3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)

“Just where do you want to go with this, Lindsay?” Molinari finally asked.

“We’ve got to find out whatever we can about the people in that house. I’d start with Billy Danko. His family was from Sacramento. The FBI has files on what happened, right? Department of Justice, whatever it is. I need to know everything the Feds know.”

Molinari shook his head slowly back and forth. I realized I was asking for a lot. He closed his eyes for a second and leaned back in his chair. When he opened them I saw the faintest outline of a smile. “I knew there was a reason I missed you, Lindsay.”

I took that as a yes.

“What I didn’t know”—he pushed back his chair—“was that it was due to the likely prospect we’re both going to have some time on our hands after we’re removed from our jobs.”

“I missed you, too,” I said.

Chapter 88

SAN FRANCISCO WAS IN A PANIC the likes of which I had never seen before. The news stories never seemed to stop. Meanwhile, where the hell were we? Not close enough to the killers, I was afraid.

My whole theory depended on finding some way to make the other victims fit in with the current murders. I was certain there was a connection.

Bengosian was from Chicago. That seemed a long shot to tie in. But I remembered Lightower had gone to Berkeley. His CLO had told us that when we were up at Lightower’s company after he was killed.

I placed a call to Dianne Aronoff, Mort Lightower’s sister, and caught her at home. We talked and I found out that her brother had been a member of the SDS. In ’69, his junior year at Berkeley, he had taken a leave of absence.

Nineteen sixty-nine was the year of the Hope Street raid. Did that mean anything? It just might.

About one o’clock, Jacobi knocked on my window. “I think we found your guy Danko’s father.”

He and Cappy had started with the phone book, then matched up the address with a local high school. Danko’s father was still in Sacramento. Same address as they had lived in back in 1969. A man had answered when Cappy called. Hung up as soon as the inspectors had brought up Billy Danko’s name.

“There’s an FBI office down there.” Jacobi shrugged. “Or?”

“Here”—I jumped up, flipping him the keys to the Explorer—“you drive.”

Chapter 89

IT WAS ABOUT TWO HOURS on Highway 80 any way you cut it to Sacramento, and we kept the Explorer at a steady seventy-five over the Bay Bridge. An hour and fifty minutes later we pulled up in front of a slightly run-down fifties-style ranch. We needed a win here, needed it badly.

The house was large but neglected, a slope of faded lawn and a fenced-in lot in back. Danko’s father was a doctor, I recalled. Thirty years ago, this might’ve been one of the nicest houses on the block.

I took off my sunglasses and knocked on the front door. It took a while for someone to answer, and I was feeling impatient, to say the least.

Finally an old man opened and peered out at us. I could see his nose and sharp, pointed chin—a resemblance to the picture of Billy Danko in the Chronicle magazine.

“You the idiots who called on the phone?” He stood there, regarding us warily. “Of course you are.”

“I’m Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer,” I said. “And this is Homicide Inspector Warren Jacobi. Do you mind if we come in?”

“I mind,” he said, but he swung the screen door open anyway. “I’ve got nothing to say to the police if it concerns my son, other than accepting their full apology for his murder.”

He led us back through musty, paint-chipped halls into a small den. It didn’t seem that anyone else was living with him.

“We were hoping to ask you just a few questions regarding your son,” Jacobi said.

“Ask.” Danko sank himself into a patchwork couch. “Better time to ask questions was thirty years ago. William was a good boy, a great boy. We raised him to think for himself, and he did, made choices of conscience—the right ones, it was proven out later. Losing that boy cost me everything I had. My wife…” He nodded toward a black-and-white portrait of a middle-aged woman. “Everything.”

“We’re sorry for what happened.” I sat on the edge of a badly stained armchair. “No one’s here to cause you more distress. I’m sure you’re familiar with what’s been going on in San Francisco recently. A lot of people have died there.”

Danko shook his head. “Thirty years later, and you still won’t let him rest in peace.”

I glanced at Jacobi. This was going to be a tough go. I started in talking about Jill, how we had found the connection between her father and the raid on the Hope Street house. Then how one of the other victims, Lightower, also had a connection to Berkeley and the student revolts.