11th Hour (Women's Murder Club 11)

Smith has been under investigation by the SFPD for the past three years but because of the closing of the city’s corrupt drug lab, he has never gone on trial. According to a source who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, Chaz Smith’s assassin “demonstrated professional skills in the killing of this drug dealer. It was a very slick hit.”

Smith is the fourth high-level drug dealer who has been executed in this manner. In the opinion of this reporter, a professional do-good hit man is cleaning up the mess that the SFPD can’t rub out. That’s why I call this killer Revenge — and given the size of the mess that needs to be cleaned, he could just be getting started …

He’d said it himself: “In the opinion of this reporter.” It was a phrase that meant “I’m not actually reporting. I’m telling a story.”

And his “story” was a slam against the SFPD.

The Delete button was right under my index finger, but instead of sending the article to the recycle bin, I opened the link to the second story, headlined “Death at the Ellsworth Compound?”

Right under the headline was a photo showing Conklin and me going in through the compound’s tall front gate.

My heart rate kicked up as I read Blayney’s report; he said that Homicide had been called to a disturbance at the famous Ellsworth compound, owned by Harry Chandler.

Blayney gave the context of the story by telling his readers about the SFPD’s dismal rate of unsolved homicides.

Then my name jumped out at me.

Our sources tell us that the Southern Division’s Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is lead investigator on the Ellsworth case. Boxer, rumored to have lost her edge since stepping down from the Homicide squad lieutenant’s job several years ago …

It was an unfair jab and I wasn’t prepared for it. I felt a shock of anger, and then tears welled up. This guy was knocking a decorated elderly primigravida with a dozen years on the force and a pretty decent record of solved crimes.

Not 100 percent, but high!

I sat on the kitchen stool long enough for my coffee to get cold and my hormones to give me a break.

Blayney had attached himself to both of my cases, but so far he didn’t know that Chaz Smith was an undercover cop and that seven heads had been dug up at Harry Chandler’s house.

We had no leads, no suspects for either crime.

How long would it be before “anonymous sources” leaked that to Jason Blayney?

Boxer, rumored to have lost her edge …

The government was broke. Jobs were being eliminated. Blayney’s cutting remarks could color the top-floor bosses’ perception of me.

For the first time in a dozen years, I worried about keeping my job.

Chapter 16

I DROVE MY husband to the airport through the maddening morning rush. Traffic was congested, gridlocked at the stoplights, and Joe’s flight would be leaving without him if we didn’t get clear roadway soon.

Still, I was glad for the drive time with Joe’s sharp, former-FBI-agent brain.

I buzzed up the car windows and beat the steering wheel for emphasis as I filled Joe in on the well-planned executions of four — yes, four — notorious drug dealers and told him that Narcotics was now asking Homicide for help.

Joe asked, “And why is Brady sure that Revenge is a cop?”

“The slugs that killed Chaz Smith match to a gun stolen from the property room, and all of the hits were so smoothly executed that the shooter had to know the dealers’ whereabouts. It’s like he had inside knowledge. Maybe it came from inside the Hall.”

I told Joe that all of the executed drug dealers were big-time and that Chaz Smith’s death had been a blow to the top floor of the SFPD.

“Smith’s real identity had been a very well-guarded secret, Joe. He headed up a large undercover operation that can’t be blown. Cops’ lives are on the line.”

Joe said, “Lindsay, this is a nasty case, and dangerous. Did your shooter know Smith was a cop? Maybe he did.”

It was a possibility, maybe a good one. I said, “Hang on,” then hit the departure ramp at fifty and pulled the car up to United Airlines’ curbside-check-in, no-waiting zone.

I shut off the engine, looked at my husband, and said, “Don’t go.”