The 8th Confession

“The Pathfinder? The explorer who mapped out the route to California just ahead of the gold rush?”

“That’s the one. My bloodline is royal blue, Inspector. I’ve got nothing against the wa

“I’m very impressed, Norma. So please, help me out here. You know San Francisco like nobody else. Upstairs, downstairs, every way, and I’m on the outside. I wasn’t even born here.”

“You want to know who killed all those people? I already told you. I have no idea.”

Conklin smiled, showed his dimples. “Actually, I was going to ask you who you think might be the snake killer’s next victim.”

Johnson sat back in her chair, then cocked her head and smiled at Conklin. “The next to die? You know, my circle is getting kind of small. I’m thinking the next victim could be me.”

“Holy crap,” I said to Jacobi. “I don’t like the sound of that. What’s she pla

“Pin a tail on that donkey,” Jacobi said. “Don’t let her out of your sight.”

Chapter 96

WE LOST PET GIRL literally right out of the box. Whether she’d gotten swept up in the foot traffic on Bryant or jumped into a cab, I didn’t know, but Conklin and I stood stupidly out on the street, blinking in the sunlight, looking for a honey-blonde in black – and seeing everything but.

“Try her phone,” I said to Conklin. “Tell her you have another question. Make a date to meet her.”

“I get it,” Conklin said. “Find out where she is.”

I grunted, “Sorry,” for my Jacobi-like behavior and watched Conklin dial and listen to Johnson’s outgoing message.

“Hi, Norma. It’s Inspector Conklin. Give me a call, okay? Got a quick question for you.”

He left his number and hung up.

“Let’s -”

“Check out her house,” he said.

I muttered, “Wiseass,” and he laughed, and we made for the car. Thirty minutes of traffic later, we parked close to the Twenty-fifth Avenue gate to the Presidio.

The Presidio has a long history, first as a Spanish fort right on San Francisco Bay, then as army housing when it was seized by the U.S. military in 1846. Nearly a hundred fifty years later, it went private, becoming a mixed-use assortment of business and residential buildings.

The renovation produced some beautiful Mission Revival-style redbrick buildings with white porches. Other housing was condemned and was gradually crumbling into the bay.

Pet Girl’s address indicated that her apartment was in the picturesque and cheapest part of the former barracks, a long walk from where we stood. And what got to me instantly was that Norma Johnson’s home was within viewing distance of Sea Cliff, where she’d gone to the Burke School – and where she’d been disgraced.

I’d thought status was important to her. So why had she put herself on that particular burner and turned up the jets?

Conklin and I walked quickly through the parklike Presidio surrounds, crowded on that workday with windsurfers changing in the parking lot, enjoying the breeze coming off Baker Beach.

And then Norma’s apartment was in sight, one of two attached units with a small yard in front. The trim needed a paint job, and there was a bike lying on the long grass in front of Norma’s door as though it had been dropped there in a hurry.

I knocked, called Norma’s name, knocked again, harder – and still no answer. I thought of Pet Girl saying to Conklin, “The next victim could be me.”

“Exigent circumstances, Rich. She could have hurt herself. She could be dying.”

I told him to kick the door in, but Conklin put his hand on the knob and turned it, and the door swung open. My gun was in my hand when we stepped inside Pet Girl’s apartment. It was clean and small, with what looked like cast-off furnishings, except for a picture of Christopher Ross in an elaborate frame over the console table in the hallway.

I heard muffled footsteps and a rumbling sound but couldn’t identify the noise or the direction it was coming from.

Conklin was behind me as I moved toward the back of the small duplex apartment, calling out, “Norma, it’s Sergeant Boxer. Your door was open. Could you please come out? We have to talk.”

All was silent.

I indicated to Conklin that he should stay on the ground floor, and I took the stairs. The upstairs rooms were so small, I could see into every corner, but still I turned over beds, tossed closets, looked for loose wall panels, the works.

Where the hell was Pet Girl?

I went through both small rooms, the bathroom, and the closets once more, but Norma Johnson wasn’t there.

The invisible Pet Girl had gone invisible again.

Chapter 97

I WAS STARTLED by the sharp crash of heavy objects falling to the floor below, and then I heard that rumble again, a sound like muted thunder, maybe a heavy rolling door – and I heard voices.

Conklin is talking to Norma Johnson.

By the time he called out to me, I was halfway down the stairs.

My partner was in the kitchen, staring into an opening between a counter and the fridge through a doorway I’d thought too narrow to lead to anything but a broom closet. Apparently a pocket door had been rolled into an opening in the wall – and there was a room behind it, looked like a pantry.

“Lindsay,” Conklin said in a measured tone, “Norma has a weapon.”

I edged into the eight-by-ten kitchen until I could see Johnson. Her back was to the pantry. Conklin was standing only four feet in front of her, barring her exit.

I did a double take when I realized that Norma Johnson’s weapon was the snake she gripped in her right hand. It was slim, banded, gray and white, a deadly krait, its tail lashing, its head swaying only inches from Johnson’s neck.

“Get out of my way, Inspector Conklin,” Johnson hissed. “I’m leaving by the front door, and you’re going to let me go. And I’m going to lock the door behind me. The snakes won’t bother you as long as you are very quiet and move very slowly.”

As Johnson inched toward Conklin, I could see behind her to the pantry. Metal shelving along the wall held a number of twenty-gallon aquariums, and the floor of the room was covered with broken glass.

My hands went ice cold as I understood the crashing sound. Pet Girl had pulled some of the snake tanks over, and they had smashed on the floor. Snakes were loose in the apartment, looking for hidey-holes, probably winding around corners into the small kitchen where Conklin and I were standing.

“I want you to open the oven and put that snake inside!” I shouted to Pet Girl. “Do it now, or I’m going to shoot.”

Pet Girl laughed.

“Nope, not going to do that,” she said, showing me a pretty smile I’d not seen on her face before. “So what’s it going to be, Sergeant? Let me go? Because if not, it doesn’t matter to me if Kali bites me or if you shoot me. There’s no difference to me at all.”

A clock ticked on the wall above the stove. I heard Norma Johnson’s breath quicken, and I saw that Conklin’s face was blanched. He was afraid of snakes, deathly afraid, but he stood like a rock within striking distance of Pet Girl’s lunatic idea of a pet. I couldn’t get a clean shot.

“Move aside, Inspector,” Johnson said to Conklin. “Save yourself and let me go.”

“I can’t do that,” said Conklin. And then he snapped out his hand like he was grabbing a fly from the air. He was going for her wrist, but before he could grab her, she launched the snake at Conklin.

Conklin jumped back, but the snake was airborne. My partner raised his hand as it came toward him, wriggling sinuously, batting against his palm. It clung to his hand for an instant, hanging over his wrist – until Conklin shook it off and it fell to the floor.