Patterson, James: Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

“Read it and weep,” he muttered. “If you'd called, I could've saved you the toll... ' specimens found under the victim's fingernails suggest a hyperpigmented dermis consistent with a non-Caucasian.' Slides are out being tested as we speak.”

“You still want to check out the site?” Vandervellen asked, seemingly enjoying the moment.

“You mind? We're already here.”

“Sure, yeah, be my guest. It's Krimpman's case, but he's out. I can take you through. I don't get out to the Gus White projects much anymore. Who knows? Riding with you two super cops, I might pick something up along the way.”

Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Chapter 13

THE GUSTAVE WHITE PROJECTS were six identical redbrick high-rises on Redmond Street in West Oakland. As we pulled up, Vandervellen said, “Didn't make much sense... The poor woman wasn't ill, seemed to have okay finances, even went to church twice a week. But sometimes people just give up. Until the autopsy. it looked legit.”

I recalled the case file: There were no witnesses, no one had heard any screams, no one saw anybody running away.

Only an elderly woman who kept to herself, found hanging from a steam pipe in the basement, her neck at a right angle and her tongue protruding.

At the projects, we walked right into Building C.

“Elevator's on the fritz,” Vandervellen said. We took the stairs down. In the graffiti-marked basement, we came upon a hand-painted sign that read, “Laundry Room - Boiler Room.”

“Found her in here.”

The basement room was still criss-crossed with yellow crime scene tape. A pungent, rancid odor filled the air. Graffiti was everywhere. Anything that had been here - the body, the electrical wire she was hung with - had already been taken to the morgue or entered into evidence.

“I don't know what you're looking to find,” Vandervellen said with a shrug.

“I don't know either.” I swallowed. “It happened late last Saturday night?”

“Coroner figures around ten. We thought maybe the old lady came down to do her laundry, that someone surprised her. Janitor found her the next morning.”

“What about security cameras?” Jacobi asked. “They were all over the lobby and the halls.”

“Same as the elevator--broken.” Vandervellen shrugged again.

It was clear Vandervellen and Jacobi wanted to head out as quickly as possible, but something pulled at me to stay.

For what? I had no idea. But my senses were buzzing. Find me... over here.

“The race thing aside,” Vandervellen said, “if you're looking for a connection, I'm sure you know how unusual it is for a killer to switch methods in the midst of a spree.”

“Thanks,” I snapped back. I had scanned the room; nothing jumped at me. Just the feeling. “Guess we'll have to solve this one on our own. Who knows? By now maybe something's popped up on our side of the pond.”

As Vandervellen was about to flick off the light, something caught my eye. “Hold it,” I said.

As if pulled by gravity, I was drawn to the far side of the room, to the wall behind the spot where Chipman had been found hanging. I knelt, tracing my fingers over the concrete wall. If I hadn't seen it before it would've passed right by my sight.

A primitive drawing, like a child's, in bright orange chalk.

It was a lion. Like Bernard Smith's drawing but more fierce.

The lion's body led into a coiled tail, but it was the tail of something else... a reptile? A serpent?

And that wasn't all.

The lion had two heads: one a lion, the other possibly a goat.

I felt a knot in my chest, a tremor of revulsion, and recognition, too.

Jacobi came up behind me. “Find something, Lieutenant?”

I drew a long breath. “Pokemon.”

Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Chapter 14

SO NOW I KNEW... These cases were probably related. Bernard Smith's sighting of the fleeing van had been on the mark. We had our get-away car. We might have a double killer.

It didn't surprise me that when I finally got back to the Hall, an angry Chief Mercer insisted he be buzzed the minute I walked in.

I closed the door to my office, dialed his extension, and waited for the barrage.

“You know what's going on here,” he said, the sting of authority rippling through his voice. “You think you can stay out in the field all day and ignore my calls? You're Lieutenant Boxer now. Your job is to manage your squad. And keep me informed.”

“I'm sorry, Chief, it's just that--”

"A child has been killed. A neighborhood terrorized.

We've got some psycho a brick short out there who's trying to turn this place into an inferno. By tomorrow, every African American leader in this town will be demanding to know what we're going to do."

“It's gotten deeper than that, Chief.”

Mercer stopped short. “Deeper than what?”

I told him what I had found in the basement in Oakland.

The lion-like symbol that had been at both crimes.

I heard him suck in a deep breath. “You're saying these two killings are related?”

“I'm saying that before we jump to any fast conclusions, that possibility exists.”

The air seemed to seep right out of Mercer's lungs. “You get a photo of what you found on that wall over to the lab. And the sketch of what that kid in Bay View saw. I want to know what those drawings mean.”

“It's already in the works,” I replied.

“And the getaway van? Anything back on it yet?”

“Negative.”

A troubling possibility seemed to be forming in Mercer's mind. “If there's some kind of conspiracy taking place here, we're not going to sit back while this” city is held hostage to a terror campaign."

“We're running the van. Let me have some time on that symbol.” I didn't want to tell him my worst fear. If Vandervellen was right, that Estelle Chipman's killer was black, and Claire was right, that Tasha Catchings was an intended target, this might not be a racial-terror campaign at all.

Even on the phone, I could sense the creases underneath Mercer's jaw deepening. I was asking him to take a risk, a big one. Finally I heard him exhale. “Don't let me down, Lieutenant. Solve your case.”

As I hung up the phone, I could feel the pressure intensifying. The world was going to expect me to bust down the door of every hate group operating west of Montana, and already I had real doubts.

On my desk, I spotted a message from Jill. “How about a drink? Six o'clock,” it read. “All of us.”

One full day into the case... If there was anything that would calm my fears, it was Jill, and Claire and Cindy, and a pitcher of margaritas at Susie's.

I left a message on Jill's voice mail that I'd be there.

I glanced at a faded blue baseball cap hanging on a wooden coatrack in the corner of my office, with the words “It's Heavenly” embroidered on the brim. The cap had belonged to Chris Raleigh. He'd given it to me during a beautiful weekend up at Heavenly Valley, where the outside world had seemed to disappear for a while and both of us had opened up to what was starting to take place between us.

“Don't let me mess up,” I whispered. I felt my eyes begin to sting with tears. God, I wished he was here.

“You sonofabitch.” I shook my head at the hat. “I miss you.”

Womans Murder Club 2 - Second Chance

Chapter 15

IT TOOK NO MORE THAN A MINUTE of settling back in our old booth at Susie's to feel the magic begin to spark, and to realize it was happening all over again.

A troublesome case that was getting worse. A pitcher full of high-octane margaritas. My three best friends all at the top of law enforcement. I was afraid that our murder club was back in business.