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

As the video camera recorded his confession, it was a cop’s dream come true. Keith gave it all up: the names, the dates, the minutiae only the killer could possibly know.

He talked about using different knives, different belts, described every murder, including how he’d tricked Ben O’Malley.

“Yeah, I clubbed him with a rock before cutting his throat. I threw the knife over the side of the road.”

Keith laid out the details in an orderly fashion, like so many cards in a game of solitaire, and they were convincing enough to convict him many times over. But it was still hard for me to believe that he’d done these bloody crimes alone.

“You killed Joe and Annemarie Sarducci by yourself? Without a fight? What are you, Spider-Man?”

“You’re starting to catch on, Lindsay.” He lurched forward in his seat, scraping the chair against the floor, sticking his face too close to mine.

“I charmed them into submission,” he said. “And you better believe it. I worked alone. Spin that for the DA. Yeah, I’m Spider-Man.”

“But why? What did these people ever do to you?”

Keith shook his head as if he pitied me. “You couldn’t understand, Lindsay.”

“Try me.”

“No,” he said. “I’m through talking.”

And that was it. He ran his hands through his blond hair, guzzled down the last of his Classic Coke, and smiled pleasantly, as if he were taking a curtain call.

I wanted to punch his face until he didn’t look so smug anymore. All those people slaughtered, and it made no sense at all.

Why wouldn’t he say why he’d done it?

Still, it was a great day for the good guys. Keith Howard was booked, printed, photographed, slapped back into cuffs, and taken to a holding cell pending his transport and arraignment in San Francisco.

I stopped by Chief Stark’s office on my way out.

“What’s wrong, Boxer? Where’s your party hat?”

“It’s bothering me, Chief. He’s protecting other people, I’m sure of it.”

“That’s your theory. Guess what? I believe the guy. He’s said he’s smarter than we think, and I’m gonna give him credit for being the big, bright bulb he claims to be.”

I gave the chief a tired smile.

“Shit, Boxer. He confessed. Be happy. This goose is cooked. Let me be the first to congratulate you, Lieutenant. Great catch. Great interview. It’s over now. Thank God, it’s finally over.”

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 131

THE PHONE RANG, YANKING me out of a sleep so deep, I thought I was in Kansas. I fumbled around in the dark for the receiver.

“Who is this?” I croaked.

“It’s me, Lindsay. Sorry to call so early.”

“Joe.” I pulled the clock toward me; it read 5:15 in bright red numbers. I felt a jolt of alarm. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

“Everything’s fine with me,” he said, his voice calm, warming, sexy. “There’s a crowd outside your house, though.”

“You’re picking that up by GPS?”

“No, I just turned on the TV.”

“Hold on,” I said.

I stepped across the room and pulled up a corner of the window shade.

A couple of reporters had set up on the lawn, and camera crews were stringing cables out to satellite vans that curved around the road like Conestoga wagons.

“I see them now,” I said, getting back under the covers. “They’ve got me surrounded. Shit.”

I snuggled back down into the bedding and with the phone tucked between my face and my pillow, Joe felt so close, he could have been in the same time zone.

We talked for a good twenty minutes, made plans to get together when I got back to the city, and winged some kisses across the phone line. Then I got out of bed, threw on some clothes and a little makeup, and stepped outside Cat’s front door.

Reporters converged and pushed a posy of mikes up to my chin. I blinked in the morning light, saying only, “Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I can’t comment, you know. This is Chief Stark’s case, and you’ll have to talk to him. Th-th-that’s all, folks!”

I stepped back inside the house, smiled to myself, and closed the door on the fusillade of questions and the echoing sound of my name. I threw the bolt and turned off the phone’s ringer. I was taking down my crime notes from the kids’ corkboard when Cindy and Claire rang in with a conference call to my cell phone.

“It’s over,” I told them, repeating what the chief had said. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

“What’s really going on, Lindsay?” my intuitive, highly skeptical friend Cindy asked.

“Boy, you’re smart.”

“Uh-huh. So what’s the deal?”

“Off the record. The kid’s really proud of himself for getting into the psycho-killer hall of fame. And I’m not sure he’s totally earned it.”

“Did he confess to the John Doe killing?” Claire asked.

“There you go, Butterfly,” I said. “Another smarty.”

“Well?”

“No, he did not.”

“So where do you come out?”

“I don’t know what to believe, Claire. I really thought whoever killed these people also killed John Doe. Maybe I was wrong.”

Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July

Chapter 132

IT WAS A RARE place for me to be: I was sitting in the backseat of a patrol car with Martha. I rolled down the window, undid the buttons on my blazer, and took in the excitement that was building on Main Street.

A marching band tuned up on a side street where Boy Scouts and firefighters were dressing flatbed trucks as floats. Men on ladders hung banners across the roadway, and flags flew from light posts. I could almost smell the hot dogs grilling. It was the Fourth of July.

My new buddy Officer Noonan let us out in front of the police station, where Chief Stark was standing before a crowd of bystanders and reporters six deep.

As I made my way through the crowd, Mayor Tom Hefferon came out of the station house wearing khaki shorts, a polo shirt, and a fishing hat covering his bald spot. He shook my hand and said, “I hope you’ll spend all of your vacations in Half Moon Bay, Lieutenant.”

Then he tapped on a microphone and the crowd quieted down.

“Everyone. Thanks for coming. This is truly Independence Day,” he said, a tremor cracking his voice. “We’re free, free to resume our lives.”

He put up his hand to quell the applause. “I give you our chief of police, Peter Stark.”

The chief was in full uniform, complete with brass buttons, shiny badge, and gun. As he shook hands with the mayor, the corners of his mouth turned up and, yes, he smiled. Then he cleared his throat and bent over the mike.

“We have a suspect in custody, and he has confessed to the murders that have terrorized the residents of Half Moon Bay.” A cheer went up into the morning mist, and some people broke down and wept with relief. A little boy brought a lit sparkler up to the platform and handed it to the chief.

“Thank you, Ryan. This is my boy,” he said to the crowd, his voice choking up. “You hang on to that, okay?” The chief pulled the child next to him, kept his hand on his son’s shoulder as he went on with his speech.

He said that the police had done their job, that the rest was up to the DA and the justice system. Then he thanked me “for being an invaluable resource to this police department” and, to more and wilder cheers, he handed a brass medal on a ribbon to his son. A patrolman held the boy’s sparkler while Ryan hung the medal around Martha’s neck. Her first commendation.

“Good dog,” said the chief.

Stark then credited every officer in his command and the state police for all they had done to “stop this one-man crime wave that took the lives of innocent citizens.”