The Mission is gentrifying now, but five years ago, when we were working this case, it was dangerous after sunset. Even armed, I was on edge as the light faded out and the fog that usually evaded the Mission rolled in.
Rich slowed the car and we crawled down Shotwell, both of us searching the darkening streets for a taco delivery vehicle and a man called Denny, last name unknown, no verified ID, who was maybe a pimp and was definitely a person of interest.
We passed the intersections of Sixteenth, Seventeenth, and Eighteenth.
Men with hoods obscuring their faces clustered on the unlit street corners, drug deals going down in plain sight. We passed Nineteenth and came upon Shotwell’s, on the corner of a seemingly quiet street known as the prostitution hub of the area.
CHAPTER 51
Something about this area—or maybe it was just the darkness of this case, the specter of a man who got off on torturing women—was stirring up memories for me. I’d worked the Mission as a beat cop, and I’d spent a lot of time on these streets. San Francisco had been a different city then. After years of gentrification, the city barely had anything that qualified as a “bad neighborhood.” Although the building had some polish now, I remembered Shotwell’s being a lot grittier.
It was a personal landmark for me. When I was still a rookie, this tavern was an off-site HQ used by female cops. It was a meeting place to discuss how to deal with being ignored, belittled, and sexually harassed by the men of the SFPD.
And with the fonder memories of those nights drinking with some of the toughest women I’d ever known, Shotwell’s brought back vivid images of a crime I’d worked when I was still green. Still unaccustomed to the shock of human savagery.
I recalled every detail of that night that had begun with a crackling radio call. “Calling all cars. Homeless down at Shotwell and Twentieth.”
My partner, Lisa Frazer, and I had answered the call.
Lisa had ten years on the job and was a wife, mom of two, and top marksman. As she proved often in the squad car, she could also carry a tune. Lisa was singing and driving as we patrolled the Mission that night, and when dispatch called at midnight, we responded.
We were two blocks from the location and arrived in under a minute. Frazer braked the car, turned off the engine. The headlights went out. Without the headlights, the only illumination was one small light coming from a high window in a nearby apartment.
It threw just enough wattage to shadow the victim, lying spread-eagled in the street.
I jumped out of the car and got to the victim first. I took one look and called our street sergeant, Pat Correa, saying that we were on the scene and needed clear air, an ambulance, and CSI.
She said, “I’m on it. I should be there in three, four minutes.”
Thank God it was Correa. She was an old hand and a role model.
Meanwhile, Frazer and I had work to do. By our flashlight beams, what I could see through the dark and fog looked to be the work of a serial psycho known around the Hall as the Bloodsucker. No one had ever seen him up close, so the man was also a myth, but he did cut throats, drink his victims’ blood, and leave his signature behind.
My hand was shaking as I shined my light on the victim and said, “I’m Lindsay. I’m a cop,” and I asked her to hang in. An ambulance was en route. She groaned softly but didn’t open her eyes and didn’t move.
The victim appeared to be a street person, middle-aged, with knotted hair and rags for clothes. The plastic bag she used to carry her possessions was still looped over her left wrist.
I sorted through it for ID and found an apple, a wad of tissues, a ball of tinfoil, and miscellaneous odds and ends, but no wallet, no ID.
The four-inch-long gash to the side of victim’s neck looked like a knife wound, and an artery had been cut. No mistake about it, she was bleeding out. So much blood was puddling around her, it was separating, and the iron smell of it blended with the urine stink coming up from the street.
Frazer was quick to render aid, pressing her gloved hand to the victim’s pulsing wound.
She said, “I’ve got her, Boxer. Preserve the scene.”
The victim was still alive. Just.
Was the Bloodsucker hanging back, watching us?
I looked at the faces of the gathering crowd of bystanders. Gangbangers who ran the neighborhood, I thought. We didn’t have cell phones then, so I took pictures with my mind, memorizing what little I could see of the rubberneckers even as I ordered them away from the immediate area.
One of the onlookers was a husky guy with big hands, and he just wouldn’t step back. I warned him off. I got in his face and blocked his access, but he mocked me, crouched into a boxer’s stance, and danced on the balls of his feet, daring me to take him on.
And then he rushed me.
My father was a bad father, a worse husband, and also a dirty cop. Maybe I was trying to make up for all that by becoming a cop myself. One thing Marty Boxer did teach me: “With the name Boxer, you better know how to box.”
I thought the husky guy could hurt me, but I was more afraid that he’d corrupt the scene. So I drew back my fist and punched him in the face with all my strength.
He howled, staggered backward holding his hands over his nose. The crowd I had shooed away reassembled and began hooting, catcalling me and Frazer, “Here, piggy, piggy.”
I was worried that this mob was going out of control. Two of us. More than a dozen of them. I fired a shot into the air to get their attention. I remembered, too late, that warning shots were illegal, but I figured I’d explain later. We were outnumbered and I was afraid for my life.
It was almost pure bravado when I yelled, “Who wants to go to jail for interfering with law enforcement?”
There was laughter. This was bad. A menacing scrum of kids was having a good time with the lady cop. They might have weapons. I would be surprised if they didn’t. The crime scene was still exposed, and it was just me holding off gangbangers, and Frazer standing between the victim and death.
I pushed through the hecklers, and when I got to the car, I called dispatch, demanding backup forthwith.
Correa’s voice came over the radio. “I’m on Mission and Twentieth. Watch for my lights.”
The gangbangers heard Correa’s voice over the radio saying that she was three blocks away, and it backed them off. I’d bought a minute to tape off the street and I got to it.
Frazer said, “I’m sorry I can’t help with this.”
I said, “Do you see that?”
I flashed my light on the brick wall, and there, finger-painted in blood, was the Bloodsucker’s signature, the sketch of a grinning face, blood running down his chin.
Frazer was asking the victim for her name, telling her to stay with us, repeating her promise that she would be all right.
The guy I’d punched out was sitting with his back against a car, holding his nose and howling. I prayed that we’d gotten to the victim in time. That someone had seen the victim’s attacker.
I took out my notepad and shouted to the ominous and growing crowd. Not just young men anymore, thank God. “Did anyone see the attack on this woman?”
One old man raised his hand. He was wearing a Giants cap and a plastic bag over his clothes. I felt mist on my face. It was starting to rain.
“I saw him,” he said.