19th Christmas

by Patterson, James

  “He didn’t call the police,” said Cindy. “He just drove to his second job.”

  “Hmm. Or, as the state will put it, he shot the guy, got rid of his gun, then drove to his second job.”

  Yuki had worked for a nonprofit lawyers’ organization. Cindy knew she had defended a couple of undocumented immigrants while assisting the head of the Defense League, who was now a friend.

  Yuki said, “I’m thinking about that big case that gets talked about a lot. Jorge Alvarez was deported five times and got back into San Francisco, where he fatally stabbed a man in a hotel lobby. It was an unfortunate criminal career path,” Yuki said, “but it made a big impression on the public consciousness, and it hardened the courts against illegal immigrants.”

  “What happened to Alvarez?” Cindy asked.

  “He’s awaiting trial. He could be your guy’s cell mate, for all we know. But there’s another guy I just read about, an immigrant convicted of murder, Jaime Ochoa. Ochoa got a break—after twenty years.”

  “Twenty?”

  “The one and only witness retracted her statement. She maintained that she had told the cops she wasn’t sure at the time, but the state ran with the witness testimony and got a conviction. After twenty years, the witness was willing to swear she’d ID’d the wrong man.”

  “Holy crap. Twenty years of life, wasted.”

  “Ochoa walked out a free man. He wasn’t deported, and he thanked the court and went home to his family,” Yuki said. “He was undocumented, but he had no prior record.

  “Varela, on the other hand, is not only here illegally, he’s a repeat offender with a murder indictment.”

  “So there’s no hope at all?”

  “I’ll make a call to Zac Jordan, the lawyer I worked for at the Defense League. He’s good, Cin. He’s smart as can be. Still, I wouldn’t bank on Eduardo Varela walking on this one. He has the right to a fair trial. But unless he has a brilliant lawyer and the state is too overwhelmed to pay attention, odds are he’s going to prison for the rest of his life.”

  “Please call your friend, Yuki,” Cindy said. “I believe in miracles.”

  CHAPTER 17

  THE DAY AFTER the shootout at the Anthony Hotel, the bullpen was standing room only, packed wall to wall to wall with investigators from our station and representatives from Northern and Central as well.

  Brady had called an emergency meeting. Two FBI agents had been hit; one had died, and the other had been moments from bleeding out. The tension in the room was expressed with tight body language and nervous chatter.

  I watched Brady leave his office at the back of the bullpen and edge through the crowd. When he got to the front, he grabbed a chair, stepped up onto it, batted away a garland of tinsel tacked to the ceiling, then ripped it down.

  He said, “Good morning, everyone.”

  The chatter immediately shut down, and our lieutenant and acting chief got right to it.

  He said, “We’ve been tipped off that there is going to be a big, likely heavily armed robbery in the next few days. We’d like to head that off.

  “Here’s what we know.”

  Talking over the fresh round of murmurs, Brady detailed the chase and capture of petty thief Julian Lambert, the info he’d given us on a hitter hired to work the upcoming robbery, and the tip that the hitter was staying at the Anthony Hotel.

  “That hitter,” said Brady, “is now laid out at the morgue. Everyone here heard what happened last night?”

  A murmur of “Yes, sir”s rumbled through the room. The story of the one-man ambush and Dietz’s utter obliteration on the sixth floor had traveled fast, first over the police and fire department channels, then by word of mouth, then via the internet, and finally as a “Sources tell us” piece on the broadcast news.

  Conklin and I exchanged looks, both of us still shell-shocked, hoping for answers. After this, we planned to go back to the Anthony and meet with CSI director Charlie Clapper. He and his team had been processing the scene all night, and I was dying to find out what he had learned from Chris Dietz’s rented room. Julian Lambert was still in our custody, and Brady would interrogate him again. If Lambert was holding anything back, I was pretty sure he’d give it up to Brady.

  Brady said, “Here’s what we know about this robbery scheme. Supposedly, a man named Loman is behind it, and supposedly, it’s going down on Christmas Day.”

  He paused and everyone waited.

  “That’s all I’ve got,” said Brady. “No idea what the target is, what part of town it’ll be in, who else is involved. Heck, Loman might have decided to pull the plug on this operation, given all the publicity on last night’s action.

  “But let’s say he’s still going forward. If you hear something, say something.”

  Feet shifted. A voice called out, “Over here, boss.”

  “Bentley,” Brady said. “Whatcha got?”

  Sergeant Roger Bentley was from the Robbery Division. I didn’t know much about him, but I knew he was well positioned to hear rumors about a heist.

  Bentley said, “I’ve heard the name Loman. People are afraid of him, like he’s a drug lord or a capo. But nothing more than that. I’ve asked, and what comes back is ‘I don’t want to talk about him.’”

  Another hand went up and Brady called on Anderson from the Criminal Investigations Unit upstairs.

  Anderson said, “Rumor has it that Loman was behind that casino heist in Vegas. The one at the Black Diamond. Netted nine million. Almost got out clean, but three of his crew—the guys transporting the take—were killed when their getaway car was T-boned by a gas truck on the way out of town.”

  We had all heard about that heist gone wrong—a TV movie had been based on it. As I remembered it, the gas-truck explosion was shown in slow motion and it had been a mesmerizing special effect. But I hadn’t known that the man behind the heist that went way wrong was named Loman.

  “Let’s have some ideas on possible targets,” Brady said.

  Hands went up around the room; people suggested banks, museums, jewelry stores. Opportunities for potentially big hauls, like the nine million taken from the Black Diamond Casino.

  When the brainstorming was over, Brady asked those present to work their informants and uniforms in their divisions and forward all possible leads to him.

  “Crime’s not going to take a holiday while we go after Loman. I’m calling people back from time off so we’re covered. One of those people is Chief Warren Jacobi, who has volunteered to step out of retirement and work out of this unit with Boxer and Conklin.”

  Jacobi came through the doorway to a big round of applause from about sixty cops who knew that, even after retiring under a cloud, he was a helluva cop.

  I was very glad to see my old partner, my old boss, my close friend. Conklin and I grinned at each other.

  The gang was all here.

  CHAPTER 18

  I WAS STILL on adrenaline overload from last night’s shootout at the Anthony Hotel, and now Brady’s full-house staff meeting had tweaked me to a turn.

  The clock on this mysterious big heist was running out and we needed answers—fast. Conklin parked our squad car in front of the Anthony Hotel behind three cruisers and the CSI van. I was glad to see that van. If anyone could read tea leaves in the dregs of this cesspool, it was Charlie Clapper and his team.

  I zipped my Windbreaker over my vest and yanked up the chain holding my badge so that it hung outside my jacket. I got out of the car and took in the sights. Morning on Sixth Street looked like a flashback to the Great Depression. Clouds blocked the sun. Trash blew up the pavement and collected in the gutters. Pedestrians drifted purposelessly, and the thin traffic slowed when drivers saw the CSI van.

  Uniformed officers leaned against their cruisers, protecting the perimeter. Others had door duty, barring the press and checking IDs of hotel residents. An old man vomited in the alley next to the liquor store.

  My partner said, “Ready?”

  “You bet. Can’t wa
it.”

  We crossed the buckled sidewalk to the hotel entrance, entered the stinking lobby, and identified ourselves to the desk clerk, who was twenty years older than the clerk working the night shift. He had been informed, no doubt. He said, “Don’t mess up the place, okay?”

  Conklin said, “Got it,” and we took the stairs, an obstacle course of discarded crack vials, condoms, Thunderbird empties. We exited through the fire door onto the sixth floor.

  All but two of the doorways were taped off; tenants had been relocated and their rooms cleared. I noticed now that a couple of those doors had wreaths circling the peepholes. Another was hung with a stocking, the name Mia stitched on the cuff. Meager hopes for a merry Christmas, dashed.

  At the front of the long hallway, room 6F looked as I had seen it last night, the bullet-perforated door left hanging by one hinge after Dietz had sprung his surprise attack on a team of trained SWAT commandos armed with military-grade automatic weapons. The bloody outline of Dietz’s body was like an unwelcome mat in front of the door. Why would he pick a fight he so obviously would not win?

  At the far end of the hallway, the door to 6R was wide open. I called out to Charlie Clapper and he stepped out to meet us. Clapper was director of Crime Scene Investigation, a former LVPD homicide cop with deep knowledge and no attitude. He always looked as though he’d dressed for a business meeting, and despite the booties over his shoes and the blue latex gloves he was wearing, today was no exception. His blazer and tie were snappy, and his graying hair was immaculately cut and combed.

  “Welcome to the morning after,” he said.

  “Always a pleasure to see you, Charles,” I said.

  Clapper told us to view the scene from the doorway. “For anything you want to see close up,” he said, “I’ll be your eyes.”

  The room was lit by a couple of halogen lights and was small enough that we could see everything in it from the threshold. Three CSIs, gloved up, wearing booties, and armed with cameras and evidence bags, stepped gingerly around the periphery of the room.

  Done correctly, processing a crime scene is a slow, methodical procedure of documentation and analysis because of the underlying need to keep the scene intact. If there were clues to Loman’s plans, they could be here.

  I looked around and saw an open can of beer on top of the old-fashioned TV set, a plate of half-eaten spareribs on the kitchen table. The closet door was open, revealing two men’s coats and assorted pieces of casual clothing. A coffee table in front of a sagging sofa was laden with what looked to be expensive cameras and technical equipment I couldn’t identify.

  “So what do we have?” I asked Clapper.

  “Looks like he was living here alone,” said Clapper. “And he was working on something not exactly kosher. Those are the tools of his trade: cameras, sophisticated listening devices. No expense was spared. Oddly, there’s no laptop in either of his rooms, but we got his phone.

  “Unrelated, there was a stash of porn over there,” he said, pointing in the general direction of the sofa. “And in the bathroom. And under the bed.”

  “Regular porn or something special?”

  “Straight-up busty women. Two semiautos plus ammo were in the closet. I sent the guns and the phone to the lab. Before I did that, I mailed this from his phone to mine. You may find it interesting.”

  Conklin and I stood beside Clapper as he swiped through the crime scene photos. He stopped on one and angled the screen so we could see it: a map of Golden Gate Park. He enlarged it. The de Young Museum, located inside the park, had been circled in red.

  Hot damn.

  Finally. We had a clue.

  CHAPTER 19

  CONKLIN AND I were heading down the fire stairs to the Anthony’s lobby when a curvy young woman stepped out of the shadows on the fourth-floor landing.

  She said, “Hey. Inspectors. I got something to tell you about Savage. I mean Chris.”

  She looked to be around twenty years old and was wearing frayed black tights and a tight red top with sequins at the neckline. Her haircut was choppy and there were studs in her face, hoops in her ears. The tattoo on one arm read BITE ME. One of her hands was inked with a baby’s face under a banner reading ANGEL.

  I asked her name.

  “I go by Dancy.”

  “And Savage is?”

  “Your boy. Chris Dietz,” she told us.

  Muffled shouts, Christmas carols, and door slams resonated through the stairwell, as if it were acoustically designed to pull sound upward through the thin walls of adjoining apartments.

  I asked her, “How well did you know Chris Dietz?”

  “I lived next door to him for two months. Since he moved in,” she said. “When I got jacked outta my room, I found an empty one downstairs. When can I go back to my place?”

  I said, “When the crime scene guys are done. Probably take another day.”

  “What about all the holes in my door?”

  I shrugged an apology and said, “That’ll be up to hotel management and Nationwide. You have something for us?”

  She scowled. “I need a hundred dollars. Savage was my rent money.”

  Conklin said, “A hundred? That’s a little much, isn’t it?”

  “It’s cheap for what I’ve got for you,” she said. “He used to talk to me when we were done. He told me his plans.”

  I didn’t want to take a witness statement in a fire stairwell if I could help it. If Dancy had something, I wanted her in an interrogation room on camera.

  We had a map of Golden Gate Park with a circle around the museum that had come from Dietz’s phone. It was a good start. Maybe we had the where. But I wanted more. Much more. Times, dates, names, all the details needed to flesh out this sketchy story. If Dancy had answers, truthful ones, a hundred bucks was cheap.

  I said, “I have to get the boss to sign for that. Let’s take a ride to the station.”

  She scoffed and trotted down toward the lobby.

  I shouted after her, “Dancy. We’ll get the money.”

  She spun around. “You want to lock me up.”

  “No,” I said. “I want to talk to you in private—”

  “Listen, and make sure you hear me,” she said. “I’m not going to no damned police station with you.”

  A door opened on the floor below us. Children’s voices rang out and their footsteps clattered in the stairwell.

  I sighed. Our potential informant was dancing away.

  “Come back,” I said. “I’ll give you what I’ve got on me.”

  The young prostitute walked up to the landing and stuck out her palm.

  Conklin dug his wallet out of his back pocket and I searched my jacket for spare change.

  I handed him my little wad.

  Conklin counted his bills and said, “I’ve got sixty. All together, we’ve got seventy-five dollars and thirty-five cents.”

  Dancy looked at it and snorted. “Keep the change,” she said. She plucked the bills from Conklin’s hand and stuffed them inside the bodice of her red spangled blouse.

  She said, “Dietz told me that he was going to hit the mayor.”

  “Caputo?” I said stupidly.

  “He’s the mayor, right?”

  “Why was Dietz going to kill the mayor?”

  “He didn’t say why. Savage always wants to be a big man. There was supposed to be a huge paycheck in the hit. He said he knew where the mayor was and when. He was just waiting for the call and it would be a go.”

  “Waiting for the call from whom?” Conklin asked.

  Dancy looked at him like he was an idiot.

  “You don’t know anything, do you?” she said. “Loman. Savage was working for Mr. Loman.”

  CHAPTER 20

  CONKLIN AND I sat across from Brady in his small, glass-walled office at the back of the bullpen.

  Our lieutenant had a few to-do lists in front of him, yellow pads marked with a red grease pencil. A flurry of Post-it notes covered his lamp and walls. Every light on
his phone console blinked red.

  The stress of several punishing months of double duty showed in Brady’s face and posture. I wondered how much longer he could take it, how long before either a new chief was hired to replace Jacobi or Brady took the bump up to the bigger job. He had the chops to be chief, but the position was 100 percent administration and politics.

  I didn’t think he would like it.

  Brady punched a button on his phone console and said, “Brenda, can you clear these calls before the phone shorts out?”

  To us he said, “Y’all have to make this quick.”

  Conklin and I told him about our morning with Clapper at the Anthony and dangled the two shiny objects: Dancy’s tip about a contract on the mayor and the circled museum on the hit man’s phone.

  Brady leaned back in his chair and stared out at the traffic on the freeway.

  When he turned back, he said, “We’re swimming in tips, none substantiated. Loman’s crew is going to hit one of two banks, a jewelry store, or all of the above.

  “Now we add in a target on the mayor. Why the mayor? Is this political? Is it terrorism?”

  Conklin said, “Dancy told us that Dietz was given a contract. That’s all we’ve got.”

  Brady said, “I’ll get to the mayor. He’s too willing to put himself in front of microphones. Cameras. He should cancel any public appearances. I can beef up his security detail.”

  He stood up, shouted out across the bullpen, “Brenda, please get Wroble on the line.”

  Ike Wroble was captain of the Homeland Security Unit, now reporting to Brady in his role as temporary police chief.

  Brady sat down, drummed his fingers on the legal pad.

  “About a robbery at the de Young,” said Brady. “It’s a rich target. If Lambert, your shopping-bag thief, is right that there’s going to be a heist, that sounds more like the way to go than taking out the mayor. There’s a fortune in artwork at the de Young.

  “Either way, we’ve got three days to get ahead of this. I don’t have to tell you, we have limited resources and not one goddamn reliable fact.”