20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20) - James Patterson Page 0,30
lead in the case of Fred Peavey, killed by a single shot outside his son’s school. He was coming late to his case and had sounded eager to be part of our team.
McNeil and Chi were the lead investigators on Jennings’s assassination at the Duboce Avenue Taco King.
Jennings, the first to die, had been shot from a distance through his windshield. His rear window had been marked with the word Rehearsal, written with a finger in the dust on the window. However, Jennings had been shot slightly later than 8:30, like the other victims. It was unclear whether Jennings was part of the same collection of executed drug dealers.
Conklin and I were under the most pressure. Paul and Ramona Baron, unlike the other victims, were well known and had a fan base of rich and influential citizens. Those friends were talking to the press and clogging the mayor’s phone lines with demands for an arrest of the killer or killers, pronto.
I thought Brady was right that egos would be involved in this task force, but I also believed that to varying degrees the “cats” wanted to be herded if it would result in closing their cases.
Rich and I had an immediate and specific goal.
At one o’clock we’d be meeting with Miranda White Barkley and her attorney, who would be pushing to get his client released and had a fair chance of getting his way. We had no evidence that Randi had participated in the murders.
Still holding her as a material witness, we would have to release her at 2:00. I hoped that by the time the conference call ended, we’d have the leverage we needed to get Randi to talk.
I wasn’t just hopeful, I was damned-well determined.
CHAPTER 41
TED SWANSON’S FORMER office had been cleaned, but no flowery air freshener could eradicate the stink of that dirty cop who’d cost the lives of eighteen people.
He was at Chino for life, but that was old stinking news.
I closed the door to our new war room, with its large gray desk and two phone consoles, and my partner and I booted up our laptops.
I clicked on a news link and read the chyron running along the lower edge of my screen: SFPD has no leads in the deaths of Ramona and Paul Baron.
Great. Tell me something I don’t know.
A box with an arrow appeared in the upper right with the title “The Mysterious Deaths of Paul and Ramona Baron.”
“Richie. Come here.”
I double-clicked on the arrow and was immediately alarmed to see a slide show of images of the Barons’ office after they’d been murdered. There were close-ups of the bullet holes in the casement windows, Ramona’s desk chair, the bloodstained carpet, and the taped outline of Paul’s body across the surface of the partners desk.
The voice-over reporter was saying, “Acting chief of police Jackson Brady tells Real Crime News that he can’t comment while the Baron case is under investigation.”
I stabbed the Mute button with my finger and said to Conklin, “Did you see that? Someone leaked the crime scene photos, for God’s sake.”
“Taking a wild guess here. A CSI was bribed.”
“Huh,” I said. “Nice little severance package for someone.”
I had Clapper’s mobile on speed dial. I left him a message, and then I stewed about this wide-open case and kicked it around with Conklin.
I said, “Graphic photos of blood and bullet holes, and the shooter’s defense attorney tells a judge that the jury pool has been poisoned. If it ever comes to a judge and jury.”
“You’re not looking at the bright side.”
“You’re a riot, Richie.”
All we had was a suspect who’d been photographed holding a gun sight and was currently as free as fog. According to Randi White Barkley, her husband had PTSD. He’d run from the police out of fear. My theory was a little different. Barkley had run because he’d killed two prominent citizens and we were onto him. The odds were ten to nothing that he was preparing to kill again.
Still. We had his car, his wife, his laptop, his fingerprints, and his dog. Cops were on his doorstep. Maybe if Randi asked him to come in, he would do it.
I had a question for Richie, the eternal optimist.
“Check me on this. The Barons’ murders actually link up with the shootings at the same time in other cities, right?”
“So it seems. Roccio, yes. Peavey, yes. Eight thirty a.m.”
“So in your view, selling drugs—major league or minor—is at the root of the murders?”