Be Mine (24 page)

A story of vengeance.

Bleeder loved it and he loved driving down Hangman’s Lane alone at
night, along the twisting road that cut through wooded and hilly dairy country.
At one point, it curved sharply, then dropped into a valley to a railroad tie
bridge that stretched across a creek thirty feet below.

Bleeder got to know that section of road intimately. He put his
research to work. Every night after cruising around town with Amy in his
Camaro, Kyle would drive her home down the lane. They’d make out on the front
porch until the house lights flickered on and off around midnight, which meant
Amy’s parents were signaling her curfew.

Like clockwork, Kyle would fire up his Camaro, grind through his
gears, squealing in each one, as he rumbled down Hangman’s Lane, rocketing
through the tranquil rural night with Led Zeppelin cranked.

Bleeder discovered a slip of a cow path shrouded by a thicket, under
a stand of chestnut and oak trees near the bridge. For several nights, he
backed his dad’s old Ford into it, vanishing into the darkness. Thinking of Lud
Striker and waiting. He had a clear line of sight for Kyle’s approach from
Amy’s house, the Camaro’s lights growing bigger, its engine and music louder.
Without fail, Kyle would crest the hill, rip down the creek valley, hugging the
curve so fast the car’s suspension would strain until the oil pan would nick
the road surface on the approach to the bridge, emitting a comet’s tail of
sparks from the undercarriage.

Kyle never once slowed down before the bridge.

Like clockwork, the oil pan scraped, sparks would fly, and he would
blast clump-dum-clump along the bridge over the creek.

Afterward, Bleeder walked to the spot, knelt, and examined the
series of deep scrapes left by the oil pan. Scores of them. A clear indication
that the farm boy was routinely hitting the bridge at high speed.
Tsk, tsk.
Bleeder shook his head, gazing at Kyle’s disappearing Camaro, its lights
shrinking under the endless night sky, until, poof, Kyle was gone.

Bleeder ran his fingertips over the scrapes, feeling how they scarred
the surface, just as Kyle and Rowley had scarred his face the day they beat him
after school in the field by the train tracks.

Bleeder’s wounds had healed, but the violation still burned.

My turn to give you a lesson ...

Now as he followed Turgeon’s taillights into Alvarado, Bleeder
surfaced from his thoughts.

Alert, he kept a safe distance. He trailed the Chevy through a
sleepy residential area until the brake lights came on, then went off, when
Turgeon stopped in front of a small bungalow sheltered by huge shade trees.

Bleeder identified the unmarked cars parked nearby. County guys and
maybe an SFPD car. He rolled his rental car swiftly into a side street that
allowed him cover and a safe line on the small house.

Only a moment. That’s all he wanted.

Bleeder set up on the house, directing his night scope to a window
with a crack between the curtains. The anticipation was excruciating as he
adjusted the focus. He saw a curtain ripple. A blur. A glimpse of Turgeon.

Then...Molly was trapped in his crosshairs.

His prize.

It won’t be long now.

Stiff and sore,
Sydowski dragged himself
to his door before dawn for the morning edition of the
Star
. It was
still dark. The case had kept him awake all night. As he studied the paper in
his kitchen, Tom Reed’s interview with Ray Beamon jerked him awake.

“What the hell is this bullshit, Reed?”

Sydowski devoured the story, then grimaced as he took a hit of black
coffee. Would’ve been interested in knowing about that interview, Tom. Might’ve
been able to work something out.

Too late now, sonny boy.

Sydowski scratched his whiskers, then went to his aviary with the
full weight of the case on his shoulders. He listened to the soft chirping
until it was time to go to his meeting with Gonazales and Turgeon at an admin room
at the Hall.

It was just the three of them.

Gonzales dropped his worn leather briefcase on the table, deposited
himself in a swivel chair.

“I’ve been getting calls. All last night and this morning.

‘Friendly enquiries of support’ from the mayor, the commissioner,
and the chief. They want this thing cleared fast. They say it’s like an open
wound festering on the image of this city and its PD.”

“There’s a surprise,” Sydowski said.

“Well, frankly, I don’t give a damn about them. We owe it to Cliff
and Ray, and we owe it to our detail, to clear this.” Gonzales blinked back his
emotion, then continued. “No one knows of our huddle here. I want you to put
all your hold-back and theories on the table now. I want to get a feel for
where we’re at. Exactly where we’re at. So whatever is said here, stays here.
All right?”

“Fine,” Sydowski said.

“Did we make much progress with Molly Wilson’s first list right
after Hooper’s murder?”

“We checked out the names and cleared them initially. Then we went
hard on Ray when it all pointed to him.”

“We’re back on those names. What do we have now?”

“We have a larger suspect pool in alpha order.” Sydowski slid a page
to Gonzales. “I did some checking this morning, talked to Molly, and amended
things.”

Gonzales stared at the list:

Duane Ford, SFPD Tac Team, San Francisco

Rob Glazer, technician for big films, Los Angeles

Manny Lewis, D.A.’s office, San Francisco

Cecil Lowe, ATF Agent, San Francisco

Pete Marlin, U.S. Marshal, San Francisco

Steve Murdoch, airline pilot, San Diego

Park Williams, FBI Agent, San Francisco

Frank Yarrow, corporate security, Kansas/Colorado

Sydowski opened his notes.

“Molly dated every guy on that list for at least a month. No one
longer than six months, she figures.”

“Any bad breaks, violence, grudges, threats?”

“None according to her.”

“What about casual dates?”

“That’s another list. It includes people at her newsroom, mostly
friends. We pretty much cleared them already as to who was working when. That
went fast.”

“You say you amended the A-list?” Gonzales continued studying it.

“Yes, Glazer, Murdoch, and Yarrow were her add-ons because they
don’t live in the Bay Area. We’ll run through all of them as fast as we can and
pare it down.”

“Most of the guys on this list would know about crime scene
investigation and techniques.” Gonzales shook his head. “We got nothing
physical from either scene. No leads from the autopsy. Just SXT Talons. No
casings. No weapon. No latents. No DNA. No fibers. Our balls are in a vise
here. Christ.”

“Look, this is a new investigation,” Sydowski said. “Give us the
bodies and we’ll check these guys out. Eliminate whoever we can from this list.
We should be able to knock it down pretty fast.”

“It isn’t going to be easy. If our guy is one of these eight, then
he’s going to expect you to run at him and he’s going to be alibied solidly.
He’s going to cover his tracks. Be airtight on his story. He’s not going to
make it easy for you. So never let your guard down with any of them.”

“We’ll check, double and triple-check their whereabouts.”

“Let’s go back on the physical stuff. What about the ritualistic
nature, the placement of their guns, IDs, the blood message on the wall, the
word Why. What do we make of that?” Gonzales asked.

“I did some work with Dee, the FBI VICAP coordinator at Golden
Gate. We checked on serials, gangs, blood cults, ritual placement of items.
Everything. Blood messages. Key word stuff. Murders of law enforcement
officers,” Turgeon said. “We also checked everything against other databanks,
CLETS, LEADS, PIN, CABLE, CDC’s systems, NCIC.”

“Any hits?”

“Nothing.” Turgeon shook her head, went through her notes.

“Could be that all that stuff with the blood message and ID could’ve
been done to throw us off. A cop would know about things like that,” Sydowski
said.

“So would anybody who reads murder mysteries,” Turgeon said.

“Maybe we ought to bring in a profiler,” Gonzales said. “To tell us
what we already know?”

“To tell us what we don’t know,” Gonzales said. “Look, we also have
the TV show, Crime Scene. I called over. The producer has volunteered
everything sent to Molly from crazies. No warrants needed.”

“They probably want to work it into their show,” Sydowski said.

“Play along if it helps the case.” Then Gonzales said, sliding
Sydowski that day’s
San Francisco Star
with Beamon’s last interview, “It
would be good for us to know everything Ray said about old cases, threats, and
vendettas.”

Sydowski’s eyes raked across the front page.

“I’ll be taking a hard look into that.”

Silence and secrecy.

That was the age-old symbolism of giving white roses. But what the
hell did it mean in Molly’s case? Tom wanted to know.

Did they have anything to do with Hooper’s and Beamon’s murders?
What did those cryptic notes mean? It rankled him. He had to find out.

He glanced at his watch as he headed across the Bay
Bridge to Oakland. He didn’t have time to pursue it. Not now. Late last night
and earlier today he’d transcribed his interview with Beamon. Every word. The
part where he’d asked Beamon about vendettas kept coming back at him ...

“... There’ve been threats, but those who make a lot of noise never
come after you. If someone’s serious, you’ll never hear them coming.”

That part.

“There’ve been threats ...”

What threats? Who made them? When? Tom kicked himself for not
pushing Beamon on that question. And he cursed Irene Pepper for making him rush
the story before he’d had the chance to go to Sydowski on what Beamon had said.

Hell, he was going to have to be smarter. A lot smarter with Pepper.

It was his own damned fault for leaving his tape out in plain sight
knowing she was one of the
Star’
s worst desktop snoops. Anyone could’ve
seen it near his keyboard. Admit it. You were careless. Now you’re paying the
price.

Sydowski hadn’t returned his calls this morning, leaving Tom to try
connecting with his best street sources. Angela across the bay was first. Word
was she’d been around. He parked his car near a warehouse on the waterfront a
few blocks from Jack London Square, then hit the street asking around.

Angela was white and in her mid-thirties. She had short bleached
hair, was partial to big hoop earrings, jeans, and black leather waist-cut
jackets. More important, she was his conduit to Donnie Ball.

Donnie was an East Bay County detective. Make that a former
detective. The big red-haired Irish American was doing nine years after the FBI
nailed him for robbing banks. Ball was a brilliant egomaniacal dumb-ass. But he
was tuned in to a lot of data on the criminal and cop grapevine. Even from his
Level-IV, maximum-security residence at Folsom’s C-Yard. And he was good at
bartering valuable intelligence via his girl on the outside, his angel, Angela.