Every Move She Makes (3 page)

"So what'd you do?"

"Gave her the damn key and left." He didn't look at me. Didn't even
move. There wasn't much I could say or offer. I didn't know him well
enough. I gathered the report from the printer, put it in the
lieutenant's in-basket, then headed for the door. "See you tomorrow," I
said.

"Yeah." He was still staring at the coffeepot when I left for home.

The fog was heavy, even in Berkeley, where I lived. I loved the Berkeley
hills, the trees, the vine-covered houses, the deer that wandered down
from the eucalyptus groves and the valley beyond. I rented a small
apartment with a minuscule view of the bay, if I stood just so to the
left of my bedroom window. It was situated on the second story of a
house built in the 1920s, accessed by a mossy brick walk along the north
side that led to stairs at the rear. It was set on the hillside, so the
backyard was nearly nonexistent, filled with ivy and trees, giving an
illusion of privacy from the houses on each side and directly below.

Tonight there was no view as I looked out my window. Muffled wet gray
obscured all traces of life on earth, and I thought of my partner, and
how I'd left him there, alone, watching the coffeepot. I'd assisted in
suicide cases while working on the Hostage Negotiation Team. I don't
know why I hadn't seen it earlier, but Scolari had that same lost look,
his voice devoid of all emotion. I called his desk, his cell phone, and
the apartment he'd been staying at ever since his wife kicked him out.

No answer. I left messages on his voice mail and his answering machine,
telling him to contact me the moment he came in. Finally I paged him,
typing "URGENT" at the end of my computer message to call me immediately
at home. I slept fitfully that night, dreaming of Scolari holding a gun
to his mouth. The vision of a bloodied corpse was so vivid that I awoke
with a start. My alarm clock went off simultaneously, five-thirty, and I
had no idea if it was the alarm or my dream that had sent my heart
drilling through my chest. I pictured the headline: SFPD HOMICIDE

INSPECTOR COMMITS SUICIDE, and knew I couldn't leave for Napa until I
assured myself that Scolari was okay. I showered, dressed in jeans and a
sweatshirt, and headed back to the city. I should have stuck around the
office last night, talked to him. Halfway there, I realized I'd
forgotten to let Reid know I wasn't coming. I dialed my car phone and
called his cellular. "Bettencourt," he answered. I heard a woman's voice
in the background, thought it sounded familiar.

"Are you with someone?"

"Yeah, room service and the morning news. Where are you?" "Still in the
city. Something came up. Sorry I didn't make it there last night, but
I'm going to have to cancel. Do me a favor. Let the hotel know, so I
won't have to pay for tonight's room." There was a hesitation. "Yeah,"

he said tersely. "Don't worry about it. I know these things happen. I'll
see you Monday." Surprised by his mature response, despite the tone that
said he was annoyed, I was glad he wasn't going to wait around. It gave
me the freedom to check up on Scolari without feeling guilty for
standing Reid up. At Scolari's apartment, the Saturday newspaper was on
his front step. When he didn't answer his door, I got the manager to let
me in. "Sam?" I called, tossing the newspaper onto his couch. His
apartment was in the redlight district-so much for him being on the
wagon-and wherever I looked, there were empty beer bottles and ashtrays
filled with cigarette butts. On the TV, on the coffee table next to a
half-eaten dinner of fried chicken, on the kitchen counter next to a
sink full of dirty dishes, in the bathroom on the edge of the mildewed
tub, and on a nightstand next to his rumpled bed. My heart thudded when
I saw the lump on the floor beneath the comforter.

I must have stared at it for several seconds before finally
lifting it, certain I'd find Scolari, thankful to see it was only
pillows, no body. I scrawled out a note, taped it to his TV, then locked
the door after me, fully intending to give him hell for drinking again.

After I left there, I checked a few of the bars he used to frequent
before he gave up drinking. I fully expected to find him at Murphy's
Law, despite that it was only midmorning. The bartender, named Murphy,
was an ex-cop; the patrons, for the most part, current cops. On the wall
of the dimly lit bar was a poster listing the various things that could
run amok according to the proverbial Murphy's Law. Years ago some
officer whose investigation had gotten screwed up had scrawled one of
his own right on the wall below the poster. "If your case hinges on a
pertinent piece of evidence, you can guarantee that the property clerk
will lose it when you're due to testify in court." Apparently the clerk
in question had written one of his own below that. "If Property can't
find the evidence, you can guarantee the officer booked it under the
wrong case number." The tradition continued, and there were at least
thirty or more additions, all pertaining to "what could go wrong, will
go wrong" in police work. No one at the bar, however, had seen Scolari.

I was at a dead end, and didn't know where to turn. Scolari didn't call
that night or Sunday either, and Monday, I was definitely worried when I
came to work. Gypsy, the division secretary, looked up from her typing
long enough to hand me a manila folder on a new case. In her
mid-forties, she was tall, redheaded, and had a figure more lethal than
the weapons we carried. She was the real boss, regardless of our
supervisor's tide. "Scolati called in sick, so the lieutenant wants you
to get back on the Slasher cases ASAP." After my weekend from hell, I
wasn't sure what to think about her news, delivered so matter-of-factly.

File in hand, I wandered to my desk and sat down. My phone rang. I
answered it, thinking more about Scolari than who was on the other end.

"You're dead, Gillespie." I sat upright at the muffled voice. "Who is
this?"

"Testify, and you're dead."

"Testify to what?" I asked, even though I knew. I wanted to keep him
talking, hoped to hear something that would tell me who was making the
call, or where it was made from. "Hello?" I prodded. There was merely
silence. I hung up, wondering if it was a coincidence that the threats
had started up again, now that I was involved in et another case with a
connection to Paolini. He stood to lose a lot when his drug case came up
for appeal; namely, three million dollars in assets that were seized
along with several pounds of cocaine taken from his Nob Hill home in a
search. He blamed me directly because I had posed as the sister of a
man, a fellow Narcotics officer, interested in buying a large quantity
of cocaine. We'd clicked, Paolini and I. I'd been able to slip past his
defenses and gain his trust. I phoned the DA's office to let them know of
this latest threat. They had their own investigators working the case-my
ex was one of them-but I knew better than to expect miracles. Forcing
the matter to the back of my mind, I opened the file folder. I read the
report Gypsy gave me, a basic drunk-in-public arrest, wondering how it
had found its way to Homicide, until I read the drunk's statement to the
officer. He said he'd witnessed a murder of a woman about a year ago,
but couldn't remember where the body was. The MO he'd described matched
that of five other female murder victims-all were found with their
throats slashed. The press had dubbed the suspect the Soma Slasher,
because the murders occurred in the Soma district, short for South of
Market Street. The victims were all brunettes, but their common link
seemed to stop there. The), ran the gamut from businesswoman to
housewife, and even included a prostitute I'd known during my days in
Vice. I interviewed my alleged witness when he came out of the drunk
tank, but his memory was even worse now that his blood alcohol content
was reaching normal levels. More important, the victim he described, if
there was one-his facts became more skewed the longer we spoke happened
to be blond. "I-want him loose," I told the jailer. There was nothing
more he could offer. In the meantime I decided to stop by Scolari's
apartment again. If he was sick, he wasn't staying at home. My note was
still taped to his TV. I returned to work, spoke with our boss,
Lieutenant Harry Andrews. Andrews, a former college quarterback, had
opted for a career in law enforcement instead of pro football. There
were those who said he had been promoted because he was black. After
working for him, I knew otherwise. I told him about my fears and the
unusual condition of Scolari's apartment. "This is beyond falling off
the wagon," I finished.

"I agree," he said. "Do you know where else he might be?"

"No, Sir." "I'll look into it, Gillespie." I left, knowing he would do
his best, but still I worried about Scolari committing suicide.

I couldn't shake the feeling that maybe I should have done more, sooner.

On Tuesday morning Scolari again called in sick. The Osecretary assured
me she had spoken to him personally, so I convinced myself that any
thoughts of him committing suicide were strictly in my mind, not his.

With Scolari gone, however, I was the one who had to pick up the
evidence from our frozen homicide victim's autopsy at the morgue,
located directly behind the Hall of justice. I half suspected Scolari
had called in sick to avoid running into his wife. Not only was Dr.

Patricia Mead-Scolari present, but she was doing the autopsy herself.

She was a handsome woman in her fifties with short gray hair. Her
commanding presence had nothing to do with the way she wielded the
Stryker saw to cut into the chest cavity of my latest John Doe, or the
Ice Man, as I'd dubbed him. Send me to any murder scene, I'm usually
fine as long as the body is fresh. Autopsies are a different story. I
hate the morgue, the refrigerated stench of death that can't be masked
by any amount of antiseptic deodorizers. The smell lingers in the
crevices of the drain and grout in the tiled floor, in the green paint
on the walls, in the chilled air of the refrigerated drawers that store
the bodies, even on the stainless steel of the gurneys and white
porcelain of the autopsy tables. The memory of those smells assaulted my
nostrils for hours after I left, even more so than the visual impact of
watching the autopsies themselves-whicii, thanks to Cal-OSHA,
California's Occupational Safety and Health Administration watchdogs, we
rarely had to do anymore because of all the protective gear they require
us to wear. "'which is why I stayed in the doorway. I didn't want to put
on a respirator, another Cal-OSHA requirement. I merely wanted to
collect my evidence. "Have you heard from Sam?" I asked the doctor. "I
hear he's been pretty sick." She barely paused in her examination of the
victim's heart and lungs, making notes as to their size, weight, and
condition to her assistant, a short, wiry man with curly red hair, who
wrote down everything even though a tape recorder also picked up the
doctor's observations. She rattled off a few more details for her
report, finished examining the remainder of the victim's organs before
cutting into his skullcap. She finally answered over the whir of the
saw, but I couldn't hear. "What?" I called out precisely at the moment
the saw shut off. My question echoed across the room. "I said we're
supposed to meet at seven tonight for dinner. Finalize things." This was
uttered with the same matter-of-factness with which she peeled away the
scalp and face from the victim's skull. She adjusted her protective
goggles with the back of her hand and wiped her brow with the sleeve of
her green surgeon's jacket before turning her attention back to the
macabre procedure of removing his brain. Thawed out, the Ice Man seemed
to be a normal looking Caucasian subject, unremarkable in appearance for
some slight freezer burn, a now misplaced face, and the fact he was
lying naked on a porcelain table that reminded me of a three-inch-deep
bathtub. They say dead men tell no tales. Perhaps not to the ordinary
person, but the doctor could coax a story out of any corpse. She was as
much a detective when it comes to dead bodies as we are when it comes to
crime scenes. While she was busy weighing the Ice Man's gray matter, I
turned my attention to the items found on his person once he had been
brought to a normal level of refrigeration. His tan slacks, light blue
shirt, and brown oxfords no coat, no wallet) were marked and ready to be
booked into evidence. There was also a wide gold wedding band in a clear
plastic bag, along with something else. Seven very small brownish-green
seeds. "What are these from?" I asked, holding up the bag. "Look here,"