Patterson, James - Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

“And more of your explosives?”

“We could blow the Huntington right off the map. The Mark, too.” Malcolm finally allowed himself a sheepish smile. “All right, who is she?”

Danko threw back his head and laughed. “She's someone brilliant, just like you. She's a secret weapon. Let's leave it at that. Just another soldier,” he said, then looked into the girl's eyes. “There's always another soldier, Malcolm. That's what should be scaring the hell out of everybody right now.”

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 71

MICHELLE HEARD VOICES in the other room. Mal was back from his meeting. Julia was whooping it up as if she'd won the lottery. But Michelle felt awful.

She knew they had done terrible things. The latest killing didn't sit well with her. That pretty, innocent D.A. She had put aside the image of Charlotte Lightower and the house-keeper who'd been killed in the blast, and found some relief that at least the children had been saved. Lightower, Ben-gosian - they were greedy, guilty scum.

But this one. What had she done to be on the list? Because she worked for the state? What had Mal said? This one is just for the thrill of it, just to show we can. Except Michelle didn't really believe that. There was always a hidden agenda with Mal.

The poor D.A. knew she was going to die from the minute they forced her into the truck. But she never gave in. Not once. She seemed brave to Michelle. The real crime was that she never even knew why she was dying! They wouldn't even give her that.

The door creaked open and Mal eased into the room. The look of triumph on his face gave Michelle the creeps. He lay down next to her, smelling of tobacco and alcohol. “What happened to my party girl?”

“Not tonight,” Michelle said. A wheeze kicked up in her chest.

“Not tonight?” Mal grinned.

Michelle sat up. “I just don't understand. Why her? What did she do to anybody?”

“I mean, what did any of them really do?” Mal stroked her hair. “Wrong employer, honeybun. She represented the big bad state that's sanctioning the criminal pillaging of the world. That's what she did, Michelle. She's tanks in Iraq. She's Grumman and Dow Chemical and the WTO all rolled into one. Don't be fooled because she was pretty.”

“They said on the news that she put away murderers. She even prosecuted some of these CEOs in business scandals.”

“And I told you not to pay attention to the news, Michelle. Sometimes people who do good things die. Hold that thought.”

She shot a horrified look at him. The cough in her chest grew tighter. She fumbled around the bed for her new inhaler, but Mal blocked her hand. “What did you think, Michelle? We were in this just to knock off a couple of fat-cat billionaires? Our fight's with the state. The state is very pow-erful. It won't roll over and die.”

Michelle forced a breath. She realized in that moment that she was different from Mal. From them all. He called her a little girl. But he was wrong. A little girl didn't do the terrible things she had done. She wheezed again. “I need my inhaler, Mal. Please.”

“And I need to know if I can trust you, honeybun.” He picked up the inhaler and twirled it in his fingers like a toy.

Her breathing was starting to get heavy now, ragged. And Mal was making it worse, scaring her like this. She didn't know what he was capable of. “You can trust me, Mal. You know that,” she whispered.

“I do know that, Michelle, but it's not me I'm worried about. I mean, we work for someone, don't we, hon? Charles Danko isn't forgiving, the way I am. Danko is tough enough to beat them at their own game. He's a genius.”

She grabbed the puffer out of Mal's hand and depressed it twice, shooting the soothing spray into her lungs.

“You know the cool thing about ricin?” Mal smiled. “It can get into your bloodstream a hundred ways.” He depressed his index finger twice, as though he was triggering an imaginary inhaler. He smiled. “Chht, chht.”

He had a glint in his eye she hadn't seen before. “Whoa, now that would really get that chest of yours into a state, wouldn't it, hon? Chht, chht.”

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 72

IT WAS BEDLAM at the Hall that morning. As scary as it had ever been since I entered police work.

An A.D.A. being killed. August Spies' victim number three.

By six A.M., the place was teeming with a hundred Feds: FBI, Department of Justice, ATF. And reporters, crammed into the fifth-floor news room for some kind of briefing. The front page of the Examiner had a big banner headline: WHO'S NEXT?

I was going over one of the crime scene reports from Jill's killing when I was surprised by Joe Santos and Phil Martelli knocking at my door. “We're real sorry to hear about Ms. Bernhardt,” Santos said, stepping in.

I tossed aside the papers and nodded thanks. “It was nice of you to come here.”

Martelli shrugged. “Actually, that's not why we're here, Lindsay.”

“We decided to go back through our records on this Hard-away thing,” Santos said, sitting down. He pulled out a manila envelope. “We figured if he was here, given what he was up to, he had to turn up somewhere else.”

Santos removed a series of black-and-white photos from the envelope. “This is a rally we were keeping track of. Octo-ber twenty-second. Six months ago.”

The photos were surveillance sweeps of the crowd, no one in particular. Then one face was circled. Sandy hair, a narrow chin, a thin beard. Huddled in a dark fatigue jacket, jeans, a scarf that hung to his knees.

My blood started to race. I went up to my board and com-pared it with the FBI photos taken in Seattle five years before.

Stephen Hardaway.

The son of a bitch was here six months ago.

“This is where it starts to get interesting.” Phil Martelli winked.

He spread out a couple of other shots. A different rally. Hardaway again. This time, standing next to someone I rec-ognized.

Roger Lemouz.

Hardaway had an arm around him.

Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree

Chapter 73

HALF AN HOUR LATER I pulled up on Durant Avenue at the south entrance to the university. I ran inside Dwinelle Hall, where Lemouz had his office.

The professor was there, outfitted in a tweed jacket and white linen shirt, entertaining a coed with flowing red hair.

“Party's over,” I said.

“Ah, Madam Lieutenant.” He smiled. That condescend-ing accent, Etonian or Oxfordian or whatever the hell it was. “I was just counseling Annette here on how Foucault says that the same forces which historically depress class affect gender, too.”

“Well, class is over, Red.” I flashed the student an “I don't want to see you in here in about ten seconds” look. It took her about that long to gather her books and leave. To her credit, Red flashed me a middle finger at the door. I returned the favor.

“I'm delighted to see you again.” Lemouz seemed not to mind and pushed back in his chair. “Given the sad affairs on the news this morning, I fear the subject is politics - not women's development.”

“I think I misjudged you, Lemouz.” I remained standing. “I thought you were just some pompous two-bit agitator, and you turn out to be a real player.”

Lemouz crossed his legs and gave me a condescending smile. “I'm not sure I understand what you mean.”

I took out the envelope with Santos's photos.

“What I'm really getting a kick out of, Lemouz, is that I'm what's keeping your ass away from Homeland Security. I pass along your name, with your public statements, the next time I see you, it'll be in a cell.”

Lemouz leaned back in his chair, still with an amused smile. “And you're warning me, why, Lieutenant?”