The 8th Confession

Chapter 79

CINDY WAS AT her desk in the bull pen the next morning, scrolling through her notes in order to double-check her memory. Then she found it, the note she’d made of her impromptu interview with the girl who called herself Sammy, the strung out teen who’d mentioned that “people” had killed Rodney Booker, not one person but at least two.

Cindy had felt haunted by that word – “ people” – sorry that Sammy had bolted before she’d followed up on what might have been a significant lead to finding out who killed Rodney Booker.

Cindy called Lindsay again, this time leaving her a message thanking her for the sweetheart roses. Then she grabbed her handbag and left the Chronicle Building, taking the short walk to From the Heart.

A homeless guy about her age, name of Angel, flashed his gold-capped smile and opened the door to the soup kitchen while giving Cindy a sweeping bow.

“Hey there, Ms. Cindy Thomas. We named you the sweetheart of From the Heart. By popular vote.”

Cindy gri

Cindy searched the large room, finally seeing Sammy working behind the steam table, serving up lunch to the long line of street people. Sammy was wearing nice slacks, expensive layered tops in bright colors, her pale yellow hair neatly braided down her back.

And although Sammy’s pupils were large enough to see from across the room, the teenager was clearly a volunteer, not a client.

Cindy crossed to the steam table, said, “Hi, Sammy. Do you have any time for me?”

Sammy looked not just nervous but jumpy. “No,” she said. “I just can’t.”

“Please.”

“I can’t talk to you in here,” Sammy sputtered. “I’ll meet you at Moe’s in a half hour if you’ll leave now.”

Cindy waited for Sammy at Moe’s, and after an hour went by, she ordered a grilled cheese on rye. As soon as it came, Sammy dropped into the seat across from her.

“You’re too much, Cindy,” the girl said, shaking her head. “I warned you to watch out, but you just can’t leave things alone.”

“I can keep a secret,” Cindy said, “but I can’t just drop this story.”

“No? Well, my father has me under house arrest. He doesn’t want me talking to anyone, especially you.” The girl crunched Life Savers, ordered a Coke. “Classic,” she said to the waitress.

“Why not me?”

“Because you are looking to get yourself killed.”

Cindy stirred her coffee, said, “See, this has me confused, Sammy. Why am I in danger? What’s so special about Rodney Booker that makes writing about him life-threatening?”

“Because his killers aren’t street people, Cindy. His killers don’t want to be exposed, arrested, charged with murder.”

Cindy said, “I need your help.”

Sammy sat back in her seat, her eyes wide with fear. She said, “I need your help, too. I want to get away from here. Move out of town. But I have no money. I’ll make you a deal. Can you get me some kind of advance on that reward? Like ten grand?”

“No way,” Cindy said. “That money is there until Bagman’s killers are convicted. I can get you a couple hundred bucks if that’ll help.”

“Forget it. Thanks, but no thanks. I said I needed help, and by the way, screw you,” said Sammy.

As soon as Sammy left the diner, Cindy paid the check and walked back to work. Sammy had finally gotten to her. The teenager’s fear could be druggie paranoia to the max, but Cindy was getting a different feeling – that Rodney Booker’s murder was tied to something bigger, something organized.

Which meant that she was out of her league.

She called a number she knew by heart. “Rich,” she said, “we’ve got to talk.”

Chapter 80

CONKLIN FOUND SKIP WILKINSON at MacBain’s, one hand in a bowl of peanuts, the other around a mug of freshly drawn brew. Wilkinson was a ski

“So you want to talk about Bagman?” Wilkinson said.

“Anything you can tell me. He’s a homicide that’s going cold.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t tell you too much. We had a few brushes with him. He was strictly a small-time drug dealer.”

“What kind of drugs?”

“Crack. I brought you his file.”

Wilkinson lifted a dog- eared folder out of his battered briefcase, passed it to Conklin. “We never had enough probable cause to arrest him. Sickening, what he was doing.”

“What was that?” Conklin asked. There was no arrest sheet, no mug shot, just handwritten notes stapled to the back of the folder marked BAGMAN JESUS. They hadn’t known his name.

“He was turning teenage girls into pushers. He had a network of them. Sent them out on the street to sell. I’m not sure he wasn’t having sex with them all.

“This is all from street talk, not reliable sources. So we planted a couple of female cops on the street, waited for him to take the bait, but he didn’t do it.”

“And you gave up? Look, I’m not being critical. We haven’t had time to work his murder more than a handful of hours -”

“We didn’t quit,” Wilkinson said. “But as I said, Conklin, he was small-time. Crack is bad, but we’re being overrun by meth, which is far worse. Kids were making it in their basements. It was easy and cheap, but since the crackdown on ephedrine, meth has become big business.

“It’s huge, going out of control. Organized crime is getting involved. The stuff is streaming in from Mexico. I don’t mean to chew your ear off, but it’s getting away from us. And it’s killing good kids. One hit, and they don’t stand a chance.”

Conklin said, “So Rodney Booker was a crack dealer. We didn’t have that.”

“We would’ve landed Bagman eventually, but we had bigger dogs to worry about. And then someone got to that bastard first. And I say great. Glad they took that fucker down and made sure he was down for good.”

Chapter 81

AT JUST BEFORE EIGHT on a gray morning, Cindy stood between me and Conklin, pointing her finger in the direction of a young woman striding up Fifth Street.

“That’s her. Red shirt, blond braid. That’s Sammy.”

Sammy heard her name, turned her head, saw Conklin sprinting toward her, and took off like she had jets on the heels of her shoes. She flew off the sidewalk and into the street, ducked in front of a fish truck that was accelerating as the light turned green.

I thought the truck might have clipped her – but the gears ground into third and the truck sped up as Conklin rounded the tailgate. I was ru

I could hear Conklin huffing, that’s how close I was, when a crack in the sidewalk grabbed the toe of my shoe and I went down. My breath left me.

I staggered to my feet, and then a citizen pointed the way. By the time I caught up with them, Conklin had boxed Sammy into an alcove between two buildings, was yelling to the wide-eyed and panting kid, “Stop ru

A cluster of homeless people rose up from the sidewalk outside the soup kitchen, some sidling away, others circling around Conklin and Sammy. It was a menacing crew, and there were a lot of them. I flashed my badge, and the grumbling crowd backed off, gave us room.

“We want to talk to you at the station,” Conklin was saying to the girl. “You’ll come in, be a good citizen. Understand? Cooperate, and we won’t book you.”

“No. I don’t understand. I haven’t done anything.”

“See, I want to believe you,” said Inspector Conklin of the melting brown eyes. “But I don’t.”