Blood of Others (11 page)

South of Los Angeles
in Santa Ana, on the edge
of the old Civic Center Barrio, Maggie Nox finished sweeping the floor of a
community hall.

Her steps echoed as she shut off
every light, except the spotlight over the piano, an ancient upright Baldwin
with a fancy carved walnut finish.

Maggie sat on the bench and began
a soft ballad, the strains wafting in the dark, empty building. She was a
community volunteer who came twice a week to clean the hall, which was used for
meetings and the occasional wedding reception. Playing the piano after cleaning
was Maggie’s private reward. It had become a small pleasure in her life.

Tonight as she played, Maggie
wondered if she had the courage to make a change. In the last year or so, she
had begun to examine her situation. A shy self-conscious thirty-three-year-old
who never went to college because she had stayed home to care for her sick
mother, who died in her sleep a few years ago. Maggie was unmarried. She lived
in a small apartment a few blocks away. Six days a week she took the bus to her
job as a department store clerk in the Red Hills Mall east of Fifty-five. Every
day was the same: old ladies complaining about shoes and underwear.

A noise. She stopped playing.

Had someone entered the building?

“Hello?” Maggie said to the
darkness.

Nothing. She resumed her ballad.

Maggie was feeling increasingly
restless about her life. Nearly a year ago, she had volunteered with an
international emergency aid charity which told her about a two-year posting in
Africa, teaching music in developing countries. Maggie was interested but the
opportunity fell through after the agency’s staff changed at its Los Angeles
office.

Then an old high school friend
offered her a job with a music store in Cleveland. Maggie was uncertain about
moving, about changing anything in her humble existence. Maybe she needed to
meet a guy?

She laughed at how she now had
“virtual boyfriends” after she had read a cool story a few months ago in the
Register.
The article said shy people were meeting each other on-line. Some dated. Some
even got married. Maggie decided to give it a try, figuring it was quite
harmless if you were careful and didn’t give out private information.

She stopped the music.

Sounded like a chair scraping.

“Hello?”

Silence.

“Anybody there?”

Nothing.

Maggie shrugged. The old building
was probably settling after last week’s tiny trembler. Little aftershocks.
Happened all the time. As she resumed playing, she reflected on some of the new
friends she made on-line among the discussion groups, chat rooms, e-mail
exchanges. It made her realize many people were living solitary lives, yearning
for someone to talk to. Like that guy aching to change his life, the way he
keeps asking if the right man came along would she forgive all the sins of his
past life.

Maggie’s heart went out to him
and she had recently responded:
I could forgive all of his sins only if he
could forgive mine.

He had responded the other day:
You
could be The One for me.

Maggie froze.

The stage floor creaked.
That’s
close.
A curtain swayed at the edge of the darkness.

“This isn’t funny.”

Silence.

“Did you hear me?”

A switch-clicking like a tool or
instrument being adjusted. Maggie swallowed.

Someone was definitely behind the
curtain.

A car alarm next to the hall
exploded with deafening whelping and horn honking. Then it sounded like a rear
door of the hall thudding. Maggie hurried to the lights, hit them all. She went
to the hall’s side door. A handful of laughing young boys were a few feet away,
gathered around a new car which looked a little too nice for the neighborhood.
The loud alarm was causing a commotion. A Santa Ana police car appeared, lights
flashing, screeched to a halt. Two officers stepped out, talked to a man in
dark glasses who was having trouble shutting off the alarm. Maggie heard the
stranger say: “It’s a new rental, sorry.”

One of the officers helped him
kill the noise before the stranger got in and drove off.

His partner asked Maggie:
“Everything all right in the hall there, ma’am?”

Maggie thought for a moment, then
nodded.

Later, after locking up the hall,
she walked home quicker than she usually did, wishing she had asked the police
officers for a ride.

It was a warm night but Maggie
couldn’t stop the icy chills running up and down her spine. She was convinced
someone had been in the hall.

Watching her from the darkness.

In the
San Francisco Star’s
newsroom,
Reed was putting the final touches on his short news article on Iris Wood’s
murder for the first edition.

He had some color from her
landlord.
“What sort of monster would do this to such a gentle soul?”
He
was a retired chemist. The
Star
took a nice photo of him holding Jack,
Iris’s cat outside her apartment.

Reed had a few quotes from the
news conference at American Eagle Federated Insurance, where she had worked and
where no one really knew her. But Tim Fairfield, the company executive handling
press questions, refused to put it in those terms.
“We respected her
privacy, as I hope you will respect ours.”
He asked the press to refrain
from pursuing American’s employees for more information.
“They are coping as
well as can be expected.”

Yeah, right. Judging from the calls
Reed made into the place, much of the staff did not even know she existed.
“Iris
who? What? That woman murdered in the bride shop worked for us?”
The
switchboard was still putting calls through to her extension.

Reed had worked through lunch and
got a bag of potato chips from the newsroom vending machine. His stomach was
growling when he returned to his desk, opening his bag, reaching in for the
first big chip when his phone rang.

“Reed.”

“Just read your story,” Brader
said. “Tells me nothing I didn’t already know.”

Reed swiveled in his chair
catching a glimpse of Brader in his glass-walled office at his computer, phone
to his ear. Reed began crunching his chips, making a point of smacking his
lips.

“You knew her cat’s name was
Jack? You knew she was a researcher who wrote bereavement guides? You knew all
this but never told anyone? Have police talked to you? Because you’re scaring
me, Clyde.” Reed reached for another chip. “What do you do in your spare time,
when you’re not clawing your way to the top?”

“I’m warning you, Reed. I want an
exclusive in-depth profile for the weekend.”

“I’m working on it as we speak.”
Reed continued crunching until Brader hung up.

Reed opened a soda, glad he never
told Brader, or anyone, about his tip from Slim. Not at this point. He needed
to develop it, verify it, parlay it. He had tried. Oh, how he tried. Working
sources in traffic, California Highway Patrol, the counties, feds like the FBI,
DEA, the city, every law enforcement agency where he trusted somebody,
carefully and delicately asking what they were hearing on the Stern Grove
scene, if anyone had heard of any leads on how or why Iris Wood’s car came to
be there. He never once gave up his information, sniffing peripherally to see
if anything out there substantiated Slim’s story. Of course, Sydowski was the
primary and the key. All day long Reed had tried in vain to reach him. Left
messages on his phone in the Hall, on his cell phone. No response. As if on
cue, Reed’s line rang. Maybe it was Sydowski.
Come on, Walt.

“Tom Reed,” he answered like
someone awaiting confirmation of a lottery win.

“It’s me,” his wife said.

“Oh. Hi.”

“My voice bring you down, Tom?”

“Ann. No. Hi. No. I was just
expecting another call.”

“Well, are you going to ask me?”

“What? I’m sorry, what?”

“About Zach. I went to the
specialist today, who sent us to another one.”

“Yeah, I was going to call you.
How did it go?” Reed’s cell phone trilled. Damn. That could be Sydowski. “Ann,
just wait, please, I got another call.” Why did this always happen when he was
talking to Ann? He answered the cell.

“Thomas,” Reed recognized the
voice of a justice source who always called him by that name.

“Hey, what did you find?”

“From the details you gave me,
this Slim is real, right down to the tattoo and earring. He’s one of ours.
Small-time thief stealing for his monkey.”

“Thanks.”

The source gave Reed Slim’s full
name.

“So, you going to tell me what’s
up, Reed? Slim got himself jammed? You never told me anything more.”

“No. At this point he could be a
hero.”

“Right.”

“Leave him alone now.”

“My plate’s full with real
trouble.”

“Thanks.”

Reed went back to Ann.

“So what did the doctor say?”

“He’s having some kind of
environmental reaction.”

“Is it serious? Does he have to
go into the hospital?”

“No, but --”

Reed’s other line rang.

“Hang on, Ann.”

It was a copy editor with a
question on his story. “Tom, is the cat’s name really ‘Jack Jack’ or is that a
typo?”

Reed called up his copy. “One
Jack.”

“The cat’s name is One Jack?”

“Jack. The cat’s name is Jack.”

Reed went back to Ann.

“Trying to talk like this is
ridiculous, Tom.”

“Ann, you know it’s deadline
time.”

“We should talk at home. Are you
going to be late tonight?”

“Well --” His cell phone rang.
“Darn. Just a minute.”

Reed grabbed his phone.

“Reed, Sydowski.”

“Walt! I know you’re busy, but we
should meet right away. I’ve come across something.”

“No time.”

“It’s on Wood.”

“Tom, tell me now.”

“A witness called me.”

“Witness to what?”

“We should meet.”

“I am not playing games with you,
Reed.”

‘Walter, you told me to ‘stay
with this one.’ Trust me, we should meet.”

“What’s this pertain to?”

“Stern Grove.”

Sydowski sighed. “I’ll be at the
diner I go to in North Beach. One hour.”

“Thanks.”

Reed went to Ann who had heard
Reed’s end of the conversation. “Try not to be late, Tom.”

The Oasis
was slivered between a head-shop and
mystic bookstore about mid-hill on a narrow North Beach side street around the
block from where Sydowski’s old man used to cut hair.

It had eight high-backed booths,
twelve stools at the counter, and walls darkened by time. Its menu had changed
little since the cook from a Greek freighter opened the place in the 1920s,
passing it to his sons who passed it to their sons.

Guys who had built the Golden
Gate had been regulars, along with blue-collar types who kept the city moving
then and now.

Sydowski did not come here as
much as he used to, but he liked it. The greasy smells alone were enough to
take him back to when he was a kid, clutching the money his old man gave him on
Saturdays to pick up cheeseburgers and french fries, rushing back to the
barbershop where beat cops had dropped by. Usually, to provide the details that
were absent from the latest crime stories reported in the
Examiner,
Chronicle
and
Star.

So long ago, Sydowski thought,
sitting there in the back booth with his mushroom soup and slabs of garlic
toast. They were good days. He was lucky to have Louise. He managed to call her
today. She had gone to his house in the Parkside to check on his birds. “I know
you’re busy with your case, Walter. Tomorrow, I’ll drive to Pacifica and pay
your dad a little visit.” Louise was an incredible woman. He had told her about
his concern for Reggie Pope, the history with Wyatt, how Wyatt had joined the
investigation. She had let him vent.

He finished eating and flipped
through his notebook. They had scattered pieces of the case, like the stun gun,
her face, a record of the last moment of her life with the university parking
garage video, a witness glimpse of a shadowy man. Sydowski wet his finger and
turned a page.

Maybe if he released more on her
life, released the fraction they had and some of the circumstances, it might
trigger a memory or give him the detail. Linda was already pushing a full
submission to VICAP. But he wasn’t convinced the FBI’s system could do anything
for him. At this point they’d only just begun to investigate. He’d kick things
around with the other detectives in homicide, wait until he was done with the
coroner and the crime lab, check with a California Justice Department analyst
in Sacramento. No way did he want the big federal footprint on his core stuff
now.

Sure, there was her computer. It
couldn’t be ruled out for leads. But he couldn’t stomach the fact Leo wanted
Wyatt to play with it. That’s where Sydowski wanted the FBI and someone else in
computer crimes. But everyone was jammed right now. He held out little hope for
Wyatt. Let the idiot play with it as long as the FBI and the others came to the
rescue. Sydowski hadn’t had much success on cases involving computers. He did
not fully understand them. Just because she communicated on-line with possibly
enough people to fill 3Com Park was an intangible as far as he was concerned.
He would concentrate on the physical. The stuff you held in your hand, the
tried-and-true that would hold up in court. He wanted a real victory, not a
virtual one.

Iris Wood’s funeral coming up.
They’ll send Wyatt there to surveil it with the photo unit. Maybe it would
remind Wyatt of where he almost left Reggie.

“Jeez, Walt, you look like you
want to tear somebody’s head off,” Reed said.

“I always feel that way when
you’re around.”

“You bring out the best in me
too, dear.”

A swarthy unshaven man in a white
apron materialized once Reed sat down.

“I fix you something to eat?”

“No. Wait. Yeah. Toasted BLT on
white, fries with gravy, coleslaw.”

The man banged through the tin
swing door to the kitchen.

“I see you’re still eating
healthy.” Sydowski sucked air through his teeth then began working a toothpick
through them.

“Speaking of health, my job is
ailing right now.”

Sydowski’s toothpick work held
more interest for him.

“Walt, why didn’t you let me know
more after you found her car when I was at the Hall? The
Chronicle
had
it. I got beat up on that. I was right there. You could have extended me the
courtesy. After all we’ve been through together.”

“Is that why you’re here,
inflicting yourself on me? How many times do I have to tell you, your career is
not my concern.” Sydowski made a point of looking at his watch. “Let’s go. You
said a witness called you.”

“Got any suspects?”

“Yes.”

“Who?”

“Everybody.”

“Where have you been looking?”

“Reed I don’t have time for
this.”

“Walt, how are you making out on
the spot where she was stopped?”

“I’m getting very cranky. Get to
it.”

Reed’s back was to the entrance
of the restaurant. He took stock for any potential eavesdroppers, then lowered
his voice.

“I’m going to give you some
premium information but I want something in exchange.”

“When do you
not
want
something from me?”

“I want to trade my data for some
solid exclusive stuff.”

“How about I put you in an
exclusive cell with exclusive meals and an exclusive cellmate to love you
exclusively all night long?”

“After all we’ve been through
together and this is the respect you show me.”

“I’m very tired.”

“So I have a deal?”

“What you have is a very grumpy
old cop. Are you going to get to the point? Because I’m going home to see my
birds.”

“Okay, Walt. I got a call from a
guy, out of the blue. I met him and he says he knows who killed her.”

“And?”

“Says he was there at the Grove
when her Focus was pulled over.”

“And?”

“Says he saw an unmarked police
car, the dash cherry spinning, make a stop on her. He says the cop gets out,
talks to her, she walks back to his cruiser, he hits her or something, then
drives off with her.”

Sydowski’s face did not betray so
much as a tick but his gut began churning.

“So, not bad, huh, Walt?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“He tell you this over the phone
after it was in the papers?”

“After. But those details are not
public.”

“What’s his name?”

“I’m protecting a source.”

“Age? Race?”

“Forget it, Walt.”

“Your guy get a plate number?
Make on the car, color. Description of the driver? Hear a unit number over the
radio?”

“No. Nothing like that.”

“Where did you meet this
tipster?”

“I’m not ready to give that up
yet.”

“Anybody could claim like that.
We get them all the time. Some come from the mother ship.”

“I think this guy’s real. I did
some checking.”

“Did you now? Can you place him
at the location? What was he doing there?”

“Conducting business.”

“What sort of business does he
conduct at night? Would the SFPD know this guy?”

“Most likely.”

“So if this guy is genuine, why
didn’t he come to us?”

“He’s afraid the cop he saw will
come after him, what with him being a witness.”

“And because of his business?”

“I suppose.”

“Let me ask you something,
hotshot. Ever dawn on you that the guy who called you might actually be
involved and is using you to throw us off? We know that has happened in
previous cases, don’t we, Tom?”

“I took precautions.”

“Like what, made him swear he was
telling you the truth, raise his fingers in the Boy Scout salute?” Sydowski
shook his head. “Tell me why your guy wants this out. What’s his angle?”

“Protection. He’s afraid.”

“Of what?”

“The cop who killed her.”

“The cop who
he says
killed her. Listen, maybe he’s afraid of getting nailed and calls you to create
this mystery cop diversion.”

“But you’re not ruling out that
it could be a cop.”

“I never said that.”

“You’re going to sit there and
tell me to my face that given information from a witness who saw a law
enforcement unit stop the car of Iris May Wood, you’re ruling out a line of
investigation that concerns checking with SFPD traffic, unmarked sector cars,
patrol and unit logs, with California Highway Patrol, every federal agency in
the Bay Area, city, state department and private firms, any department that
conceivably could have made a stop there?”

“I never said that.”

“Because one might suspect that
you are protecting your own house, there, Walt.”

Sydowski’s eyes narrowed. “You’d
be wise to be careful with your words. Did I not tell you off the top that
we’re looking at
everybody?”

“Fine. We’re on the same page.”

“Then cut the crap. You tell
anybody at all about your witness?”

“No.”

“You going to write about it?”

“Just a matter of time.”

“Reed.”

“First, I’d like you to check it
out.”

“Hey, I don’t work for you.”

“Then you’ll be checking it out
after the
Star
publishes it, won’t you?”

Sydowski’s eyes lost all warmth
as he brought his full size forward, moving his face to within inches of
Reed’s. “Are you attempting to exercise influence over a member of the San
Francisco Police Department to sway the course of a homicide investigation for
your gain and interest?”

Reed shook his head.

“Don’t you ever try to pull that
crap with me. Understand?”

“Look, it’s just that the
Chronicle
scoop on the car hurt me, especially since I was with you at the Hall, and I’m
really getting pressured from my new editor.”

“So write a letter to Ann
Landers. You’re certain your caller didn’t go to another news department?”

Before meeting with Sydowski,
Reed managed to get a phone message to Slim, conveying that he had Slim’s real
name and picture to ensure his exclusivity and cooperation.
I ain’t going
anywhere. My life is in your hands, man. In your hands.
Reed had calmed
Slim down, telling him that it all reinforced the fact he was telling the
truth.

“I am certain my guy won’t go
elsewhere.”

“You going to recommend he talk
to us, or are we going to have spend more taxpayer money and find him the hard
way?”

“I will work on getting him to
talk to you.”

“This is what I’ll give you. The
company where she worked is having a private funeral for her. I’ll get the few
friends she had to talk to you, so you can put out a story and I’ll see if I
can get you stuff no one else will have. Meanwhile, you get me this guy, or I
will come after you.”

“Done.”

Reed’s food arrived. He looked at
his watch.

“Sorry,” he told the man who
brought it. “Can you pack it up to go, along with three pieces of that Boston
cream pie, over there?”

“How are Ann and Zach doing?”

“Zach is dealing with some kind
of allergy and Ann is dealing with me.”

Sydowski shook his head. “God
help both of them.”

“How are your birds?”

“Fine.”

“Your old man?”

“Fine.”

“Your girlfriend?”

“You’re food’s ready.”

Reed grabbed his brown take-out
bag and waved.

Sydowski nodded a farewell, then
ordered a piece of Boston cream pie for himself. Alone again, he flipped
through his notes. The burglaries near Stern Grove on Crestlake would fit,
making Reed’s tip very, very plausible. He pulled out his cell phone to call
the district and push for more information, then Linda to revisit traffic logs.
After finishing the pie, he stepped into the street.

A cop. Jesus.