Unlucky 13 (3 page)

“We played a little softball in the park,” Joe told me.

“Oh, right. Good idea.”

“She said
she’s going to sleep through the night.”

“Ha-ha. I want that in writing.”

“Why don’t you take off your piece and your shoes and stay awhile,” said my husband, clicking on the evening news. “Soup’s on in ten minutes.”

Love, love, love coming home. Just love it.

I SPENT HALF
the night talking to Joe about the belly bombs. And it wasn’t just pillow talk. Joe Molinari was former FBI, also former deputy director of Homeland Security, and now a highly regarded consultant who was content to be Mr. Mom while I fulfilled my calling in Homicide.

Joe had been over the case with me a few dozen times already, and he said, when we were under the covers
in the dark, “Sooner or later, the bomber is going to take credit for this.”

I said, “Huh,” and rooted around in the creases of my mind, thinking that for certain bombers, that was true. But not all of them.

I remember that Joe got up for the baby twice. I did it three times, and suddenly it was eight and I was late.

At nine-ish, I parked my car in my favorite spot in the shade of the overpass
and went directly to the ME’s Office. The reception area was full of cops and plainclothes guys standing around, wishing for cigarettes and hoping for autopsy reports.

There was a new girl at the front desk who said her name was Tasha. I told her that Claire was expecting me, which was a lie that Claire always backed up.

I found Claire in the autopsy suite, stripping off her gloves as her assistant
rolled a corpse out of the room toward the cooler.

She said, “I love how I think about you and you just materialize.”

“You got something?” I asked.

“Yeah. If I hadn’t had my hands full of internal organs, I would’ve texted you.”

Claire unsnapped her gown and hung it on a hook and peeled off her cap. I followed her through to her office, dying every second to know what kind of news she had.

She settled in behind her desk, rolled her chair until she was in just the right place, and said, “I got something from Clapper that he got from the Feds. What the belly bombs consist of.”

“Holy crap. Tell me.”

“Here’s the nutshell version. Trace of some kind of magnesium compound was found in stomach contents that were sprayed around the Jeep. The compound was ingested—you with me so far?”

“If I was any more with you, I’d be sitting in your lap.”

“Stay where you are. I’ve got no room on my lap.”

“Fine.”

“Okay, so, this compound interacts with stomach acid.”

I blinked a few times, then said, “You’re saying that those kids
ate
something and when it got to their stomachs—
ka-boom
.”

“Exactly,” said Claire.

Until new or contrary evidence challenged our theory, I was calling the belly
bomb case a double homicide.

I WAS STILL
wrapping my mind around bombs you can eat when Claire picked up her ringing phone and got into something long and windy with a lawyer who wanted her as an expert witness.

While I waited for Claire’s attention, I stared at the picture on her desk of the four of us in what we cheerfully call the Women’s Murder Club. The four members are Claire, Cindy, Yuki, and me.

Claire
was the bosomy African-American stalwart in the middle of our group, a mom three times over, my best buddy for the past dozen years, a woman with a heart big enough to move into and set up housekeeping.

To her right was Cindy, a sweet-looking bulldog of a reporter, working the crime desk at the
Chronicle
, who’d helped me bust a few criminals in her search for an exclusive
story. Cindy and I have
fought at times. Lots of times. She doesn’t back down until she’s tried every possible way around me and a few impossible ones. But I know her well and love her fiercely.

To Claire’s left was Yuki Castellano, who had given up private law to prosecute bad guys for the DA’s Office. She’s a bird-size beauty, a high-speed talker, a brilliant woman who has caught some bad breaks and still never says
die.

I was the tall blonde on the end of the line, wearing my working-cop clothes and a sour expression. Bah. I don’t know what was bothering me the day that picture was taken. Well, taking a guess, maybe our new lieutenant, Jackson Brady, had stepped on my toes.

In front of me in real life, Claire picked up her intercom line and yelled into her phone, “Tell Inspector Orson to cool his giant
heels and I’ll be with him in ten minutes. Hey, tell him to get coffee. I like mine with a lot of sugar.”

Claire slammed the phone down and said, “No peace for the weary.”

“I think you mean ‘No rest for the wicked.’”

“That, too.”

The phone on her desk rang.

“Don’t take that, okay?” I said. “What do you make of this ingestible bomb?”

“Well,” said Claire. She uncapped a bottle of water and
took a really long pull. Then she said, “Since you ask, I believe this belly bomb was as personal as a knife.”

“Meaning?”

“It was a micro-bomb so it was easy to disguise. Limited
impact because it was only meant to kill one person at a time.”

“So these kids were targeted?”

“Not necessarily. Could have been random. Remember the psycho who put cyanide inside Tylenol capsules.”

“So those one-person
bombs were a kind of message?”

“My thoughts exactly,” said Claire. “Both of us go to the head of the class.”

CLAIRE’S ASSISTANT, TASHA
, appeared in the doorway of Claire’s office and changed the subject big-time.

She said, “Yuki Castellano is on line five. Wants to speak to both of you. She said, and I quote: ‘If you don’t put them on the phone, you’ll be sorry you came to work today.’ Unquote. She was kidding, right, Dr. Washburn?”

“Was she laughing?” Claire asked.

“Well, yeah. The cutest
laugh I ever heard.”

Although Yuki was our resident bad news bear, she’d been quite merry lately. She’d won a couple of cases and was getting along well with her big hunk of burning love boyfriend.

Tasha shot a look at me. “Doctor, all of your friends try to walk right over me.”

Claire said, “That’s them teaching you to push back. Thank you, Tasha.” Then she stabbed a button, putting Yuki on
speaker.

Yuki chirped, “I knew you two were together, goofing off, eating doughnuts, drinking coffee, livin’ la vida loca.”

“Are you high, sweetie?” Claire asked.

“You bet I am. Love makes me a little goofy.”

“Tell us something we don’t know,” I said.

“Okay, how’s this? Brady and I are getting married.”

Yuki let loose one of her trademark delightful merry-bells chortles. There was a long
pause as Claire and I stared at each other across Claire’s desk, just trying to comprehend what Yuki had said.

Claire recovered first.

“Did I hear you right, Yuki?” she said. “You’re not fooling with us, are you?”

“I’m at the bridal shop. Right this minute.”

I had just gotten used to Yuki dating my boss—now she was marrying him? Well, never mind the kink their relationship had put in the chain
of command. Yuki was getting married.

“Oh. My. God,” I said, “Did you expect this? Or were you surprised by what could be the best news of the year?”

“Sur-prised!” she shrieked. “Brady’s divorce came through. So he just hangs up with his lawyer, rolls over in bed, and he says to me, ‘Nothing to stop us now.’”

Yuki treated us to another round of happy-over-the-moon laughter, then took a breath
and chirped, “We’re saying the I do’s on Saturday.”

I said into the speaker phone, “Saturday? What Saturday? This Saturday?”

“Yes. So listen, I hired this great wedding planner, and all you girls have to do is put on the dresses and show up. Details to follow.”

“We’re wearing bridesmaids’ dresses?” I asked, totally horrified.

“Of course. Pink ones. Off the shoulder. Big skirt.”

Well, Cindy
and Claire would look good in pink. I would look like a half-baked ham.

“Don’t worry, Linds,” Yuki said. “You can use it after the wedding. It’s a nice little cocktail dress.”

“And I was just sitting here wishing I had an off-the-shoulder pink cocktail dress,” I said, laughing in order to keep the terror out of my voice. “Can I get a tiara to go with that?”

Yuki laughed and said, “I’m kidding
about the dresses, girls. I’m not having any maids of honor, none of that. Having a judge. Having vows. Having food. Having dancing. Sound okay?”

“Brilliant,” Claire said. “We’re throwing your engagement party. For four. Tonight.”

Right after we said good-bye to Yuki, I left Claire’s office, jogged through the breezeway, and entered the back door to the lobby of the Hall of Justice, with its
super-size ceilings and garnet-colored marble walls. I took the stairs to Homicide and after passing through the squad’s outer office went through the little swinging gate and into the bullpen.

I said, “Yo,” to our PA, Brenda, and then made my way
around the desks in the bullpen. I found Brady in his hundred-square-foot glass cubicle at the far end.

He looked just like always—delts and biceps
pulling the fabric of his blue shirt, white-blond hair pulled back and banded in a short pony, head bent over his computer.

I’d had a few issues with Brady since he’d taken over my old job as squad boss. From the first, I bucked at Brady’s impersonal management style. But lately, I hate to admit, I’ve become a fan. He’s impartial. He’s decisive. And he has a track record as a really good cop.

I knocked on Brady’s glass door. He said, “Come in, Boxer.”

I did and kept coming, all four steps to his desk. Then I grabbed his shoulders and kissed him.

“Congrats, boss.”

The look on Brady’s face was priceless.

“Thanks.”

I was grinning my face off as I crossed the squad room to my desk and Conklin’s. My partner looked up from his computer and said to me, “I saw you kissing up to the boss.”

“He and Yuki are getting married. Swear to God. And we’ve got a hot lead. So, let’s get to work.”

I SWUNG DOWN
into my desk chair and said to my partner, “The explosive material in the belly bomb is a magnesium compound and the victims ingested it.”

“They ate it? And it exploded? That’s not possible.”

“I’m quoting Claire, who got that from the FBI lab. They found a trace of the compound in the stomach contents. Seems that stomach acid activates the explosion.”

“Damn,” Conklin
said, rocking back in his chair. “Do the Feds have any theories as to who put this stuff into the food?”

“Not yet. I’m way open to anything you come up with.”

I pulled up the scene pictures again, this time focusing on the hamburger bag and waxed-paper wrappers among the pile of litter on the floor. The hamburger bag had come from Chuck’s Prime, a chain of fast-food restaurants
that had made
a name for themselves for hamburgers of superior grass-fed, made-in-America beef.

I turned my computer so Conklin could see the photo and said, “Look here. I think Trimble and Katz had a couple of Chuckburgers—and sometime not long after that, they blew up.”

Conklin said, “There’s a Chuck’s in Hayes Valley, about fifteen minutes south of the bridge.”

We signed out a squad car and Conklin drove.
I listened to the car radio with half an ear while Conklin said, “I should tell you, Linds. I eat at Chuck’s twice a week. Maybe more.”

“I’ve had a Chuck’s bacon burger a few times and have to say, they’re pretty tasty.”

“Yeah,” Conklin said. “Might be time for a change.”

Twenty minutes later, we parked at the corner of Hayes and Octavia near the park known as Patricia’s Green and in the heart
of the Hayes Valley commercial district, a strip with trendy shops, boutiques, restaurants, and cafés.

In the middle of the block was a big parking lot, and beside the lot, like a sunny seaside trattoria, was Chuck’s.

The outside tables were shaded by market umbrellas, and inside, a counter wrapped around two walls, and square wooden tabletops formed neat lines. Few people were eating burgers
at this time of morning, but the serving folks were ready for the lunch crowd, smartly dressed as they were in aqua cowboy shirts with pearl buttons and tight white jeans.

I badged the girl at the cash register and asked to speak to the manager. Mr. Kent Sacco was paged and about
thirty seconds later, a pudgy man in his early thirties came from an office at the back and greeted us with a sweaty
handshake and a business card.

We took a table by the front windows and I told Mr. Sacco that the victims on the bridge last week may have eaten their last meal at Chuck’s.

I said, “We need to see your security tapes.”

“Sure. Whatever I can do for you.”

“We need contact information for your kitchen and serving staff.”

Sacco took us back to his office, where he printed out a list of personnel
with copies of their photo IDs. He left us briefly and returned with security DVDs from the four cameras, two positioned inside and two outside the restaurant.

On the way out, Conklin bought burgers and fixings to go. In the interest of full disclosure, when we got back to our desks, I offered to take one of those sandwiches off Conklin’s hands. I was nearly starving. Still, I scrutinized the
meat very thoroughly. Then I closed the sandwich and ate it all up. It was delicious.

Conklin and I watched videotape for the rest of the day, jumping a little when we found the gritty images of David Katz and Lara Trimble ordering hamburgers, sodas, and fries to take out. A young cowgirl behind the counter took their order and their cash, then handed them the bag of food. The victims took the
bag and left with their arms around each other.

We looked at the footage forward and back, enlarged it, sharpened it, focused on every area in the frame.

No one but the girl behind the counter had spoken to Trimble and Katz, and there was no altercation of any kind.