CHAPTER 3
August 17
The huge estate in Pacific Heights was cordoned off with yellow caution tape. It was four a.m., and few people in the city were aware of what would be one of the biggest news events of the decade. At 11:58 p.m. on Sunday, August 17, an unidentified man phoned the San Francisco Police Department with an anonymous tip.
“I’d like to report a murder,” he said without emotion, “at the Alexander residence on Sacramento Street in Pacific Heights. There’re kids in the house, so you better send someone over right away.”
The dispatcher reported the call to Dennis Webber, the night commander. He told her to send a couple of patrol cars over to the house. Commander Webber was aware of the history of problems at the Alexander residence on Sacramento Street.
Over the past three years, he had dispatched units there on five or six separate occasions. As he poured another cup of coffee, he remembered the first incident, one in which Jordan allegedly tried to strangle Lynette with her own hair. And there was another time when he got mad about something and set her new Jaguar on fire.
Jordan had a temper, all right. Webber knew that. The first verbal exchange he ever had with Jordan Alexander hadn’t been pleasant. Jordan was intoxicated and had just been arrested for bruising Lynette’s face, apparently from slapping her. He took a swing at the arresting officer and wrestled with another before he was subdued, handcuffed and brought down to the station. But that was just the beginning.
Jordan Alexander was one of the most unpleasant detainees who had ever been at the station. It was a long and ugly night. Jordan called in his high-powered lawyers, who were rude assholes. He belittled the officers for being peons and “petty little flunkies.” He even threatened to have Webber fired for being the one who made the call that authorized the patrol officers to arrest him. He was the worst, no doubt about it.
A pretty woman in uniform knocked on the open door.
“Commander Webber. Affirmative on the murder. Looks like it finally happened. Officers Walker and Price are at the Alexander house now. They say it’s pretty gruesome. They want to know what they should do with the kids.”
Webber flipped up the plastic cover of the Rolodex and sorted through the cards while answering.
“Well, I guess we better bring them down here until we make all the necessary notifications. Where are they now?”
“In a squad car. Price said they were sleeping when he got there. I don’t think they know.”
Webber pulled the card and fumbled for his glasses.
“They’ll know soon enough. Look, I want a criminologist out there right away. I want inspectors. I want a photographer. I want the collection people. On the double. No fuck-ups! We only have about six hours before this city becomes a goddamned zoo.”
Satisfied that the investigation was underway, Webber picked up the receiver and dialed a number.
“Osaka? Bryan? This is Webber. I’ve got a special assignment for you.”
vvvvvvvvv
Destiny counted four squad cars in front of the Eastlake-style Victorian house. The criminologist’s van was also there, parked across the driveway. The property’s outside lighting was off, casting the silent home in an eerie darkness. If this was a murder investigation, it was low key.
Kiyomi, who was then working as an investigative writer at the Chronicle, called Destiny an hour earlier and had asked for a special favor. Kiyomi got a tip about the murder from a source at central police headquarters and wanted an inside edge.
She hoped her friend Destiny, the brightest young lawyer in the San Francisco prosecutor’s office, could gain access and provide her with the first details of the murder and the ensuing investigation.
Destiny resisted, but Kiyomi convinced her to go to the house and take a look around. She parked just beyond the corner of the next block, exited her car and walked toward the house.
The breeze from the bay was chilly that night. Clouds of vapor billowed from her face with each breath she took. Her heart pounded as she neared the dim walkway and turned the corner. Somewhere in that gigantic house looming in the gloomy darkness, was a poor dead woman, probably murdered by her husband.
But this husband was no ordinary man. He was one of the most prominent figures in San Francisco society. Rich, good-looking and charming in public, Jordan Alexander was one of the city’s favorite sons.
His great, great grandfather, Thomas Alexander, amassed the family’s fortunes through silver mines he owned in Nevada, and from a precious metals exchange during San Francisco’s gold rush.
Through the family’s diversified businesses and holdings, CEO Jordan was one of the largest contributors to citywide political campaigns, the Opera Society, various museums, foundations and business developments. The mayor was his best friend, but he was also seen out on the town with sports icons like Joe Montana, and he often named Frank Sinatra among his personal friends.
She approached the stairs.
“I’m sorry, Ma’am, but this area has been designated as a crime scene. I can’t let you go any further.”
The young officer was shining a large flashlight into her face. Instinctively, she opened her purse and withdrew the badge.
“Destiny Mitchell with the District Attorney’s office.”
The nervous rookie studied the badge in the trembling light.
“Can you wait here for just a minute, please. I’ve gotta clear this with the captain.”
The same officer returned a few minutes later, accompanied by a tall, well-groomed man in his mid-forties who wore a long black jacket and a matching fedora. She recognized him, but she let him speak first.
“Destiny? It’s four-fifteen. What are you doing here?”
Peter Granucci, the district attorney, was a guarded man who seldom ventured out in the field for any reason. Yet this matter was different. What he would do on that night and in the following few days was of extreme importance.
Young, practical and spirited, Destiny had been his favorite prosecutor since he met her six years earlier. She was at the Alexander residence for a specific purpose.
“How’d you know about this?”
He already knew the answer, and Destiny knew he knew.
“Kiyomi over at the Chronicle.”
“How’d they know?”
“How else? Friends at the police department.”
He shook his head, cutting a sidelong glance at the shaky officer.
“Yeah, best friends a DA ever had.”
Pulling her by the hand, he draped his right arm over her shoulder and began walking with her toward the house.
“Ever seen a real-live murder close-up?”
“No.”
“Eat a big dinner last night?”
“Chinese. Why?”
“You wasted your money.”
Peter escorted her along a final forty-five degree bend in the walkway and up the stairs to the large double-doors in front of the house. Withdrawing two pairs of latex gloves from the left pocket of his jacket, he passed one to her and began to slip the other onto his hands. From the right pocket, he produced clear plastic bags, which he indicated were to protect the crime scene.
The last thing his office needed was two sets of misleading footprints to confuse the investigation. He gave her another bag to cover her hair.
“Now remember, don’t touch anything. Don’t even breathe on anything.”
He reached for the over-sized brass door opener, depressed the thumb lever, pushed the door open and spoke to another edgy officer who stood guard just inside.
“This is Ms. Mitchell with my office. We’ll be taking a cursory look around the place.”
Standing in the white marble tiled foyer, he glanced up past the dimly lit crystal chandelier. An elaborate wooden staircase spiraled down to a large reception area.
“They through with the body up there?”
Nervous, the officer glanced toward the stairs.
“Addelberg’s come down, but I think the photographer’s still up there and a second medical examiner’s on the way.”
Peter smiled, winking at Destiny.
“You wanted to get a look at things, didn’t you?”
She nodded in the affirmative. Granucci turned toward the staircase.
“Well come on. And watch your step.”
Eyes fixed on her own careful footwork along the plush cream-colored carpet, Destiny noticed what seemed to be a faint bloody footprint facing in the opposite direction! And there was a second, more bloody than the first, then a third bloodier still. It seemed like so much blood, and they had only ascended halfway so far!
For a reason she could not understand, she thought of Lynette just then. She had never met Lynette formally, but she had seen her at functions around town and in interviews on television. Could this really be Lynette’s blood? Lynette was such a beautiful, down-to-earth, affable woman who seemed to exude warmth and concern for others. Was this really that woman’s blood smeared all along the stairs?
As Destiny slid her latex-covered hand along the lacquered white oak banister near the top, she wanted to turn and run back down the blood-soiled steps and out the house. She followed Peter nonetheless.
As a shaken, distraught photographer passed headed down the stairs, Peter pointed to a heavy, reddish-brown or rust-colored streak across the wall just outside the room. It was as if the killer had dragged his bloody hand along the wall on his way to the stairs.
There was a shoulder height asymmetrical spatter on the outside of the doorjamb, and Peter paused to examine it in better detail.
Terrified, Destiny watched Peter’s face as he peered into the room. His sudden pained and distraught expression only confirmed the worst of her fears. He took her hand and pulled her through the doorway.
Nothing in her life, nothing in a hundred lifetimes could have prepared her for what she saw. Blood literally seemed to cover everything. It was spattered on the walls, on the carpet, on the nightstand with the telephone and even in places on the ceiling.
There was a bloody trail on the sheets from one side of the bed to the other and two discernible right handprints spaced about three feet apart. The orientation of the prints seemed to indicate the body rested on the other side of the bed. She cringed in horror on seeing what appeared to be a severed finger near the foot of the bed. It oozed blood onto the carpet.
Destiny tried to look away. She tried to think calming thoughts. This wasn’t real, she thought. It was just a gory scene from some dreadful movie. There was no dead body, no murdered woman on the other side of the room. Yet traces of a heavy, sick odor assaulted her lungs.
Peter stepped over to the other side of the bed, dragging her with him. Right away, she heard him groan before his body heaved and he doubled over, and suddenly she was alone in that chamber of torture.
Don’t look! she thought, Just get the hell out! Yet even as she began to turn she was caught.
From the corner of her right eye she saw it. She tried to avert her eyes, but she saw it. From that moment on she could not look away. She felt compelled to turn toward the horror.
There it was, the poor, murdered, semi-nude bloody body of the person who had been Lynette Alexander. Lynette’s state of repose resembled her earliest stage of life. She lay there in a fetal position, her terror-stricken eyes wide open. Her skin, where it was not stained with blood, was a ghastly white.
More horrific than perhaps anything else, her throat, which was slashed up to the ear on one side, had spilled and spurted blood all over the area around the body so that the carpet was reddish-brown. The puncture wounds were too numerous to assess.
She was stabbed in the cheek, in the neck and in her left breast. Her forehead was slashed, her arms had been sliced in several places and there seemed to be similar wounds on her right thigh. There were more puncture wounds in her thoracic area, probably a dozen or more. A bulge from her intestines protruded through one of the openings, spilling a dark green and brown stain onto the body and down to the carpet.
But then Destiny saw a single component of the scene she knew would haunt her contentment and solitude for the rest of her life, an image that threatened to steal the last traces of peace from her soul. One of Lynette’s punctured hands, the hand missing the better parts of two fingers, seemed to rest in a position shielding her pelvic area. That’s when Destiny’s eyes locked on it. Lynette’s pelvic/genital area had been punctured so many times that the flesh had turned to mush and the bone was exposed. A thick pool of blood had congealed on the carpet in the area just below it.
Destiny felt mildly nauseous until the smell of the punctured intestines reached her. Tears swelled into her eyes and her mouth became full of a distinctive, salty saliva. She could feel her face and neck covered with a light, unnatural perspiration. Deep down, her stomach churned and began a set of spasms that grew with each second that passed. Her body heaved, her stomach vigorously forcing its contents into her mouth, but she managed to hold it back as she rushed toward the bathroom door on the left.
Falling facedown into the toilet, she yielded to the next violent action of her stomach, spilling what remained of last night’s Kung Pao chicken on top of the curdled remnants of Peter’s spinach tortellini and tenderloin of pork. Raising her head, she looked over at Peter who squatted in the corner, wiping his mouth with a segment of bathroom tissue. Her breathing was labored as she spoke.
“Jordan Alexander is one sick asshole! Whatever it takes, we’ve gotta
nail that bastard.”