James Patterson: 11th hour

I got into my car, started up the engine, turned on the lights and the sirens, and pulled out onto Harriet Street.

No bones, ladies and gentlemen of the press. I have no bones to throw you at all.

I was still thinking about the six skulls in sealed paper bags and the young Jane Doe’s head in the cooler when I opened the door to our apartment on Lake Street. Martha, my border collie and pal of many years, whimpered and tore across the floor, then threw her full weight against me, almost knocking me down.

“Yes, I do love you,” I said, bending to let her wash my chin, giving her a big hug.

I called out, “Joe. Your elderly primigravida has arrived.”

Claire had told me that elderly primigravida meant “a woman over thirty-five who is pregnant for the first time,” and it was a quaint and unflattering term that I usually found just hilarious.

Joe called back, and when I rounded the corner, I saw him standing between piles of books and papers, wearing pajama bottoms, a phone pressed to his ear.

He dialed down the volume on the eleven o’clock news and gave me a one-armed hug, then said into the phone, “Sorry. I’m here. Okay, sure. Tomorrow works for me.”

He clicked off, kissed me, asked, “Did you eat dinner?”

“Not really.”

“Come to the kitchen. I’m going to heat up some soup for my baby. And for my old lady too.”

“Har-har. Who were you talking to on the phone?”

“Old boys’ network. Top secret,” he said melodramatically. “I have to fly to DC tomorrow for a few days. Cash flow for the Molinari family.”

“Okayyy. Yay for cash flow. What kind of soup?”

It was tortellini en brodo with baby peas served up in a heavy white bowl. I went to work on the soup and after a minute, I held up the bowl and said, “More, please.”

Between bites, I told my husband about the house of heads, which was what the Ellsworth compound would inevitably be called from that day forward.

“It was indescribable, Joe. Heads, two of them set up on the back patio. A display of some sort, like an art installation, but no bodies. There was no sign of mayhem. No disturbance in the garden except for the two holes the heads had been in. Then CSU exhumed five more heads, just clean skulls. Honestly, I don’t know what the hell we’re looking at.”

I told Joe about the numbers 104 and 613 handwritten on a pair of index cards.

“Cindy is running the numbers. So far we know that six-one-three is an area code in Ottawa. Lots of radio stations start with one hundred and four. Put the two numbers together and you get a real estate listing for a three-bedroom house in Colorado. What a lead, hmmm?”

“Ten-four,” he said. “Radio call signal meaning ‘I acknowledge you. Copy that.’”

“Hmmm. And six-thirteen?”

“June thirteenth?”

“Uh-huh. The ides of June. Very helpful.”

Joe brought a big bowl of pralines and ice cream to the counter. We faced off with clashing spoons, then had a race to the bottom. I captured the last bite, put down my spoon, held up my arms in victory, and said, “Yessss.”

“I let you win, big mama.”

“Sure you did.”

I winked at him, took the bowl and the spoons to the sink, and asked Joe, “So, what’s your gut take on my case?”

“Apart from the obvious conclusion that a psycho did it,” said my blue-eyed, dark-haired husband, “here are my top three questions: What’s the connection between the skulls and the Ellsworth place? What do the victims have in common? And does Harry Chandler have anything to do with those heads?”

“And the numbers? A tally? A scorecard?”

“It’s a mystery to me.”

“One of our Jane Does is relatively fresh. If we can ID her, maybe the numbers won’t matter.”

Four hours later, I woke up in bed next to Joe with the remains of a nightmare in my mind, something Wes Craven could have created. There had been a pyramid of skulls heaped up in a dark garden, hundreds of them, and they were surrounded by a garland of flowers.

What did it mean?

I still didn’t have a clue.

By seven, I was awake for good, this time with a mug of milky coffee and my open laptop. I zipped through my e-mail fast but stopped deleting junk when I saw two Google alerts for SFPD.

The alerts were linked to the San Francisco Post, and the front-page story was headlined “Revenge vs. the SFPD.”

My stomach clenched when I saw the byline.

Writer Jason Blayney was the Post ’s crime desk pit bull, well known for his snarky rhetoric and his hate-on for cops. The Post didn’t mind if Blayney stretched the facts into a lie — and often, he did.

I started reading Blayney’s account of Chaz Smith’s murder. Chaz Smith, a known top-tier drug dealer, was assassinated Sunday afternoon in the men’s room at the Morton Academy of Music during their annual spring recital. The academy, located on California Street, was packed with parents and students during the shooting. Smith has been under investigation by the SFPD for the past three years but because of the closing of the city’s corrupt drug lab, he has never gone on trial. According to a source who spoke to the Post on condition of anonymity, Chaz Smith’s assassin “demonstrated professional skills in the killing of this drug dealer. It was a very slick hit.” Smith is the fourth high-level drug dealer who has been executed in this manner. In the opinion of this reporter, a professional do-good hit man is cleaning up the mess that the SFPD can’t rub out. That’s why I call this killer Revenge — and given the size of the mess that needs to be cleaned, he could just be getting started…

He’d said it himself: “In the opinion of this reporter.” It was a phrase that meant “I’m not actually reporting. I’m telling a story.”

And his “story” was a slam against the SFPD.

The Delete button was right under my index finger, but instead of sending the article to the recycle bin, I opened the link to the second story, headlined “Death at the Ellsworth Compound?”

Right under the headline was a photo showing Conklin and me going in through the compound’s tall front gate.

My heart rate kicked up as I read Blayney’s report; he said that Homicide had been called to a disturbance at the famous Ellsworth compound, owned by Harry Chandler.

Blayney gave the context of the story by telling his readers about the SFPD’s dismal rate of unsolved homicides.

Then my name jumped out at me.

Our sources tell us that the Southern Division’s Sergeant Lindsay Boxer is lead investigator on the Ellsworth case. Boxer, rumored to have lost her edge since stepping down from the Homicide squad lieutenant’s job several years ago…

It was an unfair jab and I wasn’t prepared for it. I felt a shock of anger, and then tears welled up. This guy was knocking a decorated elderly primigravida with a dozen years on the force and a pretty decent record of solved crimes.

Not 100 percent, but high!

I sat on the kitchen stool long enough for my coffee to get cold and my hormones to give me a break.

Blayney had attached himself to both of my cases, but so far he didn’t know that Chaz Smith was an undercover cop and that seven heads had been dug up at Harry Chandler’s house.

We had no leads, no suspects for either crime.

How long would it be before “anonymous sources” leaked that to Jason Blayney?

Boxer, rumored to have lost her edge…

The government was broke. Jobs were being eliminated. Blayney’s cutting remarks could color the top-floor bosses’ perception of me.

For the first time in a dozen years, I worried about keeping my job.