Red Line (16 page)

Sinclair walked through the door and saw Maloney sitting in the front of the homicide office surrounded by Sergeants Braddock, Jankowski, Sanchez, and Larsen. “What did the autopsy reveal?” Maloney asked.

“Cause of death due to shock and hemorrhage as a result of multiple gunshot wounds,” said Sinclair. “It didn’t take a medical degree to figure that out. The doc dug out four slugs. All look intact.”

Maloney said, “I talked to Mary in the lab. She’ll do a rush on your casings and slugs and enter them in the system today if you get them there by two.”

“I’ll do the lab request and walk it up,” said Braddock.

“You and Matt will be busy.”

Jankowski said, “I’ll handle it.”

Maloney turned to Larsen. “How’s it going with Children’s?”

“I want to thank you, boss, for this shit detail.” Larsen sat on a desk belonging to one of the homicide suppression team officers. “We met with the security guy, the hospital CEO, and a bunch of other bigwigs. They’re going
to send the surgeons and their families out of town. The hospital’s springing for the hotel. They’re arranging bodyguards through a private security company for the CEO and medical affairs chief and their families. O’Connor’s still there coordinating the details.”

“How long will they protect them?” asked Sinclair.

“Through the weekend at least,” said Larsen. “They’ll reassess Monday morning.”

“I want you and O’Connor to stay on this,” said Maloney. “We can’t afford to have one of these people killed.”

“Don’t tell me you’re forcing us to work overtime.”

Maloney grinned. “Split it up, twelve on and twelve off through Monday morning.”

“Ka-ching. I take back what I said about this being a shit assignment.”

Sanchez said, “I just got phone records and some financials on Brooks, so I’ll get that into the database.”

“NYPD’s Nineteenth Precinct called when you were out,” Connie said, handing Sinclair a message. “The detective who handled the case was on vacation, but his partner said there was nothing suspicious about Arquette’s suicide. She ODed on prescribed Valium. Everyone said she was distraught over her daughter’s death. She left a note.”

“Did you think to request a copy of their report?” asked Sinclair.

“I’m sorry—”

Maloney glared at Sinclair. Then he said to Connie, “It’s okay. You didn’t know.”

She smiled, and Sinclair felt like an asshole for jumping on her.

“From now on, I want someone available to field calls like this,” said Maloney. “Sanchez and Jankowski, you two work it out.”

“I’ll call NYPD back and try to get that report as soon as we’re done here,” said Sinclair.

“I know you think you can do everything yourself, but Jankowski can do that. The DC had vice narcotics look into Keller’s hospital drug incident,” said Maloney, referring to the deputy chief of the bureau of investigations. “It was Doctor Brooks—the husband of your latest victim—who caught him. When interviewing folks at the hospital, narcotics learned that Keller worked extra shifts in surgical ICU. He could have had contact with Doctor Caldwell there.”

Sinclair felt the case slipping away from him. He hadn’t gotten around to reading the paperwork the hospital gave him yesterday. If he had, he would have seen Dr. Brooks’s name on the incident report and would have looked into Keller last night. He hated having other people tell him details about his case that he should know. But there was too much happening and not enough time. He’d been reacting—racing from one homicide to the next. No time to think or plan. Things were falling through the cracks.

Maloney continued, “Narcotics took the case to the DA and got a warrant for Keller’s arrest. Theft of pharmaceuticals.”

“Isn’t it unusual to go criminal on something like this?” asked Braddock.

“The DC wants him off the street in case he’s the one,” said Maloney.

“If he is, we just shot our wad,” said Sinclair. “There’s nothing to prove he killed anyone, and he’ll either bail on that bullshit charge or the judge will OR him come Monday.”

“Narcotics got a search warrant for his place to look for any further evidence,” said Maloney.

“Of what, pharmaceutical drugs?” asked Sinclair.

“You should be there,” said Maloney “Coordinate with narcotics. Have a look-see for anything else.”

“And if there’s nothing that links him to the murders?”

“Then you interview him.”

“And say what: even though we ain’t got shit to prove you did it, we’d really appreciate you confessing to three murders?”

“This isn’t my doing, Matt.”

“Whose fucking case is this anyway, mine or the deputy chief’s?”

Maloney stared at him for a few counts. Braddock looked at the notebook in her lap. Jankowski looked at the floor. Larsen and Sanchez stared into space.

“We all have bosses,” Maloney said. “You’re the lead investigator. Don’t give one of your bosses a reason to change that.” Maloney scanned the faces in the room, walked to his office, and shut the door.

“Takes a lot to piss off the LT,” said Jankowski.

“I’m sure the eighth floor is putting a lot of pressure on him. Stuff we don’t see,” said Braddock.

“All I did was ask a question,” said Sinclair.

“Don’t you think he questioned the deputy chief when he involved himself in our homicides?” she said. “The lieutenant isn’t the bad guy.”

Jankowski and the others slinked back to their desks. Sinclair felt embarrassed, first getting slammed by the boss and then getting a verbal spanking from his rookie partner.

“I guess we go see the narcs” Sinclair headed for the door. “Since obviously they’ve solved our murders for us.”

Sinclair and Braddock pulled into the Casper’s Hotdogs lot on MacArthur Boulevard in East Oakland. He could smell raw onions and hotdogs from the far corner of the parking lot. A burly man with a messy beard and unkempt, shoulder-length hair stepped out of a gray Camaro. Sergeant Ian Powell looked more like a Hells Angel than a cop.

“I got two of my guys spotting the subject’s apartment. He’s been loading stuff into his car for the last half hour. Looks like he’s getting ready to rabbit.”

“Does he know you’re watching him?” asked Sinclair.

“Who knows. We narcs live in a constant state of paranoia about being made. Since two guys are all I could spare, we’re set up closer than I’d prefer.”

“I’d like to follow him, see where he goes.”

“A mobile surveillance would take my whole squad. I broke these guys off a multikilo coke deal.”

Powell held up his finger, pulled a radio from his belt, and yanked out the earbud jack so the external speaker took over. “Target’s starting the engine,” said the voice on the radio.

Powell said to Sinclair, “Let him go or call in patrol to grab him?”

“Arrest him.”

Powell spoke into the radio, “Stay with him if he rolls, direct patrol in for the arrest. Don’t forget, you’re under, so stay out of it. Switch to main freq.”

Trying to keep cops from involving themselves in an arrest, even when they’re undercover, was like stopping dogs from chasing cats, but Sinclair understood the reason Powell was a hard-ass about this. Sinclair and Powell had worked together as narcotics officers in the same squad nine years ago. One night, a new narc assigned to the unit broke from his undercover drug-buying role to arrest a car thief. Two uniformed officers arrived on the scene to see a gangster-looking man pointing a gun at a teenager. Both shot. The narc died, and the two patrol officers who shot eventually decided to change careers.

Powell advised the dispatcher of the location and description of the suspect and car and requested marked units for the arrest. She dispatched two units, and two others announced they’d also respond when the dispatcher mentioned murder suspect.

“He’s starting to roll,” one of the narcs said over the radio. “Southbound toward MacArthur. Black Chrysler Three Hundred.”

“Southbound toward MacArthur,” echoed the dispatcher.

Sinclair and Braddock jumped in their car, started the engine, and nudged to the edge of the lot.

“Stopped at the stop sign on Mac, preparing to make a right turn,” said the narc.

Sinclair heard a loud screeching of tires to his right and then the narc’s voice, a half octave higher, on the radio. “He’s made us. We’re in pursuit westbound MacArthur.”

The Chrysler shot past Sinclair, a white Toyota Camry on its tail. Sinclair flipped two switches under the dash, and the flashing lights in the grill came to life followed by the scream of the siren. He swung the steering wheel to the left and floored the accelerator.

Powell’s voice came over the radio. “Undercover cars are not authorized to pursue. All narcotics units terminate.”

Sinclair swung the Crown Vic into the left lane and passed a line of cars that had pulled to the right.

Braddock picked up the handset, “Thirteen-Adam-Five, we’re in pursuit of the one-eighty-seven vehicle. Unmarked vehicle with operational emergency equipment. Traffic is moderate. Speed is fifty-five in a thirty-five.”

Sinclair’s speedometer read seventy, but if they admitted going that fast in an unmarked car, some command officer who was more concerned with liability than catching criminals might order the pursuit terminated.

Some cars pulled to the right, while others—probably with windows up and stereos blaring—were oblivious. Sinclair pulled into oncoming traffic to weave around a car that stopped in the fast lane. What part of
pull to the right and stop
didn’t these people understand?

They were still a block behind and not gaining as they approached Fruitvale Avenue, a main north-south thoroughfare. The Chrysler slowed.

Braddock’s voice was slow and calm. “Southbound on Fruitvale.”

The Chrysler entered the corner too fast and drifted wide, plowing into a car parked against the curb. The narc in the Toyota braked hard and pulled to the right, finally deciding to get out of the chase.

Sinclair planted his foot on the brake, slowing to thirty. The Chrysler’s tires smoked, and Sinclair heard the roar of its engine over his siren.

“Nine-oh-one into a parked car at Fruitvale,” Braddock said on the radio. “Suspect vehicle continuing southbound.”

Sinclair gave the big Ford more gas, bringing the front end out of the braking dive and settling the suspension. Its back end hunkered down and pushed the car out of the corner. Sinclair cut the distance to five car lengths as he powered out of the turn, but now on a straightaway, the Chrysler pulled away. The way it accelerated told Sinclair the 300 contained one of the optional V8 engines with at least a hundred more horsepower than the police interceptor package in the antiquated Crown Vic.

“Crossing School Street, still southbound,” said Braddock.

Traffic ahead was moving at the thirty-mile-per-hour limit on the two-lane road. The Chrysler swung into the oncoming traffic lane to get around it. Now a half-block back, Sinclair did the same but had to cut back into his lane to avoid a head-on with a delivery truck. A few blocks ahead, Sinclair saw traffic stopped. The Chrysler’s brake lights flashed and the back end swung out to the left.

“Turning right, westbound on East Twenty-Seventh Street,” said Braddock.

Once again, the Chrysler took the turn too fast and tried to brake in the corner. The voice of his academy driving instructor sounded in Sinclair’s head:
smooth is
fast, complete all braking before the corner, accelerate out of the turn
.

The Chrysler fishtailed and slid into a car stopped at the intersection, glancing off its side with a screech of metal against metal before accelerating again. Sinclair braked before the corner, gave the Ford enough gas to transfer the weight to the rear wheels, and took the sharp corner at thirty. He was right on the tail of the Chrysler before its bigger engine began pulling away again on the straightaway. He smelled burning rubber and overheated brake pads.

Small stucco houses, many with cars parked in front, lined East Twenty-Seventh Street. A car backed out of a driveway. The Chrysler clipped the rear of it, tearing the bumper off and sending it careening across the road. As they flashed past Twenty-Fifth Avenue at sixty miles an hour, Sinclair saw a marked car out of the corner of his eye pull in behind him.

“Two-L-Eighteen, I’m number two behind the homicide unit,” a voice said over the radio.

The marked unit closed the gap until its light bar, lit up like a Christmas tree, filled Sinclair’s rearview mirror. At Inyo Avenue, the street zigged to the left and dropped downhill to the light at Twenty-Third Avenue. The signal shone red and Sinclair let up on the gas. The Chrysler rocketed down the hill at sixty. A few car lengths from the intersection, the Chrysler’s brake lights lit up as a car crossed in front of it through the intersection.

The Chrysler swerved right, then left, finally spinning 360 degrees through the intersection and slamming into a retaining wall on the far side of the intersection. Sinclair pulled his car behind the Chrysler and flipped off the siren.
An airbag bulged out the Chrysler’s window. The front end sat crumpled into the engine bay. Steam hissed from the hood.

The marked patrol car pulled alongside. Another patrol car pulled in at a right angle. Two uniformed officers jumped out of their units and approached the driver’s door with guns drawn. Sinclair and Braddock drew their handguns and crouched behind their open doors.

Both officers holstered their pistols, and one spoke into his lapel mike. “Driver’s trapped in the vehicle. We need an ambulance, Code Three, and fire with jaws of life.”

“The chief won’t like hearing that,” said Officer George Thomas, the PIO, as he twisted his chair to face Sinclair.

Sinclair stood in Maloney’s doorway. “Then tell him what he wants to hear—Keller’s the killer and the city’s now safe.”

“We’re not lying to the chief,” said Maloney.

“Help me out here,” pleaded Thomas. “We can’t continue to say we haven’t a clue who’s massacring families of doctors and lawyers in our city.”

“It could be Keller,” said Maloney. “We’re also looking in other directions.”

Maloney was being diplomatic. Sinclair and Braddock had searched Keller’s Chrysler at the crash scene. Clothes and other personal belongings filled the trunk. The GPS was set to the address of an alcohol and drug treatment facility in Napa. They searched his apartment, where they found plenty of empty liquor and wine bottles. Powell called a few numbers from Keller’s cell phone call log. Keller was dialing while drunk last night at the time of the murder, telling friends and ex-girlfriends how sorry he was and how he was changing his life.

“There’s nothing that connects him to the murders,” said Sinclair.

“When will you be able to interrogate him?” asked Thomas.

“There won’t be any interrogation.” Keller’s left leg and arm were fractured, and the airbag broke his nose and caused other facial injuries when it smacked him in the face. The hospital pumped him full of morphine for the pain, and even if the nurses allowed Sinclair to talk to him, he’d be wasting his time. If Keller gave a statement, a judge would throw it out because he was incapable of understanding his rights in his condition.

“Every news station heard the chase on their scanners, so we have to say something about his arrest,” said Thomas.

“Why don’t you tell the truth? He was arrested for a warrant on an unrelated charge, and he was someone we wanted to talk to because he had worked with the doctors.”

“Can I say he’s a person of interest?”

“What the fuck is a person of interest?” said Sinclair.

“It means—”

“It’s a term your media friends made up to force cops to label someone who isn’t a suspect. Then when we do, they beat us up for information to justify why we called him that.”

“Come on, Matt, I’m—”

“Last I recalled, you’re an officer,” said Sinclair. “And we’re not on a first-name basis.”

“Sorry, Sergeant.” Thomas turned to Maloney. “After the chief reads his prepared statement and I brief this arrest, maybe Sergeant Sinclair can talk about the kind of person he’s looking for.”

“You mean like a profile?” asked Maloney.

“Yeah, something that might tell the public these aren’t just random killings.”

Sinclair hated when police claimed killings were random. Serial killers rarely selected their victims at random. Police administrators claimed killings were random when they didn’t have the courage to admit they hadn’t yet found a common factor that connected the murders or didn’t know enough about the killer to understand his motivation. To Sinclair, random killings meant the homicide detectives had more work to do.

Even many cops misunderstood the limitations of criminal profiling. It wasn’t a panacea that magically led detectives to a killer as portrayed on TV, and Sinclair didn’t have much faith in the psychological profiles the FBI had been touting for decades as the means to solve serial killings. There were only a handful of times when an FBI profile led to the killer. Usually, detectives would spend days filling out forms and copying mounds of paperwork for the FBI, and months later, they’d receive a profile telling them their killer was likely a white male in his thirties who worked in a menial job and wet his bed as an adolescent. Sinclair relied on his gut, and after seeing this killer’s work three times, he was getting a good idea of the kind of person he was looking for.

“I can offer up a generic profile that might ease the public’s fear,” said Sinclair.

Thomas slipped out the door, and Sinclair dropped into the chair he vacated.

“When the DC heard about the car chase and collision, he had me standing tall in front of his desk,” said Maloney.

“What did he expect?” said Sinclair. “He devises a plan without consulting us and then doesn’t like the outcome.
I would’ve told him that next time he should leave police work to real cops.”

“Maybe that’s why I’m a lieutenant and you’re not.”

On the way to his desk, Sinclair poured himself a cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would change his mood. Jankowski told him the lab found no matches on the slugs and casings from the Brooks case. The rifling characteristics were consistent with a number of nine-millimeter pistols, the most common being Berettas. But there were thousands of Beretta 9mm pistols registered in Oakland alone, and it would be impossible to track them all down.

“I spoke to a legal secretary at Horowitz’s law office,” said Jankowski. “Horowitz rewrote Jane Arquette’s family trust and will at her request after Samantha died.”

“Did she tell you who the beneficiary is?”

“She told me she probably said more than she should have already and cut me off.”

“Anything else?”

“Not much. I did get her former home address. Three-bedroom apartment sold for four point two million two months ago. A woman from the realtor company that listed it said the check was made out to the family trust and mailed to a law office.”

“Probably Horowitz. If money is the motive, it seems like he holds the key to who is benefiting.”

“The lady will try to get the paperwork from the transaction, but it was already after five in New York when I talked to her, so the soonest she could get it to me is Monday morning.”

“Anything from NYPD?”

“Nothing from the nineteenth detective squad. I just put a call in to the precinct watch commander—the regular
nine-to-five people are gone. I hate snitching off my brother detectives to the brass, but these guys need a fire lit under their asses.”

*

At four o’clock, Sinclair and Braddock made their way to the auditorium. With seating for three hundred, a thirty-foot ceiling, and a raised stage, it reminded Sinclair of his high school auditorium, where he had sat through hundreds of boring assemblies, plays, and concerts. His memories of this auditorium were no better. Chief Brown stood behind the podium in the middle of the stage, the four stars on each collar shining just a shade brighter than his shaved head. Two deputy chiefs and three captains, wearing ties and long-sleeve uniform shirts with glistening gold brass on the collars, flanked him.

Sinclair and Braddock stood in the back and watched the sea of cameras and microphones jockey for position near the stage. Their numbers swelled to double what it was at the press conference two days ago. The press briefing was open to the public and a hundred people without cameras, recorders, or steno pads filled seats in the back.

Brown spoke about how violent crime in Oakland was down 3 percent from a year ago and how, even with these recent murders, homicides were showing a downward trend this year. The journalists listened politely but looked bored. They didn’t come here for a PR spiel. He then discussed the rape and murder of Samantha Arquette, praising the hardworking members of
his
department for never giving up even though the leads had grown cold. Once finished, Brown abruptly left the stage without taking questions. His entourage followed.

Thomas recited the details about the last murder and the arrest of Keller. He parried reporters’ questions without revealing anything about the ongoing investigation or saying anything substantial. Once no additional hands rose, he introduced Sinclair.

Sinclair climbed the steps to the stage and moved behind the podium. “I’m going to tell you what is surely obvious by now. These four homicides are related.” The room fell silent as Sinclair laid out each murder. “As the chief told you, we’ve identified and arrested those responsible for Samantha Arquette’s death. They didn’t kill the latest three victims. We don’t yet know who did.”

Sinclair took a deep breath and looked around the room. Liz winked at him. Sinclair saw a rotund cameraman with greasy hair next to her instead of Eric, which wasn’t unusual since reporters and cameramen worked different schedules. “We’ve identified others who might be targeted by this killer and have coordinated security plans for them. These aren’t random killings. I can’t discuss the motive at this time, but I can tell you that no rational person would kill innocent women and children like this. These murders only make sense inside the twisted, sick mind of a savage killer.”

Someone yelled, “Are you saying the bus bench killer is insane?”

“He knows exactly what he’s doing. Once we catch him, his lawyers will try the insanity route to keep him off death row, but it won’t work.”

“A psychotic serial killer?” another reporter yelled.

“Although he fits the serial killer definition, he’s not psychotic. There are no little voices in his head telling him to do this. He falls into the mission-oriented killer
subcategory. He’s a sociopath, and to him, the killings are justified.”

“Why
would
someone do this?” asked a journalist in a corduroy blazer.

“When we arrest him, all of this will come out. These are irrational acts by a vicious and ruthless man.”

The room erupted with more questions. Once it quieted, Sinclair leaned toward the microphone. “I wish I could stay longer, but I’ve got a lot to do.”

As he turned to the rear of the stage, he caught a look of disbelief on Thomas’s face. Sinclair almost felt bad leaving him with the crowd.

Braddock met him at the back door. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“What do you mean? The lieutenant and Thomas asked me to profile him.”

“How’s that tough-cop line go?
I’ll bullshit my friends and you can bullshit yours, but let’s not bullshit each other
.”

“I had to do something to upset his routine.”

“You think this will stop him?”

“It might cause him to . . . reassess.”

“I hope you’re right.”