Eldridge sucked his bottom lip, then averted his eyes. “Your son. He jumped from a bridge, committed suicide. I’m sorry. Really, really sorry.”
MacNally’s eyes glossed over. His hands trembling, he pulled out the letter. A torn newspaper article drifted to his feet, as well as another, smaller, envelope. He stood there staring at the items that had fallen.
MacNally bent down slowly and picked them up. With moist, trembling hands, he slipped the letter out of its torn envelope. It was the note he had given to Finelli. All he could make out in the scant light was a postal service marking: “Return to Sender.” Behind it, a newspaper article’s large headline screamed at him. Boy Jumps to Death from Bear Mountain Bridge.
“No!”
The guttural, pained cry from a man whose life had reached the low of lows, from a man with weightier regrets than a human being was equipped to endure, echoed throughout the cellhouse.
MacNally threw himself at the bars. Eldridge, a tear evident on his cheek, flinched. And then he slammed the door shut.
MACNALLY’S WAILING CONTINUED UNABATED. After twenty minutes, Anderson pulled open the outer steel door. His lieutenant, Donald Wright, and a senior officer, Edgar Newhall, stood at his side. Wright turned on a water hose and blasted MacNally in the chest.
MacNally fell back to the ground, but fought his way to his feet, dodged the stream, and then charged the bars. He ran into them at full force-and continued screaming, a tirade fueled by anger and guilt and the short-circuiting neurons that now comprised his damaged brain’s electrical system.
The water hose only fueled his rage.
“Open it up!” Anderson yelled behind him. “Bring him upstairs,” Anderson said to Wright and Newhall. “He needs to be chilled out.” The door was racked open seconds later.
The men unfurled a white sheet and charged MacNally, swiftly enveloping him and tightly winding his torso, arms and hands, in the cloth. Newhall stuck his foot behind MacNally’s leg and brought him down hard to the cement.
While on the ground, the two officers snapped leg irons around his ankles, then pulled him upright and led him into the main cellhouse, into the dining hall and up the steps to the hospital.
But MacNally continued to thrash and yell, making it an adventurous journey-with the three men twice nearly tumbling backwards down the staircase.
They yanked and pushed and got him down the hallway, where they hung a right into a spacious, white-tiled room. Wright pulled while Newhall pushed, and they got him over to a free-standing white porcelain bathtub that stood against the wall, beneath a large window.
As they moved him to the edge, MacNally saw that it was filled with ice cubes. Suddenly, something slammed against the back of his knees, and MacNally’s legs buckled. The officers guided him into the bed of ice and held him down.
Newhall brought his knee up to MacNally’s chest and rested his full weight there. Wright did the same below, across his legs.
The cold was achingly painful-and eventually numbing. Finally, MacNally felt his anger fading, the draining tirade waning. His breathing slowed, and as he eased his body into the ice, he began to shiver.
“That’s it,” Newhall said. “We call this the chill out. You calm down, we’ll get you out, warm you up, and take you back to your cell.”
As he lay there, the fury seemed to melt from his body, replaced by sorrow and the realization that his only family-Henry, his son-was dead. The sadness he felt brought him back to Doris’s death. Seeing her lifeless, bloody body lying on the kitchen floor was life-altering and emotionally shattering. As bad as that was, this seemed worse.
“Kill me,” MacNally said as his teeth chattered.
Wright turned to make eye contact. “What?”
“Kill me. Choke me, stab me, shoot me. I don’t care. Just put me out of my misery.”
Wright looked at Newhall, who was frowning. Pathetic, his face said.
“Believe me,” Wright said. “After what you did to Taylor, a lot of guys would be happy if we did end your sorry life. But some think that’d be a mercy killing. No. You’re gonna do your time, imprisoned like some goddamn rabid animal, facing your punishment like a man, you fucking slug.”
MacNally closed his eyes and he shivered, tears flowing freely, warming his skin.
Minutes later, as he began losing consciousness, Wright’s voice roused his mind.
“Let’s get ’im out. He’s done.”
The two men pulled MacNally out of the tub. Another officer entered the room holding a wool blanket, and they began unfurling the sheet. His arms and hands were free, but his body was trembling.
The rage welled up yet again, and he began swinging wildly. He connected with Wright’s jaw, sending the man back against the radiator beneath the window.
The officers slammed MacNally facedown into the tub, then shackled his arms with handcuffs.
“I’m fucking done with you,” Newhall said. “MacNally, you just bought yourself a ticket to the Bug Room.”
They yanked him from the tub, then dragged him down the hallway, hung a right into a narrow corridor, and up three steps into an area with tan-tiled walls. The third officer swung open a thick door to their left, and Newhall and Wright shoved MacNally into the eight-by-eight room. He went sprawling face-first to the floor.
MacNally rolled over and lay there on his back: tiled walls, a glass-block window, and a hole in the corner to use as a toilet. That was it.
The men slammed the thick door closed and locked it.
67
Vail, Burden, and Dixon stood in the middle of the California and Mason intersection, which SFPD had closed off with squad cars and officers, diverting traffic to alternate routes. An ambulance sat parked near the still-open cable car hatchway, and a female and male paramedic were tending to Friedberg a few paces away.
“Why did he do it?” Burden said. “Why not just kill Robert like he did Hartman?”
“It wasn’t about Robert,” Vail said. “The other vics have some personal meaning to the UNSUB. Robert didn’t. And…” Vail looked off at the Fairmont Hotel.
“And what?” Dixon asked.
“You’re not gonna like it.”
“Oh, okay,” Burden said, nodding animatedly. “So don’t tell us.”
Vail managed a slight chuckle. “The offender probably did this whole thing with Robert for two reasons. One you know-to fuck with us. Show his superiority. The other was…to keep us occupied.”
“Occupied?” Dixon asked. “Occupied while he did what?”
“Exactly,” Vail said. “That’s the problem. I have a feeling some bad shit’s gonna go down.”
The male medic who was hunched over Friedberg’s left arm straightened up. “IV line established.”
“Hang saline and give him O2,” the woman said as she applied a compressive pack to Friedberg’s leg. “Neuro intact. No other wounds. Looks like he might’ve nicked the femoral.” She turned to Vail while she finished wrapping the bandage. “The Inspector probably would’ve bled out if you didn’t get him out of there when you did.”