The 19th Christmas - James Patterson Page 0,54

morgue photos of Lambert’s body showed lividity from lying in a fetal position in the trunk of a car. The shot to the back of his neck, fired at close range, suggested that he’d trusted his killer enough to turn his back to him.

I remembered everything about Julian Lambert, the way he’d spoken, what he had said, what he’d looked like—vibrantly alive.

Conklin noticed that I’d gone quiet.

“You okay, Linds?”

I shook my head, trying to understand my own mood. I said, “It’s weird, but I felt like I knew him. I mean, he was a small-time thief. He was something of a charmer. The lead he gave us to Chris Dietz was the only real lead we’ve had. Did talking to us put Lambert on Loman’s hit list? Is he dead because he talked to us? I think so.”

“Lindsay, we didn’t kill the guy. Please. Don’t torture yourself.”

I needed to talk. We kept our eyes on the street, the thickening traffic, the pedestrians with coats and hats going in and out of hotels, going to and from the skating rink in Union Square, near the soaring artificial tree.

I said, “Rich, what are we looking for? We have a bunch of pieces and parts that add up to a big fat pile of nothing.”

He agreed, and while watching the scenery, we tried to connect the dots yet again, going from Lambert to Dietz with the circled map to the de Young Museum and Dietz’s girlfriend, Dancy, who’d confirmed the name Loman.

Then the mayor was threatened, and informants all over the city gave tips to cops they knew. This bank, that art gallery, the San Francisco Mint—all were named as possible targets.

We took down two nickel-bag drug dealers, dupes or extras who didn’t actually know anything about Loman or the job. And then, of course, there was the savage murder of a jewelry-store manager and a reported anonymous tip that Loman had been seen leaving the premises.

That brought us to last night, when a cop’s son who had picked up some chat-room braggadocio told Jacobi about a possible plan to hit a big computer company. Rich and I sat in the car overlooking Union Square and chewed on that bit of chatter. We concluded that unless Loman had an army and air cover, hitting BlackStar VR made no sense.

It was Christmas Day. Like almost all businesses, the offices would be closed.

Was the crime teed up and ready to go? Had it already been committed?

Apparently, our mayor didn’t think so, and he wasn’t going to call off his bodyguards or the SFPD until Loman was in jail.

At the same time, while every cop in the city was chasing the phantom Loman, there’d been a fatal stabbing in the Tenderloin, a shooting at a cash machine in the Marina, a vehicular manslaughter or outright homicide on Jackson, and a domestic dispute in Bayview that had ended with a child dead and a wife in a coma.

I was thinking of phoning Joe just to say hello when dispatch called on our radio channel. I grabbed the mic, and day-shift dispatcher May Hess said, “Sergeant, can you take a call? There’s a woman named Cheryl Sandler on the line. She claims to be a close friend of Julian Lambert, deceased.”

“Put her through.” I couldn’t say it fast enough.

Chapter 68

A tearful female voice said, “Sergeant, the medical examiner’s office told me to talk to you. What should I do?”

An hour later Conklin and I were in the box with Cheryl Sandler. Tall, thirty, and pretty, she had boy-cut platinum-blond hair and wore a black dress and jacket; her eye makeup was smudged. She had an arrest record for running out on a restaurant check as well as convictions for shoplifting and returning the stolen merchandise for cash.

She and Lambert had petty theft in common.

I asked routine questions about where she lived and worked, and after she’d filled in those blanks, she told me about Julian.

He had a wonderful spirit. She loved him. They’d spent the night together at his place five days ago, before we’d pulled him in for his grab-and-dash on Geary. She told us that Lambert had called her from the jail and they had made plans to get together after his release, but he had stood her up. That wasn’t like him. At all. She went to his place and looked around. Nothing had been disturbed since she’d been there last. She was going insane worrying about him but figured maybe the police had moved