First to Die

ChapterS!

THIS WAS WHY I had become a homicide detective. I rushed back to the office, my head whirling with how to get my hands on this lost book, when the next bombshell hit. It was McBride. "Are you sitting?" he asked, as if he were about to deliver the coup de grace. "Nicholas Jenks was here in Cleveland. The night of the Hall of Fame murders. The son of a bitch was here." Jenks had lied right to my face. He hadn't even blinked. It was now clear; the unidentifiable man at the Hall of Fame had been him after all. He had no alibi. McBride explained how his men had scoured the local hotels. Finally, they uncovered that Jenks had been at the Westin, and amazingly, he had registered under his own name. A desk clerk working there that night remembered him. She knew it the minute she saw Jenks -she was a fan. My mind raced with the ramifications. This was all McBride needed. They had a prior relationship with the victim, a possible sighting at the scene. Now Jenks was placed in his town. He had even lied under questioning. "Tomorrow, I'm going to the district attorney for an indictment," McBride announced. "As soon as we have it, I want you to pick Nicholas Jenks up." The truth hit me like a sledgehammer. We could lose him to Cleveland. All the evidence, all those right hunches, wouldn't help us. Now we might only be able to tag on a concurrent life sentence at a second trial. The Brandts and the Weils, the De Georges and the Passeneaus would be crushed. Mercer would go ballistic. I was left with an absolutely demoralizing choice: Either pick Jenks up and hold him for McBride, or make our move now with less than an airtight case. I should run this up the ladder, the voice sounded in my head. But the voice in my heart said run it by the girls.