Be Mine (9 page)

They retreated into their own thoughts, listening to Chopin, until
they arrived in Upper Market. The rain had stopped. Blankets of thick silvery
clouds cast a pall over the neighborhood.

The criminalists had called them to the scene.

They headed along the wet sidewalk to Hooper’s building and Sydowski
pulled together what he knew to walk himself through Hooper’s final moments.
Hooper had gone home after his day at the detail. He was to meet Molly Wilson
later. Neighbors saw his car out front, indicating he was home. They also saw a
male, or males, visit. A white man was seen leaving. Fairly linear, so far,
Sydowski thought as they passed through the gate and made their way to the rear
and up the stairs.

He was waiting for him.

Sydowski climbed the stairs thinking the killer knew Hooper and was
waiting for him at the top of the landing. If he didn’t know him, would he
still go up? Maybe he wasn’t threatening? Maybe he pulled a gun and demanded
Hooper unlock the door?

No forced entry. No struggle. Hooper let him in, and once inside,
the killer disarmed him, then fired a round. It was a warning round, judging
from the angle and height, fired at chest-level into the wall, to compel Hooper
to do as he was told. Hoop would obey, but he would be cool, thinking, I can
talk my way out of this, or get to my off-duty gun.

“Hey, Walt.” Phibbs with Crime Scene met Sydowski and Turgeon in the
kitchen. “The place is clear. We’re done with it.”

“You’ve got something?”

“Yes, Finn’s got it in the bedroom.”

Maybe Hooper was ordered into his bedroom, then onto his bed. The
killer was enraged, he could barely wait. Talk was useless. It was quick, he
smashed his fist into Hooper’s head, or he did it to subdue or confuse him.
Then he drew his gun close and fired, causing the star-patterned contact wound
on Hooper’s temple. Then he set Hooper’s weapon and ID on his back.

Mission
accomplished.

“Walt?” Turgeon repeated. “You with me?”

“In here,” Finn called.

“Sorry.” Sydowski followed Turgeon to Finn, who was in a white
jumpsuit, into the darkened bedroom where Hooper died.

“All right,” Finn began. “I’ll bring you up to speed. We’re done
here, but we followed up on the wall here where you thought there was an
attempt to clean up some blood.”

“Yeah,” Sydowski said.

“There was. We got samples of Hooper’s blood, his type is
A-positive. Then once everything else in the room was processed, and you were
done, we went to work on the wall.” Finn had prepared a jug of water, sodium
perborate, sodium carbonate, and Luminol. He’d attached a small sprayer, then
applied the solution to the bedroom’s ceiling, floor, and wall, including the
wall that had drawn Sydowski’s attention after he’d spotted blood droplets. The
process, known as chemical luminescence, would detect any blood a suspect may
have wiped clean, or made invisible, to the naked eye. Once the solution
contacted blood, it reacted to ultraviolet light.

Finn asked Turgeon to close the door and Sydowski to draw the
curtains. It was still overcast outside. The room went black when Finn killed
the lights. He switched on a purplish blue foot-long wand of ultraviolet light
and held it to the wall.

“See, it looks like your suspect dipped a gloved finger in Hooper’s
blood to do this.”

Sydowski slipped on his glasses and an eerie glow reflected on his
face.

Scrawled in Hooper’s blood, the killer had written one word in
ten-inch letters: Why?

The towers of St. Ignatius Church
jutted
from a hilltop some two miles south of the bay and the Golden Gate Bridge.
Near Golden Gate Park, next to the University of San Francisco.

Its classical baroque architecture was lost on the news crews, who
kept a respectable distance, and the unseen police surveillance teams, who
recorded everybody attending Cliff Hooper’s funeral.

Molly Wilson and Hooper’s sister, Andrea, clasped hands as they
entered the church after his casket was removed from the hearse and wheeled
inside.

It was placed in the sanctuary and bathed in the sunlight descending
through the Holy Spirit depicted in the stained glass dome. The low soothing
hum of the organ and the smells of incense, candles, and fresh flowers wafted
over the gathering.

Molly sat next to Andrea and her husband. Next to Molly sat Hooper’s
partner, Ray Beamon.

Given that Hooper had not died on duty, the service did not entail a
full police color guard. Several hundred mourners were there. Scores of
dignitaries. Among them: the chief of police, the mayor, the commissioner,
justice VIPs from Sacramento, Sydowski, Turgeon, everyone from the homicide
detail, along with police officers from across the bay, the state, and the
country.

Tom and Ann Reed sat with Della Thompson, Acker, Violet Stewart,
Simon Lepp, and other friends from the
San Francisco Star
who’d come to
pay their respects. Irene Pepper sat at the back along with scores of other
reporters and editors from Bay Area newsrooms who knew Molly.

She wore pearl earrings and a matching necklace. A gift from Hooper.
Running her fingers tenderly over the single gem on her gold chain, Molly
remembered when he gave it to her. They’d gone to Golden Gate Park
for an afternoon. He’d joked about wanting to give a lasting gift, like carving
her initials into a tree, he kidded. But he was too law-abiding. Besides, he
wanted her to have something she could keep with her at all times. So he teased
her by scrounging in his pockets. “Let’s see.” He grinned at possible tokens of
affection: a paper clip, gum, change, then a small jewelry box. “What’s in
here?” Cliff was so sweet. Molly thought of his smile as the music trailed
away. The congregation shuffled their funeral cards and the officiating priest
went to the microphone at the small podium to commence the service. “Everyone
who knew Hoop loved him,” he began, summarizing the life of Clifford James
Hooper, a fifteen-year veteran of the department who died at age forty-one.

“He was born and raised in Lodi, California, where he’d worked
relentlessly at realizing his dream of becoming a detective. When he was a boy,
he’d written in his journal: ‘I want to be a police officer so I can catch bad
guys by using my brains, like Sherlock Holmes.’ ”

Some chuckled softly. The priest smiled and went on. “After earning
a degree in criminology, he joined the San Francisco Police Department,
graduating with third-highest average scores. His first detail was in Ingleside
where after one year on the street he was decorated with the Medal of Valor for
disarming a mentally disturbed, knifewielding man who was holding his
twelve-year-old daughter hostage. Both are alive and well and living good lives
thanks to Cliff.”

The priest continued highlighting Hooper’s rise within the
department, ending with Homicide. Then he listed the others at the service who
were going to pay tribute. Molly touched her eyes with a tissue and fidgeted
with her sheet of paper on which she’d written what she was going to say. It
was folded neatly into quarters. She would speak near the end. The mayor was up
first and began by honoring the entire department.

“We know that every day you start your tour, you put it on the line
for us, and for that, this city is deeply grateful,” the mayor said. “We can
only pray that whoever did this to a fine son of the city is brought to
justice.”

Molly gazed at the beautiful stained glass, the Corinthian columns,
and wished this were all a bad dream, a horrible dream as the police chaplain
followed the mayor.

“Something evil brought us all together today,” the chaplain said.
“Something wicked has pierced our hearts. But it will never defeat us. For no
such act of cruelty, no attempt by darkness, shall ever succeed. We will
prevail.” Hooper’s sister was next. Andrea squeezed Molly’s hand, then her
husband’s before going to the podium where she reflected on how all of her life
she’d looked up to her big brother. How after their parents passed away she
became closer to him, her rock during the storms of her life. “Cliffie,” she
said, staring at his casket, “you’ll always be my hero.”

Molly began to quiver, wondering if she could go through with this
as the chief of police went next, barely containing his anger.

“Not many of you are aware, but I knew Hooper when I was a captain
and he worked for me a few years back. He went undercover on some dangerous
operations and he got the job done. And done well. He was one of the finest
officers I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with.” The chief took his time
so the weight of his words could be felt.

“What happened to Hoop is an insult and an outrage to our police
family,” the chief said, letting seconds pass. A few people coughed, some
sniffled. “Yes, we’re all hurting, and that’s understandable. But make no
mistake. This will not weaken us. Find solace and draw strength from our maxim.
‘Oro en paz, fierro en guerra. Gold in Peace. Iron in War.’ We don’t just wear
it. We don’t just carry it around. We swear by it. We live by it. And we die by
it.”

Molly watched Beamon rub his knees. He was next. She patted his
hand. He went to the podium, gripping its sides as if struggling not to fall.

A few rows back Sydowski raised his chin, tightened his arms across
his chest, and absorbed every iota of Beamon’s demeanor.

“My family moved around a lot when I was a kid. As an only child, I
never knew the feeling of a large family until I joined the SFPD,” he began. “I
was in Robbery before I went to Homicide a few years ago. That’s where I met
Cliff.” Beamon paused.

“He’d already put in quite a few years in Homicide when he got me
for a partner. But he was cool with that. He was patient. He was my mentor and
maybe sometimes we didn’t see eye to eye--” He stopped to rub his right hand
across his lip, and Sydowski tightened his focus on Beamon’s scraped knuckles.
“But he taught me, watched over me. He was my brother and I loved him.”

Turgeon touched the corners of her eyes. Sydowski shifted in his
seat, thinking long and hard, reassured by the fact the police surveillance
team was capturing video and audio of everyone inside and outside the church.

Molly took a deep breath, squeezed her piece of folded paper, then
patted Beamon’s shoulder as she rose to take her place at the podium.

She unfolded her sheet, its crisp crackling echoing. Then she cleared
her throat to assure herself that she’d have the strength to push words through
her mouth. “Just read your words. Read aloud, slowly and clearly,” the priest
had advised her before the service on how to get through it.

“Cliff was a kind, gentle man who always worried about the children
who got caught up in some of his cases. He wanted to have his own family one
day and I know he would have made a terrific dad.”

Molly kept her eyes on her sheet because she was too nervous to
raise them and look into all of the faces before her. She could feel their
anguish, their suffering, their loss, and their rage.

“I know Cliff loved police work and thought the world of all of
you.” Molly lifted her head to the congregation, cast a sweeping gaze over
them, before seeing something that made her heart stop.

A man who had been standing at the rear of the church, listening as
the others eulogized Hooper, was now taking slow steps up the aisle toward her,
his face coming into view until Molly recognized him. She was stunned. He found
a pew with an empty seat. He settled into it and looked at her.

Oh my God! This can’t be!

Transfixed for a moment, Molly struggled with her composure before
she finished reading her words. Afterward, the priest gestured to Beamon to
assist her back to her seat. Everyone at the service had assumed she’d been
overwhelmed by grief. No one knew the truth.

Molly had just been visited by a ghost.