7th Heaven

Chapter 33

YUKI PUSHED THROUGH the swarm of reporters and cameramen who had surrounded her from the moment she parked her car. She hoisted her handbag higher on her shoulder, clutched her briefcase, and headed toward the street, the press moving along with her, shouting out questions about how she thought the trial would go, and if there was anything she wanted to say to the public.

“Not now, people,” she said. “I don’t want to keep the court waiting.” She lowered her head, pushed her way out to the intersection, saw the fleet of satellite vans and setups on Bryant: local news, cable news vans, and crews from the networks, all there to cover the trial of Junie Moon.

The light changed and Yuki crossed the street encased in a mob of reporters. She headed toward the Hall of Justice and into the thicker crowd that had gathered at the foot of the granite steps. Len Parisi had told her he’d field the media, but right now he was locked in a pileup on the freeway, an oil truck having tipped over, blocking all lanes, cars slamming into each other in the slick.

Parisi didn’t know when he’d get to court, and so Yuki had spent a half hour going over her opening with him again on the phone, and that’s why she’d cut the time too close. She marched up the courthouse steps, eyes front, said, “Can’t talk now, sorry,” to a gang of reporters at the heavy steel-and-glass front doors to the Hall of Justice. And then, to her chagrin, she couldn’t open the doors.

A reporter from KRON held the door for her, then winked and said, “See ya later, Yuki.”

Yuki tossed her briefcase and handbag on the security desk, walked through the metal detectors without incident, accepted “luck of the Irish” wishes from the guard, and made for the stairs, taking them quickly to the second floor.

The golden oak-paneled courtroom was packed to the walls. Yuki took her seat at the prosecution table, exchanged looks with Nicky Gaines, her second chair. He was big-eyed and sweaty, looked as apprehensive as she was.

“Where’s Red Dog?” he asked.

“He’s in a traffic jam.”

The bailiff cut the murmur in the courtroom by calling out, “All rise,” and Judge Bruce Bendinger entered the room through a panel behind the bench, took his seat between Old Glory and the California state flag.

Bendinger was sixty, gray-haired, recovering from knee replacement surgery. His shirt collar above his robe was pink, his striped satin tie was a vibrant ultramarine. Yuki noted Bendinger’s rumpled brow and thought the normally easy-going judge looked a bit frayed before the trial had even begun. His knee must be giving him hell.

Yuki half listened as Bendinger instructed the jury. She used the moment to sneak a look at Junie Moon’s formidable, take-no-prisoners attorney, L. Diana Davis.

Davis was in her fifties, with twenty years’ experience as a champion of abused and victimized women. This morning she appeared in one of her trademark red suits, wearing bright lipstick and chunky jewelry, her short hair in crisp, silver waves. Davis looked ready for prime time, and Yuki didn’t doubt for a minute that she would get it – full frontal TV cameras, bouquets of microphones at every recess.

And that’s when Yuki realized that it wasn’t just the pressure of the trial and the scorching focus of the media that was freaking her out; it was Junie Moon, sitting now beside her attorney, looking so fawnlike and vulnerable in her cream-colored suit and lace collar that she was almost transparent.

“Are you ready, Ms. Castellano?” Yuki heard the judge say.

Yuki said, “Yes, Your Honor.” She pushed back her chair and stepped to the lectern, checking that her one-button jacket was closed, feeling her spine prickle as two hundred pairs of eyes focused on her. Yuki paused for a moment in the well of the courtroom.

She smiled at the jurors and then began the most important opening statement of her career.

Chapter 34

“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,” Yuki said from the lectern. “A great deal is known about the life of Michael Campion. Sadly, this trial is about his death. On the night of January twenty-first, Michael Campion, an eighteen-year-old boy, went to the home of the defendant, Junie Moon – and he was never seen again.

“Ms. Moon is a prostitute.

“I mention her profession because Ms. Moon met Michael Campion because she’s a prostitute. The People will introduce witnesses, classmates of the victim, who will tell you that Michael had long planned to visit Ms. Moon because he wanted to lose his virginity. On January twenty-first, he did visit her.

“And Michael Campion not only lost his virginity, he lost his life.

“It shouldn’t have happened.

“Michael shouldn’t have died. And if the defendant had behaved responsibly, if she’d acted humanely, Michael might be here with us today.

“What happened to Michael Campion after he entered Ms. Moon’s house was told to us in detail by the defendant herself,” Yuki said, pointing to Junie Moon. “She told us. She admitted to the police that she let Michael Campion die and that she treated his remains like garbage.”

Yuki walked the jury through Junie Moon’s admission of guilt, her description of Michael Campion’s death, grisly dismemberment, and disposal in a Dumpster. Then she turned her back on the defendant, left her notes on the lectern, and took thoughtful, measured steps to the jury box.

She no longer cared that Red Dog wasn’t in the seat beside her or that half the room was filled with salivating reporters, and she didn’t care that Junie Moon looked as innocent as a flower girl at a summer wedding.

She was focused purely on the jury.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said. “The police developed information leading to the defendant three full months after Michael Campion disappeared. His remains were not recovered because it was just too late.

“The defense will tell you, ‘No body, no crime,’ ” Yuki said. “The defense will say that the police must have bullied Ms. Moon, because she has since recanted her confession. The defense will say that the People have no case. That’s. Not. True. We don’t have to have physical evidence.

“We have circumstantial evidence, and lots of it.”

Yuki walked the length of the jury box, trailing her hand along the railing, feeling the power and flow of her opening and that the jury was not only with her, they were waiting for every word. And she would give them everything they wanted.

“Ms. Moon is charged with tampering with evidence and with murder in the second degree,” Yuki told the jurors. “In order to prove murder, we have to prove malice. This is how the law is worded. Malice can be inferred in that the person acted in such a way that you could construe them to have had ‘an abandoned and malignant heart.’ Think about that.

“An abandoned and malignant heart.

“The defendant told us that Michael Campion asked her to call for help and that she didn’t do it – because it was more important to protect herself. She let him die when she might have saved him. That’s the clearest possible example of an abandoned and malignant heart. That’s why the People are charging Junie Moon with murder.

“And in the course of this trial, we will prove Junie Moon guilty beyond reasonable doubt.”

Chapter 35

L. DIANA DAVIS put her hands on both sides of the lectern and wiggled it until it was centered on the jury box. Then she looked up at the jurors, said, “Good morning. I want to thank the prosecution for giving my opening statement for me.

“Saved us all a lot of time.”

Davis warmed to the laughter in the gallery and was glad to see that a few of the jurors had joined in. She put one hand on her hip, smiled, and went on.

“Remember the advertising slogan? ‘Where’s the beef?’ That’s what I want to know, and you’re going to want to know it, too. As the People just told you, ladies and gentlemen, this is a noncase. If the young man in question weren’t a celebrity, I doubt the DA would have the nerve to bring this case to trial.

“Ms. Castellano is right when she says no body, no crime.

“Not only is there no body, there’s no weapon, and in this day of advanced forensic science, there isn’t even a microscopic trace of evidence at the so-called crime scene. Oh, yes,” Davis said as if it were an aside. “After an intense, and I would say mind-blowing, interrogation by the police, my client confessed to a crime she didn’t commit.

“An expert witness will talk about this syndrome of false confessions, a sign of emotional battery, which is what happened to Ms. Moon. And Ms. Moon will tell you about the night of January twenty-first herself. All the prosecution has to present to you is the retracted confession of a terrified young woman who was intimidated by the interrogation of an aggressive, motivated team of homicide inspectors who had an agenda: to hang the disappearance of the governor’s son on someone.

“They picked Junie Moon.

“Over the next few days, you will hear the preposterous case against her. There will be no DNA evidence, and Henry Lee won’t be coming here with photos of blood spatter to tell you how this so-called crime went down.

“Even Ricardo Malcolm, Ms. Moon’s former boyfriend, won’t be called to testify for the prosecution, because he told the police that Junie never met Michael Campion. He said nothing happened.

“So what did happen to Michael Campion?

“We know – everyone in the free world knew – Michael Campion had a serious, congenital, and potentially fatal heart condition, and that he was living on borrowed time. After he left his house on the night of January twenty-first, something happened. We don’t know what that something was, but it’s not our job or yours to speculate.

“When you’ve heard this case in its entirety, the prosecution will ask you to find Ms. Moon guilty beyond reasonable doubt. And common sense will tell you that Ms. Moon is not guilty of any of the charges against her. She’s not guilty of tampering with evidence. She didn’t help dismember a body in her bathtub or dispose of that body.

“And as sure as I’m standing in front of you, Junie Moon is not guilty of murder.”

Chapter 36

THE BAILIFF CALLED MY NAME and I got up from the bench in the hallway, stiff-armed the double doors of the vestibule to the courtroom, and strode up the aisle. Heads turned as I approached the witness stand. And I was reminded again that the case against Junie Moon would hang in large part on my testimony. And that L. Diana Davis was going to do her best to crush me.

I swore to tell the truth and took my seat, and my good friend Yuki asked me preliminary questions, setting up my time and grade as a police officer.

Then she asked, “Sergeant Boxer, did you interview the defendant on April nineteenth?”

“Yes. Inspector Richard Conklin and I first interviewed her in her house, and then later at the southern division of the SFPD, on the third floor of this building.

“Did she seem afraid or anxious or intimidated?”

“Actually, no. She seemed quite comfortable. In fact, she agreed to come to the Hall for questioning.”

“At that time, did you ask her about Michael Campion?”

“We did.”

“And what was her response?” Yuki asked.

“At first she told us that she had never met Michael Campion. Approximately two hours later, she asked us to shut off the video camera.”

“And what happened after that?”

In answer to Yuki’s questions, I told the jury what Junie had told me and Conklin – how the victim had expired, that she had called Ricky Malcolm, and what the two of them had done with Michael Campion’s body.

“Did you have any reason to doubt this story?” Yuki asked.

“No. I found her quite credible.”

“Did you interview the defendant at any other time?”

“Yes. We met with Ms. Moon a few days later at the women’s jail. We hoped Ms. Moon might remember the name of the town where she and her boyfriend disposed of Mr. Campion’s remains.”

“And did she remember?”

“Yes. The town of Jackson, about three and a half hours northeast, in Amador County.”

“So to be clear, this was a second interview?”

“Correct.”

“Was the defendant under duress?”

“Objection. Calls for speculation,” Davis sang out.

“Sustained,” Judge Bendinger snapped.

“I’ll rephrase,” Yuki said. “Did you threaten the defendant? Deny her food or water or sleep?”

“No.”

“She gave you this information of her own volition?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Yuki said to me. “I have no further questions.”

And then L. Diana Davis was in my face.

Chapter 37

TO MY SURPRISE, L. Diana Davis was petite, maybe five three, and I guessed that her close-up shots on the small screen and her reputation had made her seem larger than life.

“Sergeant Boxer,” Davis said. “You’ve been a homicide inspector for over ten years. You’ve investigated countless homicides. You’ve interrogated innumerable suspects, and you knew that eventually you’d be sitting in a courtroom telling us what happened in the case against Junie Moon. Isn’t that true?”

“Yes.”

“So how did you get the defendant to confess, Sergeant? Tell her that accidents happen? That she wasn’t culpable?”

I knew damned well to keep my answers short and blunt, but looking at Davis ’s expression, half kindly grandma, half bulldog, I felt a need to let my mouth do the talking.

“I may have said things like that. Interrogations aren’t one size fits all. Sometimes you’ve got to raise your voice. Sometimes you’ve got to be sympathetic. And sometimes you’ve got to lie to a subject,” I said. “There are legal boundaries for interrogations, and my partner and I stayed within those boundaries.”

Davis smiled, turned, and walked toward the jury, turned back to face me.

“Is that so?” she said. “Now, you’ve testified that the defendant asked you to turn off the tape during your interrogation at the police station.”

“That’s right.”

“So let me get this straight, Sergeant. You videotaped everything – up to the point when Ms. Moon ‘confessed.’ That confession is not on the tape.”

“The defendant seemed reluctant to talk because the camera was running. So when she asked me to turn it off, I did so. And then she told us what happened.”

“So what are we to make of the fact that you recorded everything this young woman had to say except her confession? I guess you’re suggesting that the defendant was being cagey when she asked you to shut off the camera,” Davis said, shrugging her shoulders, sending a nonverbal message to the jury that she thought I was full of crap. “You’re saying she was sophisticated enough to confess off the record.”

“There is no such thing -”

“Thank you, Sergeant. That’s all I have for this witness,” said Davis.

Yuki shot to her feet, said, “Redirect, Your Honor.”

“Proceed, Ms. Castellano,” said the judge.

“Sergeant Boxer, are you required to tape a confession?”

“Not at all. A confession’s a confession, whether it’s written or verbal, on tape or off. I’d rather have a taped confession, but it’s not required.”

Yuki nodded.

“Did you have any idea what Ms. Moon was going to tell you when she asked you to turn off the video camera?”

“Had no idea. I turned off the camera because she asked us to – and I thought it was the only way we were going to get the truth. And you know what, Ms. Castellano? It worked.”

Chapter 38

YUKI WISHED ALL of her witnesses were as good as Rich Conklin. He was solid. He was believable. Made you think of a young military officer, a mother’s good son. It didn’t hurt that he was also good to look at. In answer to her questions, Conklin affably told the jury that he’d been with the SFPD for five years and that he’d been in the homicide division for the last two.

“Did you interview the defendant on the night of April nineteenth?” Yuki asked Conklin.

“Sergeant Boxer and I talked with Ms. Moon together.”

“Did you have any preconceived notions about her guilt or innocence before you talked to her?”

“No, ma’am.”

“Did you read Ms. Moon her Miranda rights?”

“Yes, I did.”

“As I understand it, Ms. Moon wasn’t in custody when you Mirandized her, so why did you warn her that anything she said could be used against her?”

“It was a gamble,” Conklin told Yuki.

“When you say it was a gamble, could you explain what you mean to the jury?”

Conklin brushed his forelock of brown hair away from his eyes. “Sure. Suppose I say to a suspect, ‘I want to interview you. Can you come down to the station?’

“And the suspect comes in of his or her own volition. That person doesn’t have to answer our questions and can leave at any time. I don’t have to Mirandize that person when we sit down to talk because they’re not in custody.”

Conklin sat back comfortably in his seat and continued, “But, see, if that subject then starts to get wary, he or she could ask for a lawyer, who would end the interview. Or that subject could simply leave. And we’d have to let her go because that person is not under arrest.”

“If I understand you, Inspector, you were taking a precaution, so that if Ms. Moon incriminated herself, you’d already be covered by having told her that anything she said could be used against her?”

“That’s right. I was thinking how Ms. Moon was our only witness, maybe a suspect in a serious crime, and I didn’t want to take a chance that if she had something to do with Michael Campion’s disappearance, we’d have to stop the interview and Mirandize her. That might have ended the interview. And we not only wanted the truth, we wanted to find Michael Campion.”

“And did Ms. Moon ask for a lawyer?”

“No.”

“Did she give you the details of Michael Campion’s death and the disposal of his body?”

“Yes, she did.”

“Inspector Conklin, what was her demeanor as she confessed to you and Sergeant Boxer?”

“She seemed sad and remorseful,” Conklin said.

“And how did you determine that?”

“She cried,” said Conklin. “She said she was sorry, and that she wished she could change everything that happened.”

Chapter 39

“INSPECTOR CONKLIN,” Davis said, smiling. “You sound like a very smart police officer.”

Yuki tensed. She could almost see Davis setting the trap, baiting it, tying the trap to a tree. Conklin just looked at Davis until she spoke again.

“Isn’t it true that from the beginning, the defendant denied that she’d ever met Michael Campion?”

“Yes, but ninety-nine times out of a hundred, a suspect is going to say they didn’t do it.”

“You’ve interviewed a hundred homicide suspects?”

“Figure of speech,” Conklin said. “I don’t know how many homicide suspects I’ve interviewed. Quite a few.”

“I see,” Davis said. “Is it a figure of speech to say that you and Sergeant Boxer tricked and bullied my client until she confessed?”

“Objection!” Yuki called out from her seat.

“Sustained.”

“I’ll rephrase. As we all know, Ms. Moon’s ‘confession,’ ” Davis said, making the universal symbol for quote marks with the first two fingers of each hand, “wasn’t on tape, isn’t that right?”

“That’s right.”

“So we don’t know the tenor of that interview, do we?”

“I guess you just have to trust me,” Conklin said.

Davis smiled, wound up for the pitch. “Inspector, did you take notes of Ms. Moon’s statement?”

“Yes.”

“I asked to see those notes during discovery,” Davis said, “but I was told you no longer had them.”

Conklin’s cheeks colored. “That’s right.”

“I want to make sure I understand what you’re telling us, Inspector,” Davis said in the snotty tone she’d perfected over decades and was using now in an attempt to undermine and humiliate Conklin.

“You were investigating a probable murder. As you told us, Ms. Moon was your primary witness, or maybe a suspect. You had no taped record, so you made a written record. That was so you could tell the court and the jury what the defendant said, right? And then you threw the notes away – can you tell us why?”

“I used my notes as the basis for my report. Once my report was typed, I didn’t need them anymore.”

“No? But what’s a better record of that interview? The notes you took that night? Or the report you filled out a couple of days later? You’re supposed to keep those notes, aren’t you, Inspector?… Inspector?

“Your Honor, please direct the witness to answer my question.”

Yuki clenched her fists under the table. She hadn’t known Conklin had destroyed his notes, but while it wasn’t kosher, homicide cops did it all the time.

Judge Bendinger shifted in his seat, asked Conklin to answer the question.

Reluctantly, Conklin said, “My notes would be more of a verbatim account, but -”

“But still, you felt it was appropriate to throw them out? Is there a shortage of storage space at the Hall of Justice? Were the file cabinets full, maybe?”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“It is, isn’t it?” Davis asked, letting the question hang in the dead silence of the courtroom.

“Do you remember where you threw the notes? In the garbage perhaps, or out your car window? Maybe you flushed them down the toilet?”

“Your Honor,” Yuki said. “Defense counsel is badgering the witness -”

“Overruled. The witness may answer,” said Judge Bendinger.

“I shredded them,” Conklin said, the cords in his neck straining against the white collar of his shirt.

“Please tell the jury why you shredded your notes.”

Yuki saw the flash in Conklin’s eye but was helpless to stop him from snapping, “The reason we get rid of our notes is so that shyster lawyers like you don’t twist things around -”

Yuki stared at Conklin. She’d never seen him blow up before. Davis had manipulated him, and she was going to nail him to the wall.

“Inspector Conklin, is that how you behaved when you interviewed my client? Lose your temper like that?”

“Objection, Your Honor,” Yuki called out.

“On what grounds?”

“Defense counsel is objectionable.”

Bendinger was unable to stifle a laugh. “Overruled. Watch it, Ms. Castellano.”

Davis smiled, faced Conklin, one hand on her hip. “Only one more question, Inspector. Any other important evidence you shredded that would have exonerated my client?”

Chapter 40

STILL FEELING STUNG by Davis ’s cross-examination of Rich Conklin and the stress of the entire horrid day, Yuki left the Hall of Justice by the back door and walked several blocks out of her way, checking her BlackBerry as she walked.

She deleted messages, made notes for the file, sent an e-mail to Red Dog, who was now back in his home office asking for a report. She entered the All Day parking lot from the rear and had just opened the door of her brownish-gray Acura sedan when she heard someone call her name.

Yuki turned, frisked the crowded lot with her eyes, saw Jason Twilly loping toward her against traffic on Bryant, calling out, “Yuki, hey, hang on a minute.” Yuki reached into the car, put her briefcase on the passenger seat, and turned back to face the superstar writer, who was closing in.

Twilly looked fantastic, Yuki thought, as she watched him maneuver through the crowded parking lot. She liked everything about the way he put his act together: the cut of his hair, the Oliver Peoples glasses framing his intense dark brown eyes. Today he was wearing a fine blue shirt under a well-fitted gray jacket, and his pants were buckled with a plain Hermès belt that must’ve cost seven hundred dollars.

Twilly pulled up to where she stood with her car door opened between them, not even blowing hard from his run.

“Hey, Jason. What’s wrong?”

“Not a thing,” he said, eyes locking on hers. “I just wanted to tell you that I thought you rocked today.”

“Thanks.”

“No, I mean it. You’re great on your feet, and it’s smart the way you’re handling the press. Davis is out there campaigning on the front steps and you’re -”

“The defense has to spin this,” Yuki said. “I have to prove Junie Moon is guilty, and that’s not going to happen in front of the Hall.”

Twilly nodded his agreement, said, “You know, I wanted to tell you that I overheard a conversation in the hallway, and what I heard is that Junie’s a little slow, below average IQ.”

“I don’t get that impression,” said Yuki, wondering what the hell Twilly was getting at. Was he working an angle? Or was her six months in the DA’s office making her cynical?

Twilly set down his briefcase on the asphalt, took a soft leather eyeglass case from his breast pocket, removed a small square of cloth, and massaged the pollution off his Oliver Peeps.

“I gathered that Davis is going to get an expert shrink to tell the jury that Junie is dumb and suggestible and that the brutal cops could make her say anything.”

“Well, thanks for the heads-up, Jason.”

“No problem. Look, Yuki,” he said, adjusting his glasses over the bridge of his nose. “I’m dying to pick your very lovely mind. Would you have dinner with me? Please?”

Yuki shifted her weight in her narrow, pointy shoes, thought of the nice cold Coors waiting for her at home. The ton of work she had to do.

“No offense, Jason. When I’m trying a case, I like to be alone at the end of the day. I need the solitude and the time to clear my head -”

“Yuki. You’ve got to eat, so why not let me treat you to a lavish expense account dinner? Caviar, lobster, French champagne. Anyplace you want to go. You’ll be home by eight, and no business talk either. Just romance,” Twilly said, giving her his full frontal, lopsided grin.

He was charming and he knew it.

Yuki laughed in the face of such practiced seduction, and then she surprised herself.

She said yes.

Chapter 41

STEVEN MEACHAM AND HIS WIFE, Sandy, were watching 48 Hours Mystery on TV in their expansive home in Cow Hollow when the doorbell chimed.

Steve said to Sandy, “Are we expecting someone?”

“Hell no,” Sandy said, thinking of the door-to-door canvassing that had been going on because of the heated school board elections. She took a sip from her wineglass. “If we ignore them, they’ll go away.”

“I guess I can always give ’em a couple of shots to the ribs, make ’em take us off the list,” Meacham said, feinting and punching the air, then slipping his bare feet into his loafers.

He walked to the front door, peered through the fanlight, saw two good-looking boys standing outside, kids about the age of his son, Scott.

What was this?

The heavier of the two wore a peachy-colored T-shirt under a camouflage vest, his hair covering his shirt collar, more Banana Republic than Republican, and definitely not a Jehovah’s Witness. The other boy was dressed traditionally in a glen plaid jacket over a lavender polo shirt, hair long in front like a kid from an English boarding school. The boys had unopened liquor bottles in hand.

Meacham turned off the security alarm, opened the door a crack, said, “May I help you fellows with something?”

“My name is Hawk, Mr. Meacham,” said the one in the sport jacket. “This is Pidge. Uh, those are our pledge names,” he said apologetically. “We’re friends of Scotty’s, you know, and we’re pledging Alpha Delta Phi?”

“No kiddin’? Scotty didn’t call…”

“No, sir, he doesn’t know we’re here. We have to do this on the sneak.”

“Pledges, huh?”

Meacham fondly remembered his own fraternity days. “So, when’s the initiation?” he asked.

“Next week, sir,” said Pidge. “If we make it. We have to ask you about Scotty, things people don’t know about him, and we need to score a baby picture, preferably a naked one…”

Meacham laughed, said, “Okay, okay, come on in.” He threw open the door to his spacious home with its heart-stopping view of the bay.

“Honey, we’ve got company,” he called to his wife, leading the two boys through the foyer. “Hawk, like Ethan Hawke? Or some sort of bird theme, probably.”

Meacham accepted the bottles from the boys with thanks, then he opened the inlaid wooden liquor cabinet in the living room. He took out glasses as the boys introduced themselves to his wife, who said, “It’s quite nice of you to bring something, but it really wasn’t necessary.”

“Cointreau,” Meacham said. He poured from the bottle, handed the glasses around. “To the Greeks.”

Actually, Meacham was trying to cut down on the booze, but Sandy was already half sloshed. She swished her drink in the glass, took a sip, said, “Honey bear, why don’t you show the boys Scotty’s room? I’ll get out the photo albums.”

“I’ll stay with you, Mrs. Meacham,” Pidge said. “Help you pick out the right picture.”

Sandy was lost in the photo album in her lap when Pidge’s shadow fell across her face. She looked up, did a double take through her unfocused eyes, finally putting it together. Pidge was holding a gun.

She took in a deep breath, but Pidge raised a finger to his lips, then said, “Don’t scream, Sandy. Just do what I tell you and everything will be fine.”

Chapter 42

“THIS ISN’T FUNNY ANYMORE,” Steve Meacham said to the two boys, wincing as Hawk jammed the gun between his shoulder blades.

“Go stand by your wife, Mr. M.,” said Hawk. “This is kind of a scavenger hunt, you know? We’re not going to hurt you guys. Not unless you make us.”

Meacham went to his wife’s side, looking at each of the two guns in turn, sending his mind toward his own gun, which was wrapped in a towel at the top of the linen closet. He glanced at Sandy ’s face, saw that she was sobering up, trying to figure out what was happening.

He wished he knew.

He turned back to Pidge, said, “This is just a fraternity prank, right, fellas?”

“Yes, sir,” Hawk said at his back. “I need you both to lie on the floor, facedown.”

“Well, I’m not going to do that, you crazy boy,” Sandy said, whipping her head around, eyes flashing furiously. “Get out of here, both of you, now, and tell Scotty I want to hear from him tonight, I don’t care what time -”

Pidge walked behind Sandy, cocked his arm, and whacked her on the back of the head with the gun butt. Sandy yowled, went down into a crouch, hands covering her head. Steven saw blood seep between her fingers. Steven started toward Sandy, but the chilling metallic clicks of hammers being cocked stopped him where he stood.

Steven wanted to keep denying the wordless terror that was flooding his mind – but he couldn’t block it out anymore. These kids were going to kill them – unless, somehow...

“I don’t want to shoot you, lady,” Pidge said. “Drop all the way to the floor. You, too, buddy. Hurry up now.”

Steven got to his knees, pleaded. “We’ll do what you say. Take it all,” he said. “Take everything we have. Just don’t, please, don’t hurt us.”

“Good attitude,” Pidge said, shoving Sandy Meacham to the floor with his foot, standing behind her as her husband lay facedown on the Persian carpet.

“Hands behind your backs, if you’ll be so kind,” Pidge said. He took a reel of fishing line out of his back pocket, wrapped the monofilament fiber tightly around the Meachams’ wrists. Then he tugged off their shoes, stripped off Sandy ’s socks, and began winding fishing line around Steven Meacham’s ankles.

“I’ll let you in on something,” Pidge said. “Actually, we’re not fraternity types like Scotty.” He tugged down Sandy ’s elastic-waisted pants and underwear in one motion. Sandy yelped.

“Where’s your safe, Mr. M.? What’s the combination?” Hawk asked.

“We don’t have a safe,” Meacham said.

“Hawk, go back upstairs,” said Pidge. “I’ll keep these folks company.”

He slapped Sandy ’s buttocks playfully, laughing as Meacham cried out, “There’s some money inside the humidor on my dresser. You can have it. Take it all!”

Pidge turned up the TV volume to high, balled Sandy ’s socks, jammed a woolen gag into each of the Meachams’ mouths. As Sandy whimpered and squirmed, he slapped her buttocks again, this time almost tenderly; then reluctantly, Pidge tied her ankles together with the fishing line. That done, he broke the neck of the second bottle of Cointreau against the mantelpiece. He poured liquor on a pile of newspapers by the upholstered chair, into a basket of yarn, doused the Meachams’ hair and their clothing, Meacham shouting against the sock in his mouth, starting to gag.

“I wouldn’t do that,” Pidge said, reasonably. “You could drown on your own vomit. That would be nasty, bud.”

Hawk came down the stairs into the living room, a cigar in his mouth, jangling a lumpy pillowcase.

“Swag,” he said, grinning. “About five grand in the humidor. Oh, and I got a book.”

Pidge bent to Sandy Meacham, who was moaning half naked at his feet. He twisted the diamond rings off her fingers, then shouted into Steven Meacham’s ear.

“What is it you people like to say? Living well is the best revenge? Well, enjoy your revenge. And thanks for the stuff.”

“Ready?” Hawk asked.

Pidge finished writing the inscription and capped the pen.

“Veni, vidi, vici, bro,” Pidge said, lighting matches and dropping them where he’d poured the Cointreau.

VOOOOOOM .

Flames flared up around the room. Smoke billowed, darkening the air. The Meachams couldn’t see the two young men wave good-bye as they left by the front door.

Chapter 43

THE SMELL OF BURNED FLESH hit us before we crossed the threshold into the smoking ruins of the Meacham house in Cow Hollow. It had once been an architectural masterpiece. Now it was a crypt.

Arson investigator Chuck Hanni stepped out of the shadows to greet us. He looked uncharacteristically tired and grim.

“My second job tonight,” he explained.

“The first one was like this?” Conklin asked.

“Nope. Meth lab explosion,” Hanni said. “Victim was blown out of the house and into the back of her pickup truck.” He shook his head. “Now this is exactly like the Malone fire.”

We followed Hanni into what was once the Meachams’ living room. I imagined the space as it once was – the cathedral ceiling, the massive fireplace, and the mirror above the mantel. Now it was all smoke-blackened gilt and carbon-streaked marble. The bodies were lying close together in three inches of black water, flat on their stomachs, hands curled in a pugilistic attitude, the result of tendons tightening as their bodies burned.

“If there were ligatures on the victims, they’ve burned up,” Hanni said, hunching down beside the bodies. “No point in dusting for prints. Maybe tomorrow, in the light of day… Anyway,” Hanni went on, “I found this on the kitchen counter.” He handed a book to Conklin. I read the title: A History of Yachting. “Got a signature in there for you, Rich. It’s in Latin.”

Conklin cracked open the book to the title page and read out loud. “Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas.”

“What’s it mean?” Hanni asked him.

Conklin tried to hunch it out, saying, “Something, something, bad is love? I don’t know. What the hell. My tenthgrade Latin is exhausted.”

“Aren’t we all?” Claire said, stepping into the room, a crew of two assistants trailing behind her. “What have we got here?”

She walked to the bodies, rolled the smaller of the two, and a rush of air came from the victim’s mouth. Paaahhhhhh.

“Look here,” Claire said to Chuck, showing him a liquor bottle that had been partially hidden by the victim’s body.

Hanni picked it up with a gloved hand.

“Maybe we’ll get some prints after all,” he said.

Conklin and I left Claire and Hanni with the bodies of the victims and went outside. The first officer pointed out an attractive woman standing at the front of the now-thinning crowd at the edge of the lawn.

“That’s the woman who called it in. Her name is Debra Kurtz,” the cop told me. “She lives directly across the street.”

Kurtz was in her late forties, five four or so, a tad too thin, maybe anorectic, wearing black spandex running gear. Mascaraed tear tracks marked her cheeks. I introduced myself and Conklin, asked Kurtz if she’d known the deceased.

“Steve and Sandy Meacham were my closest friends,” she said. “I called 911 when I saw the fire. God, oh, God, it was already too late.”

“Mind coming down to the station with us?” I asked. “We need to know everything we can about your friends.”

Chapter 44

DEBRA KURTZ WAS DRINKING day-old coffee in the smaller, cleaner of our two interview rooms. “The Meachams were the greatest couple in the world,” she told us tearfully.

“Any reason you can think that anyone would want to hurt them?” I asked.

“I’m going to the soft drink machine downstairs,” Conklin said to Kurtz. “Can I get you something else?”

She shook her head no.

When Conklin was gone, Kurtz leaned across the table and told me about Sandy ’s drinking and that both Sandy and Steven had had casual affairs. “I don’t think that means anything, but just so you know.”

Kurtz told me that the Meachams had two children; a boy, Scott, nineteen or so, away at college, and a girl, Rebecca, older and married, living in Philadelphia. Kurtz choked up again, as though something painful was stuck in her gut – or her conscience.

“Is there something else you want to tell me, Debra? Something going on between you and Steven Meacham?”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, there was.”

Kurtz watched the door as she talked, as if she wanted to finish talking before Conklin returned. She said, “I hated myself for cheating on Sandy. It’s hard to explain, but in a way I loved her as much as I loved Steve.”

I pushed a box of tissues over to her side of the table as Conklin came back into the interrogation room. He was holding a computer printout.

“You have a rap sheet, Ms. Kurtz,” said Conklin, pulling out a chair. “That kinda surprised me.”

“I was in grief,” the woman told us, her gray eyes flooding anew. “I didn’t hurt anyone but myself.”

Conklin turned the pages toward me.

“You were arrested for burglary.”

“My boyfriend talked me into it, and I was stupid enough to go along. Anyway, I was acquitted,” Kurtz said.

“You weren’t acquitted,” said Conklin. “You got probation. I think you made a deal to flip on your boyfriend, am I right? Oh, and then there’s the arson.”

“Randy, my husband Randy, was dead. I wanted to cut my heart out,” she said, pounding her chest with her fist. “I set fire to our house because it was the only way I could see what I felt. The bottomless grief.”

I leaned back in my chair. I think my mouth may have dropped open. Debra Kurtz reacted to the shock on my face.

“It was my own house,” she shouted. “I didn’t even file an insurance claim. I only hurt myself, do you understand? I only hurt myself!”

“Had Steven Meacham broken off your affair?”

“Yes. But it was weeks ago, and it was mutual.”

“You weren’t a little angry?” Conklin asked. “Didn’t feel a little bottomless grief?”

“No, no, whatever you’re thinking, I didn’t set fire to the Meachams’ house. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”

We asked Debra Kurtz where she was when the Malone house burned, and we asked her if she knew her way around Palo Alto. She had alibis, and we wrote everything down. What she told us added up to a crazy woman with a burning desire to both destroy and self-destruct.

It added up, and yet it didn’t add up at all. And now it was half past five in the morning.

“You have any trips planned, Debra?” Conklin said, in his charming way.

She shook her head. “No.”

“Good. Please don’t leave town without letting us know.”

Chapter 45

JOE WAS STILL ASLEEP when I crawled into bed. I gently shoved Martha out of my spot and snuggled up to Joe’s back, wanting to wake him up so that I could tell him what was bugging me. Joe turned toward me, pulled me close to his body, buried his face in my smoky hair.

“Have you been barhopping, Blondie?”

“House fire,” I said. “Two dead.”

“Like the Malones?”

“Just like the Malones.”

I threw an arm across his chest, rested my face in the crook of his neck, exhaled loudly.

“Talk to me, honey,” Joe said.

Excellent.

“It’s about this woman, Debra Kurtz,” I said, as Martha got back up on the bed, turned around a couple of times, then curled into the hollow behind my legs, pinning me in.

“Lives across the street from the victims. She called in the fire.”

“Firebugs often do.”

“Right. Says she got up for a glass of water, saw the flames. Called the fire department, then joined the crowd watching them put the fire out.”

“She was still standing there when you arrived?”

“She’d been there for hours. Said she was best friends with the female victim, Sandy Meacham, and she’d also been sleeping with the second victim, Sandy ’s husband -”

“Weird definition of best friend.”

I had to laugh. “Sleeping with her best friend’s husband until he dumped her. This Debra Kurtz has a key to the victims’ house. She also has a sheet. An old arrest for burglary. And guess what else? Arson.”

“Hah! She knows her way around the system. So she what? Sets fire to the house across the street – and just waits for the cops to take her in?”

“That’s what I’m saying, Joe. The whole package is too much. Kurtz had the means, the motive, the opportunity. ‘Hell hath no fury’ – plus once a firebug, you know, it’s a hard rush to kick.”

“She strike you as a killer?” Joe asked me.

“She struck me as a pathetic narcissist, in need of attention.”

“You got that right.”

I gave Joe a kiss. Then I gave him a few more, just loving the feeling of his rough cheek against my lips, his mouth on mine, and the fact of him, big and warm and in my bed.

“Don’t start something you’re too tired to finish, Blondie,” he growled at me.

I laughed again. Hugged him tight. Said, “Ms. Kurtz insists she didn’t do it. So what I’m thinking is…” My thoughts drifted back to the victims, soot-blackened water lapping around their bodies.

“What you’re thinking,” Joe prompted.

“I’m thinking either she set this fire because she’s so completely self-destructive, she wants to get caught. Or she did it and maybe she didn’t plan for her friends to die. Or else…”

“Your gut is telling you that she didn’t do it. That she’s just a total wackjob.”

“There ya go,” I said to my sweetheart. “There… ya… go…”

When I woke up, my arms were entwined around Martha, Joe was gone, and I was late for my meeting with Jacobi.

Chapter 46

I MET CLAIRE at her car after work. I moved a pair of galoshes, a flashlight, her crime scene kit, a giant bag of barbecued potato chips, and three maps into the backseat and then climbed up into the passenger side of her Pathfinder. I said, “Richie got a translation of that Latin phrase that was written inside that yachting book.”

“Oh yeah? And what did it mean?” she said, pulling her seat belt low across her belly, stretching it to the limit before locking it in place.

I cinched my seat belt, too, said, “It roughly translates as ‘Money is the root of all evil.’ I’d like to get my hands on the sucker who wrote that and show him the victims all crispy and curled up on your table. Show him what real evil is.”

Claire grunted. “You got that right,” she said, and pulled the car out onto Bryant heading us north, apparently deciding to take the 1.8 miles to Susie’s like she was racing the Daytona 500. She jerked the wheel around a slow-cruising sightseer, stepping on the gas. “You’re saying ‘him,’ ” Claire pointed out. “So that Debra Kurtz person is off your list?”

“She has an alibi,” I told Claire through clenched teeth. I grabbed the dashboard as she cleared the yellow light. “Also, her alibis check out for the nights of the Malone fire and the Jablonskys in Palo Alto.”

“Humph,” Claire said. “Well, about the two legible fingerprints on that bottle found at the scene. One belongs to Steven Meacham. The other didn’t match to anybody. But I’ve got something for you, girlfriend. Sandy Meacham had a good-sized blunt-force wound to the skull. Looks like she got clobbered with maybe a gun butt.”

I thought about that – that the killer had gotten violent – then I told Claire how the canvass of the Meacham neighborhood had netted us no leads whatsoever. She gave me the results of the blood screen – that Sandy Meacham had been drinking, and that the Meachams had both died of smoke inhalation.

It was all interesting, but none of it added up to a damned thing. I said so to Claire as she pulled into the handicapped zone right in front of Susie’s Café.

She looked at me and said, “I am handicapped, Linds. I’m carrying fifty pounds of baby fat, and I can’t walk a block without huffing.”

“I’m not going to write you up for this, Butterfly. But as for the land speed record you just set in a business district…”

My best friend kissed my cheek as I helped her down out of the Pathfinder. “I love that you worry about me.”

“Lotta good it does,” I said, hugging her, cracking open the door to Susie’s.

As we plowed through the gang at the bar toward the back room, the plinking steel-band version of a Bob Marley classic surrounded us, as well as the divine aromas of roasting chicken, garlic, and curry. Cindy and Yuki were already at our booth, and Lorraine dragged up a chair for Claire. She dropped laminated menus that we knew by heart onto the table and took our order for a pitcher of tap and mineral water for Claire.

And then with Cindy urging her on – “Yu-ki, tell them, tell them” – Yuki “volunteered” her news.

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Okay. I had a date. With Jason Twilly.”

“And you were careful what you said to him,” Cindy said, sternly. “You remembered that he’s a reporter.”

“We didn’t talk about the case at all,” Yuki said, laughing. “It was dinner. A very nice dinner, no kissing or anything, so all you guys calm down, okay?”

“Was it fun? Are you going to see him again?”

“Yeah, yeah, if he asks me, I suppose I will.”

“Jeez. First date in what, a year?” I said. “Think you’d be more excited.”

“It hasn’t been a year,” Yuki said. “It’s been sixteen months, but never mind that. What’re we toasting?”

“We’re toasting Ruby Rose,” said Claire, lifting her water glass.

“Who?” we all asked in unison.

“Ruby Rose. She’s right here,” Claire said, patting her belly. “That’s the name Edmund and I picked out for our little baby girl.”

Chapter 47

WHEN I RETURNED home from Susie’s, the sun was still hanging above the horizon, splashing orange light on the hood of a squad car parked right outside my apartment.

I bent to the open car window, said, “Hey there. Something wrong?”

“You got a couple of minutes?”

I said, “Sure,” and my partner opened the car door, unfolded his long legs, and walked over to my front steps, where he sat down. I joined him. I didn’t like the look on Rich’s face as he opened a pack of cigarettes and offered me one.

I shook my head no, then said, “You don’t smoke.”

“Old habit making a brief return visit.”

I’d kicked tobacco once or twice myself, and now I felt the pull of the many-splendored ritual as the match sparked, the tip of the cigarette glowed, and Rich released a long exhalation into the dusky air.

“Kelly Malone is calling me every day so I can tell her that we’ve got nothing. Had to tell her about the Meachams.”

I murmured sympathetically.

“She says she can’t sleep, thinking how her parents died. She’s crying all the time.”

Rich coughed on the smoke and waved his hand to tell me that he couldn’t talk anymore. I understood how helpless he felt. The Malones’ deaths were shaping up to be a part of a vicious serial killing spree. And we were clueless.

I said, “He’s going to screw up, Richie, they almost always do. And we’re not in this alone. Claire, Hanni -”

“You like Hanni?”

“Sure. Don’t you?”

Conklin shrugged. “Why does he know so much and so little at the same time?”

“He’s doing what we’re doing. Wading through the sludge. Trying to make sense of the senseless.”

“Good word for it. Sludging. We’re sludging, and the killer is laughing – but hell, I’m a bright guy. I can translate Latin platitudes into English! That’s worth something. Isn’t it?”

I was laughing with Rich as he joked himself out of his blue mood when I saw a black sedan crawling slowly up the street in search of a parking spot. It was Joe.

“Oh, look. Stay and meet Joe,” I said. “He’s heard a lot about you.”

“Nah, not tonight, Linds,” said Rich, standing up, grinding out the butt of his cigarette on the pavement. “Maybe some other time. See you in the morning.”

Joe’s car stopped.

Richie’s car pulled out of the spot.

Then Joe’s car pulled in.

Chapter 48

“YOU EVER USE THIS THING?” Joe was asking me about the stove.

“Sure I do.”

“Uh-huh? So what’s this?”

He pulled a user’s manual and some Styrofoam packing out of the oven.

“I use the stove top,” I said.

He shook his head, laughed at me, asked if I could open the wine and start the salad. I said I thought I could handle that. I uncorked the chardonnay, tore a head of romaine into a pretty blown-glass bowl Joe had given me, and sliced up a tomato. I reached around Joe for the olive oil and spices, patted his cute behind. Then I settled onto a stool near the counter, kicked off my shoes.

I sipped my wine and with a Phil Collins CD playing in the background, listened to Joe talk about three accounts he’d landed for his new disaster-preparedness consultancy and his upcoming meeting with the governor. Joe was happy. And I was glad that he was using his modern, larger, fancier apartment as his office – and making himself at home right here.

And my apartment was a darned cute place, I have to say. My four cluttered but cozy rooms are on the third floor of a nice old Victorian town house, and there’s a deck off the living room where the sun sets on my sliver view of the bay. It was becoming our sliver view of the bay.

I topped up Joe’s wineglass, watched him stuff a couple of tilapias with crabmeat and slide the pan into the oven. He washed his hands and turned his handsome self to me.

“The fish will be ready in about forty-five minutes. Want to go outside and catch the last rays?”

“Not really,” I said.

I put down my glass, hooked my leg around Joe’s waist, and pulled him to me, grinning as I saw my better idea flash into Joe’s blue eyes. He drew me closer, slid me off the stool, and gathered me up, cupping my butt and grunting theatrically as he carried me down the hallway, saying, “You’re a load, Blondie.”

I laughed, bit his earlobe, said, “You didn’t think 130 was a load when you were younger.”

“Like I said. Light as a feather.”

He dropped me softly onto the bed, crawled in next to me, took my face in his big hands, and gave me a kiss that made me groan. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and Joe did the almost impossible, pulled off his shirt and kissed me at the same time, tugged off my pants, and also somehow managed to kick the door shut to keep Martha out of our private moments.

“You’re amazing,” I said, laughing.

“You haven’t seen anything, yet, baby doll,” my lover growled.

Soon we were both naked, our skin hot and slick, limbs completely wrapped around each other. But as we grappled together, making the delicious climb to ecstasy, an image of another man came winging into my mind.

I fought it hard, because I didn’t want him there.

That man was Richie.