James Patterson - 11th hour

Then, weirdly, she began telling the story from the third-person point of view.

“She saw the caretakers and the police standing outside the back door and the skulls were there and she thought, Mercy. This is a day like no other.”

“What are you doing, Connie?” Conklin asked her.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Who’s the she who thought the day was like no other?”

“I was trying it on as if Emma had seen it — you know, Inspector, the character in my current work. Emma is very perceptive, but naturally she doesn’t know any more than I do. I would love to hear your theory of the case. I think you could really help me with my book.”

I said to Frank, “What are your thoughts? Is she playing us?”

“She’s playacting for sure, but her nuttiness neither confirms nor eliminates her as the killer. I will say this. Based on my ten minutes of observation, I think she’s going to great lengths to hide something. Could be related to this case, could be something else she doesn’t want anyone to know.”

I laughed, said, “Brilliant analysis, Frank. Thanks a lot.”

He laughed too. “Yeah, what did you expect? That I can unwrap her crazy little mind in ten minutes?”

On the other side of the glass, Conklin was still trying to pry something useful out of Connie Kerr.

“Connie, your friend who brings you food. Who is it?”

“Ahhh,” she said dramatically. “Is he a man with a past? Or is it a lady friend she doesn’t want to expose?”

“Connie, this isn’t helping you.”

“I don’t have to tell you all my secrets. And I won’t. If I’m not under arrest, I want to go home. You can’t keep me here without probable cause.”

Conklin sat back and said without any malice, “You’re wrong, Connie. I can book you for trespassing, for theft of services, for obstruction of justice.”

“Listen,” Kerr said, slapping the table and leaning toward Conklin. “You’re wrong about the trespassing and all the rest. Tommy Oliver knows that I live in number six and he’s known it for years. I’m sure he has told Harry Chandler.”

“Tommy Oliver? Is that T. Lawrence Oliver? Harry Chandler’s driver?”

“Yes. Tommy hooked up my electricity. He fixed the locks.”

“Okay. We’re holding you as a material witness while we check out your story, talk to a few people, and so forth. The law gives us forty-eight hours.”

“You can’t do that.”

“I can. I’m doing it. Please stand up.”

“I demand to make my phone call.”

“Not a problem.”

“I want a lawyer.”

“Of course. By the way, we don’t have single-occupancy accommodations here, so you’re going to be sharing a cell with some other ladies. If you remember something helpful about the boneyard underneath your window, please reach out to me, Connie. I’ll be happy to talk to you anytime.”

While Conklin brought Connie Kerr to booking, I invited Frank Cisco to the break room for leftover cookies and stale coffee. He accepted.

We were alone for the moment, sitting across from each other at an old table, and what had started as a consultation suddenly felt like a therapy session. I guess that’s because after Jacobi and I got shot on Larkin Street, I’d had to see Frank for a couple of months or lose my job.

I’d been furious that the department sent me to a shrink to determine my mental fitness, but even though I was insulted, I had gotten a lot from my sessions with Frank. Actually, he was a great therapist.

Now he asked me, “What’s going on with you, Lindsay?”

“I’m pregnant,” I said.

“Heyyy. Congratulations.”

“Thank you.”

I dipped my head. I didn’t want to tell him that Joe had cheated on me, that I had thrown him out, that working non-stop meant I didn’t have to concentrate on how I was going to provide for my baby without my husband.

“Oh, man. If you could see your face. I gotta ask again. What’s going on, Lindsay?”

Frickin’ mind reader.

“This case,” I said, “is a bear. We’ve got seven victims, their heads buried on the property of a big movie star, and we can’t find the bodies. Were they murdered? Or is this a very creepy art installation? We don’t know.

“And here’s what else is strange, Frank. With all the publicity this case has generated, no one is banging at our door asking, Is my daughter one of those victims?”

“That is remarkable,” Frank said.

“We’re going to close this case. We’re determined to do it. But the real pressure inside the SFPD is about the shooter cop.”

Frank sighed, ran his hands through his hair, said again, “Oh, man.”

I wasn’t deterred. I brought him up to date on the shooter cop’s activities.

“The shooter killed three drug dealers on a back road — ”

“And torched their car.”

“Right. Two days after that, he killed a dealer in a shopping-center parking lot.”

“I read that. You’re sure it was the same shooter?”

“The ballistics matched to another of our stolen guns.

What you didn’t read is that Jackson Brady thinks Jacobi is the shooter.”

“Come on. Brady believes that? ”

“Conklin and I were assigned to tail Jacobi, and he caught us sitting outside his house. Now Jacobi hates me. And we’re no closer to finding a killer who has probably worked himself up and is ready to kill again.”

Frank told me not to put too much pressure on myself, said that stress wasn’t good for the baby.

“Maybe you should take yourself off the case.”

“I can’t, Frank. I just can’t.”

He nodded, told me that I could call him day or night if I needed him. I thanked him, and then he asked if we could go to my desk so he could use my computer.

“I’m expecting a big document by e-mail,” he told me. “It’s waiting for me in the cloud. Do you know what that is?”

I smiled, said, “It’s a public server. Do you have an access code?”

“I wrote it on the inside of my eyeglass case.”

“Come with me,” I said.

I gave my chair to Frank and made fresh coffee as he did his work. When he’d put his reading glasses back in his jacket pocket, I walked him out and thanked him for his help with Constance Kerr.

“Any time. Take care, Lindsay. I mean it.”

I returned to my computer and went to open what I expected to be an avalanche of mail that had come in over the last few hours.

When I touched the mouse, the screen lit up, and instead of my usual desktop screen, a document I’d never seen before appeared. It took me a moment to figure out that it was the personnel file of a cop, William Randall. I knew his name, but I didn’t know much about him.

Frank Cisco, either accidentally or on purpose, had left this document for me to read. Or maybe Dr. Freud had made him do it.

I saved Sergeant William Randall’s file to my computer and went looking for Conklin.

“Okay, let’s have the whole story,” Brady said to me and my partner. We were in Brady’s office with the door closed and the blinds down. Brady was both aggravated with us and hopeful we’d gotten a new angle on the case. He didn’t sit down.

“How’d you hear this about Randall?”

“I can’t tell you my source,” I said. “I just can’t.”

“Fine. Actually, I don’t give a rat’s ass about your source, Boxer. What do you have on him?”

I took a printout of Randall’s file and put it on Brady’s desk, turning it around so he could read along as I pointed out the highlights.

“William Randall has been with the SFPD for twelve years. He got bumped up to Narcotics in ’04 and did a stint as part of a task force for the DEA. He moved to Vice in ’09. His oldest son, Lincoln Randall, almost OD’d on heroin the next year. It’s possible that this was the boy’s first time trying hard drugs.”