Blood Ties (35 page)

“You should go home,” he told her.

She glanced up at him, giving no indication that she had even heard, then said, “Listen to this.”

She hit a key and a voice recording started to play. It was the 911 call from last night, telling the police that they might find something interesting in the trunk of a car parked just south of Powell and Chestnut.

“Now listen to this.” The second voice recording was Tregear and his father, and the father's voice was identical to last night's 911 caller.

Sam listened closely and, when the second recording was over, said, “Play it again.”

The total impression, twice round, was even more bizarre.

“He shouldn't have done it,” Ellen said, sounding more bitter than perhaps she intended. “Steve should have cleared it with us. Or just stayed the hell out.”

“You think so?” Sam cocked his head a little to one side, as if he doubted she really believed what she was saying. “What would have happened if you or I had made that call? After the first word we've have been listening to a dial tone. You heard him. Walter isn't concerned with us—it's all between the two of them. This way we have good evidence that Walter is our perp in the Lockwood killing, we have the transcript and we have a line of communication to the Devil himself.”

“So once again Tregear is way ahead of us.”

She made it sound like a defeat, which meant that she was still angry. Sam put his hand on Ellen's shoulder and crouched down a little to look into her face.

“Tregear? You're just mad at him because he kicked you out. Well, what did you expect? The guy knows what Walter does to women. He's just trying to protect you.”

There were tears in her eyes when she spoke again.

“But who's going to protect him?”

“Go home, Ellie.” Sam shook his head. “You're worn out.”

Ellen drew herself up and looked away. “My shift doesn't end until four-thirty.”

“Your shift started at midnight and its ten-forty. Remember me? I'm your sergeant. Go home.” He picked up the wad of printouts that was on Ellen's desk, looked at them with distaste, then set them back down. “I have to talk to Hempel.”

“Okay. Then I'm going with you.” The expression on her face was one of imperfectly suppressed defiance. “Remember me? I'm the case officer.”

“Then you'll go home?”

“Then I'll go home.”

So now both of them would get to tell Dave Hempel, who would have to tell the powers that be, that they had a situation on their hands.

Sam tapped his knuckle once against the glass and opened the door to the lieutenant's office.

Hempel glanced up and frowned. “What is it this time?”

After a leisurely inspection of the chairs, Sam sat down on the one that was out of the light from the window. He smiled.

“He's killed another one,” he announced brightly. “Officer Ridley will give you the gruesome details.”

Hempel looked at her, as if only then aware of her presence, and she sat down. Her recital took about five minutes. When it was over Hempel looked pained, as if he could already read the headlines.

“You're sure it's Walter?”

“We have solid evidence,” Ellen announced cheerfully. “This makes four, if you don't count the doctor or the prostitute at the Marriott.”

She could almost watch the dark thoughts chasing through the lieutenant's brain, and Ellen didn't blame him. Nobody liked an emergency. Emergencies always brought a flood of criticism, and the men upstairs, all captains and above, all lifers, policemen unto death, all worried about their next assignment and their next promotion, didn't like criticism. They wanted to ride their own momentum into something sweet in the commissioner's office.

And all of those guys, who hadn't worked the street in years and years, would be looking to Dave Hempel to make this go away.

“We'll form a task force,” the lieutenant proclaimed, as if he were preaching a crusade.

“Oh God!” Sam was so upset that he actually took his hat off.

“It's the only way.”

Which meant it would look good in the newspapers. It would look like somebody was actually doing something, when in fact it would only tie up about twenty people with answering the phones. False tips, false confessions, nuts popping up like mushrooms sprouting on a rotten log.

“You can't make his identity public,” Ellen said, as if to the wall. Her voice was all the more chilling for its lack of emphasis. “No picture, no names, no history. Walter wouldn't like it.”

Hempel looked annoyed.

“And we're supposed to worry about whether the murderer of four, maybe five women likes his press notices?” He shook his head. “Of course we'll identify him. Maybe somebody will recognize him. Anyway, the citizens of San Francisco have a right to know that their police force has been doing its job.”

“Is that what it's about? I thought we were just supposed to catch him.”

Instantly Ellen realized that she had made a mistake. She had prodded Hempel in every desk cop's most vulnerable spot—his deep reverence for public relations.

But there was nothing to do except soldier on.

“Lieutenant, you have to understand something about our Walter. He's like a kid playing a video game. The screaming, the blood … it's all a fantasy. On a purely theoretical level he probably understands that there are laws against homicide, but he really doesn't think that his little amusements are any of our business. He already knows that we're on to him and he's not afraid of us, so a press conference isn't going to make him run away and stop bothering us. He'll resent it. He'll see it as a personal insult, a violation of his privacy. And he'll take his revenge.”

She glanced at Sam, who was still clenching his hat.

“She's probably right,” he said, staring at Hempel's office window as if it were a lost opportunity. “We don't want to stir this guy up.”

“Well, from the rate he's going I'd say he's pretty stirred up already.”

Hempel smiled faintly, appearing to savor his little joke.

“Lieutenant, this is—”

“Inspector Ridley, I think we can excuse you now.” Hempel's smile seemed frozen in place. “Sergeant Tyler and I have things to discuss.”

“Go home, Ellie,” Sam murmured. “Get some sleep.”

The message was clear. She wasn't changing anybody's mind. She should get out of there before she did her career any more harm.

On the drive home, her anger was probably the only thing that kept her awake.

*   *   *

“And you'll lead it,” Hempel announced, as soon as he and Sam were alone. He smiled, the way a man does when he's exacting revenge.

“The hell I will.”

“You'll lead it. You're the senior inspector in charge.” The lieutenant was very happy. He had solved his problem. “I'll schedule a press conference for four o'clock, in time for the evening news. Go prepare your statement. And put together a press kit on our suspect.”

Upon his return to the duty room, Sam observed that Ellen's chair was empty. Apparently she had followed orders and gone home.

Damn. Sam hated the idea of stepping up in front of the television cameras and being the public face of the San Francisco Police Department. His wife would doubtless tape his ninety seconds of fame and insist that he watch it, and his neighbors in Daly City would rib him for a month.

Ellie would have done it much better. For one thing, she wasn't a frowzy middle-aged street cop wearing the wrong tie. Ellie had gone to college. For her it would be like standing up in lit class and reading a paper on the erotic symbolism in “Mother Goose.” She would give a polished performance.

And now she was on her way home to a Lean Cuisine and bed. Lucky girl, she would probably miss the whole sorry show.

And she wouldn't even be around to correct his grammar.

*   *   *

But by four o'clock, despite vast misgivings, Sam was standing behind a lectern in the press room, blinking into the television lights. He had a prepared statement in his sweating hand and there were stacks of the press kit on a table behind him.

The press kit was mercifully brief, consisting of the few confirmed facts about Walter and the artist's sketch based on Mary Plant's description. Hempel had wanted something encyclopedic, just to prove the police were on their toes, but Sam knew better. He would give the public only what might help the investigation and no more. Otherwise the inevitable avalanche of false leads would be geometrically more vast and intractable.

“Last night,” he began, “sometime between nine and nine-fifteen, there was a homicide in North Beach. The victim was a young woman—her name is not being released pending notification of her family—and she died of a single stab wound. Her body was found in the trunk of her car following an anonymous call to 9-1-1.

“Last night's tragedy was the latest in a series of homicides occurring in and around San Francisco which, on the basis of forensic and other evidence, the police are convinced are the work of a single individual.”

Sam took off his glasses and wiped them with a handkerchief as he waited for the furor to subside. It was inevitable. Serial killers were reasonably rare, even in California, and they sold more newspapers than a celebrity divorce.

“The suspect appears to be a white male in his middle fifties, working in the building trades or as a handyman. Our office is in possession of DNA evidence and fingerprints. We have a physical description and an artist's rendering, which will be made available to the press. The suspect is armed and must be considered extremely dangerous. If any member of the public recognizes this man, they should call the police immediately. They should under no circumstances approach the suspect themselves.

“We have reason to believe the suspect may be involved in a series of homicides, in various parts of the country and stretching over a period of several years…”

Sam's announcement took less than two minutes, but the questions ran on for an hour and a half. The press room walls seemed to vibrate with the noise. It was like the shouting of a lynch mob.

*   *   *

Ellen was awake and eating a chicken pot pie in her pajamas when the six o'clock news came on. Sam's press conference was the lead segment and the background stories went on for another ten minutes.

At first she could hardly believe it. Sam? Why not some captain from Administration, some faceless bureaucrat in a blue uniform, safely distanced from the investigation? Now Walter would know who was hunting him. Hempel might as well have painted a bull's-eye on Sam's forehead.

During the commercial break her cell phone rang.

“Did I wake you up?” Sam asked timidly. Of course, that wasn't the reason he had called.

“No. I watched you on TV. You were pretty good.”

“Was I okay?”

“You were more than okay. You were dignified and precise, and you didn't give too much away. You were great.”

“He fucking forced me to do it.”

“Hempel?”

“Yeah. I'm going to need you tomorrow to organize this stupid task force. It'll take all morning just to find enough chairs. It's going to be a pig's dinner.”

“I know. It'll be all right.”

“I'm worried that it might scare Walter off. If he bolts, and then nothing happens for the next month, the newspapers will eat us whole.”

“He won't bolt, Sam. He's got unfinished business here. Besides, he's probably enjoying the publicity.”

“Well, I'm not.”

For just a second or two Ellen hesitated. She knew what she wanted to say and that she would never forgive herself if something bad happened and she hadn't said it, but she also knew Sam would think she was getting hysterical.

Still, it had to be said.

“Sam, will you do me a favor?”

“Sure. Name it.”

“Stay on your toes. Walter probably watches the news. He saw your face and he knows your name. Hempel should never have let you get up in front of those microphones.”

“Ellie, do you know how many death threats I've had in my career?”

“Lots, I'll bet. And most of them were just noise.”

“All of them were just noise.”

“Well, this is different. This is Walter. He won't threaten. He'll just do it.”

“Sure. Okay.”

Ellen could only shake her head.
Sure. Okay.
It was the best she was going to get.

“I'll see you tomorrow morning, Sam. Early.”

“That's right, little girl. Early.”

After she had clicked off the phone, Ellen could not overcome a sense of uneasiness. A terrible blunder had just been committed, of that she felt sure. This task force was nothing more than a political stunt, a completely unnecessary leap into the unknown.

Now perhaps the hunters would become the hunted.

*   *   *

Walter, as he watched the television news, was not happy. He did not like this turn of events. It was one thing to read about one's exploits in the newspaper, but television was another matter. It was way too personal.

And he didn't like the drawing. The resemblance struck him as less than perfect—they had made him look like a shoplifter—and he didn't like the fact of the thing. Its mere existence was offensive. How the hell had they come by it?

Then he remembered Mary Plant. It was either Mary or the receptionist at the doctor's office, and he put his money on Mary. The receptionist had seen him only once, but Mary really, really knew what he looked like.

Steve, of course, was out. Steve hadn't set eyes on him in over twenty years, and the face in the drawing was middle-aged.

Middle-aged and weary. It was not the way he wanted people to see him—he didn't want people to see him at all. Vastly more important, it was not the way he saw himself.