Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Come on, Maureen. Please be home.

I pressed the doorbell, and a no-nonsense buzzer blatted loudly at my touch. I heard no answering voice, though, no footfalls coming toward the door.

I shouted, “Police,” pressed the buzzer again, stood back as Jacobi stepped in and banged the door with his fist.

No answer. Nothing at all. C’mon, Redhead.

That creepy feeling came over me again — the horrors of death playing my vertebrae like a xylophone.

O’Mara was missing, and her secretary didn’t know where she was. We’d already played fast and loose with exigent circumstances once today. I was going to chance it again.

“I smell gas,” I lied.

“Take it easy, Boxer. I’m too old to walk a beat.”

“Garza’s place looks like a slaughterhouse, Warren, and O’Mara’s car is there. It’s my ass if we screw up.”

I wrenched the doorknob, and it turned in my hand. I let the door swing open slowly, as if a breeze had given it a tap.

We took out our guns. Again.

“This is the police. We’re coming in.”

The entranceway opened into a bright, many-windowed living room with tropical printed furnishings and large, brilliant oil paintings. I was looking for trouble inside O’Mara’s house, but as far as I could see, nothing had been disturbed.

We swept the ground floor, calling out to each other.

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

“Clear!”

We found one bright room after another, empty and spotlessly clean.

As we climbed the stairs, a scent I’d thought was potpourri got stronger, leading us to the master bedroom.

The bedroom was painted peach. A life-size oil-on-canvas painting of an entwined couple doing the deed faced the king-size bed. I don’t get this kind of “art” in bedrooms, but obviously some people must like it. Apparently, Maureen O’Mara was one of them.

To the left of the bed was a wall of windows with a view to die for.

The opposite wall was made up entirely of closets. The mirrored bifold doors were open, all eight of them, and O’Mara’s clothes were strewn everywhere. What happened here? How long ago?

Shoes were scattered against the baseboards under black scuff marks where they’d been hurled at the walls.

Cosmetics had been swept off the dresser, and a perfume bottle was lying broken on the hardwood floor.

Inside the bathroom, a cordless phone had been hammered against the green marble counter, splintered into plastic shards and colored wire.

That explained the busy signal.

Had Maureen gotten a phone call she didn’t like?

My radio sputtered at my hip, Dispatch with a report from a squad car.

The patrol unit had been going north on the 101 when it spotted Garza’s Mercedes heading in the opposite direction. The cruiser had crossed the nearest break in the divider, tried to follow, but had lost him.

This much we knew: only minutes ago, Garza’s Mercedes was pointed toward the airport.

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 129

DENNIS GARZA GRIPPED the steering wheel, stared at the center line as the dull highway scenery blew past his windshield.

His mouth was hanging half open, and his reflexes were dull. He knew he was in some kind of shock, but the outrage was tangible, just below the feelings of vertigo and disbelief.

What had happened today still made no sense to him.

He’d woken up feeling fantastic. Then the day had taken a one-hundred-eighty-degree header straight to hell.

Fucking Maureen.

She’d known from the start that after the trial, he was going to take his share and leave the country.

She was supposed to stay in San Francisco, bank her millions, become the hottest litigator in town.

That was her dream, wasn’t it?

When had she gone off track? Why had she changed her mind?

It had been a memorable affair and an elegant heist. No doubt about that. They’d both come out huge winners. Wasn’t that enough?

Why couldn’t she leave perfect alone?

“I didn’t do it for the money,” she’d told him this morning, her voice swimming in tears. “The money is nothing. I did it for you, Dennis. I did it because I loved doing this with you.”

He would have shaken his head in disgust, but he was feeling queasy again.

He clenched the steering wheel. Then he touched the loose teeth in his lower jaw with his tongue, felt his whole head throbbing.

A wave of images flooded back. Unbelievable. Unthinkable.

First, the shouting match with Maureen. Then the sickening events that followed. He could still hear the terrible screams. See the torrents of blood all over fucking everything, until finally the screaming had stopped.

Garza wrenched himself back into the present. He had to keep a grip on himself. Forget what had just happened and get the hell away from San Francisco.

Staying within the speed limit, Garza took the exit at South Airport Road. He followed the green overhead signs to the Park ’n’ Fly long-term lot.

His hand was shaking as he collected his ticket from the machine and parked the car along the Cyclone fence on the west side of the ugly, dust-blown lot between two dirty American cars.

Good-bye to all this. Good-bye, USA.

He could already see the approach to Rio from the air. The magnificent South American city planted in the green-sheathed mountains, rising up from the sea. The stunning statue of Christ presiding over everything.

He could sort out everything once he got to Brazil.

Garza turned off the car engine; then he shook her awake. Not wasting any charm on her now.

“Hey, let’s go,” he said. “C’mon. You’re going to have to handle your own bags.”

Garza got out of the car, opened the door of the Roadster, pulled his luggage out of the backseat.

Called out to her again.

“Did you hear me, Maureen? The bus to the terminal is loading now. If we miss this flight, we’re fucked.”

Womans Murder Club 5 - The 5th Horseman

Chapter 130

I INSISTED ON DRIVING us to the airport, and Jacobi reluctantly let me take the wheel.

“Whatsa matter, Boxer? What’s your problem?”

“I want to drive, okay? Rank has its privileges.”

“Suit yourself, Lieutenant.”

I sped throughout that twenty-minute drive, cars parting left and right in front of our wailing siren. I turned up the volume on the crackling two-way radio, hoping for another update, worried, because after that single reported sighting of Garza’s car, it hadn’t been seen again.

As I drove, two questions chased around inside my head.

Who had been driving Garza’s Mercedes?

Who had been stabbed to death on Garza’s floor?

I veered right into the departure lanes, Jacobi calling out the side window as he saw Sergeant Wayne Murray from the Airport Bureau waving us down outside terminal A.

Sergeant Murray climbed into the backseat. He directed us through a service entrance to the core of the terminal. From there, we followed on foot through unmarked doors and up back stairways to the squad room and the office of Lieutenant Frank Mendez.

Mendez was wiry, five foot nine, about my age, polite but busy. He stood to shake our hands, offered us chairs across from his desk.

Then he briefed us on the American Airlines triple 7 jet that had been grounded a hundred yards south of gate 12 for the past hour, doors sealed, takeoff denied.

“Dr. Garza’s name is on the passenger manifest,” he told us. “So is Ms. O’Mara’s. They’re on a flight to Miami, connecting to Rio. I don’t know how much longer we can keep that bird on the ground, though.”

Mendez pointed out the Mr. Coffee machine on top of his file cabinet; then he disappeared out of the office.