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CHAPTER 52

WE DUMPED THE remains of our lunch into the trash, and Conklin, Alvarez, and I changed gears back to trying to get a handhold on the ‘I said. You dead’ killer.

Cindy’s story about the murders had run above the fold on page 1 of the Chronicle and now tips were coming in. I was combing through them—hoping for a good lead, praying for one—when Bob Nussbaum called me from the front desk to tell me to pick up line three.

I answered the ringing phone with my name.

Brady said, “Christ, Boxer. I’ve been trying to reach you for an hour.”

“I’ve been on the tip line, nonstop.”

“Find anything?”

“So far just a giant-sized desire to punch the wall, but at least I’m crossing names and bum leads off of the list.”

“For instance?”

I sighed. “Okay. A woman calls the tip line and leaves a message. She has a hot lead. I call her back. She says she was at the seafood counter in the grocery store last night. The guy ahead of her in line says to the fish on ice, ‘I said. You dead.’”

“Oh, jeez.”

“She almost got to me. Instead of yelling, ‘Real people died,’ and hanging up, I thanked her for calling the tip line.”

Brady said, “The way I feel, I would have blasted her and then hung up. Good job, Boxer.”

The boss told me that he was still at the control center near the Orlofsky murder scene. Gene Hallows was keeping him in the loop, but the CSIs hadn’t yet found anything forensically useful.

Brady said, “Boxer, I got a call from Section Chief Craig Steinmetz of the local FBI office on Golden Gate Avenue. You know Steinmetz through Joe, right? He tells me there’s a field agent in town from the Boston branch who wants to come in and talk to you. His name is James Walsh, and he says he has a lead into the ‘I said. You dead’ murders. He’s about ten minutes out from the Hall.”

Walsh was there even faster than that. I’d barely had time to even tell Conklin and Alvarez about Brady’s phone call when Nussbaum called me from the desk to say that a Special Agent Walsh was here to see me. I asked Alvarez and Conklin to stand by, then crossed the floor to the front desk.

James Walsh and I introduced ourselves and shook hands. Walsh was six feet tall, had short grayish-blond hair and big hands and feet, and wore blue trousers and a blue pin-striped jacket. Looked like a former college quarterback now dressed as a white-collar insurance guy.

I brought him directly to the war room. The Jacobi and Robinson murder books were sitting on the table in there next to a folder of articles and photos about Sadie Witt.

This morning’s Orlofsky horror show had not been taped up. There was no evidence that they were connected.

Walsh spent some time looking carefully through the Jacobi and Robinson crime-scene and morgue photos until I said, “Agent Walsh, I’m interested in your thoughts.”

He nodded and said, “Call me Jim.”

“Lindsay.”

“Lindsay, I’ve read the reports on Jacobi and Robinson, but I’d like you to run the cases for me.”

“How much time have you got?”

“Whatever we need.”

We sat at the big table and I gave Walsh a short, crisp version of the Jacobi and Robinson murders, which had happened a week ago, within an hour and a few blocks of each other. I told him our current theory, that wealth was part or all of the killer’s motive, and cited Jacobi’s million-dollar settlement and Robinson’s literary and financial success. And I said that a good source had told me that Sadie Witt had inherited a house worth a quarter of a million dollars a few weeks before she was murdered.

He turned down my offer of coffee and said, “Thanks for running the cases for me. But what would really help me is knowing what you think.”

I said, “You want me to speculate.”

“Right.”

“James, I’m at a loss. We all are. I’ve told you about Frances Robinson, found dead inside the doorway of her apartment. Immediately, two very senior teams canvassed her neighbors and interviewed her friends, relatives, even her ex-husband. They are still digging but so far have only found a great deal of sadness and urgency for the police to find Frances Robinson’s killer.”

“What was the general opinion of her?”

“People loved her books and loved her . There was nothing suspicious or corrupt about her, no known stalkers, or ugly threats, and she didn’t know Warren Jacobi. The note on her laptop is the only thing that connects them.”

James nodded and asked me for more about Jacobi. “I understand you knew Chief Jacobi for almost fifteen years?”

I said, “I can tell you what I know about Jacobi, but that will take an hour and I still won’t be finished.”

“Go for it.”