“How’re you feeling, Randi?” I asked.
“Peachy,” she said.
I smiled at the sarcasm.
Selby said, “Please address your questions to me, and quickly please. I want to get my client out of here.”
Randi White had done two tours in Afghanistan. She’d been trained to withstand interrogation, to give up nothing but her name, rank, and serial number. And along with her military programming, she also had a guard dog of a lawyer to protect her from us.
I said to Selby, “Lynn. Randi knocked out her bedroom window and threw two rounds at our marked car. She knew we were police. That’s reckless endangerment to start with. She has admitted to providing cover so that her husband, Leonard Barkley, could escape. He’s a suspect in a double homicide. That makes Randi an accessory.”
“Come on, Lindsay. Accessory to helping her husband run away? He’s a psychological mess due to his time in our armed services. She fired blanks. Over your heads. On purpose. You know that. Furthermore, Randi White Barkley is the only person who was injured in this assault on her home and on her person. That’s a lawsuit against the city waiting for me to dictate it to my transcriber.”
“Take it down a notch, will you, Lynn? I haven’t asked her a question yet.”
“Go ahead, Sergeant.”
As we’d planned, I said, “Rich, why don’t you take it from here?”
CHAPTER 45
MY EASYGOING, GOOD-DOIN’ partner got comfortable in the metal chair, linked his long fingers together, and placed his hands on the table.
He kindly addressed the woman in standard jail orange.
“Randi, you feeling okay to talk for a few minutes?”
“I guess.”
“This won’t take long. You were in the ER when you asked my partner if she’d ever read Competitive Shooting. You need a how-to book on shooting?”
“I can always get better. I was heading off to a range when you and your fellow gangsters pulled up. You go to a range, too, don’t you?”
Conklin smiled and changed the subject.
“There was a video game on your open computer when we ruined your day. Something called Moving Targets.”
Randi scoffed. “You ruined more than one, I’d say. Anyway. Moving Targets. Len and I both play.”
“So, what’s the appeal of target shooting? I looked you up. You’re proficient with just about any kind of weapon.”
“Target shooting is fun and it keeps me sharp—”
Selby interjected, “That’s enough, Randi. Are we done, Inspector?”
Randi overrode her lawyer. She said to us, “You know—or maybe you don’t. Some people like to shoot and some people like to kill. I like to shoot—at targets.”
I said, “Can you explain what you mean about people who like to kill? Are you talking about psychopaths?”
“Maybe. I’ve seen some military people who get addicted to shooting humans. In particular, bad humans. Enemies. You get permission and a weapon, and for some people it’s the greatest high. That’s how they talk about it.”
Conklin said, “I’ve never seen that. I mean, sure, I’ve seen people without conscience, but tell me more about this thrill or high.”
I knew he was hoping Randi would implicate Leonard. Would we get that lucky? Selby put her hand on Randi’s to get her to stop, but her client wanted to talk.
“Here’s something I’ll never forget. Me and three others from my platoon were in a parking lot outside the base camp, same parking lot we’re in every day. Do you know the term Blue on Green?”
I shook my head no.
Randi said, “Green is the friendly host-country forces, the ones that we were mentoring in Afghanistan. We’re the Blue. So we’re getting into our jeep, like we do every day, and a shot is fired, and Major Buck Stanley is hit in the face and goes down.
“And there’s a truckload of Greens fifty yards away coming back from the range. I run to Stanley. I’m guessing one of the Greens became radicalized or was turned by the insurgents, and he looked for an opportunity to shoot an American. He might have palmed some rounds at the range ….
“And in that same moment one of our officers comes out into the lot and starts shooting the Greens we were training. We knew them. Worked with them every day. Oh, my God, the screams, the blood spraying, men climbing out of the truck, running. Our guy was firing and firing and walking over to the fallen and shooting each one in the head.
“We should have had an investigation. Done the right thing.”
Randi shook her head, then looked at me and Conklin.
She said, “I looked at this officer’s face. He felt good. Maybe great. Was he a psycho? Maybe. Or he’d become addicted to killing. I still don’t know. And no, it wasn’t Len. The officer who killed, I don’t know, twenty-five Greens was a US Navy lieutenant name of Tom DeLuca. Don’t bother looking for him. He didn’t come back.”
No one spoke for a long moment, taking in Randi’s words and the shock on her face.
And then Conklin said, “We’re looking for a killer, Randi. An expert sniper or sharpshooter, maybe military, maybe not. I’m thinking I might get a bead on the killer, even identify the shooter, if I join Moving Targets.”
“I can’t help you with that,” said Randi. “I’m ready to go now. Okay?”
“Sure,” Conklin said. “I’ll get your dog home to you by the end of the day. What’s his name?”
“Barkley.”
“His name is Barkley Barkley?”
Randi said, “Yeah, and he barks. But stop. It only hurts when I laugh.”
Conklin grinned. “Sure, Randi. I’ll see you later.”
CHAPTER 46
I FOUND CLAIRE in the autopsy suite, still wearing her scrubs.
“Claire?”
She looked up, surprised to see me, and said, “Oh, my God.”
She pulled a sheet over the dead man, patted his hand, then called out to her assistant, “Bunny, can you put Mr. Ryan away? Thanks.”
Those closest to Claire had made a care plan, each of us with an assigned role. Edmund would be meeting us at the hospital. Cindy and Yuki would be going to see Claire at the end of the day. I would be driving her to Johnson Hughes Cancer Treatment Center and staying with her until she was tucked into her bed at one of the best facilities in the country.
She said, “I’m sorry, Lindsay. I forgot you were coming. Paging Dr. Freud.”
“We still have time. How are you feeling?”
“Never better.”
“Right,” I said, playing along. “So get dressed.”
Twenty minutes passed like a snail race, and finally Claire was sitting beside me, buckled into the passenger seat of my car. When I’d parked this morning, I’d found an empty spot on Harriet Street, convenient to the ME’s office and the Hall.
I switched on the ignition and noticed Claire had kicked off her shoes and folded up her legs, and was hugging her knees to her chest.
“I need to talk,” she said.
I turned off the engine and faced her.
“Here I am, Butterfly.”
“You never heard me say this before, but I’m scared. Really, truly freaked out of my mind.”
“Who wouldn’t be? You’ve got surgery in the morning. Talk to me.”
Claire threw a long sigh and leaned back against the headrest. “I spent some time online looking up imminent death.”
“Number one,” I said. “Don’t think that way.”
“You know, I see more dead people in a day than most people see in their entire lives. Not even close. You’d think I’d be fairly blasé by now. I’m thinking I know too much.”
“You’re not looking at imminent death, Claire. Come on. You’re going to a great surgeon. World class. He’s going to take that tumor out with a piece of lung about this big—”
“Two tumors this big.”
“Two? You said … you said one.”
Claire said, “What happened is, over the years the picture
s showed a spot. A little spot. Left lung, right here. Couple weeks ago, had the biopsy. Then yesterday they asked me to come in for a PET scan. And whaddaya know? They saw another little spot. If it’s spread … if it’s spread, I could be looking at a year, more or less.”
I felt hollow and cold. Claire was telling me this for the first time, and she was mad and scared. As for me, I wasn’t ready to accept it. I said, “I don’t believe that—”
“No, no, let me talk. I’m a doctor and you’re not.”
“I don’t have to take your word for it.”
“So when people hear that they have a death sentence, they either tell themselves, ‘I have only this much time, so I’m going to make the most of it.’ They take a trip around the world or learn to ski black-diamond runs.”
“Or they accept that sell-by date and just give up,” Lindsay continued. “Like, ‘Why am I doing anything? It’s over.’”
Claire, who’d been staring out the windshield at nothing, not looking at my stricken face, turned to me.
“See, neither of those two options apply to me, Lindsay. I can’t quit my job and run off to see the world. I have a husband who is twelve years older than me, and this is killing him. He’s literally getting angina. I have a little girl at home. She needs her mother.”
I pressed my lips together. I wanted to yell, You’re talking crazy. You’re looking at a worst case that may not exist. But I had to let her talk.
“So this is why I’m freaking out. They’re going to cut me open, and I know where and how. They’re going to take out something I should have worried about instead of kissing off, and something else, to be determined. Lindsay, you know I’m conscientious. Right?”
“Absolutely. Totally.”
“But doctors are notorious for feeling invincible. I mean me. Death is a colleague.”
I was shaking my head, No, no, no, and wondering why I hadn’t been more vigilant. Why hadn’t I kicked her ass? Because I didn’t know shit about non-small-cell lung cancer.
Claire was saying, “And then Dr. Terk is going to stamp my forehead with my expiration date, and I’m going to see it in the mirror every morning. And I swear, I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
Tears were running from her eyes, spilling onto her shirt.
“Claire. Claire, listen to me. You’re afraid. I get that. But you don’t know what the doctors are going to find until they analyze what they take out.”
She nodded. But I wasn’t getting anywhere.
“And after the surgery,” I said, “you recuperate. You do what your doctor tells you, and if he says radiation or chemo, you do that. And if he says it’s okay to work, you decide if you’re going to do that. You take care of your family and let them take care of you, and you take some time for yourself. But along with all of that, you fight like hell, Claire. You use all of your contacts and build a team. Check into the latest treatments and alternative treatments. You’ve got to put on your brass knuckles and load your gun and fight like hell. And that’s how you win.”
My best friend reached out to touch me, but I had to pull away and cry into my shirtsleeve. I grabbed tissues out of the glove box, and when I could speak again, I said, “Hear me?”
“I haven’t had a cigarette in twenty years. How could my body betray me like this? How could I ignore the symptoms? I’m not ready for this, Lindsay. I’m not ready to die.”
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded. Tears were running down both our faces.
Claire coughed long and hard and painfully.
Then she said, “Yeah. I hear you. Fight like hell.”
“I’m glad we got that straight.”
I hugged her over the console and the gear shift. We rocked within the confines of that front seat, and I told her that I loved her, and she said, “I love you, too.”
I started up the Explorer and heard Claire say, “Lindsay? Look at me.”
Posing like a boxer, she showed me her fists. “I hear you.”
CHAPTER 47
I DROVE BACK to the Hall on autopilot, using a soft touch on the gas, watching the lights and signs, but my mind was on Claire.
When I’d left her private room, she’d been covered in a light cotton blanket, wearing headphones, listening to the San Francisco Symphony, featuring Edmund Washburn on percussion. From the serene look on her face, it appeared that she was in a high-quality, low-stress zone. I suspected there might be some sedative in her IV bag.
I said to her long-devoted husband, “Edmund, you’ll call me when Claire is out of surgery?”
“You’re number one, Lindsay. First call goes to you.”
I leaned down, kissed Claire’s cheek, said, “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Tell the girls,” she whispered, but didn’t open her eyes.
Edmund got to his feet and hugged me tightly. There was nothing to say that hadn’t already been said, all of it cheerleading with stark fear lying just beneath our words. I kissed Edmund’s cheek, too, and after he released me, he squeezed my hand, hard.
I told him that I’d speak with him soon and fled before emotion took me over.
The stop light at Seventh Street was red. When it turned, I parked at the next empty spot on Bryant and fast-walked to the Hall, where I badged security and took the elevator to four. Instead of turning left to the Homicide squad room, I turned right and headed back to the corner-office war room.
I hit the light switch, got my computer bag out of the desk drawer, and was stuffing the charger into the outside pocket when there was a knock.
“Boxer. Got a sec?”
It was Brady.
I said, “Sure. What’s happening?”
“Do you remember Bud Moskowitz?”
“He was with SWAT. He retired. Wait, Brady. You don’t think Moskowitz had anything to do with the shootings?”
“No.” He laughed. “Bud saw that news clip this morning with the crime scene photos. He has an idea.”
“Great. Give me his phone number.”
“He’s in my office. I’ll send him back.”
CHAPTER 48
I WAS STRAIGHTENING up the desk, organizing my notes, when Moskowitz said, “Hey. Boxer.”
“Hey, Bud. Come in, come in.”
I stretched out my hand. We shook and I offered him a chair. Bud was more than twenty years older than me. I hadn’t known him well, but I had a good feeling about him.
“So, you have a tip for us, Bud? Because we could use one.” Moskowitz looked fit, as well as focused and competent.
“You mind if I take a look at those photos?”
“Go ahead.”
He walked over to the wall and looked at the crime scene photos taken of the victims from different angles. He spent time with each one, slowly, methodically examining them, taking a couple off the wall to hold under the light, asking me about the victims and the caliber of the rounds.
I told him what little I knew, that the shells were of different types, that the casings hadn’t been found, that Forensics hadn’t gotten any hits in the database because of the bullets’ impact with bone or plaster or brick.
I asked Moskowitz, “What do you see?”
“All the shots were taken from a good distance. Very professional work.”
“We all agree.”
“Boxer, I don’t know if this is worth anything, but when I read in the paper about all these shootings taking place at the same time, it reminded me of this website I used to belong to.”
“Moving Targets, by chance?”
“Well,” he said, slapping the desk, “you stole my tip. I’ll be going now.”
I laughed and told him to stay. “No, really. Our computer tech also came up with Moving Targets, but we’re still in the weeds. Tell me what you know.”
“My wife is waiting for me downstairs, so let me give you the short version. I used to belong to the site. I played the game as a game. For target practice. But at some point I started to think that some of the guys on the
board were highly trained experts, very competitive, and that they were crazy. They talked in the chats about killing like it’s the greatest high in the world.
“But I didn’t know. Were they talking shit? Or were they for real? The site held virtual events. Competitions. And there were team events; points were awarded for the best shots and for teams shooting multiple targets. The more difficult, the higher the points and the bragging rights. It looked like it was pretend, cartoon murder. But after a while I wasn’t entirely sure.
“So then the newspaper stories and something I saw on the internet. A picture of two bullet holes through a second-story window, two shots that took out two people—it set off alarm bells.”
“This is really getting to me, Bud. I’m thinking along the same lines. I’d like to get into this site. Can you give me a password or something? I can pretend to be you.”
“I opted out ten years ago and my codes have expired. Understand, Boxer, I never matched up guys boasting about kill shots with actual deaths. There were groups within the group. I didn’t belong to any subgroup. I wasn’t working under cover, and I wasn’t a serious player.”
My mind had been dull with pain just minutes before. Now it crackled like a downed electric wire.
“Let me make sure I understand. You’re saying that Moving Targets appeared like a sports forum. People who were known only by screen names, shooting off their mouths, playing virtual ball. But instead of making bets on lineups and game outcomes, they’re bragging about killing people? Why did you keep this to yourself?”
“Boxer. First of all, there were no names or pictures of real bodies, just chatter and cartoon drawings with x’s over the eyes. Bang. You’re dead. And a sound effect.
“Also, I told Tracchio about it.”
Tracchio had been police chief before Jacobi. Many years had passed, and Tracchio was long retired.
Moskowitz went on.
20th Victim: (Women’s Murder Club 20) (Women's Murder Club) Page 10
