Unlucky 13 (Women's Murder Club 13)

I HAD TWO open lines of communication inside my unmarked Crown Vic. My phone was on speaker for Conklin and Stanford, who were tracking the bomber’s phone and listening in on Jansing’s ongoing conversation with the bomber.

I was also monitoring the staticky blare of my car radio, which was locked on a channel dedicated exclusively to the cops working this case.

I buzzed down my window as I drove through Oakland’s Fruitvale area, a shopping district that had been economically up, down, and iffy for a long time. I passed a Chuck’s on the corner of East 12th and 35th Avenue. The restaurant was busy, and typical of the chain’s cheery bistro style, aqua-and-white market umbrellas shaded the brunch crowd at the tables outside the restaurant.

Therese Stanford’s voice came over my cell phone: “The subject told Jansing to go to a vacant liquor store on San Leandro Street. The front door is open, and he’s supposed to leave the package on the counter. Subject says he’s watching Jansing, and he’s telling him to be smart. Okay. Okay. Now Mr. Jansing says he’s got dead air. Subject has shut off the cell phone and disconnected the battery.”

My pulse picked up. I saw the vacant liquor store up ahead, situated between a bakery and a bike shop. The sign read BARNEY’S WINE AND LIQUOR. The plateglass window had been soaped from the inside and tagged from the outside, and rampant weeds had overtaken the pansies in the flower boxes.

I circled the block, and as I approached Barney’s on the return pass, I saw that Jansing had pulled up to the curb. I slowed and saw him get out of his car with a taupe metal Zero Halliburton briefcase in his right hand.

Stanford and Conklin, who had been following Jansing two cars back, pulled past him and made a U-turn before parking on the opposite side of the street, facing Barney’s.

Radio dispatch confirmed that plainclothes were covering the rear exit of Barney’s and the parking areas behind the row of shops facing 45th Avenue.

We were as ready as we could be.

I didn’t like the idea of Jansing going into a building that hadn’t been cleared, but his open cell phone served as a wire. If Jansing was in trouble, he only had to say “I’m not armed” and the abandoned store would fill with men with guns.

I still didn’t like it.

By definition, our so-called belly bomber was a psychopath. He’d killed innocent people for fun and money, and he was threatening to do so again. If he was inside the former Barney’s liquor store, he might shoot Jansing and make a break with the money.

I watched as Jansing carried his metal briefcase into the store with the opaque windows. Moments later, he came out empty-handed and got into his car. Stanford reported over the radio, “Jansing is out and safe. He left the money.”

All around San Leandro Street, cops in utility vans and unmarked cars watched for the belly bomber to go into Barney’s to retrieve his loot.

CHAPTER 42

CONKLIN UNFOLDED HIS lanky body and got out of CSI Stanford’s low-slung muscle car. As she took off, he walked to our unmarked and got into the passenger seat. We had a good view of Barney’s from our spot in the middle of the block, and there we sat.

It was a long wait. Conklin tipped his head back and caught some of the z’s he’d lost while fighting about the President’s economic policies with Tina, and I scrutinized all traffic—car, foot, and skateboard. There was a plant nursery to my left, a coffee spot to my right, and an elevated BART track across the way. The whoosh and hum of the train added a sound track to the casual afternoon scene. After an hour, I felt I knew the neighborhood as well as my own.

But I didn’t see what I was looking for: a man walking under the red metal Barney’s sign, going through the doors into the vacant liquor store, and coming out with a package.

Three and a half hours after staking out this block, I’d had enough. I nudged Conklin awake and then, along with a half dozen cops, we surrounded the liquor store with guns in hand.

I assigned places, and when we were all ready, I opened the front door.

The interior of the store was gloomy, with just enough light coming through the soaped windows to see the walls of empty shelves and cardboard cartons and one shiny object: the Zero Halliburton case on the counter.

The case was open. The money was gone and a note had been left inside it. Block letters on lined paper.

NO POLICE, REMEMBER? KA-BOOM.

Two cops went to the basement and returned a minute later. They had found that the basement door that opened out to the parking lot was unlocked and that the basement itself was shared by the bakery next door.

Conklin and I exited Barney’s by the front door and then entered the Frosted Fool Bakery next door, where a browsing crowd of shoppers checked out the glass cases and stood in line with numbers in their hands. I fetched the owner from the kitchen and invited the customers to leave. Then I turned the sign on the door to closed while Conklin gathered the salespeople together for questioning.

We interviewed the owner and the three salespeople who’d been behind the counters all morning.

All four agreed. No suspicious customers had been seen in the Frosted Fool. However, they did say that the basement door they shared with the defunct Barney’s was left unlocked during the day for deliveries and garbage removal.

Undoubtedly that basement door was used by the unknown subject who had taken the four packets of cash totaling a hundred grand.

And the game was still on. As the bomber had told Michael Jansing, he was enjoying himself immensely.

That’s when a soft ka-boom went off in my mind.