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Richie’s face just fell apart. “This is so wrong.”
The brother I’d never had, my dear friend, crossed his arms on the table, put his head down and broke into sobs. I understood that this was yet one more breaking point. The chances of finding Cindy alive were minute, but finding a strand of her hair felt like proof of death.
I said, “We didn’t find any other sign of her, Rich. Nothing. He probably moved her. Uniforms are sitting on that house 24-7. If he comes back … Look. That scum made us an offer—Burke for Cindy—and that offer is still standing. He’s not going to walk away from that.”
We both knew that exchange wasn’t happening, but I saidit to comfort us both. Richie didn’t answer me. He cried and I sat with him, rubbing his back and heaving shoulders.
About then, Brady burst through the door. “Sorry,” he said, seeing Conklin’s distress. “We’re not done, Boxer. Come see me.”
Brady left.
There wasn’t a paper towel or a napkin or a dollar pack of tissues in the room. Rich wiped his face with his sleeves and said, “The contact info for Bryan Catton’s school friends is old. We checked. The numbers are no good anymore. The bookstore where Catton worked on weekends is out of business.”
“We have two more addresses,” I said.
“Lindsay, I want in on the search for Cindy. Or I’m going to fucking quit.”
CHAPTER 86
THIS WAS PURE desperation time and we knew it. Cindy had been missing for too long and we hadn’t been prodded by Blackout. So, we were scraping the bottom of Marion Witmar’s tip list. She had given us names that we’d connected to locations where Catton may have lived years ago—or where he might be living now. Or we’d never know.
With no sand left in the hourglass, we’d committed to checking out Witmar’s leads with Blackout’s given name—Bryan Catton.
Cappy and Chi had drawn the name Bennet Frank, a Catton high school friend. After running Frank’s name and finding nothing criminal, they were driving to his house in the Marina District.
Conklin had pressed Brady to the wall until he relented and put Rich back in action on the search for Cindy. Brady had too many balls in the air, and now he had to neutralize the Barbara Sullivan media bomb that was radiating out to all points.
Richie and I pulled the name Austin Reynolds, an actor/stand-up comedian who knew Bryan Catton through their drama classes at Berkeley. Reynolds’s bio on social media listed his day job as a copy editor for a small publishing company.
So on that hazy Saturday afternoon, two weeks after Blackout had put a couple of rounds into Ralph Hammer’s head, we were squeezing out a few unexplored leads. I knew Rich and I were both thinking of Cindy, last seen balled up under a desk and no longer there. We met Alvarez at the garage and checked out a tech-tweaked unmarked police car and headed out to Dolores Heights.
We had a dedicated radio channel connected to Brady’s office, two FBI special agents in the form of my husband and his former partner for a half-dozen years. We also had the assistance of two undercovers driving an unmarked Chevy sedan following us to Austin Reynolds’s address. We had no search warrant, no probable cause, and I could only hope that Reynolds knew where Bryan Catton lived. And that at the end of this blindman’s bluff we’d find Cindy Thomas alive and planning her next true-crime tour de force.
Rich parked our car on 20th Street under a tree across from a clean white apartment building with balconies and city views. Joe and Mike parked a half block away and the undercovers found a spot a couple of car lengths from the entrance to Reynolds’s building.
The undercovers stayed at the curb. Joe and Mike left their car and took up positions at the back of the apartment building. Rich and I zipped up our Kevlar vests, clipped our badges to our windbreakers, and got out of the car. Dodging traffic, we crossed the street and entered the building’s foyer. On the wall to our right was a bank of mailboxes and intercom buttons.
Witmar had told us that Bryan Catton and Austin Reynolds had been roommates in college and again before he enlisted. The name “Reynolds” was on the mailbox for apartment 1R. That meant ground floor, rear. I took in a long breath and exhaled as Rich pressed the bell.
No answer.
We counted to ten and pressed it again.
Still no answer.
We returned to our car and I texted Joe. “He’s not home. Let’s wait thirty mins.”
“Copy that,” he replied.
But Rich couldn’t wait half an hour. Ten minutes was his limit. We got out of the car, re-entered the lobby, and out of pure frustration, Conklin pushed the buzzer again,leanedon it.
This time a male voice spoke.
“Who is it?”
“Mr. Reynolds? This is the SFPD.”
I texted Joe. “Stand by.”
