Be Mine (15 page)

“I’ve been going through Hooper’s old cases, see if anyone
threatened him, gauge his enemies. By the way, looks like you reported on the
majority of Hooper’s cases.” Lepp turned to Tom.

“You find anything?” he asked.

“A few things but I’m going to need more time.”

Tom noticed that Pepper was focused on her doodling when she asked
him, “And what are
you
working on?”

“I’m still pushing the investigation angle. And following my OCC
story and I’m working on street sources.”

Pepper said nothing about Tom’s exclusive story. She’d been drawing
circles on her pad, keeping her attention on her doodling. “Where’s Molly?
What’s she doing?” she asked Tom.

“I don’t know.”

“So you have no idea if she’s working on that first-person account
of the night she found Hooper?”

“No, I don’t think she’s up to it. But I don’t speak for her.”

Pepper’s eyes went to Tom.

“Okay, thank you, everybody. We’re done for now.” She stood and opened
the door but she closed it before Tom could leave. “I’d like a private word
with you.”

He sat and sighed.

“What else are you chasing?”

“I just told you.”

“You’ve got a direct link in the chair beside you into the heart of
San Francisco’s top crime story and you’ve gotten nowhere on it.”

“What’re you talking about? I’m breaking stories.”

“Not the stories I want.”

“What is it? What do you want from me?”

“I want you to break news on the Hooper murder. I want blistering
exclusives that will rock this town.”

“I’m doing that.”

“Not fast enough for me.”

Everyone had overlooked it
except
Sydowski.

It was one of those things he’d filed away. A note he’d scrawled on
a canvass report.

The timing was good.

Sydowski was alone when he wheeled into Upper Market to a well-kept
stucco bungalow bordered by a thick stone wall and the requisite security
system. It was three doors from Hooper’s building.

The residents, a Drug Enforcement Administration Agent and his son,
had left for a trip to San Diego the morning after the murder.

They were back now and expecting Sydowski, who’d called ahead.

The night Hooper was murdered, the agent’s son was on the street
talking about cars with a friend. Neighbors said the son was a “car nut.”

His name was Ryan. He was in his twenties, well built, and had a
small broken heart tattooed on his forearm. He also had a firm handshake,
Sydowski noticed when Ryan answered the door.

“Thanks for agreeing to see me right away,” Sydowski said.

“Sure.”

Ryan’s father, a thick-necked man with a brush cut, set fresh coffee
on the living room table. Sydowski pulled out his notebook and got straight to
business.

“Before you left, you and your friend were in the street near her
house in front of Clifford Hooper’s.”

“Sounds right.”

“Did you see anybody, hear anything out of the ordinary?”

Ryan shook his head. “Like what?”

“The whole time you guys were out there, did you talk to anybody,
see anybody?”

“Just the Barracuda guy.”

Without any reaction, Sydowski asked him to elaborate.

“He comes walking down the stairs from the second floor of the
building.”

“He was on the property?”

“Definitely. He comes walking out, crosses the road, right by me.
I’m leaning against my pickup talking to my friend Nathan and this guy’s
walking right by me to his car across the street. A Barracuda.”

“Did you talk to him?” Sydowski asked.

“I followed him and asked him about his Barracuda. I have a friend
who wants to buy one and this thing was in mint condition. A ’66 Plymouth Barracuda Fastback. That ride purred.”

“Tell me about the guy,” Sydowski said. “Describe him.”

“White guy, mid-thirties. Trim build. I’d say he was uptight, the
way someone is when they’ve got something serious going on. It was like I
shouldn’t have bothered him.”

“What did you talk about?”

“I just asked him if he would ever consider selling because I had a
buddy who might want to buy it. I think I asked what he had under the hood. He
said it was a V-8, 273 cubic inch, but he didn’t want to sell.”

“Okay, Ryan.” Sydowski reached into his jacket pocket. “I’m going to
show you some photographs. I want you to tell me if you see the man you talked
to, the Barracuda guy, among them, all right?”

“Sure.”

Sydowski began setting down on the coffee table six color head and
shoulder shots of different white males in their mid-thirties. Ryan leaned
forward. Sydowski never needed all six. When he snapped down photo number
three, Ryan jabbed it with his finger.

“Him. Definitely him. He’s the guy.”

“Are you certain?”

“Absolutely.”

Sydowski slid the picture into his shirt pocket.

“And ...” Ryan went to the kitchen, talking from there. “I just
remembered something else.” He returned with a slip of paper with a California license plate number. “Took that down for my buddy, to let him know I found a
classic Barracuda for him. You can have it.”

Sydowski copied the number in his notebook, then tucked the slip of
paper into the pocket holding the suspect photo. In the car, Sydowski ran his
hand over his face and looked to the distance.

Ray Beamon’s picture was in his breast pocket and it felt as if it
were burning a hole through his heart.

That same morning Molly Wilson
was in a
taxi bound for the Hall of Justice.

She’d called Ray Beamon at the homicide detail and was told he was
in court. After passing through the security check she searched among the
lawyers, prosecutors, and cops for someone she knew to point her to the trial
he was on.

“That would be in Judge Ortiz’s courtroom, the Jennings case,” a
tall man with a baritone voice said.

“Thank you, Judge Larredy.”

Molly studied the docket. Jennings was on the next floor. It was
thick with police, D.A. people, public defenders, bleary-eyed relatives of
victims, and suspects looking confused, dazed. Shrader from Homicide, who was
sitting on a bench, looked up from the sports section he was reading.

“Hey, Molly. How you holding up?”

“Doing the best I can. Is Beamon in there?”

“Yeah. He should be coming out now.”

Two other detectives, Fred Keeler from Robbery and Donna Beckwith
from Vice, approached her as the courtroom doors opened. Gonzales stepped out
with Beamon. Both men nearly halted when they saw Molly.

“Ray, do you have a second?” she asked.

“Sure.” He put his hand on her shoulder, then turned to his
colleagues. “I’ll see everyone later.”

“Take care, Ray,” Beckwith said.

Beamon led Molly far down the hall to a bench out of hearing range
of the other detectives. “Is everything all right?”

“We have to talk.”

“Listen.” Glancing around, he kept his voice low. “There’s nothing
to talk about. You made it clear there’s nothing for us. I apologize for last
night. I was in bad shape. I have to get going.”

“No, wait.” She yanked hard on his wrist, taking stock of the
detectives down the hall. “I want you to give me some answers.” She was not
going to back down.

“Fine.”

At first she wanted to ask him if he’d hung around her place last
night. But in the sober light of the Hall, it now seemed less important than
what Beamon had said to her last night.

“You told me Cliff knew about us. How did he know?”

“Molly, this isn’t the place for this.”

“I deserve an answer and I want it now.”

He stared hard at her, his eyes narrowing like they did the other
night. Beamon considered her question for a long tense moment.

“I told him.”

“You told him.”

Letting it sink in, Beamon looked down the hall, knowing the others
were watching.

“But why? I don’t understand. Why would you tell him?”

“I had to. Trust me. I had to.”

“Why?”

“On that day, Hooper’s last day, he bumped into Arnold Desfor, a
retired San Jose cop here at the Hall. Desfor told Hooper that a few weeks
earlier he’d seen me with you at the hotel restaurant along the peninsula. You
know, the weekend Cliff was out of town. Desfor said that he’d come over to our
table but we’d taken the elevator to the rooms. He told Hooper about everything.”

Molly’s mind spun.

“If this happened on Cliff’s last day--and you talked to him about
us--it had to be just before--” She turned to him as a horrible question
swirled in her stomach.

“Cliff took Desfor’s news real bad.”

“I told him I wasn’t ready for a serious relationship.”

“But he was. That’s why he took Desfor’s news so hard, because it
was you and me.”

“When did you tell him?” Beamon grew uneasy.

“I have to go. I’ve got to sort things out.”

“But when exactly did you tell him?”

Beamon rubbed the back of his neck and blinked at the ceiling.

“I can’t talk about this now. I have to decide things.”

“What things? What happened when you told Cliff about us?”

“Jesus, don’t do this. Don’t do this here.”

“The other night you said, ‘Sydowski’s going to come after me.’ Ray,
what does that mean?”

“I was upset, I was drinking. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me what happened when you told Cliff about us. You told me you
took risks. What risks? Tell me.”

“For chrissake. We’re in this together. So just stop and think.
Don’t do this here, goddammit.”

“Jesus, what did you do?”

Beamon didn’t answer. He walked to the elevator, leaving her alone.
Molly looked down the hall at the detectives and considered telling them
everything.

Now.