and further, we recommend that he not be eligible for parole. Ever.”
Mo Switzer smiled when Yuki sat down. Then, he’d made his case to the judge, the truncated version of the one he’d made to the jury. His principal points were that Lewis loved Barbara. That she had baited him until he snapped. Despite Barbara’s claims, there was no proof that he had beaten her before. And he has sworn never to do it again.
Switzer said, “Lew loves his wife and children and they love him. On behalf of my client, I am asking Your Honor to please show mercy to this flawed man. Give him the opportunity to get the therapy he needs, make peace with his family, and resume life as a free man in the near future.”
Judge Froman showed no expression, but she did drum her fingernails on the desk, an indication of impatience that no jury would see.
“Would Mr. Sullivan like to speak?” she asked Switzer.
“Lew?”
Sullivan stood and said, “Your Honor, I’m a broken man. I have admitted guilt. I have apologized, in writing, to my wife. I’m more remorseful than any words I can say. I understand that I must pay for what I’ve done, and I promise you, I will be a model prisoner. I can again be a productive member of society if given another chance.”
Froman said, “Thank you, Mr. Sullivan. Ms. Castellano, does Mrs. Sullivan wish to speak?”
“She does, Your Honor.”
Nick Gaines went down the aisle and navigated Barbara’s wheelchair through the gallery and into the well. He asked her if she was okay, and she said that she was. He stood with her as she spoke.
“Your honor, I am nervous about public speaking, but I must say for the record that my … That Lewis hit me many times before. I was always afraid to be with him. I was afraid to leave him because of what he might do to the boys. The incident he cited, that I had purposely flirted with a neighbor, is a lie, Your Honor. Tom knew that Lew was abusing me and was trying to protect me. No one was able to do that, myself least of all.
“Your Honor, I beg you to put him away for good. He shouldn’t ever be free to hurt anyone else. I would like a favor. May I go with you to your chambers? I want to show you my injuries.”
Switzer stood. “Your Honor, this should have been done during the trial, if at all.”
“Sit down, Mr. Switzer.”
The judge came out from behind the bench and wheeled Barbara through the door to her office. The door closed. Time went by. Yuki wondered how long it would take for Barbara to disrobe. She exchanged texts with Nicky, sitting next to her, and with Len Parisi, who was out in the hallway. After fifteen minutes, Judge Froman reappeared with Barbara, who’d obviously been crying.
Gaines went to Barbara and returned her to her place in the aisle. Judge Froman, back at the bench, banged her gavel and the room became still.
The judge adjusted her glasses and read the sentences in order. One year for each count of child endangerment. Four years for aggravated assault. Life in prison for attempted murder but the judge did not say “without possibility of parole.”
Yuki looked into Nick’s eyes. It was clear now that while Yuki had proved Lew Sullivan’s intent to kill his wife, by leaving his sentence open to parole at some distant year, the judge showed that she believed in redemption.
Lew Sullivan’s face was expressionless. He was looking at lifetime incarceration in a maximum-security prison. Maybe less, if he was very, very good.
If he ever came up for parole, Yuki would be there. And she would be there with Barbara.
CHAPTER 81
YUKI WAS AT her desk, a mug of oolong tea to the right of her open laptop. It was Saturday, but her work inbox was a font of chaos: hundreds of memos, transcripts, and all manner of email that had backed up during the Sullivan trial.
She was five minutes into turning the tide when her cell phone rang. She grabbed it without looking at the screen, sure that it was Brady, hoping he would say that he had Cindy.
