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I signed off with Witmar and briefed the team. Our meeting broke into individual parts as we plugged Catton’s name into databases from DMV to USMC. Twenty minutes later we had three addresses for Catton. His last-known residence was a house in the Haight-Ashbury district, currently listed as a short sale by the bank. The ad read, “Classic Victorian in the Haight. Former beauty, now a teardown or candidate for total renovation. Uninhabitable.”
Downstairs at the motor pool, Joe and I signed out a patrolcar. Wallenger and Brady took another squad and Reg Covington pulled up in a Bearcat fully loaded with his SWAT crew. With all lights and sirens blaring, we headed to U.S. 101 North.
We had a location, an A-plus team, and a clear shot to a teardown in the Haight. I could see Blackout/Catton stashing Cindy at this unoccupied wreck—because that made total sense. Who would look for her there?
CHAPTER 83
THE SULLIVANS’ WOOD-FRAME house on a well-kept street near Alamo Square was being cordoned off by uniforms when Conklin and Alvarez finished taking Switzer’s statement. They said hello to Sergeant Nardone who said, “You’re not going to like what you see in there, kids.”
“We’ve heard,” Conklin said.
Officer Einhorn, Nardone’s partner, approached from a house across the street. He said, “Barbara’s neighbor Tom Watkins lives over there. Here’s his number. Ever since the trouble started with Barbara and Lew, Watkins took to watching the Sullivan house. He says he saw a car he didn’t recognize waiting two houses down from the Sullivan house before sunup. The car was there for about a half hour. He also saw the driver, a man, when he opened the door to drive away. Watkins might be able to identify him.”
“Tell Watkins we’ll be with him in a few,” said Alvarez.
Nardone lifted the tape and Conklin and Alvarez proceeded up the walkway to the Sullivans’ front door. CSUdirector Gene Hallows opened it. “Welcome to hell. Glove up,” he said. “Put on booties and mind the scene and I’ll give you a peek at the victim.”
The primary crime scene was a pale-green bedroom featuring a hospital bed with a raised head section, a vanity, a floral area rug, a nightstand, and a standing lamp that had fallen to the floor.
Barbara Sullivan’s body was in the bed, half covered by a sheet. There was a white patch over her left eye and her mouth was open above the gaping slash across her throat. Her right leg, encased in a plaster cast from ankle to mid-thigh, stuck out over the edge of the mattress. She’d bled out, her blood soaking the bedcovers, pooling onto the floor. If she’d struggled, it hadn’t been for long.
Alvarez asked Hallows, “Estimated TOD?”
Hallows said, “The ME will have a better fix, but I’d say this only happened two, three hours ago.”
“And the weapon?”
“We haven’t found it. Looking at the neck wound it’s going to be a fixed-blade weapon.”
Alvarez looked at Conklin. She didn’t have to tell him what she was thinking. Evan Burke’s weapon of choice was a straight-edge razor. Blackout was Evan Burke’s number one fan.
Conklin asked, “Where’s the mirror?”
Hallows said, “Stay out there and one at a time, peek around the door frame and take a look at the wall.”
Conklin peered first. From fifteen feet away, he couldn’t believe what he was reading on the pale green wall.
Alvarez spent long minutes taking in the bedroom, finally saying, “Frickin’ psycho. It was dark when he did this. Looksto me like he walked behind the bed, leaned over, and made his cut.”
She said to Hallows, “Looks like he wrote that message with a bare finger. You think you can pull some prints off that?”
“Don’t bet on it. The moving finger smears as it writes. We’ll try. Anything else?”
“Send pictures,” Rich said.
Hallows nodded. Conklin and Alvarez carefully left the scene.
Nardone was waiting for them on the sidewalk with a man in his forties, wiry, wearing sweats. “This is Mr. Tom Watkins.”
Conklin introduced himself and Alvarez and asked Watkins if he would come with them to the Southern Station.
“We have some photos we’d like you to look at.”
“Absolutely,” said Watkins. “Can we do it now?”
Conklin noted that there were tears in his eyes.
Just then, Brady’s voice crackled over Conklin’s radio.
