James Patterson - 11th hour

First she’d tried to connect the numbers to Harry Chandler. He’d notched his bedpost innumerable times during his long life as a star. He’d been named People magazine’s sexiest man in the world three times and had been the tabloids’ favorite cover boy for decades because of the many famous girlfriends he had squired to black-tie events.

Had Harry Chandler had 613 lovers? Was that what the number meant? If so, how did the 104 figure in? Not his address, not his birth date, not his license-plate number.

So Cindy had abandoned that line of inquiry and moved on. She had plugged the numbers into her search engine and found that if she put a colon between the 6 and the 13, Google kicked out an interesting passage from the Bible.

Romans 6:13: “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death.”

It was interesting and, in the context of the buried heads, very creepy. “Do not offer any part of yourself to sin…”

Was the person who dug up the heads at the Ellsworth compound saying the dead had been guilty of sin? Adding the colon to the other number didn’t help — biblically speaking, 1:04 meant nothing.

Moving on, there was 1:04; 6:13. Time of day, time of death, day of the year?

Cindy reviewed the lists she’d cut and pasted from Wikipedia into her research file, the tens of dozens of names of people who had been born on January 4 and died on June 13, and absolutely none of them rang bells when it came to the skulls at the house of heads.

Cindy grabbed her phone and texted Lindsay: Any IDs yet on skulls?

Still waiting, Lindsay texted back.

Thx.

Crap. Cindy got up from her desk, walked down the hall, and found three people who would share a pizza with her. She ordered out, and while she waited, she ran the numbers again.

It was Groundhog Day all over again.

I came home at 11:00 p.m. with swollen feet and a growling stomach; was greeted at the door by my manic border collie and her tranquil nanny. I walked Karen out to the street, watched the taillights of her old Volvo disappear into the distance. Then I returned to an apartment that was devoid of Joe.

I had spoken to Joe twice a day since he’d left town, but swapping conversational tidbits by phone was way short of being in my husband’s real live presence.

I nuked a he-man-style TV dinner of Salisbury steak and green beans and brought it into the living room. I got into Joe’s big chair, put my feet up on a footstool, and rested my tray on my bambino’s rump.

“You don’t mind, do you, darling?” I asked him or her.

Not a problem, Mom.

The national news was wrapping up as I tucked into my fancy steak burger, and then the local headlines came on. First up was the report on the 6:15 shooting at the Potrero Center.

The on-site reporter described the latest drug-dealer execution in fairly accurate and gruesome detail, saying that this victim was the fifth dealer to be murdered in the past five days.

The reporter said, “In an interview with KTVU earlier today, crime analyst Ben Markey said that these killings probably are not gang related but are an indictment of the SFPD. Quoting Mr. Markey, ‘The cops can’t put the bite on drug crime, so a vigilante has stepped in to do the job.’

“Channel Two has learned this evening that the DEA has assembled a task force to investigate this rash of killings. Joseph Molinari, formerly a senior agent with the FBI and more recently deputy to the director of Homeland Security, has been hired to consult. Molinari is now based in San Francisco.

“And so, Tracey, back to you.”

I stared at the TV for quite a long moment, trying to absorb what I’d just heard, especially the part where my husband was on a DEA task force and I didn’t know a thing about it.

I gathered up my tray and myself, got out of the chair, and found my phone. I called Joe, who answered three time zones away at two thirty in the morning.

I scared him half to death.

“What’s wrong, Lindsay?”

“I’m fine. We’re fine,” I said. “I just heard about this task force from Channel Two News.”

“You didn’t get my message?”

“No. No.”

“Well, I left one for you.”

I glanced at the phone, saw the blinking message light; it must’ve come in while I was taking witness statements at the strip mall.

“I’m sorry, Joe. I missed it.”

“I’m coming back tomorrow night. I’m investigating Chaz Smith’s death for the DEA.”

“But why?”

“Because Chaz Smith wasn’t just a narc. He was a federal agent.”

It was 7:00 P.M., forty degrees outside the gray Crown Vic where Conklin and I sat parked across the street from Restaurant LuLu, Warren Jacobi’s favorite eatery. LuLu’s was a homey place with a wood-fire oven, a sunken dining room, a five-star wine list, and a memorable menu of Provencal dishes.

The last time we all ate at LuLu’s, Jacobi picked up the tab because Conklin and I had brought down a long-sought psycho killer — except I was sure we had nailed the wrong man.

Now Conklin gave me a poke in the ribs and said, “What are you thinking?”

“About that time Jacobi took us here.”

“You were wearing a dress, as I remember. One of the few times in your life.”

“That’s what you remember?”

“I had the roasted mussels. Oh. And Jacobi told you to lighten up. Give yourself a break for an hour, something like that.”

We both grinned at the memory, but tonight we weren’t celebrating. In fact, we were on a surveillance detail; we had followed Jacobi from his house on Ivy Street in Hayes Valley to LuLu’s, where my old friend was dining alone. He did that a lot. Even at the best of times, Jacobi’s life seemed almost unbearably lonely and sad, which made my neglecting our friendship all the more inexcusable.

I said, “I might as well get this over with.”

I took my phone out of my pocket, punched in Jacobi’s number. He picked up.

“It’s Lindsay,” I said.

“Hey. How are things going, Boxer?”

“Not so great. I’m working a couple of cases that are driving me crazy.”

“I’ve been following your exploits in my morning e-mail. Seen a couple of hot stories on the news too.”

“Yeah. Well then, you know. I’ve got twisted, bloody murders on the one hand, mysterious decapitated heads on the other. I’d love to kick this stuff around with you.”

“What are you doing now?” he asked me.

“Just sitting around,” I said. It was true. More or less.

“I’m at LuLu’s,” Jacobi said. “Just got here. You hungry?”

I told Jacobi I could be there in about ten minutes. Then I hung up, said to Conklin, “I’d say I feel like a dog but most dogs are pretty straightforward.”

“Lindsay, you want to exclude him as a suspect, right?”

“Yes, I do.”

“So talk to him. If you don’t like what he tells you, if you get suspicious, we’ll figure out how to handle it.”

“Okay, Richie.”

“I’m going to stay out here until you leave the restaurant.”

“Aw, jeez. That’s not necessary. But thanks.”

“I’m waiting.”

We sat together in the dark for eight minutes, then I got out of the car and went into LuLu’s.

I opened the front door to our apartment on Lake Street and heard La Traviata, saw a leather jacket hanging on the coatrack in the hall. Joe called out to me, and Martha did her amazingly fast twenty-yard dash from the living room to the foyer, concluding with a four-point leap against my body. And then there was Joe, big, adorable, his arms open.