19th Christmas (Women's Murder Club #19) - James Patterson Page 0,42

tipster wasn’t blowing smoke—what’s Sloane’s connection to Loman?”

Jacobi said, “Maybe somehow Loman knew that Sloane might have millions in his safe.”

Really? Was this Loman’s big heist?

A man had been murdered and robbed, not in a museum or a bank or an art gallery, but in an eleven-hundredsquare-foot condo in the Castro District.

If the killers had left anything of forensic value behind, CSI would find it. The whodunit detective work was going to be first up for SFPD. But Conklin and I were still on the Loman task force. We needed help to secure the crime scene right now.

I conferred with my partner and then took Officer Thompsett aside. As first officer, he and his partner could stand in as primaries until we had forensics.

“Until detectives are assigned, this is your case, Officer,” I said. “Draft some uniforms and canvass the neighborhood. Keep records of everything. Call me or Conklin if you get a lead.”

“Will do, Sergeant.”

I got into the squad car, called Brady, and reported in. I thought of calling Joe, but it was too late. I leaned against the passenger-side window and dropped into a dream about Chris Dietz. I was facing him down that long sixth-floor hallway, and he had TEC-9s pointed at me, one in each hand.

My gun jammed.

Dietz taunted me as he fired, and I knew that this was finally it. Death at the Anthony Hotel.

I was startled awake.

It was still deep night. I was inside the squad car and Conklin was saying my name.

“What’s wrong?” I snapped at him.

“Time to go,” he said. “Sorry, Linds. We have to go.”

CHAPTER 51

BRADY PEERED AT his watch with bleary eyes.

Was that right? He shook his wrist, looked at his watch again. The second hand was still sweeping jerkily around the face.

It was three minutes shy of midnight.

He lifted his eyes and looked out at the squad room through the glass walls of his office. There wasn’t another soul in the Homicide bullpen, and that was also true of Robbery, Vice, Narcotics, and Organized Crime.

Mayor Caputo had taken the informant’s tip about Loman’s threat on his life very seriously. He’d canceled the Toys for Tots Christmas gift giveaway because his presence would be putting citizens in danger. And then he’d gone to his office as Brady had requested and stayed on top of the rumored Christmas heist. He was angry that he could be manipulated, threatened, and he wasn’t going to accept anything less than “We locked the bastard up. He’s behind bars and under armed guard.”

Yes, sir. Brady wanted the same.

Whoever Loman was. Wherever he was. He had to be caught and held.

Every ambulatory cop in San Francisco was working to find Loman, prompting a new phrase for spinning your wheels. Now it was working a Loman.

Brady had just gotten off the phone with Lindsay when a shadow crossed his desk. He started, then saw that Sergeant Roger Bentley was standing in the doorway.

Brady snapped, “What is it, Bentley?”

Bentley was a solid cop but not a brilliant one. He lumbered into Brady’s office and dropped into a chair that hadn’t been built for a man of his size and weight.

Bentley said, “My kid is home for the holidays. He’s taking computer science at San Jose State.”

Brady said, “Uh-huh,” thinking, Oh, man, please. Not his kid’s theory of the phantom heist.

Bentley said, “Declan picked up some information in a … like, a virtual chat room.”

“Uh-huh.”

Brady’s head was spinning almost clear off his neck. He’d never heard of so many tips netting nothing. Meanwhile, three people had been shot in the past couple of hours, he had two possible accessories to a rumored upcoming armed robbery in holding, the mayor was panicking, and every cop in the city who hadn’t had the foresight to blow town for the holidays was on the Loman case.

The SFPD was seriously depleted—emotionally, psychologically, and physically—and they had nothing to show for it.

Brady said, “Bentley, cut to the chase, will you please?”

“Okay, okay. I hardly understand this virtual stuff, but Declan is aces at it. He says the heist has something to do with computer software, a new program or something, manufactured in top secret labs by a company called BlackStar.”

“Not exactly a rock-solid lead, Bentley, but thanks.”

Bentley said, “You said … never mind. Good night, Lieu.”

He took the four steps to the door, then spun around and said, “Lieu, Declan says a guy who is part of this heist is some kind of systems-analyst genius. He kills on the game boards. He calls himself