Synopses & Reviews
Chapter One
The ring of the phone jarred me from a sound sleep and I reached for it, not wanting to see the time. It was still dark out, I'd started my vacation, and the only news that could come at this hour was not good.
"Gillespie?"
"Yes," I said, eyeing the clock, its orange face reminding me of a full moon. Two-ten.
"Rocky Markowski. We need you down here."
So much for my week of leisure. "What's up?"
"Stabbing. Blue versus red this time. Got about fifteen witnesses that need to be interviewed. It was you or Zim. I sorta begged the LT."
"My lucky day." Not that I blamed him. Zim was nota well-liked member of the Homicide detail. "Give meabout forty minutes. Kevin's staying with me for a fewdays," I said, referring to my late brother's thirteen-year-old son. "I need to get my landlord up here towatch him."
"Sure. One other thing ... "
His tone told me I wasn't going to like what followed. "Yeah?"
"It was Nita Gonzalez."
"Yeah," he said, reading into my silence. "See ya in a few."
My landlord, Jack, lived downstairs with his wife. I called him, dressed in jeans and a sweater, dragged a brush through my shoulder-length brown hair, and then hurried to wake Kevin, who was asleep on the couch. "You need to go to Jack's," I told him, tousling his dark curls. He was past the kissing age, at least in his opinion. "I have to go in to work."
"Okay," he said, then rolled over. We'd done this routine before. Numerous times. I'd helped my aunt raise Kevin ever since my brother, Sean, had overdosed twelve years ago. Sean's was a death I had yet to reconcile,perhaps because he had always been a clean-cut, all-American kid. The poster child for wholesome. And he was a Narcotics officer at SFPD at the time. His death by heroin had devastated my father, so much so that when social services had discovered Kevin's existence -- we knew nothing about him -- my father had refused to acknowledge the child.
My aunt, on the other hand, took one look at Kevin, said in that no-nonsense way of hers, "He's a Gillespie, all right," and immediately set about raising him as one. His drug-addicted mother fled to avoid prosecution for my brother's overdose, and I enrolled in the police academy, trying to make up for my father's loss -- right the wrongs that had taken my brother's life. My goal was to save the world -- for Kevin.
How naÏ ve I was back then, I thought, tucking my weapon into my waistband and zipping up my coat.
"Thanks." My car was parked in the driveway behind Jack's. I figured I'd stop for a caffeine fix somewhere between my Berkeley Hills apartment and the Hall of Justice in San Francisco. The Bay Bridge was almost deserted heading into the city, and I found that I couldn't quit thinking about Nita. In addition to my duties as a Homicide inspector, I helped on occasion with the police Explorer post, a division of the Boy Scouts that allowed kids to learn about police work. The Gang Task Force brought Nita to me, hoping to get her off the streets and involved in something worthwhile. She'd told me she wanted to be a cop. And now she wasdead.
The Homicide detail was on the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice -- we referred to it simply as the Hall -- and when I got there, Rocky was waiting for me at his desk. Appearances were deceiving, and had he not been wearing a shoulder holster along with a badge clipped to the belt of his tan Dockers, I doubt anyone would guess his occupation as a cop. At five-five, he stood as tall as my forehead. His brown hair was cut in a flat-top, a style that seemed at odds with his thick mustache. Round face and round gut gave testament to his love of food.
"Where'd it happen?" I asked.
"In an alley about a block away from the shooting last night. A bunch of kids were walking home from a party. Nita Gonzalez was with them. Wrong place, wrong time sort of thing is what it looks like to me," he said, grabbing his keys and overcoat. "I'll drive."
When we arrived, Rocky showed his star to a uniformed officer on the perimeter. He moved a barricade and let us into the alley lit with flashing red, blue, and amber lights from two patrol cars. On one side of the alley was a small white building that read "City Sausage and Meat Company," and on the other side, behind a neat whitewashed fence, was a house I'd been to numerous times on patrol. I was well familiar with the octogenarian owner, Harriet Maze, as was every officer in the department. Better known as Crazy Mazy, she reported a crime about every other week and was about as credible as a tabloid magazine. There was a bit of truth in everything she said, but it was lost in the mire of her imagination. "She a witness?" I asked, dreading his answer.
"The RP," Rocky said.
Reporting party. Great. "You talk to her yet?"
"Figured we'dsave her for last."
"For last or for me?"
"Did I forget to mention that Andrews wants you to be the lead investigator on this?"
"Guess that tiny detail slipped your memory."
"It happened over there," Rocky said, pointing about dead center of Mazy's property. Yellow crime scene tape was strung across the alley ...
Synopsis
A homicide inspector with the San Francisco Police Department, Kate Gillespie worked hard to get where she is. But a frantic phone call from a snitch threatens to destroy everything she is and everything she's earned. Pulled from the bright lights of the Homicide office onto the shadowy night streets, she arrives at a clandestine meet just in time to see the frightened informer shot dead ... by another cop. Now Kate is a target, on a trail of dirty deals, corruption, and escalating violence that reaches back into her own troubled family history and deep into a department riddled with dark secrets and truths that kill. Suddenly Kate Gillespie is teetering on a "blue wall of silence" and being set up to take a long, fatal fall -- by a relentless killer who's hiding in plain sight.
About the Author
Robin Burcell is an FBI-trained forensic artist who has worked in law enforcement for over two decades as a police officer, detective, and hostage negotiator. A two-time Anthony Award winner, she is the author of four Sydney Fitzpatrick novels—The Black List, The Dark Hour, The Bone Chamber, and Face of a Killer—as well as four novels featuring SFPD homicide detective Kate Gillespie: Every Move She Makes, Fatal Truth, Deadly Legacy, and Cold Case.