“Okay,” Friedberg said, inserting an unlit Marlboro between his lips. “Next one.”
Allman moved on to the next folder. “Oh, yeah. This was a strange one. You may remember this one, Birdie. It was a front-pager. Donald Wright, ’87. He was found in front of an Army surplus store.”
“I do remember that one. Investigation led nowhere.”
“COD?” Vail asked.
“Strangulation. Manual, according to the ME.” He glanced through the file. A yellowed newspaper clipping from the front page of the San Francisco Tribune was preserved in a plastic sleeve. Allman moved it gingerly aside. “And before you ask. No key.”
“And who was this Wright guy?”
“Postal worker.” He moved another newspaper clipping aside. “Oh, yeah. This guy-he was one of the survivors of the shooting when that gunman opened up with a submachine gun in the Oakland sorting facility. That was back in ’85. I think you guys looked into a possible connection, but nothing was found.”
“No stabbing and no head trauma?” Vail asked.
“Nope.”
“Then why did you think this was related to the others?”
Allman sucked on his teeth and stared at the open folder. “Not sure. Can’t remember. Maybe because the body was found in a strange place, like the others? You tell me.”
“Hell if I know,” Vail said with a shrug. “Nothing I see here that would link them.”
“What else do you have?” Dixon asked.
Allman closed the Wright file and spread open the next one. “Billy Duncan. Carpenter. Found with his tongue excised and his mouth propped open by an ice cream stick.”
“Someone didn’t like what Billy had to say,” Vail said.
“No key. COD was…” Allman flipped through the file and found his notes. “Gunshot to the abdomen. He bled out.”
Burden leaned back in his chair. It popped out from underneath him, but he caught himself in time to keep from landing on his rear. He swung the chair around and sat properly in the seat. “Where was Billy found?”
“In a school recreation yard in Berkeley.”
Vail, Dixon, Friedberg, and Burden exchanged shrugs.
“What else?” Vail said.
“How old are all these guys?” Dixon asked.
“Mid-forties to mid-fifties,” Allman said. “I can look through the files and give you-”
“We can do that,” Burden said. “Continue.”
Vail’s vision blurred as she focused on what Allman had just said. That would put them around the same age as the current vics, if they’d lived. There’s something with that. But what?
“What do you think, Karen?”
Vail looked up. “Huh?”
“Any thoughts so far on linkage?” Dixon asked. “What’s the common factor?”
“I’m not sure there is any. Not yet, anyway. I need to spend time with the files. Wait-we don’t have crime scene photos or ME reports, do we?”
“Lost in the fire,” Burden said.
“I’ve got some stuff in the folders,” Allman said. “But nothing approaching what was in the original SFPD files.”
“What year was Billy Duncan murdered?” Vail asked.
“Ninety.”
“Hmm.” Every two to three years. Maybe there is a pattern here. Something I’m not seeing. What?
“Then there’s Martin Tumaco, owner of the Mercury Dream Research Lab. A life preserver had been overinflated and it choked him. His brain was deprived of oxygen and he basically died of brain damage.”
Burden pointed. “I remember that one. A buddy of mine caught that case. He was found in one of the flotation tanks. Went nowhere. No forensics, no leads, no suspects. Zippo.”
“And why did you pull that one?” Dixon asked.
“Just because of the unusual location of the body. And the COD. He was strangled, like the other vic. But it wasn’t manual.” Allman took a breath, then shrugged a shoulder. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s got nothing to do with the others. Maybe none of these are related. I just had a feeling these all have a connection. But I’m just a reporter covering a beat. You people are the experts. You might decide none of these have anything to do with anything.”
“Did any of these vics have numbers written on their foreheads?” Friedberg asked.
Allman lifted his brow. “No. None of them. I’d definitely remember that.”
“When was this last one?” Vail asked.
Allman pulled open the file again and peered in. “Ninety-five.”
Vail sighed deeply and sat back against the wall. So much for my theory…but then again, this whole exercise is totally inaccurate to begin with. These vics may be related, but they may not be. There could be others Allman missed or doesn’t know about. Or the offender could’ve been in the joint for something completely unrelated, disrupting his pattern. This isn’t helping.
“What happened with that ice cream vendor?” Dixon asked. “The carts at the Palace of Fine Arts?”
Friedberg rubbed at his eyes. “Company called North Beach Vending runs the show. They keep the carts locked away in a storage area behind the building. One of ’em went missing a day before we found the body. They found it in back in storage the day after. I had it brought over to the lab, but we’re not gonna find anything.”
“Who has access to that storage room?” Burden asked.
“Anyone with a bolt cutter. Just a simple padlock.”
Allman laughed. “If you aren’t a serial killer looking to transport a body, I guess there isn’t much of a market for beat-up tin boxes on wheels.”
As Vail was about to suggest they move on, Burden’s phone rang.
He listened, then said, “Yeah, okay. Got it.” He hung up. “We found Roberta Strayhan’s husband.”
42
December 16, 1959
Leavenworth
Three months passed. The warden never did assign a third man to their Building 63 cell, which worked to MacNally’s advantage since he and Anglin had been compatible roommates. He had told Anglin about Henry, and even showed him a dog-eared photo he had brought with him-something he never would’ve thought of doing with Gormack and Wharton.
Although Anglin had never been married and did not have any children, he seemed to understand the pain MacNally felt over being separated from Henry. Anglin’s siblings included two brothers who had also found the life of crime attractive, tending toward bank robbery and assorted petty infractions. One of them, Clarence, was a recent arrival at Leavenworth.
Nearly a month after being released from the Hole, MacNally and Anglin were assigned a cell together in B-cellhouse. A week after Anglin introduced MacNally to Clarence, he noticed that Anglin began huddling with his brother each afternoon around the same time, talking in secret for about ten minutes before going their separate ways.