Two more murder books followed the first, one marked GODFREY, 1982, and the other, KENNEDY, 1982.
“What is all this?” I asked as McCorkle shifted the three binders to my overflowing desk.
“Patience, my pretty. This is the final one. Christopher Ross. He was the last to go, died in December nineteen eighty-two.”
“McCorkle, my man, fill me in.”
“I’m going to tell you everything, and maybe you, me, and Conklin here are all going to get some closure.”
I leaned back in my chair. There were people in the world who lived for an audience, and Simon McCorkle was one of them.
It partly came from being in that lab all the way out there on Hunters Point. It also came from obsessing about cold cases and colder bodies.
But there was another thing. Whether he solved the crime today or next month, St. Jude was always sinking free throws, scoring points that wouldn’t have been made without him. His job made for excellent storytelling.
“Here’s what these victims all had in common.” McCorkle leaned forward in his chair, put a beefy arm across the folders so that I was staring at a hairy, half- naked hula girl on his personal tattoo beach.
“The victims were all high-society types. They all died showing no signs of foul play. But the last victim, this Christopher Ross – the killer left the murder weapon at the crime scene. And a very distinctive weapon it was.”
I was just out of school when this terrible killing spree ended, so I hadn’t fastened on the particulars of this case – but it was coming back to me now, why those cases were unsolved.
McCorkle grinned as he watched the dawn breaking inside my poor, tired brain. I did remember.
“It was a distinctive murder weapon, all right,” I said to my Erin go bro. “Those victims were killed by snakes.”
Chapter 55
RICH CONKLIN had dinner that evening with Cindy at a Thai restaurant across the street from her apartment.
It was not a date, they’d both been very clear about that, but she was twinkling at him as she passed him the files she’d printed out, all the stories on the “high-society murders of nineteen eighty-two” that had run in the Chronicle before the personal computer was as common as the telephone.
“I’m trusting you,” she said. “If you tell anyone I gave you this stuff from our ‘morgue,’ I’m going to be in the soup.”
“Wouldn’t want any soup on you,” Conklin said.
“So fair’s fair,” said Cindy. “I share, you share.”
Cindy had a rhinestone clip in her hair. Very few girls older than eight could pull off rhinestone barrettes at the same time they were wearing pink, but Cindy somehow looked 100-percent delicious.
And Conklin was absolutely mesmerized watching her strip the meat from a chicken wing with her lips, so delicately and at the same time with such pleasure.
“Rich,” she said, “fair’s fair. It’s clear that you see a connection between the Baileys and Sara Needleman and the nineteen eighty-two society killings. But are you thinking that the killer from all those years ago has gone back into the murder business?”
“See, the question is, can I trust you, Cindy? Because, actually, you’re not so trustworthy.”
“Awwww. You just have to say the magic words.”
“Please, Cindy.”
“Richieee. What you want to say is ‘off the record.’ I’d go to jail before I’d go back on ‘off the record.’ ”
Rich laughed, sat back, let the waiter take away the remains of his sea bass, said, “Thanks for telling me. I don’t want you to go to jail. But you realize I’d be in more than soup if I leaked this story to your paper.”
“You don’t have to worry. Number one, I promise.” She made the Girl Scout oath hand sign, three fingers up, thumb over her pinky. “Two, you’re going off the record. And three, it’s not my story,” she said. “I’m working the Bagman Booker case, remember?”
“Okay, off the record, Cindy. You read the files. Back in eighty-two rich people were killed, turns out by snakebites, and yeah, maybe the killer is coming out of retirement. Maybe he’s bored. Wouldn’t be the first time. The BTK killer, for instance.”
“Oh man, that guy,” said Cindy, shaking her head, rhinestones flashing. “ ‘Bind them, torture them, kill them.’ That guy still gives me the creeps. Worked for a home-security company, I seem to remember. Mr. Regular Dad, Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club, whatever.”
“Yep. He was a homebody for about twenty-five years after his last killing. Then one day he realizes life had more punch when he was taunting cops, getting headlines. So he starts sending letters out to newspapers and TV stations. His ego trips him up and he gets nailed.”
“So you’re thinking the society killer of nineteen eighty-two is the same guy who killed the Baileys and Sara Needleman?”
Conklin signaled the waiter for the check. “Possibly.”
“Wouldn’t that be something?” Cindy said.
She was looking at him like he’d done something wrong, so he said, “Oh, sorry, did you want anything else? Ice cream or something?”
“I was just thinking. I’m not finished talking about this. I finally unpacked my cappuccino machine, Rich.”
Conklin watched her twirl a curl around her finger. He smiled and said, “Are you inviting me over for coffee?”
Chapter 56
MCCORKLE AND I were in the squad room having congealed Chinese take-out as we went over the murder books.
McCorkle flapped open the one marked PANGORN, said, “April Pangorn was a beautiful young widow, only twenty-eight and very wealthy. According to Inspector Sparks’s notes, she had many chums of both sexes.”
“Says here Ms. Pangorn was found dead in her bed, no marks or bruises,” I said. “Just like the Baileys and Sara Needleman.”
“Right you are, which is why it wasn’t considered a homicide until Frank Godfrey dropped dead.”
McCorkle gnawed on a cold sparerib, tossed the bone into the trash as I opened the Godfrey book, started flipping the pages to follow along as St. Jude narrated.
“Godfrey, Frank. White male, forty-five, retired prizefighter, owned a piece of Raleigh ’s.
“It’s closed now, but then it was a very old-school club, red velvet on the walls, humidors on the bar, gambling in the back room. Frankie kept busy in his deluxe apartment in the sky. Very busy. He liked women – in multiples – and he liked to spend money. Look here, Lindsay. The photo of the scene.”
The victim was lying facedown on the bedroom floor, looked to me like he might have been crawling to the bathroom just visible at the edge of the frame.
McCorkle was saying, “Homicide thought maybe Frank was murdered, but the ME couldn’t find the cause. Negative autopsy, negative toxicology. Positive mystery.
“Next up. Patrick Kennedy was a banker,” said McCorkle, reaching across the table, grabbing the third book. “He was gay, a top secret fact that came out when he died, because everything was shaking out.
“There were three ultrarich people dead in a couple of months under suspicious circumstances. Things got a little desperate here in the Southern Division. A Lieutenant Leahy took over for Inspector Sparks, spent about a month interviewing every gay man in San Francisco.” McCorkle laughed. “Half of them ‘knew’ Paddy. Sorry,” he said. “But think about it. And then, a month later, Christopher Ross died.”
“And what was his story?” I asked. I broke open a fortune cookie, read the little squib of paper to McCorkle. “ ‘A good friend will give you the answer.’ ”
I gave McCorkle a soft punch to one of his humongous arms. “Get on with it, buddy. How did the cops find out about the snakes? Spill it, Jude.”
Chapter 57
MCCORKLE LAUGHED at me.
“Boxer, I’m talking as fast as I can.”
“Talk faster.”
I pounded the Godfrey murder book in jest, but I was starting to get really scared. Four society people had mysteriously died in ’82.
We already had three similar, if not identical, deaths within the same week.
I hadn’t fully believed that our unmarked deaths were homicides – but I did now. And I could see that if we were looking at the same killer, he was slippery, smart, and very organized.
“Christopher Ross,” I said. “The final victim.”
“Christopher Ross,” said McCorkle, opening the fourth murder book to one of the morgue photos. “He was a forty-two-year-old white man. Rich as God. Born into old money. He was a family man who fooled around on the side. Some said he even had another family right here in town.
“Look at his kisser there, Boxer. Even dead, Chris Ross was a looker. His wife was one of those women who just put up with his breaking his vows. People said Chris was her lifelong sweetheart, and she loved him. And then, suddenly, he was found stone dead in his own bed – and this was why.”
McCorkle turned to the back of the Ross murder book.
“Here’s your murder weapon,” he said.
It was what I’d been waiting for – and it was nothing like what I expected. The snake was pinned to a board alongside a yardstick showing that the reptile was twenty-one inches long.
I just couldn’t drag my eyes away from that snake.
It was delicate, banded in bluish-gray and white, looked more like jewelry than a killer.
“This snake is a krait,” McCorkle was saying. “Incredibly lethal. Comes from India, so someone imported it. Illegally. No signs of a break-in at any of the victims’ houses.”
“So how did the snake get there?”
McCorkle shrugged expansively.
“And this one snake killed the other victims?” I asked.
“Maybe not this particular snake, Lindsay, but a snake just like it. The first three bodies were exhumed and examined microscopically. The ME, a Dr. Wetmore, found the bite marks on all four victims.
“And according to Dr. Wetmore, the marks were damned hard to see with the naked eye. They were like pinpricks, easily missed if you weren’t looking for them. And according to his report, there was no swelling or discoloration around the bite marks.”
“What about suspects?” I asked.
“Mrs. Christopher Ross inherited fifty million bucks. She was interrogated repeatedly, kept under surveillance. Her phones were tapped, but no one believed she did it. She had her own money. She had everything.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Died in a car accident two or three years after her husband’s death. And there never was another serious suspect.”
“Simon, did the victims know one another?”
“Some did, some didn’t, but one thing they all had in common was that they were all very rich. And something else, maybe you can use it.
“The lead investigator, Lieutenant Leahy, made an unfortunate aside to his deputy at a press conference and the mic was open. A reporter ran with it.”
“Don’t make me beg, McCorkle.”
“Leahy said, and I quote, ‘The victims were twisted – sexually and morally corrupt.’ ”
McCorkle was telling me that the sky fell on Leahy after his comment ran in the Chronicle, that he relocated to Omaha not long after that. But I was far from Omaha. I was thinking about a dainty little Indian snake that left almost imperceptible bite marks.
Claire didn’t know anything about this.
I had to call her.
Chapter 58
RICH’S EYES ADJUSTED to the dim light in Cindy’s apartment. He’d been here a year and a half ago when a murdering psycho was at large in the building – a situation that couldn’t possibly be more different from this.
He and Cindy were alone. They’d been drinking. And Cindy was fussing with her multipart cappuccino machine as if she were really going to make coffee.
How had this happened?
Had wishing made it true?
As Cindy piled coffee-machine parts onto the countertop, Rich’s mind deleted her pink sweater and her tight pants, ran his hands all over her, refusing to peer any farther into the future than, say, an hour from now.
He couldn’t think about later.
He hadn’t planned for this.
“What’s your bird’s name?” he asked, walking over to the large brass cage on a table near the window. The bird was white and peach, with scaly claws and a black beak. Reminded him of a junkyard dawg.
“That’s Peaches,” said Cindy, coming up behind Rich, standing so close he could feel her breasts pressing against his back. “He was lonely in the pet store…”
Rich turned to Cindy, and her arms went around his neck. He drew her close and kissed her.
It was a perfect first kiss, no clashing of noses or teeth, Rich smelling flowers, tasting watermelon lip gloss and white wine, Cindy’s strong little body pressing hard against him, making him feel like he was going to burst out of his clothes like the freaking Hulk, when Peaches shrieked, “Kill the bitch! Kill the bitch!”
“He was abused,” Cindy said softly, with a melting look on her face as much as saying, “Take me to bed.”
“That’s too bad,” Rich said.
He reached into her hair and unfastened the rhinestone clip, and a torrent of blond curls jumped into his hand.
“Ohhhh,” Cindy said.
Still standing in front of the bird, Rich gently removed Cindy’s diamond studs, placing first one and then the other on the table, seeing her skin flush from the V of her sweater up to her eyes as her breathing cranked to about sixty miles per hour.
She hooked her hand around his belt.
He kissed her again and she moaned, then opened her hazy blue eyes and said, “You’re a little fast for me, Rich, but please. Don’t stop.”
He grinned at her, said, “How about a coffee break?”
“Later,” she said, taking his hand, pulling him through the living room and back to her bedroom.
Once there, she turned on the bedside lamp with its pink bulb and gauzy shade, stood in front of him, and lifted her arms like a little girl. He pulled off her sweater. He ran his fingers across the tops of her breasts, which were swelling out of her pink lace demibra, her nipples hardening behind the lace.
She unhooked her bra, breasts spilling out, sat down on the bed, and wriggled out of her pants. He ripped his shirttails from his waistband, and Cindy leaned forward to help with the last of his shirt buttons, undo his belt buckle, and hug him around the waist, resting her cheek against his zipper.
His clothing flew into the corner of the room, and then they were lying side by side in her bed, glued together, all panting and skin-on-skin, Rich slipping his hands into the flimsy fabric of her panties, making them disappear.
There was a fumbling moment, Cindy finding a square of foil in her nightstand, opening the packet with her teeth – and then he was inside her, making love to the beautiful woman with the curly blond hair who breathed, “Oh, oh, oh,” into his ear, and he held her tight until the shock waves overtook him and he cried out into her pillow.
Rich was awoken sometime later by the sound of the telephone on the nightstand, Cindy silky and warm in his arms, whispering, “Let’s not tell Lindsay.”
“Why not?”
“She’ll spoil it.”
Rich nodded his agreement – he would have agreed to anything – and then he heard Yuki’s voice coming over Cindy’s answering machine.
“Cindy. Cindy, pick up. Where are you? I have to talk to you. Damn. Call me, okay? Love you.”
Cindy held Rich’s face with one hand, reached down with the other hand and gave him a little tug, breathed, “Richie? Can you stay?”
Chapter 59
CLAIRE AND I were huddled around her office computer at seven fifteen in the morning, caffeine free, reading an e-mail to Claire from Michelle Koo, a senior herpetologist at Berkeley.
Claire read aloud, “ ‘Dear Claire, two of the most familiar families of venomous snakes are the Elapidae and the Viperidae,’ ” she said, neatly rounding the corners of the Latin, “ ‘
or, rather, elapid snakes and viperid snakes. Kraits are in the Elapidae family. The venom of elapids are neurotoxins, are typically faster-acting than viperids, and leave better-looking corpses.’ ”
“Better-looking corpses, indeed,” I said, breathing over her shoulder. “You could even say museum quality.”
“ ‘The kraits’ bites are often painless,’ ” Claire read on, “ ‘and this gives the victim a false sense of security.’ ”
“So that’s why the Baileys didn’t call for help.”
“I’m thinking the same thing, Linds. Or maybe they never knew they were in trouble. The Baileys had high blood-alcohol. Needleman, too. In medicalspeak, they were all zonked.
“Here,” Claire went on, “Michelle writes, ‘The symptoms can include stomach cramps and dizziness, dilated pupils and slurred speech, inability to swallow, heart arrhythmia, respiratory failure, and falling into a coma. Death can come in six to eight hours.’ ”
I had stopped reading the text and had fastened on the photo of the krait, the same beguilingly lovely elapid I’d seen lined up along a yardstick in the Christopher Ross murder book.
“Michelle says, ‘Death is directly due to the neurotoxicity of the venom as it acts on fundamental chemical pathways that keep our muscles working.’ And that’s the main thing, girlfriend. The muscles can’t work. So the victim can’t breathe. And the neurotoxin is metabolized so fast, even if you knew what to look for – which we didn’t – nothing shows up on the tox screen.”
I said to my best friend, “So if there’s no neurotoxin left in the victims’ bodies by the time they die, how can you prove what killed them?”
Claire opened a desk drawer, rooted around, cried, “Gotcha!” and pulled out a magnifying glass the size of a saucer.
“I’m going to do precisely what old Doc Wetmore did. Go over my patients’ bodies with a glass and a bright light,” she said. “Look for itty-bitty puncture wounds that might’ve been caused by fangs.”
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