Finally an old man opened and peered out at us. I could see his nose and sharp, pointed chin - a resemblance to the picture of Billy Danko in the Chronicle magazine.
“You the idiots who called on the phone?” He stood there, regarding us warily. “Of course you are.”
“I'm Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer,” I said. “And this is Homi-cide Inspector Warren Jacobi. Do you mind if we come in?”
“I mind,” he said, but he swung the screen door open any-way. “I've got nothing to say to the police if it concerns my son, other than accepting their full apology for his murder.”
He led us back through musty, paint-chipped halls into a small den. It didn't seem that anyone else was living with him.
“We were hoping to ask you just a few questions regard-ing your son,” Jacobi said.
“Ask.” Danko sank himself into a patchwork couch. “Bet-ter time to ask questions was thirty years ago. William was a good boy, a great boy. We raised him to think for himself, and he did, made choices of conscience - the right ones, it was proven out later. Losing that boy cost me everything I had. My wife...” He nodded toward a black-and-white portrait of a middle-aged woman. “Everything.”
“We're sorry for what happened.” I sat on the edge of a badly stained armchair. “No one's here to cause you more distress. I'm sure you're familiar with what's been going on in San Francisco recently. A lot of people have died there.”
Danko shook his head. “Thirty years later, and you still won't let him rest in peace.”
I glanced at Jacobi. This was going to be a tough go. I started in talking about Jill, how we had found the connec-tion between her father and the raid on the Hope Street house. Then how one of the other victims, Lightower, also had a connection to Berkeley and the student revolts.
“Don't mean to tell you your job, Inspectors” - Carl Danko smiled - “but that sounds like a lot of crazy suppo-sitions to me.”
“Your son had a code name,” I said, “August Spies. August Spies is the name that's being used by the people who are doing these killings.”
Carl Danko snorted derisively and reached for a pipe. He seemed to find all of this humorous.
“Do you know anyone who might be involved?” I pressed. “One of Billy's friends? Maybe someone's been in touch with you lately?”
“Whoever is doing it, God bless him.” Carl Danko cleaned out his pipe. “Truth is, you've wasted your time coming out here. I can't help you a lick. And if I could...I hope somehow you can understand why I might not be so dis-posed to help the San Francisco Police. Now please leave my house.”
Jacobi and I stood up. I took a step toward the door, pray-ing for some kind of epiphany before I got there. I stopped at the picture of his wife. Then I noticed a photo next to hers.
It was a family shot.
Something caused me to focus on the faces.
There was another son in the photo.
Younger. Maybe sixteen. A spitting image of his mother.
The four of them smiling, not a care on what seemed a pleas-
ant, sunny day in the distant past. “You have another son.” I turned back to Danko. “Charles...” He shrugged. I picked up the photo. "Maybe we should talk to him. He
might know something.“ ”Doubt it.“ Danko stared at me. ”He's dead, too."
Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree
Chapter 90
BACK IN THE EXPLORER, I called in to Cappy. “I want you to run the background on a Charles Danko. Born in Sacra-mento, 1953-54. Possibly deceased. That's the best I have. And go back as far as you have to go. If this guy's dead, I want to see the death certificate to prove it.”
“I'll get on it,” Cappy said. “Meanwhile, I got one for you. George Bengosian, Lieutenant. You were right, he did get a pre-med degree from the University of Chicago. But that was after he transferred there from Berkeley. Bengosian was there in 'sixty-nine.”
“Thanks, Cappy. Great work. Keep it up.”
So now we had three - Jill, Lightower, and Bengosian - who were tied to the murderous police raid on Hope Street. And the code name August Spies linked to Billy Danko.
I didn't know what to do with it yet. As Danko said, it was all a bunch of suppositions.
While Jacobi drove back to the city, I finally dozed for a bit. It was my first solid sleep in three days. We got back to the Hall about six. “In case you were wondering,” Jacobi said, “you snore.”
“Purr,” I corrected. “I purr.”
Before heading back to my office, I wanted to check on Molinari. I ran upstairs and squeezed myself into his office. A meeting was in progress. What was this?
Chief Tracchio was sitting at his desk. So was Tom Roach from the FBI. And Strickland, who was in charge of the G-8 advance security.
“Lightower was there,” I announced, barely able to hold back my excitement. “At Berkeley - at the time of the BNA raid. George Bengosian was, too. They were all there.”
“I know,” Molinari said.
Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree
Chapter 91
IT ONLY TOOK ME A SECOND. “You found the FBI file on the BNA?”
“Better,” Molinari said. "We found one of the FBI agents who was in charge of the raid on Hope Street.
“William Danko was a card-carrying member of the Weathermen. You can be sure of it. He was sighted casing the site of the regional offices of Grumman, which were bombed in September of 1969. His code name, August Spies, was picked up in monitored phone traffic of known Weathermen lines. The kid was no innocent, Lindsay. He was involved in murder.”
Molinari pushed forward a yellow legal pad filled with his handwriting. “The FBI had begun following him about three months before the raid. There were a couple of others involved out of the Berkeley cell. The FBI was able to turn one of them, use him as a CI. It's amazing how the threat of twenty-five years in a federal prison puts a crimp in a promis-ing medical career.”
“Bengosian!” I said. A rush surged through my veins. I felt validated.
Molinari nodded. “They turned Bengosian, Lindsay. That's how they got to the house on Hope Street that night. Bengosian betrayed his friends. You were right - and there's more.”
“Lightower,” I said expectantly.
“He was Danko's roommate,” Molinari replied. "The school cracked down on students active in the SDS. Maybe Lightower decided it was time for a semester abroad.
“And one of the FBI agents who led the raid, who went inside the house that morning, he got promoted. Spent his twenty years in the Bureau, retired right here in San Fran-cisco. His name was Frank T. Seymour. Name ring a bell?”
Yeah, it rang a bell, but it didn't fill me with exhilaration. Just a sickening feeling.
Frank T. Seymour was one of the people killed in the blast at the Rincon Center.
Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree
Chapter 92
IT WAS NIGHT NOW and Michelle liked the night. She could watch the Simpsons, reruns of Friends. Laugh a bit, like before everything had started, like when she was a kid in Eau Claire.
They'd had to ditch the Oakland apartment where they had lived for the past six months. Now they'd moved into Julia's house in the Berkeley flats.
And they couldn't go out much anymore. The situation was too tight. Sometimes on TV she saw a photograph of Mal, except the news reports called him Stephen Hardaway. Robert had moved in, too. It was the four of them now. And maybe Charles Danko would show up soon, too. Supposedly, he had the final plans, the endgame, which Mal promised would blow everybody's mind. It was huge.
Michelle turned off the TV and went downstairs. Mal was hunched over the wires, tinkering with the new device, the latest bomb. There was a plan, he said, how they were gonna get this baby inside. Just being in the same place with the damn thing freaked her out.