Be Mine (33 page)

Another long tense moment passed. Tom fought the urge to push Zotta,
who seemed a little uneasy that someone would call about Yarrow.

“He resigned.”

“Resigned? Why?”

“Like you said, it’s kind of complicated.”

Okay, time to show his cards. “Can you tell me if there were ever
any charges out of that old stalking complaint against him by that Miss Texas
finalist?”

Zotta paused, realizing Tom had done his homework.

“No charges. It never got that far.”

“You sound like you’re familiar with the case.”

“Yarrow was under my command.”

“So he was never charged?”

“No. He volunteered to resign, and frankly, we weren’t too choked up
to see him go. Now, son, that’s all I have to say.”

Tom hung up.

He looked at Yarrow’s ball team photo, then the story about
stalking. He looked at Molly’s empty desk and thought of the flowers and notes
Yarrow’d sent her.

White roses.

They meant silence, secrecy.

Something was not right here. He was going to need more help fast
and he knew just where he could get it.

Tom flipped through his Rolodex and reached for his phone.

Lois Hirt pleaded in vain
to the
hookers, addicts, and Tenderloin zombies who stepped around Gloria as her body
convulsed on a Market Street sidewalk.

“Please, somebody call 911!” Lois knelt over Gloria, supporting her
head, cursing when she spotted a tourist in plaid shorts, his eye clenched
behind his camcorder. “Can’t you see, she’s dying! Call an ambulance!”

Fear slithered up Lois’s spine as Gloria’s body went cold and her
lips turned blue. Her shoes clicked together until they slipped from her feet,
exposing her cracked, painted toenails. Lois tightened her arms around her and
their bodies shook in unison. She refused to let her friend die alone on a San Francisco street.

“Hang on, honey. Please hang on.”

“Yo, that ho got some bad shit happening,” a passing voice said just
as a stream of vomit erupted from Gloria’s gloss-lipped mouth.

“Somebody, please! Help us. Please!”

Lois stretched her own blouse, using it to wipe Gloria’s face just
as her eyes fluttered open and she moaned, attempting to speak.

“He-he-he-he wanted me to talk on the phone--”

“Shh. Don’t talk.”

Amid the street and traffic noise a scream surfaced from someplace
distant. Gloria’s eyes widened at something far above her in the blue sky.

“The phone man had nice clothes--”

The scream grew louder.

“Honey, please don’t talk. I’m going to get you to the hospital.”

Horns honked.

“Gloria?”

Her eyes rolled back into her head exposing the whites.

“Gloria!”

Sirens wailed. An engine growled. Brakes squeaked. Ambulance doors
opened. The rattling aluminum sounds of a stretcher unfolding, wheels dollying
on pavement.

“Miss, excuse us, please.”

The paramedics were battle-weary street veterans. Not cold. Just
efficient as they worked on Gloria. They refused to let Lois ride with her to
San Francisco General. They loaded her. Doors slammed and they drove off,
leaving Lois standing alone on the street hugging Gloria’s purse and shoes to
her stained shirt.

At the hospital, Lois showed Gloria’s California driver’s license
picture to an emergency nurse, then detailed what happened.

“You’re a family member?”

“Her sister,” Lois lied.

“She was the overdose on Market they brought in a while ago.” The
nurse consulted admissions information on her computer screen.

“Yes.”

“You know who her provider is?”

“No. We were estranged. Lost her to the street.”

“Have a seat and we’ll let you know when you can see her.”

Lois spent nearly two hours in the crowded, depressing waiting room,
fingering Tom Reed’s card. She wondered if he could help her and Gloria. Or
maybe Lois should call Gloria’s case worker. Did she still use her case worker?
Lois snapped through the pages of year-old copies of
People
and
Newsweek
before a nurse wearing green scrubs led her to Gloria’s room.

“She’s groggy so keep it short. Doctor says it’s still touch-and-go.”

“What was it?”

“Either an overdose or a bad batch. How long has she been addicted?”

Lois shook her head.

Two other patients shared the room. A withered bearded old man,
asleep with his mouth agape. A large woman sitting on the edge of her bed, staring
forlornly at the floor. Gloria was near the window. A tube under her nose. IV
running into her arms. Her orange hair against the white pillow livened up the
room. Lois smiled as she sat next to her.

“Hi.”

Gloria raised her hand. Her head lolled. She was far away. “Thank
you for saving my life.”

“You’d do the same for me, honey.” Lois put Gloria’s bag on her
table, then fished something from it. “It’s time to get into detox and get
clean.” She passed Gloria the little snapshot of her daughter, Sunny.

Gloria stared at it. An agonizing cry, originating in her aching
gut, escaped before she could mute it with her IV hand. Tears spilled from her
eyes.

“Listen to me.” Lois dropped her voice. “My friend might be able to
help you get a job. Then you can get well. Pull it together. Get Sunny back.
We’ll do it together, okay?”

Gloria nodded, then began coughing.

“I need help.”

“Good. We just got to tell him what he needs to know about that
phone guy. The one who paid you to read something--want some water?”

Gloria fell into a violent fit of coughing. Water spilled, dampening
her sheets as she sipped. She wiped her chin and sighed.

“I remember. It was around Garfield Square. I never saw him before.
He sort of picked me out. I thought he wanted to date me.” She swallowed more
water. “But he gives me a slip of paper with a number and a short message.
Tells me to call, wait for an answer, read the message, then hang up. He gave
me a hundred. Weird. So I did it. That was it. He said it was a practical joke
on a friend. We had a laugh, then--”

The bed clanged as Gloria’s body spasmed. Her eyes rolled back and
she puked, triggering a convulsion. Then silence as she passed out.

“Nurse! Somebody! Oh no! Gloria!”

Lois reached for the buttons above the bed and began pressing the
pager. Then she headed for the door as two nurses rushed in, one uncollaring
her stethoscope.

“Please leave!” she said to Lois.

The curtain whipped as the second nurse pulled it around Gloria’s
bed. Lois heard a commotion, something about CPR, then a switch clicked.

“We need a crash cart in 415!”

Lois covered her face with her hands, stepped back into a far corner
out of the way, and watched as a woman in a white smock rushed a wheeled
cabinet into the room with a defibrillator.

Lois didn’t know how long they worked trying to save Gloria’s life.
It could have been five minutes. It could have been an hour. She remembered
hearing someone screaming, remembered the nurses attempting to console her,
remembered her back slamming against the wall, her stained shirt bunching up
behind her as she slid to the floor, remembered seeing Gloria’s arm drop over
the side of her bed and her hand drop her snapshot of her daughter.

Sydowski enjoyed a tiny triumph
as he
crunched on a shortbread cookie and glanced at the
Star’
s front-page
story about the unofficial suspect list.

Seemed that Cecil Lowe, an ATF agent, had been cleared of all duty
that very morning and was waiting for Sydowski at the homicide detail. He had
photocopies of a duty roster in a valise tucked under his arm.

“Here’s a list of names and numbers to verify the dates.” Lowe kept
rubbing the back of his neck and apologizing for dragging his feet getting back
to Sydowski.

On his way out, Lowe nearly bumped into Pete Marlin, a U.S. Marshal,
who, it turned out, was not on any assignment when Sydowski had first requested
to see him.

“I was booked off. Don’t know how the wires got crossed.” Marlin was
in jeans and a T-shirt and had rushed down to the Hall after Tom Reed’s story
hit his doorstep in San Bruno. “Whatever you need.” Marlin had been on a course
in D.C. during the times of the murders. He had paper to prove it.

It didn’t take long to clear Marlin and Lowe.

That left Steve Murdoch, the pilot. He’d called from Berlin promising to verify his whereabouts. Sydowski grunted after listening to his
message, then put in a formal request through Interpol for Scotland Yard to
meet Murdoch when he landed at Heathrow, to remind him to keep his promise.

That left Frank Yarrow. While Murdoch would likely be tied up soon,
Yarrow’s file would take time. Sydowski glanced at the phone and started into
another cookie while waiting for callbacks.

The trace on Yarrow’s cell phone number came up to a phone rental
company from Chicago. Yarrow had paid cash. The contact information he’d left
was outdated.

Tom Reed had suggested that Yarrow bought flowers in San Francsico
for Molly. A run of his credit card showed a few purchases over the phone, but
did not confirm his location, or a current number.

Sydowski’s check with Illinois DMV gave him Yarrow’s address and he
got a number. Again, it was outdated. Sydowski had rounded a corner a short
time ago. After some further checking he’d learned that Yarrow was an officer
with the Chicago Police Department.

How that fit with being a corporate security consultant, as he’d
told Molly, was curious. Bearing in mind that Yarrow had been recently
divorced, he may have been trying to impress her. Finishing off another cookie,
Sydowski was hopeful he’d get some blanks filled in from Captain Tiggle of the
Chicago PD, the guy tasked with handling Sydowski’s query.

On the phone, Tiggle sounded as though he was more of an officious
prick than a cop. It left Sydowski with an ugly feeling about getting any
effective help. He downed a glass of cold water when the homicide receptionist
alerted him.

“Walt, Captain Tiggle in Chicago’s calling back. I’ll put him
through.”

Before picking up, Sydowski started grinding on a Tums for good
measure.

“Sydowski.”

“Tiggle here. Inspector, with regards to your query, I can confirm
that Frank G. Yarrow was an officer with the department.”

“Was?”

“A few months ago, he lost his appeal of the superintendent’s
decision to dismiss him from duty.”

“Yarrow was fired. Is that what you’re trying to say?”

“Correct.”

“Why?”

“The Chicago Police Board reviewed the appeal by Chicago Police
Officer Yarrow and upheld the superintendent’s decision.”