“No, he woke up.”
Randolph Fish was a brutal, clever, truly diabolical killer who had been linked to nine dead or missing college girls over a three-year span, all on the West Coast.
The remains of five of the young women had been found in wooded areas and remote industrial locations. The victims had been tortured and mutilated, each dying by different means. Bludgeoning. Strangulation. Stabbing.
The other three girls had never been found or heard from again, but they matched the killer’s type—petite, dark-haired, and very trusting. Because of the different locations and manners of death, it had taken years to connect the dead and missing girls to one killer.
And then the killer made a mistake.
A fingerprint found on a car belonging to one of the dead girls matched that of Randolph Fish, an itinerant bartender who had been arrested in San Francisco a month before for assault and then released.
After victim number nine, Sandra Brody, was abducted from the campus of the University of San Francisco three years ago and taken to whereabouts unknown, Jacobi and I were asked to work with the FBI. Jacobi and I joined the stakeout in the Mission.
It was about nine at night, windy and cold. We were watching two bars and a movie theater on 16th when Fish came out of the theater.
He saw an FBI vehicle and, like a praying mantis nabbing a bug, Fish snatched a woman at random who was also leaving the theater. He held a knife under her throat and shouted to the agents in the black SUV, “I’ll kill her. Believe me, I will.”
r /> I was on the theater side of the street, crouched between two cars, and I had a clear shot at the back of Randolph Fish’s head. I couldn’t see the hostage’s face, only the line of her throat and the blade pressing against it.
I stood up, held my gun with both hands, and shouted, “Fish! Let her go or I’ll blow your brains to the moon.”
I hoped like hell that he would obey because I didn’t know if my aim was good enough to take him out before he killed his hostage. Luckily, I didn’t have to find out.
The human shield broke free. Fish bolted into the street toward oncoming traffic. I ran, too, yelling, “Stop or I’ll shoot.”
He must’ve heard the conviction in my voice.
He stopped running, and when I told him to drop to the ground and interlace his hands behind his neck, he did it. He laughed at me when I kicked the knife into the gutter. When Jacobi cuffed him, Fish told Jacobi he was so fat he was headed for a heart attack.
Frankly, I couldn’t believe what Fish looked like in person. I had to shake my head and reorder my thoughts. But never mind his appearance—he was down. The FBI took him into custody and we were all jubilant.
It was frigid and I was shaking from the cold. It was one of the best moments of my life.
Chapter 56
THE NIGHT WE captured Randolph Fish, Ronald Parker, special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco field office, said that Fish would be more responsive to a female interviewer than to the men working the case.
“He’s all about control,” Parker said. “He’s like a drug addict, and his drug of choice is dominating women. He’ll try to get under your skin, Lindsay. If there’s any chance of getting Sandra Brody back, you’ll have to get under his.”
I interrogated Randolph Fish for fifteen hours on each of three consecutive days. I used every interview technique I knew. I threatened him. I negotiated with him. When these methods failed, I shut off the camera and I threw the man to the floor. I kicked him nine times, once for each of his victims.
Fish laughed and told me what a cute piece I was when I was mad. He had gotten under my skin after all, and he never told me or anyone else what happened to Sandra Brody.
Fish was tried, convicted on five counts of homicide in the first degree, and sent to the federal prison at Atwater, where he was locked in a nice private cell.
A year later, he was on the way to the infirmary for shooting pains in his chest when a riot broke out and a guard was shot. Fish made a break for an exit—and was clubbed across the back of the head.
He slipped into a persistent coma and was handcuffed to a bed in the prison wing of a nearby hospital, where he had been for the last two years.
I’d long hoped that Randolph Fish would wake up with his memory intact. There were four families who wanted to know where their daughters were buried, and nine families who wanted to watch Randolph Fish die in the chair.
Now I gripped the phone and said to Brady, “What’s his condition?”
“He spoke in full sentences,” Brady said. “He told the warden he’ll take the feds to the missing bodies if he gets a deal, and if he gets to talk to you. Do you want in on this, Boxer? Ron Parker asked for your assistance.”
I didn’t want to say no to Ron Parker.
“I’ll do it,” I told Brady, “but I can’t make it tomorrow. I just can’t.”