“Who are we meeting here?” Cindy asked softly.
“I’m hoping he’s your future husband, Cin. What would you think of getting married right here?”
“Is that a proposal, Richie?”
Richie dropped to one knee. He said, “Cindy. If I know anything, it is that you are the love of my life. I want to spend the rest of my years getting to know you and love you even more than I do now. Will you marry me?”
He pulled the little velvet box from his jacket pocket and opened the lid. His mother’s solitaire diamond engagement ring lay inside. She had given it to him, saying, “Someday you’ll give this to a very special woman.”
Cindy stared at the ring, then back at him.
“I guess so,” she said.
Then she laughed, stuck out her ring finger, which was shaking so hard that, with his hand shaking, too, it was truly a triumph that Rich got the ring in place.
“Our first hurdle,” he said.
“How did you get to be so funny?” she said, pulling him to his feet, going into his strong arms, and speaking right next to his ear.
“Listen. This is the real deal and it’s on the record. I love you to death. I am honored to be your one true wife.”
Conklin said to his bride to be, “You had that all ready to go, didn’t you?”
“Maybe I did,” Cindy said. “Because that’s how I really feel about you, Richie.”
“Thanks for saying yes,” he said, hugging her right off the floor. They kissed and the jewelry box clattered to the marble floor. Parishioners sitting in the front rows applauded, a sound that echoed like doves’ wings beating overhead.
Chapter 42
JOE WAS ON A BUSINESS TRIP, inspecting the port in L.A., and he hadn’t been sure when he’d be home.
I ran with Martha down Lake Street from the Temple Emanu-El to Sea Cliff and back, my eyes locking on dark-colored sedans. I thought about Avis Richardson’s baby all the way. I couldn’t help myself, and after three miles of checking cars and beating the pavement with my Adidas, I was done.
Our apartment was dark when I walked in breathless and soaked with sweat.
I switched on some lights, showered, poured myself a glass of chardonnay, and then got busy in the kitchen. I decanted some doggy beef stew for Martha, filled up her water bowl, and turned on the TV. Chris Matthews was doing the Politics Fix segment of his show while I heated up the jambalaya that Joe had cooked a few days before. And then the phone rang.
The phone always rang.
A month back, I’d made the decision not to answer the phone — neither our landline nor my cell. In so doing, I had missed a phone call that could have changed my life.
Jacobi had called — four times, in fact — to offer me the lieutenant’s job he was leaving by moving up to captain. By the time I finally spoke with him, the job had been tentatively offered to Brady. I thought it was a sign that Brady should take the job.
That was okay with me. I liked the hands-on job of being a homicide cop. It was exhausting, and you could never put it down, not even for a night, but like for my father before me, working the street was my calling.
Jackson Brady, on the other hand, was ambitious. He had a history as a good cop, and I knew he was the future of the SFPD.
I’d done the right thing in stepping aside, but I was a little more careful these days to answer ringing phones.
The cordless on the kitchen counter was beginning its third ring. I peered at the caller ID. It was Cindy, so I snatched the receiver off its base.
“I’m getting married,” Cindy yelled into my ear.
“What? What did you say?”
“We’re getting married. Richie and me. He just proposed.”
“Oh my God. That’s fantastic,” I said, feeling some conflict between whoo-hooo and a fear of Cindy getting too much off-the-record information every night from my partner.
Plus, I had liked being number one on Richie’s speed dial.
That selfish thought faded as Cindy jabbered away into the phone about Richie’s bended-knee proposal at the Grace Cathedral, the diamond ring, and the happiness that was giving her heart flight.
“It’s wonderful, Cin. Let me congratulate Rich.”
“He’s on with his dad. I’ll tell him to call you. Oh, I’m getting incoming,” she said. “My mom is calling me back.”
“Go ahead, Cindy. I’m so happy for you both.”
I switched the channel to a ball game and watched the home team slaughter the visitors as I ate my dinner. Then the telephone rang again.
It was Yuki. What now?
“Linds, am I catching you at a bad time?”
Yuki had been stiff with me since I’d told her about my interview with Candace Martin two days ago. I was hoping that maybe this call would be a break in the cloud cover.
“It’s fine,” I said. “This is a good time.”
“I was going to tell you something the other day, but we got sidetracked. I don’t know how you’re going to take this, Linds.”
“Yuki, there’s nothing you can’t tell me,” I said.
“Okay. Uh. It’s about Brady.”
“What about him?”
“He asked me out. I went out to dinner with him. Twice. It went well. So, uh … we’re dating.”
I stopped breathing and just held the receiver hard to my ear, waiting for the next shoe to drop.
“Linds?”
“Jackson Brady? You’re kidding me. Say you’re joking.”
“I really like him, Linds. I just wanted you to hear it from me.”
I’d thought there was nothing Yuki couldn’t tell me, but I’d been wrong. This news had shaken me. And I didn’t know how to tell my good friend why I felt stricken to my bones.
“Lindsay, will you please say something?”
“There’s no good way to say this. I checked Brady out when he joined the squad,” I said. “He’s married, Yuki. Did Brady tell you that he’s married?”
Book Two. LIES, LIES, AND MORE LIES
Chapter 43
THAT SUNDAY was all mine.
I had ordered eggs and hash browns at Louis’, a greasy spoon on Point Lobos Avenue. It was a great barn of a place, built in 1937 on a cliff overlooking the ocean. True, Louis’ drew tourists, but it was still a local hangout, especially in the early morning.
The day was still too young for tourists, so Louis’ was full of regulars, mostly runners and walkers from the coastal trail at Lands End, now relaxing and reading papers at the counter. Nobody was bothering anyone.
I sighed with contentment.
From my seat in a booth, I had a view of the Sutro Baths at Lands End and I could also see my parking spot in front of Louis’ and Martha in the driver’s seat of my Explorer. Before coming here, we’d made a stop at Crissy Field so that Martha could run on a sandy beach and swim in the surf of the bay.
“Careful, the plate’s not,” the waitress said, setting down my breakfast. She refilled my chunky brown mug with fresh-brewed Colombian java.
“Thanks. It looks perfect,” I said.
My cell phone rang, just as I picked up my fork. Why was I so goddamned popular? I looked at my phone, but didn’t recognize the name on the caller ID. Who was W. Steihl?
Should I take the call? Or should I let it go to voice mail?
I flipped a quarter and smacked it on the back of my hand. I took a peek.
“Boxer,” I said with a sigh into the phone.
“Sergeant Boxer, this is Wilhelmina Steihl. Willy. I met you the other day at Brighton?”
Now, I remembered her. Willy Steihl was one of Avis Richardson’s school friends. She had shiny black hair to her shoulders and steel-rimmed glasses, and she wore bright red lipstick.
I also remembered how hesitant she was to talk to Rich and me a few days ago, but from the sound of her voice, she had something urgent to tell me now.
“I couldn’t say anything when you were here,” Willy Steihl said to me. “People would have fi
gured out that I was the rat.”
“Let’s not worry about being a rat,” I said. “Rats can be heroes, too. Do you know where we can find Avis’s baby?”
“No, no, I don’t know that. I’m a friend of Larry Foster? He said I should call you. Are you near a computer?”
“No, but my phone is pretty slick. What should I look up?”
“I want to show you some pictures. On Facebook. But I don’t want to give you my password.”
The kid was worrying about a password — something she could change in a couple of keystrokes — but I didn’t want to go balls to the wall with her. Willy was a minor. She didn’t have to talk to me at all.
“What if I meet you at your dorm?” I said. I signaled to the waitress to bring me my check.
“Not there. I don’t want anyone to see me talking to you,” Willy said.
I stifled a groan and told her I’d meet her at the entrance to 850 Bryant in an hour.
“I’ll be there,” Willy told me.
Was she going to help me find Avis’s baby? Or was this going to be another lead to nowhere?
I put a ten and a fiver on top of the check and left Louis’ still hungry.
Chapter 44
IT WAS JUST ABOUT TEN and an overcast sixty-four degrees when I rolled the window down a few inches for Martha and left my car in the lot across from the Hall.
Willy Steihl was not outside the large granite cube where I worked, so I waited on the corner, tapping my foot as traffic breezed by at a steady clip even for a Sunday.
Ten minutes later, a cab draw up curbside and I opened the door for young Willy Steihl. She said hi and, keeping a good six feet between us, followed me through the double glass doors into the red-marbled lobby of the Hall of Justice.
Willy took off her belt, put it in a tote, and went through the scanners at the entrance. I badged security and took the girl with black hair, black clothes, and a bite-me expression up to the squad room, where the swing shift was at work.
I asked Sergeant Bob Nardone if I could use my desk, and he said, “Sure, Boxer. And I should do what? Work on my air computer?”
“Get up, Nardone. Heat up your coffee. Take a break. We won’t be long.”
I commandeered the desk chair, and Willy Steihl stood beside me as I logged on to my account. Then I gave the girl my chair so she could enter her information on my computer.
She hunched over the keyboard as she typed in her password and ID, saying, “Give me a second, okay? I’m opening the folder I was telling you about.”
I was drumming my fingers on my desk as Willy Steihl tapped on the keys. Finally she said, “Got it.”
I turned the monitor toward me and stared at a picture of a soccer game. Kids were flying across the field, the ball was in play, and people were cheering at the sidelines. A typical high-school sports event.
“See,” she said. “This was us against the Warriors. I was taking pictures of Larry.”
She enlarged the picture, focusing not on the field but on the people watching the game. I saw Avis Richardson with her profile to the camera, wearing Burberry-plaid pajama bottoms and a school sweatshirt that effectively hid her pregnancy.
She was standing very close to a tall, dark, and handsome man who, to my eyes, was definitely not a student.
Willy clicked the mouse and another picture came up, then another, and with each picture she enlarged the frame and closed in on Avis Richardson. In one of the pictures, I saw that Avis’s hand was tucked into the hand of the good-looking man.
“Who is that?” I asked Willy.
“That’s Mr. Ritter. He teaches sophomore English,” she said.
“What are you implying, Willy? Don’t make me guess.”
The girl squirmed in the chair.
“Willy. Do not waste my time.”
I wanted to give her a good shake, but she made up her mind without more help from me.
“We all knew that Avis and Mr. Ritter were close,” she said. “She got excellent grades in English, so we thought she was his favorite student, or maybe they were really close. You know what I mean? Because Avis lied when she told you that she was dating Larry Foster.
“She wasn’t dating him. I am.”
Chapter 45
WILLY STEIHL had dropped a bomb.
She was leading me to believe that there was a relationship between a fifteen-year-old girl and her English teacher. What the hell was that? Statutory rape, that’s what it was, a crime that could come with jail time for Mr. Ritter if he was convicted. And, if he’d been involved in the death of a baby? He’d be serving life in a federal prison.
I said to Willy, “Apart from these pictures, is there anything else you can tell me? Did Avis say anything to you about Mr. Ritter? Have you ever seen them alone together?”
Willy Steihl shrugged, then shook her head no. She looked as though she were trying to disappear through the back of the chair.
“Willy, this is very helpful and it’s also very serious. Could Mr. Ritter be the father of Avis’s baby?”
“I don’t know. I just wanted you to see the pictures and draw your own conclusions, okay?”
Not okay.
“A baby is missing, Willy. Try to imagine what Avis must be feeling. What her parents are going through. That little boy is helpless. He may be alone. He may be dying. If you know anything that could help us find him, you have to tell me. It’s your obligation. In fact, if you know something and don’t tell me, that makes you an accessory to a crime.”
“I shouldn’t have come,” said the girl in black, scrambling out of the chair, swinging her backpack over her shoulder. “I don’t know anything. I have to get out of here.”
I hadn’t been subtle. I’d hammered the kid and threatened her, and now she was done. I wished for the thousandth time that I had even 10 percent of Conklin’s tact. I offered Willy a lift back to school, but she said, “I’ll get a taxi. Don’t mention me to anyone, please.”
“I have to use my judgment, Willy.”
She looked at me like I was going to sink my fangs into her neck and then left the squad room without closing out her Facebook account.
Sergeant Nardone swooped in like a condor. I told him to keep his pants on, then took the opportunity to pry.
I tapped on the keyboard, did a search for photo tags for Ritter, and found more pictures of the English teacher on Willy’s home pages and on those of her friends.
According to the Web chat and notes written on virtual walls, Ritter was frequently discussed by the girls in Willy’s circle. Many of them commented on his good looks and his manner in class and speculated about what he’d be like in bed.
I clicked on the link to Avis Richardson’s home page. I’d seen her page when Joe suggested it, but now I was looking with a specific purpose. I scrutinized photos of Avis mugging with Larry Foster, doing shots with girlfriends at parties, and cheering at sporting events — but there was not one picture of her with Jordan Ritter.
I cut and pasted what I might need later into an e-mail that I then sent to myself. After that, I closed down the computer and gave Nardone back his chair.
“You’re a gent, Nardone.”
“Don’t mention it, Boxer. By the way, I ate your Cheetos in the bottom drawer.”
“I knew that,” I said, pointing to the orange prints on a drawer pull. Nardone laughed. “You’re good,” he said.
I called Richie twice on my way out to my car. Both times I got his voice mail, and after the second time, I left a message. “I’ve got a lead, Rich. Good one. Call me.”
Next, I called Jordan Ritter. I told Ritter I was working the abduction of Avis Richardson and hoped he could give me some insights into her personality.
Ritter said, “I don’t know her all that well, but sure, I’ll be happy to help.”
Jordan Ritter lived only a few blocks from Brighton Academy. I drove Martha home, then headed east along California to Broderick.
It was still early on Sunday afterno
on when I parked my car on the pretty residential block near the corner of Broderick and Pine. The building where Ritter lived was a three-story apartment house, Italianate, clay-colored, trimmed in white, with two columns of bay windows.
He lived on the ground floor.
I rang the bell in the alcove and said my name into the speaker. Ritter’s footsteps got louder as he came to the door.
Chapter 46
JORDAN RITTER OPENED THE DOOR of his apartment, placed one palm on the doorjamb, and, taking his time, looked me over.
I was doing the same to him.
Ritter was in his early thirties, fit, unshaven, good hair, good teeth, and was wearing a T-shirt and Burberry pajama bottoms. I’d seen Avis Richardson wearing pajamas just like those.
A trend? A coincidence? Or had Avis been wearing her boyfriend’s pj’s?
“Well, look at you,” he said.
The nervy bastard was hitting on me.
“Mr. Ritter? I’m Sergeant Boxer,” I snapped. I also flashed my badge.
“Come in. Can I get you some coffee? I just made it.”
I said, “Sure,” and walked around him into the apartment.
The place had a prepackaged look, as if it had been rented furnished or bought all in one day in a department store. I followed Ritter through the living room, noticing the Sunday paper on the floor and a couple of coffee mugs on the low table in front of the couch.
Anyone with an online degree in Forensics for Dummies could’ve figured out that Ritter had had a sleepover guest. Or else he was cagey and had staged a red herring for my benefit.
In the kitchen Ritter said, “Cream and sugar, Sergeant?”
“Black will be fine.”
“Like I said on the phone,” Ritter said, “I hardly know Avis. She’s in my class this year, but apart from her grades — which were excellent — I don’t know much about her.”
I followed Ritter back into the living room and took a chair opposite the one he sprawled in.
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