The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club 17)

Casey said, “Shit, Sergeant. There were thirty-forty bums walking around when we got here. Until our backup showed up, it was the two of us trying to keep people from walking through the blood and stealing the victim’s stuff.”

I got it. It wasn’t their fault that they were virtually alone at this scene. But forty-five minutes had gone by since Cushing called me. Meaning the shooting could have gone down long before that.

I pressed on, regardless.

I asked Casey, “Was there any ID on the victim?”

“I didn’t actually pat her down. Mostly, I just checked to make sure she was dead.”

I told Casey and Baskin to expand the perimeter. As they looped crime scene tape around parking stanchions, then blocked off the bay end of the area with their cruiser, Conklin and I walked a few of the onlookers into the shelter of concrete building walls.

Someone in this crowd we’d gathered up might know something. Hell, for all we knew, one of them could be the shooter.

CHAPTER 25

AS CONKLIN TOOK statements, I called Brady and brought him up to date on the untethered murder scene on Pier 45.

“Four uniforms are here, Brady, and a half dozen homeless people. No investigators, no one here from CSI. We don’t have an ID on the victim. Conklin and I are doing interviews now.”

Brady said, “Do I need to tell you, you’re on Central’s turf?”

“I’m not looking for a war, but I had to step in, Lieu. This isn’t right.”

“I’ll put in a call to Central Homicide,” he said.

I rejoined Conklin and the individuals shifting around him at the side of the museum.

My partner said to me, “Sergeant, this is Bettina Strauss. She knew the victim. Ms. Strauss, tell the sergeant what you know.”

With that, Conklin took off with Officers Casey and Baskin to canvass the immediate area.

I said hello to Bettina Strauss. She looked to be forty, had piercings, and had tattoos on her neck and hands. She wore an old leather jacket over denim overalls and had a fluttering red chiffon scarf around her neck. Her face was red and swollen from crying.

“That’s Laura Russell,” she said of the victim. “She was the sweetest person. She wasn’t hard-core homeless. More like displaced. She used to teach third grade, I think. Got laid off last year, as I remember it, and she started, you know …” Strauss acted out guzzling from a bottle, then went on.

“She had a family, but she didn’t talk about them. I got the feeling she ran off, but I didn’t push her, you understand. We all have stories.”

I asked Strauss a slew of questions: Had she seen the shooting? Did she know who the shooter was or if there had been an incident before the shooting that had set the gunman off? Did she know anyone who wanted to hurt Laura?

She told me simply that she hadn’t been here when the shooting happened.

“Laura and I were going to meet here and then go over to Pier 39,” Strauss choked out between sobs, “but when I got here, oh, my God, she was on the ground. I shook her. I pressed on her chest.”

She showed me her bloody hands. Tears sprang from her eyes, and she covered her face with the crook of her arm.

I told Strauss that I was sorry, but still, I asked once more, “Do you have any idea who may have wanted to hurt Laura?”

“God, no. But someone is shooting people, Officer. Laura and I were both scared.”

“Bettina, if I want to show you pictures or ask you more questions, how can I find you again?”

She said, “I’m staying at the Green Street Shelter right now.”

I thanked her just as Conklin came toward us saying, “Baskin and I went through a few trash cans around the corner. We didn’t find the gun, but we’ve got this.”

He held up a man’s three-quarter-length coat, gray wool, with an intact lining.

“It’s not new, but I’d still call this a ‘nice’ coat,” said Conklin. “Knit gloves are in the pockets.”