James Patterson - 11th hour

I tried to keep my expectations in check but failed. Anna Watson knew the victims and she’d seen them just before they were shot and their car burned to a turn.

“I was driving along Schwerin,” Watson told us. “I was going to my daughter’s house over in Daly City? I was a ways back from Jace’s BMW,” she said, hooking a thumb in the direction of the crime scene. “But I recognized it easy from the decals, and I know the boys driving that car. I’ve known them since they were small. I used to babysit two of them.”

I pushed a pad and pen over to Watson’s side of the table and asked her to write down the names. As she did it, I saw her eyes tear up and her lips quiver.

Reality was hitting her. Three people she knew were dead. She passed the list over to me and as Conklin continued to question her, I ran the names through the computer: Jace Winter, Marvin “Bam” Cox, Turell “Little T” Jackson.

Winter, the oldest of the three, was nineteen.

All three were gangbangers and had been arrested many, many times while they were still juveniles: possession of illegal substances, possession with intent to sell, attempted murder. Robbery, multiple counts.

They had gotten off because all their cases had been thrown out. Witnesses had failed to show up in court. Evidence got lost. Nobody wanted to go against these young hoods and have their homes shot up, their kids ambushed on the way to school. No one wanted to get murdered.

Anna Watson was saying to Conklin, “I was feeding my grandkids in front of the TV and I saw the news chopper, you know? And it’s taking video of that car burning up. God Almighty.”

Her hands were shaking. Another cigarette came out of the pack.

“Could I have some water, please?”

“Sure,” Conklin said; he got up, pulled a bottle of water out of the minifridge, handed it to Watson.

“So I called nine-one-one,” Watson said, “because I saw that car right after it was stopped by the police. I drove right past it on my way to Malika’s house.”

“Let me get this straight,” Conklin said. “At about six o’clock, give or take a few minutes, you were behind that BMW and then you passed it on the side of the road because the driver had been pulled over by a cop.”

“That’s right.”

“The car was speeding?” Conklin asked.

“No, Jace wasn’t speeding. He probably had a warrant or something. That’s what I thought when I saw him stopped by this cop car with all the lights a-blinking.”

“Did you get a good look at the cop?”

Watson shook her head no.

“His back was to me and he had a flashlight in his hand and was pointing it at Jace. I was looking at the flashing lights and I was looking at Jace.”

“You got a look at the cop’s vehicle though?”

“I wasn’t paying attention to that car. I slowed down so I didn’t get stopped myself, and then I just kept going.”

“Was it a cruiser? A black-and-white?”

“No, it was one of those SUVs.”

“Was there any kind of insignia on the car?”

She shook her head no.

“Can you describe the flashers?”

“Front headlights were blinking, first one, then the other.”

“Wigwags,” said Conklin.

“And there was blue and red lights, I don’t know if they came from the grille or the dashboard…”

“That’s very good, Mrs. Watson.”

“Oh Jesus. Do you think that cop set Jace’s car on fire?”

“We’d just be speculating at this point,” Conklin said. “We’re going to have to check out the names you gave us, and we’d like you to come down to the Hall and look at some photographs. Vehicles and people. Is that okay with you?”

Watson said, “What if I had stopped? Maybe those boys would be alive.”

I said, “If you had stopped, you might have been killed, Mrs. Watson. This isn’t your fault. You’re helping us to find who killed those kids.”

And then she started crying. Anna Watson was maybe the only person in the world who felt bad that those gangbangers were dead.

And then she said to Conklin, “I don’t know who’s going to take care of me now.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Jace is gone. How’m I going to get my — ”

Conklin held up his hand and said, “Mrs. Watson, I’m sorry you lost your dealer. I can’t help you with that.”

Watson nodded. She said to my partner, “If you drop me off at my house for a minute, after that I can come with you to look at pictures.”

It was after eleven when I got home. I was hoping for some quiet time with a half-pint of ice cream, just me and Martha and Baby made three.

I put my key in the lock, but the front door was open. I went inside, saw lights on in the living room. The TV was on too. Heyyy. Joe wasn’t supposed to be home for a day or two.

How great was this?

“Joe?” I called out.

Martha galloped into the foyer, and a person in loose clothing came up behind my dog. The figure was backlit, in silhouette, and was definitely not my husband. I started and had my hand on my gun before it clicked.

The woman with the long red hair and cute glasses was Karen Triebel, Martha’s “nanny,” and as far as I knew, she wasn’t even a little bit dangerous. Still, my heart was pounding as if I’d walked in on an armed robbery in progress.

My fear reaction was quickly followed by mortification.

I’d forgotten to call Karen to say I was going to be late. I apologized now, thanked her for hanging in.

“We watched a movie,” Karen said, then added to Martha, “Didn’t we, big girl? And I baked a potato,” she said to me. “And finished off the ice cream. I hope that’s okay.”

“Sure,” I said. “Of course. I’m sorry that I lost track of the time.”

“Martha has a real crush on Tom Cruise,” she said.

I walked Karen out to her car, stood on the sidewalk until I couldn’t see her taillights anymore, then I went back upstairs to my dog.

The phone was ringing when I got inside.

I looked at the caller ID and saw it was my sister, Catherine, who lives a little way down the coast in Half Moon Bay.

I’m four years older than Cat; we’ve both been divorced, and she has two girls. She’s been coaching me on the care of my child onboard, name to be determined, sex unknown to me and Joe.

I grabbed the receiver off the hook, took Joe’s big chair in the living room, and put my hand on my tummy; Martha circled, then collapsed onto my feet.

“Linds, why don’t you call me back? I get worried.”

“I just walked in,” I told her.

“Joe is still out of town?”

“He’ll be back tomorrow, I think.”

“You sound like the walking dead.”

“Thank you. That’s how I feel, if the walking dead feel anything.”

“Yeah, well, pregnancy does that. It also makes you feel like you’ve lost about fifty IQ points, as I recall.”

I laughed, and my sister prodded me to tell her about my two active cases. I held a few things back, but I gave her the basic rundown on the heads found at the Ellsworth compound. And I told Cat about the triple homicide that had kept me working late tonight, first at the scene, then at the Hall, then at the morgue, and finally at the forensics lab until a half hour ago.

“The guy is some kinda vigilante,” I told Cat. “I guess he doesn’t trust the cops will bring in the bad guys so he figures he’s the man to do the job.”

“Lindsay. You’re saying he’s armed and dangerous. And you’re trying to bring him down. Why won’t he go after you?”

“I’ll be fine, Cat, really.”

“Bull. You can’t know that.”

Cat was now beginning her lectures on the value of rest, on how I could burn out, on how my workload wasn’t good for the baby. I couldn’t argue with her. I just had to take it.