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

“Nice ride,” I said.

Keith ducked out from under the car, a smile already lighting his grease-streaked face.

“Isn’t it, though?” He climbed out of the pit, wiped his hands on a rag, and turned down the music. “So, Lindsay. You having trouble with that Bonneville?”

“Not at all. I replaced the alternator and the plugs. Engine purrs like this guy.”

“This’s Hairball,” Keith told me, scratching the cat under the chin. “My attack cat. He rode in on the carburetor of a pickup truck a couple of years ago.”

“Youch.”

“All the way from Encino. Burned his paws, but he’s good as new now, aren’t you, buddy?”

Keith asked if I needed gas, and I said that I did. We walked together into the soft afternoon sunshine.

“I caught you on TV last night,” Keith told me as high-test gurgled into the Explorer’s capacious tank.

“You did not.”

“No, I did. Your attorney was on the news, and they showed a picture of you in your blues,” he said, grinning at me. “You really are a cop.”

“You didn’t believe me?”

The kid shrugged winningly. “I pretty much believed you. But it was okay either way, Lindsay. Either you were a cop or you just had a great line.”

I hooted, and Keith’s face crinkled in laughter. After a bit, I told him about the Cabot case—just the overview, absent the grief and the gore. Keith was supportive and a damned sight more fun to talk to than Chief Stark. Hell, I was even enjoying his attention. Brad Pitt, right?

He unlatched the Explorer’s hood, pulled out the dipstick, and gave me a direct look with his bright blue eyes. I stared into them long enough to notice that his irises were rimmed with navy blue and flecked with brown, as if there were little drifts of gold dust in them.

“You need oil,” I heard him say. I felt my face color.

“Sure. Okay.”

Keith punched open a can of Castrol and poured it into the engine. As he did, he put his other hand in the back pocket of his jeans, adopting a posture of studied nonchalance.

“So, satisfy my curiosity,” he said. “Tell me about your boyfriend.”

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 60

I WRENCHED MYSELF OUT of whatever the heck was going on between us and told Keith about Joe: what a great guy he was, how funny, how kind, and how smart. “He works in DC. Homeland Security.”

“I’m impressed,” said Keith.

I saw the kid swallow before he asked, “Are you in love with the guy?”

I nodded, picturing Joe’s face, thinking how much I missed him.

“Lucky guy, that Manicotti.”

“Molinari,” I said, grinning.

“Lucky, whatever his name is,” Keith said, closing the hood. Just then, a black sedan with rental-car plates pulled up to the garage.

“Damn,” Keith muttered. “Here comes Mr. Porsche, and his car’s not ready.”

As I handed Keith my MasterCard, “Mr. Porsche” stepped out of his rent-a-car and into my peripheral vision.

“Hey, Keith,” he called out. “How’s it coming, my man?”

Wait a minute. I knew him. He looked older in broad daylight, but it was that obnoxious guy who’d hit on me and Carolee in the Cormorant. Dennis Agnew.

“Just give me five minutes,” Keith called back.

Before I could ask him about that creep, Keith was heading toward the office and Agnew was walking straight toward me. When he got within spitting distance, he stopped, put his hand heavily on the hood of my car, and shot me a look that hit me right between the eyes.

He followed up the look with a slow, insinuating smile. “Slumming, Officer? Or do you just like young meat?” I was honing a retort when Keith came up from behind.

“You calling me meat?” Keith said, aligning his body with mine. He matched Agnew’s sarcastic smile with a sunny one of his own. “I guess I should consider the source, you dirty old man.”

It was a grin-off, both men holding their ground. A long blistering moment passed.

Then Agnew took his hand off my hood.

“C’mon, meat. I want to see my car.”

Keith winked at me and handed me back my card.

“Stay in touch, Lindsay. Okay?”

“Sure thing. You, too.”

I got into my car and started up the engine, but I just sat for a while watching Agnew follow Keith into the repair shop. The guy was wrong, but how wrong, and in what way, I just didn’t know.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 61

I’D SLEPT BADLY. WILD, fractured dreams had awoken me repeatedly. Now I leaned over the bathroom sink and brushed my teeth with a goofy vengeance.

I was edgy and I was furious, and I knew why.

By threatening me, Chief Stark had effectively stopped me from investigating leads that might finally solve the John Doe #24 homicide. If I was right, Doe’s killer was still active in Half Moon Bay.

I banged glass and crockery around in the kitchen, feeding Martha, making coffee, eating my Wheaties.

I was half-watching the Today show on the small kitchen TV when a red banner flashed on the screen.

LIVE. Breaking News.

A somber young woman, a local TV reporter, stood in front of a redwood house, the crime scene tape behind her cordoning off the house from the street. Her voice rose over the sounds of a crowd visible at the edges of the frame.

“At seven-thirty this morning Annemarie and Joseph Sarducci were found dead in their home on Outlook Road. Their slashed and partially nude bodies were found by their thirteen-year-old son, Anthony, who was unharmed. We spoke with Police Chief Peter Stark just minutes ago.”

The scene cut away to a shot of Stark facing reporters outside the station house. The crowd jostled for position. There were network call letters on some of the microphones. This was a siege.

I turned up the sound.

“Chief Stark. Is it true that the Sarduccis were slaughtered like animals?”

“Chief! Over here! Did Tony Sarducci find them? Did the kid find his parents?”

“Hey, Pete. Do you have a suspect?”

I watched transfixed as Stark negotiated the balancing act of his life. Either tell the truth or lie and pay for it later, but keep the public calm and don’t give the killer any information he can use. I’d seen the same look on the face of Chief Moose when the DC-area sniper was at large.

“Look, I can’t say more than this,” Stark said. “Two more people have died, but I can’t tell you anything of an evidentiary nature. We’re on it. And we’ll inform the public as soon as we have something substantive to report.”

I grabbed a chair, pulled it right up to the screen, and sat down hard. Even though I’d seen so many murdered people, this case got me to the core.

I didn’t think I could have a reaction like this. I was so outraged at the killer’s audacity I was shaking.

I joined the throng outside the police station by proxy. I found myself talking at a thirteen-inch Sony and Chief Stark’s shrunken image.

“Who is doing this, Chief?

“Who the hell is murdering all of these people?”

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Part Four

Trials and Tribulation

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 62

THEY WERE CARRYING THE bodies out of the house just as I arrived. I parked between two black-and-whites on the lawn and looked up at a stunning glass-and-redwood contemporary.

The gaping crowd parted as paramedics bumped down the steps with the stretchers, then slid the two body bags into the open maw at the back of the EMS van. Although I didn’t know Annemarie and Joseph Sarducci, I was swamped by unspeakable sadness.