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

Greg pressed the buzzer to the inner sanctum.

I pulled on the handle, walked down the short gray corridor, and found Claire in her office, on the phone. She gestured for me to sit down and I did.

After a minute she hung up and pulled a file out of a desk drawer.

“I’m going to take a wild guess you’re here about the Geary Street victim—even though your name isn’t on the case file.”

“Never mind. Let’s hear it,” I said.

“

As you know, there was no ID on the victim’s body, and so far there have been no inquiries about a victim who looks like her. It’s early yet. Someone could miss her in another couple of days, and I have room to keep her for a little longer.”

Claire opened the folder and read to me from her findings.

“Manner of death: homicide. Cause of death: two 9 mm rounds, one to the heart, the other to the left lung, only a few inches away from the first. The shooter came in close. Gunpowder on her rain slicker shows that he or she was no more than two feet away.”

“I’m wondering. Did he know her?” I mused out loud.

“The post showed that she was in poor health. Arterial plaque, fatty liver, diabetes, lungs full of tar. I reckon she was in her late forties, but her organs tell a story of neglect and bad habits. Anyway. She was killed by lead to her heart.”

“What was in her shopping bags?” I asked.

“Soda cans. A soiled blanket. Dirty clothes.”

“Clapper is waiting for the rounds. If someone comes looking for her, call me, okay?”

“Will do. You okay, Linds?”

“Never better,” I said. I leaned across her desk and kissed my best friend good-bye.

CHAPTER 53

I WAS EARLY for my 4:30 meeting with Internal Affairs’ Lieutenant Johnny Hon, upstairs on the fifth floor. I knew of Hon, but we’d never met. IAD was opaque, the most secretive department in the SFPD.

Neither Brady nor Jacobi had tried to stop me, and now I was flying blind on my own.

I sat in the reception area and flipped through a left-behind copy of the Chronicle while getting my fractured thoughts in order. I had a realization. Ever since Jacobi had told me that I looked like crap, I’d been feeling that way, too. According to my loose waistband, I’d lost weight; my holster was at the tightest setting and still felt uncomfortably loose. And the headache I’d had this morning was back and had brought its younger brother.

Was I putting myself under too much pressure? Was I becoming a nervous wreck?

Before I could follow this thought, a gray-haired man of about fifty entered the room and spoke my name.

I stood up, saying, “That’s me.”

“I’m Johnny Hon,” he said.

We shook hands. I followed the IAD lieutenant to his office and sat in the chair across from his desk. The room was devoid of personality: white walls, plain wooden desk, some framed certificates on the wall. No photos or personal items.

The lieutenant was all business.

He said, “I got a call from Chief Jacobi. He speaks very highly of you, Sergeant.”

“We’ve been through the wars together.”

“So he said. He was vague about why you wanted to see IAD. Why don’t you lay out the issue for me?”

I told him that I had come to register a complaint about two homicide investigators from Central Station, giving an almost verbatim recitation of what I’d told Jacobi and Brady this morning. A tipster had called my attention to killings of homeless people that had not been solved by Central Station’s Sergeant Stevens and Inspector Moran, who appeared to be working the cases with an utter lack of urgency.