The 6th Target (Women's Murder Club 6)

“What is she now? Sixteen?” Conklin asked.

“Shut up,” Calvin said. “Okay? Just shut up.”

“Watch your mouth,” Conklin said before he disappeared into Calvin’s bedroom. I took a seat on the sofa and whipped out my notebook.

I shook off the image of a young girl, now a teen, who’d had the terrible misfortune to have this shit as a father, and asked Calvin if he’d ever seen Madison Tyler.

“I saw her on the news last night. She’s very cute. You could even say edible. But I don’t know her.”

“Okay, then,” I said, gritting my teeth, feeling a sharp pang of fear for Madison. “Where were you yesterday morning at nine a.m.?”

“I was watching TV. I like to stay on top of the current cartoon shows so I can talk to little girls on their level, you know what I mean?”

At five ten, I’m a head taller than Calvin and in better shape, too. Violent fantasies were roiling in my mind, just as they had when I’d arrested Alfred Brinkley. I was stressing too much, too much . . .

“Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

“Sure. Ask Mr. Happy,” Pat Calvin said, patting the fly of his pajama bottoms, grabbing himself there. “He’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

I snapped. I grabbed Calvin’s collar, bunching up the flannel tight around his neck. His hands flew out as I lifted him off his chair, thumped him against the wall.

Dolls scattered.

Conklin came out of the bedroom as I was about to thump Calvin again. My partner pretended that he didn’t see anything crazy in my face and leaned casually against the door frame.

I was alarmed at how close I was to the edge. What I didn’t need now was a complaint for police brutality. I released Calvin’s pajamas.

“Nice photo collection you have, Mr. Calvin,” Conklin said conversationally. “Pictures of little kids playing in Alta Plaza Park.”

I shot a look at Conklin. Madison and Paola were snatched from the street just outside that park.

“Did you see my camera?” Calvin said defiantly. “Seven million megapixels and a 12x zoom. I shot those pictures from a block away. I know the rules. And I didn’t break any of them.”

“Sergeant,” Conklin said to me, “there’s a little girl in one of those pictures, could be Madison Tyler.”

I got Jacobi on the phone, told him that Patrick Calvin had photos we should look at more closely.

“We need two patrolmen to sit on Calvin while Conklin and I come in to write up a warrant,” I said.

“No problem, Boxer. I’ll send a car. But I’ll have Chi take care of the warrant and bring Calvin in.”

“We can handle it, Jacobi,” I said.

“You could,” Jacobi said, “but a child matching Madison Tyler’s description was just called in from Transbay security.”

“She’s been seen?”

“She’s there right now.”

Chapter 44

THE TRANSBAY TERMINAL on First and Mission is an open-air, rusty-roofed, concrete-block shed. Inside the cinder-block shell, half-dead fluorescent lights sputter overhead, throwing faint shadows on the homeless souls who camp out in this oppressive place so that they can use the scant facilities.

Even in daytime this terminal is creepy. I felt an urgent need to find Madison Tyler and get her the hell out of here.

Conklin and I jogged down the stairs to the terminal’s lower level, a dark, dingy space dominated by a short wall of ticket booths and a security area.

Two black women wearing navy-blue pants and shirts with PRIVATE SECURITY SERVICES patches sewn to their pockets sat behind the desk.