The 8th Confession (12 page)

"You're losing me, Cindy. Wasn't Bagman
homeless?
"

"Look him up. Please."

"Entering 'Rodney Booker.' Here ya go. Huh. Cole Street. That's off Haight. Nice neighborhood."

It wasn't.

It was the badlands, the turf of small-time drug dealers.

And that made sense.

If Bagman Jesus wasn't lying when he told Flora Gold that his real name was Rodney Booker, and if Flora wasn't lying to
Cindy,
then the house on Cole could turn out to be where Rodney Booker, aka Bagman Jesus, had hung his bag.

Cindy said to Conklin, "Can you check it out, Rich? Because if you won't, I've got to."

"Stand down, Cindy. My shift is over in twenty minutes. I'll run over and take a look."

"I'll meet you there," said Cindy. "Wait for me."

"No, Cindy. I'm the cop.
You
wait for
me.
"

T
HE HOUSE ON COLE was painted roadkill gray, one in a block of distressed Victorian homes, this particular residence having boarded-up bay windows, trash-littered front steps, and an air of melancholy that had not lifted since the end of the '60s.

"It's condemned," Conklin said to Cindy, tilting his chin toward the notice nailed to the door.

"The lot alone is worth some dough. If this house belonged to Bagman, what made him homeless?"

"That's rhetorical, right?"

"Yeah," Cindy said. "I'm thinking out loud."

Cindy stood behind Conklin as he knocked on the door, touched the butt of his gun, then knocked again, this time louder and with meaning.

Cindy's hands were shaking as she cupped them and peered through a sidelight. Then, before Conklin could stop her, she pushed in the door.

A startled cry came from inside, and piles of rags rose up from the floor, ran toward the back of the house. A door slammed.

"This is a crash pad," Conklin said. "Those were squatters, crackheads. It's not safe, Cindy. We're not going in."

Cindy rushed past and headed for the staircase, ignoring Conklin, who was yelling her name.

She'd made a promise
.

The air was damp and cold, smelling of mildew and smoke and rotting garbage. Cindy ran up the stairs, calling, "Rodney Booker? Are you here?"

No one stirred, not even a mouse.

The top floor was brighter and more open than the floors below. The windows were bare, and sunlight lit up the one large bedroom.

A brass bed was centered on one wall, the mattress covered with dark-blue sheets. Books were scattered everywhere. A crack pipe was on the top of a scarred dresser.

"Cindy, I don't have a search warrant.
Do you understand?
" Conklin said, coming up behind her. "Nothing we find here can be used as evidence." He gripped her shoulders, gave her a little shake. "Hey, do you hear me?"

"I think Bagman Jesus lived here until he died."

"Really. Based on what?"

Cindy pointed to the mural behind the bed. It was crudely drawn in black and white on plaster, images of writhing people, their hands reaching upward, fire and smoke swirling around them.

"Read that," Cindy said.

Here was the proof Cindy had been looking for, that Rodney Booker and Bagman Jesus were one and the same.

Written within the hellish scene were two words in the same primitive lettering Cindy recognized from Flora Gold's tattoo.

The letters spelled out JESUS SAVES.

C
ONKLIN AND I were working the phones at half past six p.m. when Jacobi stopped by our desks, took a twenty out of his wallet, put it on my desk with a stack of take-out menus, and said, "I'll check in with you later."

"Thanks, Boss."

It was discouraging work.

We still didn't know if the Baileys' deaths were an accident, a homicide-suicide, or a double homicide—only that Claire's consultants had come up with nothing and the public was having a collective heart attack.

So Conklin and I did all we could do. We worked our way down the Baileys' endless list of friends and associates and asked the questions: When did you last see the Baileys? How were their moods? How did they get along? Do you know of anyone who would have wanted to harm Isa or Ethan Bailey?

Do you know of anyone who would have wanted them
dead?

I was dialing a number when I heard my name, looked up to see Cindy breeze through the wooden gate in front of our assistant, Brenda Fregosi, Brenda calling out,
"No,"
stabbing the intercom button, her voice blatting over the speaker on my desk.

"
Cindy's
here."

Waving a newspaper, Cindy floated around the day crew, who were putting on their coats as the night crew punched in. She plopped down in the side chair next to my desk, angling it so she could look at Conklin, too.

Hate to admit it, but she brought light into the gloom.

"Want to see what tomorrow's paper will look like?" she asked me.

"No."

"I'm a rock star, Richie. Look," she said, slapping the paper down on my desk. Conklin tried to stifle a laugh and failed.

I said to Cindy, "You've heard the expression 'misery loves company'?"

"You're miserable and I'm company. What's your point?"

"Misery loves
miserable
company."

Conklin snorted and Cindy har-de-har-harred and I couldn't keep stone-faced for another second.

Cindy gloated, "Don't you just hate it when I'm right?"

She lovingly smoothed out the newspaper so I could see the picture on the front page of the Metro section, the photo of Rodney Booker, aka Bagman Jesus, under the headline $25,000 REWARD. DO YOU KNOW WHO KILLED THIS MAN?

So there it was: Rodney Booker
was
Bagman Jesus.

Rodney Booker had been identified by his father from the morgue photos, which showed three raised lines on Rodney's shoulder, a crude slash-and-rub-with-ashes tattoo he'd gotten while in Africa.

Rodney Booker's death was a homicide. And
my
name was associated with his case file. All I needed to do was find out who killed him, and while I didn't have the time to do that, Cindy Thomas was both high on success and hot on the trail.

"I've been thinking," Cindy said. "I can just keep working the case, turn over anything I find out to you.
What,
Lindsay?"

"Cindy, you can't work a homicide, okay? Rich, tell her."

"I don't need your permission at
all,
" Cindy said. Then, eyes brightening, "Here's an idea. Let's go to Susie's and map out a plan we can all live with—"

I rolled my eyes, but Conklin was shaking his head and grinning at Cindy. He liked her!

I was ready to call Jacobi, let
him
straighten her out, when Claire blew through the gate, stomped toward us with a bad look in her eyes.

"
Dr. Washburn
is on her way back," Brenda's electronic voice cawed from my intercom.

Claire was busy. She didn't like to pay house calls to Homicide. Cindy, oblivious, called out, "Claire! We're off to Susie's. Come with us."

Claire fixed her eyes on me.

"I can't go to Susie's," she said, "and neither can you. Another one just came in. Killed just like the Baileys."

T
HE DRAPED BODY on the autopsy table was female, thirty-three, her skin as white as my mom's bone china. Her hair was a shimmering shoulder-length cut in four shades of blond. Her finger- and toenails had been lacquered recently, oxblood red, no chips.

She looked like the sleeping princess in the fairy tale waiting for the prince to chop through the briars and kiss her awake.

I read her toe tag. "Sara Needleman."

"Positively ID'd by her personal assistant," said Claire.

I knew Sara Needleman by her photographs in
Vogue
and
W.
She was a big-name clothing designer who made custom gowns for those who had thirty grand to throw down for a dress. I'd read in the
Gazette
that Needleman often did gangs of bridesmaids' dresses, each gown related in color but distinctly different in style, and that during the debutante season, Needleman's shop was in overdrive, designing for both the moms and the debs.

Surely Sara Needleman knew the Baileys.

Claire picked up her clipboard, said, "Here's what I've got. Ms. Needleman called her personal assistant, Toni Reynolds, at eight this morning complaining of abdominal cramps. Ms. Reynolds says she told Sara to call her doctor and that she'd check in on her when she got to work.

"Sara did call her doctor, Robert Dweck, internist, and was told she could come in at noon."

"She didn't make the appointment," Conklin said.

"No flies on you," Claire said to Conklin. "Sara Needleman called nine one one at ten-oh-eight. EMS got there at ten fifteen, found Sara dead in her bedroom."

"She
died
of stomach cramps? Something she ate?" I asked.

Claire continued, "To be determined, girlfriend. To be determined. Stomach contents and blood are at the lab.

"Meanwhile, I spoke with the medics who brought Sara in. There was no vomit or excrement in the house."

"Why do you think her death is like the Baileys'?"

"At first I didn't. There was a lull when she came in, so I got to her quick, thinking I knew what to look for."

Three of Claire's assistants tried to look busy, but they were hanging close enough to hear her report. I could already see the words "Breaking News" under a glamour shot of Sara Needleman interrupting our regularly scheduled programming. I could feel the public linking Needleman's death to the Baileys', the barometric pressure falling.

Big storm coming in.

Claire ticked off the possible causes of Sara Needleman's death.

"Leaving poison aside for now, stomach cramps are often caused by a perforated ulcer or an ectopic pregnancy gone bust."

"But not this time," Conklin guessed.

"Correct, Mr. Man. So the cramps could've been unrelated to her death. I checked for aneurysms, stroke, heart attack—found nothing. I examined all her organs. You could gift wrap them, tie 'em with a bow. Show 'em to med students to let them know what normal organs look like."

"Huh."

"No marks on her body, no bruises of any kind. Nothing wrong with Sara Needleman except that she's dead."

Conklin said, "She was on my list of names. I hadn't gotten to her yet."

"Too late now," I muttered.

Claire said, "So now I'm thinking we've got the Baileys and Needleman. Same social circle. Could be same cause of death. So when I sent out Sara's blood, I ordered the works. I've got sections holding at minus seventy for testing by someone who's going to be looking for something other than the usual herbs and spices," Claire said glumly. "What am I going to say now, compadres?"

Conklin said it. "More police work."

"Bingo, Ricardo. Someone's got to figure this out, because I've hit the wall."

Claire turned to Sara Needleman's body, put her hand on the woman's sheeted torso, and said, "I hear hoofbeats coming down the road, Sara darlin', I'm thinking 'horse.'
You
are a definite
zebra.
"

T
HE MORNING AFTER Sara Needleman died, Chief Anthony Tracchio called to say, "The mayor's on my ass. Drop everything except this case, and don't screw up."

I said, "Yes, sir, Tony. No screwing up," but I wanted to scream,
"What are we looking for?"

Lieutenant Michael Hampton, a twenty-year veteran of the Special Investigation Division (SID), had also been assigned to our dead-millionaires case, and he looked half as happy as I was. We met in Hampton's office, broke down the tasks, and divvied up the list.

Hampton deployed a team to Dr. Dweck's office to collect Sara Needleman's records and interview the doctor and his staff. Another SID team shot over to Needleman's showroom and office to interview Sara's personal assistant, Toni Reynolds, and the rest of Needleman's staff.

Conklin and I drove out to Needleman's house in Cow Hollow with my four guys caravanning behind. Conklin parked on the street. Chi and McNeil, Lemke and Samuels, started the neighborhood canvass while Conklin and I found the main entrance to Needleman's house.

Sara Needleman's place wasn't as
Architectural Digest
as the Bailey manse, but by any standard, it was stunning. The caretaker, a twentysomething hipster sporting black denim and a goatee, name of Lucas Wilde, met us at the door. He took us through the eight-thousand-square-foot house, a home Sotheby's would be listing as soon as Disaster Masters cleaned up CSU's mess.

After the tour of the seven-bedroom house, including the bi-level Japanese garden in back, we invited Lucas Wilde to come to the squad room and tell us what he knew about Sara Needleman.

He willingly complied.

"I know everyone who comes and goes," he said.

Conklin left us in Interview Room Number Two, ran Wilde's name, got nothing on him, came back with a legal pad and coffees all around.

We spent another hour with Wilde, and he dumped all his thoughts about Sara Needleman and the company she kept.

"Poofs and phonies, mostly. And then there were her clients."

The young man laboriously listed all of Sara's visitors, both friends and workers, including the housekeeper, the dog walker, the Japanese gardener, the tile man, the koi keeper, the yoga teacher, and the caterer.

"What kind of relationship did you have with Sara?" I asked.

"We got along fine. But I was no Lady Chatterley's lover, if that's where you're going. I was the gofer and the handyman, which is what she wanted, and I was happy to have the job and the cool place to live."

Wilde told us that he saw Sara briefly on the morning of her death. He brought her newspaper in from the gate, and she seemed okay to him.

"She just cracked the door, took the paper. She wouldn't have told me if she was sick."

"Got any ideas?" I asked Wilde. "If Sara Needleman was killed, who would've killed her?"