20th Victim: (Women’s Murder Club 20) (Women's Murder Club)

by James Patterson

  Three hours later, when we were sipping our coffee and sampling the wondrous variety of sweets, we convinced Dave to talk about himself.

  “Joey knows this, Lindsay, but my mom passed away just before you two got married. My dad and I were always close. But working together has really given us a—I don’t know what else to call it—a deep friendship.”

  Dave sighed.

  Joe put his hand on Dave’s arm and asked him what was wrong.

  Dave said, “Dad’s sick, in the hospital, and I’m very worried.”

  “Why? What happened?” Joe asked.

  “He has a thoracic aortic aneurysm brought on by high blood pressure. It’s grown to the size that might require surgery. His doctor prescribed him beta-blockers but says he’s got age-related system breakdown. But I’m not buying it. He’s seventy-two. He’s never been sick before.”

  Joe said, “I’m sorry to hear this, Dave.”

  “If you have any time, Joe, I know he’d like to see you. He was our biggest fan.”

  Joe looked down at the table. I’m pretty sure he was flashing back on those college football years, their families screaming from the stands.

  Joe lifted his eyes, looked at his friend, and asked, “When would be a good time to see him?”

  CHAPTER 10

  AS WE PULLED out of the parking lot, I told Joe, “He’s great, Joe. I feel bad for him.”

  “It was good to see him. Hey, you’re sure it’s okay?”

  “Of course. You go see his dad and I’ll go to the spa.”

  Joe nodded, said, “I’ll be back in time for dinner.”

  “Perfect,” I said. I was thinking of a massage, some kind of exotic wrap. Freak out the guys at work by getting a manicure. I could almost hear Brady saying, “What happened to you, Boxer?”

  I grinned, but when I turned to share my joke with Joe, he was in deep thought.

  He saw me out of the corner of his eye and said, “I can’t help but think about what his life might have been but for that bad turn in the road.” And then, “I think that a lot of guys who play pro ball have broken lives. Not just physically, but the fame and money and disappointments, all of that. I’m just glad he’s the Dave I know.”

  I nodded my agreement.

  He said, “And you, sweetie? How was your lunch?”

  “It was fabulous, the best meal I’ve ever had, and you know why? Because you thought of it, Joe. You made this great plan in a split second. You called Dave and got it done. You spent a bundle on lunch.”

  “What about the food? You didn’t mention the food.”

  “Well, may I be honest? I’m sure that I’m crazy and I should have loved the farm lamb and that steak thing and the green-pea puree and the whatever, but you know what I liked the best?”

  “Let me guess,” Joe said. “That little glazed donut at the end. Like a mini Krispy Kreme.”

  “Come on. How’d you know?”

  “One, you’re a cop. And two, you were making some very sexy noises.”

  “Huh. Maybe I was thinking about you.”

  “You were not.”

  “And since I’m going to the spa, I should be very relaxed and dreamy and smelling like flowers when you get back.”

  “Hold that thought,” said Joe.

  CHAPTER 11

  THE MILLIKEN CREEK Inn is perched on a terraced hillside with views of the Napa River.

  I came back from the spa to our room with its balcony view of the river, its fireplace, and its huge bed with a novel feeling. I felt no stress whatsoever. No rush. No hurry. No worry. Nowhere to go and nothing to do—but rest.

  I dressed in a white robe and a pair of socks, then climbed aboard the California king with its down comforter and regal headboard. I woke up to Joe calling my name, flipping on the lights in the darkening room.

  “Sorry, Linds. Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “What time is it?”

  “Seven something. Seven twenty. When we came back from seeing Ray, Dave and I got into a pile of yearbooks and photo albums, and then, of course, I told him everything Julie has said and done since she was born.”

  I said, “Oh, man. All caught up now?”

  Joe laughed, asked, “Do you want to go to the restaurant for dinner?”

  I shook my head no. I was so comfortable.

  “Me neither. I want to clean up and get into bed. But wait,” he said.

  He sat on the side of the bed and phoned room service, ordered cheese and fruit for two, basket of bread, bottle of Channing Winery Sauvignon Blanc, concluding with, “You got some candles? Good. Twenty minutes would be great.”

  He hung up the phone, shucked his jacket, came back to the bed, and kissed me.

  “God,” he said. “You do smell like flowers.”

  I showed him my newly polished fingers and toes, and he kissed me again, lifted a few strands of my hair away from my eyes.

  “I’ll be back,” he said.

  I fluffed my pillow, gazed out through the sliding doors to the balcony as the glow left the sky, and listened to Joe singing an old rock-and-roll hit in the shower. That oldies station we’d driven to must have gotten stuck in his head.

  “‘Do you love me? Do you love me?’”

  He burst out of the bathroom in a robe singing the chorus.

  “‘Now … that I … can dance.’”

  I laughed and opened my arms to him, and he got into bed.

  I put my arm across his chest. He drew me close, and I tipped my head up and kissed him again, this time putting a little heat into it.

  He said, “Look at us. Two oysters in white. No caviar required.”

  “Call your daughter,” I said, “before it gets too late.”

  Joe got up, found his phone in his jacket pocket, and came back to bed. Together we FaceTimed my sister, her two shrieking little girls fighting over who should tell Uncle Joe about their day. And then we shared a sweet conversation with a sleepy Julie, who I could see was in bed with Martha. Julie said, “Mommy, say ‘woof.’”

  I did it.

  “Nooooo. Say it to Martha!”

  Cat cackled in the background as Julie took the phone to my old dog. I woofed on command. Then Joe and I kissed Julie through the screen of the phone and told her to sleep tight.

  When we were alone again, Joe told me that Ray Channing looked terrible, but that he couldn’t suppress his happiness at seeing Joe again after so many years.

  “Told me I hadn’t changed a bit.”

  We both laughed, and room service knocked and delivered.

  Joe and I sipped wine. We nibbled. We talked, and then Joe put the candle in its little glass globe on the dresser before rolling the cart outside and locking the door.

  He took off his robe and tossed it over a chair, came back to bed, and helped me out of mine.

  “I have a confession,” I said.

  “Now? You wish my chest wasn’t hairy?”

  “I love your hairy chest. The lobster mac and cheese. That was my favorite course.”

  “It beat out the mini donut?”

  “It was the best thing I’ve ever eaten.”

  Joe laughed. “Mac and cheese.”

  “With lobster.”

  “Got it. I think there’s a recipe for that.”

  By eight thirty or so we were making love by enough candlelight for each of us to see into the other’s eyes.

  Joe asked me, “What did you say, Blondie?”

  “I’m so lucky.”

  “Lucky me, too.”

  CHAPTER 12

  TWENTY MINUTES AFTER kissing my child, my husband, and my border collie good-bye, I parked my Explorer under the overpass on Harriet Street.

  It was only a half block to the medical examiner’s office. I wanted to see my best friend, and I thought coffee with Claire would be a nice, soft entry to my Monday-morning return to work.

  I pulled on the heavy glass doors, said “Hey” to Patrick, Claire’s new receptionist, who told me, “Dr. Washburn sa
id go into her office. She’ll be there in a second.”

  Five minutes later Claire and Cindy came through the office door, Claire looking harried, Cindy wearing her deep-in-a-story face. I stood up and put my arms around them both and gave them a group hug.

  “Your hair smells wonderful,” Claire said.

  “I got a hair mask. Me! What’s going on, you two? What’d I miss?”

  Cindy said, “The day you left, did you hear about it? Roger Jennings gets shot in his car leaving the Taco King on Duboce Avenue.”

  “I missed it.”

  “Okay, well, he survives the shooting for a few days, unconscious, never says a word before he passes away late last night. You know who he is? Roger Jennings?”

  “Sure. He was a catcher. Released by the A’s and picked up by the Giants, what—about a year ago? Was the shooter caught?”

  Cindy filled me in. “No one saw the shooter, not even Jennings’s pregnant wife, who was in the seat beside him.”

  Claire said, “The bullet entered through the center of the victim’s neck, severing multiple vertebrae and arteries, before exiting through the left side of his neck.”

  Cindy said, “And someone, the shooter or an accomplice maybe, uses the chaos as cover to write the word Rehearsal on the back window of his Porsche Cayenne.”

  “Rehearsal,” I said, thinking out loud. “The shooting was a trial run. Could be that Jennings was a random person in the wrong place.”

  “Maybe,” said Cindy. “But I’ve been digging into Roger Jennings. I’m thinking he was lining up his next career. A little more dangerous than baseball.”

  “How so?”

  “He was dealing,” she said.

  I said, “That’s a fact?”

  “Trusted sources tell me that Jennings was selling MDMA to his teammates. There may be others. Chi and McNeil are on it. And now,” said Cindy, “I’ve got to get back and file the story.”

  She blew kisses.

  Then she was gone.

  CHAPTER 13

  AS CINDY FLEW out the door, Yuki blew in.

  “I hope there’s coffee in here somewhere.”

  Claire pointed to the coffeemaker, and when we were all topped off, arrayed around Claire’s desk, we started catching up. Claire had been working all weekend, trying to organize the cremains of five bodies recovered from a crack house fire in the Tenderloin.

  “This is the worst,” she said. “Cause of death could be overdose, smoke inhalation, gunshot, all of the above, or none of the above. I doubt I’m going to ID even one of those bodies.”

  Yuki said to me, “Arson is suspected, but it could have been a crack pipe falling onto a pile of newspapers, everyone too whacked out to notice.”

  Claire got up from her desk, saying, “Be right back.”

  I asked Yuki how her case was going, and she said, “This defendant, Clay Warren. When I was working with Zac, I would have been fighting to get this kid released. I would have argued that he was a victim of circumstance. He didn’t know about the drugs. I’d have gotten him to give up the puke who left him literally holding the bag. Now I’m gonna send him to prison for the rest of his dumb-ass life. Talk about cognitive dissonance,” Yuki said.

  She asked about Julie, and I told her that Joe and I were exhausted last night, but Julie didn’t want to sleep. At all. “We compromised, let Julie and Martha into our bed, and our snoring finally knocked them out. Next thing I hear, ‘Mommy! I’m gonna be late for school.’”

  Yuki was laughing when Claire came back and reseated herself her chair. She took a swig of coffee, sighed deeply.

  I asked, “You okay?”

  “Sure,” she said. “I splashed cold water on my face. I want to sign off on these fire victims before I go home tonight. So tell me. You went to the French Laundry?”

  Claire’s receptionist knocked, poked his head in, and said, “Sorry to interrupt. Sergeant, Inspector Conklin just called. He said he needs you to come upstairs.”

  We broke up our little party and hugged Claire good-bye. Yuki and I power walked up the long breezeway that connects the medical examiner’s office to the Hall of Justice.

  An elevator was waiting and we boarded it, Yuki getting out on three. I exited on the fourth floor and found my partner at the entrance to the squad room, putting on his jacket.

  “Good. You’re here, Boxer,” Rich Conklin said. “Double homicide in Saint Francis Wood. We’re catching.”

  CHAPTER 14

  CONKLIN AND I jogged down the fire stairs and through the lobby to the main exit on Bryant.

  He briefed me as we checked out a squad car.

  “The victims are Paul and Ramona Baron.”

  “The record producer?”

  “That’s the one.”

  I pictured Baron. Dark haired. Midforties. Small guy with a Vegas personality. The picture in my mind was of him recently celebrating a movie deal with a big crowd at the club Monroe.

  Rich was telling me, “Their housekeeper, Gretchen Linder, found their bodies when she came to work about a half hour ago. The wife was still breathing, then she died while Linder was calling it in. She’s at the scene now.”

  Conklin got behind the wheel, and while I buckled up and flipped on the sirens, he floored it, the car shooting away from the curb. I held on to the armrest as we sped southwest toward Saint Francis Wood, an affluent old-money enclave, one of those neighborhoods where nothing much ever happened—until it did.

  Apart from a few expletives when jackass drivers failed to give way, Conklin and I didn’t speak again until we arrived at the murder house.

  Three patrol cars were in front of a beautiful old home, about four thousand square feet taking up a double-corner lot. The lawn was mown, shrubbery shorn. The property was as tidy as a freshly made bed.

  We parked between the CSI van and an ambulance, got out of the car.

  I spent a moment taking in the big picture: the multimillion-dollar old homes as far as I could see, ancient trees lining the street. There were two cars parked in the Barons’ driveway, a late-model Mercedes and an Audi, both gleaming. A well-used Honda was parked at the curb along with the three black-and-whites, CSI’s van, and an ambulance. Incongruent crackles and screeching of car radios, dogs barking, horns honking, underscored that shit had happened.

  CSIs waited at their vehicle for a go-ahead. Uniforms taped off the walkway to the house and set up a secondary perimeter, kept traffic moving. The front door of the house at 181 San Anselmo Avenue opened, and Charles Clapper, the CSI director, stepped out and waved us in.

  Conklin and I started up the walk—but were stopped by high-pitched screams. Two young children, a girl of about four and a boy of maybe six, both in pajamas, tore out of the backyard and crossed the lawn toward the street. Conklin and I captured them, while a pretty woman in a pink, bloodstained tunic over jeans called out, “Christopher. DeeDee. Come to Gretchen right now.”

  DeeDee had wrapped herself around my knees. I picked up the little girl and she hugged my neck, hard. Rich held on to her bawling bigger brother until their nanny, also crying, disentangled them and gathered them to her.

  Conklin introduced the nanny, Gretchen Linder, who was distraught. Very.

  “We’re not allowed—that man told us to sit outside and wait. This is—oh, my God. Their parents. These poor kids. I saw Ramona die. I saw … I’m in charge of them. I don’t know what to do,” she said. “Should I take them to my place?”

  It was kind of her to want to take the children home. But that wouldn’t happen.

  Richie said, “We need to take your statement. See that gray Ford next to the ambulance? What do you say I take you all to the police station? We’ll figure out what’s best for the kids, short term. And you can help us figure out what happened here.”

  Linder nodded. She put her hands over her eyes and sobbed, then wiped her face with her sleeve.

  With Richie right behind her, she shepherded the children to the squad car.

  CHAP
TER 15

  “I’VE NEVER SEEN a room like this inside a house,” I said to Clapper.

  Clapper and I stood together in the foyer of the Barons’ house, staring into a screening room that took up most of the ground floor. Wall fixtures threw soft light on a half dozen sectionals arranged in a horseshoe angled toward the wall of large TV screens. Photos of Paul Baron with entertainers he’d produced hung over the back bar.

  I said, “It feels corporate.”

  “Like a first-class airport lounge.”

  At the far end of the screening room, two pairs of wide-open French doors revealed an open-space family/kitchen/ dining room, remains of breakfast still on the table.

  I asked, “Where was the point of entry?”

  Clapper shook his head and said, “The doors and windows were all secured, except the front door. The nanny opened that and shut off the alarm.”

  “What, then? An inside job?”

  Charlie Clapper is not only a former homicide investigator, but he’s a meticulous CSI. He said, “Here’s what I know so far.

  “The basement level is the recording studio, accessed by the elevator over there,” he said, pointing to the door under the rising staircase, “and the stairs at the back of the kitchen.”

  He continued, “The studio is like a big, soundproof safe with professional recording equipment. No windows. A fire door with a bar lock leads to the outside. Air comes through vents from up here. There’s no way to get into that room from the outside unless someone opens the door for you.”

  “So you’re thinking someone let the killer in?”

  “Patience, Boxer. Let’s go upstairs. Four bedrooms and baths, and the Barons had an office off the master. That’s where they were shot dead, one bullet each.”

  “Murder-suicide?”

  “Crossed my mind, but there’s no weapon in the room.”