James Patterson - The 9th Judgment

To my left, a yell: “HEY!”

A man burst from the back of a police cruiser, a big hunka guy, built like a football player. He crossed the roadway to the man with the camera and shouted, “Give me that!”

The big hunka guy was Joe.

The camera guy refused to give it up, so Joe grabbed him by the throat, extracted the camera from his hand, and threw it over the rail. He left the dude on the hood of the Land Rover and shouted out over his shoulder, “Sue me.”

Then the man I love ran toward me with a look of anguish on his face. He held out his arms, and I fell against him and began to cry. “We got him,” I said.

“Did that bastard hurt you?”

“No. We got him, Joe.”

“You sure did, honey. It’s all over now.”

Joe put his big jacket around me and folded me into his arms again. Conklin and Jacobi got out of a gray unmarked car and came over to where I stood with Joe, asking in unison, “Are you okay, Lindsay?”

“Never better,” I chirped, my cheeks wet with tears.

“Go home,” Jacobi said. “Clean up. Have a meal, then come back to the Hall. We’ll take our time booking that freak. Should take us about three hours to print him and do the paperwork. He’s all yours, Boxer. No one will talk to him before you do.

“Good job.”

MY HAIR WAS still wet from my shower when I arrived back at the Hall, geared up and ready to confront the guy who’d humiliated me, terrified me, and killed six innocent people.

I walked to Jacobi’s office and said, “What have we got?”

“His ID says he’s Roger Bosco, former Park Service employee, currently a maintenance man at the San Francisco Yacht Club. No military background, no sheet of any kind. He hasn’t asked for counsel.”

“Let’s do it,” I said.

The observation room behind the glass was packed with cops, brass, and folks from the DA’s office. The cameras were rolling. We were good to go.

The suspect looked up from his seat at the table when Jacobi and I walked into the interrogation room, and I was surprised at his appearance and demeanor.

Roger Bosco seemed older and smaller than the man we’d seen on the parking-garage tapes, and he looked confused. He turned his watery blue eyes on me and said, “I was afraid of the helicopter. That’s why I tried to get away.”

“Let’s start at the beginning, Roger. Okay if I call you Roger?”

“Sure.”

“Why did you do it?”

“For the money.”

“Your plan all along was to collect the ransom?”

“What do you mean, ‘ransom’?”

I pulled out a chair and sat down next to Bosco, trying to look behind the “little guy” act for a cocky, murdering psycho. Jacobi walked slowly behind us, turned, and walked back the other way.

“I understand that two million is a lot of money,” I said, keeping my temper in check, showing that I could be trusted, that the hours-long mystery tour from hell was forgiven.

“Two million? I was offered five hundred. I only got the first two fifty.”

I looked up at Jacobi but could read nothing in his flat gray eyes. I ignored a new and sinking feeling. Bosco had been in a boat heading straight toward the money. It was indisputable.

“Roger. You’ve got to help me help you. Explain to me how you planned the killings. I have to say, you are brilliant. It took an entire police force to bring you in, and I respect that. If you can take me through every step, show us that you’re cooperating fully, I can work with the DA on your behalf.”

Bosco’s jaw dropped. He looked at me in believable disbelief, turned to look at Jacobi, then turned back to look at me.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Honest to God, I didn’t kill anybody, never in my entire life. You’ve got the wrong guy.”

IT TOOK HOURS of interrogation-me and Jacobi and Conklin calling people at their homes, going over papers in dark offices-in order to check out Bosco’s credentials and alibi.

Yes, Roger Bosco was employed by the Yacht Club. His time was fully accounted for. He’d punched the clock and was seen at work when the Bentons, Kinskis, and Marones were slaughtered.

I took Bosco out of a holding cell and put him back in the box, this time with coffee, a ham sandwich, and a package of Oreos.

And he told Jacobi and me his story from the top: how a man had approached him at the dock, saying that he was a movie producer shooting an action film and needed a real, live stunt guy to pluck a package out of the bay.

Bosco told us that he was excited.

He said he told the guy that he could get a day off work and could use the Boston Whaler and would love to be in a film. So the “producer” instructed Bosco to idle the boat around Fort Baker and watch for a case that would be thrown from the bridge sometime in the afternoon.

He gave Bosco $250 in advance with a promise of the other half on delivery of the gun case, and he said that he’d be waiting for Bosco outside Greens Restaurant at Fort Mason.

Did Bosco seriously believe that this setup was for real? Was he dirty, or was he dim?

“This producer gave you his name?” I asked.

“Of course. Tony-something, starts with a ‘T.’ He was a regular-looking guy,” Bosco continued. “He was about six feet tall and fit. I didn’t even notice what he was wearing. Hey. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I have his card.”

Bosco’s soaking-wet wallet was retrieved from booking, and the card was extracted from the billfold section and shown to me.

It was of the instant, do-it-yourself variety, prepunched and printed on an ink-jet. It wouldn’t have passed the credulity test of most people in this town, but Roger Bosco was very pleased that he could back up his story. He was grinning as if he’d found oil in his backyard.

“Look,” Bosco said, stabbing the runny red logo with a callused forefinger. “Anthony Tracchio. WCF Productions.”

Jacobi and I took it outside the room.

“The chief will love this,” Jacobi said wearily, bagging the card. “I’m going to call him and tell him the Lipstick Freak is still out there. And, oh yeah, we’ve got the money.”

THEY WERE IN Cindy’s bedroom, the light from the street coming through the blinds, painting bold stripes across the blanket. Cindy snuggled up against Richie and threw her arm across his waist.

“Oh man,” Rich said. “I never thought I’d say this, but this has never happened to me before. I’m sorry, Cin.”

“Hey, it’s nothing. Don’t worry, please,” Cindy said, shaking him gently, kissing his cheek. “Are you okay?”

“I don’t think so. I’m barely past thirty.”

“You know what I think? You’re preoccupied. What’s on your mind, Rich? Quick. First thing that comes to you.”

“Lindsay.”

“I’ll give you a million bucks if you take that back,” Cindy said. She rolled away from Rich and stared up at the ceiling. Was Rich in love with Lindsay? Or was being her partner the same as being in love but in a different form?

This, she knew: Rich and Lindsay were tight. And she wondered again if their relationship was a red flag telling her that the tracks were out and she should get off the train.

“Ahh, that came out wrong.” Richie pulled her back to him. “I wasn’t thinking of her like that. It’s about the Lipstick Sicko making her strip down. That, and how he could’ve killed her at any time. I’m her partner, Cindy, and I completely failed her.”

Cindy sighed and relaxed in Rich’s arms, strumming his flat belly lightly with her fingertips.

“You did everything you could do. I know what you mean, though. Lindsay winked at me outside the Chronicle Building on the way to her rendezvous with that freak. She was trying to assure me that she was going to be okay when there was no way she could know that. I felt utterly helpless.”