Patterson, James: Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Suddenly, my beeper sounded, three dissonant beeps punctuating the tense air. I pulled it out and read the number. Jacobi, my ex-partner in Homicide. What did he want?

I excused myself and moved into the staff office. I was able to reach him in his car.

“Something bad's happened, Lindsay,” he said glumly. “I thought you'd want to know.”

He clued me in about a horrible drive-by shooting at the La Salle Heights Church. An eleven-year-old girl had been killed.

“Jesus... ” I sighed as my heart sank.

“I thought you might want in on it,” Jacobi said.

I took in a breath. It had been over three months since I'd been on the scene at a homicide. Not since the day the bride and groom case ended.

“So, I didn't hear,” Jacobi pressed. “You want in, Lieutenant?” It was the first time he had called me by my new rank.

I realized my honeymoon had come to an end. “Yeah,” I muttered. “I want in.”

Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Chapter 2

A COLD RAIN STARTED TO FALL as I pulled my Explorer up to the La Salle Heights Church on Harrow Street, in the predominantly black section of Bay View. An angry, anxious crowd had formed - a combination of saddened neighborhood mothers and the usual sullen homeboys huddled in their bright Tommys all pushing against a handful of uniformed cops. -

“This ain't goddamn Mississippi,” someone shouted as I forced my way through the throng.

“How many more?” an older woman wailed. “How many more?”

I badged my way past a couple of nervous patrolmen to the front. What I saw next absolutely took my breath away.

The facade of the white clapboard church was slashed with a grotesque pattern of bullet holes and lead-colored chinks. A huge hole gaped in a wall where a large stained-glass window had been shot out. Jagged edges of colored glass teetered like hanging ice. Kids were still scattered all over the lawn, obviously in shock, some being attended to by EMS teams.

“Oh, Jesus,” I whispered under my breath.

I spotted medical techs in black windbreakers huddled over the body of a young girl by the front steps. A couple of plainclothesmen were nearby. One of them was my ex-partner, Warren Jacobi.

I found myself hesitating. I had done this a hundred times. Only months ago I had solved the biggest murder case in the city since Harvey Milk, but so much had happened since then. I felt weird, like I was new at this. Balling my fists, I took a deep breath and went over to Jacobi.

“Welcome back to the world, Lieutenant,” Jacobi said with a roll of the tongue on my new rank.

The sound of that word still sent electricity surging through me. Heading Homicide had been the goal I had pursued throughout my career: the first female homicide detective in San Francisco, now the department's first female lieutenant. After my old L. T., Sam Roth, opted for a cushy stint up in Bodega Bay, Chief Mercer had called me in. I can do one of two things, he'd said to me. I can keep you on long-term administrative leave and you can see if you find the heart to do this job again. Or I can give you these, Lindsay." He pushed a gold shield with two bars on it across the table. Until that moment, I don't think I had ever seen Mercer smile.

“The lieutenant's shield doesn't make it any easier, does it, Lindsay?” Jacobi said, emphasizing that our three-year relationship as partners had now changed.

“What do we have?” I asked him.

“Looks like a single gunman, from out in those bushes.”

He pointed to a dense thicket beside the church, maybe fifty yards away. “Asshole caught the kids just as they came out. Opened fire with everything he had.”

I took a breath, staring at the weeping, shell-shocked kids scattered all over the lawn. “Anybody see the guy? Somebody did, right?”

He shook his head. “Everyone hit the deck.”

Near the fallen child, a distraught black woman sobbed into the shoulder of a comforting friend. Jacobi saw my eyes fix on the dead girl.

“Name's Tasha Catchings,” he muttered. “In the fifth grade, over at St. Anne's. Good girl. Youngest kid in the choir.”

I moved in closer and knelt over the blood-soaked body. No matter how many times you do this, it's a wrenching sight. Tasha's school blouse was soaked with blood, mixed with falling rain. Just a few feet away, a rainbow-colored knapsack lay on the grass.

“She's it?” I asked incredulously. I surveyed the scene.

“She's the only one who got hit?”

Bullet holes were everywhere, splintered glass and wood.

Dozens of kids had been streaming out to the street... All those shots, and only one victim.

“Our lucky day, huh?” Jacobi snorted.

Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Chapter 3

PAUL CHIN, one of my Homicide crew, was interviewing a tall, handsome black man dressed in a black turtleneck and jeans on the steps of the church. I'd seen him before, on the news. I even knew his name, Aaron Winslow.

Even in shock and dismay, Winslow carried himself with a graceful bearing - a smooth face, jet-black hair cut flat on top, and a football running back's build. Everyone in San Francisco knew what he was doing for this neighborhood.

He was supposed to be a real-life hero, and I must say he looked the part.

I walked over.

“This is Reverend Aaron Winslow;” Chin said, introducing us.

“Lindsay Boxer,” I said, extending my hand.

“Lieutenant Boxer,” said Chin. “She'll be overseeing the case.” “I'm familiar with your work,” I said. “You've given a lot to this neighborhood. I'm so sorry for this. I don't have any words for it.”

His eyes shifted toward the murdered girl. He spoke in the softest voice imaginable. “I've known her since she was a child. These are good, responsible people. Her mother... she brought up Tasha and her brother on her own. These were all young kids. Choir practice, Lieutenant.”

I didn't want to intrude, but I had to. “Can I ask a few questions? Please.”

He nodded blankly. "Of course.

“You see anyone? Someone fleeing? A shape, a glimpse?”

“I saw where the shots came from,” Winslow said, and he pointed to the same thicket of bushes where Jacobi had gone.

“I saw the trailer fire. I was busy trying to get everyone down. It was madness.”

“Has anyone made any threats recently against you or your church?” I asked.

“Threats?” Winslow screwed up his face. “Maybe years ago, when we first got funding to rebuild some of these houses.”

A short distance away, a haunting wail came from Tasha Catchings's mother as the girl's body was lifted onto a gurney.

This was so sad. The surrounding crowd was growing edgy.

Taunts and accusations began to ring out. “Why are you all standing around? Go find her killer!” “I better get over there,” Winslow said, “before this thing goes the wrong way.” He started to move, then turned with tight-lipped resignation on his face. “I could have saved that poor baby. I heard the shots.”

“You couldn't save them all,” I said. “You did what you could.”

He finally nodded. Then he said something that totally shocked me. “It was an M Sixteen, Lieutenant. Thirty-round clip. The bastard reloaded twice.” “How would you know that?” I asked, surprised.

“Desert Storm,” he answered. "I was a field chaplain.

No way I would ever forget that awful sound. No one ever does."

Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Chapter 4

I HEARD MY NAME CALLED OUT over the din of the crowd. It was Jacobi. He was in the woods behind the church. “Hey Lieutenant, come check this out.”

Heading over, I wondered what kind of person could do such a terrible thing. I had worked on a hundred homicides; usually drugs, money or sex was at the heart of them. But this... this was meant to shock. -