The 8th Confession (23 page)

I grunted, "Sorry," for my Jacobi-like behavior and watched Conklin dial and listen to Johnson's outgoing message.

"Hi, Norma. It's Inspector Conklin. Give me a call, okay? Got a quick question for you."

He left his number and hung up.

"Let's—"

"Check out her house," he said.

I muttered, "Wiseass," and he laughed, and we made for the car. Thirty minutes of traffic later, we parked close to the Twenty-fifth Avenue gate to the Presidio.

The Presidio has a long history, first as a Spanish fort right on San Francisco Bay, then as army housing when it was seized by the U.S. military in 1846. Nearly a hundred fifty years later, it went private, becoming a mixed-use assortment of business and residential buildings.

The renovation produced some beautiful Mission Revival-style redbrick buildings with white porches. Other housing was condemned and was gradually crumbling into the bay.

Pet Girl's address indicated that her apartment was in the picturesque and cheapest part of the former barracks, a long walk from where we stood. And what got to me instantly was that Norma Johnson's home was within viewing distance of Sea Cliff, where she'd gone to the Burke School—and where she'd been disgraced.

I'd thought status was important to her. So why had she put herself on that particular burner and turned up the jets?

Conklin and I walked quickly through the parklike Presidio surrounds, crowded on that workday with windsurfers changing in the parking lot, enjoying the breeze coming off Baker Beach.

And then Norma's apartment was in sight, one of two attached units with a small yard in front. The trim needed a paint job, and there was a bike lying on the long grass in front of Norma's door as though it had been dropped there in a hurry.

I knocked, called Norma's name, knocked again, harder—and still no answer. I thought of Pet Girl saying to Conklin, "The next victim could be
me.
"

"Exigent circumstances, Rich. She could have hurt herself. She could be dying."

I told him to kick the door in, but Conklin put his hand on the knob and turned it, and the door swung open. My gun was in my hand when we stepped inside Pet Girl's apartment. It was clean and small, with what looked like cast-off furnishings, except for a picture of Christopher Ross in an elaborate frame over the console table in the hallway.

I heard muffled footsteps and a rumbling sound but couldn't identify the noise or the direction it was coming from.

Conklin was behind me as I moved toward the back of the small duplex apartment, calling out, "Norma, it's Sergeant Boxer. Your door was open. Could you please come out? We have to talk."

All was silent.

I indicated to Conklin that he should stay on the ground floor, and I took the stairs. The upstairs rooms were so small, I could see into every corner, but still I turned over beds, tossed closets, looked for loose wall panels, the works.

Where the hell was Pet Girl?

I went through both small rooms, the bathroom, and the closets once more, but Norma Johnson wasn't there.

The invisible Pet Girl had gone invisible again.

I
WAS STARTLED by the sharp crash of heavy objects falling to the floor below, and then I heard that rumble again, a sound like muted thunder, maybe a heavy rolling door—and I heard voices.

Conklin is talking to Norma Johnson.

By the time he called out to me, I was halfway down the stairs.

My partner was in the kitchen, staring into an opening between a counter and the fridge through a doorway I'd thought too narrow to lead to anything but a broom closet. Apparently a pocket door had been rolled into an opening in the wall—and there was a room behind it, looked like a pantry.

"Lindsay," Conklin said in a measured tone, "Norma has a weapon."

I edged into the eight-by-ten kitchen until I could see Johnson. Her back was to the pantry. Conklin was standing only four feet in front of her, barring her exit.

I did a double take when I realized that Norma Johnson's weapon was the snake she gripped in her right hand. It was slim, banded, gray and white, a deadly krait, its tail lashing, its head swaying only inches from Johnson's neck.

"Get out of my way, Inspector Conklin," Johnson hissed. "I'm leaving by the front door, and you're going to let me go. And I'm going to lock the door behind me. The snakes won't bother you as long as you are very quiet and move very slowly."

As Johnson inched toward Conklin, I could see behind her to the pantry. Metal shelving along the wall held a number of twenty-gallon aquariums, and the floor of the room was covered with broken glass.

My hands went ice cold as I understood the crashing sound. Pet Girl had pulled some of the snake tanks over, and they had smashed on the floor. Snakes were loose in the apartment, looking for hidey-holes, probably winding around corners into the small kitchen where Conklin and I were standing.

"I want you to open the oven and put that snake inside!" I shouted to Pet Girl. "Do it now, or I'm going to shoot."

Pet Girl laughed.

"Nope, not going to do that," she said, showing me a pretty smile I'd not seen on her face before. "So what's it going to be, Sergeant? Let me go? Because if not, it doesn't matter to me if Kali bites me or if you shoot me. There's no difference to me at all."

A clock ticked on the wall above the stove. I heard Norma Johnson's breath quicken, and I saw that Conklin's face was blanched. He was afraid of snakes, deathly afraid, but he stood like a rock within striking distance of Pet Girl's lunatic idea of a pet. I couldn't get a clean shot.

"Move aside, Inspector," Johnson said to Conklin. "Save yourself and let me go."

"I can't do that," said Conklin. And then he snapped out his hand like he was grabbing a fly from the air. He was going for her wrist, but before he could grab her, she launched the snake at Conklin.

Conklin jumped back, but the snake was airborne. My partner raised his hand as it came toward him, wriggling sinuously, batting against his palm. It clung to his hand for an instant, hanging over his wrist—until Conklin shook it off and it fell to the floor.

He stepped back, holding his wrist, then turned his ashen face to me.

"I've been bitten," he said, standing stock-still. "The bastard got me."

N
ORMA JOHNSON BOLTED.

She tried to bulldoze her way past me, but I came out of my horrified trance, grabbed her arm, and wrenched her around.

Her shoulder popped and she screamed, but the pain didn't stop her. She picked up a coffee mug with her free hand and, gripping it as if it were a rock, hauled back and aimed a ceramic punch to my jaw.

I ducked, kicked at her knee with all I had. She screamed again and dropped to the floor. I rolled the yowling woman onto her stomach and bent her arms back, cuffed her as I yelled to Conklin, "Rich! Lie down on the couch. Lower your arm to the floor so that it's below your heart.
Do it now.
"

Conklin walked unsteadily into the next room as if he were already dying. I noted the time, grabbed my cell phone, and called Dispatch, told Kam that Conklin was down.

"We need an ambulance
forthwith,
" I said, giving the address. "Call the hospital, say that the victim has been bitten by a snake. It's a krait. K-R-A-I-T. We need antivenin
now.
"

"Antivenom?"

"Yes.
No.
It's called
antivenin.
And send uniforms to take our collar into custody."

I walked over to Johnson, who was writhing, squeaking out little yelping cries.

I stooped down and said, "Do you have any antivenin here?"

She mewled, "If I did, I wouldn't tell
you.
"

I kicked her in the ribs, and she howled. I asked her again.

"No! I don't have any."

I didn't believe her. I opened her refrigerator and took inventory. Three cups of yogurt, box of eggs. Six-pack of Coors. Wilted radishes. No vials that looked like something that could save Conklin's life.

I can't lie. It felt like dozens of eyes were staring at me. I was creeped-out to the ends of my hair, and even though I was terrified for my partner, I still had a little terror left over for myself.

I watched the floor as I made my way to the living room, where Conklin was lying on a blue plaid sofa, his arm lowered to keep the poison from traveling to his heart.

Only a minute or two had passed since he'd been bitten, but I had no idea how long it would take for that bite to paralyze his central nervous system. How long it would be until Conklin couldn't breathe.

Was it already too late?

I whipped off Conklin's belt and placed it just below his elbow as a constricting band. "I've got you, buddy. The ambulance is on the way."

Panic welled up inside me like a tsunami, and the tears were working hard to bust down the dam. But I couldn't let my partner see that. I just wanted to be 10 percent as brave as he was.

I forced my mind off the odds.

And I focused on the distance between us and the closest hospital. I thought about the
Amazing Race
-style run the paramedics would have to make carrying stretchers from the Twenty-fifth Avenue gate all the way out to the end.

And then there was the antivenin.

How would the hospital get antivenin in time?

The souls of every dead person I'd ever loved visited me as I held Richie's good hand and listened for sirens: Jill and Chris and my mom—I couldn't bear it if Conklin died.

I heard the sirens blare and stop.

To my overwhelming relief, twelve minutes after Conklin was bitten, paramedics bearing stretchers bombed through the door.

I
YELLED OUT to the paramedics and the cops. "Poisonous snakes are loose all over the freakin' floor. They're
lethal.
"

"You said a cop is
down?
" asked a uniform.

I knew him. Tim Hettrich. Twenty years on the force and one of our best. But he and Conklin had a feud going, started when Conklin moved up to Homicide. I thought maybe they hated each other.

"Poisonous snake bit Conklin."

"A cop is
down,
Sergeant. We're going in."

As Conklin was strapped onto the gurney, I walked to where Norma Johnson lay cuffed on the floor. Her face was puffy and her nose was bleeding, but I had a sense that if a snake crawled out of the pantry and bit her, she'd be ecstatic.

Maybe she wanted to die as her father had died.

I halfway hoped she'd get her wish, but my more rational mind wanted to hear the story.

I wanted to know what Norma Johnson had done, to whom, and why. And
then
I wanted the State to try her, convict her, and kill her.

I stood over Norma Johnson, and I read her her rights.

"You have the right to remain silent, you disgusting coward," I said. "Anything you say can and damned well
will
be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney, if you can find one slimy enough to defend you. If you can't afford an attorney, the State of California will provide one for you. We do that even for scum like you. Do you understand your rights, Pet Girl?"

She smiled at me.

I grabbed her arms by the cuffs and jounced her, putting the strain on her popped shoulder, making her scream.

"I asked you, do you understand your rights?"

"Yes, yes!"

Hettrich said, "I've got her, Sergeant." He brought her to her feet and hustled her out the door. I wanted to leave, too. But I had to see what was inside that pantry.

I had to know.

I walked over to the opening and stared at the metal shelves filling the narrow room. I could see the kraits slithering through the remnants of most of the tanks, every one of those snakes loaded with venom.

It was stunning to think what Norma Johnson's intentions were in owning so many snakes. How many more people had she hoped to kill before she was caught?

What was in this sick woman's mind?

I told a uniform to seal and lock the place, and then I left Pet Girl's snake house. I ran toward the ambulance, got in just as the EMTs loaded my partner inside.

I sat next to Richie, took his good hand, and squeezed it.

"I'm not leaving you until you're doing push-ups. Shooting hoops," I said to my partner, my voice finally cracking into little pieces. "You're going to be fine, Richie. You're going to be perfect."

"Okay," he said, his voice just above a whisper. "But do me a favor, Linds. Pray for me anyway."

W
HEN THE AMBULANCE driver took a left, I knew we were going to a place I never wanted to see again.

Yuki's mother had died at San Francisco Municipal Hospital.

I'd stalked those halls for days on end, hoping to trap a deranged "angel of death," learning in the process that Municipal was geared toward high profits, not patient care.

I called up front to the driver, "General is closer than Municipal."

"We're busing the snakebite victim, aren't we, Sergeant? Municipal's got the antivenin coming in."

I shut up and did what Conklin had asked. I prayed to God as I held his hand, and thought about what a fine person Richard Conklin was, how much we'd been through together, how lucky I'd been to have him as a friend and partner.

Traffic parted in front of us as the ambulance screamed up Pine, then jerked into the lot and jolted to a stop outside the emergency-room entrance.

Doors flew open and medics scrambled.

I ran beside Conklin's gurney as he was rolled through the automatic doors. That awful hospital disinfectant smell smacked me in the face, and I felt a wave of panic.

Why here?

Of all places, why did we have to bring Richie here?

Then I saw Doc coming toward us.

"The medevac chopper is on the way," he told me and Conklin. "Rich? How do you feel?"

"Scared out of my freakin' mind," my partner said. I thought he was slurring his speech. I put my hand over my mouth. I was so afraid of losing it. Of losing
him.