3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)
Chapter 101
I WAS PATCHED THROUGH to Molinari at the Palace of the Legion of Honor. The vice president’s reception was less than two hours away. The G-8 had begun.
“I think I know where Danko is,” I barked into the handheld phone. “He’s at Reed College. In Portland. He’s a tea
cher there. Joe, Reed is where Stephen Hardaway went to school. It fits.”
Molinari told me he would send an FBI team out to the college while I headed back to the city. I had the lights flashing and the siren on the whole way. South of Vallejo, I couldn’t wait any longer. I got the general number for Reed.
I identified myself to an operator and was patched through to the dean of academic studies, a Michael Picotte. FBI agents from the Portland office were arriving as he got on the line.
“We desperately need to locate one of your professors. This is an emergency,” I told the dean. “I don’t have a name or description. His real name is Charles Danko. He’d be approximately fifty years old.”
“D-Danko?” Picotte stammered. “There’s no one by the name of Danko connected with the college. We have several professors in their fifties, including myself.”
I was growing more exasperated and impatient. “Do you have a fax?” I asked. “A fax number I can have?”
I radioed in to the office and got Lorraine on the line. I told her to locate the FBI wanted poster of Charles Danko from the seventies. The resemblance might still be there. Dean Picotte put me on hold as the fax came through.
I was approaching the Bay Bridge; San Francisco International was only about twenty minutes away. I could fly up to Portland myself, I was thinking. Maybe I should get on a plane and go to Reed right now.
“All right, I have it,” the dean said, coming back on the line. “This is a wanted poster….”
“Look at it closely,” I said. “Please… Do you recognize the face?”
“My God…,” the dean seemed to choke.
“Who is he? I need a name!” I yelled into the phone. I sensed that Picotte was hesitating. He might be giving up a colleague, even a friend.
I pulled off the bridge into San Francisco and onto Harrison Street. “Dean Picotte, please… I need a name! Lives are at stake here.”
“Stanzer,” the dean finally said. “It looks like Jeffrey Stanzer. I’m almost certain.”
I pulled out a pen and hastily scribbled the name down. Jeffrey Stanzer. Stanzer was Danko!
Danko was August Spies. And he was still on the loose.
“Where do we find him?” I said. “There are FBI agents at the college now. We need an address for Stanzer right now.”
Picotte hesitated again. “Professor Stanzer’s a respected member of our faculty.”
I pulled to a halt on the side of the street. “You have to give us a specific location where we can find Jeffrey Stanzer. This is a homicide investigation! Stanzer is a murderer. He’s going to kill again.”
The dean exhaled. “You said you were calling from San Francisco?”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. “He’s down there with you…. Jeffrey Stanzer is presenting at the G-8 meeting. I think it’s scheduled for tonight.”
My God, Danko was going to kill everybody there.
Chapter 102
CHARLES DANKO STOOD amid the bright lights outside the Palace of the Legion of Honor, and his body jittered with nerves and anticipation. This was his night. He was going to be famous, and so would his brother, William.
Anyone who thought they knew him would have been surprised he was speaking in San Francisco tonight. Jeffrey Stanzer had spent years in a secluded academic life, carefully avoiding the public eye. Hiding from the police.
But tonight he was going to do something far bolder than deliver some boring speech. All the theories and analyses didn’t mean anything now. Tonight, he would rewrite history.