23rd Midnight, page 3
part #23 of Women's Murder Club Series
Brady is, too. When he and Yuki got married, he became part of the family. Tall, with white-blond hair and pale blue eyes, he and Yuki make a striking pair. She’s a size two, daughter of a Japanese mother and Italian-American soldier father, wears slim, smart suits and a navy-blue colored streak in her hair.
After I caught my breath and Rich had stopped punching the air with one fist, I told him that I hadn’t heard everything Brady had told us.
“His voice was breaking up,” I said. “I only got the gist.”
“Man’s been found dead in his car …”
“That, I heard.”
“… a ten-minute drive from Book Passage.”
Sausalito is over the bridge from San Francisco, not our beat. Yet, we’d been drafted because of the victim’s proximity to the bookstore? That didn’t compute, but between the radio and our siren, no further conversation was possible. Still, I was looking for a reason. All I came up with was that Rich and I had worked the Burke case together when “Quicksilver” or the “Ghost of Catalina” as he’d been called, lived on Mount Tamalpais, about an hour from here. Marin PD had joined us when we were working on their turf. I guessed Brady was returning the favor by sending us.
Rich knew the way. He drove north parallel to Route 101. We took a sharp left at Tamal Vista Boulevard, a mixed-use area that ran past the Corte Madera lagoon waterfront. After a series of quick turns, we took Doherty to our destination. The classic American shopping center was approaching closing time.
Rich slowed to a crawl as we entered a transient scene; people leaving stores, going to their cars, cars leaving, potential witnesses evaporating never to be seen again.
I surveilled the area from the passenger seat, doing a rough count of the shops. About twenty one- and two-story stucco buildings; a bank, a bakery, three fast-food restaurants, a shoe-repair shop, and innumerable boutiques, all forming a ragged semicircle around a parking lot.
As was standard for large suburban parking lots, this one was divided by treed median strips and hundreds of parking spots, nearly all of them filled with cars. At the far end of the lot, flashing police-car lights grabbed my attention.
Six squads were blocking through traffic and forming a wall around the crime scene. As we moved toward the police, I saw that barrier tape had enclosed a third of the lot. Ten uniformed officers were directing traffic, protecting the scene.
I pinned my badge to my breast pocket and Rich and I got out of his car and headed in on foot.
“The Camry,” I said pointing to the vehicle three cars in from the main through-road, taped in within the larger perimeter. The Toyota sedan looked six or seven years old, an oxblood red with some rust around the wheel wells.
Checking my watch, I saw that it was seven thirty and shops were closing at eight. Lights went on in the lot. Scattered bells rang and CLOSED signs were hung inside glass doors as they were pulled shut. A CSU van rounded the turn into the shopping center on two wheels followed by another van, this one marked “Coroner” in big black letters.
Pedestrians had quickly gotten a sense of the situation. A crime, probably a murder, had occurred and many of those people whose cars were parked within the taped-off area wouldn’t be allowed to leave. I didn’t have to hear their voices to know what they were saying to one cop after another. “I need my car.” “I have to pick up my husband.” “I have all of these packages.” “My mother’s alone.” “You have to let me leave.”
That wouldn’t be happening.
A uniformed cop, about six three, 280, put up a hand to stop us from coming closer. We kept coming but I shouted out my name, rank, and flashed my badge. Conklin added that Marin County’s Captain Geoffrey Brevoort was expecting us. The uniform waved us in, holding up the tape so we could duck under it.
“Mancuso,” he said. “Tom.”
He introduced us to his partner, Chris Fama, and made a general announcement to the team. Then, Fama ran the scene for us.
“We got the call about fifteen, twenty minutes ago. The manager at the Dunkin’ was leaving early and his car was next to a Camry. He saw that the rear left door was ajar. The driver’s window was open. He looked in, saw what he saw, and phoned it in.”
Rich said, “He’s being questioned?”
“Yep, probably just got to the station.”
I pulled on latex gloves.
“Mind if we take a look?”
“Here. Take my light,” said Fama.
CHAPTER 7
RICH AND I stepped over to the red sedan and peered inside. Every murder left a mark on me and questions quickly formed, tumbling one after the other in my mind. What had happened here? Who had killed this man, how, and why?
I tried to puzzle it out using only what I could see by flashlight and the glare of the headlights under the darkened sky. I had no blood tests, no fingerprints, no witness statements. Not even the man’s name.
But there was evidence in the murder itself.
I made note of the position of the victim’s body. His feet had lifted off the floor near the pedals, but his upper body was twisted to the right. He was facedown on the front seat, his head toward the passenger side, right arm under him, the left hanging over the edge of the seat.
I snapped a few pictures, then, said to Rich, “I think he saw the shooter approach from the rear and tried to dive under the dash.”
A bad feeling overcame me as I continued to study the body. There was a wad of what looked like a black leather jacket in the passenger-side footwell.
“Rich. Is this that guy from the bookstore?”
“Huh. Could be. Same type of build, anyway.”
“On the floor. That could be his bomber jacket.”
The victim’s face was pressed against the upholstery, distorting his features. Rich focused the flashlight beam on the dead man’s face. His skin was covered with blood and flecks of brain matter, which were also evident on the dash and the passenger-side door.
There was so much blood that I couldn’t see where he’d been shot. A whack with a tire iron, for instance, could create the same amount of blood and tissue detritus.
“It’s going to be three to six hours before this is sorted out,” Rich said.
I agreed. The CSIs would have to document the primary crime scene. Take photos, lots of them, search for bullet holes and casings, anything the killer may have left behind. Until they were finished with their work, the body could not be moved.
Mancuso’s partner, Chris Fama, had returned with his notebook in hand. He said, “The tags say that this car belongs to a Ralph Hammer. If this is Hammer, he has no priors. He lives outside Mill Valley. I’m going to have to notify his family. ’Scuse me. I’m getting a call.”
Richie was training the flashlight beam into the rear compartment, which was some kind of dump filled with plastic shopping bags.
“Look here, Linds.”
The only empty space on the back seat was behind the driver seat. We couldn’t rummage until CSU processed this mess, but Rich was insistent.
“Right there,” he said. “See the Cheesecake Factory bag?”
I followed his beam until I saw a white paper bag reading “Cheesecake Factory.” Then, under it, I saw the corner of a book.
Cindy’s book.
My partner verbalized his theory.
“He antagonizes people. Someone follows him from the bookstore, here. Waits for him to come out of the Cheesecake Factory with his food and then, when the dude is inside his car, the shooter gets into the back seat and pops him. Uses a suppressor. Then, he disappears into the crowd.”
“Pretty good working theory,” I said.
We backed out of the Camry, saw clumps of disgruntled shoppers and storekeepers camped out on the sidewalk. A squad car zigzagged through the lot. It was a mobile plate reader, a squad with built-in cameras at knee-level, feeding plate numbers into the car’s computer. If an outstanding warrant was triggered, a beep-alarm would sound. At any rate, there would be a record of cars in the lot around the time of the murder.
Rich said, “The killer could be long gone. Or could still be here, you know?”
I had a belated but still valid idea.
“There had to be cameras in the bookstore, right?”
“I’m on it,” he said.
Rich punched a number into his phone and moments later had a brief conversation with Elaine. He signed off and said, “Mancuso can have someone pick up Elaine’s surveillance tapes. She’ll keep the lights on.”
“Good. Even with the victim’s extensive injuries, facial rec is our friend.”
We climbed up into the Bronco, a good spot to watch the moving scene. Going by the book, uniforms canvassed the onlookers, taking statements and photos of driver’s licenses. This was the last best chance to find a witness to the crime.
I dialed Brady, filled him in on what we knew, and told him, “Yes, yes, we’ll hang in.”
I called home. My husband, Joe Molinari, picked up the phone.
I said, “Rich and I got pulled into a case, Joe. We’re at a crime scene in Sausalito and I have no idea when I’ll be home.”
CHAPTER 8
I DRAGGED MYSELF through the doorway to our loftlike flat. Last time I looked, it was after midnight. I hung my weapon in the antique gun safe in the entranceway and locked it.
Joe turned off the TV, stood up and hugged me, rocked me, said, “Give me your phone.”
I asked, “How’s the Bug?”
“I might as well tell you. She tried on your sunglasses and lipstick. And shoes.”
“You took pictures?”
He showed me on his phone.
I had a half a laugh left in me and I gave it to Joe along with my phone. Then, I peeked in on Julie. She was sleeping with an arm thrown over Martha, my sweet old doggy. Neither of them moved or opened an eye, so I closed the door, crossed the living room and sat heavily in the long leather sofa Joe had bought before we were married. That sofa was both a luxury and a pleasure.
Joe said, “Hungry? We have half a chicken and green beans almandine.”
“Sounds delish, but, no thanks, Joe. Be right back.”
I took a fast, hot shower, and minutes later, I was in fresh PJs, and Joe was in bed waiting for me. I climbed in, snuggled up to him and he stroked my back and my hair. Normally, that would put me out for hours.
But I was utterly awake.
I curled around him and when he said, “Start talking,” I told him everything I knew.
“The vic’s name is Ralph Hammer. He was surviving on his wits. He did some freelance coding, bartending, and he got a speaking part in a cereal commercial last year. That was still bringing in royalties.”
I explained the working theory, how Hammer had come to the bookstore, accused Cindy of glorifying Burke’s homicidal career. Just telling Joe about this guy upset me. I said that I hadn’t liked the guy, or what he’d done, but he had a right to speak. And now he was dead.
I kept talking.
“I don’t know if his verbal attack on Cindy was related to his death or not. But at the time, he was vehement and a little scary, so Rich and I showed him the door. Store owner recognized him. Told Cindy he’d never made a purchase. It’s possible he lifted a copy of Cindy’s book on the way out because we found one in the back of his car.”
“Strange,” Joe said.
My husband has worked in all of America’s clandestine services and began his career in the Behavioral Science Unit of the FBI. So, if he said “strange,” I had to ask why.
Said Joe, “What I meant is that the fact of the book is strange enough to make me ask why was it inside the victim’s car? Did Hammer steal it as you suggest? Did he want to know more about Evan Burke? Or about Cindy? Or did he want recompense for being thrown out of the store? Or.”
I kicked off the blanket. “No riddles, please, Joe. It’s past my bedtime. Or, what?”
Joe laughed. One of my favorite things.
“Or. The killer put the book in the car. If so, it makes me ask was he at the bookstore? If so, was he following Hammer or was Hammer a convenient victim?”
“Or,” I said. “Other unprovable theories.”
“You got the surveillance tapes from the bookstore?”
“Of course,” I said, as if that had been my first thought.
“Run facial rec on everyone, including the women.”
“I’ll pass that along,” I said. “It’s not our case, really. We just backed up the local PD as a favor for Brady who owed one to Captain Brevoort.”
“So why are you still worrying about this?”
“Because, Joe. I saw the guy. I listened to the guy. He was rude to Cindy. And while we were eating oysters overlooking the bay, someone killed him. And they didn’t tickle him to death, either.”
“Tell me.”
“Stun gun to disable him, garrote to kill him. Then, after he was dead, gave him a couple of gunshots to the head. What’s the psychology behind that?”
“Jesus. Talk about overkill.”
We lay together in silence thinking about that hit. Joe’s breathing started to lengthen and deepen. But I kept thinking. The killing felt personal. Hammer’s wallet was intact. His car was filled with bags and whatever. He didn’t have a record.
I said, “It was a thrill kill, or payback …”
I felt the tears catching in my throat. I coughed them away and worked my way under Joe’s arm. He stroked my back and said, “You’re overtired, sweetie. Overworked.” Then, he fell asleep.
But I couldn’t go with him.
The last time I looked at my watch, it was three. I slept poorly and had a dream that Marin County PD was calling me.
I couldn’t find my phone.
CHAPTER 9
HERE’S WHAT I remember of Sunday. Julie’s flying leap from the floor to my stomach. Staring me in the face, saying, “Get. Up.”
“What if I don’t?”
“Well. Then you’re a lazy head.”
“Oh, no.”
Julie giggled. She looks so much like Joe with her dark curly hair and dark eyes that I just couldn’t be mad at her for more than a minute. “What time is it?” I asked her.
She handed me my watch. It was nine thirty.
“What day is it? Sunday. So, I don’t have to get up, right?”
Joe came in with Martha at his heels. She also jumped onto the bed.
“You feeling better, Blondie?”
“I feel … like … a wet sock. Who’s on the phone?”
“Here’s everyone who called. Rich. Brady. Cindy. Brady, again. Officer Chris Fama. Yuki called and put Brady on the line. Claire just called. She’s spoken to the Marin County ME.”
“It’s Sunday,” I said with more vehemence than I meant. “Sorry, Joe.”
“It’s okay. Cindy was crying. Call her when you’ve had your nap. Your phone will be charging next to the bed. Also, Brady wants a briefing.”
“I gave him one last night. I’m sure I did.”
“I told him to talk to Richie.”
“Oh, boy. Richie’s mad at him. What did Claire find out?”
“She confirms the bullets in Hammer’s head were for extra credit. He was already dead.”
“I’m going back to sleep. Don’t try to stop me.”
“Officer Fama called to say thanks and if anything breaks he’ll be in touch …”
“Okay.”
“One other thing. You want it later?”
“Did Marin PD get any tips about the victim?”
“No one mentioned it.”
“Martha’s had her walk?”
Joe just looked at me.
“See you later,” I said, the words slow walking out of my mouth. He leaned down, kissed the top of my head.
I said, “Rich called? What did he say?”
“He said to have you call him.”
My lights went out. When I woke up again, afternoon sun was streaming through the bedroom windows. I got up, grabbed my phone from the charger, looked around the apartment. No one was home. In the kitchen, I nuked oatmeal, made coffee, sugared it half to death. I called Cindy first.
She said, “You okay?”
“I think the job is catching up with me.”
“Rich, too,” she said. “Me, too.”
I let Cindy do all the talking while I made food disappear. She had news on the book front. Sales were going through the roof. Thank God something good had come of all this. I asked to speak with Rich.
“He’s out cold.”
“Okay. I’m calling Brady.”
Brady picked up on the first ring. Rich and I both loved him. A former Miami Vice top dog, Jackson Brady had rotated through homicide when he came to SFPD. He’d partnered first with me, then Conklin, and with our former lieutenant, Warren Jacobi.
Years later, Brady had taken the job of homicide lieutenant—commanding officer of our squad—and we were better for it. Brady knew when to be hands-on, when to oversee from his office and he and I had stood shoulder to shoulder during deadly shoot-outs, including one in recent memory.
“I called you about six hours ago,” he said.
“Brady. Give me the fricking day off, will you? I’m this close to a nervous breakdown.”
“I didn’t know. I’ll see you tomorrow morning.”
“Don’t you dare hang up. Did you talk to Marin PD?”
“Yep. ME found nothing on Hammer’s body that would lead to his killer. But she found something interesting.”
“No. Do. Not. Make me beg, Lieutenant.”
“Silicon Valley prototypes. Before you say ‘what,’ it’s what it sounds like. Plans for pricey tech items not yet released to market.”
“What do you make of that?” I asked.
“Besides that I want a look at the future? Likely, the documents are stolen. Hammer was a thief. CSU is still going through the bags of merch in his car.”
“So, he stole Cindy’s book. Case closed.”
“Whatever you and Rich did last night, I got a thank-you from Captain Breevoort at dawn.”
“Glad we could help,” I said.
“And thanks from me. Go back to sleep.”
