Be Mine (21 page)

“Did you swab Molly Wilson like I asked?”

“I did. It’s going to Hunter’s Point along with much of everything
else we’ll pick up here.”

Turgeon pulled him aside, dropping her voice. “You don’t seriously
think it’s her?”

“I don’t know what to think. Maybe we should have swabbed her from
the get-go in Hooper’s case. Get a warrant for her apartment and car.”

“In Hooper’s case she was alibied solid from the cabbie, the calls,
the witness. Hell, Ray practically put himself at Hooper’s apartment. We had a
lock on him. He was our suspect.”

“And now he’s dead,” Sydowski said. “Wilson’s the person who found
both of them. Wilson’s the person who screwed both of them.”

“What about the blood messages, the gun placement, the IDs?”

Sydowski shook his head as Gonzales had arrived and signaled them to
join him outside in a private corner of the yard where they were out of
earshot. “This is bullshit,” Gonzales said. “Did Ray do himself because we were
fixing to go at him?”

“No. It doesn’t look that way at all,” Sydowski said.

“Christ, what then?”

“Looks like he got the same deal Hooper got. Same pattern with his
gun and ID set out on the body.”

Gonzales removed his unlit cigar and spat on the ground.

“And we got a similar blood message on the wall,” Sydowski said.
“Only with this one, there was no attempt to wash it away. It was for Molly
Wilson and telegraphed for our benefit.”

“What’s it say?”

“Two words: ‘Why, Molly?’ We should keep all that stuff as
hold-back.”

Gonzales glanced at the crowd growing on the street. “I got Vidor,
Tipton, Shrader, and Card canvassing now. The district’s given us every uniform
and auxiliary they can spare to search the neighborhood.”

Sydowski nodded.

“The chief and the commissioner want an early morning news
conference to assure the city that the Hooper-Beamon deaths don’t put the
citizens in danger,” Gonzales said.

“Always have their eye on the big picture, don’t they?” Sydowski
said.

“The chief has given us a blank check to assign more bodies to the
investigation. Robbery, Narcotics, and General Works--just tell me who you
think you need.”

“I need to talk to Molly,” Sydowski said. He ran a hand over his
face, ignoring the TV news crews and the glare and flash of the news cameras.
He and Turgeon blew off the reporters who were shouting questions to them as
they strode along the crime scene tape to find Molly.

Sydowski felt someone tug his arm and he protested. Turning, he saw
Tom Reed from the
San Francisco Star
. He’d elbowed his way to the front
of the press pack where he’d strained the tape to reach Sydowski, who was
glaring at him. Tom was making a phone call gesture to his ear. Sydowski shook
his head. Tom vanished. Seconds later, Sydowski’s cell phone rang.

“Walt,” Tom said.

“I can’t talk now.”

Molly sat in the ambulance
staring
blankly into the night as emergency lights streaked across her face. A
paramedic and a uniformed female officer were with her while the investigators
were inside Beamon’s house, working the scene.

The officer was praying for Sydowski to hurry up and take over.
She’d been sitting here watching Molly for an eternity. She wanted to know what
had happened inside Beamon’s home. But she didn’t dare ask. Sydowski had warned
her only to listen and take detailed notes of anything Molly said. Relief
washed over the officer when he tapped on the vehicle.

“How is she?” he asked.

“Some psychological trauma,” the paramedic said.

“Can she go with us to the Hall?”

“She should be fine.”

“Let’s go. We’ll talk at the Hall,” Sydowski said.

Molly had been shivering and was wearing the female officer’s patrol
jacket. Brilliant light flashes rained on Turgeon and Sydowski as they helped
Molly from the ambulance to their car. The imagery of the
San Francisco Star
crime reporter wearing a cop’s jacket at the scene of another dead detective
would attract national interest. Newspaper photographers using long lenses
banged off frame after frame.

At the Hall of Justice Sydowski and Turgeon escorted Molly through
the homicide detail, passing by the empty desks belonging to Cliff Hooper and
Ray Beamon. All activity ceased. Several detectives pulling duty on the case
turned to stare.

She did not make eye contact with any of them. She was not
handcuffed. She was not under arrest. And despite Sydowski’s anger, she was not
yet a suspect. She was their number-one witness. The shuffling of Sydowski’s
shoes and the whisk of Turgeon’s and Molly’s soft soles were the only sounds in
the detail as they walked her to an interview room where they left her alone.

In the squad room, Sydowski removed his jacket, poured coffee, and
got ready to take her statement as Gonzales approached him.

“Robbery and Narcotics are helping canvass around Wilson’s place.
Neighbors say there were some sparks there earlier tonight, which is unusual.
It’s a quiet community.”

“What kind of sparks?” Sydowski asked.

“Wilson took some kind of beef with a white male to the street.”

“Any description or details?”

“Just the sketchy kind. Maybe you can use that.”

When Sydowski and Turgeon entered the interview room he slapped his
files down and rolled up his sleeves without removing his eyes from Molly. His
face was cold.

“I’m going to need your help now. Understand?” She nodded.

“You’re going to walk me through everything that’s happened tonight.
And you’re going to tell me everything. Every personal, intimate detail.
Everything I ask, do you understand?”

Molly’s red-rimmed eyes met his as she nodded, then began telling
Sydowski all she knew.

“A short time before I found Ray, he’d come to my apartment. He told
me you suspected him of killing Cliff. He said that on the night Cliff was
killed he’d gone to his apartment to talk to him after Cliff had found out Ray
and I had been together. They fought. Ray punched him. But Ray said that Cliff
was alive when he left. Heartbroken, but alive.”

“What did they really fight about?”

“I told you, it was about Cliff learning that Ray and I had gone to
Half Moon Bay. He’d learned it on the night he was going to propose to me.”

“Did you take your little talk with Ray to the street in front of
your place?”

“Yes.”

“Why? What did you fight about?”

“Like I said, I feared Ray was involved in Cliff’s death. It didn’t
go away tonight when he came to me. I wanted him to come to you. To give it
up.”

Sydowski looked at her for a long icy moment.

Early indications from the scene suggested Ray’s gun was not fired.
The murder weapon was missing. And it would take a long time yet to analyze the
swab tests of Molly’s hands to indicate if she fired a gun. Moreover, the
results could be challenged in court. But Sydowski tried pressing a few quick
buttons.

“You know we took a residue test of your hands.” Disbelief spread
over her face as she awakened to the implication and swallowed hard.

“I didn’t kill him.”

“The evidence will tell me if you did or didn’t.”

“I didn’t kill him.” Her voice broke.

“Who killed him then?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know!” Sydowski’s chair shot across the floor as he
stood. “The guy’s leaving you personal love notes and you don’t know who it
is!”

She covered her face with her hands.

“Oh God, I’m so sorry. I don’t know. Maybe it’s an ex-boyfriend,
maybe some nut through the paper, or from the TV show. But I swear, I just
don’t know who’s doing this. I swear to God. I don’t know!”

Sydowski stood over Molly, letting her words hang in the small room
for a long desperate time before he picked up his chair.

“You’re not going home tonight.”

Molly looked at him, then Turgeon, before coming back to Sydowski.

“You’re arresting me?”

“We’re taking you someplace right now. For your own safety.”

Molly stared helplessly at the veneer top of the table.

“Where?”

“You’ll find out when we get there. And then you’re going to help me
go back and work on those names we got from you before. Everyone’s a suspect.
Every old boyfriend and every whack job that’s ever contacted you, fantasized
about you, or tried. Do you understand?”

Molly nodded.

Downstairs a handful of reporters were in the lobby waiting for
another shot at Molly. Tom Reed was among them. But he knew Sydowski would call
the security desk to check the presence of the press so he could bypass them.
Tom slipped from the pack unnoticed to the fourth floor. He came upon Molly,
Turgeon, and Sydowski as they were leaving by the stairs.

“Not now, Reed,” Sydowski said. “Go away.”

“Are you okay?” Tom called after Molly.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Who do you think did it?”

“Everyone’s a suspect,” Sydowski said before they went through the
door.

Tom stood there, writing down Sydowski’s quote, then called it in to
the
Star’
s night desk in time for the final edition. As sirens wailed in
the distance he walked to his car, wondering, Who is preying on the detectives
of San Francisco’s homicide detail?

Just after 11:00 A.M.
pacific standard
time, reporters from every newsroom and bureau based in the Bay Area jammed the
Police Commission Hearing Room in the Hall of Justice for the first press
conference on the death of San Francisco Homicide Inspector Ray Beamon.

Pictures of Beamon and Cliff Hooper stared from a corkboard on the
far right.

All morning, running updates from the news wires intensified
interest by hammering on the dramatic elements in the case. The victims: two
detectives, partners, murdered in their homes within two weeks. No suspect had
surfaced. The twist, according to unconfirmed leaks, was that the two dead cops
were romantically linked to
San Francisco Star
crime reporter Molly
Wilson. By the time the conference started, the story had rocketed near the top
of national news lineups across the country.

Local stations and twenty-four-hour news networks went live when San Francisco’s police chief, flanked by grim-faced commanders and detectives, entered.
All talk in the room ceased, still cameras flashed, notebooks were flipped
open, tape recorders clicked on as the chief took his seat behind the
microphones heaped on the table before him.

Although he was now more politician than street cop, his eyes
gleamed with the fury burning in the pit of his stomach. Two of his best were
taken on his watch. And their killer was still out there. The chief glanced at
the press group, then read a brief statement. His voice was as strong as it had
been for Hooper’s eulogy.