The 5th Horseman

Chapter 56

I’D BEEN TOLD that it was a beautiful fall day, but I sure couldn’t swear to it. I was having ham and Swiss on a roll in my office, with its dark-alley view, when Inspector Conklin knocked on the door.

“Come on in,” I told him.

Conklin was in his shirtsleeves, his brown eyes lit up with something. Whatever it was, I really wanted to know.

“Lou, we’ve got someone in the lunchroom you should meet. Like, right now if you can.”

“What’s going on?”

Conklin started out of my office, saying, “C’mon, Lieutenant,” taking long strides away from me and down the hall.

“Conklin?”

I tossed down the report I’d been editing and followed him to the small, cluttered room that was home to our microwave and yellowing Kenmore fridge.

Jacobi was sitting at the battered table across from a pretty young woman in her early twenties wearing a blue Polarfleece shirt and stretch pants. Her long dark hair was in a braid down her back. She looked up at me with reddened, mascara-smudged eyes.

Clearly, she’d been crying.

Jacobi had his “Uncle Warren” face on. It was short of a smile, but I could read happiness in his eyes.

“Lieutenant,” Jacobi said, “this is Barbara Jane Ross. She was throwing out newspapers when she found this.”

He pushed the newsprint picture of Jag Girl into the center of the table, the pretty blond girl we’d found displayed like a mannequin in the Jaguar convertible on Chestnut Street.

Innumerable dead-end tips had flooded our phone lines since Jag Girl’s picture had run in the Chronicle. From the look on Jacobi’s face, I knew this young woman had something valuable to say.

Barbara Jane Ross and I shook hands. Hers were cold as ice. “May I see that?” I asked of the photo she clutched in her left hand.

“Sure,” she said, handing me a snapshot of herself and Jag Girl on the beach. Both girls were wearing wide-brimmed hats and small bikinis; they had identical braids, and both were grinning broadly.

“She was my college roommate,” said Barbara Jane, her eyes scrunching up with tears. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe that Sandy is dead.”