James Patterson - 11th hour

It wasn’t even 6:00 a.m. She didn’t have to be at her desk in the DA’s office until nine. But she didn’t mind getting up with Brady. She wanted to do it, because, jeez, she loved him. It was almost embarrassing how much, but God, she was happy. Maybe for the first time in her adult life.

Nah, no maybe about it. This was definitely the happiest she’d been in twenty years.

Brady came into the kitchen. His tie was knotted, shoulder holster buckled over his blue shirt, and he was shrugging into his jacket. He looked worried, and she knew he was already working on the case that had been tearing at his guts.

She poured coffee, put buttered toast on a plate.

He stirred a lot of sugar into the coffee mug, took a sip. He took another, then put the cup down.

“I can’t eat, sweetie. I have to — Christ, I have a meeting in fifteen minutes. You okay? I’ll call you later.”

He might not call her later.

It didn’t matter. They were good.

She kissed him good-bye at the door and told him she hoped that he’d be safe. That she’d see him soon, whole and well.

She hugged him a little bit hard, a little too long. He tousled her hair and said good-bye.

The sun was still in bed when I parked my Explorer across the street from the Hall of Justice, home to the DA’s office, the criminal court, and the southern division of the SFPD.

I badged security, went through the metal detector, and headed across the empty garnet-colored-marble lobby to the staircase and from there to the Homicide squad room on the fourth floor.

Lieutenant Jackson Brady had called us together for an early meeting but hadn’t said why. I’d been working for Brady for ten months and it still felt wrong.

Brady was a good cop. I’d seen him perform acts of bravery and maybe even heroism — but I didn’t like his management style. He was rigid. He isolated himself. And when I’d been lieutenant, I’d done the job a different way.

My partner, Rich Conklin, looked up from his computer as I came through the gate. I loved Richie — he was like a little brother who looked out for me. He was not just a fine cop but a sterling person, and we’d had a great couple of years working Homicide together. What I appreciated about Conklin was how, in times of high stress, he always kept a steady hand on the wheel.

Our desks were pushed together at the front of the squad room so that we worked face-to-face. I hung my jacket over the back of my chair said, “What’s going on?”

All he said was “I’ll tell you when everyone is here.”

I showed my childishness by making a lot of noise banging my chair against the desk. It took me about a minute to get it out of my system. Conklin watched me patiently.

“I haven’t had coffee,” I said.

Conklin offered me his. Then he threw paper clips at me until I calmed down.

At 6:30 a.m. the Homicide squad was present, all eight of us, sitting at our desks under the fluorescent lights that made us look embalmed.

Brady came out of his hundred square feet of glass-walled office and went directly to the whiteboard at the front of the room. He yanked down a screen, revealing 8? 10s of three high-ranking bad-news drug dealers, all of them dead.

Then he stuck up photos of a fourth dead man — both his mug shot and morgue shot.

It was Chaz Smith. And his death was news.

Smith was a notorious scumbag who lived his upscale life in Noe Valley, passing as a retired businessman. He made a good living brokering the sales of millions of dollars in high-grade cocaine, delivering it to other dealers who sold on the street.

Smith had avoided capture for years because he was stealthy and smart and no one had ever caught him stopped next to another car on the shoulder of some highway transacting business through the window of his Ferrari.

Judging from the two bullet holes in his head, I figured it was safe to say he’d made his last deal.

Brady said, “Smith was at his little girl’s music recital yesterday afternoon. He went to the men’s room to have a snort, then took two shots through his frontal lobe. He was armed. He never got his gun into his hand.”

Smith’s death meant one less heinous dirtbag preying on the weak, and he’d been taken out without any taxpayer expense. I would have thought Narcotics would be dealing with this, not Homicide, but something was different about this murder. Something that had gotten to our lieutenant.

Brady took his job seriously. He didn’t waste words. And yet right now he seemed to be skirting the reason he’d brought us onto the case.

I said, “Why us, Lieutenant?”

“Narcotics has requested our help,” he said. “I know. We’ve got more than enough active cases, but here’s the thing — Chaz Smith was taken out by a twenty-two that was stolen from our evidence room, one of six twenty-twos that have disappeared in the last few months. The shooter had access to SFPD floors. And the evidence log was deleted.”

There was some gasping and shuffling in the room. Brady went on.

“There were no witnesses to Smith’s murder, no evidence was left behind, and the fire alarm was pulled to create confusion.

“It was a professional hit, the fourth in a string of slick hits on dealers. It points to something — ah, shit,” Brady said. “I’m not going to finesse it for you.

“I think the shooter is a cop.”

Cindy Thomas was walking down the long slope of Divisadero, with its crystal view over the rooftops all the way out to the dawn-lit bay. It was a fantastic sight that normally gave her a real rush to the heart, but Cindy wasn’t sightseeing. Wasn’t walking for the exercise either.

She was struggling with a conflict, a big one, and she hoped that by airing out her brain, she would get some clarity.

Her fiance, Rich Conklin, had woken her at something like five thirty this morning when he’d gotten up to go to work. He’d been sitting on the side of the bed tying his shoelaces in the dark and he’d said, “We’ll get used to this kind of thing when we have kids.”

This was Rich’s third comment about having kids in the past couple of weeks.

She’d said to him, “Hey, mister. What’s the rush?”

“It’s better to do it while we can still keep up with little ones, ya know?”

He’d pulled the covers over her shoulders, kissed her, said, “Go back to sleep,” and she’d tried, but she’d failed, absolutely.

At six thirty she’d dressed and gone out for what she’d thought would be a short walk. She had now been walking for over an hour and was no closer to an answer than she’d been when she’d gone out the door.

An investigative reporter with the Chronicle, Cindy had been working the crime desk for six years. She’d earned a seat at editorial meetings and a lot of respect for her talent and her tenacity. She was well positioned for top management and a big, big future. But this job that she loved was always at risk. If she had children, she wouldn’t be able to work the kind of hours she needed to; she’d never be able to compete.

Richie was handsome, sweet, and she loved him. A few months ago, he’d surprised her with his mother’s diamond ring, dropped to one knee in front of the altar in Grace Cathedral, and proposed to her — like they say, in front of God and everyone.

Seriously, what more could a girl want?

As it turned out, she wanted a lot.

If she told Richie how she felt, maybe he would change his mind about her. Maybe she’d break his beautiful heart.

When Cindy got to the stop sign at the corner of Divisadero and Vallejo, she glanced at her watch and realized that if she didn’t get a cab, she’d be late to work.