The Night Walker used two fingers to press open the child’s eyelids. His pupils were already reduced to pinpoints, the boy’s breath shallow and erratic, night sweats flushing his cheeks, making his damp curls into tight ringlets against his scalp.

As if he’d heard the intruder’s thoughts, the boy thrashed, arching his back, crying out wordlessly. Then his head tipped back and he exhaled, a little sputter coming from his throat.

He didn’t inhale again.

The killer touched Jamie’s carotid artery, felt for a pulse, then reached into a pocket for the metal buttons. Placed one on each of the child’s eyes, whispering, “Good night, sweet prince. Good night.”

Chapter 114

Chapter 114

BRENDA PAGED ME on the intercom.

“Lieutenant, pick up line three. The caller says it’s urgent and you know her, but she won’t identify herself.”

I stabbed the button on the phone and said my name. I recognized Noddie’s voice even though it was cracking and she was snuffling through her tears.

“Lieutenant, he was such a young boy,” Noddie Wilkins said. “He only had a broken bone and he died. He really shouldn’t have died. I heard about it in the coffee room. There were caduceus buttons on his eyes.”

I called Tracchio, got him on the line, told him what I needed and what I was going to do.

Then I swallowed the load of obligatory cover-your-ass crap he dished out: was I sure I knew what I was doing? Did I understand the dire consequences if I got this wrong?

I said, “Yessir, yessir, I understand.”

And I did.

A blind sweep could churn up nothing more than panic: no evidence of wrongdoing, no suspects, no leads of any kind. The outraged calls would come in after that, complaints about my lack of judgment, my bad leadership instincts, and, most of all, the SFPD’s inability to protect the people we serve.

But there wasn’t time enough to come up with a better plan.

Another person had died.

This time it was a five-year-old kid.

Tracchio finally gave me a green light, and I called the squad together.

They gathered like a flock of large birds around the squad room: Jacobi and Conklin, Chi and Rodriguez, Lemke, Samuels, McNeil, all the other good cops I’d worked with for years, and depended on now.

I willed the anxiety out of my voice, but I felt it deep in my gut. I told them that a child had died at Municipal Hospital under suspicious circumstances. That we had to preserve the evidence while there was still time, and find the cruelest kind of killer without much to go on.

I could see the concern in their faces, and still they had faith in me.

I asked, “Any questions?”

“No, ma’am.”

“We’re on it, Lieutenant.”

The squad gave me the courage of my desperate convictions.

Chapter 115

Chapter 115