2nd Chance (Women's Murder Club 2)

“Because it looked like your uncle’s?”

He hesitated. “No, because it had a picture on the back.”

“A picture? You mean like an insignia? Or some kind of advertising?”

“Uh-uh.” He shook his head; his moonlike eyes were searching around. Then they lit up. “I mean like that.” He pointed toward a pickup truck in a neighbor’s driveway. There was a sticker of a Cal Golden Bear on the rear bumper.

“You mean a decal?” I confirmed.

“On the door.”

I held the boy softly by the shoulders. “What did this decal look like, Bernard?”

“Like Mufasa,” the boy said, “from The Lion King.”

“A lion?” My mind raced through anything that seemed likely. Sports teams, college logos, corporations…

“Yeah, like Mufasa,” Bernard repeated. “Except it had two heads.”

Chapter 5

LESS THAN AN HOUR LATER, I was pushing through a surging crowd that had built up on the steps of the Hall of Justice. I felt hollowed out and terribly sad, but knew I couldn’t show it here.

The lobby of the tomblike granite building where I worked was packed with reporters and news crews, shoving their microphones at anyone who came in wearing a badge. Most of the crime reporters knew me, but I waved them off until I could get upstairs.

Then a set of hands grasped my shoulders and a familiar voice chimed, “Linds, we need to talk….”

I spun to face Cindy Thomas, one of my closest friends, though it also happened she was the lead crime reporter at the Chronicle. “I won’t bother you now,” she said above the din. “But it’s important. How about Susie’s, at ten?”

It had been Cindy who, as a stringer buried on the paper’s Metro desk, had sneaked into the heart of the bride and groom case and helped blow it wide open. Cindy who, as much as any of us, was responsible for the gold on my shield today.

I managed a smile. “I’ll see you there.”

Upstairs on three, I strode into the cramped fluorescent-lit room that the twelve inspectors who managed Homicide for the city called home. Lorraine Stafford was waiting for me there. She had been my first appointment, after six successful years in Sex Crimes. And Cappy McNeil had come in, too.

Lorraine asked, “What can I do?”

“You can check with Sacramento for any stolen white vans. Any model. In-state plates. And put out an APB along with it for a bumper sticker of some sort of lion on the rear.” She nodded and started away.

“Lorraine.” I stopped her. “Make that a two-headed lion.”

Cappy walked with me while I made myself a cup of tea. He’d been in Homicide for fifteen years, and I knew he had supported me when Chief Mercer consulted him about offering me the lieutenant job. He looked sad, thoroughly depressed. “I know Aaron Winslow. I played ball with him in Oakland. He’s devoted his life to those kids. He really is one of the good guys, Lieutenant.”

All of a sudden Frank Barnes from Auto Theft stuck his head into our office. “Heads up, Lieutenant. Weight’s on the floor.”

Weight, in the lexicon of the SFPD, meant Chief of Police Earl Mercer.

Chapter 6

MERCER STRODE IN, all two hundred fifty pounds of him, trailed by Gabe Carr, a mean little weasel who was the department’s press liaison, and Fred Dix, who managed community relations.

The chief was still dressed in his trademark dark gray suit, blue shirt, and shiny gold cuff links. I’d watched Mercer manage a number of tense scenes—transit bombings, Internal Affairs stings, serial killers—but I’d never seen his face so tight. He motioned me into my office and, with barely a word, pulled the door shut. Fred Dix and Gabe Carr were already inside.

“I just got off the phone with Winston Gray and Vernon Jones”—two of the city’s most outspoken leaders. “They’ve assured me they’ll plead for restraint, give us some time to find out just what the fuck is going on. Just so I’m clear: By restraint, what they mean is, deliver the person or group who’s responsible for this or they’ll have two thousand outraged citizens at City Hall.”

He barely relaxed his face when he stared at me. “So I’m hoping, Lieutenant, you got something you want to share…?”

I took him through what I had found at the church, along with Bernard Smith’s sighting of the white getaway van.