A Channel Two news truck was turning onto Vallejo as two uniformed cops put out wooden barricades to block it.
Walking backward, Cindy tried again to get information from Sorbera.
“Can’t you give me something, Joe, anything? I can quote you or keep you off the record, whatever you want. Please. Any detail will do.”
“Stand back, Cindy. Thatta girl. Thank you.”
Officer Sorbera stretched out his arms and corralled the crowd behind a barricade, letting the unmarked car Richie was driving go through.
Chapter 5
I was at my desk when the 911 call came in at 7:20 and was relayed to the squad room by dispatcher May Hess, our self-anointed Queen of the Batphone.
Hess told me, “A woman of few words called and reported two people dead at the Ellsworth compound.
“She sounded for real,” Hess continued. “She said there were no intruders in the house and she was in no danger. Just ‘Two people are dead.’ Then she hung up. I called back twice but got an answering machine both times. I put out a call.”
I listened to the 911 tape. The caller had a British accent and sounded scared. In fact, the fear in her voice and whatever she wasn’t saying were more alarming than what she said.
Brady listened to the tape, then tagged me and my partner to take a run out to Pacific Heights.
“Just do the prelim,” he said. “I’ll assign a primary when you bring back a report.”
Yes, sir. Forthwith, sir.
At 7:35 a.m., Conklin braked our car in front of the Ellsworth compound. Four cruisers had gotten there before us and there was also a red double-decker bus parked parallel to the curb. A gang of maybe twenty tourists were taking pictures from behind barricades across the street.
I had known the Ellsworth compound was on the historic-house tour, but I guess when Harry Chandler bought it for umpteen million dollars ten years ago, the compound went on the stargazing tour as well.