The 8th Confession

wailing like a wounded banshee as we slammed back onto the street.

Conklin grunted. “Everything’s under control.”

Who was he kidding?

I looked behind us and saw no bodies in the street, but still my heart was airborne. Were we going to survive this joyride? Would we kill people today?

“Where is this asshole taking us?” I asked the air.

“To hell. He’s taking us to hell,” Conklin said.

Did he know?

I think he did. Somehow Conklin instinctively knew where Henry Wallis was heading.

It took me another minute to get it.

Chapter 65

I GRIPPED THE DASHBOARD, stared out as the streets blew by and we played dodge ’em with innocent bystanders, wondering if Henry Wallis was our man. Had he killed three people last week?

Had he killed a total of seven?

How many more would he kill before we stopped him?

“Hang on, Linds,” Conklin said, wrenching the steering wheel hard. We squealed onto Haight Street, where the likelihood of mowing down punks, retired flower children, old people getting in or out of their cars, was close to 100 percent.

“Haight dead-ends at Stanyan!” I shouted.

We followed the fool in the Camaro, speeding a hundred feet in front of us, sparks coming off his right rear bumper, which now dragged in the street.

Wallis still outran us because he simply didn’t care what he hit – and he refused to be boxed in. He made the right turn down Stanyan, drove nearly a block before pulling an illegal left across two lanes of traffic to go into Golden Gate Park.

The imposing Conservatory of Flowers, a giant greenhouse originally from another century, rose up on our right. I envisioned a colossal spinout in my mind, a James Bond-worthy scene of that greenhouse exploding into a trillion shards.

But Wallis skidded and avoided a crash.

I yelled, “Rich, look out!”

We followed the Camaro into a cacophony of horns and squealing tires, the bumper-car chase carrying us forward because we had no choice.

In the heart-stopping minutes we’d been on the Camaro’s tail, I hadn’t seen another cop car, marked or otherwise. I could hear sirens in the distance, but we were alone, powering our Crown Vic at warp speed, Wallis’s junker a half block ahead of us as he took the park drive toward Ocean Beach.

We drafted behind him as the terrain sloped sharply downward. Runners with dogs jumped out of the way. My God, I wanted to cover my eyes, but I couldn’t.

The boat pond was on our right, filled with seniors and kids driving remote-control ships, and then our two cars screamed past soccer fields with high-school teams standing openmouthed as we passed.

We were climbing again, the road heading straight up to Sutro Heights, almost to land’s end, when Wallis veered out of the park and onto Point Lobos Avenue, four fast-moving lanes.

As I yelled our location into the mic, Wallis took a hard left over the median strip and pointed his car like a rocket up toward the Cliff House, a landmark restaurant perched on the western edge of the continent over a rocky cliff that plunged straight down to the Pacific.

I could see it now: Wallis was going for a dramatic Thelma amp; Louise exit, but his would be a solo flight. As the Camaro crashed through guardrails and left the road, I saw the frankly unbelievable: the driver’s- side door opened and Wallis jumped out.

But he’d mistimed his jump.

As the Camaro made its wobbly one-way passage off the cliff toward the gray water below, Wallis plummeted alongside his car, both vehicle and man dropping in slow-motion, as if in a dream.

Rich braked our car in front of the broken wall, and we peered over the promontory in time to see the Camaro explode in flames.

“There,” I said. “He’s there!”

Wallis’s body was fifty feet below us, a tangle of bloodied flesh. It was an impossible climb down, a straight 180 degrees over wet and jagged rocks. Conklin took my hand and I gripped his, stood hypnotized as the fire crackled and burned.

I heard Jackie Kam’s voice behind me, calling over the car radio, “Sergeant Boxer, what is your location? Lindsay? Lindsay, please answer me.”

Rich let go of my hand and leaned over the cliff, facing into the wind as he called down to Henry Wallis’s fresh corpse.

“Did you enjoy yourself, asshole? Get what you wanted?”

I used my cell phone to call Dispatch, but the cars were already screaming to a halt all around Point Lobos.

Jacobi jumped out of one of them before it came to a stop. He ran toward us, calling, “You okay? You okay?”

I was so shaken I couldn’t talk.

“Take it easy, Boxer,” Jacobi said, putting his hands on my shoulders. My good friend. “Try to breathe.”

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes, but I wasn’t sad. It was something else – surprise and relief that I was alive.

I breathed in the smoke-filled air and said, “I don’t get it, Warren. Wallis jumped out of his car! Was he trying to escape? Or was that how he wanted to die?”

“Whatever,” Conklin said beside me.

I nodded. Whatever. Henry Wallis, the man with the snake-and-skull tattoo on his shoulder, was dead.

Chapter 66

JACOBI TOOK ME and Conklin out to dinner at Restaurant LuLu, the place for homey Provencal cooking, rich casseroles and pizzas grilled in a hickory-wood oven. The sunken dining room was packed, conversation was humming all around us, and our waiter really knew the wine list, long considered one of the best in town.

I knew why Jacobi was celebrating.

The chief and the mayor had given him a big ol’ “attaboy.” TV newscasters were brimming with the drama: the chopper shots and the news that life was safe again for the rich and famous.

But I couldn’t stand this, and I had to say it. “ Warren, is everyone crazy? You feel comfortable saying that Henry Wallis is the guy who killed our millionaires?”

Jacobi answered with a question: “Can’t you let something good into your life, Boxer?” And then another: “Can’t you just be happy for an hour?”

“I guess not,” I said, scowling at him. “What’s wrong with me? Or am I just too smart for this charade?”

Conklin nudged me under the table with his knee, and I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him either.

A man had died.

We’d almost followed him off a cliff.

We were lucky we weren’t looking up at Claire from her table or seeing a story on TV of dead children, their