Red Line (24 page)

Kristoffer Eric Olsen told Liz that there wasn’t any reason for them to be standing outside looking at the bus bench. “Why don’t we get back in the van where it’s cool?”

Olsen put his camera in the back of the van and climbed into the driver’s seat. Everything was working according to his plan. Once he had sent Liz the last e-mail, he walked down the hall to the newsroom and strolled past Liz’s desk just as she looked up from her computer. She asked if he was available for what she said was the story of the year. Of course he was, he replied. Liz never suspected he was anyone other than Eric, a photojournalist burned out from working in New York City too long, an easygoing guy who eagerly worked with her on assignments even when the other cameramen tried to avoid her, and the great listener during the countless hours they spent together when she talked endlessly about herself, her relationship, and her insecurities.

“We got video of the bus bench from every angle possible,” said Liz. “As well as plenty of me talking that will work as teasers and a good introduction for our meeting with the man responsible. What now?”

“I guess we just wait for his next e-mail. Did you tell the producer or assignment editor where we were going?”

The van’s air conditioning blasted its icy air on Olsen and Liz. Wearing a tan photographer’s vest over a polo top, Olsen was still sweating from his recent activity outside, but Liz was wearing a sheer blouse and chose to turn the vent away from her.

“Just that we’re doing an interview that might require more than the five minutes they allotted to my special report.”

“Would they have permitted this if you told them?”

“No way,” she said. “They’d have called the news director at home, who would’ve insisted on talking to legal, and the thirty-minute deadline would have come and gone.”

“Sounds like we might be in trouble?”

“You’re just following my orders, and if we bag this interview, we’ll be heroes.”

“What about your friend, Sergeant Sinclair?”

“He’ll be pissed. Matt doesn’t see the work we journalists do as important. But I’ll call him as soon as we finish and tell him where the killer is.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“I’m thinking that once he tells us where to meet, I can call Matt and . . . I won’t tell him where we’re going, but I can send him some place close and tell him to wait.”

“What if he has every cop in the department search that area for our van? That would blow the interview and might put you in danger if the man thinks you betrayed him.”

“Good point.”

“Maybe once he tells us where to meet, you can tell Sinclair to wait at the bus bench.” Afraid he just revealed
more than he should, he added, “assuming the interview location is in that vicinity, but not too close.”

He could see Liz smiling out of the corner of his eye. “You’re good at this.”

“Before I came to Channel Six, I spent years overseas. I was part of a film crew that did these kinds of meets with members of Hezbollah in Beirut, and later with a BBC team that did the same with Hamas in the West Bank.”

“I didn’t know that. I just thought you were a local news station photojournalist in New York.”

“The overseas stuff was back in my younger years.”

Liz smiled. “What’s the secret to working with dangerous subjects?”

“Don’t cross either side. If you cross the terrorists, they kill you. If you cross the authorities, they lock you up.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say anything to Matt until we finish the interview and are safely back in the newsroom?”

Olsen thought for a moment. He was afraid Sinclair might talk her out of the interview if they spoke, yet he wanted Sinclair to know what she was doing so he’d go crazy worrying, just as Jane did when she raced to the hospital after the phone call about Samantha.

“I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the police,” said Olsen. “But if you never actually talk to him, he can’t tell you not to do it. Can’t you just leave him a message or shoot him a text?”

“That might work.”

“I’m going to change batteries and put the one in the camera into the charger,” said Olsen as he opened the door. “Happiness is two fully charged batteries.”

He walked around the van and opened the back doors, slid his personal phone from his back pocket, and sent the next e-mail. He was climbing into the driver’s seat when Liz’s Blackberry chimed.

“Is it from him?” Olsen asked.

“Yeah.”

“What’s it say?”

“
You must follow these instructions or else you’ll never see me. Turn off your phones, both yours and your cameraman’s. All the way off. Place them on the dash. Drive to the Golden State Motel at Fifty-Fourth and San Pablo. Park in the rear of the lot. Send your cameraman, alone, into the lobby. The manager will give him an envelope with further instructions.
”

Olsen pulled his work phone from his belt and held down the power button until it shut down. “You best make your phone call,” he said as he tossed his phone onto the dash.

Liz brought up a contact list on her phone and pressed
Sinclair
.

“I thought you were going to leave a message at his office,” said Olsen.

“I owe him this much,” she said.

“I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Matt, damn you—answer your phone,” she said into the air. After a pause, she spoke. “When you get this message, you won’t be able to call me back, but I’m on my way to interview the Bus Bench Killer. Wait at the bus bench and I’ll call you with his location when I’m done.” She let out a deep sigh, switched her phone off, and placed it on the dash.

“You still want to do this?” Olsen asked.

“Damn straight. Let’s go win our Peabody Award.”

Olsen pulled the shift lever into drive and pulled away from the curb. He reached behind him and swung a six-pack cooler to the front. “I have some cold waters in there. Help yourself.”

“Thanks,” she said, unzipping the flap. “One for you?”

“No, I’m good for now.”

Olsen made a left turn on Fifty-Fifth Street as Liz unscrewed the top off a bottle of water and took several swallows.

Braddock was still staring at the photograph when Sinclair turned to her. “Just to be safe, you should call Ryan.”

“I better call Liz.” Sinclair pulled out his cell and listened to her voicemail.

“How fucking stupid can she be,” he said.

He called Liz’s cell. It immediately went to voicemail.

“She’s got her phone turned off,” Sinclair said to Braddock. He next called the assignment desk at Channel 6. They said Liz was with the cameraman, Eric, doing an interview related to her special but didn’t know where or any other details. Sinclair was afraid to tell the station what was happening or ask for their assistance because if Olsen found out the police were on to him, he’d likely kill Liz immediately.

“Let’s call dispatch and have them broadcast a comm order for all units to be on the lookout for the van,” said Braddock.

“All the news vans have scanners,” said Sinclair. “Olsen will kill her as soon as he hears the broadcast.”

He turned to Jankowski. “Call Sanchez and have him get a search warrant for this place, but don’t wait for it. Tear
the place apart and find something that’ll tell me where they’re at.”

“Let’s go,” Sinclair said to Braddock and ran to the elevator.

Some cars swung to the right, some stopped in front of him, and others just continued to drive down the middle of the street as Sinclair screamed down the street with his lights flashing and siren blaring. As he approached MacArthur Boulevard, he shut down his emergency equipment.

“I have no idea why I’m racing to the bus bench,” said Sinclair. “No one’s there.”

“You’re worried about her,” said Braddock. “You need to do something, but we can’t find her without help.”

Sinclair called the patrol sergeant for the North Oakland District on her cell phone and gave her the run down. She had every patrol officer that wasn’t busy on a priority assignment switch to a tactical channel that scanners couldn’t monitor and, with the help of a dispatcher, assigned the six available officers a grid to search for the news van.

2L72 asked over the radio, “Can you see if any other agencies have a helicopter up today?”

“East Bay Regional Parks had Eagle One up earlier for the high-fire danger, Two-L-Seventy-Two,” said the male dispatcher. “I’ll make a call.”

“If you reach them, make sure they understand they cannot broadcast on a main freq,” said Sinclair.

“Copy that, Thirteen-Adam-Five,” said the dispatcher.

“It’s times like this that I really miss ARGUS,” said Braddock.

ARGUS, which stood for Arial Reconnaissance Ground Unit Support, was OPD’s helicopter and had been grounded
for most of the year because of budget cutbacks. “Crime keeps going up, yet they take away resources every year and wonder why the bad guys are winning,” said Sinclair.

“If it were easy, anyone could do it,” she said.

The radio cracked with the voice of the patrol sergeant. “Can Thirteen-Adam-Five give us a hint on where we should be looking?”

“Some place where they could conduct an interview undisturbed—a house, an office,” said Sinclair for the benefit of all officers on the radio channel as he pulled into the bus loading zone on MLK Jr. Way. “I know that’s not much help.”

“Two-L-Seventy-Two and Thirteen-Adam-Five,” said the dispatcher. “Eagle One is going down for fuel right now. If there’re no smoke calls after they refuel, they’ll head our way. ETA about thirty minutes.”

Sinclair thanked the dispatcher and listened as units reported areas they searched. He knew they’d be lucky to find the van in time. There were just too many miles of street to cover, and the van could be tucked away off the street or even outside their search grid.

*

“This guy might be watching, so make sure you don’t touch your phone,” said Olsen as he stepped out of the van and marched across the parking lot.

Patel was looking out the window at the Channel 6 van. The smell of curry was even stronger in the heat.

“Hello, sir, is there something I may assist you with?”

“Nothing at all.” Olsen removed a hundred-dollar bill and slid it through the window. “I just wanted to thank you for respecting my privacy.”

Patel smiled and bowed his head slightly. “You are welcome, sir.”

Olsen pulled an envelope from his vest pocket and returned to the van. Once inside, he tore open the envelope and removed a room key and a note, which he handed to Liz.

Liz’s lips quivered as she read the note. “Get all the equipment you’ll need, go into the room, and set up. I’ll be there when I’m certain you weren’t followed.”

“We can still back out,” said Olsen, knowing that if she were indecisive, his suggestion would raise her bravado.

“No way.” She swung open her door and stepped onto the cracked asphalt parking lot.

Olsen opened the van’s rear doors and handed the tripod to Liz. Every reporter knew it was customary for them to carry the five-pound tripod while the cameraman handled everything else, and having her carry it would make her feel they were a team. He gathered his camera, light set, and cooler, and led the way to the room. He unlocked the door, pushed it open with his body, and let Liz squeeze by him into the dark room.

“It’s like an oven in here,” she said as she flipped on the light switch.

Olsen set his equipment on the small table under the window and fumbled with the controls on the air conditioning unit until it clanked and hissed and finally blew a stream of cool air. He began setting up his lights and tripod as Liz wandered around the room. She looked in the bathroom and turned toward Olsen, her nose scrunched in disgust.

“If the walls of this room could talk,” she said.

Olsen grinned. “I take it you don’t normally frequent places like this.”

She laughed. “On assignment only.”

Olsen pushed a chair against a wall and pulled the other toward the door so they faced each other. He positioned the lights and fastened the camera onto the tripod.

“I suggest we have the man sit in the far chair. He’ll be the primary subject, but I can zoom out at times and get both of you in the frame to show the interaction. While we’re waiting, I can get some cut-away shots of you sitting in your chair asking questions.”

As Liz walked toward the chair, she stumbled, but caught herself by grabbing the dresser.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

“Feeling a bit lightheaded,” she said. “Must be the heat.”

“Why don’t you just sit down for a minute? I’ll get you another water.” Olsen grabbed a bottle from the cooler and handed it to her.

*

“If you were a reporter, where would you conduct an interview with a killer?” asked Braddock.

“In my studio,” said Sinclair. “But Olsen certainly planned this as carefully as he did the other murders. I’m sure Liz has no suspicion he’s anything other than her coworker.”

“Do you think he’ll actually take her to a place he picked out for an interview—that he’ll reveal his true identity there and go through with the interview?”

“Maybe he just tazes her like the other victims and takes her some place to kill her?”

“If so, we’re already too late.”

“He must have another place,” said Sinclair. “He didn’t park that crappy old van at the luxury apartment building, and he sure didn’t take the Hammond woman there, past all the security cameras, to kill her.”

“A house with a garage where he could come and go without anyone noticing,” Braddock suggested.

“Or one of the transient motels or apartments where no one calls the cops even when someone’s being robbed in front of them.”

Sinclair radioed his hunch to 2L72, and she directed half of her units to the motels on West MacArthur, known for prostitution and drugs, and the other half to drug hotspots further south.

Sinclair wished Olsen hadn’t torched the van. The inside would have contained clues as to where he frequented—maybe a fast food wrapper or a store receipt. The registration had been a dead end. Like many cars driven in Oakland, it hadn’t been registered in more than a year. The last owner told SFPD he sold the van for cash to an elderly man who never showed him identification. The van probably passed through many people since. Sinclair remembered looking at the photos of the burnt van earlier this morning. He’d noticed several bumper stickers:
Oakland Raiders
,
Vote for Change—Obama 08
, and
Praise Baptist Church
.

“Ever hear of Praise Baptist Church?” he asked Braddock.

She pulled out her iPhone. “Fifty-Six-Oh-Four Marshall.”

“Let’s check it out.”

Sinclair turned onto Fifty-Third Street and headed west. He zigzagged through narrow residential streets until he hit San Pablo Avenue. Marshall Street paralleled San Pablo,
one block west, so Sinclair made a right on San Pablo, heading to Fifty-Fifth Street. On his left was a hamburger joint with a walk-up window and a large parking lot where Sinclair remembered waiting many nights as a young patrol officer for the paddy wagon to pick up someone he had arrested. On the other corner of Fifty-Fourth Street was the Golden State Motel, where he had made a half-dozen prostitution arrests when he worked vice narcotics. He glanced at the motel. In the far corner of the parking lot sat the Channel 6 News van.