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“Thanks, no. I’m good.”
I went to the break room, returned with a full mug, a couple of Cappy’s homemade peanut butter cookies, and Cappy himself.
“Where’s Richie?” I asked.
Cappy shrugged and took Conklin’s chair.
I told him, “Blackout’s working on a new video.”
Cappy said, “Brady was just filling me in on his take. That Blackout’s a classic malignant narcissist.”
“Exactly. He says he’s creating a video masterpiece but provided no details. He’s keeping me in suspense, hanging me upside down from the rafters.”
Cappy said, “So, it’s all about making the videos and getting a reaction. What’s the story on the lady in red?”
I pushed a sheet of paper over to him that had Beth Welky’s particulars: married Seattle homemaker with two children under five, food-bank volunteer with no connection to books or bookstores or Cindy. She had been vacationing in Pasadena, jogging through the Fuller Theological Seminary, where she was killed.
Cappy said, “Murder of convenience?”
Alvarez said, “Maybe he was meeting a quota.”
I said, “I see a connection to Cindy or through her to Burke. Killings happen after she makes a speech about the Burke book. The Burke book was found in Ralph Hammer’s car. The Fleet murders mimicked the murders of Tara and LorrieBurke. Cindy is the world expert on Evan Burke. I can’t help but worry about her.”
And yet Blackout had not contacted Cindy, nor sent her a video.
Burke had done that. And the last time I’d checked, he was securely confined in maximum security at the Q.
CHAPTER 44
BY SATURDAY NOON Team Blackout was working hard and in concert. Brady had drafted Inspectors Billy Michaels and Tyler Wang to the task force, and I assigned them to Jacob Johnston’s case, the only murder I could not tie to the rest.
I spoke with Tom Mancuso, lead investigator in Corte Madera, who was doggedly spinning his wheels on the Ralph Hammer case. Brad Fleet called twice asking for an update on the murders of his wife and child. The second time, he was crying.
I had nothing for him.
Lieutenant Rick Martinez, primary on the Beth Welky homicide, checked in. “Her killer left nothing on her body,” he said. “The bastard lured her in and killed her, leaving not a trace. No witnesses, no prints, no saliva, nothing under her nails.
“I interviewed her friends and family. There were no reports of a stalker or an abusive husband. It was unanimous. Beth Welky was a bundle of goodness. Good mother, devout,made sandwiches for the homeless and handed out five-dollar bills to them, too. I’ve got no leads beyond your video and that takes me nowhere.”
We worked through lunch and I checked my email again and again. At around four, Cappy gave his report on Marvin Bender, the dude who’d been caught on surveillance tape in two bookstores where Cindy had given a reading.
Cappy said, “Bender’s coworkers say he’s an SOB. He’s touchy and mean, divorced with no friends and locked in an ongoing dispute with a neighbor about parking and garbage-can placement. Neighbor hates him. Otherwise, Bender is an average Joe.”
An average Joe now awaiting arraignment for attempting to flee the SFPD. Still in jail. Still a suspect.
I turned to my screen as I’d done a hundred times today.
This time there was an email with the subject line reading, “Sergeant Boxer. Are you ready?”
I told Cappy who said, “I’ll get Brady. Alvarez is in the break room.”
When I entered the break room, Alvarez looked up from the Mr. Coffee machine.
I said, “I’ve got mail.”
Alvarez said, “I feel sick,” and followed me back to our desks where she and Cappy walked two chairs-on-wheels over to mine, pinning me in on both sides.
“Hit it,” said Brady.
