James Patterson: 11th hour

I drove my husband to the airport through the maddening morning rush. Traffic was congested, gridlocked at the stoplights, and Joe’s flight would be leaving without him if we didn’t get clear roadway soon.

Still, I was glad for the drive time with Joe’s sharp, former-FBI-agent brain.

I buzzed up the car windows and beat the steering wheel for emphasis as I filled Joe in on the well-planned executions of four — yes, four — notorious drug dealers and told him that Narcotics was now asking Homicide for help.

Joe asked, “And why is Brady sure that Revenge is a cop?”

“The slugs that killed Chaz Smith match to a gun stolen from the property room, and all of the hits were so smoothly executed that the shooter had to know the dealers’ whereabouts. It’s like he had inside knowledge. Maybe it came from inside the Hall.”

I told Joe that all of the executed drug dealers were big-time and that Chaz Smith’s death had been a blow to the top floor of the SFPD.

“Smith’s real identity had been a very well-guarded secret, Joe. He headed up a large undercover operation that can’t be blown. Cops’ lives are on the line.”

Joe said, “Lindsay, this is a nasty case, and dangerous. Did your shooter know Smith was a cop? Maybe he did.”

It was a possibility, maybe a good one. I said, “Hang on,” then hit the departure ramp at fifty and pulled the car up to United Airlines’ curbside-check-in, no-waiting zone.

I shut off the engine, looked at my husband, and said, “Don’t go.”

“And you. Keep your head down. Don’t work more than one shift a day. Get some sleep tonight. Okay?”

We both grinned at the impossible demands, then got out of the car. I gave Joe a full-body hug and sprinkled tears on his neck.

We kissed, then Joe bent down and kissed my baby bump, making me giggle at the looks we got from two commuters and a luggage handler.

“Goofball,” I said, loving that Joe was my goofball.

“Don’t forget to eat. I already miss you.”

I kissed him, waved good-bye, watched him disappear into the terminal. Then I drove to the Hall.

Brady was waiting for me and Conklin inside his office. He closed the door, put the Post on his desk, and turned it so we could read Jason Blayney’s headline: “Revenge vs. the SFPD.”

Conklin hadn’t yet seen the story. He pushed his hair out of his eyes and began reading as I started talking.

“How does Blayney know so much about the Chaz Smith shooting?” I asked Brady. “Is a cop tipping him off?”

“Absolutely,” Brady said.

“Don’t look at me,” said Conklin. “My in-house crime reporter didn’t have either one of those stories. What does that tell you?”

“I’m the unnamed source on this one,” Brady said. “It was me.”

Conklin and I said, “What?” in unison.

“Blayney waylaid me. I told him that Chaz Smith’s killer was a pro. That’s all I gave him, but I like it. It puts this Revenge guy on notice. Gives him something to worry about.”

After Jason Blayney’s story about Chaz Smith’s murder appeared, the phone lines lit up with calls from tipsters, hoaxers, and reporters from all corners of the Inter-Web. People were afraid and they were also titillated. A professional shooter had killed a drug dealer inside a school.

Whose side was the shooter on? Would he kill again?

Was it safe to send your kid to school?

While Brady fielded phone calls in his office, Conklin and I sat across from each other in the squad room, pecking at our keyboards.

If Revenge was a cop, the clues were in the paperwork. Conklin and I worked a page at a time, comparing hundreds of time sheets with the four drug dealers’ times of death, stamping our feet at square one.

Up to a point, the premise was valid — separate out the cops who were off duty when all four shootings went down and check their alibis.

But the flaw in the premise was obvious. A cop’s being off duty when a dealer was killed was not a smoking gun. We were using a very large-holed sieve. It was all we had.

Conklin said, “This guy Jenkins fits the time frame.”

“I know Roddy Jenkins,” I said.

“He’s a crack shot.” “He’s a candidate.”

By noon, Conklin and I had a list of a dozen cops whose time sheets showed that they were off duty when the four drug dealers were killed. Three of those cops had worked in Narcotics at one time in their careers. Stick a gold star on each of them.

I forwarded our list of cops to Brady, who wrote back saying he would have their personnel jackets pulled. Just then, my intercom buzzed.

It was Clapper, calling from the compound. I put his call on speakerphone.

“What’s new, Charlie?”

“We’re still sifting the dirt in the yard, but we’re done with the main house,” he told me. “We found nothing in there. No blood or decapitated bodies, no additional index cards. Prints are the Worleys’. I told Janet that they could go home.”

“How’d she seem to you?”

“Wired. Chatty,” Charlie said. “Her daughter is back from the wilderness. They’re going to do some housecleaning. And Janet is in a swivet about the mess we left. Another citizen complaint.”

Janet Worley was flustered when she came to the door.

“Yes? Oh. Right. Come in. I expect you want to speak with Nicole.”

Conklin and I went with Janet through the front rooms to the kitchen, where Nigel Worley was cleaning fingerprint powder off the stove.

Janet said, “I can tell you Nicole knows nothing. She wasn’t even here.”

“We understand,” Conklin said. “We want her impressions and so forth.”

“She’s in her flat. Nigel, ring her up, will you?”

I said, “Mrs. Worley, what can you tell us about Harry Chandler?”

“Would you like tea?”

“No, thanks,” I said.

We took seats at a kitchen table with a view of the evidence tent in the garden. Water from last night’s rain dripped from the canopy onto the bricks.

Janet said stiffly, “What do you wish to know about Mr. Harry?”

I told Janet Worley to tell me about his personality, his character, and she did. He was honest, she told me. He was rich, of course, but according to Janet, Harry Chandler was very normal for such a famous person.

Normal?

Harry Chandler was to the movies what O. J. Simpson was to football.

Janet said, “After Mrs. Chandler disappeared, during the year and a half when Mr. Chandler was indisposed, we became almost like his family. We moved from our flat in number two into the main house so that the place wouldn’t go cold.

“Mr. Chandler appreciated that. He has always been very generous,” Janet said. “He paid for Nicole’s education. He gave us things. Gave us a car one year, didn’t he, Nigel?”

“His dead wife’s car.”

“Yes. It was secondhand, but we still have it.”

I asked, “When did you see Mr. Chandler last?”

“Three months ago. Yes. He came for dinner on Christmas. I always find Mr. Chandler charming, although maybe a little distracted. Always rehearsing something in his mind, I expect.”

Something crashed against the stove behind us.

I turned. Nigel Worley’s face looked like a furrowed field.

He said, “Rehearsing? Distracted? Yes, he was distracted. He’s a bloody womanizer,” Nigel Worley said. “Well, it was in all the papers, Jan. Don’t look at me like I drowned the baby in the bath.”

“He was a ladies’ man,” Janet conceded.

“Harry Chandler is what you might call an equal-opportunity ladies’ man. He liked all types,” Nigel went on. “Actresses mostly, but he fancied the odd waitress or even women of a certain age.”