16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

Haight was frugal. He dressed simply, in loose clothing, and kept his possessions to a minimum. But when it came to electronics, he had the best. He accepted donations to keep himself alive, which freed him to put his energy into producing his podcasts and posting the videos and protest speeches that he’d archived from the sixties and seventies, beginning with those his mother had given before he was born.

Haight, a.k.a. the redheaded stepchild of the sixties revolution, was the son of Erin Mitchell, the famously brave extremist who had founded Youth for a Democratic Society, a group of radicals that had forever shifted the consciousness of a complacent America.

Haight had never discovered the identity of his “father unknown.”

Momma had told him at various times that his father might be Jerry Rubin or Jerry Garcia, or even Bob Dylan. She never swore to the truth of his paternity, but it was probably because she didn’t know. By the time she died of ovarian cancer, Haight no longer cared who his father was. He had formed his own ideology and his manifesto was online worldwide.

Haight drafted alongside the GAR movement. He believed what they believed, but his methods were hands-off. He didn’t recruit. He wasn’t a technical adviser. He was a spokesman for the overturn of corrupt governments, and he spoke of revolution. He believed that all politics should be local and fully participatory. This left him both anti-state and anti-corporate. His major demons were the US government, the West in general, the IMF, Big Oil, Wall Street, central banks, and the various US bloodsucking cartels: defense, Big Pharma, agribusiness, and higher education.

Along with GAR, he was inspiring the lone wolves and stray-dog rebels, the angry underclass around the world yearning to break free. His podcasts were reports from the new front of terror without borders that was breaking out all over the world.

Violence was a way of cleansing humanity of its statist and corporatist sins and ushering in a new world in much the same way the Russian Bolsheviks did. It boiled down to an old slogan, simple and moving: POWER TO THE PEOPLE.

He was also Machiavellian and he knew it.

Any means to the correct end.

Haight was active in many twisting corridors on the dark web. He gathered and disseminated news from the undergrou

nd and produced his own commentary. People wrote to Haight. He didn’t write back, but through an encrypted app he could pop into friendly computer stations at will, and so his friends could talk to him anytime. And they did. J. had chatted with him before he set off for his sadly failed mission at SFO.

Still, J. had made his mark and, in so doing, had fueled the revolution.

This morning Haight was sipping his homemade peppermint-leaf tea while browsing the open transmissions from web friends, donors, and acolytes when his monitor went sharp white, accompanied by two consecutive booms that shocked the high right out of him.

What had to have been an explosion had come from the house rented by the four in Ingleside. When the picture cleared, he was looking at Andy Yang’s face as a woman cop with a ponytail shouted, “Mr. Yang. Wake up. This is the police.”

Haight watched what he could see of an emergency response team sweep through the house in Ingleside. Then he disconnected from the net.

He thought about those kids for a few minutes. They knew nothing about him that wasn’t common knowledge. He had a law degree from Columbia. He exercised his free speech rights, knowing how to keep himself safe from complicity in acts of treason.

Haight selected a favorite album from his playlist, L.A. Woman, the Doors, 1971, and turned on the speakers. He stepped into a pair of sandals and took the spiral staircase to the roof deck. There he turned on the hose, and as he watered the tomatoes, he sang “Riders on the Storm” along with Jim Morrison. And he pictured those brave kids in Ingleside. He looked forward to a time when all people would be free.

CHAPTER 23

THAT MORNING YUKI went to the third floor of the Hall and checked in with Darlene Fanucci, DA Len Parisi’s personal gatekeeper.

She took one of the chairs in a row along the wall and waited to be called. As she sat there, ADAs came one after the other into Len’s area. Some paced like soon-to-be fathers with wives in the delivery room. Others stood, pensive, avoiding eye contact with everyone until the previous ADA left and Marie told the next in line to go right in. Five minutes later the ADA would leave Len’s office at a smart pace, eyes straight ahead, mind clearly on the case at hand.

Yuki found it disorienting, both familiar and strange, to revisit a past that she’d thought was securely behind her.

Yesterday while she was driving home from work, Len had called. She let the call go through to voice mail, then thumbed the keys until it played back.

“Yuki, it’s Len. Parisi. Uh … Yuki, I have to talk to you. Call me.”

He left his cell and home numbers.

Having worked under Len Parisi for four years, Yuki had to fight her powerful reflex to call him right back.

She thought about how much she had loved working for Len, prosecuting bad guys, becoming an ace litigator in the nuclear-charged atmosphere of the DA’s office.

Then, a year ago, after a near-death experience, Yuki had a change of heart and mind about her career with the DA. She wanted to give back, use her skills to do good works for less-fortunate people who couldn’t afford a lawyer.

She expected Len to understand, but she misgauged his attachment to her. She was his protégé, and he didn’t take her resignation well. In one short meeting she lost him as a boss, as a mentor, and as a friend. That had hurt. Bad.

It had been a year since she took the job with the not-forprofit Defense League, and she hadn’t spoken with Len in that time. What could he possibly want to discuss with her now?

She pulled off Highway 92 onto an overlook and hit Return Call. She pressed her phone hard to her ear and listened to it ring. Then Parisi was on the line.