Killer Karma

“Cops are swarming Union Square and you think she made and will wait around to keep a hair appointment?”

Razor nodded. “I think she’s counting on us never expecting anything like that. What do we have to lose except an hour?”

“The ability to show our faces in the Bureau again if you’re wrong,” Galentree said.

“How long did she hang around Embarcadero Center with that area swarming with cops?”

The partners raised eyebrows at each other, then Willner called Madrid on his cell phone.

“Now just pray we’re not wrong,” Razor muttered.

Amen. “I’ll be back in time to see.”

Razor blinked. “Where are you going?”

“Colma.” A very high Dunavan Diagonal and line-of-sight ought to take him there in fair time. “I want to see how Hamada’s doing.”

31

Gilbert Tankersley looked to Cole as though he wanted his body worthy of his name. His biceps bulged and his shoulders strained at his t-shirt. Heart beating steadily, he looked up in Zen-master serenity at Hamada, who sat with a hip propped on the table in the Colma PD’s interview room. “Sure, I know Irah Carrasco. I wouldn’t call her a friend, but we’ve met, oh, maybe a dozen times at car shows. I run into a lot of people at car shows, even the lieutenant there.” He glanced past Hamada to the uniformed lieutenant lounging in a corner behind Hamada. “Why?”

“She called you Thursday evening.”

Cole wondered whether Hamada knew that for certain or was bluffing.

If a bluff, it worked. After a moment of hesitation, in which his heart rate jumped, Tankersley said, “So?”

Hamada eased his tone from accusatory to casual. “What did you talk about?”

“Cars.” Tankersley’s tone added. “It’s what we always talk about when we run into each other.”

The Hamada raised his brows. “She called you from a pay phone to talk about cars.”

Tankersley stared steadily back at him, heart rate a little faster yet. “Was it a pay phone? She said she was at a bookstore where she’d seen a book she remembered me mentioning I wanting. She said if I’d like, she’d pick it up for me. I made sure it was the right book, then called her back and said sure, get it.”

“How is she getting it to you?”

He smiled. “She already did. It came in the mail yesterday afternoon. If you want to see it, I’ll have my wife bring it over.”

Tankersley had the story down pat. He made it sound good. The lieutenant was beginning to give Hamada that are you sure about this look. Which made Cole wonder if practice had perfected this performance. How often did Tankersley provide disposal services?

“Yes, I would like to see it,” Hamada said.

If he thought he was calling a bluff, Tankersley fooled him. “I need a phone.” Tankersley took Hamada’s and punched in the number Irah had written in purple ink. “Hey, it’s me. … Hell, I don’t know. They’re jerking me around. Now they want to see the book that came in the mail yesterday. Bring it over, will you? … Thanks, hon.” He hung up. “She’s on her way.”

Cole had no doubt that Irah sent the book. A book raised no eyebrows if a corner of the package were damaged in route. Did a stack of hundred dollar bookmarks come with it?

“You haven’t asked what this is about,” Hamada said.

Tankersley leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head. “I haven’t done anything wrong and I don’t figure you’d give me a straight answer, so why bother.”

“Then I’ll surprise you.” Hamada leaned down toward him. “This is about Irah Carrasco killing a cop.”

That jolted Tankersley. He came stiffly upright in the chair. “A cop!” His heart galloped.

Hamada sat back again, folding his arms. “She then spent a portion of Thursday calling friends in L.A. One of them gave her your number.”

“Wait, wait, wait. Hold it.” Tankersley waved his hands back and forth in front of him. “I gave her my number, and that was several years ago.”

Hamada paused. “You’re not in her Rolodex.”

Tankersley shrugged. “That ain’t my fault. Anyway, what does- Oh, I see.” His tone went bitter. “You think because I work in a cemetery, I did something with the body for her. Once you have a record, you’re guilty of everything from then on, right? Well I did my time and I’ve gone straight since. You check with my parole officer. I make every appointment and meet all the conditions of my parole.”

Give Tankersley credit. He put just the right amount of indignation and injured innocence into his performance. The lieutenant looked increasingly doubtful. Too bad the lieutenant could not hear Tankersley’s heart thundering.

“So what…you think she brought me the cop’s body Thursday night and I slipped it into a grave ahead of whoever was going in Friday? For your information.” Tankersley said, “we didn’t have any burials on Friday, or Saturday, and I couldn’t have arranged a double occupancy even if I wanted to. Unless you think I could drop in a body in broad daylight in the middle of all the preparations for the graveside service. Because we dig the graves the day of the funeral. Check with the cemetery office.”

Cole felt a chill. That had to be the truth, because he knew they would check. But with no burials, what happened to the bodies?

Maybe he could find something at the cemetery.

Cole oriented the interview room on his internal map, then jogged out of City Hall and down the southbound lane of the highway. This time he worked the moving traffic, but watched the vehicles coming up behind him, ready to jump aside if one of the drivers blew his horn or gave any other sign of seeing him. By the time he reached the Pacific Hills gates, he had amassed enough heat for a materialization.

The cemetery driveway forked, with sign pointing toward the cemetery office…tucked up among trees out of sight with a small barn and several other out-buildings. A counter in the office ran halfway across the room. The wall behind it held a big dry-erase board marked off in calendar-like columns and rows. Two women sat at desks between the board and lateral files on the opposite wall. Cole waited until one of the women, middle-aged, walked into another room and the other looked occupied with her computer. Then, since no one here knew him, he materialized as himself.

“Excuse me.”

The woman swivelled her chair…setting the beads braided into her cornrows clicking against each other. “I’m sorry. I didn’t hear you come in.” She stood and came to the counter. “May I help you?”

“I’m with the San Francisco police. I need to know if you had any burials on Friday or Saturday?”

Pencil thin brows rose. “No, we didn’t. See?” She pointed to the dry erase board. “Like I just told an Inspector Hamada on the phone.”

“Hamada.” Cole pretended to sigh. “Why does he keep doing that…ask me to check on information and then do it himself.” He paused. “May I look at the board?”

She shrugged. “If you want.”

He came around the counter. In the Friday and Saturday columns, the squares of the row labeled Services/burials were empty.

Thursday had a service, he noticed, but listed for 3:00 pm, well before Irah learned Tankersley’s phone number. Could Tankersley have access to other cemeteries? The burial schedules of them all — what were there…fifteen or sixteen? — might have to be checked.

There was a burial on Monday, however, the service at 11:00 am.

“The graves are dug the day of the burial?”

“Yes.”