Be Mine (6 page)

“Irene said to send you a copy, so you could pull what you like for
your piece.”

“It’s good, thanks. I’m sorry we brushed you off at the Hall
earlier. It was crazy, you know.”

“How’s Molly doing?” Lepp slipped on his jacket.

“Well, she’s pretty tough.”

“It’s terrible what’s happened to her, but she’ll survive it.”

“Hope so.”

“You two are pretty close, huh?” Lepp adjusted his tie.

“Yeah, we’re good friends. We’ve been through a lot on this beat.
She’s a good reporter.”

Lepp nodded, nudged his glasses while taking stock of Molly’s desk.

“Didn’t you guys date for a bit?” Tom asked.

Lepp’s face flushed, and he smiled as he looked off
self-consciously.

“Yeah. It was a long time ago. We went out several times. She was so
nice. It was fun.” He shrugged.

“She’s dated a lot of guys. But I thought she was getting serious
about Hooper. They’d been going out for a few months, but in all the time I’ve
known her I don’t think she was ever as serious about anyone.”

“I guess that’s what makes this so tragic.”

Tom nodded until something occurred to him.

“There’s a group from the paper going to see her shortly.” Tom wrote
Molly’s address on a clear notebook page.

“Thanks. I’ll be over to offer my condolences, see how she’s doing.”

Tom resumed writing, incorporating a few lines of Lepp’s material
into his piece. Then he came to the point in his story where Molly had entered
Hooper’s bedroom. She’d said she’d found items placed in a certain way. What
were those items? She’d refused to tell him. Didn’t want to jeopardize the
investigation.

“Hey, big guy, you’d better hurry up and file.”

Della Thompson stopped to smell the flowers on Molly’s desk. She was
one of Molly’s closest friends. Grew up in Sunnydale where she’d helped raise
her little brother after her father walked out on her sick mother. Della had
worked as a waitress and a
UPI
stringer to put herself through college
before becoming one of the
Star
’s best reporters.

“Irene said to send you my stuff.”

“Got it. Thanks.”

The history of Bay Area cop deaths. It started with the case before
Hooper. The cop who was killed during a jewel heist in the Richmond District
several months ago. That one was still fresh in Tom’s mind.

“Who sent Molly these roses?” she asked.

“Don’t know. They came this morning as I was heading out.”

“This morning? That was early.” She hunted for a card. “I’m going
over to Molly’s now with Carmine. You coming?”

“I’ve got to finish this. Maybe I’ll catch up.”

“All right.” She collected the flowers. “We’ll bring these with us.”

It took nearly an hour before Tom wrote the last sentence and sent
the story to the metro desk editing queue, minutes under the first edition
deadline. The night editor asked him to stick around in case they had any
questions. Standing to stretch, he spotted the small card that had accompanied
Molly’s flowers and retrieved it from the carpet. He looked at the little
envelope, contemplating his temptation to open it.

Finally, he decided he’d give it to Molly later. Unopened.

“Even if it turns out
we pried an SXT
Talon from Hooper’s wall, it doesn’t mean a whole hell of a lot right now,”
Sydowski said. “It’s a commercial caliber, not exclusive to the SFPD. If that’s
what you’re thinking.”

“To be honest, I don’t know what I’m thinking anymore. It’s nearly
three-thirty in the friggin’ morning.”

Turgeon dropped off Sydowski at his home in Parkside after a futile night
of re-canvassing in Hooper’s neighborhood.

Might as well look in on the birds. Sydowski headed for the aviary
he’d built under the creaking oak tree in his backyard. His grandchildren loved
how it looked like a tiny cottage from a fairy tale. His late wife had made the
curtains. Twenty-five years ago, a friend had given them a singing finch, which
eventually led to Sydowski’s love for breeding and showing the birds.

He flipped on a soft light to check the water and seed supply of his
newest fledglings. Fife fancies, less than two weeks old, about the size of a
baby’s thumb. He was optimistic for this group. He didn’t like the trend toward
gargantuan budgerigars. He was a traditionalist who favored graceful, tiny
treasures, classic original border canaries. Everything looked good.

He deposited himself into his recliner to rest amid the tranquility.
He always found comfort here where the velvety cooing soothed him while he
analyzed his darkest cases.

Like this one.

Sydowski remembered the time Hooper had accepted a rare invitation
into his aviary after a Niners game. “This is your little fortress of
solitude.” Hoop slapped him on the back. “I always knew you were Superman.”

This case hit him in the heart. And with OCC and Management Control
perched like vultures on his shoulder, Sydowski, for the first time, didn’t
know if he had the strength for this battle.

“I always knew you were Superman.”

Nothing ever remained the same. Time was a thief, stealing
everything sweet in his life. The girls had moved away. Basha was gone. His old
man was in death’s grasp. Now Hooper. He was too tired to even dream of happier
times.

A few hours later, he was at the Hall of Justice, in the medical
examiner’s autopsy room. Clifford James Hooper’s naked corpse lay on a stainless
steel table. His clothing had been examined, his body had been weighed,
measured, and X-rayed prior to the procedure.

Male. White. Six feet one inch. One hundred eighty pounds. Forty-one
years old.

In San Francisco, homicide detectives were not required to witness
an autopsy. But Sydowski’s reputation for thoroughness usually meant watching,
if it was his case. He and Turgeon said little as Julius Seaver, the forensic
pathologist, performed the procedure.

Right off, the autopsy yielded a revelation. There was a large
contusion on Hooper’s lower left jaw. Given the body’s posture, the detectives
wouldn’t have spotted it at the scene, Seaver said.

On Hooper’s right side, Seaver began examining the bullet’s entry
into the head. He noted that the star-patterned contact wound had seared into
Hooper’s right temple. Then he started his bone-cutting saw and opened Hooper’s
skull to track the course of the bullet and retrieve it. It took several
moments before Seaver located the spent round. It had not been damaged much and
clinked like a coin when he dropped it in the stainless steel tray.

Sydowski never liked the autopsies. Maybe it was the chilled room,
or the overwhelming smells of formaldehyde, ammonia, the eggy odor of organs,
their shades of red and pink, or the pop when the calvarium was taken, opening
the skull to reveal the brain and dura, or seeing the primary Y incision across
the chest, as the pathologist worked through the examination of the body.

Sydowski knew autopsies were critical. He just never liked them.
Later, when the procedure was completed, they all met in Seaver’s office, where
he set the bullet in its plastic evidence bag on his desk.

“Looks like a .40 cal. A Talon,” he said.

“Like the one Crime Scene dug out of the wall,” Turgeon noted. “What
can you tell us?”

“The victim died of a single gunshot wound to the head. No other
gunshot wounds, defensive wounds. Nothing.”

“Except for the bruise on his jaw,” Sydowski said. “Correct.” Seaver
checked his notes, then entered and retrieved data from his computer. “The
contusion would be consistent with someone punching him.”

“There was a fight?”

“Well, there were no defensive wounds. No scarring on his knuckles.”

“Sucker punch?”

Seaver shrugged. “The contusion appears to have been recent and
could easily fall within time of death.”

“Can you give us more?”

“Theoretically the bruise on his jaw would f it with a right-handed
person slugging him, like this.” Seaver closed his right hand into a fist and
touched it to Sydowski’s left jaw. “It’s conceivable the person who hit him
would have bruised or scraped knuckles.”

Like Ray Beamon, Sydowski thought.

In the moments before she woke
, Molly
struggled between consciousness and her lingering nightmare that Cliff had been
murdered.

Only a bad dream, she told herself until reality seized her from the
fading darkness and forced her eyes open. She was in a field of white crumpled
tissues. Dozens. Like headstones in a cemetery. This was no dream. It was true.
Cliff was dead. The images of his apartment swirled. She struggled to keep from
screaming.

It’s real.

Through her bedroom doorway she focused on her living room sofa bed,
unfolded, covered by a thick comforter with Della Thompson’s hair spilling from
the top.

“No use in arguing. I’m not letting you face this alone,” Thompson
had said last night as Molly assured her friends she’d be okay after they left.

It was a lie and she was glad Thompson had stayed. You could count
on that girl, she thought, pulling on her robe, padding to her bathroom, then
to her kitchen to make morning tea.

Molly tried to remember the last words Hooper had spoken to her, but
it hurt because she must’ve loved him in some way. Her thoughts drifted to the
distant spires of the Golden Gate, the twinkling red and white lights of its
early morning traffic. As the kettle boiled she ached to be in someone else’s
skin.

She summoned the courage to go to her door for the
Chronicle
and the
Star
. She glanced at their front pages. Cliff’s murder was the
lead story. She touched her fingers to Hooper’s smiling face. Setting the
papers on the coffee table, she slid into her favorite chair and pulled her
knees to her chest, sipped her tea and tried not to think of anything.

“How you holding up, hon?” Thompson said from under the blanket.

“I don’t know. I made tea for you.”

“Thanks. You feel like talking?”

“I’m just numb. It doesn’t feel real.”

“Yolanda from Human Resources told me to tell you that they can set
you up with a shrink if you want. Want me to call her?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. Hold off. I don’t know.”

The two women sat in silence with their tea. It was calming.
Thompson examined the
Star
’s front page.

“You know, Irene was leaning all over Tom to torque his story right
up to final deadline, saying how she wanted the paper to own it because of your
connection to Cliff.”

Molly changed the subject.

“I think I want to go for my morning run.”

“It wouldn’t be against the rules to miss today.”

“No, I need to run. I think it will help.”

“Want company?”

“No, thanks. You’ve been great pulling duty like this, giving me a
shoulder. I’ll go alone.”