Page 4 of 25 Alive

I STARED AT the dead man, but I didn’t believe what Claire had told me. I said, “This can’t be Jacobi. He … He … He’s retired.”

“I’m so, so sorry, Linds,” said Claire.

She put her arms around me. Her sobs released mine, and Claire and I both cried into the other’s shoulder until, somehow, I finally accepted the unimaginable.

When we let go, Claire asked, “Can you handle this?”

“No. But I have to.”

Another tidal wave of disbelief and grief washed over me. I loved Jacobi. He’d been my first partner in the Homicide squad. Everything I hadn’t learned in the Academy, he’d taught me by example at crime scenes or explained to me inside a patrol car. We’d bonded early, and our deep friendship had continued before and after he cut loose from his job, his career, his reason for being.

And now Warren Jacobi was dead, lying curled up at my feet. I leaned down and put my hand on his shoulder.

“I’m so sorry this happened to you, my dear friend,” I said, looking into my former partner’s face. “You have good friends working to find out who did this to you. And that person who did this will damn well pay. I hope that you know I’m here.”

I smoothed his hair and kept my hand on his forehead. I couldn’t be sure if it was true or my imagination, but I thought he still felt warm. Everyone around me was quiet. I took another moment to pray, and when I said, “Amen,” the little group echoed that solemn word.

Then I inspected Jacobi’s injuries, snapping photos with my phone. My vision was blurred by tears, but from what I could see of the degree and angles of his wounds, Jacobi hadn’t seen the attack coming. He hadn’t even pulled his piece. From what Claire had told me so far, this assault didn’t sound like a robbery.

But then why? What had been the killer’s motive? Had it been a personal beef? Someone who’d hated Jacobi? Or was my old friend a victim of circumstance?

I turned and asked Claire, “What do we know?”

CHAPTER5

CLAIRE CLEARED HER throat, then ran the facts.

“Time of death, approximately two, two and a half hours ago, so, say 6 something a.m. The killer surprised him from behind and knew how to use a blade.”

Einhorn said, “Plus a matchbook we found in the ferns over there.”

“Let me see.”

CSI Dugan opened her kit and held up a small, clear plastic evidence bag containing a matchbook withJULIO’Sprinted on the cover. I recognized the design. It matched the look of the sign belonging to a dark hole of a bar on Valencia Street at the edge of the Mission District. I’d driven past it but never been inside.

“Don’t know if it belonged to the victim or it’s been there for days. But either way, it’s interesting,” Dugan said. “Look at the writing inside.”

I managed to open the matchbook without removing it from the evidence bag and saw that someone had useda ballpoint pen to inscribe a message in block lettering on the inside cover. I could just make out the words: I SAID. YOU DEAD.

What? What the hell does that mean?

I handed the bagged matchbook back to Dugan and addressed the people around me. “‘I said. You dead.’ We’re assuming this was left here by the killer. Is the killer bragging? Fulfilling a prophecy? Has anyone heard this statement before?”

There were no ideas at that moment, but we were just getting started.

I edged out of the scene to let the CSIs and the Forensics unit do their work as ME’s team raised the tape, hefted Jacobi’s body onto a gurney, and rolled it toward the van.

I walked like a zombie to my squad car. I turned it on, released the brake, backed up, then headed east on Nancy Pelosi Drive and toward the Hall of Justice.

At a stoplight, my mind was flooded with fresh images of Jacobi’s lifeless, bloodied body, the horrible sight of his head half sawn off by a strong hand with a killing knife. Tears spilled and I didn’t try to stop them. Warren Jacobi had been a great cop as well as my mentor, partner, and friend to the end.

That made his murder personal.

CHAPTER6

WHEN I REACHED the Hall of Justice, I took the stairs three flights up from the lobby to the Homicide squad room. I yanked open the wood-framed glass outer door, bumped the hinged gate with my hip, and entered our small bullpen, a study in its many shades of gray. The day shift was filling the room with the crackle and buzz of conversation. Telephones rang at every desk.

Our front desk guard dog, Robert Nussbaum, was at his station.

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