2nd Chance (13 page)

I turned to Lorraine and Chin. “What do you need to finish up here?”

“I want to check along the escape route,” Chin said. “If he had a car parked, someone must’ve seen it. Otherwise, maybe someone saw him come out on Ocean.”

“Fucking chief.” Jacobi sighed. “I always thought the guy would hold a news conference at his own funeral.”

“We still classifying this as a hate crime, Lieutenant?” Cappy sniffed.

“I don’t know about you,” I said, “but I hate this bastard pretty bad.”

J
ACOBI
WAS
RIGHT
about one thing. The next morning, everything
had
changed. A feeding frenzy of every news organization in the country was massing on the outside steps of the Hall of justice, setting up their camera crews, clawing for interviews. Anthony Tracchio was named acting chief. He had been the chief’s administrative right hand, but had never come up through the ranks. On the Chimera case, I was now reporting to him. “No leaks,” Tracchio brusquely warned. “No contact with the press. All interviews go through me.”

A joint task force was set up to handle Mercer’s homicide. It wasn’t until I got upstairs that I found out precisely what “joint” meant.

When I got back to my office, two tan-suited
FBI
agents were waiting in the outer room. A polished, preppy black man named Ruddy in an oxford shirt and yellow tie, who seemed to be in charge, and the typical hard-nosed field agent named Hull.

The first thing out of Ruddy’s mouth was how nice it was to be working with the inspector who had solved the bride and groom case. The second thing was a request for the Chimera files. All of them. Tasha. Davidson. Whatever we had on Mercer.

Ten seconds after they left, I was on the phone to my new boss. “Guess I know what you meant by
‘joint,’
” I said.

“Crimes against public officials are a federal offense, Lieutenant. There’s not much I can do,” said Tracchio.

“Mercer said this was a
city
crime, Chief. He said city personnel ought to see it through.”

Tracchio sent my heart into a tailspin. “I’m sorry. Not anymore.

L
ATER
THAT
AFTERNOON
, I drove out to Ingleside Heights to talk with Chief Mercer’s wife. I felt I needed to do it myself. A line of cars was already stretched along the street around the chief’s home. A relative answered the door and told me Mrs. Mercer was upstairs with family.

I stood around, checking out faces I recognized gathered in the living room. After a few minutes, Eunice Mercer came down the stairs. She was accompanied by a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman who turned out to be her sister. She recognized me and walked my way.

“I’m so sorry. I can’t believe it,” I said, squeezing her hand first, then hugging her.

“I know,” she whispered. “I know you’ve just gone through this yourself.”

“I promise you, I know how tough this is. But I need to ask you a few questions,” I finally said to her.

She nodded, and her sister floated back among the guests. Eunice Mercer took me into a private den.

I asked her many of the same questions I had put forth to the relatives of other victims. Had anyone recently threatened her husband? Calls to the house? Anyone suspicious lately watching the house?

She shook her head no. “Earl said this was the only place where he actually felt like he lived in the city, not just ran the police force.”

I changed tack. “You ever come across the name Art Davidson before this week?”

Eunice Mercer’s face went blank. “You think Earl was killed by the same man who did these other horrible things?”

I took her hand. “I think these murders were all committed by the same man.”

She massaged her brow. “Lindsay, nothing makes sense to me right now. Earl’s murder. That book.”

“Book…?” I asked.

“Yes. Earl always read car magazines. He had this dream, when he retired… this old
GTO
he kept in a cousin’s garage. He always said he was gonna tear it down and build it up from scratch. But that book he had stuffed in his jacket… ”

“What book?” I was squinting at her hard.

“A young doctor at the hospital returned it to me, along with his wallet and keys. I never knew he had such an interest in that sort of thing. Those old myths…”

Suddenly my pulse was racing. “Can you show me what you’re talking about?”

“Of course,” Eunice Mercer said. “It’s over here.” She left the den and in a minute came back. She handed me a paperback copy of a book every school kid reads. Mythology; by Edith Hamilton.

It was an old dog-eared copy, looked as if it had been leafed through a thousand times. I rifled through the pages and spotted nothing.

I ran down the table of contents. Then I saw it. Halfway down, page 141. It was underlined.
Bellerophon Kills the Chimera
.

Bellerophon… Billy Reffon.

My heart clenched. It was the name he’d used on the 911 call about Art Davidson. He had called himself Billy Reffon.

I flipped to page 141. It was there. With an illustration. The lion rearing. The goat’s body. The serpent’s tail.

Chimera.

The bastard was telling us he had killed Chief Mercer.

A surge rippled through me. There was something else on the page. A sharp, edgy script, a few words, scrawled above the illustration in ink:

[_More to come… justice will be served.

L
EAVING
MERCER’s
HOME
, I drove around in a sweat, terror-filled at what I knew to be the truth.

All my instincts had been right. This was no random, racist murder spree. This was a cold, calculating killer. He was taunting us, the same way he had with the white van. With that cocky tape. Billy Reffon.

Finally I said,
Fuck it
. I called the girls. I couldn’t hold back any longer. They were three of the sharpest law-enforcement minds in the city And this bastard had told me there were going to be more killings. We set up a meeting at Susie’s.

“I need your help,” I said, panning their faces in our usual booth at the restaurant.

“That’s why we’re here,” Claire said. “You call, we come running.”

“
Finally.”
Cindy chuckled. “She admits she’s nothing without us.”

“This Kiss” by Faith Hill was drowning out a basketball game on the TV but in the corner booth, the four of us were huddled in our own purposeful world. God, it was good to have everybody back together again.

“Everything’s screwed up with Mercer gone. The FBI’s come in. I don’t even know who’s in control. All I know is that the longer we wait, the more people are going to be killed.”

“This time there have to be some rules,” Jill said, tugging on a Buckler nonalcoholic beer. “This isn’t a game. That last case, I think I broke every rule I took an oath to uphold. Withholding evidence, using the D. A.’s office for personal use. If anything had gotten out, I’d be doing my cases from the tenth floor.”

We laughed. The tenth floor of the Hall was where the holding cells were located.

“Okay.” I agreed. It was the same for me. “Anything we find we take to the task force.”

“Let’s not go overboard,” said Cindy with a mischievous laugh. “We’re here to help you, not to make the careers of some uptight, bureaucratic men.”

“The Margarita Posse lives,” joked Jill. “Jesus, I’m glad we’re back.”

“Don’t you
ever
doubt it,” said Claire.

I looked around at the girls. The Women’s Murder Club. Part of me bristled with apprehension. Four people were dead, including the highest-ranking police officer in the city. The killer had proved he could strike anywhere he wanted to.

“Each murder has become more high profile, and daring,” I said, filling them in on the latest, including the book stuffed in Mercer’s jacket. “He no longer needs the subterfuge of the racial MO. It’s racial, all right. I just don’t know why.”

Claire took us through the chief’s autopsy, which she had finished up that afternoon. He was hit three times at close range with a.38 gun. “My impression is that the three shots were spaced at measured intervals. I could tell by the pattern that the wounds bled out. The last one was to the head. Mercer was already on the ground. It makes me think they may have confronted each other. That he was trying to kill him slowly Or that they were even talking. I guess where I’m headed is that it’s likely Mercer knew his killer.”

“You checked into the possibility that all these officers were somehow connected?” Jill cut in. “of course you have. You’re Lindsay Boxer.”

“Of course I have. There’s no record any of them had even met. Their careers don’t seem to have crossed. Tasha Catchings’s uncle is younger than the others by twenty years. We can’t find anything that puts them together.”

“Somebody hates cops. Well, actually, a lot of people do,” Cindy said.

“I just can’t find the link. This started out in the guise of a hate crime. The killer wanted us to view the murders in a certain way. He wanted us to find his clues. And he wanted us to find the chimera. His fucked-up symbol.”

“But if this is a personal vendetta,” Jill said, “it doesn’t make sense that it would lead back to some organized group.”

“Unless he was setting someone up,” I said.

“Or unless,” Cindy said, chewing her lip, “the chimera doesn’t lead back to a hate group at all. Maybe this book is his way of telling us it’s something else.”

I stared at her. We all did. “We’re waiting, Einstein.”

She blinked remotely, then shook her head. “I was just thinking out loud.”

Jill said she would dig into any grievance cases against a black officer who had wronged or injured a white. Any act of vengeance that might explain the killer’s mind-set. Cindy would do the same at the Chronicle.

It had been a long day, and I was exhausted. I had a task force meeting at seven-thirty the next morning. I looked each of my friends in the eye. “Thank you, thank you.”

“We’re gonna solve this sucker with you,” Jill said. “We’re going to get Chimera.”

“We’ve got to,” Claire said. “We need you to keep picking up the bar bill.”

For a few more minutes, we chatted about what we all had going on the next day, when we could get together again. We were starting to cook now. Jill and Claire had their cars parked in the lot. I asked Cindy, who lived in the Castro section, near me, if she needed a ride.

“Actually,” she said with a smile, “I have a date.”

“Good for you. Who is your next victim?” Claire exclaimed. “When do we get to check him out?

“If you supposedly mature, talented women want to ogle like a bunch of schoolkids, I guess
now
.He’s picking me up.”

“I’m always up for a good ogle,” Claire said.

I snorted out a laugh. “You could be meeting Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe, and it wouldn’t rock my boat tonight.”

As we pushed through the front door, Cindy tugged my arm. “Hold on to your oars, honey.”

We all saw him at once. We all ogled, and my boat was rocked.

Waiting outside, looking altogether sexy and handsome, dressed entirely in black, was Aaron Winslow.

I
COULDN’T
BELIEVE
IT. I stood there gawking. I looked at Cindy, then back at Winslow, my surprise slowly giving way to a blushing smile.

“
Lieutenant.”
Winslow nodded, cutting through the awkward murk. “When Cindy said she was meeting friends, I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”

“Yeah, me too,” I babbled back.

“We’re headed to the Blue Door,” Cindy said to the crowd, going through the introductions. “Pinetop Perkins is in town.”

“Terrific.” Claire nodded.

“
Beatific,”
snipped Jill.

“Anybody care to join?” Aaron Winslow asked. “If you haven’t heard it, there’s nothing like Memphis blues.”

“I’m in the office at six tomorrow,” said Claire. “You two go along.”

I leaned over to Cindy and whispered, “You know, when we were talking foxholes the other day, I was only joking.”

“I know you were,” Cindy said, looping her arm around mine. “But I wasn’t.”

Claire, Jill, and I stood with our jaws open and watched the two of them disappear around the corner. Actually, they looked kind of cute together, and it was only a date to hear some music.

“Okay,” Jill said, “tell me I wasn’t dreaming.”

“You weren’t dreaming, girl,” Claire replied. “I just hope that Cindy realizes what she’s getting herself into.”

“Uh-uh.” I shook my head. “I hope he does.”

Getting into my car, I entertained myself with the notion of Cindy and Aaron Winslow. It almost pushed out of my head the reason we had gotten together in the first place.

I turned my Explorer onto Brannan and waved good-bye to Claire, who was heading over to 280. As I made the turn, I caught a glimpse of a white Toyota pulling out down the block behind me.

My mind was wrapped up with what I had just done, getting the girls involved in this horrible case. I had just countermanded a direct order from the mayor and my commanding officer. This time, there was no one backing me up. No Roth, or Mercer.

A Mazda with two teenage girls in it pulled up behind me. We had stopped at a light on Seventh. The driver was talking a mile a minute on her cell phone, while her companion obliviously sung along to the stereo.

As we started up, I kept my eye on them for a block, until they veered onto Ninth. A blue minivan took the Mazda’s place.

I got onto Potrero under the underpass to 101, heading south. The blue van turned.

To my surprise, I saw that same white Toyota lurking thirty yards behind.

I continued on. A silver
BMW
sped up in the left lane and pulled up behind me. Behind it, a city bus. It looked as if the mystery car was gone.

Who could blame you for getting a little jumpy, with what’s going on?
I said to myself. My picture had been in the paper and on the TV news.