Chapter 31
As the handling agent on the case, Special Agent Peterson knew how to narrow down Yolanda Vance’s location. At the start of the operation, Vance only went three places: the FBI apartment, RBG, and the gym. Peterson observed that Vance would pick up takeout or groceries on her routes in between those three points.
After Vance became involved with the scientist, she would disappear at night. But Peterson knew he was currently busy on the Cartwright campus, so that ruled him out. The FBI had both the apartment and the RBG office under surveillance. A colleague was monitoring both and would call if Vance was seen or heard in either location. So, Peterson drove to Holloway and parked across the street from Yolanda’s gym.
Peterson had been sitting in the FBI car for nearly an hour when the yellow cab pulled up, and Vance hurried inside. She immediately phoned the location in to ASAC Campbell.
He thanked Peterson and asked her to stand by for further instructions from an operative they had in the field. Three minutes later, a young Latina woman on a skateboard came by and tapped on the window of the car.
“Special Agent Peterson,” she said. “Campbell sent me. He told me to commend you for your good work and ordered you to head back to SFHQ. I can take it from here.”
“And you are?” Peterson asked, surveying the girl’s scruffy clothes and messy ponytail. She didn’t look like she could be over eighteen.
“I’m just a street kid asking you for spare change. Please hand me a few coins out of the window in case anyone’s watching.”
She handed two quarters to the girl, who took off on the skateboard.
Peterson felt uneasy. She had driven two blocks toward the freeway to San Francisco then decided to double-back. She parked down the street from Yolanda’s location.
A charcoal gray sedan moved slowly down the street and idled across from the gym.
When Vance came out the door, it was at a full run, against the flow of traffic. The gray sedan made a U-turn, and sped to the corner, hoping to catch her, but Vance was already onto the next block. Peterson pulled hurriedly out from the curb, and followed the sedan following Vance.
Peterson hadn’t expected Vance to move that fast, and both cars needed to loop around on another street going the right way to head her off. Both of their cars got stopped at a red light, and the gray sedan moved as if to run it, but there was a cop nearby, so when the cars finally got to the next intersection, Vance was gone.
The gray sedan went ahead and barreled the wrong way down the one-way for the length of a block. Peterson cut over to a parallel street and could hear car horns blaring at the sedan. At the next intersection, she could see the sedan turn off the one-way and cut up the block. She couldn’t see Vance, but she assumed the driver of the gray sedan could. Both cars came around the corner in time to see the sprinting black woman disappearing into the parking lot behind the post office. The sedan U-turned in the middle of the block, among a cacophony of horns, epithets and obscene hand gestures, but he ran the light at the corner, narrowly missing a pair of teenagers, and swerved up the block in front of the post office.
Peterson followed Vance into the lot, and pulled in, parking her car and leaping out at a full run.
“Hey lady, you can’t park here,” a postal worker complained.
“FBI!” Peterson shouted, waving her credentials as she followed the path that Vance had taken.
Peterson made it around to the front of the building in time to see Yolanda running up the steps, nearly a blur.
Peterson turned and looked for the gray sedan. A large postal truck blocked her view of much of the street. In that moment, a battered blue Mercedes pulled up into the white loading zone in front of the post office. Peterson recognized the boyfriend. He had someone else in the car. Peterson squinted. Marcus Winters.
Peterson was still surveying the street when Vance ran out of the post office. As she sprinted down the steps, the postal truck lurched forward, and Peterson saw the gray sedan.
At that same time, Jimmy Thompson pulled the car forward and swung the rear door of the Mercedes open. In that split second of them both braking, the Mercedes and the woman, in the space of that hesitation, Peterson heard a shot that came from the gray sedan. Several pedestrians screamed as Yolanda Vance fell to the pavement, the left side of her lavender shirt blooming with blood.
Peterson was already in motion before Vance hit the ground, running back to her car. She leaped in and drove in pursuit of the gray sedan. She took off out the front driveway of the post office.
She barreled into the street, her peripheral vision revealing the agonized face of the boyfriend crouched over Vance, tears streaming down. Peterson sped after the gray sedan, but a red SUV cut her off and nearly ran into her. She swerved to avoid a collision and the sedan cut across two lanes and disappeared into the afternoon traffic.
She heard sirens headed toward the post office as she went back to see about Vance. On the way, she pulled out her phone to call Campbell. The sirens were so loud she could barely hear.
“Where the hell are you, Peterson?” he asked.
“Still in Holloway, sir. Special Agent Vance has been shot.”
“What?”
“I tried to pursue the perpetrator. Gray sedan, eighties model, maybe a Lincoln or Ford. I’m returning to the scene to give the description and make sure she’s okay.”
“No way, Peterson,” Campbell said. “I’ll get that description to the local cops. I want you out of there, you hear me?”
“But sir, we’ve got an agent down. She’s bleeding on the sidewalk!”
“A former agent,” Campbell said, reminding Peterson of Yolanda’s resignation. “Possibly rogue, and we have no idea who shot her or why. Do NOT return to the scene, and that’s an order. Have I made myself clear?”
“Yes, sir.”
Seething, Peterson came around the corner. Rescue vehicles and several police cars had already arrived. The boyfriend was holding Yolanda’s hand as the paramedics bundled her into the back of an ambulance.
Marcus Winters was talking to a cop, loud and agitated. “A gray sedan,” he said. “Took off up Birch Street.”
With a prayer that Vance would be okay, and several curses at Campbell, Peterson headed into the rush hour traffic toward San Francisco.
* * *
At 5:08 PM, on his day off, Officer Joaquín Rodriguez felt a buzzing in his chest and looked at his cell phone.
“Marcus Winters,” the digital readout informed him.
Rodriguez felt a jolt of panic. He had given Winters the number to call in case of emergency, but he had said to use some kind of code, and not to call from RBG or his own private number.
With a combination of dread and irritation, Rodriguez picked up.
“Who the hell is this?” he asked Winters. “This is a private number.”
“Yolanda Vance has been shot in front of the post office. HPD is on the scene. Officer Rodriguez, I thought you might want to know.”
Rodriguez hung up and ran out to his car.
* * *
Ten minutes later, he showed his badge and ducked under the yellow caution tape.
“I’m off duty today,” Rodriguez told the detective in charge. “Heard there was a shooting. Came to see if you needed any help.”
The detective sketched out what they knew, and invited Rodriguez to help question witnesses.
Rodriguez made eye contact with Marcus Winters and questioned an elderly lady for a few minutes before heading to Winters.
“What’s your name sir?” Rodriguez asked. “Did you witness the shooting?” As they spoke, he made notes on his clipboard.
“The victim was Yolanda Vance,” Marcus said just above a whisper. “She was FBI—just resigned. She had been infiltrating RBG. She planted the bugs.”
“You think this is how the FBI decided to let her go?” Rodriguez asked quietly, nodding to the caution tape and the crime scene.
“Well they failed,” Marcus said. “Shooter got her in the left shoulder, but she was breathing when she left. Jimmy went with her in the ambulance. I’m gonna drive his car over and meet them as soon as I’m done talking to you.”
“Could this be a random shooting?” Rodriguez asked at full volume. “Mistaken identity? Innocent bystander? You know Holloway’s murder rate.”
“It’s the second time someone shot at her today,” Marcus said quietly. “First one just barely missed.”
“Carajo.”
“Doesn’t that mean ‘oh shit’?” Marcus asked.
“Yeah,” Rodriguez said. “Mas o menos.”
As Rodriguez was questioning a pair of postal workers, Marcus got into the Mercedes with Jimmy and drove off.
A moment later, an older African American man approached the police line. Rodriguez didn’t recognize him, but he showed one of the cops some type of badge and stepped under the caution tape. Rodriguez excused himself from the witnesses and followed him.
“Who’s that guy?” he asked another officer. “The tall black guy who just came in.”
“Didn’t catch his name,” the cop said. “But he’s FBI.”
The tall black guy from the FBI was in conversation with the detective. “I have reason to believe the victim may be a witness to some homicides we’re working on,” the FBI agent said. “What hospital is she being taken to?”
“Kaiser emergency,” the detective said, and the FBI guy thanked him and crossed back under the caution tape.
As he finished up with the postal workers, Rodriguez watched the FBI guy as he stood on the post office steps and made a phone call. Rodriguez hurried to hand his notes to the detective and was in his car ready to tail the guy when a young man in a black Jeep picked him up. The vehicle was brand new with dealership plates. Rodriguez followed them in his car, and they headed straight to Kaiser emergency.
When the young man stepped out of the Jeep, the older man kept going. Rodriguez decided to follow the young man into the hospital. The kid was maybe twenty and fit the description of a lot of the young black men in Holloway: dark brown skin, dark hair, white t-shirt, dark denim jeans, dark sneakers.
At the nurse’s station, the young man inquired after his “Cousin” Yolanda Vance who had been shot. He was concerned. Was she okay? Could they tell him anything?
The nurse explained that she couldn’t give out that information.
“Not even to family? That’s my cousin. We was raised like brother and sister!”
The nurse shook her head.
“Can you at least tell me if she’s here at this hospital? I need to tell her mama where to come.”
“Sorry, young man. The police will notify the family about her condition and when they can come see her.”
The young man sucked his teeth and looked to be on the verge of tears. “Please. That’s my cousin, my blood,” he said.
The nurse shook her head.
“Man, fuck this place. I done lost too many folks up in here anyway.”
When Rodriguez followed the kid out to the street, the Jeep was gone, and the young man walked out to the bus stop. Ten minutes later, the kid boarded the bus with all the other passengers.
Rodriguez walked back into the hospital. At the desk, he showed his badge to the nurse.
“HPD. I’m looking for a gunshot wound victim, Yolanda Vance. She was brought in here maybe an hour ago.”
“One moment, sir,” the nurse said and made a brief call.
“Your name, sir?” she asked him.
“Joaquín Rodriguez,” he said.
She repeated the name into the phone, listened briefly, and then hung up and gave him a room number.
The room turned out to be the lounge outside of emergency surgery, where he found two cops he didn’t recognize guarding the door. Through the glass, he saw Marcus Winters pacing in front of a row of seats. On the end sat Jimmy Thompson, next to the Puerto Rican lesbian therapist from the group.
“Why won’t they fucking tell me what’s going on?” Jimmy raged loud enough that Rodriguez could hear through the glass.
“She’s gonna be okay,” the Latina therapist murmured. “The doctors are busy taking out the bullet, not reporting to us.”
“She better be okay,” Jimmy said. “She fucking better.”
“The bullet didn’t hit her heart or her lung,” the therapist said. “That’s the most important thing.”
“Yeah, but he said she’d lost a lot of blood,” Jimmy said.
“And if she needs a transfusion, they’ll give her one,” Sharon said. “I’m telling you, love, she’s gonna be fine.”
Marcus spotted Rodriguez and stepped outside.
“What you got?” Marcus asked.
“After you left, an FBI guy came to the crime scene. African American, fifties, maybe. Wiry, brusque. Didn’t get his name. Not even sure if he’s really FBI.”
“You think he’s the shooter?” Marcus asked.
“Something wasn’t right about him,” Rodriguez said. “I would’ve given anything to test his fingers for powder burns.”
“What the fuck do we do now?” Marcus asked.
“I don’t know, man, but we need to figure out something, because if they tried twice, then they really want to shut her up.”