Then Ho stepped out onto the porch; the screen door slammed shut behind him. Tom Molia stood in his living room watching his friend walk down the path, a blurry image in the screen mesh and dark of night.
42
THE TRAINING RUSHED back to him like a river undammed, flooding him. Sloane didn’t stop to remember the details; he went with the torrent. The world narrowed to a round tube of concentration that brought everything within it into sharp focus and certain clarity. His heartbeat pulsed in his head. His breathing rushed in and out of his chest cavity like the rush of the waves against the rocks, controlled and deliberate, a low whistle parting his lips. He spread his legs shoulder width, cupped a palm under the hand holding the gun, and locked on his target, exhaling half a breath and squeezing off two rounds.
The janitor’s right shoulder jolted like a shaken rag doll, the automatic emitting an angry burst that sent bullets ricocheting sparks off the marble floor and walls. Sloane maintained focus, gun on target, waiting for the man to drop, waiting to secure his weapon. But the man did not drop; he stood, blood flowering a deep red bud, nearly black against the forest-green uniform, a stain to match the stain on his right pant leg. His right arm dangled limply at his side, but his hand refused to release the weapon. The pain alone should have dropped him like a bag of sand. Instead, he turned his head and locked eyes with Sloane, his facial expression a blank mask, his eyes two chunks of charcoal.
Sloane resisted the urge to pull the trigger again, to allow his anger and desire for revenge to control his actions. He didn’t want to kill the man. That would do him no good. He needed him alive. He needed answers to his questions.
Noise sounded from outside the tunnel—footsteps and voices shouting. Shades of dark blue entered Sloane’s peripheral vision— police officers dropping into crouches and sliding behind the security console.
“Drop your weapons. Now! Show me your hands. Hands! I want to see your hands.”
Sloane kept the gun fixed on the janitor, who also did not move.
“Put it down! Put it down!”
The janitor, too, gave no indication that he saw or heard anything outside their tunnel of concentration. Apparently, he was willing to engage Sloane in a high-stakes game of chicken. Then his face twitched, an almost imperceptible movement, a muscle spasm that wasn’t. His lips flattened, and the corners of his mouth extended into an “It doesn’t get any better than this” grin just before he reached across his body with his left hand to grab the automatic.
And the officers opened fire.
43
THE DOOR TO the apartment was closed, which was to be expected at ten o’clock at night. What was of considerably more interest were the strands of yellow police tape crisscrossing the threshold. Jenkins pushed open the door and bent under the tape, snapping one as he did. The inside of the apartment had been straightened but still revealed signs of what had been a significant struggle, a search, or both. He looked for blood, did not immediately see any, and concluded that the disarray was more likely the result of a search, further confirmation that Joe Branick’s research was correct.
Alex Hart stepped into the apartment behind him. “You two share the same cleaning service?”
Jenkins had decided to limit what he told her, still uncertain of her involvement. He told her only that they were going to find a guy who might be able to explain why Joe was dead.
“I’d say we’ve come to the right place,” Alex said. “Just a little late.”
“At least they didn’t burn it to the ground.”
Jenkins considered the room in detail. The telephone lay on the counter, the backing pulled off, the battery pulled out, revealing a tiny listening device. He walked about the main room, hearing the hushed rush of waves along with the occasional melancholy blast of a distant foghorn. He stepped into a bedroom. A curtain rippled in front of a sliding glass door, which led to a small balcony. He leaned over the railing and looked down at a five-gallon bucket on the ground. Then he walked back into the room, to a mirrored closet. There was a floor safe in the corner. He bent down and pulled out a life insurance policy and a will, briefly studying them. David Allen Sloane, being of sound mind and body, was leaving everything to a woman named Melda Demanjuk. If her death predated his, his estate was to be divided among several different children’s charities and a woman named Tina Scoccolo.
David Sloane had no immediate family.
Jenkins stood, walked into the bathroom, and turned on the light.
“Oh, Christ,” Alex said. She stood behind him eyeing the dried blood, the rust color of bricks smeared on the white linoleum. “We are too late.”
Jenkins placed his steps carefully, opened the medicine cabinet, using a corner so as not to leave a print, and looked around the sink. Then he stepped past her to the bedroom and picked up an article of clothing on the floor, a blue hospital scrub. It, too, was covered with blood.
“He’s alive,” he said, dropping the garment.
“What are you, an eternal optimist?”
“He’s alive, unless you want to tell me that a dead man has a use for toothbrushes and razors.” He nodded at the bathroom. “He took his toiletries. No toothbrush. No toothpaste. No razor. With that much blood on the floor, I doubt that he would have been able to stand and change his clothes if it had been his. Dead men also don’t normally concern themselves with clean clothes or money, and someone came back here for both—someone who knew the sliding glass door would be unlocked, and knew the combination to that safe.” He indicated the sliding glass door. “He came in from that balcony. You’ll find a bucket down there he used as a step to get up onto the lower balcony.”
“Why?”
“Probably because he was worried someone was watching the building. The back of the building is concealed. You can’t see it from the front.”
“So how do you explain the blood?”
“Not certain. Someone likely bled to death here, but it wasn’t him. He straightened the living room; the police aren’t about to tape his seat cushion back together for him. That tells me he was alive after the search.”
“The search?”
“Somebody did a significant number on this place.”
“How do you know it didn’t happen during a struggle?”
“Intuition.”
“If he cleaned up, why didn’t he clean up the blood in the bathroom or pick up the clothes on the floor?”
“That happened afterward.” He pointed to the clothes on the bed. “Those and the toothbrush tell me he came back, probably for money and clothes. He was packing—in a hurry.”
“Or he was packing when someone killed him,” Alex said.
“Then we’d find the suitcase of packed clothes and toiletries and probably a body or a chalk outline of the body, wouldn’t we? No reason for the killer or the police to take his suitcase and toiletries.”
She was quiet.
“He’s alive. And he’s running.”
She didn’t sound convinced. “Well, if you’re right, he’ll be tough to find unless you tell me more about what his involvement in this is.”
Jenkins walked around the bed to a nightstand and pressed the button on the answering machine, waiting for it to rewind. The machine beeped, followed by a female voice. He turned up the volume. When the message finished he opened the cover of the machine, pulled out the tape, and slipped it into his pocket.
“Maybe not,” he said, “but then, I’m an eternal optimist.”
44
JACK CONNALLY’S LIFELESS BODY lay covered beneath a white sheet. Across the street from the glass doors of the building entrance, a police barricade held back a crowd. The lights from mobile television units reflected through the glass doors like artificial suns, illuminating uniformed officers, plainclothes detectives, paramedics, and forensic specialists crowding the lobby. Near the security guard console, a police officer who appeared barely old enough to shave stood in a stunned state of disbelief and relief. His shirt pulled op
en, he fingered the hole in his uniform and the small indentation in his Kevlar vest. Other officers stood inspecting a deformed bullet encased in a plastic evidence bag as if it were a hunting trophy.
In the corner, Detective Frank Gordon sat in a chair with a notebook in his lap, a pen in his hand, and a scowl on his face. His jacket and shirt were off, and a paramedic worked to bandage Gordon’s muscled shoulder—the detective was unwilling to go to the hospital until he spoke with Sloane. The errant shots from the gunman were a reflex to the police officers’ bullets ripping through his body, making it shake and flop like a marionette. Gordon was the unlucky recipient of one of the strays, though luckily it had only grazed him. Not that he acted particularly happy about it. At the moment he looked like a kid forced to sit in a barber chair and get his hair cut, annoyed at the world and everyone in it. Despite the pain in his shoulder, the detective had been interrogating Sloane for the better part of an hour.
Across the lobby, behind a screen to shield against the news cameras, paramedics lifted the stretcher carrying Connally’s body. The legs unfolded like an accordion and snapped into place. Tina stepped back, wiping away tears, and watched as they wheeled Connally toward the glass doors and the glow of lights. News anchors no doubt waited in television studios for updates and live footage of another shooting in a San Francisco high-rise. It would be a dramatic story.
“Those people must think the fucking circus is in town. Twice in one day we’ve managed to spice up their dreary little lives,” Gordon said. “You know, I could arrest you just for not having a permit for that gun. In fact, I’m not quite sure why I don’t.”
Gordon sounded convincing, but Sloane knew that the detective wasn’t about to arrest him. Sloane had just saved Tina’s life. His story checked out; the dead janitor was more proof than Gordon would need. And Gordon had too much going on at the moment to worry about a gun permit, including a trip to the hospital. It was frustrated bravado.
Gordon let out an agitated sigh. “You have no idea who he is?”
Sloane reconsidered the janitor, the body a gruesome mass of holes and blood that looked like something from a mob hit. One of the bullets had torn out his left eye. At Sloane’s request the coroner had pulled up the man’s shirtsleeve to reveal an eagle tattoo, talons extended, a knife in its beak. It was just as Melda had described it. Otherwise the body was treated like a sacred artifact. A lot of people stood near it; some took photographs, but no one touched it, and no one would until the forensic team had photographed the scene and drawn its diagrams of everything’s precise placement.
Gordon had responded to Sloane’s professed lack of knowledge of the man’s identity with measured disbelief and did not try to hide it. “It was like watching someone jump off the side of a fucking cliff,” he said. “Overpowered, outgunned, not a fucking snowball’s chance in hell, and he reaches for his weapon. That’s the scariest fucking thing of all. It was a goddamned suicide. He preferred to die.” Gordon looked back at Sloane. “And you’re telling me you have no idea what his beef was with you? Well, I’m having a hard fucking time believing that, Mr. Sloane. I truly am.”
Sloane didn’t blame Gordon. He was having a hard time with it, too. Unfortunately, with the man now dead, neither of them would get the answers they wanted to their questions: who the man was, what he wanted, and why. Sloane also suspected that the file in his briefcase, about which he hadn’t told Gordon and didn’t intend to, would also not answer all his questions. Not even close.
Gordon closed his notebook and pointed his pen at the automatic weapon near the janitor’s body. “That’s an AC556F submachine gun. Four years in the army sticks to you like well-chewed gum, and that son of a bitch has ‘military’ written all over him, and not just because of the tattoo. Regardless of who he turns out to be, he was a pro, and he meant business. These kinds of guys don’t usually act alone, Sloane. You know what I mean?”
Sloane had reached the same conclusion. Four years in the marines was equally hard to get out of your system.
“Don’t go far,” Gordon said, giving in to the inevitable trip to the hospital. He stood and draped his jacket over his shoulder, the paramedics at his side. “I will be calling you, and we will be talking further. Count on it.”
Sloane walked to where Tina stood, her arms wrapped around her body as if she was unable to get warm. “Are you all right?”
She nodded, then turned and buried her head in his chest, her shoulders shaking in silent heaves. Sloane let her cry. After a minute he put an arm around her and led her to the back of the lobby, toward the rear doors. A woman wearing protective glasses and gloves was bent over the janitor, carefully examining the body. Sloane heard her as they passed.
“Jesus in heaven. Look at this, Frank.”
Gordon stopped walking and looked over. The woman held the gunman’s palm up to reveal scarred lacerations across the tips of his fingers from some form of crude, self-inflicted surgery.
“He has no fingerprints,” she said.
THE CORNER OF Eighth and Mission Streets, the fringe of San Francisco’s Mission District, had not yet been swept away in the South of Market redevelopment craze that had started in the 1990s and brought a new baseball stadium, trendy restaurants, and self-contained chic condominium communities. It likely never would. The poor had to live and work somewhere. Graffiti decorated the walls of automobile repair shops, warehouses, pawnshops, and corner markets that sold more liquor than groceries. Most of the businesses were closed for the night, protected behind rolling metal doors—also covered with graffiti—and locked gates. Young men in oversize parkas, baggy jeans, and wool knit watch caps stood on the sidewalk, leaning against American-made cars sporting chrome hubcaps, lowered almost to the ground and parked defiantly beneath “No Parking” signs. Rap music busted a thumping beat.
On the third pass, taking a third different route to satisfy himself they had not been followed, Sloane pulled into the parking lot of the Quality Inn, a misnomer if ever there was one. Tina waited in the car while he went inside the office to get a room. Jake would stay with his grandmother for the night. The guy behind the counter wanted to know how long Sloane anticipated needing the room—guests using the room for an entire night were apparently a rarity. Sloane asked for a room as far from the street as possible and parked the Barracuda in a spot near the back. He and Tina walked up an outdoor staircase that shook like the Loma Prieta earthquake, then around a U-shaped landing that looked down on a half-full pool of brownish water in desperate need of a filter.
Despite the building’s outward appearance, the room surprised him—clean and neat. The motif was cheap 1970s wood-laminate furniture, purple floral bedspreads on two queen-size beds, and a burnt-orange shag carpet. He closed the door and snapped the metal security latch. Gordon had taken the Ruger; he was unarmed.
“The Taj Mahal,” he said, surveying their surroundings. He set his duffel bag and briefcase near the desk. The television was chained to an eyebolt. “Let’s hope the hookers use the rooms with just one bed.” Tina did not react. “Are you hungry? I saw a couple of fast-food places down the road—”
She shook her head.
They stood in silence for a moment; then he started past her. “I’ll start a hot shower for you. It’ll make you feel better.”
“Hold me,” she said, stepping to him.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. He considered her so physically strong, yet her back felt as narrow as a child’s. He felt the warmth and curves of her body against him and smelled the floral fragrance of her hair.
“Tina, I’m sorry,” he started, but she looked up at him, stood on her toes, and kissed him hard on the mouth.
He wanted to stop her. He wanted to tell her it was not a good thing, but she gave him no chance to speak, and he realized that he had no desire to do so. They worked quickly, undoing buttons, pulling clothes from each other. He laid her down on the bed, feeling the warmth of her body pressing up against his, yearnin
g as she guided him, helping him inside her, the warmth overwhelming him.
SHE SLEPT ON the adjacent bed, her breathing deep and full. After making love, they had moved to the shower, the stream of water and the steam soothing them as they gasped for breath, their mouths groping, their hands searching and exploring, their minds wanting to leave the horror of the night behind them and find solace in something beautiful. When they had finished they went back to the bed, where she lay in his embrace until he felt her drift slowly to sleep, physically and mentally exhausted. Then he gently removed his arm and covered her with blankets, watching her sleep, her features small and delicate.
In the span of forty-eight hours Sloane had come to realize why he had never married, why the women he dated never satisfied him, why he could not commit to them. But as with everything else in his life, he had pushed his feelings for Tina into the black abyss and covered it with work. It was easier that way, not dealing with it. It was complicated. It could never have worked out between them. Then, as he stood outside the taxi, she told him that it could work if he was willing to take the chance. She told him that he was the guy she was waiting for, but first he had to find himself. He wanted to slip beneath the covers beside her, to have her hold him. He wanted to go with her to Seattle and leave the past—whatever it was—buried and forgotten, to start over fresh. He wanted to take care of her and Jake, the little boy he had come to know from the firm’s picnics, to be the father Jake had never had—uncertain how he would do, but certain that he would be everything Jake’s father was not. He’d take him to ball games, help him with his homework—be there for him—the things Sloane wished he had had growing up, but did not. But he knew that couldn’t happen if he continued to sleepwalk through life. Tina was right. He could not find her until he had found himself, and he knew in his heart that this meant finding out what was happening, and why. His dreams were not dreams—they were memories. The dead woman was not a figment of his imagination or some psychological creation of his mind. She was real. So was Joe Branick, and that meant that the enormous black man who stood beside Joe Branick in Sloane’s memory was also real. Branick was dead; so, too, was the woman, but perhaps the black man, whoever he was, was still alive.
The Jury Master Page 19
