14th Deadly Sin: (Women’s Murder Club 14) (6 page)

“I know this is hard, Ben,” said Conklin. “You’ve told the story, and now we want you to do it again. Some new thought could jump into your mind. Right now we don’t have a clue who those guys were. They’re
killers.
You saw them, and we have to catch them.”

Viera sighed deeply before describing the holdup and the shooting, which had clearly traumatized him.

“Like I said, there were three of them. They were wearing police jackets and, like, latex masks. They came through the door fast. One aimed at us through the Plexiglas teller window, and another one kicked open the security door. Then one of them told Mr. Díaz, ‘Give us the money and no one will get hurt.’”

The young man went on to say that his boss had a gun but never got off a shot. One of the masked robbers shot Díaz in the right arm. Another of them got Viera in a chokehold, put a gun to his head, and demanded that he open the safe. Viera told them the safe was in the floor and that he didn’t know the combination, “I swear on my mother.”

Throughout the telling of this story, Viera’s flat affect hadn’t changed. But there was a tremor in his voice, and I could feel the terror bubbling up just below the tranquilizer.

He said, “Mr. Díaz was rolling on the floor screaming, but he wouldn’t give up the combination. So then they shot him in the knee. Oh, God, it was—bad. And then Mr. Díaz screamed out the combination.

“I opened the safe and they took the money and left. I thought maybe Mr. Díaz was going to make it. He was always good to me. I don’t even know why I’m alive.”

Conklin and I took turns asking questions:
Did you notice anything unusual about any of the men? Did you recognize anyone’s voice? Did any of the men seem familiar? Like they’d been in the store before? Did any of them take off his gloves or mask? Did any of the men call anyone by name?

“Maybe one of the guys called another of them Juan.”

It wasn’t much, but we’d take it.

I gave Viera my card and told him to call me day or night if he remembered anything else.

He said, “I guess. God knows I can’t sleep and I can’t forget.”

He walked us to the door, and as soon as it was closed behind us, I heard the lock and the chain.

Our next stop was the check-cashing store with the sign over the window:
PAYDAY LOANS. CHECKS CASHED
.

CSU was wrapping up, and CSI Jennifer Neuenhoff walked us through. She showed us where the robbers had kicked in the door between the public space and the back of the store. She showed us the massive bloodstain where Mr. José Díaz had bled out. We looked into the open safe in the floor. It was like looking into a grave.

Neuenhoff said, “Not more than thirty million prints in here. They shouldn’t take more than three lifetimes to process.”

Conklin said, “Save yourself some time, Neuenhoff. The witness said the shooters wore gloves.”

When we were back in the car, I called Brady and told him everything we had, which was pretty much a textbook case of how to stick up a store and make a clean getaway. I said we’d be back in the house in a couple of hours.

“We’ve got a stop to make first, Lieutenant. Personal matter.”

After I hung up with Brady, I pulled the rubber band out of my hair, shook out my pony, and tried to shake off my sour mood at the same time. I pulled down the visor and slicked on some lip gloss, and even gave my eyelashes a thin coat of mascara.

When my face was presentable, I said to my partner, “OK. Now you can step on it, Inspector.”

“You want sirens, Sergeant?”

“Whatever you have to do.”

He snapped off a salute, which made me laugh, and not long after that, we parked outside the Ferry Building.

THE SAN FRANCISCO Ferry Building is not only the dock for ferries going to and from Alameda and Oakland, it’s a spectacular marketplace. The Great Nave is more than six hundred feet of arched arcade, with a clock tower, and the entire building is a lively hub of restaurants, shops, offices, and a vibrant farmers’ market.

Conklin and I entered the building from the thirty-foot-wide bayside wharf, skirted the tables of people grabbing quick lunches, and entered Book Passage, an expansive bookstore with floor-to-ceiling windows facing the San Francisco Bay.

My partner and I made our way between the displays of new fiction and the long shelves of other books and reached the back corner of the store, where nine or ten people had taken seats facing a speaker at a lectern.

The speaker was our own girl reporter, Cindy Thomas.

She looked adorable, as always, wearing a soft blue cashmere sweater dress and rhinestone combs in her curly blond hair. She was talking about her hot new book and skipped a beat when she saw us. Then she grinned and neatly recovered as we took seats.

She said, “
Fish’s Girl
is the true story of two killers who were bound together by love and serial murder. If that makes you think of Bonnie and Clyde, this pair was nothing like them, but just as crazy.
Crazier
, actually. And
deadlier.

“Randy Fish and MacKenzie Morales killed separately, almost as if they were inside each other’s minds.”

Cindy held up the book so her audience could see the grainy cover photo of her subjects walking hand in hand, the only known picture of Fish and Morales together. And then she told her small audience that as a crime reporter for the
Chronicle
, she had begun covering Randy Fish after he’d been convicted of killing five women in and around San Francisco.

“Fish had a preferred victim type,” Cindy said. “His victims were slim, dark-haired college girls, and MacKenzie Morales was exactly the kind of woman Fish liked to torture and kill.

“But for some reason, Fish didn’t kill Morales.

“In fact, he loved her and spoke her name with his last breath. And she loved him, too.”

Cindy went on to say that after Fish’s death, she began to investigate MacKenzie Morales, who was the prime suspect in three murders, but that she had escaped police custody. While on the run, Morales was suspected in the murders of several women of the type Randy Fish had once targeted for torture and death.

Cindy said, “I had met Morales once, and I had inside information as to her possible whereabouts. I thought if I could create a safe place for her to talk, I could appeal to her ego. I hoped she would tell me why Randy Fish had become her mentor, her lover, and the father of her son.

“Sounds risky, right? Or maybe it sounds totally
nuts
for a reporter to chase a psychopathic killer in order to write a newspaper story.

“But I was hooked, and I thought the Fish-Morales story could be the crime saga of a lifetime. While researching the book, I came to understand that you don’t always get the answers you’re looking for. But the answers you get often tell it all.

“The whole story is in this book.”

She’d done it—whipped up her audience, who clapped enthusiastically, asked questions, and then lined up at the table so Cindy could sign their books.

I couldn’t stop beaming. I was so damned proud of her.

I stood off to the side of the table, but I heard Conklin saying to Cindy, “Sign this one to me. Don’t spare the
X
s and
O
s. And sign this one to my mom.”

Cindy laughed and said, “You betcha. Whatever you like, handsome.”

Cindy and Conklin had been having a hot off-and-on relationship for years, and right now, they were
on.
I hoped that this time they were on for good. Cindy signed books for her man and maybe her future mother-in-law. When Conklin stepped aside, I asked the lady in line behind him if she could do a favor and take a photo.

“You bet,” she said.

I handed her my phone and grabbed my partner and my good friend. We put Cindy in the middle, linked arms around her, and said “Cheese,” and then we said it again.

Cindy said, “Let me see.” We all gathered around that little piece of tech that had caught all three of us, looking good—how often does that happen? A banner had been strung behind the podium. It was centered right over our heads:
AUTHOR CINDY THOMAS, TODAY
.

“Wow, this is totally great,” Cindy said, doing a little dance in place. “A perfect photo of a perfect day.”

THE MAN WHO called himself One was in the backseat of the four-door sedan, directly behind the driver. The two other guys in his crew were numbered Two and Three to prevent the accidental blurting out of an actual name.

One knew that human stupidity was the only thing that could screw up this job. Everything else was easy. There were no security guards. No camera. There was plenty of cash in the drawer and there was only one person in the store.

Unlike bank jobs, where security was tight and the average take was about four Gs, check-cashing stores ordinarily had fifty to a hundred thousand in the drawer. And while mercados had less, this one had an impressive stash on the premises from its Western Union franchise.

One and his crew were quiet as they watched the light foot and car traffic on this commercial block of South Van Ness Avenue. When he was ready, One used a burner phone to call the cops.

He said urgently, “Nine-one-one? The liquor store at Sixteenth and Julian Avenue is being
robbed.
I just heard
shots.
Lots of them. Send the cops. Right away.”

He clicked off as the operator asked his name, but he knew she would put out the radio call. This diversion would draw any random cruisers patrolling the neighborhood and send them to a location a half mile away.

Across the street, the girl in the brightly lit Spanish market was behind the counter, taking cash from a customer, an old man. One thought the girl looked to be in her midtwenties. She was wearing a long tan cardigan over a shapeless brown dress. When she’d put the groceries into the customer’s striped fabric bag, she came from behind the counter and walked him to the front door, saying a few words to him in Spanish as they stood on the sidewalk.

Then she went back inside the shop, closed the glass door, and flipped the sign inside the door to
CLOSED
. One watched her walk to the back of the long, narrow store.

When she was out of sight, Two said, “She’s alone, One. Did you want me to stay in the car? Save some time?”

One heard sirens now, the cruisers and unmarkeds heading over toward Sixteenth. It was time to go.

“Yeah. Good idea. That’ll work.”

One and Three got out of the car with their SFPD Windbreakers zipped up, masks in their pockets, and guns tucked down in their belts. It took only seconds to cross the street. When they stood in the deeply shadowed doorway of the little grocery store, they pulled on their masks.

One adjusted the bill of his cap and knocked on the door, looking down so that the girl would see the
SFPD
on his Windbreaker but not his masked face.

Three stood with his back to the store and looked at his feet while he waited for the locks to open. The locks clattered and the bell above the door rang as the girl opened the door.

The two men rushed the doorway. The girl screamed. One grabbed her arm and pushed her inside while showing her his gun. Three threw the locks and flipped the switches at the left of the doorway, dousing the lights in the entrance and front section of the store.

The girl shouted, “Get out of here, get out!” She wrenched her arm free, spun around, and broke for the back door.

One shouted, “Stop or I’ll shoot! I mean it!”

The girl stopped and cried out, “Don’t hurt me!
Please!
”

One said to her, “No one wants to hurt you, miss. That’s the truth. Now, hands up. Turn around. That’s it. Now go to the cash drawer and open it. Do that and everything will be fine. Just do exactly what I say.”

The girl put her hands in the air and said, “I’ll give you the money, no problem.” She walked to the counter, edged behind it, and faced the gunmen with her back to the wall of cigarettes and mouthwash and deodorant.

One spoke soothingly.

“That’s good. Very smart. Now you can put your hands down and open the drawer. A minute from now we’ll be out of your life forever.”

The girl hit a couple of keys.

The cash register pinged and the drawer shot open.

“Way to go,” said Three. He leaned over the counter and reached for the money in the drawer. He wasn’t ready for the gun the girl pulled out of the pocket of her baggy brown dress.

MAYA PEREZ HAD two babies. One was growing inside her body, fourteen weeks old now, and very precious to her. The other baby was this market. It had been her father’s, and he had poured everything he owned and earned into keeping the shop open, to put food on their table and because he wanted her to have something of value when he died.

Then, a month ago, his cancer had killed him.

Ricardo Perez hadn’t lived to see his grandchild, but he had felt the baby was a blessing and he had left Maya the deed to the store that had been named Mercado de Maya for her.

And she loved this place: every hand-lettered sign, the shelves her father and uncle had made from scrap lumber. She knew where every box, bottle, and tin belonged. Now that she was pregnant and on her own, the store meant survival.

She had moved upstairs to her father’s flat and intended to run this place and bring up her baby right here.

There was no way she would let anyone steal from her. It was just not happening.

Besides, there was something else.

When the men in the police jackets came to the store, she thought they were looking for information on the check-cashing-store holdup on Tuesday a few blocks away. But when she saw the masks and the guns, she knew that as soon as they got the money, they would shoot her.

Like they had done to José Díaz.

Maya was having physical sensations she’d never had before. Tingling, light-headedness, her blood pounding almost audibly. She knew that this was her body reacting to the fear of imminent death. There was no way to run or to hide, but she was thinking clearly and she was determined. She thought,
No way they’re killing my baby.