Every Move She Makes, page 1
EVERY MOVE SHE MAKES
By: Robin Burcell
Synopsis:
Gruesome slasher murders are spreading terror in San Francisco. The pressure is on the police force to track down the killer before another young woman is found, throat cut, body abandoned. Homicide Inspector Kate Gillespie is picked to lead the search with her partner, old-timer Sam Scolari. This is the case that could make Kate's career. But the next victim stops her in her tracks -- and all evidence points to her partner. He goes underground, leaving Kate alone to prove his innocence, or his guilt. Kate has to find the killer before the cops find Sam. Complicating matters is Mike "Torrid" Torrance, the sexiest internal affairs officer ever to carry a badge. He's watching Kate, an assignment that brings them far closer than they expected. Without a partner she can trust...with a killer and a cop watching her every
move...can Kate find the truth before it's too late?
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of Rick Charles Cromwell 1963-1998
Killed in the line of duty, December 9
Fellow officer, and friend, we will never forget you
EVERY MOVE SHE MAKES
Ask any homicide inspector and he-or she-will tell you the same. just before the end of shift on any given Friday, Murphy's Law prevails. If you have plans, you might as well cancel them, because someone's bound to find a body. Such is the life of a cop. Mine at San Francisco PD was no different. On this particular Friday in early November, I got the call precisely twenty minutes before I was due to leave on a weekend trip to Napa. My ex-husband, DA Investigator Reid Bettencourt, intended the trip as a means to bring us back together, though God only knew where he was getting the money he still owed me three thousand dollars for bills I was left with after our divorce. I, having no intention of getting back together with him, agreed to go dutch, of course-and was dressed for the occasion in a winter-white cashmere sweater, tan plaid wool skirt, and soft leather boots. I wore my shoulder-length brown hair pulled back in a clip, leaving a few trendy strands loose to frame my face and bring out the brown in my eyes. It was a gray, windy day, and I was enroute to Reid's North Beach flat when my pager went off, alerting me to the homicide out by Pier 24. I telephoned Reid from the car.
"Why can't Scolari take it?" he asked.
"I'm sure he will. Once he gets there." Sam Scolari, my partner, knew I was on my way out of town and had promised to cover for me. So far he had yet to answer his page, which left me no choice. "I have to respond.
You know the routine." Reid should. It was one of the reasons we divorced. I was at the beck and call of fate, and he didn't like it.
"Drive on up. If I get off in time, I'll meet you for dinner," I said.
"If not, we'll make it breakfast. Hopefully they'll hold my room."
"How are we supposed to make this work if you're not there?"
"Short of making the body come back to life, I don't have much choice."
Come to think of it, I'd had the same problem with our marriage.
"Scolari's doing this on purpose."
"Gotta go," I said, having no wish to get into it with him about my partner. "I'll call you." I drove inland, past Pier 24, parking behind two patrol cars in front of a single-story brick warehouse that occupied one full block, making sure I kept my Irishitalian temper in check. It was not the weekend away with Reid I was sore about missing. It was the weekend away, period. I wanted to go anyplace where I didn't have to look at dead bodies. An officer stood sentinel at the door, and as I approached I did a double take. The officer, like me, had dark eyes and chestnut hair, reminding me of my older brother-until he spoke. It was not my brother's voice.
That I would never hear again.
I composed myself, and showed my gold inspector's star. "Kate Gillespie.
Homicide." "Body's inside," he said. "Medical Examiner's investigator hasn't gotten here yet." I pulled a small spiral notebook from my overcoat pocket. A gust of wind tore at the pages, made it difficult to write. I glanced at the officer's nameplate to copy it.
Robertson. Star 3632. "Who's the reporting party?"
"Officer O'Sullivan." "Sully?" Kyle O'Sullivan was a senior officer assigned to Mission Station. He liked the action, and I couldn't picture him working this area. Too quiet.
"What's he doing out here?"
"Working security next door." "Next door?" I looked up from my notebook, but didn't see another entrance. "Hilliard Pharmaceutical. Entrance is around the corner. The warehouse is split in half. Cinder block right down the middle. From what Sully says, it's just a storage facility. No pharmaceuticals." "Didn't know they had a facility out this far," I commented, jotting the information down. Hilliard Pharmaceutical was probably one of the single largest employers of off-duty San Francisco cops. My father had worked security there while he was an officer at the department, and I'd heard that's where my partner, Scolari, had earned his extra money, too, putting his wife through medical school.
"Where's Sully at?" I asked.
"Left as soon as Fisk and I got here and secured the crime scene. Said he was going to Tahoe for the weekend." "Must be nice." Had I wanted to get off on time ever again, I would have remained a patrol officer. Even then you rolled the dice. "And the morgue gave a ten-minute ETA for their investigators. That was five minutes ago. Oh, and I got a statement from Sully before he took off. Said he was driving around the premises in a Hilliard Pharmaceutical security truck. Saw some kids climbing in that window over there." Robertson indicated a broken window at the east end, and a Dumpster below it. "They told him they broke in on a dare. Heard the place was haunted."
"Where're they at now?"
"Got'em separated. One in my radio car, the other in Fisk's. He's inside with the body." I looked over at the black and whites parked nearby.
Sure enough, the kids, maybe about ten years old, peered out the window of each car, their frightened gazes watching my every move. Probably scared about being blamed for the murder. "Let's get them transported to the Hall, put a couple volunteers with them, hot chocolate, the works."
"The Hall" was what we called the Hall of justice, a one-stopshopping of county facilities housed in a seven-story building that included not only the police department and most of its investigative units, but the courts, the jail, the District Attorney's office, and nearly every other county agency you could think of. I pushed open the warehouse door, stepped into the musty darkness, still harboring the hope that this would turn out to be a simple homicide, something that wouldn't take more than a couple hours of my time, max. I'd be on the road to Napa by seven tonight at the latest. Plenty of time for dinner and a bottle of wine, preferably something heavy, red. Cabernet sauvignon, reserve.
Above me, timbers creaked from the force of the wind. What little light there was came from the same broken windows the kids had apparently climbed through, that and the beam of the other officer's flashlight.
Fisk, I presumed, eyeing his uniformed figure standing in the northwest corner next to several stacks of wooden pallets in the otherwise empty building. My footsteps echoed across the concrete flooring, and as I neared, I could make out something large and white between the stacked slats of wood. Not until my sight had adjusted to the dim light could I see what the pallets hid, a chest freezer-and any thoughts of dining in a four-star Napa restaurant were replaced by visions of fast food eaten at my desk. In my experience, simple homicides rarely involved corpses hidden in freezers.
"Body in there?" I asked.
He eyed my gold inspector's star, nodded, and lifted the freezer lid. A fog of cold air swirled up from the interior. It dissipated, and I looked in to see a man curled in a fetal position. I drew latex gloves out of my pocket, put them on, reached in to lift his arm. It didn't budge. He was either in full rigor, frozen solid, or both. His clothes were covered with ice crystals. Apparently the freezer wasn't frost-free. Pulling my mini Streamlight from my coat pocket, I turned it on and took a look around, noticing the cobwebs behind the appliance, the buildup of dust on the enameled surface. I aimed the beam onto the corpse's face, the ice particles lighting up like diamonds. His hair, whatever color beneath the ice, was short, neatly cut, straight, and parted to the side. Scolari showed about ten minutes later. I glanced up from my note taking when I heard him enter. At six-three, he towered over me by a good eight inches. As usual, his tan sport coat and navy pants were rumpled, but still he was an imposing figure, even with his slight paunch and graying hair.
We'd been partners for about a year, working together daily, yet never becoming close. At thirty-six, I was the first female homicide inspector SFPD ever had, and although Scolari never came out and said it, I suspected that he resented not only the notoriety I'd received from the position, but also being partnered with me. Even so, I respected him. He was an outstanding homicide inspector-maybe even one of the best. And he'd saved my life once in a shooting incident. These past few weeks, though, things had been even more tense between us, and I had yet to discover why. "Gillespie," he said by way of greeting, his voice sounding hollow in the cavernous space. "A little overdressed for the occasion?" Normally I let his comments bounce right off, but I was more than irritated. Had he answered his page in a timely manner, I wouldn't be here right now. "You getting your calls by carrier pigeon?"
"Yeah. It got lost on the way." He gave a pointed look to the uniformed officer, and I let drop the subject about him being late. Judging by the expression on Scolari's face, he was in a worse mood than I. "What'dya got?" he asked.
"The lonely repairman." I stood aside to let him view the body.
He put on a latex glove and peered in. "Yeah, he's lookin' pretty lonely right now. Sort of like the ice sculpture for the policeman's ball,"
Scolari said. He allowed Officer Fisk to have a look, then lowered the freezer lid. Careful not to disturb any possible prints, Scolari inspected the handle and the exterior of the appliance.
"Been looking for one of these things. What'dya figure it holds?"
"You mean how many frozen dinners?" I asked.
"Pot pies are real cheap right now. Think it'll fit in my apartment?"
"Sure. You can stick it in your living room. Use it for a TV stand." "No lock." He eyed the pallets. I knew how his mind worked, that he'd come to the same conclusion I had. With no way to secure the freezer lid, the guy had to be dead or unconscious going in, unless someone weighted the top to keep him from escaping. The pallets, however, were full of cobwebs, the dust undisturbed. They didn't appear to have been moved in a while. "How long you figure he's been in there?" Scolari asked.
"Twelve hours, fifteen minutes and ..." I glanced at my watch, "thirty-nine seconds." Fisk's gaze widened slightly, as though he might be taking me seriously. "Amazing what they teach you in homicide school," I said, since Scolari's question was purely rhetorical. Neither of us would know until the autopsy was performed, and even then it would be a guess. The most the pathologist would be able to determine was an approximate time of death before the body had been placed in the freezer, assuming he was dead when he was put in. His fetal position and his closed eyes suggested he may have been put in alive. Hypothermia, suffocation? Before I could speculate, the Coroner's investigators and then the crime scene investigators arrived. They did their bloodhound routine, videotaped the scene, snapped their photos, dusted the outside of the freezer for prints, and looked for further clues in the vacant warehouse. Scolari and I also made a search, but found nothing that stood out. Scolari left to do a premise history. All that remained was the transportation of the body, the arrangements having been made by the Coroner's investigators. Unsure what evidence might be disturbed should the ice crystals melt, they called for a crew to move the freezer, body and all, straight to the morgue. It wasn't until after the freezer was moved that I wondered what power source had been used to run the appliance. I strode over to the dust-free square where the freezer had once sat. The power cord had made a line in the dust that disappeared behind the pallets. I followed it, trying to find where the cord had been plugged in. Scolari returned right about that time. "The last tenants were evicted six months ago," he said. "It's been vacant ever since. You'll never guess who." "Okay, Scolari." I admit I was annoyed.
I wanted to be on the road to Napa, not here at a homicide playing twenty questions with my partner, despite that it was only Reid waiting for me. "Tell me." "Your dear friend. Nick Paolini." I hoped like hell Scolari was joking, but even in the worst of moods, I didn't think he'd do that to me. Nicholas Paolini was an affluent businessman who specialized in soliciting donations for a worthy cause namely, Nicholas Paolini. Over a year ago, when I was assigned to the Narcotics detail, I'd arrested Paolini on drug charges. Had that been the end of it, hearing his name wouldn't have bothered me, but I'd received numerous death threats since then, all attempts to keep me from testifying at his trial.
"You okay?" Scolari asked, watching me carefully.
"Yeah, fine." I was determined not to let him see how much the very mention of Paolini's name bothered me. Shining the light at the corner where the two walls met the floor, I saw the receptacle end of a black extension cord dangling about an inch off the floor. I ran the beam of light up the cloth-covered cord, revealing its frayed and tattered length; the thing must have been as old as the building. It disappeared into the ceiling, presumably over to the other side of the common wall of the warehouse next door. "Wonder if Hilliard Pharmaceutical knows their electricity's being sucked to store a frozen corpse," I said.
Scolari didn't answer. He shuffled out, and I wondered what was up with him. It wasn't like him to let me get in the last word. I followed, squinting in the afternoon glare. Thinking of Paolini, I shivered, feeling as cold as the body we'd found. Scolari called the main Hilliard Pharmaceutical facility to get someone to let us in next door. While we waited, I leaned against the side of the building, watching Scolari pace. At one point he paused beneath the Hilliard Pharmaceutical sign above the entrance. "Who would have guessed?"
"Guessed what?"
"That Hilliard's nickel and dime stock would take off like it did." His gaze narrowed as he stared up at the sign. A vein in his temple pulsed.
"WISH I'd bought some." You and me both. I kept my thought to myself, however, since at the moment, Scolari seemed to be suffering from a major case of sour grapes. Hilliard Pharmaceutical researchers had taken the pharmaceutical world by storm. What started with an expedition in the jungle to find ingredients for Hilliard's wife's environmental project, Lost Forest Shampoo, ended with the discovery of a rare plant that had the potential to cure a number of cancers. Suddenly they were converged upon by Fortune 500 conglomerates eager to assimilate the moderate-sized company. I imagine those who had missed the boat with Apple computers, Microsoft, and California Cooler felt the same way.
"Why were you late?" I asked, figuring from his mood that he didn't want to talk about Hilliard.
"Signing loan papers."
"For what?" "New car for the wife." Then again, maybe the subject change wasn't so good an idea. "The wife," as Scolari so eloquently put it, was Doctor Patricia Mead-Scolari, a pathologist at the morgue. She'd recently booted Scolari from the house after allegedly walking in on him with his pants down around his ankles and a records clerk beneath him.
"I don't think a car's gonna do it," I said. He stopped his pacing long enough to give me a sarcastically paternal look he felt was his right to bestow. "I'm supposed to take advice from you? A woman whose marriage lasted all of what, five, six months? Hell, you've barely been divorced six months. Come back and talk to me after you been married twenty years." I didn't comment. I knew better. Scolari made it a point to voice his disapproval of Reid as well as my failed marriage, though what made him an authority, I didn't know. Reid and my brother Sean had been college friends, up until the time Sean died of a drug overdose twelve years ago. Their friendship played a small part in why I married Reid, mostly because Sean had always been the biggest influence in my life. In fact, Sean's overdose was what made me want to follow in my father's footsteps and become a cop-to fight the ravages of drugs. "the arrival of a gray Nissan pickup put a halt to any further conversation about my marriage, which was just as well. A man exited the truck, and as he approached, his sport coat blew open in the wind, revealing a gold pen in the pocket of his white shirt. Something about his craggy face and pale blue eyes looked familiar, though it wasn't until he held out his hand that I placed him.
