threw open the doors.
He mocked the agents as they searched the spacious three floors.
“Maybe she’s in the washing machine, Joe. Have you searched the trunk of my car? Don’t forget to dust everything for fingerprints. I’ll send the bill for cleanup to the FBI.”
Joe was polite. But after three hours of eating shit, he was seething.
Did Petrović have Anna?
Or had she had an accident with the car and, rather than face the music, taken off to parts unknown?
Anna was strong-willed and angry at him.
If she had gone off on her own, Joe really had no clue where to look for her.
CHAPTER 89
Finally home after my eighteen-hour day in the Tenderloin, I greeted Joe and Martha from the doorway. I unbuckled my gun belt, pulled off my jacket, and stepped out of my shoes, leaving it all in a heap, and made my way across the room to my husband.
I was exhausted, frustrated, and starving, but still dying to tell Joe about Lopez and kick the case around with him. He was sitting on the sofa with his laptop open on the coffee table. I dropped onto the couch next to him, put my arms around him, and hugged him to pieces.
“I’m guessing you had a bad day,” he said, hugging me back.
I got right into it, telling him about Denny Lopez in snatches, knowing that Joe was an expert at making sense of random clues. Then he did the same with me.
“Anna is missing,” he said. “She borrowed a car from the dealership, had an accident, and vanished.”
When he’d given it all up, I saw that his case was like mine, clues everywhere, leading to nothing.
“Keep your phone charged,” I said. “She could call saying she ran away from home and that she’s all right.”
He nodded, but from the look on his face, I knew he was deeply worried. He didn’t buy my happy ending for Anna at all.
“I did find something interesting,” he said, “about our pal Slobodan Petrović.”
He turned the laptop so that I could see the photo on his computer screen, a slightly out-of-focus image of a group of about eight men wearing fatigues, loosely gathered in a wooded area. They looked like they were having an outing. But there was more to it than that—much more.
A female wearing only a skirt pulled up around her thighs was lying in the middle ground, encircled by several of the men. And in the background, shaded by trees, were bodies of men and women in civilian clothing hanging from branches. There had to be a dozen of them. The vignette looked unreal, like an art installation, the product of a particularly gruesome imagination. But it wasn’t art. And it wasn’t imaginary.
“Oh, my God,” I said several times.
Then I scrutinized the pictures, looking for “our pal” Petrović.
Standing near the center of the frame was a large, wide-shouldered man with a shaved head, wearing fatigues, combat boots. There was something in his hand, small, possibly metallic, with points—like a throwing star.
Joe said, “That’s him.”
“Is it?” I wasn’t sure.
“There’s a caption. I translated it. ‘Colonel Slobodan Petrović and men after taking the Bosnian town of Djoba. Petrović is proficient in the use of shuriken, throwing stars.’”
I asked, “What’s the source of the photo?”
“It appears to have been taken by one of the soldiers. It showed up in the trials against the Serbian Army high command. The caption was added during the trial, and it’s unattributed.
“And I found this,” Joe said. “A Serbian soldier testified at Petrović’s trial. Here’s a quote: ‘Colonel Petrović and other army officers would watch the hangings. I heard but never saw this. There were rumors that they would sometimes hunt victims in the woods.’”
Joe looked at me.
“You called it, Joe. When Adele’s body was discovered, you said you thought it was the work of a gang. It doesn’t seem far-fetched to call Petrović the gang leader.”
“I think so,” he said. “Get ready for the punch line. The witness said, ‘Colonel Petrović had a reputation for using a throwing star, and using it well.’”
I threw myself back on the couch. Was this proof? Was this evidence against the man who had injured Carly Myers and Adele Saran with throwing stars and then hanged them? What was the value of testimony from an unnamed witness who may have flipped on Petrović in order to get leniency from the court? Even the report of hunting in the woods was unsubstantiated.
Joe and I talked about this, concluding, naturally, that neither the SFPD