3rd Degree (13 page)

“Oh, Jill...” I thought of her carrying this all night, wait-ing for me to come home. “What did he do?”

“I don't want to go into it right now,” she said, “other than it won't be happening anymore. I threw him out, Lindsay. I changed the locks.”

“You locked him out? Wow! So where is he now?”

Jill coughed out a laugh. “I don't have any idea. He went out about seven and when he came back, about eleven-thirty, I heard him pounding on the door outside. It would have been worth the past ten years of bullshit just to see the expression on his face when his key didn't fit. He'll swing by tomorrow to get his stuff.”

“Are you alone? Have you called anyone?”

“No,” she answered. “I was waiting for you. My buddy.”

“I'm gonna come over,” I said.

“No,” she said, “I just took something. I want to go to sleep. I have to be in court tomorrow.”

“I'm proud of you, Jilly.”

“I'm proud of me, too. You're not going to mind if I need a little hand-holding over the next few weeks?”

“No hand I'd rather hold. I'm giving you a big hug, honey. Get some sleep. And here's some advice from a cop: Keep that door locked.”

I hung up the phone. It was going on two in the morning, but I didn't care. I wanted to call Claire or Cindy and tell them the news.

Jill finally booted the asshole out!

“HEY, LIEUTENANT,” Cappy Thomas shouted as I walked in the following morning. “Leeza Gibbons on the line. Enter-tainment Tonight? Wants to know if you can do lunch.”

I had made the mistake of calling Jacobi from the plane last night, and maybe gave a few too many details about the day. Some snickers rippled around the squad room.

I took some hot water back to my desk. A light was flashing on my phone. I punched it in.

“Listen, LT” - Jacobi's voice - “me and the missus were thinking about heading over to the Big Island sometime in July. Any chance you can snag the G-3?”

I punched off the line, spooning a pouch of Red Zinger into my mug.

“Hey, LT, phone!” Cappy yelled again.

This time I picked it up and snapped, “Look, I didn't sleep with him, I didn't ask for the jet, and while you bozos were scratching your balls back here, I actually moved the homicide case along.” “I guess that'll have to do as an update.” Cindy laughed. “Oh God...” I lowered my head, letting the blood drain

from my face. “Believe it or not, I didn't call to bust your chops. I've got news.”

“I've got news, too,” I said, thinking of Jill. “Yours first.” Cindy's tone was urgent, so I didn't think she was talking about Jill.

“Your fax should be ringing any second.”

Just then Brenda knocked on my window, and handed me

Cindy's transmittal. Another e-mail. "This was on my computer when I got to work this

morn-ing," Cindy said. I was jolted back to reality. This time the sending address

was [email protected]. The message was only one line: That wasn't us in

Portland. It was signed, August Spies.

“I'VE GOT TO TAKE this upstairs,” I said, shooting out of my chair, almost pulling the phone out of the wall. I was halfway up to Tracchio's office before I realized I forgot to tell Cindy about Jill. Things were going too fast now.

“He's behind closed doors,” his secretary warned. “You'd better wait.”

“This can't wait,” I said, and pushed the door open. Trac-chio was used to my barging in.

He was facing me, seated at his conference table. He was flanked by two others with their backs to me. One was Tom Roach, the local FBI liaison.

I almost fell when I saw that the other was Molinari.

I felt as if I had hit a wall, bouncing off and vibrating like in the Roadrunner cartoons.

“Soon enough, Lieutenant,” Molinari said, rising.

“Yeah, that was what you said. I thought you had pressing matters in Portland.”

“I did. They're taken care of now. And we have a killer to catch down here, don't we?”

Tracchio said, “We were just about to call you, Lindsay. The deputy director informed me how well you handled the situation up there in Portland.”

“Which situation was he referring to?” A glance Molinari's way.

“The Propp homicide, of course.” He motioned for me to sit down. “He said you were helpful in putting forth your theory of the crimes.”

“Okay” - I handed Tracchio Cindy's e-mail - “then you should love this.”

Tracchio scanned the page. He passed it across to Molinari.

“This was sent to the same reporter at the Chronicle?” he asked.

“Seems like they got a regular chat room going on,” Moli-nari replied as he read. “We could make that useful.” He pursed his lips. “I was just asking the Chief if you could work directly with us. We need help here on the ground. I'll need a place to work. I want to be right in the thick of it, Lieutenant. In your squad room if possible. That's how I work best.”

Our eyes met. I knew we weren't playing games. It was a matter of national security.

“We'll find you an office, sir. In the thick of it.”

MOLINARI WAS WAITING for me out in the hall, and as soon as Roach had ducked into the elevator, I looked at him reprovingly. “Soon enough, huh?”

He followed me down the stairwell to my office. “Look, I had the local FBI office to placate up there. There's always a lot of politics. You know that.”

“Anyway, I'm glad you're here,” I said, holding the stair-well door for him. I let it close. “I never had a chance to thank you for the ride. So, thanks.”

I put Molinari in our squad room, cleared out a small office for him to work in. He told me he had declined some-thing more fitting and private on the fifth floor next to the Chief.

It proved to be not such a bad thing, having the Depart-ment of Homeland Security working hand in hand with us, though Jacobi and Cappy looked at me as though I'd gone over to the enemy. Within two hours he had traced back the origin of the latest e-mail: an Internet caf‚ called the KGB Bar in Hayward that was popular with students across the bay.

And also who Marion Delgado was - the latest Hotmail address.

Molinari draped a fax from the FBI computers across my desk. An old newswire story, with a grainy photo of a grin-ning, gap-toothed kid in a peasant smock holding a brick in his hand. “Marion Delgado. He was some five-year-old who in 1967 derailed a freight train in Italy by tossing a brick in its path.”

“Is there a reason you're thinking this is important to the investigation?” I asked.

“Marion Delgado was a rallying cry for revolutionaries in the sixties,” Molinari said. “A five-year-old who stood up and stopped a train. The name became a code name to thwart undercover surveillance. The FBI was bugging phones like crazy, trying to infiltrate the Weathermen. They logged hun-dreds of messages from Marion Delgado.”

“What are you saying - one of the old Weathermen is behind this current mess?”

“It wouldn't hurt to get the names of known members back then who haven't been brought in.”

“That's a good idea,” I said as I opened my desk and took out my gun. “In the meantime, you want to tag along while I go check out the KGB Bar?”

IN THE LONG TRADITION of counterculture dives, where a cop walking in was about as welcome as an ACLU recruiter at a skinhead convention, the KGB set the bar at a new low. There were narrow rows of chipped pine tables with societal dropouts slouched in front of computer screens. Plus a mixed collection of riffraff sucking cigarette butts at the bar. Not much else caught my eye at first.

“You sure you're up for this?” I muttered to Molinari. “It'll be hard to explain if I got your face bashed in here.”

“I was a prosecutor back in New York,” Molinari said, and stepped forward. “I love this shit.”

I went up to the bartender, a skinny mouse-faced guy in a muscle shirt with tattoos up and down both arms and a very long ponytail. After about fifteen seconds of being ignored, I leaned over and caught his eye. “We were just passing by and were wondering if anyone would like to support our fellow-ship mission in Chad?”

I couldn't get a half-smile out of him. He poured a beer for a black guy in an African skullcap seated two stools down.

“Okay, we're cops” - I dropped my shield - “you saw right through me.”

“Sorry, we're a private club,” the bartender said. “Need to see a membership card.”

“Hey, just like Costco,” I said, glancing at Molinari.

“Yeah, like Costco.” The bartender grinned.

Molinari leaned forward, wrapping his hand over Pony-tail's as he went to draw a beer. He put a silver shield with the words DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY in the guy's face. “I want you to follow this closely. I take my phone, and in about ten seconds a team of federal agents will barge in here and rip this place down to the two-by-fours. Now as I look around, there's probably about fifteen, twenty thousand dollars in computers in here, and you know how clumsy these police goons can be when they're lugging heavy evi-dence. So we need to ask you a few questions.”

Ponytail glared at him.

“What do you say, Six-pack,” the black man in the African skullcap spoke up, “under the circumstances I think we can waive the membership requirement this once.”

He turned and faced us, a cheerful grin beneath the skull-cap, saying in a deep British accent, “Amir Kamor. Six-pack was just expressing his desire to keep the clientele here on its usual high level. No need to make harsh threats. Please, can I invite you into my office?”

“Six-pack?” I glanced at the bartender and rolled my eyes. “That's creative.”

In the rear there was a cramped private cubicle, barely larger than a desk. The walls were papered with posters and event notices - activist stuff, rallies for the poor, Free East Timor, AIDS in Africa.

I passed Amir Kamor my Homicide card and he nodded, as if impressed. “You said you have a few questions.”

“Were you here last night, Mr. Kamor?” I started in. “Around ten P.M.?”

“I'm here every night, Lieutenant. You know the food and liquor business. It's all about whose hands are in the register.”

“An e-mail was sent from here last night, at ten-oh-three P.M.”

“Messages are sent from here every night. People use us as a source to air ideas. That's what we do here. Air ideas.”

“You have a way of determining who was here? Anybody out of the ordinary?”

“Anyone who comes in this place is out of the ordinary.” Kamor grinned. No one smiled at his joke. “Ten o'clock, you say...The place was filled. It may help if you could tell me just whom you're looking for or what they've done?”

I took out the photo of Wendy Raymore and the sketches of the woman who had accompanied George Bengosian. Kamor studied them, ridges digging into his wide brow. He sighed deeply. “I may have seen them over the years or I may have not. Our customers tend to come and go.”

“Okay, then what about these?” I switched gears, taking out the FBI photos from Seattle. One by one, he leafed through them, merely shaking his head.

Then I noticed that he stared twice and blinked.

“You recognize someone....”

“Merely a thought,” he said, shaking his head. “I don't think so. Honestly.”

“No, you recognized a face. Who was it?”

I re-laid the photos in a pattern on his desk.

“Remind me, Madam Lieutenant,” Kamor said, looking up, “why do I want to assist the police on this? Your state is one that is built on corruption and greed. As the enforcers of its will, you are part of its foundation.”

“I guess there's always this,” Molinari said. He put his face close to the startled Kamor's. “I don't really give a damn about what you jerk yourselves off about in here, but you should also know what security bill these crimes will be adjudicated under. We're not talking withholding evidence, Mr. Kamor. We're talking treason and conspiracy to commit terror. Take a look at the photos one more time. Please.”

“Trust me, Mr. Kamor,” I said, meeting his eyes, “you don't want to be anywhere near the heat on this one.”

The veins on the bar owner's neck began to swell. He low-ered his eyes and leafed through the photos again. “Maybe... I don't know... ,” he muttered.

After some hesitation, he nudged one out. “He's different now. His hair is shorter, not so much like a hippie. He has a beard. He's been in here.”

Stephen Hardaway. Alias Morgan Bloom. Alias Mal Cald-well.

“Is he a regular? How do we find him? This is important.”

“I don't know.” Kamor shook his head. "That is the truth. I remember him, once or twice some time ago. I think he came from somewhere up north.

“One more thing...” Kamor swallowed. “You will remem-ber this the next time you barge in and threaten to deprive me of my rights.”

He flicked another photo forward. Another face he knew.

“This one, I saw in here last night.”

We were staring at Wendy Raymore, the au pair.

WE WEREN'T BACK in the car for five seconds before I was pressing my palms against Molinari's in an exhilarated, drawn-out high five. Deputy director or not, he had handled himself pretty well.

“That was good, Molinari.” I could hardly contain my smile. “And you know how clumsy these police goons can be when they're lugging heavy evidence....”

Our eyes locked, and suddenly I was feeling that nervous-ness and attraction again. I put the car in gear. “I don't know what's supposed to happen with your contacts,” I said, “but I think we'd better start by calling this in.”

Molinari speed-dialed his office with Hardaway's name and aliases. We got a quick response. His Seattle file detailed a criminal past. Weapons possession, arms theft, bank rob-bery. By tomorrow morning we would know everything about him.

Suddenly I realized I hadn't heard from Jill. “I gotta make a call,” I said to Molinari, punching in her cell phone number.