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Fleet’s face crumpled and his tears spilled from his eyes.
Conklin got a box of tissues from the supply cabinet and I told Fleet to take his time. I pulled the interview form over to my patch of the table and skimmed it.
Conklin had underlined Fleet’s address and I knew why. They lived on Leavenworth, only a short distance from where Jacob Johnston’s body was found on Taylor Street. I listened to Fleet and visualized Catherine on the last day of her life. I saw her layering on the clothes she had died in, strapping Josephina into the baby carrier. I thought if her habits were as regular as her husband said, her killer may have known her movements. I thought about Fleet saying he expected to see his wife and child before leaving the house, and when he didn’t, he drove to work. Strategy meeting.
I asked, “Did you call her when you got to the office?”
“I had an early meeting. She goes for long walks, maybe stops to look at seabirds or something. I only worried whenI got home at dinnertime and she wasn’t there. That’s when I called the police.”
Alvarez said, “Mr. Fleet. I have to ask. How were you and Catherine getting along? You were married for, what, three years?”
“What are you asking? I loved Cath. I loved Josie. They were everything to me. We didn’t fight. We didn’t have affairs. This was real love. Do you hear me? Why did this happen?”
He dropped his head to the table and cried into his jacket sleeves. I reached over and touched his shoulder.
“We’re on your side, Mr. Fleet. We’re with you. The whole SFPD wants to find whoever is responsible for this.”
Fleet cried harder, then lifted his head. With his voice breaking at times, he told this story; he and Catherine worked at the same advertising firm, Ennis, Neiman and Bright. They’d met there, fallen in love.
He said, “Cath and I didn’t work in the same department, but she was all business and really smart. And tough. But as I told Missing Persons, Catherine decided to take a break from work for a while when Josie was born, because she wanted to stay home with her. The police asked me, ‘How do you know she didn’t just take off with the baby?’ For God’s sake, people. I wish she had.”
I asked, “Who can verify your movements yesterday?”
I passed a pad and pen to Fleet who scrawled some names and passed the list back to me, asking angrily, “Now what?”
I said, “There are a few more things we have to go over with you, Mr. Fleet. I’ll be right back.”
CHAPTER 24
I UNLOCKED THE empty corner office where we’d been meeting, pulled two photos down from the whiteboard, and returned to Interview One.
Fleet stared at me with bloodshot eyes.
“Mr. Fleet. I’m going to show you pictures of two deceased individuals. Tell me if you know them.”
Fleet pushed back his chair, moving away from something he didn’t want to see. I flipped Hammer’s photo over first and watched Fleet take a look, then shake his head, no.
“Never saw him. Did Catherine know him?”
I said, “We don’t know. Do you recognize this man?” I turned over the photo of Jacob Johnston. Fleet saw the bullet hole in the center of the dead man’s forehead. He blanched, closed his eyes, then, some latent memory clicked in. He reached for the picture and pulled it toward him.
“I-I-I know him to say hello,” he said. “He lives in our neighborhood. I’ve seen him out running. Who is—was he? What does he have to do …?”
I said, “This is Jacob Johnston. He lived on Taylor, a couple of blocks over from your home on Leavenworth. His body was found not far from the entrance to Ina Coolbrith Park. That’s where Catherine goes for her walk, isn’t it?”
“I don’t get it. I don’t get it. You think they were together? I would haveknown.”
Fleet stared at me, at Conklin, back to me. “You people are crazy. Crazy.”
I assured Fleet that we weren’t suggesting that Catherine and this man were a couple or that she knew Johnston at all. We were just getting started. Putting pieces on the table. And I got down to it. I asked Fleet if his wife kept a journal, wrote a blog, had a Facebook page. Fleet answeredno, no, no.
I wanted to ask,Do you have any ideas at all?But his shock was real. He couldn’t get past the blinding truth that his wife and child were dead.
Pushing forward, I said, “If you have no objections, I’d like Inspectors Conklin and Alvarez to drive you home, take a look around your house, bring back any appointment logs or diaries Catherine may have kept …”
“I just told you she didn’t have anything like that.”
“She had a cell phone? A laptop?” I asked.
