2nd Chance - James Patterson [69]
I went through each link: the loose connections to three of the victims, Coombs’s history as a marksman, his documented grudge against blacks, how the OFJ had sealed his fate. But with each strand of evidence, I saw her conviction dim.
“Jill, listen.” I held up my hand. “He took a department-issued thirty-eight from a retired cop, and Mercer was killed with a thirty-eight. Three of the targets tie directly to his own history. I’ve got a guy in San Quentin who says he boasted he was out for revenge….”
“Thirty-eights are a dime a dozen, Lindsay. Do you have a match on the gun?”
“No, but Jill, Tasha Catchings’s murder took place in the same neighborhood where Coombs went down twenty years before.”
She cut me off. “What about a witness who can place him at the scene? One witness, Lindsay?”
I shook my head.
“A print, then, or a piece of clothing. Something that ties him to one of the murders?”
With an exasperated breath, I reacted. “No.”
“Circumstantial evidence can convict, Jill,” Claire cut in. “Coombs is a monster. We can’t just let him stay out on the streets.”
Jill looked sharply at both of us. Jeez, she was almost the Jill of old. “You don’t think I want him as much as you? You don’t think I look at you, Claire, and think just how close we came…? But there’s no weapon, barely a motive. You haven’t even placed him within sight of a murder scene. If you bust in and don’t find anything, you’ve lost him for good.”
“Coombs is Chimera, Jill,” I said. “I know I don’t have it buttoned up yet, but I’ve got a motive and links that tie him to three victims. As well as outside testimony that corroborates his intentions.”
“Jailhouse testimony,” said Jill. “Juries laugh at it these days.”
She got up, came over, and put a hand on both Claire’s and mine. “Look, I know how badly you want to close this. I’m your friend, but I’m still the law. Bring me anything, someone who saw him at a scene, a print he left on a door. Give me anything, Lindsay, and I’ll be bashing down his door to get at him same as you. Turn him upside down, rattle him until his spare change falls out.”
I stood there, teeming with frustration and anger but knowing that Jill was right. I shook my head and made my way toward the door.
“What are you going to do?” asked Claire.
“Rattle the fucker. Turn his life upside down.”
Chapter 84
FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER, Jacobi and I picked up Cappy outside the William Simon and headed into the rundown lobby of the hotel. A sleepy-eyed Sikh was leafing through a newspaper in his native tongue behind the front desk. Jacobi thrust Coombs’s photo and his badge in front of the man’s startled eyes.
“What room?”
It took about three seconds for the turbaned clerk to squint at the photo, flip through a bound black register, and in a tight accent say, “Tree-oh-sevon. He is registered with the name Burns.” He pointed. “Ele-vator to the right.”
Moments later, we stood in the dingy, paint-chipped hallway on the third floor outside Coombs’s room, flicking our automatics off safety.
“Remember, we’re only talking,” I cautioned. “Keep your eyes open for anything we can use.”
Jacobi and Cappy nodded, then each took a position on either side of the door. Cappy knocked.
No one answered.
He knocked again. “Mr. Frank Burns?”
Finally, a heavy, grumbling voice. “Go the fuck away. Get lost, huh. I’m paid up through Friday.”
Jacobi shouted, “San Francisco Police, Mr. Burns. We got you your morning coffee.”
There was a long pause. I heard some commotion, the sound of a chair being dragged and a drawer closed. Finally, the sound of footsteps coming closer and a voice barking, “What the fuck do you want?”
“Just to ask a few questions. You mind opening the door?”
It took about a minute of waiting with our fingers tensed on the triggers for the door to finally unlatch.
It swung open, revealing an angry Coombs.
Chimera.
His face was round and heavy, with eyes that sagged into deep-set craters. Short, graying hair, a large, flat nose, mottled skin. He had on a white