Chapter 103

"JUST LIKE MINE," Cindy said as we walked into Portia Fox's apartment. The front door opened into a large living room facing the street – roomy, sunny, furnished in office-girl modern.

There was a galley-style kitchen off the living room, but where Cindy's dining room was open, Ms. Fox's had been boxed in with plasterboard walls and a hollow-core door.

"He stays in there," Ms. Fox told me.

"Any windows in his room?" I asked.

"No. He likes that. That's what sealed the deal."

It was too bad that the dining room had been walled off, because now we'd need either permission from Tenning to enter it or a search warrant. Even though Tenning wasn't on Fox's lease, he paid rent to her, and that gave him legal standing.

I put my hand on the doorknob to Tenning's room on the off chance that it would turn, but no surprise – the door was locked.

"You have a friend you can stay with tonight?" I asked Ms. Fox.

I put a patrolman outside the apartment door while Portia gathered up some things.

I gave Cindy my keys and told her to go to my place. She didn't even fight me.

Then Rich and I spent another two hours questioning the tenants of the Blakely Arms. We returned to the Hall at ten p.m.

As grim as the squad room was during the day, it was worse at night, the overhead lighting giving off a deadening white illumination. The place smelled of whatever food had been dumped into the trash cans during the day.

I threw a container of cold coffee into the garbage and turned on my computer as Rich followed suit. I called up a database, and although I was prepared for a long search for Garry Tenning's life story, everything we needed flashed onto my computer screen in minutes.

There was an outstanding warrant for Tenning's arrest. It was a small-potatoes charge of failure to appear in court for a traffic violation, but any arrest warrant was good enough to bring him in.

And there was more.

"Garry Tenning is employed by Conco Construction," Rich said. "Tenning could be patrolling any of a hundred job sites. We won't be able to locate him until Conco's office opens in the morning."

"He have a license to carry?" I asked.

Rich's fingers padded across his keyboard.

"Yep. Current and up-to-date."

Garry Tenning owned a gun.

Chapter 104

THE NEXT MORNING a heavy gray torrent came down on San Francisco like one of the forty days of the flood.

Conklin parked our squad car in a vacant construction zone on Townsend in front of Tower 2 of the Beacon, a residential high-rise with retail shops on the ground floor, including the Starbucks where Tenning and Fox had met.

On a clear day, we would have had a good view of both the front doors of the six-story redbrick Blakely Arms and the narrow footpath that ran from Townsend along the east side of the building, leading back to the courtyard and rear entrance.

But today's rain nearly obliterated our view through the windshield.

Inspectors Chi and McNeil were in the car behind us, also peering through the downpour. We were scanning the locale for a white man, five six with thinning brown hair, possibly wearing a uniform and probably packing a Colt revolver.

Unless he changed his pattern, Tenning would stop at the Starbucks, then cross Townsend, arriving "home" sometime between 8:30 and 9:00.

We were guessing that Tenning would take the footpath to the rear entrance of the building, use a key to the back door, and take the fire stairs, avoiding tenants.

I watched through the blurred windows as pedestrians in trench coats, their faces shielded by black umbrellas, stopped at the Walgreens, dropped off laundry at Fanta dry cleaners, scurried for the Caltrain.

Rich and I were both dangerously sleep deprived, so when a man matching Tenning's description crossed Townsend, no coffee in hand, I couldn't be sure if he was our guy – or if I just wanted him to be our guy. Really, really badly.

"In the gray Windbreaker, black umbrella," I said.

A light changed to green, and the stream of traffic obscured our view long enough for the suspect to disappear in the crush of pedestrians on the far side of the street. I thought maybe he'd slipped down the Blakely Arms' back alley.

"Yeah. Yeah. I think so," Conklin said.

I called Chi, told him we were about to make our move. We let a couple of minutes pass – then Conklin and I put up our collars and made for the front entrance of the Blakely Arms.

We rode an elevator to the fifth floor. Then I used Portia Fox's key to unlock her front door without opening it.

I drew my gun.

When Chi and McNeil arrived, Conklin breached the door to Fox's apartment. The four of us stepped inside and checked each of the outer rooms before approaching Tenning's private space.

I put my ear to the flimsy door, heard a drawer closing, shoes falling one after the other onto the uncarpeted floor.

I nodded to Conklin, and he knocked on Tenning's door.

"SFPD, Mr. Tenning. We have a warrant for your arrest."

"Get the hell out of here," an angry voice called back. "You don't have a warrant. I know my rights."

"Mr. Tenning, you parked your car in a fire zone, remember? August fifteenth of last year. You failed to appear in court."

"You want to arrest me for that?"

"Open up, Mr. Tenning."

The doorknob turned, and the door whined open. Tenning's look of annoyance changed to anger as he saw our guns pointed at his chest.

He slammed the door in our faces.

"Kick it in," I said.

Conklin kicked twice beside the knob assembly, and the door splintered, swung wide open.

We took cover on both sides of the door frame, but not before I saw Tenning standing ten feet away, bracing his back against the wall.

He was holding his Colt.38 in both hands, pointing it at us.

"You're not taking me in," he said. "I'm too tired, and I'm just not up for it."

Chapter 105

MY HEART RATE ROCKETED. Sweat ran down the inside of my shirt. I pivoted on my right foot so that I was standing square in the doorway.

I held my stance, legs apart, my Glock trained on Tenning. Even though I was wearing a vest, he could cap me with a head shot. And the paper-thin plasterboard walls wouldn't protect my team.

"Drop your weapon, asshole!" I shouted. "I'm one second away from drilling a hole through your heart."

"Four armed cops on a traffic warrant? That's a laugh! You think I'm stupid?"

"You are stupid, Tenning, if you want to die over a fifty-dollar ticket."

Tenning's eyes flicked from my weapon to the three other muzzles that were aimed at him. He muttered, "What a pain in the ass."

Then his gun thudded to the floor.

Instantly we swarmed into the small room. A chair tipped over, and a desktop crashed to the ground.

I kicked Tenning's gun toward the door as Conklin spun him around. He threw him against the wall and cuffed him.

"You're under arrest for failure to appear," Conklin said, panting, "and for interfering with a police officer."

I read Tenning his rights. My voice was hoarse from the stress and the realization of what I'd just done.

"Good work, everyone," I said, feeling almost faint.

"You okay, Lindsay?" McNeil asked, putting a beefy hand on my shoulder.

"Yeah. Thanks, Cappy," I said, thinking how this arrest could have turned into a bloodbath – and still all we had on Tenning was a traffic violation.

I looked around his rented room, a ten-by-twelve box with a single bed, small pine dresser, two file cabinets that had once formed the base of his desk. The wide plank that had served as the desktop was on the floor, along with a computer and sheaves of scattered paper.