14th Deadly Sin (Women's Murder Club 14)

Claire said, “That’s up to the prosecutor, but Inspector Euvrard did book her on child endangerment resulting in a homicide.”

Claire stabbed a shrimp with her fork, held it up, and said, “And that’s how we close cases in the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

Claire’s delivery was priceless, and Yuki spat out her beer, and yes, this was a bad story, but it was good to hear Yuki’s merry-bells laughter, which I hadn’t heard in a while. And of course, that was when my phone rang.

“Sorry to interrupt your day off,” Conklin said.

“What’s up?”

“Tom Calhoun—”

“Calhoun who’s working with us on the mercado shooting?”

“Yeah,” said Conklin. His voice sounded terrible. “Calhoun and his whole family. They were murdered.”

CHAPTER 51

I APOLOGIZED TO my girlfriends and tried to pick up the check, but they objected, hugged me, and watched me go.

Conklin met me at the curb in his Bronco, PDQ. I got into the passenger seat and buckled up. He turned on the siren and we sped toward Potrero Hill, revving over the slopes and slamming the undercarriage on the downhill drops.

There were only a few streaks of light left in the sky when we got to Potrero, but I knew this neighborhood in the dark. Knew it cold. I had lived a few streets over from the murder house until a few years ago, when my own house burned to the ground.

We turned off Eighteenth Street onto Texas, which looked like a Saint’s Day street festival. Lights blazed from every window on the block, and strobes flashed from dozens of law enforcement vehicles crowding the street. After parking between two CSU vans, Conklin and I badged the unis at the barricade between the street and yard, ducked under the tape, and took the short walk up to the front of the two-tone green Victorian house.

When we got to the front steps, I saw vomit on the foundation plantings and that the door knob and lock assembly had been shotgunned out of the door.

Charlie Clapper met us on the doorstep. Even on the weekend, he dressed impeccably; his hair was freshly combed, the creases in his pants were crisp, and his jacket looked like it had just come from the cleaner’s.

But Charlie looked stunned.

“This is as bad as it gets,” he said.

Clapper is director of the forensics unit at Hunters Point, but before he took over the CSU, he was a homicide cop. A very good one. Top dog at a crime scene, he does a first-class job without grandstanding or getting in our way.

I was about to ask him to run the scene for us when Ted Swanson came out of the kitchen, shaking his head and looking pale and as shocked as if one of his arms had been ripped off.

He moaned, “This is fucked up.”

Conklin and I gloved up, slipped booties over our shoes, and entered the kitchen, where we saw the formerly animated robbery cop, Tom Calhoun.

Calhoun was naked, duct-taped to a kitchen chair. He’d been beaten up so badly, I wouldn’t have recognized him but for his bald spot. There was no doubt in my mind. He’d been tortured for a good long time by professionals.

All of his fingers had been broken; his soft white underparts had been burned with cigarettes; his eyelids had been sliced off; and finally, probably mercifully, he’d been shot through his temple.

“He didn’t go fast,” said Swanson, who was standing behind us. “Those fucks cut up Marie, too, before they shot her.”

Clapper said, “Marie was found lying over there by the stove. She’s on her way to the morgue.”

Conklin asked about the kids and Swanson said, “Butch and Davey were asleep when they were shot, looks like. I don’t think they knew anything, right, Charlie?”

Clapper said, “I’d have to agree with you there. They didn’t wake up.”

“I knew these people,” Swanson said. “I had dinner here last week. What the hell was the point of this?”

He began to cry, and I put a hand on his arm and told him how sorry I was. Swanson’s partner, Vasquez, came into the kitchen, saying, “Sergeant, the second floor is off limits. CSI is dusting everything. We should all get out of here and let these people work.”

CHAPTER 52