off. I got in his face and blocked his access, but he mocked me, crouched into a boxer’s stance, and danced on the balls of his feet, daring me to take him on.
And then he rushed me.
My father was a bad father, a worse husband, and also a dirty cop. Maybe I was trying to make up for all that by becoming a cop myself. One thing Marty Boxer did teach me: “With the name Boxer, you better know how to box.”
I thought the husky guy could hurt me, but I was more afraid that he’d corrupt the scene. So I drew back my fist and punched him in the face with all my strength.
He howled, staggered backward holding his hands over his nose. The crowd I had shooed away reassembled and began hooting, catcalling me and Frazer, “Here, piggy, piggy.”
I was worried that this mob was going out of control. Two of us. More than a dozen of them. I fired a shot into the air to get their attention. I remembered, too late, that warning shots were illegal, but I figured I’d explain later. We were outnumbered and I was afraid for my life.
It was almost pure bravado when I yelled, “Who wants to go to jail for interfering with law enforcement?”
There was laughter. This was bad. A menacing scrum of kids was having a good time with the lady cop. They might have weapons. I would be surprised if they didn’t. The crime scene was still exposed, and it was just me holding off gangbangers, and Frazer standing between the victim and death.
I pushed through the hecklers, and when I got to the car, I called dispatch, demanding backup forthwith.
Correa’s voice came over the radio. “I’m on Mission and Twentieth. Watch for my lights.”
The gangbangers heard Correa’s voice over the radio saying that she was three blocks away, and it backed them off. I’d bought a minute to tape off the street and I got to it.
Frazer said, “I’m sorry I can’t help with this.”
I said, “Do you see that?”
I flashed my light on the brick wall, and there, finger-painted in blood, was the Bloodsucker’s signature, the sketch of a grinning face, blood running down his chin.
Frazer was asking the victim for her name, telling her to stay with us, repeating her promise that she would be all right.
The guy I’d punched out was sitting with his back against a car, holding his nose and howling. I prayed that we’d gotten to the victim in time. That someone had seen the victim’s attacker.
I took out my notepad and shouted to the ominous and growing crowd. Not just young men anymore, thank God. “Did anyone see the attack on this woman?”
One old man raised his hand. He was wearing a Giants cap and a plastic bag over his clothes. I felt mist on my face. It was starting to rain.
“I saw him,” he said.
I said, “Come with me.”
CHAPTER 52
I still remembered how it had seemed to me, then, as though everything were working against Lisa and me, and most of all, against the victim, who hadn’t yet been able to tell us her name.
But there was a witness.
I steered the elderly man to a place where we could speak outside the tape. I stood with my back to the wall.
I asked him for his name and address.
He pointed to his chest and said, “I’m Sam Winkler.” Then he pointed to a large cardboard box halfway down the block, leaning against the wall of a building, and said, “My centrally located, eco-friendly, multipurpose abode.”
He was deadpan, but I had to smile.
While keeping my eyes on the street, I asked Sam to tell me what he had seen.
He said, “This strange guy passed right by me—four feet away. He was talking to himself, very loud and very crazy. I didn’t understand him. I don’t think it was English. Maybe Swedish. I never saw him before. I was just glad he kept going. I didn’t mess with him.”
“Tall? Short? Black? White? Young? Old?”
Sam Winkler shrugged, then said, “Medium-sized and skinny.”
I made a note. “And you saw the attack?”
“Some of it. I stood up to make sure he was gone, and Rona was sitting right there against the building when this dude came up to her. He hunched down. She cried out, and I couldn’t see what he did from where I was. But I saw when he wrote on the wall with his finger.”
“You did?”
Sam said, “That was him, right? The