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

I understood what he was getting at. I no longer knew whether I was being intrepid or stupid.

But I wasn’t yet ready to make the call.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 116

WHEN KEITH AND I pulled up in front of Cat’s house, the driveway was full: the Explorer, a patrol car, a glazer’s truck bearing the legend “We Do Windows,” and a big metallic-blue van with Disaster Master decals on the doors.

I thanked Keith for the lift and, with Martha trotting behind me, I went inside the house, where I found a big man with a little mustache and a horseshoe of dark hair around his head, vacuuming the sofa. He turned off his power vac and “Uncle Chris” and I exchanged introductions.

“Buncha snoopy reporters showed up,” he said. “I told them you moved out until the house was put back together. Okay?”

“Perfect. Brilliant.”

“And Chief Stark was here a few minutes ago. Said to call him when you could.”

I ignored the forty-seven messages blinking on the answering machine and called the station from the kitchen phone. I got the duty officer.

“The chief’s in an interview,” she said. “Can he call you back?”

“I really wish he would.”

“I’ll see to it, Lieutenant.”

I hung up and walked down the hall to my nieces’ room.

The blankets were still on the floor. A window was shattered, and one of those sweet potato vines was drying up on the floor. I’d dented the dresser really good when I bashed the chair against it, and the whole room full of stuffed animals seemed to rebuke me.

What if the kids had been here?

What then, Lindsay?

I dragged the unbroken chair over to the corkboard, sat down, and stared at my notations on the murders. My eyes went right to the thing that disturbed me most.

Sometimes the most telling facts hide in plain sight until you’re ready to see them.

I had tunnel vision now—on the peepholes in the O’Malleys’ closet.

I changed my clothes and put Martha outside with Penelope. “You two play nice.” Then I carefully angled the Explorer around the glazer’s truck and out to the street.

I drove back into town.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 117

THE WATCHER TOOK THE blue Taurus north on 280, sticking to the freeway through Hillsborough. His thoughts were varied, but most of them centered on Lindsay Boxer.

Thinking about Lindsay gave the Watcher a complex set of feelings. He was kind of weirdly proud of her, the way she kept surviving, kept snapping back. The way she refused to back off, stand down, go back to where she came from.

But it was bad news that she insisted on being their problem. Bad news for her.

When it came right down to it, they didn’t want to kill her. Killing a cop, especially this particular cop, would mean an all-out manhunt. The whole SFPD would spill out of the city and work her murder. Maybe the FBI, too.

The Watcher slowed at the exit sign for Trousdale Drive, then his sturdy little car glided down the off-ramp. A mile and a half later, he turned right at the huge Peninsula Hospital, and right again onto El Camino Real, heading south.

He found an Exxon station two blocks down the road and went inside the attached minimart. He wandered around for a couple of minutes, picking up a few small things: a bottle of springwater, a Clif bar, a newspaper.

He paid the busty teenage girl at the cash register $4.20 for his purchases and another $20 for gas. As he left the store, he unfolded the morning paper and saw the story on page one.

GUNSHOTS RIP THROUGH INSPECTOR’S HOUSE

There was a picture of Lindsay in uniform over the story, and in the right-hand column was a follow-up about the Cabot case. Sam Cabot had been charged with a double homicide, “Continued on page 2.”

The Watcher put the paper neatly down on the passenger seat and filled up his tank. Then he started the car and headed toward home. He would talk to the Truth later. Maybe they wouldn’t kill Lindsay the way they had the others. Maybe they would just make her disappear.

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 118

THE LATE DR. O’MALLEY’S office was inside a two-story brick house on Kelly Street, his name etched on a brass plaque to the right of the doorway.

I felt a little rush as I rang the bell. I knew the chief would kick my butt for going around him, but I had to do something. Better to beg forgiveness later than to ask permission and be refused.

The buzzer sounded, and I pushed open the door. I found the waiting room to my left: small and square, with gray upholstered furniture and yards of condolence cards strung up around the walls.

Behind the reception desk, framed in the open window, was a middle-aged woman with graying hair in a sixties flip.

“I’m Lieutenant Boxer, SFPD,” I said, showing my badge. I told her that I was working on a cold homicide case that had some similarities to Dr. O’Malley’s unfortunate death.

“We’ve already spoken to the police,” she said, scrutinizing my badge and the winning smile I’d put on just for her. “Hours and hours of questions.”

“I’ll only need a couple of minutes.”

She slid her frosted-glass window closed and a moment later appeared in the doorway to the inner office.

“I’m Rebecca Falcone,” she said. “Come in.”

Two other middle-aged women were in the office behind the connecting door.

“That’s Mindy Heller, RN,” she said, indicating a streaked blonde wearing nurse’s whites and gobs of eye makeup, dumping platters of plastic-wrapped cookies into the trash can. “And this is Harriet Schwartz, our office manager,” Rebecca said of a wide woman in red sweats sitting behind an old computer. “We’ve all been with Dr. Ben since before the flood.”

I shook hands, and repeated my name and why I was there. “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said. Then I told the women that I needed their help. “Anything you can do to shed some light.”

“You want the truth?” said Harriet Schwartz. She turned away from the computer, leaned back in her chair, and warmed to her memories. “He was like a Picasso drawing. A bunch of lines, and from looking at those, you deduce a person. In between the lines, blank space —”

Mindy Heller jumped in: “He was a decent doctor, but he was chintzy, withholding, a know-it-all. And he could be mean to his galley slaves.” She shot a look at her coworkers. “But I don’t believe he was killed because he was a dickhead, and that’s the worst he was.”

“Uh-huh. So you think the O’Malleys were just victims of opportunity.”

“Exactly. Picked at random. I’ve been saying that all along.”

I asked if any of the other murder victims had been patients of Dr. O’Malley’s and I was shut right down.

“You know we have to protect patient confidentiality,” said Ms. Heller, “but I’m sure Chief Stark can tell you what you want to know.”

Okay, then.

I jotted down my cell phone number and left it on Harriet Schwartz’s desk. I thanked everyone for their time, but I felt deflated. Dr. O’Malley may have been all his staff said he was, but in fact, I’d hit another dead end.

I’d just opened the door to the street when someone gripped my arm. It was Rebecca Falcone, a look of urgency drawing her features into a line down the center of her face.

“I have to speak to you,” she said, “in private.”

“Can you meet me somewhere?” I asked.

“The Half Moon Bay Coffee Company. Do you know the place?”

“In that little strip mall at the top of Main?”

She nodded once. “I get off at twelve-thirty.”