“Inspector Conklin, is that how you behaved when you interviewed my client? Lose your temper like that?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Yuki called out.
“On what grounds?”
“Defense counsel is objectionable.”
Bendinger was unable to stifle a laugh. “Overruled. Watch it, Ms. Castellano.”
Davis smiled, faced Conklin, one hand on her hip. “Only one more question, Inspector. Any other important evidence you shredded that would have exonerated my client?”
Chapter 40
STILL FEELING STUNG by Davis ’s cross-examination of Rich Conklin and the stress of the entire horrid day, Yuki left the Hall of Justice by the back door and walked several blocks out of her way, checking her BlackBerry as she walked.
She deleted messages, made notes for the file, sent an e-mail to Red Dog, who was now back in his home office asking for a report. She entered the All Day parking lot from the rear and had just opened the door of her brownish-gray Acura sedan when she heard someone call her name.
Yuki turned, frisked the crowded lot with her eyes, saw Jason Twilly loping toward her against traffic on Bryant, calling out, “Yuki, hey, hang on a minute.” Yuki reached into the car, put her briefcase on the passenger seat, and turned back to face the superstar writer, who was closing in.
Twilly looked fantastic, Yuki thought, as she watched him maneuver through the crowded parking lot. She liked everything about the way he put his act together: the cut of his hair, the Oliver Peoples glasses framing his intense dark brown eyes. Today he was wearing a fine blue shirt under a well-fitted gray jacket, and his pants were buckled with a plain Hermès belt that must’ve cost seven hundred dollars.
Twilly pulled up to where she stood with her car door opened between them, not even blowing hard from his run.
“Hey, Jason. What’s wrong?”
“Not a thing,” he said, eyes locking on hers. “I just wanted to tell you that I thought you rocked today.”
“Thanks.”
“No, I mean it. You’re great on your feet, and it’s smart the way you’re handling the press. Davis is out there campaigning on the front steps and you’re -”
“The defense has to spin this,” Yuki said. “I have to prove Junie Moon is guilty, and that’s not going to happen in front of the Hall.”
Twilly nodded his agreement, said, “You know, I wanted to tell you that I overheard a conversation in the hallway, and what I heard is that Junie’s a little slow, below average IQ.”
“I don’t get that impression,” said Yuki, wondering what the hell Twilly was getting at. Was he working an angle? Or was her six months in the DA’s office making her cynical?
Twilly set down his briefcase on the asphalt, took a soft leather eyeglass case from his breast pocket, removed a small square of cloth, and massaged the pollution off his Oliver Peeps.
“I gathered that Davis is going to get an expert shrink to tell the jury that Junie is dumb and suggestible and that the brutal cops could make her say anything.”
“Well, thanks for the heads-up, Jason.”
“No problem. Look, Yuki,” he said, adjusting his glasses over the bridge of his nose. “I’m dying to pick your very lovely mind. Would you have dinner with me? Please?”
Yuki shifted her weight in her narrow, pointy shoes, thought of the nice cold Coors waiting for her at home. The ton of work she had to do.
“No offense, Jason. When I’m trying a case, I like to be alone at the end of the day. I need the solitude and the time to clear my head -”
“Yuki. You’ve got to eat, so why not let me treat you to a lavish expense account dinner? Caviar, lobster, French champagne. Anyplace you want to go. You’ll be home by eight, and no business talk either. Just romance,” Twilly said, giving her his full frontal, lopsided grin.
He was charming and he knew it.
Yuki laughed in the face of such practiced seduction, and then she surprised herself.
She said yes.
Chapter 41
STEVEN MEACHAM AND HIS WIFE, Sandy, were watching 48 Hours Mystery on TV in their expansive home in Cow Hollow when the doorbell chimed.
Steve said to Sandy, “Are we expecting someone?”
“Hell no,” Sandy said, thinking of the door-to-door canvassing that had been going on because of the heated school board elections. She took a sip from her wineglass. “If we ignore them, they’ll go away.”
“I guess I can always give ’em a couple of shots to the ribs, make ’em take us off the list,” Meacham said, feinting and punching the air, then slipping his bare feet into his loafers.
He walked to the front door, peered through the fanlight, saw two good-looking boys standing outside, kids about the age of his son, Scott.
What was this?
The heavier of the two wore a peachy-colored T-shirt under a camouflage vest, his hair covering his shirt collar, more Banana Republic than Republican, and definitely not a Jehovah’s Witness. The other boy was dressed traditionally in a glen plaid jacket over a lavender polo shirt, hair long in front like a kid from an English boarding school. The boys had unopened liquor bottles in hand.
Meacham turned off the security alarm, opened the door a crack, said, “May I help you fellows with something?”
“My name is Hawk, Mr. Meacham,” said the one in the sport jacket. “This is Pidge. Uh, those are our pledge names,” he said apologetically. “We’re friends of Scotty’s, you know, and we’re pledging Alpha Delta Phi?”
“No kiddin’? Scotty didn’t call…”
“No, sir, he doesn’t know we’re here. We have to do this on the sneak.”
“Pledges, huh?”
Meacham fondly remembered his own fraternity days. “So, when’s the initiation?” he asked.
“Next week, sir,” said Pidge. “If we make it. We have to ask you about Scotty, things people don’t know about him, and we need to score a baby picture, preferably a naked one…”
Meacham laughed, said, “Okay, okay, come on in.” He threw open the door to his spacious home with its heart-stopping view of the bay.
“Honey, we’ve got company,” he called to his wife, leading the two boys through the foyer. “Hawk, like Ethan Hawke? Or some sort of bird theme, probably.”
Meacham accepted the bottles from the boys with thanks, then he opened the inlaid wooden liquor cabinet in the living room. He took out glasses as the boys introduced themselves to his wife, who said, “It’s quite nice of you to bring something, but it really wasn’t necessary.”
“Cointreau,” Meacham said. He poured from the bottle, handed the glasses around. “To the Greeks.”
Actually, Meacham was trying to cut down on the booze, but Sandy was already half sloshed. She swished her drink in the glass, took a sip, said, “Honey bear, why don’t you show the boys Scotty’s room? I’ll get out the photo albums.”
“I’ll stay with you, Mrs. Meacham,” Pidge said. “Help you pick out the right picture.”
Sandy was lost in the photo album in her lap when Pidge’s shadow fell across her face. She looked up, did a double take through her unfocused eyes, finally putting it together. Pidge was holding a gun.
She took in a deep breath, but Pidge raised a finger to his lips, then said, “Don’t scream, Sandy. Just do what I tell you and everything will be fine.”
Chapter 42
“THIS ISN’T FUNNY ANYMORE,” Steve Meacham said to the two boys, wincing as Hawk jammed the gun between his shoulder blades.
“Go stand by your wife, Mr. M.,” said Hawk. “This is kind of a scavenger hunt, you know? We’re not going to hurt you guys. Not unless you make us.”
Meacham went to his wife’s side, looking at each of the two guns in turn, sending his mind toward his own gun, which was wrapped in a towel at the top of the linen closet. He glanced at Sandy ’s face, saw that she was sobering up, trying to figure out what was happening.
He wished he knew.
He turned back to Pidge,
said, “This is just a fraternity prank, right, fellas?”
“Yes, sir,” Hawk said at his back. “I need you both to lie on the floor, facedown.”
“Well, I’m not going to do that, you crazy boy,” Sandy said, whipping her head around, eyes flashing furiously. “Get out of here, both of you, now, and tell Scotty I want to hear from him tonight, I don’t care what time -”
Pidge walked behind Sandy, cocked his arm, and whacked her on the back of the head with the gun butt. Sandy yowled, went down into a crouch, hands covering her head. Steven saw blood seep between her fingers. Steven started toward Sandy, but the chilling metallic clicks of hammers being cocked stopped him where he stood.
Steven wanted to keep denying the wordless terror that was flooding his mind – but he couldn’t block it out anymore. These kids were going to kill them – unless, somehow...
“I don’t want to shoot you, lady,” Pidge said. “Drop all the way to the floor. You, too, buddy. Hurry up now.”
Steven got to his knees, pleaded. “We’ll do what you say. Take it all,” he said. “Take everything we have. Just don’t, please, don’t hurt us.”
“Good attitude,” Pidge said, shoving Sandy Meacham to the floor with his foot, standing behind her as her husband lay facedown on the Persian carpet.
“Hands behind your backs, if you’ll be so kind,” Pidge said. He took a reel of fishing line out of his back pocket, wrapped the monofilament fiber tightly around the Meachams’ wrists. Then he tugged off their shoes, stripped off Sandy ’s socks, and began winding fishing line around Steven Meacham’s ankles.
“I’ll let you in on something,” Pidge said. “Actually, we’re not fraternity types like Scotty.” He tugged down Sandy ’s elastic-waisted pants and underwear in one motion. Sandy yelped.
“Where’s your safe, Mr. M.? What’s the combination?” Hawk asked.
“We don’t have a safe,” Meacham said.
“Hawk, go back upstairs,” said Pidge. “I’ll keep these folks company.”
He slapped Sandy ’s buttocks playfully, laughing as Meacham cried out, “There’s some money inside the humidor on my dresser. You can have it. Take it all!”
Pidge turned up the TV volume to high, balled Sandy ’s socks, jammed a woolen gag into each of the Meachams’ mouths. As Sandy whimpered and squirmed, he slapped her buttocks again, this time almost tenderly; then reluctantly, Pidge tied her ankles together with the fishing line. That done, he broke the neck of the second bottle of Cointreau against the mantelpiece. He poured liquor on a pile of newspapers by the upholstered chair, into a basket of yarn, doused the Meachams’ hair and their clothing, Meacham shouting against the sock in his mouth, starting to gag.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Pidge said, reasonably. “You could drown on your own vomit. That would be nasty, bud.”
Hawk came down the stairs into the living room, a cigar in his mouth, jangling a lumpy pillowcase.
“Swag,” he said, grinning. “About five grand in the humidor. Oh, and I got a book.”
Pidge bent to Sandy Meacham, who was moaning half naked at his feet. He twisted the diamond rings off her fingers, then shouted into Steven Meacham’s ear.
“What is it you people like to say? Living well is the best revenge? Well, enjoy your revenge. And thanks for the stuff.”
“Ready?” Hawk asked.
Pidge finished writing the inscription and capped the pen.
“Veni, vidi, vici, bro,” Pidge said, lighting matches and dropping them where he’d poured the Cointreau.
VOOOOOOM .
Flames flared up around the room. Smoke billowed, darkening the air. The Meachams couldn’t see the two young men wave good-bye as they left by the front door.
Chapter 43
THE SMELL OF BURNED FLESH hit us before we crossed the threshold into the smoking ruins of the Meacham house in Cow Hollow. It had once been an architectural masterpiece. Now it was a crypt.
Arson investigator Chuck Hanni stepped out of the shadows to greet us. He looked uncharacteristically tired and grim.
“My second job tonight,” he explained.
“The first one was like this?” Conklin asked.
“Nope. Meth lab explosion,” Hanni said. “Victim was blown out of the house and into the back of her pickup truck.” He shook his head. “Now this is exactly like the Malone fire.”
We followed Hanni into what was once the Meachams’ living room. I imagined the space as it once was – the cathedral ceiling, the massive fireplace, and the mirror above the mantel. Now it was all smoke-blackened gilt and carbon-streaked marble. The bodies were lying close together in three inches of black water, flat on their stomachs, hands curled in a pugilistic attitude, the result of tendons tightening as their bodies burned.
“If there were ligatures on the victims, they’ve burned up,” Hanni said, hunching down beside the bodies. “No point in dusting for prints. Maybe tomorrow, in the light of day… Anyway,” Hanni went on, “I found this on the kitchen counter.” He handed a book to Conklin. I read the title: A History of Yachting. “Got a signature in there for you, Rich. It’s in Latin.”
Conklin cracked open the book to the title page and read out loud. “Radix omnium malorum est cupiditas.”
“What’s it mean?” Hanni asked him.
Conklin tried to hunch it out, saying, “Something, something, bad is love? I don’t know. What the hell. My tenthgrade Latin is exhausted.”
“Aren’t we all?” Claire said, stepping into the room, a crew of two assistants trailing behind her. “What have we got here?”
She walked to the bodies, rolled the smaller of the two, and a rush of air came from the victim’s mouth. Paaahhhhhh.
“Look here,” Claire said to Chuck, showing him a liquor bottle that had been partially hidden by the victim’s body.
Hanni picked it up with a gloved hand.
“Maybe we’ll get some prints after all,” he said.
Conklin and I left Claire and Hanni with the bodies of the victims and went outside. The first officer pointed out an attractive woman standing at the front of the now-thinning crowd at the edge of the lawn.
“That’s the woman who called it in. Her name is Debra Kurtz,” the cop told me. “She lives directly across the street.”
Kurtz was in her late forties, five four or so, a tad too thin, maybe anorectic, wearing black spandex running gear. Mascaraed tear tracks marked her cheeks. I introduced myself and Conklin, asked Kurtz if she’d known the deceased.
“Steve and Sandy Meacham were my closest friends,” she said. “I called 911 when I saw the fire. God, oh, God, it was already too late.”
“Mind coming down to the station with us?” I asked. “We need to know everything we can about your friends.”
Chapter 44
DEBRA KURTZ WAS DRINKING day-old coffee in the smaller, cleaner of our two interview rooms. “The Meachams were the greatest couple in the world,” she told us tearfully.
“Any reason you can think that anyone would want to hurt them?” I asked.
“I’m going to the soft drink machine downstairs,” Conklin said to Kurtz. “Can I get you something else?”
She shook her head no.
When Conklin was gone, Kurtz leaned across the table and told me about Sandy ’s drinking and that both Sandy and Steven had had casual affairs. “I don’t think that means anything, but just so you know.”
Kurtz told me that the Meachams had two children; a boy, Scott, nineteen or so, away at college, and a girl, Rebecca, older and married, living in Philadelphia. Kurtz choked up again, as though something painful was stuck in her gut – or her conscience.
“Is there something else you want to tell me, Debra? Something going on between you and Steven Meacham?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, there was.”
Kurtz watched the door as she talked, as if she wanted to finish talking before Conklin returned. She said, “I hated myself for cheating on Sandy. It’s hard to ex
plain, but in a way I loved her as much as I loved Steve.”
I pushed a box of tissues over to her side of the table as Conklin came back into the interrogation room. He was holding a computer printout.
“You have a rap sheet, Ms. Kurtz,” said Conklin, pulling out a chair. “That kinda surprised me.”
“I was in grief,” the woman told us, her gray eyes flooding anew. “I didn’t hurt anyone but myself.”
Conklin turned the pages toward me.
“You were arrested for burglary.”
“My boyfriend talked me into it, and I was stupid enough to go along. Anyway, I was acquitted,” Kurtz said.
“You weren’t acquitted,” said Conklin. “You got probation. I think you made a deal to flip on your boyfriend, am I right? Oh, and then there’s the arson.”
“Randy, my husband Randy, was dead. I wanted to cut my heart out,” she said, pounding her chest with her fist. “I set fire to our house because it was the only way I could see what I felt. The bottomless grief.”
I leaned back in my chair. I think my mouth may have dropped open. Debra Kurtz reacted to the shock on my face.
“It was my own house,” she shouted. “I didn’t even file an insurance claim. I only hurt myself, do you understand? I only hurt myself!”
“Had Steven Meacham broken off your affair?”
“Yes. But it was weeks ago, and it was mutual.”
“You weren’t a little angry?” Conklin asked. “Didn’t feel a little bottomless grief?”
“No, no, whatever you’re thinking, I didn’t set fire to the Meachams’ house. I didn’t do it. I didn’t do it.”
We asked Debra Kurtz where she was when the Malone house burned, and we asked her if she knew her way around Palo Alto. She had alibis, and we wrote everything down. What she told us added up to a crazy woman with a burning desire to both destroy and self-destruct.
It added up, and yet it didn’t add up at all. And now it was half past five in the morning.
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