2nd Chance (21 page)

We checked in at the administrative office on the Main Quad. A dean’s assistant told us Rusty Coombs was probably at football practice down at the field house. Said Rusty was a good student, and a great tight end. We drove there, where a student manager in a red Stanford cap took us upstairs and asked us to wait outside the weight room.

Moments later, a solidly built, orange-haired kid in a sweaty Cardinals T-shirt wandered out. Rusty Coombs had an affable face spotted with a few freckles. He had none of the dark, brooding belligerence I had seen in photos of his father.

“I guess I know why you guys are here,” he said, coming up to us. “My mom called, told me.”

The heavy sound of weight irons and lifting machines clanged in the background. I smiled affably. “We’re looking for your father, Rusty. We were wondering if you have any idea where he might be?”

“He’s not my father,” the boy said, and shook his head. “My father’s name is Theodore Bell. He’s the one who brought me up with Mom. Teddy taught me how to catch a football. He’s the one who told me I could make it to Stanford.”

“When was the last time you heard from Frank Coombs?”

“What’s he done, anyway? My mother said you guys are from Homicide. We know what’s in the news. Everyone knows what’s going on up there. Whatever he did before, he paid his time, didn’t he? You can’t believe just because he made some mistakes twenty years ago he’s responsible for these terrible crimes?”

“We wouldn’t have driven all the way down unless it was important,” Jacobi said.

The football player shifted back and forth on the balls of his feet. He seemed to be a likable kid, cooperative. He rubbed his hands together. “He came here once. When he first got out. I had written him a couple of times in jail. I met with him in town. I didn’t want anybody to see him.”

“What did he say to you?” I asked.

“I think all he wanted was to clear his own conscience. And know what my mother thought of him. Never once did he say ‘ great job, Rusty Look at you. You did good.’ Or, “Hey I follow your games…’ He was more interested in knowing if my mom had thrown out some of his old things.”

“What sort of things?” I asked. What would be so important that he would drive all the way here and confront his son?

“Police things,” Rusty Coombs said and shook his head. “Maybe his guns.

I smiled sympathetically. I knew what it was like to look at your father with something less than admiration. “He give you any idea where he might go?”

Rusty Coombs shook his head. He looked like he might tear up. “I’m not Frank Coombs, Inspectors. I may have his name, I may even have to live with what he did, but I’m not him. Please leave our family alone. Please.”

W
ELL
,
THAT
SUCKED
. Stirring up bad memories for Rusty Coombs made me feel terrible. Even Jacobi agreed.

We made it back to the office about four. We’d driven all the way down to Palo Alto just to run into another dead end. What fun.

There was a phone message waiting for me. I called Cindy back immediately. “There’s a rumor floating around that you’ve narrowed on a suspect,” she said. “Truth or dare?”

“We have a name, Cindy, but I can’t tell you anything. We just want to bring him in for questioning.”

“So there’s no warrant?”

“Cindy… not just yet.”

“I’m not talking about a story, Lindsay. He went after our friend. Remember? If I can help… ”

“I got a hundred cops working on it, Cindy. Some of us have even handled an investigation or two before. Please, trust me.”

“But if you haven’t brought him in, then you haven’t found him, right?”

“Or maybe we haven’t made the case yet. And Cindy, that’s not for print.”

“This is
me
talking, Linds. Claire, too. And Jill. We’re in this case, Lindsay. All of us.”

She was right. Unlike any other homicide case I had worked, this one seemed to be growing more and more personal.
Why was that?
I didn’t have Coombs and I could use the help. As long as he stayed free, anything could happen.

“I do need your help. Go through your old files, Cindy. You just didn’t go back far enough.”

She paused, then sucked in a breath. “You were right, weren’t you? The guy’s a cop.”

“You can’t go with that, sweetie. And if you did, you’d be wrong. But it’s damned close.”

I felt her analyzing, and also biting her tongue. “We’re still going to meet, aren’t we?”

I smiled. “Yeah, we’re going to meet. We’re a team. More than ever.”

I was about to pack it in for the night when a call buzzed through to my line. I was sitting around thinking that Tom Keating had been lying. That he’d spoken to Coombs. But until we put out a warrant, Keating could hold back all he wanted.

To my utter surprise, it was his wife on the line. I almost dropped the phone.

“My husband’s a stubborn man, Lieutenant,” she began, clearly nervous. “But he wore the uniform with pride. I’ve never asked him to account for anything. And I won’t start-now. But I can’t sit back. Frank Coombs killed that boy And if he’s done something else, I refuse to wake up every morning for the rest of my life knowing I abetted a murderer.”

“It would be better for everybody, Mrs. Keating, if your husband told us what he knows.”

“I don’t know what he knows,” she said, “and I believe him when he says he hasn’t spoken to Coombs in some time. But he wasn’t telling the whole truth, Lieutenant.”

“Then why don’t you start.”

She hesitated. “Coombs
did
come by here. Once. Maybe two months ago.”

“Do you know where he is?” My blood started to rush.

“No,” she answered. “But I did take a message from him. For Tom. I still have the number.”

I fumbled for a pen.

She read me the number. 434-9117. “I’m pretty sure it was some kind of boarding house or hotel.”

“Thank you, Helen.”

I was about to hang up when she said, “There’s one more thing… When my husband said he lent Coombs a hand, he wasn’t telling the whole story. Tom did give him some money. He also let him rummage through some old things in our storage locker.”

“What sort of things?” I asked.

“His old
department
things. Maybe an old uniform, and a badge.”

That’s what Coombs had been looking for in his ex-wife’s house. His old police uniforms. My mind clicked.
Maybe that’s how he got so close to Chipman and Mercer….

“That’s all?” I asked.

“No,” Helen Keating said. “Tom kept guns down there. Coombs took those, too.”

W
ITHIN
MINUTES
I traced the number Helen Keating had given me to a boarding house on Larkin and Mcallister. The Hotel William Simon. My pulse was jumping.

I called Jacobi, catching him as he was about to sit down to dinner. “Meet me at Larkin and Mcallister. The Hotel William Simon.”

“You want me to meet you at a hotel? Cool. I’m on my way.”

“I think we found Coombs.”

We couldn’t arrest Frank Coombs. We didn’t have a single piece of evidence that could tie him directly to a crime. I might be able to get a search warrant and bust into his room, though. Right now the most important thing was to make certain he was still there.

Twenty minutes later, I had driven down to the seedy area between the Civic Center and Union Square. The William Simon was a shabby one-elevator dive under a large billboard with a slinky model wearing Calvin Klein underwear. As Jill would say,
yick.

I didn’t want to go up to the desk, flashing my badge and his photo, until we were ready to make a move. Finally, I said
what the hell
, and placed a call to the number Helen Keating had given me. After three rings, a male voice answered, “
William Simon
.”

“Frank Coombs…?” I inquired.

“
Coombs… “
I listened as the desk clerk leafed through a list of names. “Nope.”

Shit.
I asked him to double-check. He came back negative.

Just then, the passenger door of my Explorer opened. My nerves were twanging like a bass guitar.

Jacobi climbed in. He was wearing a striped golf shirt and some sort of short, hideous Members Only jacket. His belly bulged. He grinned like a John. “Hey, lady, what does an Andrew Jackson get me?”

“Dinner, maybe, if you’re treating.”

“We got an ID?” he asked.

I shook my head. I told him what I had found out.

“Maybe he’s moved on,” Jacobi offered. “How ‘bout I go in and flash the badge? With Coombs’s photo?”

I shook my head. “How ‘bout we sit here and wait.”

We waited for over two hours. Stakeouts are incredibly dull. They would drive the average person nuts. We kept our eyes peeled on the William Simon, going over everything from Helen Keating, to what Jacobi’s wife was serving for dinner, to the 49ers, to who was sleeping with who at the Hall. Jacobi even sprung for a couple of sandwiches from a Subway.

At ten o’clock, Jacobi grumbled, “This could go on forever! Why don’t you let me go inside, Lindsay?”

He was probably right. We didn’t even know if Helen Keating’s number was current. She had taken it weeks ago.

I was about to give in when a man turned the corner on Larkin headed toward the hotel. I gripped Jacobi’s arm. “Look over there.”

It was Coombs.
I recognized the bastard instantly. He was wearing a camouflage jacket, hands stuffed in his pockets, a floppy hat pulled over his eyes.

“Son of a fucking bitch,” Jacobi muttered.

Watching the bastard slink up to the hotel, it took everything I had not to jump out of the car and slam him up against a wall. I wished I could slap him in cuffs. But we had Chimera now. We knew where he was.

“I want someone stuck to him, twenty-four hours,” I told Jacobi. “If he makes the tail, I want him picked up. We’ll figure out the charges later.”

Jacobi nodded.

“I hope you brought a toothbrush.” I winked. “You’ve got first watch.”

A
S
THEY
WALKED
hand in hand toward her Castro apartment, Cindy admitted to herself that she was scared shitless.

This was the fifth time she and Aaron Winslow had been out together. They had seen Cyrus Chestnut and Freddie Hubbard at the Blue Door; been to Traviata at the opera; taken the ferry across the bay to a tiny Jamaican cafe that Aaron knew. Tonight, they had seen this dreamy film,
Chocolat.

No matter where this went tonight, she enjoyed being with him. He was deeper than most men she’d dated, and he was definitely more sensitive. Not only did he read unexpected books like Dave
Eggers’s A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
and Amy Tan’s
The Bonesetter’s Daughter
, he lived the life that he preached. He worked twelve-to-sixteen-hour days and was loved in his neighborhood, but he still managed to keep his ego in check. She’d heard it over an dover again interviewing people for her story: Aaron Winslow was one of the good guys.

All the while, though, Cindy had felt this moment looming in the distance. Hurtling closer and closer. Ticking. This was the natural step, she told herself. As Lindsay would say, their foxhole was about to explode.

“You seem a little quiet tonight,” Aaron said. “You okay, Cindy?”

“I’m great,” she fibbed. She thought he was just about the sweetest man she had ever gone out with, but,
Jesus, Cindy, he’s a pastor. Why didn’t you think of this then? Is this a good idea? Think it through. Don’t hurt him. Don’t get hurt yourself.

They stopped walking in front of the entrance to Cindy’s building and stood in the lighted arch. He sung a line from an old R&B tune, “I’ve Passed This Way Before.” He even had a good singing voice.

There was no use postponing it any longer. “Look, Aaron, someone has to say this. You want to come up? I’d like it if you did,
hate
it if you didn’t.”

He exhaled and smiled. “I don’t exactly know where to take this, Cindy. I’m a little out of my range. I, uh, I’ve never dated a blonde before. I wasn’t expecting any of this.”

“I can relate to that.” She smiled. “But it’s only two floors up. We can talk about it there.”

His lip was quivering slightly, and when he touched her arm it sent a shiver down her spine. God, she did like him. And she trusted him.

“I feel like I’m about to cross this line,” he said. “And it’s not a line I can cross casually. So I have to know. Are we there together? In the same place?”

Cindy elevated on her toes and pressed her lips lightly against his mouth. Aaron seemed surprised and at first he stiffened, but slowly he placed his arms around her and gave himself over to the kiss.

It was just as she had hoped, that first real kiss. Tender and breathtaking. Through his jacket, she could feel the rhythm of his heart pounding. She liked it that he was afraid, too. It made her feel even closer to him.

When they parted, she looked in his eyes and said, “We’re
there.
We’re in the same place.”

She took out her key and led him up the two floors to her place. Her heart was pounding.

“It’s great,” he said. “I’m not just saying that.” A two-story wall of bookshelves and an informal open kitchen. “It’s you… Cindy, it seems silly that I haven’t been up here before.”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying.” Cindy grinned. God, she was so
nervous.

He took hold of her again, this time giving her a longer kiss. He certainly knew how to kiss. Every cell in her body felt alive. The small hairs on her arms, the warmth in her thighs; she pressed herself against him. She wanted, needed, to be close to him now. His body was slender, but he was definitely strong.

Cindy started to smile. “So what were you waiting for?”

“I don’t know. Maybe some kind of sign.”

She herself into the grooves of his body, felt him come alive. “
There’s
a sign,” she said, close to his face.

“I guess my secret’s out now. Yes, I do like you, Cindy.”