“Fish had a preferred victim type,” Cindy said. “His victims were slim, dark-haired college girls, and MacKenzie Morales was exactly the kind of woman Fish liked to torture and kill.
“But for some reason, Fish didn’t kill Morales.
“In fact, he loved her and spoke her name with his last breath. And she loved him, too.”
Cindy went on to say that after Fish’s death, she began to investigate MacKenzie Morales, who was the prime suspect in three murders, but that she had escaped police custody. While on the run, Morales was suspected in the murders of several women of the type Randy Fish had once targeted for torture and death.
Cindy said, “I had met Morales once, and I had inside information as to her possible whereabouts. I thought if I could create a safe place for her to talk, I could appeal to her ego. I hoped she would tell me why Randy Fish had become her mentor, her lover, and the father of her son.
“Sounds risky, right? Or maybe it sounds totally nuts for a reporter to chase a psychopathic killer in order to write a newspaper story.
“But I was hooked, and I thought the Fish-Morales story could be the crime saga of a lifetime. While researching the book, I came to understand that you don’t always get the answers you’re looking for. But the answers you get often tell it all.
“The whole story is in this book.”
She’d done it—whipped up her audience, who clapped enthusiastically, asked questions, and then lined up at the table so Cindy could sign their books.
I couldn’t stop beaming. I was so damned proud of her.
I stood off to the side of the table, but I heard Conklin saying to Cindy, “Sign this one to me. Don’t spare the Xs and Os. And sign this one to my mom.”
Cindy laughed and said, “You betcha. Whatever you like, handsome.”
Cindy and Conklin had been having a hot off-and-on relationship for years, and right now, they were on. I hoped that this time they were on for good. Cindy signed books for her man and maybe her future mother-in-law. When Conklin stepped aside, I asked the lady in line behind him if she could do a favor and take a photo.
“You bet,” she said.
I handed her my phone and grabbed my partner and my good friend. We put Cindy in the middle, linked arms around her, and said “Cheese,” and then we said it again.
Cindy said, “Let me see.” We all gathered around that little piece of tech that had caught all three of us, looking good—how often does that happen? A banner had been strung behind the podium. It was centered right over our heads: AUTHOR CINDY THOMAS, TODAY.
“Wow, this is totally great,” Cindy said, doing a little dance in place. “A perfect photo of a perfect day.”
CHAPTER 19
THE MAN WHO called himself One was in the backseat of the four-door sedan, directly behind the driver. The two other guys in his crew were numbered Two and Three to prevent the accidental blurting out of an actual name.
One knew that human stupidity was the only thing that could screw up this job. Everything else was easy. There were no security guards. No camera. There was plenty of cash in the drawer and there was only one person in the store.
Unlike bank jobs, where security was tight and the average take was about four Gs, check-cashing stores ordinarily had fifty to a hundred thousand in the drawer. And while mercados had less, this one had an impressive stash on the premises from its Western Union franchise.
One and his crew were quiet as they watched the light foot and car traffic on this commercial block of South Van Ness Avenue. When he was ready, One used a burner phone to call the cops.
He said urgently, “Nine-one-one? The liquor store at Sixteenth and Julian Avenue is being robbed. I just heard shots. Lots of them. Send the cops. Right away.”
He clicked off as the operator asked his name, but he knew she would put out the radio call. This diversion would draw any random cruisers patrolling the neighborhood and send them to a location a half mile away.
Across the street, the girl in the brightly lit Spanish market was behind the counter, taking cash from a customer, an old man. One thought the girl looked to be in her midtwenties. She was wearing a long tan cardigan over a shapeless brown dress. When she’d put the groceries into the customer’s striped fabric bag, she came from behind the counter and walked him to the front door, saying a few words to him in Spanish as they stood on the sidewalk.
Then she went back inside the shop, closed the glass door, and flipped the sign inside the door to CLOSED. One watched her walk to the back of the long, narrow store.
When she was out of sight, Two said, “She’s alone, One. Did you want me to stay in the car? Save some time?”
One heard sirens now, the cruisers and unmarkeds heading over toward Sixteenth. It was time to go.
“Yeah. Good idea. That’ll work.”
One and Three got out of the car with their SFPD Windbreakers zipped up, masks in their pockets, and guns tucked down in their belts. It took only seconds to cross the street. When they stood in the deeply shadowed doorway of the little grocery store, they pulled on their masks.
One adjusted the bill of his cap and knocked on the door, looking down so that the girl would see the SFPD on his Windbreaker but not his masked face.
Three stood with his back to the store and looked at his feet while he waited for the locks to open. The locks clattered and the bell above the door rang as the girl opened the door.
The two men rushed the doorway. The girl screamed. One grabbed her arm and pushed her inside while showing her his gun. Three threw the locks and flipped the switches at the left of the doorway, dousing the lights in the entrance and front section of the store.
The girl shouted, “Get out of here, get out!” She wrenched her arm free, spun around, and broke for the back door.
One shouted, “Stop or I’ll shoot! I mean it!”
The girl stopped and cried out, “Don’t hurt me! Please!”
One said to her, “No one wants to hurt you, miss. That’s the truth. Now, hands up. Turn around. That’s it. Now go to the cash drawer and open it. Do that and everything will be fine. Just do exactly what I say.”
The girl put her hands in the air and said, “I’ll give you the money, no problem.” She walked to the counter, edged behind it, and faced the gunmen with her back to the wall of cigarettes and mouthwash and deodorant.
One spoke soothingly.
“That’s good. Very smart. Now you can put your hands down and open the drawer. A minute from now we’ll be out of your life forever.”
The girl hit a couple of keys.
The cash register pinged and the drawer shot open.
“Way to go,” said Three. He leaned over the counter and reached for the money in the drawer. He wasn’t ready for the gun the girl pulled out of the pocket of her baggy brown dress.
CHAPTER 20
MAYA PEREZ HAD two babies. One was growing inside her body, fourteen weeks old now, and very precious to her. The other baby was this market. It had been her father’s, and he had poured everything he owned and earned into keeping the shop open, to put food on their table and because he wanted her to have something of value when he died.
Then, a month ago, his cancer had killed him.
Ricardo Perez hadn’t lived to see his grandchild, but he had felt the baby was a blessing and he had left Maya the deed to the store that had been named Mercado de Maya for her.
And she loved this place: every hand-lettered sign, the shelves her father and uncle had made from scrap lumber. She knew where every box, bottle, and tin belonged. Now that she was pregnant and on her own, the store meant survival.
She had moved upstairs to her father’s flat and intended to run this place and bring up her baby right here.
There was no way she would let anyone steal from her. It was just not happening.
Besides, there was something else.
When the men in the police jackets came to the store, she thought they were looking for information on the chec
k-cashing-store holdup on Tuesday a few blocks away. But when she saw the masks and the guns, she knew that as soon as they got the money, they would shoot her.
Like they had done to José Díaz.
Maya was having physical sensations she’d never had before. Tingling, light-headedness, her blood pounding almost audibly. She knew that this was her body reacting to the fear of imminent death. There was no way to run or to hide, but she was thinking clearly and she was determined. She thought, No way they’re killing my baby.
She kept her father’s little Colt in her pocket. And when the man reached over the counter to get his hands on her money, she saw her chance.
She had the gun pointing at his heart, her finger on the trigger, and she said very clearly and firmly, “Drop your gun.”
Maya barely saw the second man move, he was so fast. His hand came down hard on her arm. She got off a shot, but even in that split second, she knew her shot had gone into the floor.
After that, the bullets punched into her and everything went black.
CHAPTER 21
IT WAS AFTER 8 p.m. when Conklin and I left the Hall, both of us wiped out and done for the day. My partner walked me to my car in the Harriet Street lot. We were making comfortable small talk about whose turn it was to bring breakfast to our desks in the morning. I told him I’d see him then.
I rolled up my window and had just fired up the engine when Brady called on my cell. I slapped my window, signaling to Richie to hang in.
Brady sounded edgy.
“Boxer, a tipster has reported multiple gunshots coming from a Mercado de Maya on South Van Ness Avenue. He saw cops exiting the store in a hurry. Sounds like a possible Windbreaker cop hit. Check it out.”
He gave me an address and I said, “We’re on the way.”
Rich was still standing next to my car.
“On our way where?” he said.
I headed my car toward South Van Ness with sirens and lights full on, while Rich called Joe and Cindy to say we’d been detoured. Within five minutes, I pulled up to the sidewalk twenty yards down the street from a small market with a sign over the window reading MERCADO DE MAYA.
A cruiser pulled up behind us. I got out of my vehicle and asked the two uniformed officers to drive around to the rear of the shop. Then Conklin and I advanced on the front entrance to the little grocery store.
This is always the worst moment: when you don’t know if the scene is still hot, if bullets are going to fly, if victims are being used as shields.
The front door of the market was wide open when my partner and I approached with guns drawn. The doorjamb was intact, lights out in the store. Smell of gunfire.
Hugging the doorway, I called out, “Police. No one move.”
I heard a moan and then a woman’s voice saying, “Over here.”
We entered the store. Conklin found the lights and covered me while I followed the voice to the floor behind the counter only yards away.
I holstered my gun and knelt beside the victim. She was writhing in pain and bleeding from what looked to be several gunshot wounds.
“I’ve been shot,” she told me. “He shot me.”
The cash drawer was open. Bottles had fallen off the shelves. There had been a struggle.
I heard Conklin speaking to dispatch, and backup was coming through the back door. I said to the victim, “Hang on. Paramedics are on the way. What’s your name?”
“Maya. Perez.”
I said, “Maya, an ambulance will be here any minute. You’re going to be OK. Do you know who shot you?”
“I’m pregnant,” she said. “You have to save my baby.”
“Don’t worry. The baby will be fine.”
I said it, but Maya Perez had lost a lot of blood. It was pooling on the floor, and she was still bleeding heavily from a gunshot wound to her thigh. I pulled my belt through the loops and cinched her thigh above the wound.
It really didn’t help.
I asked her again, “Maya, do you know who did this to you?”
“A cop,” she said. “Two of them.”
She coughed blood, and tears streamed down her face. She groaned and cupped her stomach through the blood-soaked fabric of her dress. “Please. Don’t let my baby die.”
CHAPTER 22
I GRIPPED MAYA PEREZ’S hand and mumbled assurances I didn’t quite believe.
Where were the EMTs? Where were they?
“This cop who shot you,” I said. “Have you ever seen him before? Has he come into the store?”
She whipped her head from side to side. “They were wearing. Police. Jackets. Masks. Gloves. Latex.”
“Is there someone I can call for you? Maya? Do you want me to call a friend, a relative?”
Colored lights flashed through the front window as the ambulance parked on the sidewalk outside the market.
Conklin shouted, “She’s over here!”
I stood up to give the paramedics some room.
“Her name is Maya Perez. She’s pregnant,” I said.
The EMTs spoke to one another and to their patient, lifting her onto the stretcher and wheeling her out the door. I followed them.
My heart was aching for Maya, imagining her fear for her unborn child. I stood for a moment and watched the receding taillights as the van took her toward Metropolitan Hospital.
Then I called Brady.
He asked, “So, this was another cop heist?”
“’Fraid so,” I said. “Windbreakers. Masks. Gloves. She didn’t know the shooter.”
As I talked to Brady, I was looking at all the likely places for a security camera to be positioned inside the store. I was hoping for an eye on the front door or the cash register. I found nothing, so, still talking with Brady, I went outside and looked for cameras on other shops that might be angled so that they caught the front of the mercado.
I said, “Brady. I don’t see a security camera. Anywhere.”
He cursed and we had a few more exchanges until I couldn’t hear him over the sirens coming toward us from all points. Conklin and I closed the shop door and were waiting for CSU when I got another call from Brady.
“Maya Perez didn’t make it,” he told me.
“Damn it!” I shouted. “Killed for the contents of her cash register. Does this make sense, Brady?”
“No. Come back to the house. I’ll wait.”
CHAPTER 23
IT WAS CLOSE to midnight when Conklin and I got back to the Hall. Brady was in his office, and although we’d been in constant contact for the last four hours, he wanted to talk to us.
The fluorescent bulbs overhead cast a cold light over the night shift behind their desks in the bullpen, making them look as bloodless as zombies. Brady, too, looked half dead, and I would say that my partner and I didn’t look any better.
Conklin and I took the two chairs in Brady’s cubicle. My partner tipped his chair back and put his shoes on the edge of the desk, which Brady hates, but this time, he let it go.
“The MO was the same as the last two times,” Conklin said. “The shooters left nothing behind except the rounds in Maya Perez’s body. The ME is sending them to the lab.”
“We have to turn over every stone,” said Brady. “And the dirt under every stone.”
I said, “Assuming these are the same Windbreaker shooters, they’re slick, Brady.”
I went on to say that in the morning we’d go through the cop records again and look for motive: cops who were ambitious but undistinguished, those who were disgruntled, or had been suspended, or had retired early. I said to Brady, “But even saying they’re actually cops, they may not be from our station, or even our city.”
Brady nodded.
Then he said, “I’m assigning additional people to this case.”
I had been focusing on the work ahead, so Brady’s comment totally snapped my head around.
I said, “Another team?”
“Inspectors Swanson and Vasquez are now on loan to me from Robbery, along with fo
ur guys who are working for them.”
Ted Swanson and Oswaldo Vasquez were reputed to be great cops. But assigning them and their teams to this case, rather than other detectives from Homicide, only tangled the chain of command. I wasn’t pleased. Brady read my expression.
He said, “Here’s what we’ve got: three big-money heists, two DBs in six days, no evidence, media attention of the worst kind, and pressure from upstairs.
“So don’t get territorial, Boxer. Swanson knows robbery homicide cold. Vasquez grew up on the streets. Whether the doers are cops or pretend cops, it doesn’t matter. If we don’t get those mopes into lockup, all of our jobs will be compromised. Understand?”
I admire Brady. Sometimes I even like him. But he was ticking me off. Swanson and Vasquez had nothing on Conklin and me.
“Get in touch with Swanson and Vasquez,” he went on. “I want all of you canvassing around that shop until you get somewhere or someone. This spree has got to stop and I don’t care who stops it.”
“We’re on it, boss,” Conklin said.
“Read you loud and clear, Lieutenant,” I said through clenched teeth. I felt a sleepless night coming on.
CHAPTER 24
THE SQUARE BRICK apartment house was at the dead end of a street lined with other plain three-story buildings on Taylor Street at Eddy: the worst part of the Tenderloin.
Yuki pushed in the outer door and pressed the intercom button marked KORDELL.
The buzzer blared and Yuki climbed three stinking flights of graffiti-tagged stairs and knocked on the door at the end of the hallway. A woman cracked the door open.
“I’m Yuki Castellano. Mr. Jordan from the Defense League sent me. Did you get a call?”
“Yes, yes, please come inside.”
Mrs. Kordell was African-American, very thin, about forty; she wore a red bandana over her hair and had yellow rubber gloves peeking out of the pockets of her cargo pants.