Every Move She Makes (13 page)

Reluctantly, "Not really. I pretty much keep to myself. I've got a kid,"

she said, as if that explained everything.

"Did Von ever hear or talk to her?"

"Passing in the hallway. She wasn't over that often. It was her
boyfriend's apartment." "What was his name?" I asked. I didn't bother
writing anything down. Couldn't. Adrenaline pricked at my wrists, my
hands were shaking. Again she looked up and down the hallway. "Everyone
'round here called him Spider."

"He still live there?"

"Moved out a few months ago. But I might have his address somewhere. He
left it in case he got any mail. You have a card?" she asked softly. "A
number where I could call you, later, private-like?" I gave her one,
willing my hand to be still as I handed it to her. She took it, and like
a frightened doe hurried back into her apartment, shutting and locking
the door behind her. I stood there in the hallway, trying to calm my
shattered nerves. "Hell. I thought I could do this."

"You did. No one got hurt. That's all that counts," Betty said.

Hardly, but there was little to be done about the matter now, other than
get through the last few apartments without blowing someone's head off.

As expected, we residents, and decided turned up little else from the
other to call it a day. I needed a drink, but let Betty convince me a
shot of caffeine would be more in order, and allowed her to drive me to
a coffeehouse instead of a bar. Neither of us talked about the incident.

I couldn't, not yet, and she was too much of a friend to do so. But I
knew she would, eventually, and I was grateful for the temporary
break she gave me. We were silent on the trip back to the Hall of
justice. then headed on to her Betty dropped me off out front, afternoon
appointment-I saw Reid coming down the front steps, and having no wish
to converse with him, made a beeline to the side entrance. As I turned
the corner, I noticed a black limo pulling up to the curb and saw Reid
approach it. The rear tinted window came down, and he leaned inside,
spoke to the occupant. I used my key to get in the side entrance. A
crowd had gathered by the elevators. After what happened at the Twin
Palms, I wasn't ready to face anyone just yet, and I bypassed them in
favor of the solitude of four flights of stairs in which I could try to
compose myself. I went to Homicide, only vaguely aware of the unusual
silence, the empty office. My mind was churning, piecing together what
had happened with the woman in nineteen, how I'd drawn down on her,
thinking I heard a gun cocking. Maybe I should make an appointment with
the department shrink.

I could have killed her. It was a damn door opening.

How had I ever thought it was a gun? The shrill ring of the phone sent
my heart into my throat. I was a mess. I took a breath, answered it.

"Gillespie-"

"You're dead. Just like the other two."

I slammed the receiver home, stared at the phone. I sank into my chair.

The other two? "What other two? Five, maybe ten minutes passed. How was I
going to get through my day? I needed to do something, anything. A
mindless task until I composed myself. Voice mail. I could do that. I
picked up the receiver and pressed in my code, listening to the
beginning of each message and fastforwarding through the ones that could
wait. "Hi, this is Martha over at Social Services ... flew from the
office. My footsteps echoed down the "Kate? This is Reid. I was
wondering if you wanted to go to the Black and White Ball..

"Hey, Kate. Leslie. I've got those Forty-Niner tickets for your aunt..

"Um, this is Martin. You told me to call if-" I fastforwarded before
remembering that I'd told the guys in Property to call. I depressed the
number four button again, and the message started over. "Um, this is
Martin. You told me to call if anyone came to get the evidence on your
cases ... ? Um, I think you better get down-" I heard a pop. Then,
"Oh, shit. Oh, God." The sound of the phone being dropped. Another pop.

Approaching footsteps, and then the phone disconnected.

hall. Or was it my blood pounding in my ears? Only then did it occur to
me why Homicide was empty, why there was a crowd at the elevators on the
ground floor. Even here on the fourth floor, a yellow crime scene tape
hung across the four elevator doors. I pushed past the spectators,
mostly SFPD support staff who had gathered around, some crying, others
standing in shock. If I let myself, I'd be one of them, useless in my
grief. The temptation beckoned. "Gillespie!" Lieutenant Andrews's voice
carried over the hushed murmur. He was the epitome of calm, a true
commander in the face of a crisis. It gave me the focus I needed, and I
clung to it. When I reached his side he said, -We've been trying to
raise you on the air." Now was not the time to go into my lapse at the
Twin Palms. No one gave a rat's tail about my current mental state, as
long as I could be counted on to provide support and investigative
expertise. "Where do you need me?" I asked.

In the basement to assist Markowski and Shipley.

They'll brief you. You can take the back elevator."

"Yes, Sir."

"One other thing, Gillespie," he said, stopping me when I was about to
leave. "Scolari was seen in the building." Whatever my heart had been
doing a few moments before, it stopped cold at the implication of the
lieu' tenant's words. Somehow I made it to the basement, my thoughts
tumbling as I surveyed the scene, identified the faint but acrid smell
of smoke. I could have sworn it was Zimmerman I had seen this morning in
the elevator after I picked up my evidence in Property, but I had to
admit that as short a glimpse as I had, it could've been Scolari. They
were frequently mistaken for each other on the street, though always by
outsiders. Had I done the same? I thought of my earlier conversation
with Allison, the records clerk. How she said Scolari had spoken with
her just before his wife was killed, and how he mentioned something about
the frozen guy, my Ice Man. A connection, perhaps, to the mysterious
inquiry into my evidence on the case? Had Scolari been the one to call,
to try to pick up the evidence? I stopped to give my name to the officer
on the perimeter who kept the crime scene log, then waited on the
fringes. The CSIS brought in sheets of plastic to conduct an
electrostatic charge. They'd used this technique successfully in the
past, picking up footprints in the otherwise invisible dust layer on the
concrete floor. When that was through, and after they picked up any
remaining trace evidence, I headed to the Property room. The burnt smell
grew stronger. The forewarning of Martin's phone call could not have
prepared me for what I saw. Though my mind had conjured up all sorts of
images, subconsciously I knew I kept alive the hope that I was wrong
about what I'd heard on my voice mail. It was like reading an article in
the paper, or hearing the news broadcast on "TV. No matter how aptly
described, unless you were directly involved, what you learned was
always something that happened to someone else. As I stepped through the
doorway, the horror of what I'd heard on the phone crashed with the
nightmarish reality of what I saw now. Bill Smith, Smitty, was slumped
over the counter, a pool of blood beneath his head, dripping red onto
the cold and unforgiving floor. I closed my eyes, every nerve in my body
screaming for me to get out before I saw more. I fought for autopilot,
the mode I needed to go into this case with my sanity intact, to stay
removed from the scene; but Martin's phone call kept echoing in my head.

"Hey, Gillespie," Markowski called out when he saw me. "Glad you're
here. We can use your help." "What happened?" I managed, eyeing Smitty's
body again. Rigor had yet to settle in, but probably would before the
body was ever moved. Unlike other crimes, there was no rush in homicide.

I forced my gaze back to Markowski's.

"We're trying to piece it together. Far as I can tell, someone came
down, shot them, lit those containers on fire, then left. Traced them to
three cases. One belongs to Betty Ramirez, a drug case she went to court
on. The others are yours." He showed me the case numbers. "Ring a bell?"

I glanced at the evidence boxes, both partially melted, the contents a
blackened lump at the bottom. I recognized my case number from the Ice
Man. A chill crawled up my spine. Rocky guided me past the burnt
evidence. I didn't want to look, but knew I had to. Beyond was Martin
splayed on the floor, his blue eyes fixed forever in an unseeing stare
at the ceiling, a single bullet hole centered on his forehead. A few
inches from his hand was the packet of photos, as though he had just
pulled them out to show someone but had dropped them when he fell. I
thought of his grandson. His first haircut. My biological clock ticked a
notch at the reminder of my own mortality.

"He called me," I heard myself say.

"What? I left my card. Told him and Smitty to call if someone tried to
pick up any of my evidence. The murder's on my voice mail." "Jesus
Effing Christ." A little politer than the vernacular I would've used,
but apt. Shipley walked in from the back of the room with another
property clerk. "She says it doesn't look like anything else has been
touched," he said, indicating the clerk,

"but she can't be sure till they start an inventory."

"Gillespie heard the murder go down," Rocky said.

"What?"

"On her voice mail. Martin called her." "Soon as the CSIS finish, get
started on the inventory," Shipley told the clerk. To me he said, "Let's
go find a phone. I want to hear it. Might as well get your statement at
the same time. You were down here earlier, right?" He knew it as well as
I, since we ran into each other at the elevator. Momentarily I wondered
if he suspected me of being the killer, but nothing in his manner
indicated this, and I couldn't imagine he or Markowski would let me down
here if they thought such a thing. We returned to Homicide. Using the
phone at my desk, I accessed my voice mail and handed Shipley the phone.

His face, impassive on taking the receiver, tensed, and I figured he'd
heard the first shot. He hit the number four button, listened again,
then slowly lowered the receiver. "Do me a favor. Co get something to
record this thing," he said, pulling out his notebook. I retrieved a
telephonic recording device from a cabinet. Shipley was sitting, making
notes. It took me a couple of minutes to set it up, my fingers still
shaking. I accessed the message, recorded it. "I'm going to send it to
my archives," I said when I'd finished. He nodded, wrote something else.

"Tell me what that was all about." I explained briefly about the frozen
John Doe case, how I'd gone down to check out some evidence, only to
discover someone had requested it before me. "Martin must have called
when this guy came to get it," I finished.

Then I remembered the last threatening call I'd received.

"Someone called up and said I was dead, just like the other two. I
didn't know what he meant, then. Now I do."

"Same caller as on the other phone threats?"

"I think so." He made a notation on his pad. "What time was it when you
went down to Property to collect the seeds?" "I didn't really pay
attention. I do know it was several minutes before I ran into you and
Rocky. I thought I'd seen Zimmerman in the elevator, and wondered if he
was the one who'd requested my evidence." "Why would he do that? He
works down there." That was a point I hadn't considered at the time.