James Patterson - 7th Heaven

It looked like she’d lost a fight.

I dragged up a chair, said, “What’d I miss?”

“Yuki gave a great closing argument,” Cindy said, and then Yuki broke in.

“But Davis obliterated it!”

“You are nuts. You got the final damned word , Yuki,” Cindy said. “You nailed it.”

I didn’t have to beg. As soon as we ordered dinner, Yuki launched into her impeccable L. Diana Davis impression, screaming, “ Where’s the beef? Where’s the beef ?”

When Yuki paused for breath, Cindy said, “Do your rebuttal, Yuki. Do it like you mean it.”

Yuki laughed a little hysterically, wiped tears from her eyes with a napkin, downed her margarita – a drink she could barely handle on a good day. And then she belched.

“I hate waiting for a verdict,” she said.

We all laughed, Cindy egging Yuki on until she said, “ Okay .” And then she was into it, eyes glistening, hands gesturing, the whole Yuki deal.

“I said, ‘Was a crime committed? Well, ladies and gentlemen, there’s a reason the defendant is here. She was indicted by a grand jury and not because of her relative social standing to the deceased. The police didn’t throw a dart at a phone book.

“ ‘Junie Moon didn’t call the police and make a false confession.

“ ‘The police developed information that led them to the last person to see Michael Campion. That person was Junie Moon – and she admitted it .’ ”

“That’s gooood, sugar,” Claire murmured.

Yuki smiled, continued on. “ ‘We don’t have Michael Campion’s body, but in all the months since he saw Ms. Moon, he has never called home, never used his credit card, his cell phone, or sent an e-mail to his parents or friends to say he’s all right.

“ ‘Michael wouldn’t do that. That’s not the kind of boy he was. So where is Michael Campion? Junie Moon told us. He died. He was dismembered. And his body was dumped in the garbage. She did it.

“ ‘Period.’ ”

“See?” Cindy said, grinning. “She totally nailed it.”

CLAIRE AND I were sitting up in her bed that night after our outing at Susie’s, having a two-girl pajama party. Edmund was on tour with the San Francisco Symphony, and Claire had said, “I really, really don’t want to go into labor here all by myself alone, girlfriend.”

I looked over at her, lying in the huge divot she’d made in her memory-foam mattress with her rotund 260 pounds.

“I can’t get any bigger,” she said. “It’s not possible. I wasn’t this big with two boys, so how can this little girl-child turn me into the blimp that ate the planet?”

I laughed, thinking it was possible that when she’d had her first baby twenty years ago, she was a few sizes smaller than when she’d conceived Ruby Rose, but I didn’t say so.

“What can I get you?” I asked.

“Anything in the freezer compartment,” Claire said.

“Copy that,” I said, grinning at her. I returned with a carton of Chunky Monkey and two spoons, climbed back into the bed, saying, “It’s cruel to call an ice cream Chunky Monkey when that’s what it turns you into.”

Claire cackled, pried off the lid, and as we took turns dipping our spoons in, she said to me, “So how’s it going with you and Joe?”

“What do you mean?”

“Living together, you idiot. Are you thinking of getting seriously hooked up? As in married?”

“I like the way you kind of edge into a subject.”

“Hell. You’re not such a subtle creature yourself.”

I tipped my spoon in her direction – touché, my friend – then I started talking. Claire knew most of it: about my failed marriage, about my love affair with Chris, who’d been shot dead in the line of duty. And I talked about my sister, Cat, divorced with two young kids, holding down a big job, and having a bitter relationship with her ex.

“Then I look at you, Butterfly,” I said. “In your grown-up four-bedroom house. And you have your darling husband, two great kids off into the world, and now you have the guts and love enough to make another baby.”

“So where are you in all this, sugar?” Claire said. “You going to let Joe make the decision you don’t love him enough to marry him? Let some other girl make off with Joe, the perfect man?”

I threw myself back against the pillows and stared at the ceiling. I thought about the Job, about working with Rich seventeen hours a day and loving that. How little time I had for anything but work; hadn’t done Tai Chi in ages, stopped playing the guitar, even turned the nightly run with Martha over to Joe.

I put my mind on how different it would all be if I were married and had a baby, if there were people who worried about me every time I left the house. And damn – what if I got shot?

And then I considered the alternative.

Did I really want to be alone?

I was about to run all this by Claire, but I’d been quiet for so long, my best friend picked that moment to jump in.

“You’ll figure it out, sweetheart,” she said, capping the empty ice-cream container, resting her spoon in a Limoges saucer on the nightstand. “You’ll work on it and then, snap. You’ll just know what’s right for you.”

Would I?

How could Claire be so sure, when I was without a clue in the world?

ONLY THREE BLOCKS from the Hall, Le Fleur du Jour is a popular morning hangout for cops. At 6:30 a.m. the smell of freshly baked bread made noses quiver up and down the flower market. Joe, Conklin, and I were at one of the little tables on the patio with a view of the flower stalls in the alley. Having never been with Joe and Conklin together, I felt an uneasiness I would have hated to explain.

Joe was telling Conklin some of his thoughts about the arson-homicide cases, saying he agreed with us, that one person couldn’t have subdued the victims alone.

“These kids are show-offy smart,” Joe said. “Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur.”

“And that means what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow. Did everyone know Latin but me?

Joe flashed me a grin. “It means, ‘Anything said in Latin sounds profound.’ ”

Conklin nodded, his brown eyes sober this morning. I’d seen this precise look when he interrogated a suspect. He was taking in everything about Joe, and maybe hoping that my boyfriend with his high-level career in law enforcement might actually have a theory.

Or better yet, Joe might turn out to be a jerk.

No doubt, Joe was appraising Richie, too.

“They’re definitely smart,” Conklin said, “maybe a little smarter than we are.”

“You know about Leopold and Loeb?” Joe asked, sitting back as the waiter put strawberry pancakes in front of him. The waiter walked around the table distributing eggs Benedict to me and to Conklin.

“I’ve heard their names,” Conklin said.

“Well, in 1924,” Joe said, “two smart and show-offy kids who were also privileged and sociopathic decided to kill someone as an intellectual exercise. Just to see if they could get away with it.”

Joe had our attention.

“Leopold had an IQ that went off the charts at around 200,” Joe said, “and Loeb’s IQ was at least 160. They picked out a schoolboy at random and murdered him. But with all their brilliance they made some dumb mistakes.”

“So you’re thinking our guys could have a similar motive. Just to see if they could get away with it?”

“Has the same kind of feel.”

“Crime TV has been educational for this generation of bad guys,” Conklin said. “They pick up their cigarette butts and shell casings… Our guys have been pretty careful. The clues we’re finding are the ones they’re leaving on purpose.”