11th Hour

by James Patterson

  Had Harry Chandler had 613 lovers? Was that what the number meant? If so, how did the 104 figure in? Not his address, not his birth date, not his license-plate number.

  So Cindy had abandoned that line of inquiry and moved on. She had plugged the numbers into her search engine and found that if she put a colon between the 6 and the 13, Google kicked out an interesting passage from the Bible.

  Romans 6:13: “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death.”

  It was interesting and, in the context of the buried heads, very creepy. “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin …”

  Was the person who dug up the heads at the Ellsworth compound saying the dead had been guilty of sin? Adding the colon to the other number didn’t help — biblically speaking, 1:04 meant nothing.

  Moving on, there was 1:04; 6:13. Time of day, time of death, day of the year?

  Cindy reviewed the lists she’d cut and pasted from Wikipedia into her research file, the tens of dozens of names of people who had been born on January 4 and died on June 13, and absolutely none of them rang bells when it came to the skulls at the house of heads.

  Cindy grabbed her phone and texted Lindsay: Any IDs yet on skulls?

  Still waiting, Lindsay texted back.

  Thx.

  Crap. Cindy got up from her desk, walked down the hall, and found three people who would share a pizza with her. She ordered out, and while she waited, she ran the numbers again.

  Chapter 59

  IT WAS GROUNDHOG Day all over again.

  I came home at 11:00 p.m. with swollen feet and a growling stomach; was greeted at the door by my manic border collie and her tranquil nanny. I walked Karen out to the street, watched the taillights of her old Volvo disappear into the distance. Then I returned to an apartment that was devoid of Joe.

  I had spoken to Joe twice a day since he’d left town, but swapping conversational tidbits by phone was way short of being in my husband’s real live presence.

  I nuked a he-man-style TV dinner of Salisbury steak and green beans and brought it into the living room. I got into Joe’s big chair, put my feet up on a footstool, and rested my tray on my bambino’s rump.

  “You don’t mind, do you, darling?” I asked him or her.

  Not a problem, Mom.

  The national news was wrapping up as I tucked into my fancy steak burger, and then the local headlines came on. First up was the report on the 6:15 shooting at the Potrero Center.

  The on-site reporter described the latest drug-dealer execution in fairly accurate and gruesome detail, saying that this victim was the fifth dealer to be murdered in the past five days.

  The reporter said, “In an interview with KTVU earlier today, crime analyst Ben Markey said that these killings probably are not gang related but are an indictment of the SFPD. Quoting Mr. Markey, ‘The cops can’t put the bite on drug crime, so a vigilante has stepped in to do the job.’

  “Channel Two has learned this evening that the DEA has assembled a task force to investigate this rash of killings. Joseph Molinari, formerly a senior agent with the FBI and more recently deputy to the director of Homeland Security, has been hired to consult. Molinari is now based in San Francisco.

  “And so, Tracey, back to you.”

  I stared at the TV for quite a long moment, trying to absorb what I’d just heard, especially the part where my husband was on a DEA task force and I didn’t know a thing about it.

  I gathered up my tray and myself, got out of the chair, and found my phone. I called Joe, who answered three time zones away at two thirty in the morning.

  I scared him half to death.

  “What’s wrong, Lindsay?”

  “I’m fine. We’re fine,” I said. “I just heard about this task force from Channel Two News.”

  “You didn’t get my message?”

  “No. No.”

  “Well, I left one for you.”

  I glanced at the phone, saw the blinking message light; it must’ve come in while I was taking witness statements at the strip mall.

  “I’m sorry, Joe. I missed it.”

  “I’m coming back tomorrow night. I’m investigating Chaz Smith’s death for the DEA.”

  “But why?”

  “Because Chaz Smith wasn’t just a narc. He was a federal agent.”

  Book Three

  FRIENDS AND LOVERS

  Chapter 60

  IT WAS 7:00 P.M., forty degrees outside the gray Crown Vic where Conklin and I sat parked across the street from Restaurant LuLu, Warren Jacobi’s favorite eatery. LuLu’s was a homey place with a wood-fire oven, a sunken dining room, a five-star wine list, and a memorable menu of Provençal dishes.

  The last time we all ate at LuLu’s, Jacobi picked up the tab because Conklin and I had brought down a long-sought psycho killer — except I was sure we had nailed the wrong man.

  Now Conklin gave me a poke in the ribs and said, “What are you thinking?”

  “About that time Jacobi took us here.”

  “You were wearing a dress, as I remember. One of the few times in your life.”

  “That’s what you remember?”

  “I had the roasted mussels. Oh. And Jacobi told you to lighten up. Give yourself a break for an hour, something like that.”

  We both grinned at the memory, but tonight we weren’t celebrating. In fact, we were on a surveillance detail; we had followed Jacobi from his house on Ivy Street in Hayes Valley to LuLu’s, where my old friend was dining alone. He did that a lot. Even at the best of times, Jacobi’s life seemed almost unbearably lonely and sad, which made my neglecting our friendship all the more inexcusable.

  I said, “I might as well get this over with.”

  I took my phone out of my pocket, punched in Jacobi’s number. He picked up.

  “It’s Lindsay,” I said.

  “Hey. How are things going, Boxer?”

  “Not so great. I’m working a couple of cases that are driving me crazy.”

  “I’ve been following your exploits in my morning e-mail. Seen a couple of hot stories on the news too.”

  “Yeah. Well then, you know. I’ve got twisted, bloody murders on the one hand, mysterious decapitated heads on the other. I’d love to kick this stuff around with you.”

  “What are you doing now?” he asked me.

  “Just sitting around,” I said. It was true. More or less.

  “I’m at LuLu’s,” Jacobi said. “Just got here. You hungry?”

  I told Jacobi I could be there in about ten minutes. Then I hung up, said to Conklin, “I’d say I feel like a dog but most dogs are pretty straightforward.”

  “Lindsay, you want to exclude him as a suspect, right?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “So talk to him. If you don’t like what he tells you, if you get suspicious, we’ll figure out how to handle it.”

  “Okay, Richie.”

  “I’m going to stay out here until you leave the restaurant.”

  “Aw, jeez. That’s not necessary. But thanks.”

  “I’m waiting.”

  We sat together in the dark for eight minutes, then I got out of the car and went into LuLu’s.

  Chapter 61

  I OPENED THE front door to our apartment on Lake Street and heard La Traviata, saw a leather jacket hanging on the coatrack in the hall. Joe called out to me, and Martha did her amazingly fast twenty-yard dash from the living room to the foyer, concluding with a four-point leap against my body. And then there was Joe, big, adorable, his arms open.

  Tears jumped into my eyes.

  I was so glad to see my husband that I was mad — you could say irrationally pissed off — that he had been away for so long when I wanted him at home.

  Joe put his arms around me. I gave him a peck and struggled to get out of his embrace, but he wouldn’t let me escape.

  “Hey, hey, it’s me, Linds. I’m here.”

  “Damn it
. My hormones are mad at you. And they’re mad at me too.”

  “I know, I know.”

  I gave in and hugged him so hard, Joe gasped dramatically, then laughed at me, said, “Air. I need air.”

  He put an arm around my shoulder and walked me to the couch, sat down beside me, untied my shoes. He pulled my feet into his lap and began giving me a foot massage from heaven.

  “Can I get you anything to eat?” he asked me.

  “I had dinner.”

  “How’s our kid?”

  “We’re both just fabulous.”

  “You were going to work less, sleep more.”

  “Joe. I’m lead investigator on two black-hole cases. What do you expect me to do?”

  “Talk to me.”

  “When did you get home?”

  “An hour ago. Talk to me, Linds.”

  “I’m so frustrated I cannot express it.”

  “Give it a shot.”

  My husband gave me a gorgeous smile, and finally I gave it up. I told Joe about the cop killer, everything that had happened since Chaz Smith, undercover federal agent, had been killed in the men’s room of the music academy.

  I told him about the three drug dealers and our working hypothesis that they had been pulled over by a cop-like man with wigwag lights and probably grille lights too who had almost certainly shot them and torched the car. That he’d used the gun that had killed Chaz Smith, which had been stolen from the property room at the Hall.

  Hardly taking a breath, I filled Joe in on the shooting of Raoul Fernandez in the mall last night. “Four shots to the face in a nice tight pattern, like the guy’s mug was a target and the shooter was standing five feet away.”

  I told my husband about Brady’s theory, that Jacobi was the killer.

  “Jacobi? Our Jacobi? Warren Jacobi?”

  “He says that Jacobi is still holding a grudge about those drugged-up kids shooting us on Larkin Street. That what he’s heard is that Jacobi has never been the same. Brady says, and I have to agree, that Jacobi could have gotten the weapons out of the property room without anyone noticing.

  “And then Brady says that while Jacobi was on leave getting his hip replaced, he had the time and opportunity to take out about eight dealers — that we know about. Oh yeah, and Jacobi had a meltdown last year when some kids OD’d because of some bad horse.”

  “He threw a chair, as I remember.”

  “Right. Big deal. I’ve thrown chairs.”

  “Have you thrown a chair at a person during an interrogation? Have you?”

  I sighed. “No.”

  “When was the last time you saw Jacobi?”

  “About a half an hour ago. I just had dinner with him.”

  Joe said, “If Brady is right — I said if — and Jacobi has gone off the rails, he could be dangerous if he thinks you’re onto him, Lindsay. Dangerous to you.”

  Chapter 62

  “HERE’S WHY I think you’re wrong,” I said. We were in bed now. I rested my cheek on Joe’s chest and kept talking. “Jacobi believes in the law, and going vigilante is not just unlawful but criminal. It carries the death penalty.

  “Jacobi just wouldn’t put himself into that kind of hole, not ever. By the way, he seemed fine to me,” I said. “Relaxed. Looked good. Lost some weight. He’s doing PT. He had a good appetite.”

  Joe got a couple of words in.

  “You asked him what he thought about this Revenge shooter?”

  “I did. He said that Revenge is smart and has access to real-time information about where his victims are. That he might have a police-band radio. Maybe he has informants.”

  “Good points,” said Joe.

  “Jacobi said he thinks the shooter is on a mission, maybe a suicide mission.”

  “That also makes sense. But it doesn’t rule Jacobi out.”

  “I took a chance, Joe. I said that there was talk that the shooter could be a cop. Jacobi said, ‘Could be a cop. Could be a hired gun. Could be a rival drug dealer who is taking out the competition.’”

  “So you didn’t get the feeling he was trying to steer you away? That he was hiding something?”

  “No. But if Jacobi wanted to keep something from me, I think he could do it. I stopped short of asking him to account for his time last night, Joe. I just couldn’t do that.”

  “Good. I’m glad. Keep your head down, blondie.”

  He kissed my forehead. I hugged him tighter. I was scared, frightened about Jacobi, the shooter, and when there’d be another killing. But I felt safe in my husband’s arms. There was nowhere I’d rather be.

  “I talked to Jacobi about the house of heads.”

  “What did he think?”

  “That the typical victim in a situation like this one would be a young streetwalker. You remember that case in Albuquerque?”

  “Those young working girls who were buried in the desert?”

  “That’s the one. I think there were about eighteen of them, late teens to midtwenties, buried without clothes, so they were just skeletons when they were found.

  “There was no identification, no clues to their killer.

  There was a cop in the missing-persons division who had collected DNA, though, so some of those girls were identified.”

  “The killer wasn’t caught, as I remember.”

  “No. Not yet. So, we have identified one of our Jane Does, Marilyn Varick. She wasn’t a known prostitute.”

  “Maybe she was just never picked up for prostitution.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “The stock profile for someone who preys on prostitutes is white male, thirty-five to fifty, has been in trouble with the law.”

  Joe said, “Harry Chandler is about sixty, isn’t he?”

  “Sixty-three. So, if he did it, he wants to be near his victims. And if that’s the case, I don’t see him as the one who dug them up. Someone else is leaving the message.”

  “It’s a very frayed loose end,” said Joe.

  “Isn’t it though?”

  My mind went back to Jacobi. I saw him sitting across from me at LuLu’s, every bit my partner and friend of a dozen years.

  I said, “Jacobi isn’t the shooter, Joe. He couldn’t be. I know him so well.”

  “Do we ever really know anyone?” Joe said.

  Chapter 63

  I SWUNG MY legs out of bed at six the next morning, left Joe snoozing as I got my running clothes from the hook behind the closet door.

  Martha and I took a brisk and challenging run through the Presidio and when we got back, sunlight was splashing on the bedroom floor and Joe was still snoring, exactly as I’d left him.

  I closed the bedroom door, showered, put on a pot of Blue Bottle roast, and booted up my laptop.

  My mailbox was flooded with e-mail and spam. I mean flooded; I had mail in triple digits. It took me about fifteen minutes to clear my in-box and get to the day’s headlines. I clicked on the link to the Post and there was Jason Blayney’s front-page story about the Potrero Center shooting.

  I skimmed the story quickly to see if Blayney, that rat, had come up with an angle I should be pursuing or denying, and son of a gun, his story linked to a piece about Joe Molinari.

  When I clicked on the link, I expected to see a follow-up on the DEA task-force story, so I was nearly blown off my seat by the filthy piece of trash Blayney had run under the heading “Fed Takes the Night Off.”

  Blayney was a snake and a liar, but there was no denying that the photo was real. And it was a killer.

  It was a picture of Joe, my Joe, escorting a willowy brunette down a long flight of stone stairs. She was in a long, clingy black gown, her neck sparkling with diamonds, her arm threaded through the crook of Joe’s arm.

  The photo seemed to have caught Joe saying something very charming to this woman. Her face was turned up toward his and a very private smile lit her features.

  Joe looked just as adorable as could be.

  The story read:

  Joseph Molinari, former deputy to the
director of Homeland Security, was seen with June Freundorfer Thursday evening at a benefit for cystic fibrosis at the Phillips Collection in Dupont Circle. FBI honcho June Freundorfer has long been a bright and glittering fixture at inner-circle Washington, DC, events, and last night’s fête was no exception.

  I skipped down the page, found the sentence that brought it all back home.

  Mr. Molinari is the husband of Sergeant Lindsay Boxer of the SFPD …

  That was all I could take.

  I slammed down the lid on my laptop, but the afterimage of the photograph remained sharp and clear in my mind. I knew that June Freundorfer had been Joe’s partner for a couple of years and thought that maybe Joe’s relationship with her had been at the center of his divorce.

  I understood that Joe had once been tight with June; I just hadn’t known he was tight with her still.

  Were they involved?

  Did Joe see her when he was in Washington every month or so? Were my hormonal surges making me paranoid? I knew what I was supposed to do about the mood swings: take naps, go for walks, spend time with my spouse, not be so hard on myself.

  But was I thinking clearly? Jason Blayney’s mention that Joe was my husband was a direct and very personal message.

  I went into the bathroom, threw up, took another shower, then went back to the kitchen. Joe had left his BlackBerry on the counter and it was buzzing.

  I could read the faceplate from where I stood: June Freundorfer.

  My hand hovered over the phone, my mind flashing like heat lightning; I had very little time to make this decision.

  The phone rang for the third time.

  Chapter 64

  IT WAS RECKLESS, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  I picked up Joe’s BlackBerry, clicked to answer, and put the phone to my ear. I heard the traffic sounds of a faraway city. It was painful to do it, nearly impossible, but I waited the caller out.