16th Seduction: (Women’s Murder Club 16) (Women's Murder Club)

by James Patterson

She said, “Senior crime writer Cindy Thomas of the San Francisco Chronicle broke this story only minutes ago. She writes that as many as five victims have died from injections of a paralytic drug called succinylcholine.

  “According to Ms. Thomas, who gave her sources as ‘individuals close to the investigation,’ the victims were assaulted on the street and injected with this drug by an unknown attacker,” Steinhardt said. “We’ll bring you news updates as they come to us.”

  No way. Cindy had gone public with our investigation.

  I grabbed my phone and called Cindy, and as soon as she said, “Hello,” I went off on her, all guns blazing.

  “Cindy, what the hell? You put out the sux story? The killer now knows we’re onto him. You just made our investigation harder, or impossible, so congrats on your scoop and thank you very much.”

  Then I clicked off. Besides dropping them in the toilet, the worst thing about cell phones is that you can’t pound them into the cradle. But I slapped my phone down hard on the counter anyway before returning to Julie’s oatmeal.

  Just then Mrs. Rose arrived in a cloud of tea rose perfume, calling out, “Girls, I’m here.”

  When she saw the look on my face, she said, “You okay?”

  “Not really.”

  “Is Julie okay?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “I’ll be right back,” said Mrs. Rose. She leashed a bounding, leaping, squealing Martha and took her out for her walk.

  My phone buzzed.

  I hesitated. Then I answered it.

  “What, Cindy? What?”

  “Listen to me, Lindsay,” she said. “The days of you telling me what I can and cannot do are officially over.”

  “Don’t give me that.”

  “I am giving it to you, and if you can’t take it, we can’t be friends.”

  I was so stunned by her indignation and her anger, I really had no comeback.

  She said, “First, I tried to talk to you, twice. On the street, remember? And then I called and left a message. You didn’t get back. More to the point, I’m not a cub reporter anymore. And I’m not your little sister. You know how many crimes I’ve solved with you and with Rich? Many. Remember? I shot a killer who had a gun pointed at you. I killed someone. I got shot.”

  “I remember,” I said. My tone had dropped a little. I wasn’t sure she heard me.

  “I play by the rules,” said Cindy. “I didn’t know about the sux until Claire said so, but I didn’t use her name, and by the way, I had this story by the balls before dinner last night. Claire put it out herself to every ME and pathologist in the state.

  “If I hadn’t broken it, someone else would have. I did my job. That’s all I have to say, Lindsay. I’m done justifying my integrity and my work to you.”

  I couldn’t speak. I was still mad, but shame was starting to heat the back of my neck and direct my eyes to the floor. And then the phone went dead.

  I cleaned up my little girl and got ready for work. I tried to ignore my panged conscience, but I couldn’t let myself get away with it. I picked up my phone and called Cindy.

  She didn’t answer.

  I left a message.

  “Cin, I’m sorry. You’re right. I’m wrong. I’ll call you later, but I need to apologize now. Don’t stay mad. We can work this out. Call me.”

  CHAPTER 69

  NEDDIE FOUND THE newspaper in the basement trash room lying next to the mountain of garbage bags. The headline came at him fast and hard, like a sucker punch.

  Stealth Killer Stalks Our City

  Was that him?

  He snatched up the paper and read the story fast. The victim was Sarah Nugent, the woman he’d stuck outside the hotel. There was a photo of her and her husband and quotes from the doorman, and—No-no-no-no-no—law enforcement had found the vial of sux. He must have fumbled it when he tried to put it back into his pocket.

  The paper shook and rattled in Neddie’s hands as he skimmed the second page of the article. Had there been a witness? Had he been seen? He found nothing but the two words describing what he’d done: Stealth Killer.

  He liked the name. It sounded epic. It sounded like a movie title. William H. Macy would play him, Edward Lamborghini. Oh, man. But as thrilling as the thought was, he was also afraid. Over all this time and so many kills, he’d wished for recognition. Now he might get it.

  Was he ready to pay?

  “Cool it, Neddie,” he said to himself. “Cool your jets.”

  He put the newspaper back precisely where he’d found it. He thought of the two cops questioning him at the Embarcadero. That was the first warning, and now with this newspaper story, that was warning number two.

  Should he stay or should he go?

  If he played it safe, if he didn’t overreact, he could have a beautiful night flight.

  He unlocked and opened the metal door to the alley, leaned against it, and considered his options.

  Over the past thirty years he had mapped a threedimensional schematic of San Francisco in his mind. He had walked the five square miles centering on the Loony Bin above- and belowground. He knew every rusted lock and basement door, every alley and poorly lit path—and then he knew where he would go.

  He saw the place in his mind, Washington Square, with its uplifting views of Saints Peter and Paul Church, the roaming homeless and other ragtag people on the grounds. No one ever looked at him in the park. He was invisible there. He was free.

  The night was a pleasant sixty-two degrees.

  Neddie took some cleansing breaths, then walked north a block and a half to to Joice Street, an alley with a grate where the asphalt met the curb. He had chiseled open this grate on an earlier excursion, and he pried it open now. Metal creaked and he dropped inside a drafty opening, holding on to the curb until he found footing on the metal ladder.

  He heard water dripping, and cool air came up to greet him as he entered the new, still-under-construction tunnel for the Central Subway.

  The tunnel was enormous. He pulled his penlight from a pocket and flicked it over the heavy machinery parked in the dark—the lifts and the auger and the backhoes. Then he headed north between the just-laid train tracks.

  Rats scurried. His running shoes slapped at the low tide. He kept his light on the newly poured concrete walls, looking for the exit, and then his light kissed the ladder on the wall.

  Neddie put the end of his penlight between his teeth and climbed thirty feet, hand over hand, finally shouldering open the drain. A moment later he took in the sweet air and the expansive freedom of his night flight. He ran; he pushed off walls and took the peaks and valleys of San Francisco’s exciting topography.

  He was still flying when he reached Cordelia Street. He slowed and drafted behind three teenage boys, staying back and at the same time with them as they joked and laughed and horsed around all the way to Powell.

  Neddie was imagining his entrance to the park, deep in his thoughts, eyes down, when he whumped into something soft and resilient. It was a very large dude.

  “Hey. Watch where you’re going,” said the big man, who looked to Neddie like a grown-old high school football player.

  Then he added the zinger, “Are you crazy?”

  “I’m good. My fault,” Neddie said, jacking up his voice to his falsetto range.

  The big dude bent to gather up his briefcase, his newspaper, and continued on. Then, as if a new thought had struck him, he stopped and turned to look at Neddie.

  Neddie thought he understood why.

  That newspaper headline—STEALTH KILLER. And something about Neddie had made the big dude think too much. He had seen the predatory intelligence in his eyes, the look that Neddie always tried to hide. And the big dude was paralyzed by that look.

  Neddie thought he’d been recognized. He said it out loud. “Uh-oh.”

  Quick, his hand was in his pocket, where he wrapped his fist around a loaded sharp. He’d never had a bit of trouble before, but the big dude was looking right at him. This wa
s different. The guy wanted to fight.

  He outweighed Neddie by sixty pounds. But so what? Neddie was ready. He looked at the big dude and said, “Game on.”

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER 70

  CONKLIN AND I were working at our desks when Claire came through the squad room door wearing a bloody gown and a cap, her mask pulled down and it appeared that she had something big on her mind.

  I said, “You’ve got a report on that sux vial?”

  She said, “I’m still waiting. I need you to come on over to my house. There’s someone I want you to see.”

  “Something wrong with your phone?” Conklin asked my BFF.

  “My calls, Inspector, went to voice mail. That would be my calls to the both of you.”

  Oh.

  The three of us thundered down the fire stairs, cut through the back door, and strode along the breezeway to Claire’s “house,” the offices of the chief medical examiner.

  We passed through the waiting room, brushing by her gatekeeper and the loosely packed mob of law enforcement officers waiting to see Claire. She put up a hand and didn’t skip a step, as good as saying, “Not now!”

  We passed Claire’s office and continued down the corridor until she stiff-armed the stainless steel swinging doors to the super-chilly autopsy suite. Rich and I stayed with her, stopping at the table with the body lying on it face-up under the lights.

  Claire said, “The needle sticker has stuck again. At least, it sure looks like it. Meet Ralph Beardsley, CPA, DOA, RIP.”

  Mr. Beardsley was a black male, about fifty, heavyset. “Look here,” Claire said, turning the man’s head to the side. There was a bite mark in his neck. Claire pulled down the sheet and showed me a bruise with a needle mark centered on his left pectoral.

  I said, “Whoa. Is this the first time the needle sticker has struck in the front of the body?”

  “To the best of my knowledge.”

  “So this was a confrontation,” I said. “The victim saw his killer.”

  “No doubt. And they mixed it up.”

  She bunched the sheet over his privates and showed us the rest of him. She pointed out other fresh bruises, four by my count—one under the rib cage, a big one on his side, one high on his right thigh, and one on his left shin.

  “I’ve got some good news.”

  I looked up at Claire. I couldn’t even guess.

  “Some living folks saw the killer in action.”

  Say that again? “There are witnesses?”

  Claire said, “Husband and wife saw the hit from their car. They flagged down a cruiser. Here,” she said, handing me a scrap of paper. “Fresh contact info, get it while it’s hot.”

  CHAPTER 71

  THE WITNESSES, LYNN and Ray Schultz, were in their thirties, owned a liquor store in North Beach, and given the annual stats of liquor store robberies, I was betting that the Schultzes were quite observant.

  Conklin and I set them up with coffee in Interview 2, took chairs across from them, and got to work.

  Ray Schultz said, “Last night, sometime after nine, we’re going home from the store. I’m driving. It’s dark and I’m watching the street. Lynn, you tell them, honey.”

  Lynn Schultz said, “So we were stopped at the light on Union Street.”

  She drew a line on the table with her blue-polished fingernail.

  “I’m staring out the window at some free furniture on the sidewalk. And I see this kinda small, kinda weird-looking guy wearing dark clothes, walking with his eyes down.

  “Here.” She stabbed a ding in the table at an imaginary point along her imaginary road. “He bumps into Mr. Beardsley, who drops his newspaper and his briefcase.”

  Lynn Schultz was quite animated now. She said, “The paper blows all over and Mr. Big looks pissed. The two of them are, like, five, six feet apart, facing off. I think, OMG, and I roll down the window so I can hear. And Mr. Big calls the other one a name. Like ‘You crazy little shrimp’ or something.

  “And the little guy goes, ‘Bring it on,’ and gets right up into Mr. Big’s face. I mean, like, aggressive and, yeah, crazy. Mr. Big could make two of the other guy.

  “And Mr. Big shoves Mr. Little away with his forearm.”

  The husband said, “I didn’t see that, but what Lynn is describing is a football move. Like the way a defensive lineman would push away a blocker. It’s called a forearm shiver—”

  “And the little one goes down,” said Lynn Schultz. “And he gets up slowly, like he’s been hurt, and stands there for a second with his hands on his knees, and then bang, he leaps at Mr. Big like a tomcat and it looks like he bites him on his neck, and that throws Mr. Big off balance and now he’s down.”

  Lynn Schultz was acting it all out now.

  “And the small guy, he’s on the ground, like, leaning on his elbow, and from that position he launches this sweeping kick and gets the big guy in the shin, right here,” she said, patting her leg just below the knee.

  “The big guy lands on his back—and in a split second the little one is on top of him, raises his arm high, and looks like he punches Mr. Big in the chest.”

  Good God. That answered my question of how and why Mr. Beardsley had gotten a needle in his pec muscle.

  Ray Schultz was saying, “I’m seeing this now. Mr. Big yowls and he’s in trouble. Now the light turns green. Horns are honking. I start to go, but Lynn yells at me to pull over to the curb and ‘do something.’

  “So I pull over. I get out. The little guy has gone, nowhere to be seen. And I run over, get down next to Mr. Beardsley, who’s clutching his throat, trying to get his breath. But he can’t get enough air. He says, ‘Call 911.’

  “My phone’s in the car, but I run out into the road and wave down a cruiser.”

  I was thrilling inside. I could see the whole scene going down almost in front of me. These witnesses were good.

  I asked the Schultzes, “You’re sure the smaller man was the attacker?”

  Said Lynn Schultz, “Definitely. One hundred percent.”

  “Okay. If you could, describe him once more, as best as you can,” I said.

  “Sure. Estimating he could be about five two? Lightcolored hair? Like faded blond. He had a collar or a hoodie under his coat. Damned shame I didn’t see his face.”

  Conklin said, “You’ve given us a lot, Lynn. Our first good lead.”

  I made notes, including that Beardsley had been carrying a newspaper. If the headline had read STEALTH KILLER, maybe it had sparked Beardsley’s curiosity. Had he made the killer, and the killer knew it—so he took Beardsley out?

  Conklin was saying, “If you think of anything else, anything at all, call my direct line. Thanks very much for coming in.”

  We had beautiful, corroborated eyewitness reports and a decent description of the needle sticker. It was, as Conklin had said, our first good lead. It was better than I could even have wished for.

  But we needed more. The “weird-looking guy” was volatile and sounded like he was also fearless. He was striking out much more frequently than before—as far as we knew.

  How many of our citizens had died as a direct result of this killer?

  More than two months after Claire had found a bruise on Lois Sprague’s buttock, we had no more idea who the needle sticker was than we had then. Four more people had died.

  The killer was on a roll.

  CHAPTER 72

  CONNOR GRANT’S COMPLAINT to Internal Affairs haunted me all day and cut my sleep short every night as I waited to be interviewed by Lieutenant William Hoyt.

  That Monday morning, Carol Hannah, my tough, dedicated union rep, came to Interview 1 and we went over everything I said and did when I arrested Connor Grant and everything I had done or been accused of doing since I joined the police force as a rookie.

  Carol said, “I don’t see anything to this complaint except that Connor Grant wants revenge. If I’m missing something, please tell me now.”

  “The whole episode lasted
ten minutes,” I told my advocate. “I’ve thought about every second of it and I followed procedure. I’m sure of it, Carol.”

  Carol said, “If Hoyt goes over the line, I’ll intervene.”

  The way a complaint to IAB was processed was pretty straightforward. I would be interviewed, and my interview would be compared with reports from other sources and my personal file to see if there was a hinky pattern of behavior. If I’d broken the law, IAB would go to the DA, and if Parisi found that there was cause to try me for these crimes or infractions of police procedure, there would be a trial before the police commission. I would be suspended from my job until the case was adjudicated, but even if the charges were dismissed, my reputation would be permanently damaged. In other words, it would be a living, breathing nightmare that made me sick even to think about.

  Connor Grant had thrown me under a steaming pile of bull, and my preparation with my union rep and having her at my side would be my best chance to get out from under it.

  That afternoon Carol and I went downstairs to the district attorney’s offices, and Parisi’s assistant walked us down the hallway to his private conference room, gave us each a bottle of water, and closed the door.

  I took a seat. Carol sat down beside me and we waited. Fifteen minutes felt like fifteen years as I watched the second hand tick by on the wall clock. Then there was a tap on the door and Lieutenant Hoyt came in with a man he introduced as Sergeant Kreisler. Hoyt was bald, sharp featured, and about as warm and fuzzy as a hockey puck.

  Kreisler had a full head of hair and a rosy complexion. He was a little too warm and fuzzy. Like he was enjoying the very idea of this meeting.

  Carol set up a recorder and pushed the Play button, and Kreisler did the same.

  Hoyt said to me, “Sergeant Boxer, we’re going to cover a lot of ground in this meeting. A complaint against you is a complaint against the entire police force, you understand. So don’t take it personally—or take it personally, I don’t care. I just want to get to the truth.

  “You know the charges?”