“Could you identify that tattoo?” Yuki asked.
Tears spontaneously sprang from Mendez’s eyes.
He said, “You gotta move me to another state, no lie. When I was coming into the building just now, I think I see that cop with a tattoo on his neck. He mighta seen me, too.”
CHAPTER 84
WHEN JOE WASN’T telling himself he was an asshole, he tried to figure out how he was going to get out of this crypt alive. He sat in the lower bunk of the double-decker bed, his cuffed hands hanging loosely between his knees, the chain trailing under the bed. Off to his left, and way out of range, Clement Hubbell tapped the keys on his laptop.
Hubbell said, “There’s a whole lot of Joe Hogans in San Fran. Some’s retired. One of them has a deli and one is in auto parts. Here’s one who works in an insurance company. He’s closest to your age. Several Joe Hogans are dead. Which one are you?”
“Clem. May I call you Clem?”
“That’s my name,” said Hubbell. He closed out the search engine and scooted his wheeled chair so that he was opposite Joe. A stale smell of sweat and garlic came off him.
“Clem,” Joe said. “What’s going on here?”
On the wall behind Hubbell was a map of San Francisco. Five points had been starred on the map with a marking pen. Were these the locations of the five dead women, including the latest, Tina Strichler?
“What’s going on? This is what I call my life. Imagine how surprised I was to find you coming into my cell,” Hubbell said. “This is the first time that’s ever happened, and you know what? It’s kind of an invasion of privacy.”
“Open the cuffs and I’ll get out of here. I’ll pretend I never met you,” Joe said.
“Where’s the fun in that?” Hubbell said. “I haven’t had a chance to get to know you. And you know, I’d really like to.”
Hubbell opened and closed his Buck knife as he swiveled in his chair. The hunting knife had a bone handle and a six-inch blade. From where Joe sat, the blade looked as sharp as a razor.
Joe said, “You said you felt like you were waiting for me. What did you mean?”
“I like solitary. But every now and then, a man likes to have someone to talk to.”
As Hubbell bent his head to his knife, Joe saw the tattoo on the top of his head, just visible under a quarter-inch carpet of hair. It was a vulture with its bill open, talons outstretched.
Joe said, “What do you want to tell me?”
Hubbell grinned. “I’m going to tell you about murders I’ve committed in, like, the middle of the day,” he said. “And I got away with every one of them. They’re right here on my map of the stars.” He half turned, pointing to the map on the wall behind him. “This has been my get-out-of-jail celebration, right?”
Joe flicked his eyes to the map, this time picking out the star on the corner of Balmy Alley and Twenty-Fourth, where Tina Strichler had been gored within a crowd of tourists.
The man wanted a response. And Joe wanted him to keep talking.
“Oh. You were in jail.”
“Oh, yes. You could even say I grew up there. I’m going to tell you things I’ve never told anyone, Joe,” Hubbell said, flicking his eyes from the map to where Joe sat cuffed and chained and stooped on the lower bunk. “But you have to promise to take what I tell you to your grave. Promise? Say you promise.”
“I promise,” said Joe.
“Shake?” said Hubbell.
It was an opportunity Joe couldn’t pass up.
“Shake,” he said. He put out his linked hands, and Hubbell reached out his right one—then, before he touched Joe’s hands, he pulled his away.
“Hah! Got you.”
Hubbell laughed and walked a few steps to the little refrigerator near the toilet. He took out a gallon jug of water. He guzzled some down, then offered the jug to Joe, who said, “No, thanks.”
The twelve-by-eight cell was soundproof at thirty feet underground. Joe was thinking he was never going to leave this place on his own two feet. After Hubbell finished telling him in loving detail about his life of crime, he would slice and dice him and take his body up the ladder one piece at a time.
CHAPTER 85
JOE KNEW THAT serial killers fell into two broad categories. Those in the first category were psychotic killers, criminally insane. They heard voices. They had visions. They didn’t know right from wrong.
And then there were the pathological killers, who were not insane. They were conscienceless. They killed because they liked to do it. Murder gave them an incredible high, and the only way to stop them was to kill them. Or lock them up.
Clement Hubbell was in the latter category.
Joe blocked the wave of fearful thoughts pouring into his mind, images of the people he loved and would never see again, things he would never get to do, pictures of his body hacked into bloody chunks. He took a breath, then looked up at his captor.
Hubbell was younger and stronger than Joe. He was armed, and he got off on playing cat and mouse. The smart money was on the cat.
Joe had one iffy idea on how to get out of this box. But there would be no do-over if he got it wrong.
“I want to hear all about the people you killed,” Joe said. “I want to hear it all. I’m a student of murder. I was never a profiler. Just your paper-pushing variety of Fed. So I feel lucky to have met you, Clem. I can’t wait for you to tell me your stories.”
“Oh, I will,” said Hubbell. “We have all the time in the world. Maybe you noticed. I don’t have clocks down here. It’s what we call long time.”
Joe said, “You mind if I take a leak before you begin? I had to go before I even got here.”
“Be my guest,” Hubbell said.
Joe got to his feet. Hubbell was still in the swivel chair opposite the bed. The toilet was just to Joe’s right. He unzipped his fly and took a step toward the stainless steel can.
As soon as he cleared the end of the bed, Joe whipped around and, using his foot as a fulcrum, jammed it against the bed leg closest to him. At the same time, he gripped one of the bed’s upright supports with his cuffed hands and pulled down on it, hard.
Hubbell jumped to his feet and yelled, “Hey!”
But he had nowhere to go. The desk was to his right, Joe was to his left, and as Joe kept up the pressure, the bed began teetering, then falling toward Hubbell.
Hubbell put up his hands, but the weight of the iron-framed bed had passed the tipping point. The top mattress slid, getting in Hubbell’s way, and the crashing bed pinned him.
Joe was still cuffed, but the chain that had been looped around the rear leg of the bed was now free. He stepped over and around the bed frame, wrapped the chain around Hubbell’s neck, and, grabbing him by the shoulders, slammed the man’s ugly head against the concrete floor.
Hubbell screamed, “Stop that! Noooo! Stop!”
Joe let up and said, “Where’s the key?”
Hubbell said, “Key to what?”
Joe slammed Hubbell’s head against the floor again. He didn’t want to kill him.
But he wanted to hurt him, badly.
CHAPTER 86
JOE SHOUTED DIRECTLY into Hubbell’s grinning face.
“Where is the key? Where is the fucking key?”
“It’s up my ass.”
Joe grabbed the knife off the floor and said, “Have it your way. You’ve got a nice edge on this thing.”
Hubbell said, “No, no. It’s in the ice cube tray.”
Keeping the chain pulled tightly around Hubbell’s neck, Joe could just reach the fridge. He snagged the small ice cube tray with the ends of his fingers. He dumped the tray on the floor, identified the cube with the key inside it, and crushed the ice with his heel.
Joe picked up the small key. “On your stomach,” he said.
Hubbell rolled over, and Joe put his foot on the man’s neck. He maneuvered the key with his shaking hands until he had unlocked his cuffs. When his hands were free, he zipped up his fly.
Then
he pulled Hubbell’s arms around his back and cuffed his wrists with the man’s own cuffs. He wrestled the bed to a standing position, scooped his gun up off the desk, and holstered it.
When he jerked Hubbell to his feet, the man didn’t kick out, squirm, or in any way fight him. He almost seemed accepting. Maybe twenty years of hard time did that to a person.
“You didn’t need to go bug-fuck,” Hubbell said to Joe.
“Yeah. Well, please accept my sincere apologies.”
“I wasn’t going to hurt you,” said Hubbell. “I just wanted to tell you about the things I’ve done and how I did them.”
“Don’t worry. A lot of people are going to want to know all about you, Clem. You’ll get to tell your story many, many times.”
Wrapping the chain around his left hand, keeping his cuffed prisoner tightly in front of him, Joe pulled the weighted ladder down from the ceiling. The hatch door opened smoothly above them.
Joe said, “What do you say, Clem? Let’s get out of here.”
After the two men climbed the ladder and surfaced in the basement, Joe chained Clement Hubbell to the furnace and locked the basement door behind him. He called Lindsay from the kitchen, and then he called the sitter to say he was sorry he was late getting back, and to please hang in with Julie.
When he hung up, Joe washed his hands, turned on the oven to 375, and set the timer for thirty minutes.
Joe and Denise Hubbell were eating warm blueberry muffins when Lindsay, along with a fully armed tactical team, arrived at 355 Edgehill Way, where they proceeded to batter down the red-painted kitchen door.
CHAPTER 87
I HAD SOME explaining to do when Joe, the SWAT team, and I got back to the Hall with a confessed killer in cuffs: a killer no one in Homicide had on their radar or even knew existed.
I filled Brady in while Joe waited at my desk.
Brady gave me a very cold stare as I told him that Joe had merely followed up a hunch, that he had been invited into the Hubbell house by the owner, and that she’d given him carte blanche to go into her son’s room.
“Is this something like the hunch that took you into a house where the homeowner put a loaded Winchester rifle to your head?” Brady asked me.
“Yes. It’s exactly like that.”
“Personal feelings aside,” Brady said, “I should write you up for that. It was procedurally unsafe, to say the least. What if you’d gotten shot? What if you’d shot someone? And now Joe does the same dumb-ass thing? Are you running some sort of private police department out of your garage? Don’t you have enough work to do, Boxer?”
That was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t answer, but I flushed down to my toes. It was humiliating to have Brady kick my ass. Factually, Joe was in the clear. He was nobody, as far as the SFPD was concerned. He hadn’t messed up a case against Hubbell. But now it was official and I had to color strictly within the lines.
I waited a second or two, then said, “Lieutenant, while Hubbell had Joe cuffed and confined, he confessed to killing five people. I’m going to try to get him to say that again.”
Brady tipped so far back in his chair, I thought it would go over. He put his hands over his eyes and threw a sigh so deep and so long, I actually felt sorry for him.
He said, “Get Wang and Michaels. Strichler is their case. They should be in the interrogation. No mistakes, Lindsay. Video everything. From this point on, do it strictly by the book.”
“I get it. And I’m sorry, Brady. I’ll make it up to you.”
CHAPTER 88
HUBBELL HAD BEEN processed and was slouching in a small gray chair at a matching metal table in the small gray room we call Interview 2. Inspectors Michaels, Wang, and I took seats at the table, and Joe stood outside the two-way mirror with Brady. Brady wore a mic so that he could wirelessly fire comments and questions directly into my ear.
I was up to speed on Hubbell’s arrest for raping Tina Strichler twenty-five years before and his sterling record of good behavior while incarcerated at Pelican Bay and, later, at Corcoran. Hubbell’s personally inked “star map” of his homicides was now spread out on the table.
He’d even thoughtfully provided a key to the murders on the back of it: names, locations, and the date of each.
Wang and Michaels were there to watch and share in the glory—if there was any glory—and I would be happy to hand off this serial killer collar to them.
I formally introduced myself to Hubbell, introduced him to the other cops in the room, and told him I appreciated his coming in to talk to us. I said that without a trace of sarcasm.
But still, he laughed.
“That was a hell of an escort I got.”
“First-class treatment, Mr. Hubbell. Nothing but the best for you. You’re kind of a superstar, aren’t you?”
He laughed again. Oh, man. He was enjoying himself.
“Mr. Hubbell, you’ve told us that you killed five women in locations you’ve starred on your map of San Francisco. This is that map, right?”
Hubbell said, “You mind getting me something to drink?”
Wang took Hubbell’s order. “What can I get you?”
“Got any Mountain Dew?”
“One frosty-cold Mountain Dew coming right up.”
I was sitting directly across the table from Hubbell, and after he slugged down his soda, I said, “Are we ready now?”
“I have one other request.”
I said sweetly, “Tell me.”
“I want to go back to Pelican Bay. If you promise me that, I’ll tell you every single thing.”
“Why Pelican Bay?”
“I want to go home.”
Brady spoke in my ear. “Tell him that your CO gives you his word, and that we’ll get a commitment from the DA in the morning.”
I repeated that to Hubbell. I expected him to say, “Well, I guess this can wait until I hear from the DA.”
But he said, “OK. Just promise to do your best.”
“I promise,” I said, and that was all Hubbell needed. He was eager to talk about his attenuated five-year killing spree, and I’ve got to give it to Joe. He had been right from the beginning. Clement Hubbell killed on the anniversary of his conviction for rape. He called it a celebration of the start of his wonderful life in prison.
As for the murders themselves, with the exception of Tina Strichler, Hubbell said they were killings of opportunity.
“It was a test of my skill,” he told me, leaning over the table, really wanting me to understand.
“I selected a knife from my collection. I looked for a woman who was in a good place to be killed. Sometimes they were alone. Sometimes I’d see one in the thick of a crowd. Like the one I killed at the race last year. I gave myself twelve hours to do the job and earn another star for my map. And then, once I was back home, I would wait for news of my perfect crime.” He grinned. “And I’d think about it for another year.”
“But you couldn’t tell anyone? That must’ve hurt,” I said.
“Sure. That’s true,” Hubbell said. “I missed having a cell mate.”
“So Tina Strichler was the only victim you knew?” I asked.
“Bettina Monroe. The only girl I ever loved. Raping her, well, she was my first. I held a knife on her, but it was just a turn-on. I wasn’t going to kill her. I didn’t even think of killing her. I thought she might be willing to date me. I know you want to laugh, Sergeant—”
“No, no. I’m just surprised that you cared for her.”
“Yes. Until I raped her, she didn’t know I was alive.”
“And so why did you kill her?”
“I was leaving the police a clue,” he said.
“Because?”
“It was time.”
At the end of an hour, Clement Hubbell had told us in great detail about each of the murders he had committed. He never asked for a lawyer. After a while, he put his head down on the table and nodded off. Wang woke him up, and Michaels charged him with five homicides. Before he was take
n out of the room, Hubbell thanked me. That was a first.
“You’re very welcome,” I told him.
I left the box and found Joe and Brady waiting for me.
“Good job, the two of you,” Brady said. “All is forgiven. Don’t ever put me in this position again.”
He shook Joe’s hand. He shook mine. He squeezed my arm.
All in all, it was a good day to be a cop.
CHAPTER 89
YUKI WAS HIGH from the thrill of it.
She had just faced off with Red Dog Parisi across his leather-topped desk and negotiated a three-point-five-million-dollar settlement and a public apology for the Kordell family, which, during two intense phone calls, they had accepted.
She texted Brady before she left the Hall, again from the street, and another time from the parking lot at Whole Foods on Fourth Street. No reply.
During her drive home to Telegraph Hill, she revisited highlights of her meeting with Parisi, especially the part when he’d said, “I think two million is the right number.” And she had said, “No, it’s not, Len. No freaking way.”
Yuki hardly remembered arriving home, but after putting away the groceries, she checked her landline and saw that Brady still hadn’t called. And now she was getting annoyed about that.
She took a bottle of coconut water from the fridge, got into her comfy chair, and was opening her e-mail when the doorbell rang. She bounced up, looked through the peephole, and saw a teenager standing in the hallway with a clipboard and a gigantic bouquet of flowers.
This was more like it.
She exchanged her signature for the flowers and read the note on her way to the kitchen. Damn, Yuki. Hiring you was the best thing I ever did in my life. Congratulations. Zac.
Yuki liberated the flowers from the wrapping and carried the vase to the console table behind the sofa. Then she returned to her laptop and opened her mailbox.