Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

You know what to do with this, Ms. Thomas. Do not waste your time trying to trace it. Unless you don't want to hear from us again.

Cindy's mouth was dry as dust. SLAM@hotmail.com. Was this real? Was someone messing with her?

She scrolled a little farther to the bottom of the page. For the next few seconds, she was unable to move.

The e-mail was signed, August Spies.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 38

BACK AT MY DESK, there was a message from Chief Trac-chio waiting for me, and one from Jill.

“And the Chronicle's waiting for you,” my secretary Brenda called.

“The Chronicle?”

I looked up and saw Cindy, sitting knock-kneed on a stack of files outside my office. She pulled herself up as I approached, but I just didn't have the time for her.

“Cindy, I can't meet right now. I'm sorry. There's a briefing scheduled -”

“No,” she cut in, stopping me, “I have something to show you, Lindsay. This takes precedence.”

“Is everything all right?”

She shook her head. “I don't think so.”

We shut the door to my office behind us, and Cindy re-moved a piece of paper from her knapsack. It looked like e-mail.

“Sit down,” she said. She put the page in front of me and sat next to me. “Read.”

One look at Cindy's eyes and I knew this wasn't good.

“It came in my morning e-mail,” she explained. “I'm listed on the Chronicle website. I don't know who it's from. Or why they sent it to me. It's just that I'm a little freaked right now.”

I started to read. Don't ask how we got your name or why we're contacting you.... The more I read, the worse it got. We are prepared to kill one prominent bloodsucking pig every three days.... I looked up.

“Keep reading,” Cindy said.

I looked back down and read the rest of the page. I was trying to decide if it was real. I reached the bottom, and knew that it was.

August Spies.

My chest was building up pressure. Suddenly, it was clear where all this was headed. They were holding the city hostage. This was a statement of terror. The G-8. Their target. It was scheduled for the tenth - in nine days. The finance ministers of the top industrial states around the world would be in San Francisco.

“Who knows about this?” I asked.

“You and me,” Cindy said. “And them.”

“They want you to publish their demands,” I said. “They want to use the Chronicle as a soapbox.” I was thinking of all the possible scenarios. “This is gonna make Tracchio shit.”

The countdown had already started. Every three days. Today was Thursday. I knew this e-mail had to be turned over. And once I did, I knew it would no longer be my case. But there was something I needed to do first.

“We can try and trace the address,” Cindy said. “I know a hacker -”

“It won't lead anywhere,” I said. “Think,” I pressed her. “Why did they contact you? There are plenty of other reporters at the Chronicle. There's got to be a good reason.”

“Maybe because my byline's on the story. Maybe because I have roots in Berkeley. But that was ten years ago, Lindsay.”

“Could it be someone from back then? Someone you knew? That asshole Lemouz?”

We looked at each other. “What do you want me to do?” Cindy finally asked.

“I don't know....” They had made contact. I knew killers enough to know that when they want a dialogue with you, when there's anything you can do to put off the next grisly act, you talk.

“I think I want you to answer it,” I said.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 39

EVERYTHING SEEMED to be pointing to across the bay. The sources of the Internet messages. Where the Lightower baby was found. Lemouz. Wendy Raymore's pilfered ID. The clock was ticking. A new victim every three days...

I was tired of waiting for things to come to me. A swarm of FBI agents had descended on the Hall, tracing, dissecting, analyzing Cindy's message. It was time to take it to them, whoever was responsible for these outrageous murders.

Jacobi and I called on Joe Santos and Phil Martelli, two Berkeley cops who headed up the Street Intel Unit. Santos had been around since the sixties - Robbery, Homicide, one of those old-line veterans who had seen it all. Martelli was younger, out of Narcotics.

“Basically, you've got every shit bag outfit going operating in the Free Republic,” Santos said with a shrug. He popped a Mento. “You got your BLA, IRA, Arabs, free speech, free trade. Everybody with an axe to grind - and an axe - is over here.”

“Word is,” Martelli added, “we got some nasty riffraff from Seattle drifting down here to make some mayhem for the G-8 meeting, all those big economic geniuses, those world-beaters.”

I brought out the case file, grisly photos of the Lightower town house and Bengosian. “We're not looking for a bunch of sign wavers, Phil.”

Martelli smiled at Santos. He got it. “Other day,” he said, “we got this undercover outfit staking out some SOB who's been creating a nuisance about PG and E.” Pacific Gas and Electric. Our utility robber barons. Since Enron, there wasn't a person in California who didn't feel he wasn't being ripped off, and he was probably right.

“Everybody's got a grudge against those bastards,” Jacobi said, “including me.”

“This individual's doing a bit more than some casual bitching at the customer service rep. He's been picketing headquarters, handing out leaflets urging people not to pay their bill. Free People's Power Initiative, it was called. We got the sense,” Santos said, chuckling, “that this was a very angry individual.”

Martelli picked up the story. “Crazy bastard is always lug-ging around this big duffel. We figured it was filled with these leaflets of his. One day this undercover guy stops him and gets him to open the bag. Guy's got a goddamn M49 rocket launcher in there. Next we raid his house. There're grenades, C-4, blasting caps. The Free People's Power Initia-tive. They were planning to blow up the fucking power com-pany over their bill.”

“So, Joe,” I said, shifting the subject, “you mentioned rad-icals moving down here to disrupt this G-8 meeting? That's a place to start.”

“Do better than that...” Santos popped another Mento and shrugged. “One of our undercovers told us there's some kind of rally planned today. A B of A branch, over on Shat-tuck. Said some of the biggies'll be around. Why don't you come see for yourself. Welcome to our nightmare.”

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 40

TWENTY MINUTES LATER, we pulled up about two blocks from the Bank of America location in Santos and Morelli's unmarked car. About a hundred demonstrators were crowded around the entrance to the branch; most were holding crudely painted signs: A FREE MONEY SUPPLY IS THE SIGN OF A FREE PEOPLE, one read. Another, GIVE THE WTO AIDS.

An organizer in a T-shirt and torn jeans was standing on the roof of a black SUV, shouting into a microphone, “Bank of America enslaves girls before puberty into oppression. Bank of America sucks the people's blood!”

“What the hell are these people protesting,” Jacobi asked,

“mortgages?”

“Who knows,” replied Santos. “Child labor in Guatemala, the WTO, big business, the fucking ozone layer. Half of them are probably losers they pick off the welfare line and buy with a pack of smokes. It's the leaders I'm interested in.”

He took out a camera and started snapping shots of people in the crowd. A ring of about ten police stood between the bank and the protesters, riot clubs dangling at their sides.

Things Cindy had said began to resonate. How in the comfort of your own life, you could just turn the page when you read about the uninsured or the poor, or underdeveloped countries drowning in debt. But how some people couldn't turn the page. A million miles away, right? Didn't seem like that now.