The 8th Confession

  “There’s Isa. This is Sara. And this girl, poor thing, with the sad eyes. She was always the odd girl out,” Friedman said of a young girl with shoulder-length dark hair. The child looked familiar, but although my mind was on search, I couldn’t place her.

  Friedman said, “She was Christopher Ross’s illegitimate daughter. Her mother was the Ross’s housekeeper, and Ross paid for his daughter’s schooling at Burke’s. I helped to get her admitted.

  “The other girls all knew her circumstances, of course, and some of them were unkind. I said to her once, ‘Honey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,’ and she seemed to take courage from that.

  “And then Chris died, and his wife, Becky — who had previously looked the other way — fired Norma’s mother, cut her and the child off without a penny. Chris must’ve thought he’d live forever, and he hadn’t provided for them in his will. Anyway, poor Norma was dropped from the school.

  “And you know, I was right. It didn’t kill her, and I think it did make her stronger.”

  I stared at the picture of the sad-eyed little girl — and suddenly the pieces locked into place with such force I could almost hear them clang. When I met Norma Johnson, her hair was caramel-blond and she was thirty-three years old.

  Friedman said, “Last time I spoke with Norma was about ten years ago. She had created a little gofer business for herself, used her old contacts to get work.

  “She let down her hair with me over a nice lunch in Fort Mason, and I’ll tell you, Sergeant, and it gives me no pleasure to say it, Norma was very bitter.

  “You know what those rich girls called their old school chum? They called her ‘Pet Girl.’ ”

  Chapter 94

  CONKLIN TOOK A CHAIR in Jacobi’s office, but I was so revved up, I couldn’t sit. I was also freaking out. We’d interviewed Norma Johnson twice, written her off as a suspect both times and kicked her.

  “Am I missing the obvious?” Jacobi asked me. “Or are you?” His meaty hands were clasped together on his trash heap of a desktop.

  “Maybe it’s me. What’s the obvious?”

  “Did you consider that Ginny Friedman might be the doer? She not only admits to knowing one of the original victims, she knew half the current ones, too.”

  “She has a solid alibi, Jacobi. Didn’t I say that?”

  “You said she had an alibi, Boxer. I’m asking for details.”

  There were times when reporting to Jacobi was like having bamboo slivers pushed under my fingernails. Had he forgotten we’d worked together for more than ten years?

  Had he forgotten he used to report to me?

  “When the killings happened, Ginny Friedman was cruising the Mediterranean on a sailing ship,” I told him. “She learned about the killings when the ship docked last week in Cannes. France.”

  “I know where Cannes is,” Jacobi said, pronouncing it in the plural.

  “I have Friedman’s round-trip airplane receipts and her travel documents from the Royal Clipper on my desk. The ship left port before the Baileys were killed, and it didn’t return until Brian Caine and Jordan Priestly were dead.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I examined her passport,” I said. “The photo was current, and the book was properly stamped. She wasn’t in San Francisco over the last month, Jacobi, no chance. But McCorkle is checking her out anyway.”

  Jacobi picked up the receiver on his phone, punched all five of his lines so no calls could come through. Then he fastened his eyes on me.

  “Tell me more about this Pet Girl.”

  I told Jacobi that Johnson’s father, Christopher Ross, wasn’t married to Norma’s mother, that the mother just changed the bed linens and vacuumed the floors in his Nob Hill manse.

  “Ross was so rich, he was beyond scandal,” I said, “at least, while he was alive. After he died, Norma’s mother was canned and little Norma was officially an outcast.

  “Her daddy left her nothing. Her friends treated her like dirt. And then she started working for them.”

  “She had keys to their houses,” Conklin added, “and passwords to their security systems. She also had plenty of opportunity. What did she say, Lindsay? That nobody even knew she’d been there. That her clients liked it that way.”

  “She was just ten when her father was killed?” Jacobi asked.

  “Right. She couldn’t have killed those highfliers from the eighties. But the fact that her father was a victim might have inspired her.”

  “Copycat,” said Jacobi.

  “So we think,” I said.

  Jacobi slapped his desk, and dust flew up.

  “Pick her up,” he said. “Go get her.”

  Chapter 95

  I SAT BESIDE Conklin at the table in the interrogation room, ready to jump in if needed, but he had the interview under control. Norma Johnson liked him, and Conklin was showing her what a good person he was, a guy you could trust — even if you were a freaking psycho.

  “I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us that your father had been killed by a snake, Norma,” Conklin said.

  “Yeah. Well, I would have told you if you’d asked me, but you know, I didn’t connect my father’s death to any of this until you said that the Baileys and Sara had been killed by a snake.”

  “Brian Caine and Jordan Priestly? Did you know them?”

  “Not well. I work for Molly Caldwell-Davis occasionally, and I’ve met Brian at her place once or twice. Jordan was there all the time, but we weren’t friends.”

  “Did you work for Molly on the night of May twenty- fourth?”

  “I’d have to look at my book, but no, wait. Didn’t Molly have a party on the twenty-fourth? Because I was invited. I dropped by, didn’t know anyone, so I said ‘hey’ to Molly and left after about ten minutes. She didn’t need me to walk Mischa.”

  “And so your relationship with Molly was what? How would you describe it?”

  “Um, business-casual. I met her through an ex-boyfriend of mine. You may have heard of him. McKenzie Oliver?”

  “The rock star who died from a drug overdose?”

  Norma Johnson played with the ends of her hair. “Yeah, that’s the one. We weren’t dating at the time.”

  Conklin made a note in his book, asked, “Do you have any thoughts on this, Norma? Anybody jump into your mind who could’ve killed your dad and then, like, twenty-three years later, maybe killed a bunch of people you know?”

  Johnson said, “No, but this is a very small town, Inspector. Everyone knows everyone. Grudges can last for generations, but even so, I don’t know any killers. I’m pretty sure of that.”

  Johnson’s demeanor was low-key, bordering on snotty — and that was crazy. For the third time, she was in a small room with cops. She had to know she was a suspect. She had reason to be nervous, even if she was innocent.

  She should have been asking if she needed a lawyer. Instead she was flipping her hair around and flirting with Conklin.

  I made a mental note: Tell Claire to review McKenzie Oliver’s autopsy report.

  And another: Find out if Norma Johnson had access to or owned a poisonous snake.

  I excused myself, stepped outside the interview room, and stood with Jacobi behind the glass. Together we watched and listened as Norma Johnson told Conklin about her pedigree.

  “I don’t know if you know this, but my father was the great-great-great-grandson of John C. Frémont.”

  “The Pathfinder? The explorer who mapped out the route to California just ahead of the gold rush?”

  “That’s the one. My bloodline is royal blue, Inspector. I’ve got nothing against the wannabes I work for, in case that’s what you’re thinking. John C. Frémont went down in history — and he started out life just like me. He was a bastard. Literally.”

  “I’m very impressed, Norma. So please, help me out here. You know San Francisco like nobody else. Upstairs, downstairs, every way, and I’m on the outside. I wasn’t even born here.”

  “You want
to know who killed all those people? I already told you. I have no idea.”

  Conklin smiled, showed his dimples. “Actually, I was going to ask you who you think might be the snake killer’s next victim.”

  Johnson sat back in her chair, then cocked her head and smiled at Conklin. “The next to die? You know, my circle is getting kind of small. I’m thinking the next victim could be me.”

  “Holy crap,” I said to Jacobi. “I don’t like the sound of that. What’s she planning to do?”

  “Pin a tail on that donkey,” Jacobi said. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

  Chapter 96

  WE LOST PET GIRL literally right out of the box. Whether she’d gotten swept up in the foot traffic on Bryant or jumped into a cab, I didn’t know, but Conklin and I stood stupidly out on the street, blinking in the sunlight, looking for a honey-blonde in black — and seeing everything but.

  “Try her phone,” I said to Conklin. “Tell her you have another question. Make a date to meet her.”

  “I get it,” Conklin said. “Find out where she is.”

  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.

  Chapter 97

  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.”

  Chapter 98

  NORMA 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.”