First to Die

Chapter 122

WITHIN MINUTES, two blue-and-whites screeched to a stop outside. I directed the patrol officers upstairs to the grisly body of Joanna, but my thoughts had turned to Chris. And whoever he wos/oHowing. I had been up in the apartment for ten, maybe twelve minutes, without a word from him. I was worried. He was following a murderer, and a murderer who had just killed Joanna Wade. I ran downstairs to an open patrol car. `:21' I called in what had happened to Command Central. A riot of doubts was crashing in my mind. Could it somehow have beenjenks after all? Could Jill have been right? Was he manipulating us, right from the start? Had he set everything up, even the sighting in Pacific Heights? But if it was him, why? Why, after I had told him I believed him? Why would he kill her now? Was Joanna's death some404 thing I could have prevented? What in hell was going on? Where was Chris, damn it? My cell phone finally beeped. To my relief it was Chris. "Where are you? You had me scared to death. Don't do that to me." "Down by the marina. The suspect's in a blue Saab." "Chris, be careful. It's not Joanna. Joanna's dead. She was stabbed a bunch of times in her apartment." "Dead?" he repeated. I could feel the frantic question slowly sinking into his mind. "Then who the hell is driving the Saab up ahead of me?" "Tell me where you are exactly." "Chestnut and Scott. The suspect just pulled up to the curb. The suspect is getting out of the car." Somehow, this sounded familiar. Chestnut and Scott? What was down there? In the tumult of blue-and-whites screeching up in front of Joanna's building and reporting in, I raked my mind for a connection. "He's heading away from the car, Lindsay. He's starting to run." Then it hit me. The photo I had picked up at Jenks's house. The beautiful and unmistakable moonlit dome. The Palace of Fine Arts. It was where he had been married. "I think I know where he's going!" I shouted. "The Palace of Fine Arts."