Delion hit the steering wheel with his hand and nearly struck a pedestrian who was stoned and walk-dancing across Market Street. He gave them the finger, never breaking stride.
“Yes,” Delion said, turning the Ford sharply to make the guy jump out of the way. “Damn. It makes sense, doesn’t it? Why the hell didn’t I think of that?”
“You’re exhausted, for a start.”
Delion blew that off, fingered his mustache. “Okay, Dane, let me think. We’ve had three murders, one a couple of weeks old. We’ve got the guy—a husband we believe who just wanted to collect on his wife’s life insurance. That was Donnie Lunerman’s case. He just shook his head when he walked out of the interview with the man. It boggles the mind what some people will do for fifty thousand dollars.
“I’ve got it. Last Monday night—just one night before the first confession—there was an old woman, seventy-two, who lived alone in the Sunset District, on Irving and Thirty-third. She was murdered in her home. No robbery, no forced entry, no broken windows. The guy clubbed her to death in her bed and took off. Thing’s a dead end so far.”
“He didn’t shoot her,” Dane said thoughtfully, bracing one hand against the dashboard as Delion took a sharp turn into the police garage.
“No, he bludgeoned her to death. Then, last Wednesday, and this is the one that everyone is all up in arms about, a gay activist was murdered, outside a bar in the Castro. Lots of witnesses, but no one close and no one can agree on what the guy looked like. He was straight, he was gay, he was fat, thin as a rail, old, young—you get the picture. That’s not my case. The chief formed a special task force, that’s how high profile this guy was.”
“How was he killed?”
“Garroted.”
“Okay. Blunt force, strangulation, bullet. The guy is all over the board.”
“If,” Delion said, “if—and this is a really big if—if the guy killed both those people and taunted your brother about them, then why would he kill him?”
“I don’t know,” Dane said. “I’m really not sure, but I’ll betcha that our profilers would have an idea about that.”
“Oh man,” Delion said, screeching into a parking place in the garage, “the Feds are coming to roost on my head after all.”
“They’re good people, Delion.” Dane paused a moment, then said, “You know, I’m wondering about that woman—the one who called in my brother’s murder—why she was there at midnight on Sunday?”
“Yeah, everyone was wondering about that. No way to find her. Let’s hope she calls us again.”
“I wonder what she really saw.”
“We’ll probably never know. I don’t think we’ll have any luck finding her.”
Dane said, “Maybe she’ll be on Father Binney’s list.”
Delion glanced over at him. “You ever find anything out that easy?”
FIVE
She stood on the bottom step of the ugly Hall of Justice building on Bryant Street.
It was a beautiful Tuesday morning, gloriously sunny, with just a nip in the air, actually a typical winter day in San Francisco, as she’d been told many times. Yes, the air was so clear and sharp you couldn’t breathe in deep enough.
She’d only been here about two weeks, and there had been other days like this. But this morning, this incredibly crisp, clear morning, she felt little pleasure. She walked slowly to the top step, people streaming around her, most of them moving fast, focused on where they were going. No one paid her any attention.
She was scared, really scared. She didn’t want to be there, but she didn’t have a choice. She’d tried for a solid two minutes to convince herself that Father Michael Joseph’s death had nothing to do with her, but of course that was not going to work.
It was time to step up.
She went through the metal detector, made her way through the crowded lobby, and took the elevator to the fourth floor.
She’d been to the police station once before, when she’d first arrived in San Francisco. She’d had a weak moment, thought she would just waltz in and tell someone what had happened, see if someone would help her. But she realized soon enough that she was dreaming. She’d snuck away. That first time she hadn’t noticed the series of black-and-white photos that lined the walls, many of them taken before the earthquake. She walked through the door to Homicide, into the small reception area. There was no one behind the high counter. She paused a moment, then walked through the door. She’d seen a lot of homicide rooms on TV and this one looked much the same except it was smaller, about a dozen big, scarred light oak desks shoved together in pairs, heavy old side chairs beside each one. There was a computer on top of each desk, stacks of loose paper, folders, books, a phone, and what looked like mounds of just plain trash. What struck her was that there wasn’t much noise, no cursing, no yelling, no chaos. Just the steady low hum of a dozen simultaneous conversations. On one side of the main room were two small interview rooms, with no windows, that looked like soundproofed coffins. Finally, from one of those rooms, she heard some raised voices.