Joe said, “I should be out of the office early today.”
I said, “I’ll try to do the same thing.”
Then Julie chimed in, “Me too.”
That made us laugh. Julie turned and gave me a broad smile. Then she stretched forward and gave me a kiss on the cheek.
“I love you, Mommy,” she said.
“And I love you, Julie-bug.” My heart felt like it would burst, I was so happy. I knew Julie’s little kiss would carry me through the whole day.
CHAPTER3
HEADING TOWARD THEentrance of the Hall of Justice on Bryant Street, I nodded to a number of acquaintances and friends. The building held the court system, the district attorney’s office, and the Homicide unit of the San Francisco Police Department.
The rest of the divisions of the police department had moved some time ago, with the headquarters now south of Oracle Park. I had no idea why they thought it was a good plan to leave Homicide here at the Hall of Justice, but at least it was familiar. There was something comforting about stepping through the doors I knew so well.
That was probably the last comfort I’d feel today. The case that occupied my mind wasn’t pretty. No homicide ever is. But this one, a corpse that had washed up on Marshall’s Beach in the Presidio, was especially unpleasant.
All we could tell was that the victim was a young woman. Maybe late teens or early twenties. Claire Washburn had determined the girl was dead by the time someone tossed her into the ocean. Evenwith all the damage caused by sea life and exposure to salt water, Claire had been able to determine the cause of death was strangulation.
It made me shudder. I often hear people say that fire would be a terrible way to go or falling from a great height. But to me, strangulation is the most terrifying method. It usually takes a while, and forces victims to look directly at their killer.
But other than that, we were stumped. It had been ten days and we still had no real leads. Marshall’s Beach, where she’d been found, wasn’t where you’d expect to find a body. It was a place for tourists, or for the wealthy locals living in the Presidio’s surrounding neighborhoods who liked to hike down the bluff to the beach.
I saw my boss, Jackson Brady, sitting in his office. I didn’t bother to duck in and say hello. If he needed something, I knew he’d come out and find me in the bullpen.
By this time of the morning, my head had cleared. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t fooling myself, so I pulled out a compact mirror I kept in my left-hand desk drawer. I took a quick look and decided I was presentable. My hair looked a little wild, but it was a Friday. Everyone knew where I’d been the night before. Hell, several people in my unit had been there too.
Like Rich Conklin, who plopped down at the desk next to mine. He rubbed his eyes, groaned, then looked at me.
“Why is it that you look alert and prepared and I feel like a truck hit me?” Richie complained. “It’s not just you either. Cindy rolled out of bed on time and ready to go this morning.”
“Just good genes, I guess,” I mumbled, then changed the subject. “What are you up to? I’ve got a few things to do on our Marshall’s Beach case.”
“So, I do have a little update, but it’s not much. I’ve checkedwith every safe house and runaway shelter in the Bay Area. So far, no one recognizes the girl from the digital composite the ME’s office put together for us. You know how people react to composites. In this age of the internet and cell phones, they want to see an actual photograph of someone before they’ll commit.”
“I appreciate you handling this. It’s a shit job but important on this case.”
I’d built up a fictional life for the young woman we’d found. A smart girl who didn’t feel like she fit in anywhere. Maybe she got suckered in by some slick-talking pimp. Or maybe she just needed some space from her neglectful parents. She’d run away only to be murdered.
Sometimes the job started to catch up to me.
Having a backstory for the victim was important to me. It wasn’t like I blabbed it to everyone. I didn’t even tell my partners. But I knew somewhere there was someone who missed this young woman. Someone who’d be saddened to hear that she was dead. And I wasn’t just going to sit here and let a killer get away with murdering her.
Conklin was the same. He said, “If one of my nieces disappeared, I hope a cop would work just as hard trying to find them. I also think it’s important for families to have closure. That’s why I’d like to identify this girl.”
“That’s just part one. Part two is finding out who strangled her.” Just then my desk phone rang with a call from the unit’s gatekeeper. I told Conklin to hold that thought.
“Sergeant, I have someone out here who insists on talking to you.”
“Who is it?”
“He won’t give me his name. He said you’d know him.” BobbyNussbaum, a retired bailiff and Homicide’s front desk receptionist, lowered his voice. “He’s an odd one, Sergeant. I wouldn’t even have bothered you except he was insistent.”
I could hear a loud voice in the background saying, “Tell her the Duke of the Tenderloin is here. I request an audience at once!”
Bobby said, “I’m guessing you heard all that.”
