1st to Die

by James Patterson

  Chapter 115

  CLAIRE’S CALL WOKE ME out of a deep sleep. “Come down here,” her voice commanded.

  I blinked groggily at the clock. It was ten after five. “Come down where?” I moaned.

  “I’m at the damn office. In the damn lab. The guard at the front counter will let you in. Come right now.”

  I heard the urgency in her voice, and it took only seconds for me to come to my senses. “You’re at the lab?”

  “Since two-thirty, sleepyhead. It’s about Nicholas Jenks. I think I found something, and Lindsay, it is a mind-blower.”

  At that hour, it didn’t take me more than ten minutes to get to the morgue. I parked in the circular area outside the coroner’s entrance reserved for official vehicles. I rushed in, my hair uncombed, dressed in a sweatshirt and jeans.

  The guard buzzed me in and let me through. He was expecting me. Claire met me at the entrance to the lab.

  “Okay,” I said, “my expectations are high.”

  She didn’t answer. Only pressed me up against the door of the lab, without a word of greeting or explanation.

  “We’re back at the Hyatt,” she started in. “Murder number one. David Brandt is about to open the door.

  “Pretend you’re the groom,” she said, placing her hand on my shoulder and gently easing me into place, “and I’ll be the killer. I surprise you as you open the door, and stab — right-handed, not that it makes any difference now.”

  She thrust her fist into the space under my left breast. “So you fall, and that’s where we find you, later, at the scene.”

  I nodded, letting her know that I was following along so far.

  “So what do we find around you?” she asked, wide eyed.

  I made a mental picture of the scene. “Champagne bottle, tuxedo jacket.”

  “True, but that’s not where I’m headed.”

  “Blood…a lot of blood.”

  “Closer. Remember, he died of a cardiac, electromechanical collapse. We simply assumed he was scared to death.”

  I stood up, gazed down at the floor. Then suddenly I saw it as if I were there with the body.

  “Urine.”

  “Right!” exclaimed Claire. “We find a small residue of urine. On his shoes, on the floor. About six cubic centimeters’ worth, that I was able to save. It seemed logical that it belonged to the groom — voiding is a natural response to sudden fear, or death. But I was thinking last night, there were traces of urine in Cleveland, too. And here, back at the Hyatt, I never even had it tested. Why would I? I always assumed it was from David Brandt.

  “But if you were here, crumpled on the floor, and I was the killer standing above you, and the pee was here,” she said, pointing to the floor around me, “who the hell’s urine would it be?”

  Our eyes locked in one of those shining moments of epiphany. “The killer’s,” I said.

  Claire smiled at her bright student. “The annals of forensic medicine are rich with examples of murderers ‘getting off’ when they kill, so peeing isn’t so farfetched. Your nerves would be on end. And good old compulsive me, obsessive down to the last detail, refrigerates it in a vial, never knowing what for. And the thing that makes this all come together is, urine can be tested.”

  “Tested? For what?”

  “For sex, Lindsay. Urine can reveal sex.”

  “Jesus, Claire.” I was stunned.

  She took me into the lab to a counter with two microscopes, some chemicals in bottles, and a device I recognized from college chemistry classes as a centrifuge.

  “There aren’t any flashing gender signs in urine, but there are things to look for. First, I took a sample and spun it down in the centrifuge with this KOH stain, which is something we can use to isolate impurities in blood cultures.” She motioned for me to look in the first scope.

  “See… these tiny, filamentlike branches with little clusters of cells like grapes. Candida albicans.”

  I looked at her blankly.

  “Yeast cells, honey. This urine’s laced with high deposits of yeast. Boys don’t get them.”

  I started to smile, but before I could even reply, she dragged me on. “Then I put the other sample under the scope and brought it up three thousand mag. Check this out.”

  I lowered myself over the scope and squinted in.

  “You see those dark, crescent-shaped cells swimming around?” Claire asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Red blood cells. Lots of them.”

  I lifted my head from the scope and looked at her.

  “They wouldn’t show up in a man’s urine. Not to anywhere near this degree. Not unless they’ve got a bleeding kidney, which to my knowledge, none of our principals show any signs of.”

  “Or”— I shook my head slowly — “unless the killer was menstruating.”

  Chapter 116

  I STARED AT CLAIRE as the information settled in my mind. All along, Nicholas Jenks had been telling the truth.

  He hadn’t been in the room when David and Melanie Brandt were killed that night. Nor in Napa. Probably not even near the Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I had hated Jenks so much I couldn’t see past it. None of us had been able to get past the fact that we wanted him to be guilty.

  All the evidence — the hair, the jacket, the champagne — had been an incredible deception. Jenks was a master of the surprise ending, but someone had set the master up.

  I put my arms around Claire and hugged her. “You’re the best.”

  “You’re damn right I am. I don’t know what it proves,” she answered, patting my back, “but the person standing over that poor boy at the murder scene was a woman. And I’m just as sure that she stabbed David Brandt to death with her right hand.”

  My mind was spinning. Jenks was loose, hundreds of cops on the chase — and he was innocent.

  “So?” Claire looked at me and smiled.

  “It’s the second-best news I’ve heard lately,” I said.

  “Second best?”

  I took her hand. I told Claire what Medved had shared with me. We hugged again. We even did a little victory dance. Then both of us got back to work.

  Chapter 117

  UPSTAIRS AT MY DESK, I radioed Jacobi. Poor guy, he was still sitting outside Joanna Wade’s home at the corner of Filbert and Hyde. “You all right, Warren?”

  “Nothing that a shower and a couple of hours of sleep wouldn’t improve.”

  “Tell me what’s going on.”

  “What’s going on?” Jacobi recited, as if he were resentfully going over his log. “Four-fifteen yesterday afternoon, target comes out, struts down the block to Gold’s Gym. Six-ten, target reemerges, proceeds down block to Pasqua Coffee, comes out with plastic bag. I suspect it’s Almond Roast. Goes into the Contempo Casuals boutique, comes out empty. I gotta figure the new fall stuff hasn’t arrived yet, Boxer. She makes her way home. Lights go on on the third floor. Is it chicken I smell? I don’t know — I’m so fucking hungry I might be dreaming. Lights go out about ten-twenty-five. Since then, she’s been doing what I’d like to be doing. Why you got me out here like a rookie, Lindsay?”

  “Because Nicholas Jenks is going to try to find his ex-wife. He believes she’s setting him up. I think he knows that Joanna is the murderer.”

  “You trying to cheer me up, Boxer? Bring meaning into my life?”

  “Maybe. And how’s this… I think she is, too. I want to know immediately if you spot Jenks.”

  Chris Raleigh came in about eight, tossing a surprised look at my bleary eyes and disheveled appearance. “You should try a brush in the morning.”

  “Claire called me at five-ten. I was in the morgue at five-thirty.”

  He looked at me funny. “What the hell for?”

  “It’s a little hard to explain. I want you to meet some friends of mine.”

  “Friends? At eight in the morning?”

  “Uh-huh. My girlfriends.”

  He looked completely confused. “What am I not following here?” />
  “Chris.” I seized his arm. “I think we broke the case.”

  Chapter 118

  AN HOUR LATER, I got everyone together on the Jenks case, hopefully for the last time.

  There had been a few alleged sightings of Nicholas Jenks — in Tiburon down by the marina, and south of Market, huddled around a gathering of homeless men. Both of them proved false. He had eluded us, and the longer he remained free, the greater the speculation.

  We got together in a vacant interrogation room that Sex Crimes sometimes used. Claire smuggled Cindy up from the lobby, then we rang down Jill.

  “I see we’ve loosened the requirements,” Jill commented, when she came in and saw Chris.

  Raleigh looked surprised, too. “Don’t mind me — I’m just the token male.”

  “You remember Claire, and Jill Bernhardt from the district attorney’s office,” I said. “Cindy you may recall from Napa. The team.”

  Slowly, Chris looked from one face to another until he settled on me. “You’ve been working on this independently of the task force?”

  “Don’t ask,” said Jill, plunking herself down in a wooden chair. “Just listen.”

  In the cramped, narrow room, all eyes turned to me. I looked at Claire. “You want to begin?”

  She nodded, scanned the group as if she were presenting at a medical conference. “On Lindsay’s urging, I spent all last night going through the three case files; I was looking for anything that would implicate Joanna. At first, nothing. Other than coming to the same conclusion I had before — that from the angle of the first victims’ wounds, the killer was right-handed. Jenks is left-handed. But it was clear that it wouldn’t stick.

  “Then something struck me that I had never noticed before. At both the first and third crime scenes there were traces of urine. Individually, I guess neither the medical examiner in Cleveland nor I ever thought much of it. But as I thought through the crimes scenes in my head, the locations of these deposits didn’t make any sense. Early this morning, very early, I rushed down here and performed some tests.”

  There was barely a breath in the room.

  “The urine we found at the Grand Hyatt demonstrated large deposits of yeast, as well as atypically large counts of red blood cells. Red blood cells in that amount appear in the urine during menstruation. Coupled with the yeast, there’s no doubt in my mind that the urine was a woman’s. A woman killed David Brandt, and I have no doubt we’ll find a woman was in the stall in Cleveland, too.”

  Jill blinked, dumbfounded. Cindy’s bright red lips parted in an incredulous half smile.

  Raleigh just shook his head.

  “Jenks didn’t do it,” I said. “Joanna must have. He abused her, then he dumped her for his new wife, Chessy, just as he was about to strike it rich. Joanna tried to sue him twice, unsuccessfully. Ended up with a settlement many times smaller than she would have gotten a year later. She watched him gain celebrity and wealth, and a new, seemingly happy, life.”

  Chris looked amazed. “You really believe a woman could physically pull this off? The first victims were stabbed, the second were dragged twenty, thirty yards to where they were dumped.”

  “You haven’t seen her,” I replied. “She knew how to set Jenks up. She knew his tastes, his investments, and had access to his possessions. She even worked at Saks.”

  Cindy chipped in, “She was one of the few people who would’ve been aware of Always a Bridesmaid.”

  I nodded toward Jill. “She had the means, the motive, and I’m damned sure she had the desire.”

  A really heavy silence filled the room.

  “So how do you want to play this?” Chris finally said. “Half the force is looking for Jenks.”

  “I want to inform Mercer, try to get Jenks brought in without someone killing him. Then I want to go ahead and pierce Joanna’s cover. Phone calls, credit cards. If she was in Cleveland, something will tie her there. I think you’d agree now,” I said to Jill, “we have enough to authorize a search.”

  Jill nodded, at first hesitantly, then with more resolve. “It’s just impossible to believe that after all this, we now have to defend that bastard.”

  Suddenly, there was a loud rap on the glass window of the door. John Keresty, an inspector on the task force, broke in on us.

  “It’s Jenks…. He’s just been sighted. He’s up in Pacific Heights.”

  Chapter 119

  RALEIGH AND I LEAPED UP, almost as one, racing back to the command center.

  It appeared Jenks had been seen in the lobby of a small hotel called the El Drisco. A bellboy spotted him. Free of his cuffs. Now he was on the streets, somewhere up in Pacific Heights.

  Why there? My mind ratcheted through the possibilities. Then it became clear.

  Greg Marks lived up there.

  I radioed Paul Chin, who was still sitting surveillance on the agent’s brownstone. “Paul, be on the alert,” I told him. “Jenks may be headed your way. He was seen in Pacific Heights.”

  There was a beep on my cell phone. It was Jacobi. Everything was happening at once.

  “Boxer, there’s an All Available Units on Jenks up in the Heights about a mile from here. I’m headed up there.”

  “Warren, don’t leave,” I shouted into the receiver. I still believed Joanna was the murderer. I couldn’t leave her unmonitored — especially with Jenks on the loose. “Stay at your post.”

  “This takes precedence,” Jacobi argued. “Besides, nothing’s happening here. I’ll call a radio car to relieve.”

  “Jacobi,” I shouted, but he had already signed off and was on his way to the Heights. I turned to Chris. “Warren’s left Joanna’s.”

  Suddenly, Karen, our civilian clerical, shouted for me. “Lindsay, call for you on one.”

  “We’re headed out,” I hollered back to her. I had strapped on my gun, grabbed the keys to my car. “Who is it?”

  “Says you’d want to talk to him about the Jenks case,” Karen said. “Says his name is Phillip Campbell.”

  Chapter 120

  I FROZE, FIXED ON RALEIGH, and lunged back toward my desk.

  I signaled Karen to put it through. At the same time, I hissed under my breath to Raleigh, “Start a trace.”

  I waited in a trance; seconds could mean the difference. The breath was tightening in my chest. Then I picked up.

  “You know who this is,” Nicholas Jenks’s arrogant voice declared.

  “I know who it is. Where are you?”

  “Not a chance, Inspector. I only called to let you know, whatever happens, I didn’t kill any of them. I’m not a murderer.”

  “I know that,” I told him.

  He seemed surprised. “You know …?”

  I couldn’t let Jenks know who it was. Not with him on the loose. “I promise, we can prove it wasn’t you. Tell me where you are.”

  “Hey, guess what? I don’t believe you,” Jenks declared. “Besides, it’s too late. I told you I’d take this into my own hands. I’m going to solve these murders for you.”

  Jenks could hang up any moment and we’d lose him. This was my only chance. “Jenks, I’ll meet you. Anywhere you want.”

  “Why would I want to meet you? I’ve seen enough of you to last a lifetime.”

  “Because I know who did it,” I told him.

  What he said next jolted me.

  “So do I.”

  And then he hung up.

  Chapter 121

  SIXTH… MARKET… TAYLOR… the streets shot by, the top hat on the roof of Chris Raleigh’s car flashing wildly.

  Ellis.

  Hyde.

  We shot up Larkin, climbing through the lights, then rocked over the bumps as we careened over Nob Hill. In a matter of minutes, we arrived in Russian Hill.

  Joanna lived on the top floor of a town house on the corner of Filbert and Hyde. We were no longer waiting to flush her out.

  Jenks was loose; he had probably homed in on her. Now it was a matter of preventing more killing.

 
; We slowed, cut the lights as we wove through the quiet, hilly streets. The house had been unguarded for maybe fifteen minutes. I didn’t know if Joanna was up there. Or where the hell Jenks was.

  Chris pulled to the curb. We checked our guns and decided how to proceed.

  Then I saw a sight that tore the breath from my lungs.

  Chris saw it, too. “Christ, he’s here.”

  From a narrow alley two houses away, a man in a beard and baggy sport coat emerged. He looked both ways as he hit the street, then he made his way down the block.

  It was Jenks.

  Raleigh pulled out his gun and reached for the door. I looked closer in disbelief, grabbed onto him. “Wait. Look again, Chris.”

  We both gaped in amazement. He had the same look: the short reddish-gray hair, the same unmistakable beard.

  But it wasn’t Jenks.

  The figure was thinner, fairer; the hair was slicked back, hiding a longer length, not cut short. I could see that much.

  It was a woman.

  “That’s Joanna,” I said.

  “Where’s Jenks?” Chris grunted. “This just keeps getting creepier.”

  We watched the figure slink down the block as a frenzy of possibilities ran through my mind. This was creepy.

  “I’ll follow her,” said Chris. “You go upstairs. Make sure it’s her, Lindsay. I’ll radio for support. Go on, Lindsay. Go.”

  The next moment, I was out of the car, crossing the street toward Joanna’s apartment. Chris eased the Taurus down the block.

  I pushed random buttons until a woman’s angry voice replied. I identified myself, and a gray-haired woman emerged from the apartment next to the front door. She announced that she was the landlady.

  I badged her, got her to locate a key pronto. Then I told her to get back in her apartment.

  I had my gun out, took off the safety. A film of hot sweat was building up on my face and neck.

  I reached Joanna’s apartment on the third floor. My heart was pounding. Careful, Lindsay, a voice inside me said, then came a cautioning chill. Could Nicholas Jenks be here?