AT A QUARTER to eight on a hazy Friday morning, I parked my Explorer in the All-Day Parking lot on Bryant Street across from the Hall of Justice, where I work in Homicide.
I crossed the street between breaks in the traffic and jogged up the steps to the main entrance of the gray granite building that housed not only the Southern Station of the SFPD, but also the DA, the municipal courts, a jail, and the motorcycle squad. I was reaching for the handle of the heavy steel-and-glass front door to the Hall when I heard someone call out, “Sergeant? Sergeant Lindsay Boxer.”
I turned to see a middle-aged woman with graying blond hair, who was wearing a dirty fleece hoodie and baggy jeans, hurrying up the steps toward me. I wasn’t surprised to be recognized. My last case had been high profile. A murdering psycho had blown up a museum, killing and injuring dozens of people, including my husband. For weeks after the bombing and all during the bomber’s trial, my picture had been on the front page of the San Francisco papers and on the local TV news. Months later memories of that unspeakable crime still rippled through the public consciousness.
From the woman’s dress she looked to me like she was living on the street. I had change from a ten in my jacket pocket, and I pulled out some bills, but she waved them away.
“I don’t need any money. Thank you, though. What I need is your help, Sergeant. I want to report a murder.”
I looked at her. The assertion sounded like the opening to an old episode of Murder, She Wrote, but I had to take it seriously. The woman was distressed. And I’m a cop.
We were blocking the entrance to the Hall. Attorneys and clerks and other cops were trying to get past me, some rudely, some urgently. I stepped aside.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Millie Cushing. I pay my taxes.”
I let that one go. If she lived in San Francisco, she had a right to ask me for help.
“This murder,” I said. “What can you tell me about that?”
“Well, I didn’t see the murder happen, and I didn’t see the victim’s body, but I knew him. Jimmy Dolan wasn’t the first one to get shot dead on the street, and he’s not going to be the last, either.”
Was Millie Cushing of sound mind? I couldn’t tell.
I said, “You know what? The morning shift is just starting and our squad room is going to be noisy. Let’s go someplace where we can talk.”