Women's Murder Club [02] 2nd Chance

by James Patterson

A few uniforms had formed a protective ring around Coombs, ordering everyone to stay clear.

  Coombs was still alive, labored sounds escaping from his heaving chest. An EMS team came running, two techs lugging equipment. One, a woman, began ripping at Coombs’s bloody shirt. The other was taking his pressure and setting up an IV.

  Our eyes met. Coombs’s gaze was waxy, but then his mouth twitched into an ugly smile. He tried to say something to me.

  The EMS woman was backing people off, shouting out his vitals.

  “I have to hear what he’s saying,” I told the tech. “Give me a minute here.”

  “He can’t talk,” she said. “Give him room to breathe, Lieutenant. He’s dying on us!”

  “I have to hear,” I said again, then I knelt down close. Coombs’s uniform shirt had been cut open, a mosaic of ugly wounds exposed.

  His mouth quivered. He was still trying to talk. What did he want to tell me?

  I leaned closer, the blood on Coombs smearing my blouse. I didn’t care. I put my ear close.

  “One last…,” he whispered. Every breath was a fight for him now. Was this how it ended? With Coombs taking his secrets straight to hell?

  One last…? One last target, one last victim? I stared into his eyes, saw the hatred still there.

  “One last what, Coombs?” I asked.

  Blood bubbled out of his mouth. He took in a hard breath, husbanding the last of his strength, straining against the power of his own death.

  “One last surprise.” He smiled.

  Chapter 101

  CHIMERA WAS DEAD. It was over, thank God.

  I had no idea what Coombs had meant, but I wanted to spit his words back in his face. One last surprise… Whatever it was, Chimera was gone. He couldn’t hurt us anymore.

  I hoped it didn’t mean he had left one last victim before he died.

  “C’mon, Lieutenant,” Jacobi muttered. He gently pulled me up.

  Suddenly, my legs buckled. I felt as if I had no control over the lower part of my body. I saw the look of alarm on Warren’s face. “You’re hit,” he uttered, wide-eyed.

  I looked down at my side. Jacobi peeled back my jacket, and a wet red gash appeared on my right abdomen. All of a sudden my head began to spin. A current of nausea rose.

  “We need help here,” Jacobi shouted to the EMS tech. He and Cappy eased me back to the ground.

  I found myself staring over at Coombs, as the female tech who had peeled away the dead man’s shirt rushed over to me. God, this was so unreal. They took off my jacket, slapped a blood pressure monitor on my arm. It was as if it were happening to somebody else.

  My gaze stayed fixed on the killer, the goddamn Chimera. Something a little strange, something not tracking. What was it?

  I pulled myself out of Jacobi’s grip. “I have to see something….”

  He held me back. “You have to stay right here, Lindsay. There’s an ambulance on the way.”

  I pulled away from Jacobi. I got up and went over to the body. Coombs’s police uniform had been peeled back off of his chest and arms. Raw wounds spotted his chest. But something was missing; something was all wrong. What was it?

  “Oh, my God, Warren,” I whispered. “Look.”

  “Look at what?” Jacobi frowned. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Warren… there’s no tattoo.”

  My mind flashed back. Claire had discovered pigment from the killer’s tattoo under Estelle Chipman’s fingernails.

  I put my hands underneath Coombs’s shoulders and rolled him slightly. There was nothing on his back. No tattoos anywhere.

  My mind was whirling. This was unthinkable—but Coombs couldn’t be Chimera.

  Then I passed out.

  Chapter 102

  I OPENED MY EYES in a hospital room, feeling the constraining pull of the IV line stuck in my arm.

  Claire was standing over me.

  “You are a lucky girl,” she said. “I talked to the doctors. Bullet grazed your right abdomen but didn’t lodge. What you’ve basically got is one of the nastiest floor burns you’ll ever see.”

  “I heard floor burns go well with powder blue, don’t they?” I said softly, my lips parting in a weak smile.

  Claire nodded, tapping the taped bandage on her neck. “So I’m told. Anyway, congratulations…. You’ve earned yourself a cozy desk job for the next couple of weeks.”

  “I already have a desk job, Claire,” I said. I blinked a confused look around the hospital room, then I pulled myself up into a sitting position. My side ached as if it were on fire.

  “You did good, girl.” Claire squeezed my arm. “Coombs is dead, and now safely ensconced in hell. There’s a mob of people outside who want to talk with you. You’re gonna have to get used to the accolades.”

  I closed my eyes, thinking of the misplaced attention about to come my way. Then, through the haze, it hit me. What I had discovered before I blacked out.

  My fingers gripped Claire’s arm. “Frank Coombs didn’t have a tattoo.”

  She shook her head and blinked back. “So…?”

  It hurt to talk, so the words came out in a whisper. “The first murder, Claire. Estelle Chipman… She was killed by a man with a tattoo. You said it.”

  “I could’ve been wrong.”

  “You’re never wrong.” I flashed my eyes.

  She eased back on her stool, her brow creased. “I’m doing the autopsy on Frankie-boy Monday morning. There could be a highly pigmented section of skin, or a discoloration somewhere.”

  I managed a smile. “Autopsy…? My professional opinion is that he was shot.”

  “Thanks.” Claire grinned. “But someone’s got to take the bullets out of him and match them up. There’ll be an inquiry.”

  “Yeah.” I blew out a gust of air and dropped my head back on the pillow. The whole incident, seeing the cop coming up to me, realizing it was Coombs, the flash of his gun, all came back to me as broken fragments.

  Claire stood up, brushed her suit skirt. “You ought to get some rest. Doctor said they might release you tomorrow. I’ll check back in the A.M.” She leaned down and gave me a kiss. Then she made her way to the door.

  “Hey, Claire…”

  She turned back. I wanted to say how much I loved her, how grateful I was to have such a friend. But I just smiled and said, “Keep your eyes peeled for that tattoo.”

  Chapter 103

  I SPENT THE REMAINDER of the day trying to rest. Unfortunately, a steady stream of brass and press paraded through my room. It was credit by association, sound bite time. Everyone wanted to have their picture taken with the wounded hero cop.

  The mayor stopped by, accompanied by his press liaison and Chief Tracchio. They held an impromptu press conference at the hospital, praising me, citing the great work done by the city’s homicide detail, the same unit they had almost pulled off the case.

  After the commotion finally died down, Cindy and Jill dropped in. Jill brought a single rose in a glass vase and placed it on my bedside table. “You won’t be in here long enough to warrant more.” She grinned.

  Cindy handed me a wrapped videotape. I opened it. Zena, the Warrior Woman. She winked. “I hear she does her own stunts, too.”

  I pulled myself up and lifted my stiff arms around them in a hug. “Don’t squeeze back,” I warned with a smile.

  “They giving you any good pills?” Jill asked.

  “Yeah. Percocets. You should try this sometime. Definitely worth the risk.”

  For a moment, we all just sat there without talking.

  “You did it, Lindsay,” Cindy said. “You may be fucking crazy, but no one can say you’re not a helluva cop.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Don’t think this getting-shot thing lets you out of my exclusive. I’ll give you some time to recover. How’s six?”

  “Right.” I chuckled. “Bring me back a chicken enchilada from Susie’s.”

  “Doctor said we could only come in for a minute,” said Jill.
“We’ll call you later.” They both smiled and backed toward the door.

  “You know where to find me, ladies.”

  Around five, Jacobi and Cappy stuck their heads in.

  “We were wondering where you were,” Jacobi muttered, deadpan. “You didn’t show up for the afternoon meeting.”

  I grinned, climbed out of bed a little stiffly. “You guys are the heroes. All I did was dive out of the way to save my butt.”

  “Shit.” Cappy shrugged. “We just wanted to say that despite the fact the mayor’s recommending you for the Medal of Honor, we still love you.”

  I smiled, tugged at my green hospital gown, and slowly lowered myself into a chair. “You guys got a bead on what happened?”

  “Chimera came at you is what happened,” Jacobi said. “He shot, we took him out. End of story.”

  I tried to remember the sequence of events. “Who got off the shots?”

  “I got four,” Jacobi said. “Tom Perez, from Robbery, was next to me. He got off two.”

  I looked at Cappy.

  “Two,” he added. “But shots were coming from all around. IAB’s taking statements.”

  “Thanks.” I smiled gratefully. Then my expression changed. I looked hard at the two of them. “How do you figure this? The same guy who takes out Tasha Catchings and Davidson from a hundred yards like it’s a layup only grazes me from point-blank range?”

  Jacobi looked at me a little confused. “Is there something you’re trying to tell us, Lindsay?”

  I sighed. “All along, we were looking for a guy with a tattoo, right? The same man who killed Estelle Chipman. Linchpin of the case.”

  They nodded blankly.

  “There was none on Coombs. Not a mark.”

  Jacobi shot a glance at Cappy, then back at me. “What’re you trying to say? That Coombs isn’t our man? That we tied him in to each of the murders, found those clippings in his room, that he tried to pop you not once but twice. But that it wasn’t him?”

  My mind wasn’t working clearly. The events of the day, the medication. It was chickenshit compared to everything that pointed clearly at him. “I guess what I mean is, you ever know Claire Washburn to be wrong?”

  “No.” Jacobi shook his head. “But I don’t know you to be wrong too often, either. Jeez, I can’t believe I said that.”

  They told me to get a good night’s sleep.

  “My gut feeling,” Jacobi said, turning back on his way out the door, “is that when the medication wears off and you have a chance to look at everything in the light of day, you’ll see you made a pretty good bust.”

  I smiled at them. “We all did.”

  That night I couldn’t sleep. I lay on my back, my side throbbing, but I was also feeling the blurry warmth of a couple of Percocets. I looked around the dark room, strange, unnatural, and the truth sank in about how lucky I was to be alive.

  Jacobi was right; it was a good bust. Coombs was a murderer. All the facts played out. He had been trying to kill me at the end.

  I shut my eyes and tried to drift off, but the tiniest voice tolled in my head. One voice, sneaking through all that was certain, all that seemed plausible.

  I tried to force myself to sleep, but the voice got louder.

  How could he have missed?

  Chapter 104

  I WAS RELEASED the following morning.

  Jill came and got me, pulling her BMW up to the curb outside San Francisco General as they wheeled me out in a chair. The press was there. I waved to all my new pals, but I refused to talk to them. The next stop was home, a hug for Martha, a shower, a change of clothes.

  By the time I walked into room 350 at the Hall with a slightly stiff gait Monday morning, it was as if it were business as usual: The entire detail gave me a round of applause.

  “Game ball belongs to you, Lieutenant,” Jacobi said, handing me the brush.

  “C’mon”—I waved them off—“let’s wait for the inquiry.”

  “The inquiry? What’s that gonna prove?” he said. “Do the honors.”

  “L.T.,” said Cappy, his eyes clear and proud, “we’ve been saving it. For you.”

  “Do it, L.T.”

  Maybe for the first time since Mercer promoted me, I felt like the head of Homicide, and that all the doubts of worth and rank I’d carried with me my whole career were markers on an old journey, miles behind.

  I went over to the board where our active cases were listed and I brushed Tasha Catchings’s name off the board. Art Davidson’s, too.

  I felt filled with a quiet but exultant joy. I felt relief and satisfaction.

  You can’t bring the dead back. You can’t even make sense of why things happen. All you can do is the best you can to let the living believe their souls are at peace.

  The detectives circled around me and watched.

  I wiped Earl Mercer’s name off the slate.

  Chapter 105

  I FIELDED PHONE CALLS for the next couple of hours. But mostly I just sat at my desk, giving some thought to my deposition. There was an inquiry pending on the Coombs shooting, standard practice whenever a police officer fired a gun.

  The whole incident was still a blur to me. The doctors had told me it might be like that for a while. A kind of repressed shock.

  I had a flash of that out-of-date uniform, and Coombs’s eyes burning into me. His arm extended, the orange spurt of his gun. I was sure that someone had shouted my name, probably Cappy or Jacobi, then someone else said, “Gun…”

  And my own Glock, flopping up in slow motion, knowing I was a beat too late, seeing the spurt of his gun. Then the gunfire—from all directions, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop… Finally, I put it out of my mind and went back to work.

  About an hour later, I was leafing through the file on one of our new outstanding cases when Claire appeared at my door.

  “Hey!”

  “Hey back at you, Lindsay.”

  I knew Claire…. I knew her look when she’d found what she expected and had put doubt to rest. And I knew the look when it was not so kosher.

  This time, she was definitely wearing that not-kosher look.

  “You didn’t find any tattoo, did you?” I said.

  She shook her head. Her expression couldn’t have been more troubled if she had found something culpable about Edmund, or one of her sons.

  I motioned her in and shut the door. “Okay, so what did you find?”

  She shrugged somberly. “I guess I found out why Coombs missed.”

  Chapter 106

  CLAIRE SAT DOWN and started to explain. “I was doing a routine histology, in the substantia nigra—”

  “In English, Claire,” I cut in. “S’il vous plaît? Por favor?”

  She smiled. “I scooped some cells, mid-brain. Coombs was hit nine times. Eight from the front. One from the rear. That one smacked into his cervical spine. It’s the only reason I would have been in there in the first place. I was looking for a specific cause of death.”

  “So what did you find?”

  Her gaze bore right through me. “A marked absence of neurons… live nerve cells.”

  I sat upright. My heart was in my throat. “Meaning what, Claire?”

  “Meaning… Coombs had Parkinson’s, Lindsay. And not an unadvanced case.”

  Parkinson’s… My first thought was, That’s why he missed. That I had been so damn lucky…

  Then, watching the look of blank-eyed nullity grow into alarm on Claire’s face, I knew it wasn’t so simple.

  “Lindsay, someone with Coombs’s stage of Parkinson’s could never have pulled off those shots.”

  My mind went back to the scene at the La Salle Heights Church… Tasha Catchings, felled by that incredible shot… And Art Davidson, a single bullet hole in his head… The bullet had come through the window from an adjoining roof, at least a hundred yards away.

  I fixed on Claire’s eyes. “You’re sure about this?”

  She nodded slowly. “I’m not a neurologist…” But then with unwave
ring clarity, “Yes, I’m sure. I’m absolutely positive. His state of Parkinson’s could never have allowed the necessary interaction between hand and brain for those shots. His case was too progressed.”

  With an almost nauseating chill, I flashed through all the things we knew about our killer. We had been certain that Chimera had a tattoo. But Coombs didn’t have one. Then he barely grazed me on the steps of the Hall from point-blank range. And now this, Parkinson’s… Whoever Chimera was, he was certifiable as a marksman. That much was irrefutable.

  We looked at each other and I uttered the unutterable. “Jesus, Claire, Coombs isn’t our man.”

  “Right,” she said. “So, who is, Lieutenant?”

  Chapter 107

  FOR A LONG TIME, we just sat there, letting the stunning realization, and panic, sink in.

  The newspapers, the TV, every sane person in the entire city was celebrating Chimera’s death. Just that morning, I had wiped the murder cases off the board.

  “Coombs was trying to tell me something,” I said to Claire, recalling his dying moments. “ ‘One last…,’he whispered, and when I asked him, one last what? he seemed to smile. ‘One last surprise.’ He knew Chimera was still out there, Claire. He knew we would find out. The bastard was laughing at me as he drew his last breath. It has to be somebody else in his group. There’s another madman.”

  Claire pressed her lips together. “Lindsay, if I could’ve come back with any other conclusion…”

  I didn’t know exactly what to do with this new information. The pattern had fit so seamlessly. Bay View… Chimera. The file in Coombs’s room. And how he had come at me. I couldn’t believe that somehow I had been wrong. And then the question again: If not Coombs, who?

  The last thing I wanted to do was go upstairs and shatter the celebration of all the bureaucrats and brass. But at the same moment Claire and I were gaping at each other in disbelief, the real killer was out there, possibly scoping another hit. Jesus, this just didn’t make sense.