7th Heaven

CONKLIN AND I had been working pawnshops all day, hoping one of Patricia Malone’s pieces of jewelry would turn up – and if it did, maybe we’d have a lead we could work with. The last shop on our list was a hole between two bars on Mission, the Treasure Coop.

I’m not sure the owner heard the bell ring over the door when Conklin and I came in, but he picked up our reflection from one of the dozens of mirrors hanging on the walls and came out from the back of the store. His name was Ernie Cooper. He was a slablike man from the Vietnam era and seemed to fill up his store. Cooper had a gray ponytail and an iPod in his shirt pocket, cords dangling from his ears. There was the bulge of a gun under his jacket.

While Conklin showed Cooper the insurance company’s photos of Patricia Malone’s Victorian jewelry, I looked around at the innumerable trophies, guitars, and out-of-date computers, and at the stuffed monkey with a lamp coming out of its back perched on a plant stand. A collection of fetal pigs was lined up on one of the four counters, which were filled with wedding bands, watches, military medals, and junk gold chains.

Ernie Cooper whistled when he saw the photos.

“What’s all this worth, a couple hundred thou?”

“Something like that,” Conklin said.

“Nobody brings this kind of stuff to me, but who am I looking for, anyway?”

“Maybe him,” Conklin said, slapping down a photocopy of the Polaroid of Ronald Grayson.

“I can keep this?” Cooper asked.

“Sure, and here’s my card,” Rich said.

“Homicide.”

“That’s right.”

“So, this was what? Armed robbery?”

Conklin smiled. “If this kid comes in, if anyone comes in with this stuff, we want to know.”

I noticed a small black-and-white snapshot stuck to the cash register. It was a photo of Ernie Cooper coming down the steps of the Civic Center Courthouse, and he was wearing the uniform of the SFPD. Cooper saw me looking at the photo, said, “I notice your shield says Boxer on it. I used to work with a guy by that name.”

“Marty Boxer?”

“That’s the guy.”

“He’s my father.”

“No kidding? I couldn’t stand him, no offense.”

“No offense taken,” I said.

Cooper nodded, rang up a “no sale,” and put the photocopies of Grayson’s picture and the Malone jewelry along with Conklin’s card inside the cash register, under the tray.

“I’ve still got the instincts, maybe even better than when I was on the Job. I’ll put out the word. If I hear anything,” Ernie Cooper said, shoving the cash drawer shut, “I’ll be in touch. That’s a promise.”

Chapter 29

THE SKY HAD TURNED GRAY while Conklin and I were inside Ernie Cooper’s pawnshop. Muted thunder grumbled as we walked to Twenty-first Street, and by the time we got into the squad car, the first fat drops of rain splattered against the windshield. I cranked up the window, pinching the web between my thumb and forefinger. I shouted, “Damn,” with more vehemence than was absolutely necessary.

I was frustrated. So was Rich. The long workday had netted us exactly nothing. Rich fumbled with the keys, his brow wrinkled, exhaustion weighing him down like a heavy coat.

“You want me to drive?”

My partner turned off the ignition and sighed, threw himself back into the seat.

“It’s okay,” I said. “Give me the keys.”

“I can drive. That’s not the problem.”

“What is?”

“It’s you.”

Me? Was he mad at me for questioning Kelly?

“What did I do?”

“You just are, you know?”

Aw, no. I tried to ward off this conversation by imploring him with my eyes and thinking, Please don’t go there, Richie. But the pictures flashed into my mind, a strobe-lit sequence of images of a late work night in LA that had turned into a reckless, heated clinch on a hotel bed. My body had been screaming yes, yes, yes, but my clearer mind slammed on the brakes – and I’d told Richie no.

Six months later, the memory was still with us inside the musty Crown Victoria, crackling like lightning as the rain came down. Richie saw the alarm on my face.

“I’m not going to do anything,” he insisted. “I would never do anything – I’m just not good at keeping what I feel to myself, Lindsay. I know you’re with Joe. I get it. I just want you to know that I’ve got this arrow through my heart. And I would do anything for you.”

“Rich, I can’t,” I said, looking into his eyes, seeing the pain there and not knowing how to make it right.

“Aw, jeez,” he said. He covered his face with his hands, screamed, “Aaaaaargh.” Then he pounded the steering wheel a couple of times before reaching for the keys and starting up the car again.

I put my hand on his wrist. “Rich, do you want another partner?”

He laughed, said, “Delete the last forty-two seconds, okay, Lindsay? I’m an idiot, and I’m sorry.”

“I’m serious.”

“Forget it. Don’t even think about it.”

Rich checked the rearview mirror and turned the car into the stream of traffic. “I just want to remind you,” he said, cracking a strained smile, “when I worked with Jacobi, nothing like this ever happened.”

Chapter 30

THE POPULATION OF COLMA, California, is heavily skewed toward the dead. The ratio of those below the ground to those breathing air is about twelve to one. My mom is buried at Cypress Lawn in Colma, and so is Yuki’s mom, and now Kelly Malone and her brother, Eric, were burying their parents here, too.

It would appear to the casual observer that I was alone.

I’d put flowers at the base of a pink granite stone engraved with “Benjamin and Heidi Robson,” two people I didn’t know. Then I sat on a bench a hundred feet from where the grass-scented breeze puffed out the tent flaps where the Malones’ funeral was in progress.

My Glock was holstered under my blue jacket, and the microphone inside my shirt connected me to the patrol cars at the entrance to the cemetery. I was watching for a gangly kid named Ronald Grayson, or someone else who looked out of place, a stranger with a penchant for torture and murder. It didn’t happen every time, but some killers just had to see the end of the show, give themselves a psychic round of applause.

I hoped we’d get lucky.

As I watched, Kelly Malone stood in front of the group of fifty, her back to the pair of coffins. And I saw Richie, his eyes on Kelly as she gave her eulogy. I couldn’t hear any of the words, just the sound of a lawn mower in the distance and soon enough, the squeal of the winch lowering the coffins into the ground. Kelly and her brother each tossed a handful of earth into their parents’ graves and turned away.

Kelly went into Rich’s arms and he held her.

There was something touching and familiar about the way they fit together, as if they were still a couple. I felt a painful pull in my gut and tried to shut it down. When Kelly and Rich left the tent and walked with the priest in my direction, I turned before they came close enough to see my eyes.