The 9th Judgment (11 page)

“Sounds like he’s military. Special Ops. Or he’s a military contractor. Got the suppressor on the black market or overseas.”

“Yeah. The military angle makes sense. But there are, what, thousands and thousands of former military guys in the city? And
half of them fit this guy’s description. Hey, what’s this?” I asked as another video came on the screen.

I watched with my mouth open as a handheld camera bumped along behind Claire. It was recording her leaving the morgue, heading
to the parking lot just outside her office. Reporters fired questions about the victims and asked her if there was anything
she could tell the people of San Francisco.

Claire turned her back to the cameras and got into her new Prius. She started it up, and I thought that was it—
Get lost, you vultures
—but she buzzed down the window, rested her elbow on the frame, and looked squarely at the cameras.

“Yes, I have something to tell the people of San Francisco, and I’m not speaking as the chief medical examiner. I’m speaking
as a wife and a mother. Are we clear?”

There was a chorus of yeses.

“Moms, keep your eyes open,” Claire said. “Don’t trust anyone. Don’t park in lonely places, and don’t get near your car unless
there are other people around. And, no kidding, get a license to carry a handgun. Then
carry
it.”

PETE GORDON SAT in the kitchen, laptop in front of him on the red Formica table, his back to the porch where Sherry was doing
stupid puppet tricks for her brother. The stink bomb was shrieking with joy or fright, Pete really didn’t know which, because
it was all like having a screwdriver jabbed through his eardrum.

Pete yelled over his shoulder, “Keep it down, Sherry! In a minute, I’m going to take off my belt.”

“We’ll be quiet, Daddy.”

Gordon returned to the letter he was composing, a kind of ransom note. Yeah. He liked thinking of it that way. He was a pretty
good writer, but this had to be crystal clear and without any clues to his identity.

“An open letter to the citizens of San Francisco,” he wrote. “I have something important to tell you.”

He thought about the word “citizens,” decided it was too stiff, and replaced it with “residents.” Much better.

“An open letter to the residents of San Francisco.” Then he changed the second line: “I have a proposition to make.” Suddenly
there was a shrill scream from the porch, and Sherry was shushing the stink bomb and then calling in through the window, “Daddy,
I’m sorry, please don’t get mad. Stevie didn’t mean it.”

The baby was crying on both the inhale and the exhale, un-fucking-relenting. Pete clenched his hands, thinking how much he
hated them and everything about the life he lived now.
Look at me, Ladies and Gentlemen, Captain Peter Gordon, former commando, currently Househusband First Class.

What a frickin’ tragedy.

The only thing that gave him joy anymore was working on his plan. Thinking how, after he’d wasted Sherry and the stink bomb,
it was going to give him great, great pleasure to show the princess who he really was. He could hardly wait to silence her
nagging.
Pete, sweetie, don’t forget to pick up the milk and don’t forget to take your meds, okay? Hey, handsome, did you make lunch
for the kids? Make the bed? Call the cable guy?

He imagined Heidi’s face, pale in the middle of all that red hair, eyes like yo-yos when she realized what he had done. And
what he was going to do to her.

Hi-hi, Heidi. Bye-dee-bye.

THE TRAP

SARAH WELLS CROUCHED in the shrubbery between the huge Tudor-style house and the street, her clothes blending into the shadows.
She was having a three-dimensional flashback of the Dowling job—how she’d hidden in the closet while the Dowlings made love,
later knocking into that table of whatnots during her narrow frickin’ escape. And then the worst part—the murder accusation
hanging over her.

She considered quitting while she was ahead. On the other hand, the Morley house was a prize.

The three-story white home with dark beams and bay windows belonged to Jim and Dorian Morley, the Sports Gear Morleys who
owned a chain of athletic stores up and down the coast. She’d read everything about them on the Web and seen dozens of photos.
Dorian Morley dressed to impress and owned a stunning jewelry collection that she kept in constant use.

Sarah had made special note of Mrs. Morley telling a
Chronicle
reporter that she loved to wear diamonds every day, “even around the house.”

Imagine. Everyday diamonds.

Which is why Sarah had put the Morleys on her to-do list, done several run-throughs to check out the traffic patterns at nine
p.m. in their neighborhood, and pinpointed where to stash her car and where to hide. On one of her drive-bys earlier in the
week, she’d even seen Jim Morley leaving the house in his Mercedes. He was stocky and muscular—the kind of build people called
“brawny.”

Sarah definitely did not want to run into Jim Morley tonight. And she wouldn’t. The Morleys were having a
Big Chill
party in their backyard and would be treating their friends to a live performance of a retread rock-and-roll band from the
’60s. She could hear the first set now, electric guitars twanging over screeching mics.

What a fantastic cover of sound.

Fifteen minutes ago, one of the valets had parked the last guest’s car down the hill and was now hanging out in the street
with his buddy. Sarah could hear their muted laughter and smell the cigarette smoke.

She was going to do it. She’d made up her mind. And there was
no better time than now.

Sarah glanced up at the Morleys’ bedroom window, and, after taking a breath, she darted out from the sheltering shrubbery
and ran twenty feet to the base of the house. Once there, she executed a maneuver like the one she’d practiced many times
on the climbing wall at the gym. She jammed the left toe of her climbing shoe against the clapboard, gripped the drainpipe
of the gutter with her right hand, and stretched up to the window ledge.

Halfway through the ten-foot climb, her left foot slipped, and she hung, heart pounding, body splayed vertically against the
wall, right hand gripping the drainpipe, desperate not to pull down the gutter and create a clamor that would end with a shout
or a rough hand at her back.

Quit now, Sarah. Go home.

Sarah hung against the wall for interminable seconds.

Her forearms were like cables from hours of just hanging by her hands from the bar across her closet doorway—not just until
she couldn’t hold on for another instant but until her muscles failed and she peeled off the bar. She’d strengthened her fingers
by squeezing a rubber ball when she drove her car, watched TV—any spare moment at all. But despite her strength and determination,
there was still some light from the moon, and Sarah Wells was not invisible.

As she clung to the wall, Sarah heard a car stop around the corner of the house and voices of new guests coming up the walk.
She waited for them to enter the house, and when she figured it was safe, she took her hand off the drainpipe and reached
for the molding below the window. When she had a firm grip, she pulled herself up until she was able to hook a leg onto the
sill of the westernmost window of the Morleys’ bedroom.

She was in.

SARAH WRIGGLED OVER the sill and dropped to the carpet.

Her head swam with a high-octane blend of elation, urgency, and fear. She glanced at the digital clock on the nightstand beside
the Morleys’ huge four-poster bed and registered the time. It was 9:14, and Sarah swore to herself that once the blue digits
read 9:17, she’d be gone.

The spacious room was dimly lit from the light in the hall. Sarah took in the heavy, Queen Anne–period maple furnishings,
evidence of an inheritance as well as the bazillions the Morleys had made in sporting goods. There were little oil paintings
near the bed, a huge plasma-screen TV in the armoire, photos along the walls of the handsome Morley clan in sailboats—walls
that now thrummed with a pounding rock-and-roll beat.

Sarah was on her mark and ready to go. She crossed the long, carpeted room, then shut the door leading out to the hallway
and locked it. Now, except for the blinking blue light of the digital clock, she was completely in the dark.

It was 9:15.

Sarah felt along the wall, found the closet door, opened it, and threw on the switch to her headlamp. The room-sized closet
was fantastic, and she wouldn’t have expected less from the Morleys. There were racks and racks of clothes, hers on one side,
his on the other; a triple-paned floor-to-ceiling mirror at the back wall; everything you could ever ask from a closet—except
a safe. Where was it?

Sarah worked quickly, looking behind evening gowns and running her fingers along baseboard moldings and shelves, feeling time
whiz by as she inventoried the Morleys’ frickin’ closet.

She would have to leave. Empty-handed.

Sarah had just turned off her light and exited the closet when she heard footsteps on the hardwood. They stopped outside the
bedroom. The doorknob twisted back and forth, then a man’s voice shouted, “Hey! Who locked the door?”

Sarah froze. Should she hide? Break for the window in the dark?

The man called out again: “It’s Jim. I need to use the can.” His laugh was sloppy with drink. He put on a high-pitched, fruity
voice. “Hello Kitty? Is that youuuu?”

Sarah’s heart nearly stopped. It was Jim Morley, and he was pounding on his bedroom door.

“Hey. Open up!”

SARAH RAN TO the window, whatever might be in her way be damned. She had her hand on the sill when a door opened into the
room and light poured in. Morley had entered the bathroom from the room next door, and his hulking frame was silhouetted by
the bathroom light.

He called out as he fumbled for the switch on the bedroom wall. “Is someone here?”

Sarah’s mind did a backflip. Without the light, she could see him better than he could see her. She had to brazen it out.
“Jim,” she said, “can you give us some privacy, please?”

“Laura? Laura, is that you? Jesus. I’m sorry. You and Jesse, take your time. Take all the time you need.”

The bathroom door closed. The darkness returned.
Take all the time you need,
Morley had said, but when he got back to the party, he’d see Laura and Jesse, and he’d sound the alarm.

It was 9:20.

Sarah had a foot up on the sill when an image appeared in the corner of her mind’s eye. She’d been in a rush to get to the
closet, but she’d half noticed a particular painting of a wheat field right next to the bed. Had it been hinged to the wall?

Thirty seconds, no more, but she had to check it out.

Sarah found the four-poster by the pale blue light of the clock and used it to guide her. Her fingers ran across the edges
of the small picture frame, and then she pulled it toward her.

She exhaled as the painting swung open. Behind it was a cool metal box with its padlock hanging open. Sarah moved quickly.
She pulled the box from the wall, set it down on the bed, and flipped back the lid. Then she opened the empty duffel bag she’d
brought for the loot and began to transfer small bulging envelopes and boxes out of the safe.

When her bag was full, she zipped it closed and returned the empty box to its sleeve in the wall.

Time to go!

Sarah peered out the window and saw a man walking his rottie. He stopped to talk to the valet, then continued up the street.
Sarah vaulted onto the sill and turned so that she faced into the room. She placed her hands on the ledge between her bent
legs and then let herself down and over the side. She jammed her climbing shoes against the wall of the house, then dropped.

Her foot hit a hollow in the lawn, and her ankle turned.

She stifled a yelp, clenching her teeth in a grimace. Then, hidden by clouds crossing the moon, Sarah hobbled through the
dark toward her car.

SARAH ALMOST CRIED out in relief when she saw her red Saturn parked along the street not far from the Morleys’ house. She
got inside, whipped off her lamp and knit hat in one movement, and stripped off her gloves. She stuffed them into the duffel
with the jewelry cases and slid the bag under the front seat.

She sat in the comforting dark of night, gripping the steering wheel, her ankle throbbing as she marveled at her minutes-long,
heart-stopping escapade.

It was unbelievable.

Jim Morley had called her “Hello Kitty.”

He’d opened the bathroom door and stared right at her. And still she hadn’t gotten caught.

Hadn’t gotten caught
yet,
Sarah reminded herself. She was carrying enough evidence under her car seat to get her locked up for twenty years, and that’s
if she wasn’t charged with murder.

Sarah fluffed up her hair, slipped on the blue quilted shirt she kept in the backseat, and started up the engine. She rolled
out onto Columbus, carefully keeping to the speed limit as she headed toward Bay Street, passing Chestnut and Francisco, her
mind floating on the aftermath of her success, starting to think now about seeing Heidi.

She imagined telling Heidi the truth about herself, about how the loot she’d stolen would fund their freedom for maybe the
rest of their lives, how their fantasies of living together as a family would come true.

As she thought about Heidi clapping her hands and throwing her arms around her, a distant sound nagged at Sarah until she
couldn’t ignore the whine any longer. The looping, high-pitched wail came from behind, getting louder as it approached. She
could see red flashers in her rearview mirror.

Cops.

They couldn’t be coming for her, could they? Had Jim Morley called the police after all? Maybe the valet had seen her limping
down the street when Morley sounded the alarm. Still, she was sure no one had followed her to the car.