Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

I lifted my hand and ordered another round of Pete’s Wicked.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 51

THE SEEKER STASHED HIS new knife under the front seat of his car, then got out and opened the door to the convenience store. He was instantly refreshed by the air conditioning, the soothing sight of the tall, frosty coolers filled with soda and beer.

He was especially gratified to see a small dark-haired woman wearing an expensive Fila tracksuit in line at the checkout counter.

Her name was Annemarie Sarducci, and the Seeker knew that she had just finished her nightly run. She’d buy her bottle of imported spring water, then walk home and have dinner with her family in their home overlooking the bay.

The Seeker already knew a great deal about Annemarie: that she was vain about her size-three, 112-pound figure; that she was screwing her personal trainer; that her son was dealing drugs to his classmates; and that she was insanely jealous of her sister, Juliette, who had a long-running role in a daytime soap filmed down in Los Angeles.

He also knew that she authored a blog under the screen name Twisted Rose. He’d probably been her most attentive reader for months. He’d even signed her “guest book” with his own screen name.

“I like the way you think. The SEEKER.”

The Seeker filled a paper cup with strong black coffee from the urn in the corner of the store, then joined the line behind Mrs. Sarducci. He jostled her a little, brushed her breast as though it were an accident.

“I’m sorry. Oh. Hey, there, Annemarie,” he said.

“Yeah. Hi,” she answered, dismissing him with a bored glance and a nod. She handed a five to the sallow young girl behind the cash register, accepted her change for the bottled water, and left without saying good-bye.

The Seeker watched Annemarie leave the store, wiggling her little ass because it was her habit to do so. In a couple of hours he’d be reading her online diary, all the kinky things she didn’t want people in her real life to know.

See you later, Twisted Rose.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 52

WHEN CAROLEE CALLED AND asked me to keep Allison for a few hours, I wanted to plead, “Please don’t ask me to babysit.” But Carolee got to me before the words left my mouth.

“Ali misses that pig,” she’d said. “If you’ll let her visit Penelope, she’ll amuse herself and I can get my molar fixed. I’d really appreciate it, Lindsay.”

A half hour later, Allison bounced out of her mom’s minivan and ran up to the front door. Her dark glossy hair was in two bunches, one on either side of her head, and everything she wore, including her sneakers, was pink.

“Hi there, Ali.”

“I brought apples,” she said, pushing past me into the house. “Wait’ll you see.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, faking some enthusiasm.

As soon as I opened the back door, Penelope trotted over to the fence and began grunting a noisy string of squeals and woofles—and Allison squealed and woofled back. Just about the time I thought the neighbors would call the animal warden, Allison grinned at me and said, “That’s what we call Pigese.”

“So I’ve been told,” I said, smiling back at her.

“It’s a real language,” Allison insisted. She raked the pig’s back and Penelope rolled over, assuming her ecstatic, feet-in-the-air stupor. “When Penelope was a piglet, she lived in a big house near the sea with pigs from all over the world,” Ali told me. “She used to sit up all night and talk Pigese with the other pigs and during the day she gave pedicures, called pigatures.”

“Is that right?”

“Pigs are a lot smarter than people think,” Ali confided. “Penelope knows lots of things. More than people would ever realize.”

“I simply had no idea,” I said.

“Look,” Ali continued. “You feed her the apples. I have to paint her nails.”

“Really?”

“It’s what she wants.” With Allison assuring me that it was okay to let the pig onto the back deck, I did what I was told. I held Granny Smith apples so that Penelope could chomp them while Allison chattered to us both and painted the pig’s cloven hooves with pearly pink nail polish.

“All done, Penny.” Ali beamed proudly. “Just let them dry. So,” she said to me. “What can Martha do?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, border collies also have a language. Martha is trained to herd sheep on command.”

“Show me!”

“Do you see any sheep around here?”

“You’re silly.”

“Yes, I am. But you know what I love most about Martha? She keeps me company and she warns me about bad guys or even about things that go bump in the night.”

“And you have a gun, right?” Ali asked with an almost cagey look on her sweet face.

“Yup. I have a gun.”

“Wow. A gun and a dog. You rock, Lindsay. You might be the coolest person I know.”

I finally threw back my head and laughed. Ali was such a cute and imaginative child. I was shocked at how much I liked her and how fast. I’d come to Half Moon Bay to rethink my whole life. Now I was being visited by a vivid fantasy of me, Joe, a home, a little girl.

I was turning this shocking thought around in my mind when Carolee came into the backyard with a lopsided Novocain smile. I couldn’t believe two hours had gone by and I was so, so sorry to see Ali go.

“Come back soon,” I said, hugging her good-bye. “Ali, come back any time.”

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 53

I STOOD ON THE street waving until Carolee’s minivan disappeared around the loop in Sea View Avenue. But when it was gone, a thought that had been circling the periphery of my consciousness parked in my forebrain.

I took my laptop to the living room, settled into a puffy chair, and booted up the NCIC database. Within minutes I learned that Dr. Ben O’Malley, age forty-eight, had been cited for speeding a few times and arrested on a DWI five years before. He had been married and widowed twice.

Wife number one was Sandra, the mother of their daughter, Caitlin. She’d died inside their two-car garage in 1994, hanged herself. The second Mrs. O’Malley, Lorelei née Breen, murdered yesterday at age thirty-nine, had been arrested for shoplifting in ’98. Fined and released.

I did the same drill on Alice and Jake Daltry, and reams of information scrolled onto my screen. Jake and Alice had been married for eight years and had left twin boys, age six, when they were slaughtered in their yellow house in Crescent Heights. I pictured that cute place with its sliver of bay view, the abandoned basketball, and the child’s sneaker.

Then I focused back on the screen.

Jake had been a bad boy before he married Alice. I clicked down through his rap sheet: soliciting a prostitute and forging his father’s signature on his Social Security checks, for which he served six months, but he’d been clean for the last eight years and had a full-time job working in a pizzeria in town.

Wife Alice, thirty-two, had no record. She’d never even run a light or backed into a car at the supermarket.

Still, she was dead.

So what did this add up to?

I phoned Claire, and she picked up on the first ring. We got right into it.

“Claire, can you dig around for me? I’m looking for some kind of link between the O’Malley murder and those of Alice and Jake Daltry.”

“Sure, Lindsay. I’ll reach out to a few of my colleagues around the state. See what I can find.”

“And also could you look into Sandra O’Malley? Died in 1994, hanged herself.”

We talked for a few more minutes, about Claire’s husband, Edmund, and a sapphire ring he’d given her for their anniversary. And we talked about a little girl named Ali who could channel pigs.