Eleventh Hour

he wasn’t at fault here, that it was the monster who had murdered four people here in San Francisco, but the words just wouldn’t come out of his mouth.
    He drove too quickly to the Hall of Justice and was pulled over just south of Market by a motorcycle cop.
    When he handed over his FBI shield, the officer just stared down at it, laughed, then said, “Hey, you on a big case?”
    Dane just nodded.
    “No ticket this time, Special Agent. Just watch the speed.”
    Dane thanked the officer and continued to speed to the Hall of Justice, despite the choking traffic.
    He was shown into the task force room, which was actually the conference room next to the chief’s office. Kreider’s assistant, Maggie, told him the chief wanted lots of say on this one, wanted to be the first one to know if anything broke.
    There were fifteen people crowded in the room. Dane stood leaning against the back wall and listened to Delion finish up.
    “. . . Okay, everyone knows the drill. The guy who just came in, over by the door, is Special Agent Dane Carver, FBI. His brother was Father Michael Joseph. He’s not here as a Fed, just as a cop, and so he’s a part of this hunt. Anybody got anything to say? No? Okay, that’s it.”
    Dane looked up at the time line thumbtacked to the wall, at the photos of the four people murdered. Chief Kreider squeezed Dane’s shoulder on his way out.
    Delion said to Dane, “I’ll bet our guys even have their moms working on this thing, Dane. We’ll nail the guy, you’ll see. Now, we’re scheduled to see the medical examiner. Dr. Boyd promised he’d do Valerie Striker first thing. How’s Ms. Jones?”
    “She’s fine. She swore to me she wouldn’t leave the hotel.”
    An eyebrow went up. “You believed her?”
    “Short of locking her up, I really didn’t have a choice, but yeah, I do.”
    “You get her cleaned up?”
    “Oh yes. She looks like a grad student.”
    “A grad student? You know, maybe that’s a possibility. She looks brainy, speaks real well.”
    Dane shook his head. “She’s smart, she’s too scared to hide that. Graduate student? She seems a bit old for that, but who knows?”
    Delion said, “I’m told by my sister—she’s a professor of anthropology over at UC Davis—that there’s a lot of cutthroat stuff in academia, more vicious, she says, than the business world. Of course, she doesn’t really know what she’s talking about but do you think our girl could be running from a badass professor?”
    “Could be,” Dane said, and burst out laughing, just couldn’t help himself. “A killer professor. I like that, Delion. Let’s stop by and see whose fingerprints are on this glass.”
    “Ms. Jones?”
    “Yes, a beautiful clear thumb. If she won’t tell us who she is, just maybe her prints are on file. You never know. And, Delion, thanks for making me laugh.”
    “No problemo.”
    Dr. Boyd met them at the morgue counter. “Valerie Striker was garrotted,” he said. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
    Dane said, “Can you give us a time, sir?”
    “It’s difficult, but I’d say it was toward the middle of the night, Sunday night.”
    “Good enough.”
    Dr. Boyd said, “Same man who killed Father Michael Joseph?”
    Delion nodded. “Yeah, if that’s when she died, then it was probably him. She was a loose end.”
    “Now for my good news, gentlemen. Ms. Striker didn’t go easily. She may have got some of him under her fingernails, probably skin from his neck.”
    “DNA,” Delion said, and did a little dance.
    “Get me a match and we’ll fry the guy, Inspector Delion.”
    They watched Dr. Stephen Boyd walk away, pause to speak to one of his investigators, then continue toward his office.
    “Hot damn,” Delion said. “You know, no one ever even makes a joke about that man? No Sawbones, no Doctor Death, nothing like that. He’s a straight arrow, smart, does what he says he’ll do. When the pressure builds, the brass are really heating things up, Dr. Boyd never panics, just lowers his head and keeps marching.”
    “Good for him,” Dane said. “On the other hand, if he did panic, the person on the slab wouldn’t be able to tell anyone about it.”
    “True enough. Now, if that sample’s got DNA in it, it’s our first real break.”

TEN
    CHICAGO
    Nick had never been so happy in her life. Well, maybe when she’d had her Ph.D. diploma placed reverently into her hand, but that was more a huge sense of relief than pure, unadulterated happiness.