James Patterson: The 6th Target

The ironing board had collapsed around her like a dead horse, and the smell of burned spray starch was in the air.

The last time I'd seen Rosa, she'd told me how she couldn't leave her husband because he'd said he'd hunt her down and kill her.

I wished with all my heart she'd taken the baby and run.

Inspector Richard Conklin, Jacobi's partner, the newest and youngest member of my squad, walked into the kitchen. Rich poured cat food into a bowl for an old orange tabby cat that was mewing on the red Formica table. Interesting .

"He could be alone here for a long time," Conklin said over his shoulder.

"Call animal control."

"Said they were busy, Lieutenant." Conklin turned on the taps, filled a water bowl.

Alonzo spoke up.

"You know what she said, Officer? She said, 'Get a job.' I just snapped , you understand?"

I stared at him until he turned away from me, cried out to his dead wife, "I didn't mean to do it, Rosa. Please. Give me another chance ."

Jacobi reached for the man's arm, brought him to his feet, saying, "Yeah, she forgives you, pal. Let's take a ride."

The baby launched a new round of howls as Patty Whelk from Child Welfare came through the open door.

"Hey, Lindsay," she said, stepping around the victim, "who's Little Miss Precious?"

I picked up the child, took the dirty ribbon out of her curls, and handed her over to Patty.

"Anita Alonzo," I said sadly, "meet the system."

Patty and I exchanged helpless looks as she jostled the little girl into a comfortable position on her hip.

I left Patty rummaging in the bedroom for a clean diaper. While Conklin stayed behind to wait for the ME, I followed Jacobi and Alonzo out to the street.

I said, "See ya," to Jacobi and climbed into my three-year-old Explorer parked next to six yards of garbage out by the street. I'd just turned the key when my Nextel bleeped on my belt. It's Saturday. Leave me the hell alone .

I caught the call on the second ring.

It was my boss, Chief Anthony Tracchio. An unusual tightness strained his voice as he raised it over the keening sound of sirens.

"Boxer," he said, "there's been a shooting on one of the ferries. The Del Norte . Three people are dead. A couple more wounded. I need you here. Pronto."

I HAD A REALLY BAD FEELING, thinking ahead to whatever hell had brought the chief out of his comfy home in Oakland on a Saturday . The bad feeling mushroomed when I saw half a dozen black-and-whites parked at the entrance to the pier, and two more patrol cars up on the sidewalk at either end of the Ferry Building.

A patrolman called out, "This way, Lieu," and waved me down the south driveway leading to the dock.

I drove past the police prowlers, ambulances, and fire rigs, and parked outside the terminal. I opened my door and stepped out into the sixty-degree haze. About a twenty-knot breeze had whipped up a stiff chop on the bay, making the Del Norte rock at her mooring.

The police activity had excited the crowd, and a thousand people shifted between the Ferry Building and the farmer's market, taking pictures, asking cops what had happened. It was as if they could smell gunpowder and blood in the air.

I ducked under the barrier tape cordoning off the dock, nodded to cops I knew, looked up when I heard Tracchio call my name.

The chief was standing at the mouth of the Del Norte .

He was wearing a leather blazer and Dockers, and sporting his signature Vitalis comb-over. He signaled to me to come aboard. Said the spider to the fly .

I headed toward him, but before I got five feet up the gangway, I had to back up and let two paramedics pass with a rolling stretcher bouncing between them.

I dropped my eyes to the victim, a large African American woman, her face mostly covered with an oxygen mask, an IV line running into her arm. Blood soaked the sheet tucked tightly over her body.

I felt a pain in my chest, my heart catching on a full second before my brain put it together.

The victim was Claire Washburn!

My best friend had been shot on the ferry!

I grabbed the gurney, stopping its forward motion and causing the brassy blond paramedic bringing up the rear to bark at me, "Lady, out of the way!"

"I'm a cop ," I said to the paramedic, pulling open my jacket to show her my badge.

"I don't care if you're God ," said the blonde. "We're getting her to the ER."

My mouth was hanging open and my heart was pounding in my ears.

"Claire," I called out, walking quickly now alongside the stretcher as the gurney rumbled over the gangway and onto the asphalt. "Claire, it's Lindsay. Can you hear me?"

No answer.

"What's her condition?" I asked the paramedic.

"Do you understand that we have to get her to the hospital ?"

"Answer me, goddamn it!"

"I don't freaking know!"

I stood helplessly by as the paramedics opened the ambulance doors.

More than ten minutes had passed since I'd gotten Tracchio's call. Claire had been lying on the deck of the ferry all that time, losing blood, trying to breathe with a bullet hole ripped into her chest.

I gripped her hand, and tears immediately filled my eyes.

My friend turned her face to me, her eyelids fluttering as she forced them open.

"Linds," she mouthed. I moved her mask aside. "Where's Willie?" she asked me.

I remembered then – Claire's youngest son, Willie, was working for the ferry line on the weekends. That's probably why Claire had been on the Del Norte .

"We got separated," Claire gasped. "I think he went after the shooter."

CLAIRE'S EYES ROLLED UP, and she slipped away from me. The knees of the gurney buckled, and the paramedics slid the stretcher out of my grasp and into the ambulance.

The doors slammed. The siren started up its blaring whoop , and the ambulance carrying my dearest friend headed into traffic toward San Francisco General.

Time was working against us.

The shooter was gone, and Willie had gone after him.

Tracchio put his hand on my shoulder. "We're getting descriptions of the doer, Boxer -"

"I have to find Claire's son," I said.

I broke away from Tracchio and ran toward the farmer's market, scanning faces as I pushed past the slow-moving crowd. It was like walking through a herd of cattle.

I looked into every fricking produce stall and in between them, raked the aisles with my eyes, searching desperately for Willie – but it was Willie who found me .

He shoved his way toward me, calling my name. "Lindsay! Lindsay!"

The front of his T-shirt was soaked with blood. He was panting, and his face was rigid with fear.

I grabbed his shoulders with both hands, tears welling up again.

" Willie , where are you hurt?"

He shook his head. "This isn't my blood. My mom's been shot ."

I pulled him to me, hugged him to my chest, felt some of my terrible fear leaving me. At least Willie was okay.

"She's on her way to the hospital," I said, wishing I could add, She'll be fine . "You saw the shooter? What does he look like?"

"He's a skinny white man," Willie said as we bumped through the mob. "Has a beard, long brown hair. He kept his eyes down , Lindsay. I never saw his eyes ."

"How old is he?"

"Like, maybe a few years younger than you."

"Early thirties?"

"Yeah. And he's taller than me. Maybe six foot one, wearing cargo pants and a blue Windbreaker. Lindsay, I heard him say to my mom that she was supposed to stop the shooting. That it was her job. What's that supposed to mean?"