I almost fell when I saw that the other was Molinari.
I felt as if I had hit a wall, bouncing off and vibrating like in the Roadrunner cartoons.
“Soon enough, Lieutenant,” Molinari said, rising.
“Yeah, that was what you said. I thought you had pressing matters in Portland.”
“I did. They’re taken care of now. And we have a killer to catch down here, don’t we?”
Tracchio said, “We were just about to call you, Lindsay. The deputy director informed me how well you handled the situation up there in Portland.”
“Which situation was he referring to?” A glance Molinari’s way.
“The Propp homicide, of course.” He motioned f
or me to sit down. “He said you were helpful in putting forth your theory of the crimes.”
“Okay”—I handed Tracchio Cindy’s e-mail—“then you should love this.”
Tracchio scanned the page. He passed it across to Molinari.
“This was sent to the same reporter at the Chronicle?” he asked.
“Seems like they got a regular chat room going on,” Molinari replied as he read. “We could make that useful.” He pursed his lips. “I was just asking the Chief if you could work directly with us. We need help here on the ground. I’ll need a place to work. I want to be right in the thick of it, Lieutenant. In your squad room if possible. That’s how I work best.”
Our eyes met. I knew we weren’t playing games. It was a matter of national security.
“We’ll find you an office, sir. In the thick of it.”
Chapter 56
MOLINARI WAS WAITING for me out in the hall, and as soon as Roach had ducked into the elevator, I looked at him reprovingly. “Soon enough, huh?”
He followed me down the stairwell to my office. “Look, I had the local FBI office to placate up there. There’s always a lot of politics. You know that.”
“Anyway, I’m glad you’re here,” I said, holding the stairwell door for him. I let it close. “I never had a chance to thank you for the ride. So, thanks.”
I put Molinari in our squad room, cleared out a small office for him to work in. He told me he had declined something more fitting and private on the fifth floor next to the Chief.
It proved to be not such a bad thing, having the Department of Homeland Security working hand in hand with us, though Jacobi and Cappy looked at me as though I’d gone over to the enemy. Within two hours he had traced back the origin of the latest e-mail: an Internet café called the KGB Bar in Hayward that was popular with students across the bay.
And also who Marion Delgado was—the latest Hotmail address.
Molinari draped a fax from the FBI computers across my desk. An old newswire story, with a grainy photo of a grinning, gap-toothed kid in a peasant smock holding a brick in his hand. “Marion Delgado. He was some five-year-old who in 1967 derailed a freight train in Italy by tossing a brick in its path.”
“Is there a reason you’re thinking this is important to the investigation?” I asked.
“Marion Delgado was a rallying cry for revolutionaries in the sixties,” Molinari said. “A five-year-old who stood up and stopped a train. The name became a code name to thwart undercover surveillance. The FBI was bugging phones like crazy, trying to infiltrate the Weathermen. They logged hundreds of messages from Marion Delgado.”
“What are you saying—one of the old Weathermen is behind this current mess?”
“It wouldn’t hurt to get the names of known members back then who haven’t been brought in.”
“That’s a good idea,” I said as I opened my desk and took out my gun. “In the meantime, you want to tag along while I go check out the KGB Bar?”
Chapter 57
IN THE LONG TRADITION of counterculture dives, where a cop walking in was about as welcome as an ACLU recruiter at a skinhead convention, the KGB set the bar at a new low. There were narrow rows of chipped pine tables with societal dropouts slouched in front of computer screens. Plus a mixed collection of riffraff sucking cigarette butts at the bar. Not much else caught my eye at first.