The 8th Confession

  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.

  Chapter 99

  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.”

  Chapter 100

  WHEN 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.

  “Any numbness?” Doc asked Conklin.

  “Yeah. In my hand.”

  “Try to relax,” Doc said. “It takes some time for the venom to have an effect. If you were in a jungle, that would be one thing. But we’ve got you, Rich. You’re going to be okay.”

  I wanted to believe Doc, but I wouldn’t be comforted until Rich was back on his feet. As my partner was wheeled away, I told him that I’d be standing by in the waiting room, and I grabbed Doc’s sleeve.

  “John, you’re sure the antivenin you got is the right stuff?”

  “I’ve had the Aquarium of the Pacific on standby since Claire told me about the folks who died from krait bites. I figured there was a chance we could need antivenin.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” I said, gratitude washing through me. “Thanks for being so damned smart.”

  “Don’t mention it,” he said. Then, “I’m going to look in on Rich.”

  I found a dark corner of the waiting room and called Cindy. I repeated to her what Doc had told me. And then I made a call to a hotel in Amman.

  It was one in the morning there, but after a verbal tussle, the desk put me through. He sounded groggy with sleep, but he brightened when he heard my voice. It was some kind of miracle that I could find him when I needed him most.

  “I was just dreaming about you,” he said.

  “Good dream?”

  “I think it was a circus dream.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Tightrope. I’m wearing this spandex thing. Bodysuit. With sparkles.”

  “You?”

  “Chest hair coming out the top.”

  “Joe!” I laughed.

  “I’m way up there on this platform, size of a dinar.”

  “And that’s…?”

  “A Jordanian coin. And you’re on the tightrope coming toward me.”

  “What am I wearing?”

  “You’re naked.”

  “No!”

  “Yeah! Carrying a lot of stuff in your arms, balancing on this rope. And I’m supposed to catch you when you get to my dinar.”

  “What happens?”

  “Phone rings.”

  “Joe, I miss you, honey. When are you coming home?”

  Chapter 101

  NORMA JOHNSON’S SHOULDER had been popped back into place, and she was on a few hundred milligrams of Motrin. She sat across from me in the interrogation room, twiddling a business card, her “whatever” expression back on her face.

  If Conklin had been here, he would have smooth-talked her. I wanted to backhand that smirk right off her face.

  Pet Girl snapped the card down on the table, pus
hed it toward me so I could read, FENN AND TARBOX, ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW.

  George Fenn and Bill Tarbox were two triple A–rated criminal-defense attorneys who catered to the top 2 percent of the upper crust. Fenn was steady and thorough. Tarbox was volatile and charming. Together, they’d flipped more probable slam-dunk guilty verdicts into dismissals than I wanted to remember.

  “Mrs. Friedman is paying,” Pet Girl said.

  She was toying with me, making me wonder if she’d lawyer up, or more likely she just thought she was smarter than me.

  “Call your lawyers,” I said, unhooking my Nextel from my belt, slapping it down on the table. “Use my phone. But since this is all new to you, let me explain how the system works.”

  “Uh-huh. And I’m going to believe everything you say.”

  “Shut up, stupid. Just listen. Once you ask for a lawyer, I can’t make a deal with you. This is how we see it on this side of the table: you assaulted a police officer with a deadly weapon. Conklin dies, you’re dead meat walking.

  “Setting that aside, we’ve got you cold on five counts of murder. You had access to every one of the victims, and they were killed by the same rare, illegally imported snake you kept by the dozen in your apartment.

  “A law-school intern could get you convicted.

  “But we won’t be using a law-school intern. You’ll be going up against Leonard Parisi, our top gun, because you killed VIPs and because this is what’s known as a high-profile case.

  “We can’t lose, and we won’t.”

  “That must be some crystal ball you have, Sergeant.”

  “Better believe it. ’Cause here’s what else I see in there: while your lawyers are getting great press on Mrs. Friedman’s dime, your old school chums are going to testify for the prosecution.

  “They’re going to trash you in court, Norma. And then they’re going to tell the press all about you, how sick you make them, how pathetic you are.

  “And after you’ve been exposed as the godless, heartless psychopath you are, the jury is going to convict you five times over. You understand? You’re going to be disgraced — and then you’re going to die.”

  I saw a flash of panic in the woman’s eyes. Had I gotten to her? Was Norma Johnson actually afraid?

  “So if it’s such a dead cert, why are you even talking to me?”

  “Because the DA is willing to make you a deal.”

  “Oh, this should be good. Like I haven’t seen this ploy a hundred times on Law and Order.”

  “There’s a wrinkle, Norma. A smidgen of wiggle room on that death penalty. So listen up. The chief medical examiner reviewed your old boyfriend’s autopsy report, and she says it doesn’t pass the sniff test.”

  “McKenzie Oliver? He died of a drug overdose.”

  “His blood test was borderline for an OD. But he was in his thirties, otherwise healthy. So the ME who did his autopsy didn’t look any further.

  “But this is a new day, Norma. We think you killed him because he dumped you. His coffin is being hoisted out of the ground this minute. And this time, the ME is going to be searching for fang marks.”

  Johnson looked down at the business card Ginny Friedman had given her, looked at my phone, looked up at me.

  “What’s the deal?”

  “Tell me about the murders, all of them, including what you did to McKenzie Oliver, and we’ll spare you the humiliation of a trial and take the death penalty off the table. This offer expires when I get out of this chair.”

  There was a long pause, a full two minutes.

  Then Norma Johnson said, “That’s not good enough.”

  “That’s all we’re offering.”

  I gathered my papers and buttoned my jacket, pushed away from the table.

  Pet Girl piped up, “What will you take off my sentence if I give you the person who killed those richies in nineteen eighty-two?”

  I choked down my surprise — and my excitement.

  I turned to the one-way mirror, and a second later, Jacobi opened the door, poked his head into the interrogation room.

  “Hang on,” he said to me. “I’m getting Parisi on the phone.”

  Chapter 102

  THE INTERROGATION ROOM got smaller as the combined four hundred fifty pounds of Red Dog and Jacobi came in.

  Parisi is six two, has coarse red hair, pockmarked skin, a size-50 waist, and a smoker’s baritone. He could be funny, but if he wanted to, he could scare his own mother into a heart attack.

  Jacobi is another unique terror if you don’t know and love him as I do. His unreadable gray eyes are like drill bits. And his large hands are restless. Like he’s looking for a reason to ball them up and strike.

  The two hulking men dragged up chairs, and I saw Pet Girl’s snotty demeanor waver.

  “Now I think I should have a lawyer,” she said.

  “That’s your right,” Parisi grumbled. He said to me, “Boxer, take her back to her cell.”

  As I got to my feet, Norma Johnson shouted, “Wait!”

  “I’m not here to entertain myself,” Parisi warned her. “So don’t waste my time.” He flapped open a file, fanned the morgue shots out on the table, asked Pet Girl, “Did you kill these people?”

  As Johnson’s eyes slowly panned the photos left to right and back again, I realized that she’d never seen her victims dead.

  Was she repentant?

  Or was she freaking impressed with herself?

  Her eyes still on the photos, Johnson asked Parisi for his promise that she’d be exempt from the death penalty if she told him about her part in McKenzie Oliver’s death, and when he agreed, she let out a deep sigh.

  “I killed them all,” she said, her voice breaking on her own self-pity, a couple of tears trickling down her cheeks. “But I caused them less pain in their deaths than they caused me in one day of my life.”

  Didn’t Pet Girl know that tears were unnecessary? That all we cared about was her confession? That all we wanted were the words?

  She wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands, and then she asked if the videotape was rolling. I told her it was, and she said she was glad.

  “I want there to be a record of my statement,” she said. “I want people to understand my reasons.”

  More than an hour passed as Norma Johnson fleshed out her motives, detailing the victims’ lives as only an obsessive voyeur could, describing their “unspeakably insulting behavior” toward her, none of which she deserved, and she told us how she’d painlessly put her victims down.

  After she described stalking McKenzie Oliver, getting him into bed for a good-bye tryst, then stabbing him with the fangs of a krait, Parisi had what he wanted. No frills required.

  He cut off her narcissistic rant midsentence, saying, “I have to be in court, Ms. Johnson. Tell me about the nineteen eighty-two murders if you want us to consider a reduction in your sentence.”

  “What are you offering me?”

  “Right now, you’re looking at six consecutive life sentences without possibility of parole,” he told her. “Give us the nineteen eighty-two society killer, and you’ll get to tell a parole board how sorry you are after you’ve served some time.”

  “That’s all?”

  “That’s hope. That’s a chance that maybe you’ll walk free before you die.”

  Johnson covered her mouth. She was thinking long and hard, and as the silence did a few laps around the room, I couldn’t even guess what she would do.

  Parisi looked at his watch and pushed back from the table, his chair legs screeching like the brakes of an 18-wheeler.

  “I’ve had enough, Lieutenant,” Parisi said to Jacobi. “Wrap it up.”

  “My father,” Norma said softly.

  “Christopher Ross was one of the victims,” I said. “He knew the killer?”

  “He was the killer,” said Pet Girl. “Daddy told me. He did them all.”

  Chapter 103

  PET GIRL HAD just ratted out her dead father as the 1982 high-societ
y killer. If the story was true, then her father had been a serial killer.

  She’d followed his example by becoming one, too.

  Was that really the truth?

  Or was it all a desperate fiction to help herself?

  I wanted to hear her say it again — and then she did.

  “He told me who he killed and why. Daddy hated those phonies who sucked up to him because he was rich. He loved my mother because she was real.”

  Pet Girl reached into her blouse and pulled out a locket, opened it with shaking hands, and held it out to show Parisi the photo of Christopher Ross.

  Parisi never shifted his eyes. He simply torched Johnson with his fearsome Red-Dog-will-rip-your-throat-out stare and said, “An allegation is worth nothing. You want the deal? I need proof.”

  Pet Girl twisted her head toward me for the first time since Jacobi and Parisi entered the room.

  “My keys are in my handbag,” she told me. “It’s red ostrich skin, and I think I left it on the console table in the foyer.”

  I nodded, said, “Red bag. I’ll find it.”

  “Look for a brass key with a round top, goes to a padlock on my storage unit,” she said. “Bay Storage, unit number twenty-two. I’ve got all of my father’s papers stored there. Inside one of the boxes is a file marked ‘Natajara.’ ”

  “Is the box numbered? Labeled?”

  “Should be right in front. I think second or third tier on the right-hand side —”

  I was inside my head, thinking about how I would run upstairs to get a search warrant for Johnson’s apartment, when my cell phone rang — Brenda, our squad assistant, shouting into the mouthpiece, “Lindsay, two old guys —”

  The interview-room door flew open, and two distinguished-looking gentlemen burst in.

  Bill Tarbox was in blue seersucker and a red-and-white polka-dot bow tie, looking as if he’d left his Panama hat out in the Rolls. Fenn’s haircut was so sharp, you could cut yourself on his sideburns.

  Fenn glared around the room, identified his client, and said, “Norma, stop talking. We’re your lawyers, and this interview is over.”