John Lescroart - The Second Chair

That thought came like another kick to his stomach, but suddenly, all at once, he couldn't accept it. That wasn't what was happening up there. And his certainty wasn't a matter of rational thought. It was on another level, a bone-deep conviction. She was up there with somebody, yes, but even if she was being romantic with another man, there was no way she would have gone off on him that way. Beyond the connection he felt that they'd established, that wasn't who she was. She wouldn't have treated him like that, not now.

It made no sense.

And then, suddenly, her words came back at him. "You're in trouble." That private, powerful, ambiguous code word between them, and now Amy had screamed it at him through her locked door. "You're in trouble." A little out of place, even in that context. Off-key.

A warning? Or a cry for help?

Christ, he thought. What an idiot. She's just dumping me. Let it go.

But he was already crossing the street, going back up.

"Boscacci was so sure," he said. "All the jurors were so sure. They polled them one by one afterward, you know. Every one of them."

He'd followed her into the bathroom, stood in the doorway while she'd gone, walked her back to her chair and now was finishing his story.

"I'm so sorry," she said. "I didn't know that."

"Yeah? Well, here's something else you don't know. You don't know what it's like having your home taken away from you when you're seven years old. You don't know what it's like when your mom's murdered and they blame your father for it and then try him and take him away and put you in foster care. Do you know what that's like?"

"No, I don't," Wu said. "I'm so sorry." And she was, but mostly she was afraid that she was going to die, and thought maybe she could get him to spare her. "It must have been terrible for you."

"Terrible doesn't begin to cover it. And taking away my own name, talking me into taking my mom's maiden name. I didn't want to have people knowing I'm the son of that murderer, did I? Wouldn't I be happier with a different name? Don't you understand- they took away my life!"

"I'm sure they didn't mean to do that. I mean, Boscacci and the jury…"

"I hope they all rot in hell." He suddenly jerked and was back to the present. "Thirteen of them, every one of them so certain, and every one of them so completely dead wrong." He found something to laugh at. "And now more than half of them just completely dead."

She felt a wave of chill break over her. "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean? I mean I killed them. You haven't figured that out yet? All of them still living around here, anyway, in beautiful San Francisco and vicinity."

When it came to her, the blood ran from her face. "You're the Executioner."

"Good," he said. "Why do you think I got onto you in the first place?"

"I don't know."

"You don't, really? All right, then, I'll tell you. Because there you were, Miss Professional Lawyer who doesn't believe in seeing people you work with. There you were, Andrew's defense lawyer, the only person in the lousy system who's supposed to be working for him, and you're talking about pleading him guilty and sending him away for eight years. And I'm watching you in court, and listening to what you're telling him, and I see it's going on and on, and will always go on with you, since you're just like them all, like all of them have always been."

He raised the gun and she thought he might shoot her now, but he lowered the weapon then, swallowed, went on. "And it was so funny to me, you see? Because I knew he didn't do it. And you know why I knew that? Because I did. "

"You killed Mooney?"

He nodded. "And his whining little girlfriend. And while we're at it, I should maybe call your partner after I've gone and thank him for letting me know how close they were to finding me this morning. I wasn't planning to do more of my work today until I heard what he said in court and realized I really had to hurry. Though I would have been gone anyway soon enough."

"Where to?" she asked.

He gave her a ghastly, empty smile. "On the road. But first," he said, "there's you."

"Please," she said, "please don't. Put the gun down."

"Don't make me use it then. I don't like sitting with a corpse. They stink. So you stay sitting there and shut up."

"All right, I will," she said. "I won't move. What do you want me to do?"

"Nothing," he said. "I want it to get dark." Again, that empty-eyed smile. "It's so much easier to walk away when it's dark."

Brandt crept away from Amy's door and descended from the fourth down to the second landing, which he figured was the closest spot where he couldn't be heard from above. He took out his cellphone and turned it on and couldn't get a signal in the stairwell.

His breath coming in ragged gasps, he broke out of the building onto the sidewalk, got his signal and punched in the number for police dispatch, which, like all assistant DAs, he knew by heart. He didn't want nine one one, somebody getting it wrong and showing up with lights and sirens. "This is Jason Brandt. Patch me through to Deputy Chief Glitsky, please, at the Hall of Justice. Yes, it's an emergency. Tell him I've found the Executioner."

T he sun kissed the tops of the cypresses, next the roofs of some of the low buildings, and then suddenly full dusk had fallen. There were no shadows anymore, no reflection of the setting sun in the windows of Amy's place across the street. The sky in the east had gone from turquoise to a deep indigo. Behind Brandt, at the western horizon, a garish orange sunset was fading to a purplish yellow bruise.

But no Glitsky.

Four patrol cars had arrived, silently, then three more. Then Brandt had lost count. All of the police cars had parked invisibly somewhere in the surrounding streets and dispatched their occupants out to encircle Amy's place and evacuate anyone inside who lived on the floors below her, and even people in the surrounding buildings. Brandt showed his badge to Sergeant Ariola, the initial ranking officer at the scene, and identified himself as the person who'd called the police. But that cut him no slack with Ariola, who shunted Brandt with an escort back behind the police line.

He could still see Wu's windows, but now he was around the corner on Cervantes Boulevard. Looking behind him and down the other streets, he realized that the entire block had been cordoned off- squad cars parked perpendicular to the curbs in the middle of the streets, stopping any automobile traffic. Teams of cops were keeping pedestrians out of the area, although now small crowds of the curious had begun to gather at the perimeter.

Next, bad to worse, the TV news vans were arriving- the very scenario Brandt had tried to avoid by calling Glitsky direct. If the TV happened to be turned on in Amy's apartment and they broke the story as late-breaking news, there was no telling what would happen inside, but it could not be good. Next, Brandt watched with some admixture of dread and disbelief as the motor home command post of the tactical unit pulled up. He saw Ariola moving toward it and again tried his DA's badge trick with one of the uniformed cops, who this time let him through with barely a glance. He stood right behind Ariola as he reported the situation to the TAC unit commander, and neither of those men paid him the slightest heed either.

The whole TAC unit wasn't here yet- it usually took forty minutes to an hour for all the members to check in- but the sharpshooter had been one of the first to arrive, and the commander sent him up to the roof of the building directly across the street from Amy's to see what, if anything, he could do. Brandt heard the order, "If you get a clear shot, and he's got a gun on her, take it." Then, motioning to the TV vans, he turned to Ariola. "Inform those jackals that if anyone runs a live feed, I'll hunt them down and kill them and their children."