The 5th Horseman (14 page)

“Whatever,” I said. “The DA’s going to say it’s not evidence of murder.”

BUT MAYBE WE WERE getting closer to the evidence.

The Hotel Triton was busy that night, but it always had a brisk turnover. Fronting Union Square, steps away from the trolley line, across the street from Chinatown, it had a frisky Cirque du Soleil decor and a midrange room rate.

Jacobi pushed to the front of the line at the reception desk; he badged the clerk and brusquely told him to find the night manager. “Chop, chop. Move it before you lose it.”

A chunky man of forty stepped out of the back room. The name tag on his jacket read “Jon Anderson, Mgr.” He nodded at us, asked if there was a problem.

“There’s a big problem. We’re investigating a homicide,” I told him. “We need the sign-in records for September fifteenth and whatever you have on a guest named Alex Logan.”

Jacobi added, “And we need the tapes from that camera,” he said, stabbing his forefinger toward the camera behind the desk. “Also need the tape from the hall camera outside the room Logan used on that date, the fifteenth.”

The manager got huffy on us. “I suppose you have a warrant?”

“Do we need one? ’Cause we can get one and close this place down while we do a complete search.”

He appeared to quickly think over the implications of a search, then said, “The videotapes are on a forty-eight-hour loop. There won’t be anything on them from September fifteenth.

“But everyone here,” he said, pointing to the line of five college kids manning the reception desk. “All of them were on duty that night. I’ll pull the records for you. See how cooperative I am?”

A thin, distracted desk clerk by the name of Gary Metz had checked Alex Logan into room 2021.

“I think I remember this Mr. Logan,” Metz told us. He drummed his fingers on the desk, looked past my shoulder into the lobby, then focused on my eyes again. “He was with another man.”

I think I may have stopped breathing for a moment; I was that hopeful that we’d run this lead to ground.

“If I’ve got him right, he was about my height, kind of regular size. Maybe he was Chinese,” said the clerk.

“Alex Logan? He looked Chinese?”

“I think so. Maybe part Chinese. The other guy was a bruiser. Six two, two thirty, and blond. He’s the one that said he wanted a smoking room. Both of them looked straight, if you want my opinion.”

“And how do you figure that?” I asked.

“They wanted a room with a king-size bed, but they didn’t dress well enough to be gay. The bigger guy’s haircut looked like he did it himself.”

“Do you remember if they had any luggage?”

“The big guy had a large rolling bag. I noticed because it was leather. Maybe Tumi? Looked expensive.”

“Thanks, Mr. Metz,” I said, doing my level best to keep the excitement out of my voice. “We need to see the room.”

ROOM 2021 WAS TWO DOORS DOWN from the elevator, and it had the same whimsical decor as the lobby: a checkered-fabric headboard, three-legged chairs, a starred royal-blue carpet throughout. The current occupants had been hustled out at our behest, leaving their suitcases open on the bed and toiletries in the bathroom. There was an opened mini-bottle of Scotch on the night table.

I tried to imagine how the murder had gone down. The Chinese guy answering the door. Sandy Wegner saying hello. Throwing her coat down on the chair. The first guy spiking her drink with Rohypnol. The second guy, the bruiser, coming out of the bathroom for the kill.

I felt as if I could sense the murder happening around me. Sandy Wegner, helpless as she was raped, killed by two freaks.

The inexpressible horror grabbed me as I looked around for anything that might jump out. But the room had been slept in and cleaned many times since Sandy’s death.

“I hate hotel rooms,” I said to my former partner.

“The carpet probably has a million pubic hairs, none of them matching anything.”

“Thanks for putting that image in my head, Jacobi.”

The manager came to the door, said he was upgrading the current occupants and would keep 2021 free for as long as we needed. I thanked him, said we’d be leaving soon, but that CSU would be arriving shortly.

“CSU could find a print or, God willing, a hair with a skin tag,” I said to Jacobi.

“Doesn’t hurt to hope,” he said with a shrug.

I said, “Doesn’t hurt to pray.”

DUCKS HUNG BY THEIR NECKS in the front window of Wong Fat, a Chinese restaurant a five-minute walk from the Triton. “I like this place already,” I said.

Inside, the eatery was bright, fluorescent light bouncing off the linoleum floors and Formica tables. The menu, written in Chinese letters on strips of red paper, hung against the walls.

It was good to be in out of the dark and the chill at least. The tea was hot. The hot-and-sour soup was excellent.

As we waited for our entrées, Jacobi laid down the printout of Alex Logan’s charges at the Triton.

“Here’s the phone call to Top Hat,” he said. “Lasted four and a half minutes. Logan and his buddy also raided the honor bar. Champagne, nuts. Pringles for Christ’s sake. They ordered pay-per-view at nine. What do you think? Football or porn?”

“I think that these killers plan it all. They book the room, book the hooker, rape and kill her in a place that’s a contaminated crime scene by definition.

“Then they wash her off in the shower, clean up any hairs and fibers on her body.”

“Don’t forget the perfume.”

“Right, thank you,” I said. “Then they spray her privates, dress her up, comb her hair, and make her up like a little doll.”

“They used the suitcase to bring in the clothes. Used it again to take out the body,” said Jacobi. “That ‘bruiser’ simply rolls it out to the car.”

“And then they plant her so we can find her.”

I was about to wonder out loud where they got the clothes, when my cell phone rang.

It was Conklin.

“I ran Alex Logan’s name and credit card number, Lieutenant. Wait until you hear this. Alex Logan is a woman. I pulled up her license info — petite blonde, twenty-three years old. I think we found Caddy Girl.”

“What else have you got?”

“I went to her apartment building, Lieutenant. Nice place on Jones. According to her doorman, she hasn’t been home in a while. I also called American Express, and her card is active. There’s only been one charge in the last ten days. The Hotel Triton on September fifteenth.”

“I’ll call the DA. Get a search warrant for her apartment. Richie?”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“You’re gonna be a star.”

I hung up and turned to Jacobi, who was watching me, his fork in the air.

“What is it, Boxer?”

“Conklin made her,” I said. “The perps used her credit card to book Sandy Wegner and pay the hotel tab. Alex Logan is Caddy Girl.”

I LOOKED OUT over the squad room the next morning, anticipating a giant leap forward in the Car Girl case.

The victims had names, and with that crucial bit of news, there was a decent chance that the lives of Alex Logan and Sandy Wegner would intersect in a big fat lead that would help us nail their killers.

I could see Jacobi and Conklin through the glass, working the phones, reaching out to the girls’ parents, when a beam of sunshine sailed past Brenda’s desk and came through the gate.

It was Claire with a young woman in tow. She rapped on my office wall, and I waved her in.

“Lindsay, this is Bunny Ellis.”

“Nice to meet you — and welcome.”

Claire’s new assistant had gray eyes, slightly crossed, and a gap between the front teeth of her Crest-strip smile. The cosmetic flaws made her look touchingly appealing.

“Bunny was helping me get Misses Wegner and Logan ready to be released to their families,” Claire said. “Tell the lieutenant what you told me, Bunny.”

“I’ve been sooooo fascinated by these murders, you know? Such young women and such brutal—”

“The short version, child.”

“I’m sorry. It’s about their perfume, Lieutenant Boxer. I noticed it when they were brought in, but I didn’t know it was important.”

“Please go on,” I said, thinking about that haunting scent the killers had sprayed on the young women’s genitalia.

“My husband gave me that perfume for my birthday,” said Bunny. “Black Pearl. It’s made exclusively for Nordstrom.”

I looked at Claire, then back at Bunny. “You can’t get Black Pearl anywhere else?”

She shook her head emphatically. “Only at Nordstrom.”

I felt a shot of adrenaline, a hit of hope. Someone had bought that exclusive perfume at Nordstrom, a purchase that could lead to a credit card number, a name, or a good visual ID.

“Bunny, see those two inspectors over there in the corner?”

“The gray-haired guy and Inspector Conklin?”

I tried not to roll my eyes. Bunny had been with Claire for only a short time, and she could already pick Rich Conklin out of a lineup.

I nodded. “Go introduce yourself. Tell them about Black Pearl. You’re going to make their day.”

JACOBI AND CONKLIN had just headed out to Nordstrom on the perfume detail when Brenda called me on the intercom.

“Lieutenant, there’s a lady on the phone, says she needs protection. Won’t talk to anyone but the head of Homicide.”

“What’s her name?”

“Mrs. Anita Haggerty. Calling from Municipal Hospital. She’s a patient there, she says.”

The woman spoke in a low voice, just above a whisper.

“Lieutenant Baxter?”

“It’s Boxer. How can I help you?”

“Have you ever been so scared you’re throwing up? That’s how scared I am.”

“Back up, Mrs. Haggerty. Start from the beginning.”

“Okay, but I might have to suddenly hang up.”

I took down the woman’s room number and encouraged her to get to the point.

“I was in a hospital in Raleigh with a concussion three, four years ago. My roommate was in for a bleeding ulcer. Dottie Coombs. That was her name.

“Dottie was ready to go home when she suddenly went into seizures and died. Right in front of me.”

“Go on, Mrs. Haggerty.”

“She shouldn’t have died. The nurses closed my curtains, but they were very upset, saying, ‘How could this happen?’ And I heard her doctor say something to those nurses that I’ll never forget as long as I live. It was burned into my brain.”

“I’m listening.”

“He said, ‘Sometimes a bad wind blows.’”

“What did that mean to you?”

“It meant Friday the Thirteenth. It meant Nightmare on Elm Street. I don’t know, Lieutenant Baxter, but my friend was dead, and her doctor’s reaction was creepy and sick. And now he’s here. He poked his head into my room, and I think maybe he remembers me. I’ve got surgery tomorrow for a hernia,” Haggerty continued breathlessly. “Supposed to be a simple operation, but as God is my witness, I’m scared for my life.”

I was having the kind of premonition where you know what someone’s going to say before they say it. Cold sweat trickled down the sides of my body.

I pressed the receiver hard to my ear.

“Do you remember the doctor’s name?”

“I’ll never, ever forget it,” Haggerty said. “It was Garza. Dr. Dennis Garza.”

SOMETIMES A BAD WIND BLOWS.

It was an eerie phrase, and the fear in Mrs. Haggerty’s voice had given me chills. I heard Yuki’s voice, too. Someone at that damn hospital murdered my mother.

I drove to the hospital alone, telling myself that I wasn’t working a case. This was just an inquiry. A courtesy call, I guess you could say.

San Francisco Municipal Hospital is a humongous stone fortress of a place with a low wall and a smattering of shade trees between the entrance to the hospital and the sidewalk.

I parked in the lot and entered the gloom of the lobby. Crossed the granite-block floor to the elevator, got out on the third floor, and followed the arrows to room 311.

I was about to open the door to Haggerty’s private room, when a nurse’s aide came out with a load of sheets in her arms. I waited for her to clear out of the way; then I stepped inside room 311.

I had pictured Mrs. Haggerty from the sound of her voice, imagined her as having a wiry frame and dark, hennaed hair.

I hadn’t imagined for a second that her bed would be empty.

I stood blinking stupidly in the doorway, astonished by what I didn’t see. Then I spun around, out into the hall.

The nurse’s aide had already stuffed the sheets into a canvas trolley and was walking away from me.

“Wait,” I said, lunging out and grabbing for her arm.

Her face stretched with surprise. Kind of jumpy for hospital personnel.

“Take your hands off me. Please.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, showing her my badge. “Lieutenant Boxer, SFPD. I came to see Mrs. Haggerty in room 311.”