17th Suspect by James Patterson

Author:James Patterson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornerstone Publishing

CHAPTER 53

I WAS EARLY for my 4:30 meeting with Internal Affairs’ Lieutenant Johnny Hon, upstairs on the fifth floor. I knew of Hon, but we’d never met. IAD was opaque, the most secretive department in the SFPD.

Neither Brady nor Jacobi had tried to stop me, and now I was flying blind on my own.

I sat in the reception area and flipped through a left-behind copy of the Chronicle while getting my fractured thoughts in order. I had a realization. Ever since Jacobi had told me that I looked like crap, I’d been feeling that way, too. According to my loose waistband, I’d lost weight; my holster was at the tightest setting and still felt uncomfortably loose. And the headache I’d had this morning was back and had brought its younger brother.

Was I putting myself under too much pressure? Was I becoming a nervous wreck?

Before I could follow this thought, a gray-haired man of about fifty entered the room and spoke my name.

I stood up, saying, “That’s me.”

“I’m Johnny Hon,” he said.

We shook hands. I followed the IAD lieutenant to his office and sat in the chair across from his desk. The room was devoid of personality: white walls, plain wooden desk, some framed certificates on the wall. No photos or personal items.

The lieutenant was all business.

He said, “I got a call from Chief Jacobi. He speaks very highly of you, Sergeant.”

“We’ve been through the wars together.”

“So he said. He was vague about why you wanted to see IAD. Why don’t you lay out the issue for me?”

I told him that I had come to register a complaint about two homicide investigators from Central Station, giving an almost verbatim recitation of what I’d told Jacobi and Brady this morning. A tipster had called my attention to killings of homeless people that had not been solved by Central Station’s Sergeant Stevens and Inspector Moran, who appeared to be working the cases with an utter lack of urgency.

I told Hon what I knew about the dead poet at Walton Square, and about my own experience with Stevens and Moran at the Pier 45 and Geary Street murder scenes.

I said, “I accessed whatever information I could find, Lieutenant. I have Stevens’s report on the three crimes, all in progress. And I’ve also gathered up the reports I filed and an autopsy report on Laura Russell, the Pier 45 victim, from the ME.”

I reached across the desk and handed him a folder.

“So, what are you saying exactly, Sergeant? You think Stevens and Moran are goldbricking?”

“Something like that. Maybe they’re padding their over-time. I don’t know. But I do know that they don’t seem too eager to nail a serial killer who may be executing vagrants and planning to continue his spree.”

Hon nodded, said, “Do you have any evidence that Stevens and Moran are dragging their feet or scamming the system or committing a crime?”

“Lieutenant, what could be a legitimate motive for letting these homicides slide?”

“So, what I’m hearing is that you have nothing but unsubstantiated theory.

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