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CHAPTER 30

TWO DAYS AFTER Frances Robinson was shot and Warren Jacobi was knifed to death, and we were still nowhere. It made me sick. I’d organized my schedule, my to-do list, but from the moment I arrived at the Hall, it became a running-in-place kind of day.

It was just before eight in the morning when I met with sergeants Nardone and Einhorn in the war room. They had been the first officers on Jacobi’s scene, and I needed to review their work for the record. I didn’t care if it pissed them off. I read over their notes and grilled them with elementary questions, but they took it well, telling me that they’d canvassed the park after I’d left, and that Einhorn had filmed the area around where Jacobi’s body had been found. Nothing new had been uncovered after the matchbook was found.

Cappy and Chi were next up.

They’d been the first officers at Robinson’s apartment, and Chi’s notes were precise. Although we had all of the forensic data, including more in-depth information on Robinson, we still had less than nothing. I’d seen the photos of Frances Robinson’s body where she’d fallen, before she’d been trundled off to the morgue. Chi handed over a printout of his notes with his impressions, and I would file them in the Robinson murder book.

In both cases, all procedures had been followed properly, all paperwork had been completed, and both bodies had been fully autopsied. The cause of death—both homicide—had been filed with the coroner, and the bodies had both been released for burial.

Results? Nothing we hadn’t already known.

I thought about my last session with Dr. Greene. I knew I had to separate my feelings from Jacobi’s death so that I could work on these horrible, pointless crimes, but my emotions were sloshing around inside my head, threatening to break free.

For now, they stayed under wraps.

Leaving the war room with my notes and the photos that had been taped to the wall, I went to the well-lit break room, which had a good-sized table. I made small stacks of materials: notes from the medical examiner (Claire), notes from the CSU (Hallows), notes from the first responders (Nardone/Einhorn and Cappy/Chi), plus my own scribbles. Everything gathered in the interest of compiling two murder books.

One for Jacobi, the other for Robinson, both binders would be updated as long as the cases were open.

It was a sad but necessary process, and as I worked, colleagues came through the break room to ask how I was doing and if I needed any help. “Thanks. I’m fine.” Several of my coworkers ate their lunches over the sink without complaint while I used the table, and I thanked Officer Lemke for making more coffee.

At one o’clock, Brenda Fregosi joined me and we sorted through a million go-nowhere leads from the tip line. It was a six-hour job that we compressed into three hours, but all we got for our efforts were condolences, rants about crime in San Francisco, and other iffy remarks that couldn’t be called leads.

There had been one legitimate sighting of Jacobi watching birds. A pair of joggers had seen him engrossed in his phone. The couple ran past him, and no words were exchanged. Another jogger thought she had heard a shot. But she hadn’t seen anyone with a gun.

I heard a distant echo of Jacobi’s voice telling me to take it easy. Tomorrow’s another day, Boxer.

Once I closed the murder books, Brenda took them to Brady for his contributions and review. I wrote a summary of the day’s work and the no-progress report on the “I said. You dead” homicides, then, after I stared at a photo of Julie with her arms around Martha, I emailed today’s anorexic case update to Brady.