Women's Murder Club [10] 10th Anniversary

by James Patterson

  Cindy reread her notes from her interview this morning with the latest victim, Inez Fleming. Like Laura Rizzo and Anne Bennett, Inez Fleming had woken up near her home after a blackout of many hours. During that time, she’d been raped, sloppily redressed in her own clothes, and dumped.

  Fleming had been examined at nine that morning by a doctor in the emergency room at St. Francis. The head nurse had called Joyce Miller to say that she had a rape victim like the ones who had come into Metro earlier in the week.

  Joyce had called Cindy. And Cindy had gone to see Fleming.

  The first thing Cindy noticed about Inez Fleming was that she was no weakling. Weighing in at about two hundred pounds, Inez worked as a substitute teacher in a public school in the Mission. She seemed streetwise, and unlike the first two victims, Inez was married.

  Inez told Cindy that she remembered hearing something when she was in some kind of dream state. She’d said, “It was about some kind of ‘big day.’ What’s that?”

  Cindy wanted to know, too.

  It was similar to the fragmented memories the other women had reported. Like Laura and Anne, Inez couldn’t even state that it was a memory. It could have been a fantasy or even something she overheard while she was lying in the alley.

  Inez Fleming’s husband had arrived right then and told Inez not to talk to the press, and now, six hours later, Cindy was foundering in quicksand and running out of time.

  Chapter 37

  CINDY FLEXED HER FINGERS and tried out a headline: “Rapist Dopes and Dumps Victims.” She was typing her lede—Three women reported being raped and drugged when they awoke from a blackout— when her phone rang. She glanced at the caller ID.

  It was Richie.

  Should she take the call or let it go to voice mail? The time was 3:23. There was no time to talk to him. Not now. This was her only story and she had to work it.

  On the third ring, she grabbed the phone.

  “Can I call you back, Rich? I’m on deadline.”

  “Just take a second,” he said, a playful tone in his voice. “There’s someone important I want you to meet.”

  Cindy laughed, spun her chair around so that she wouldn’t see the clock. “Really? Who is this important person?”

  “I’m not saying. Not right now.”

  “What if it’s off the record?” Cindy asked.

  “I like your style, Cin, but you still have to wait.”

  “Bummer. Where are you now?”

  “I’m on the street outside the Mark Hopkins, waiting for Lindsay. She’s with the Richardsons. Should be down in a second.”

  Cindy pictured Richie leaning against the unmarked car, wearing blue like he always did, his soft light brown hair falling across his forehead.

  “Any news on the baby?” she asked.

  “Nope. We have miles and miles of not one fricking thing,” he said. “Lindsay is taking this one personally.”

  “Don’t we all?” Cindy said.

  “Damn right,” Rich said. “When you get home, put on something dressy. I’ll pick you up—Cin, I gotta go. I’ll see you later.”

  “Wait. What time?”

  “Seven, okay?”

  “Perfect.”

  Cindy wrote her story fast and with confidence, the way she did when there was no time to spare. She looked at the clock in the corner of her computer screen and saw that she could even manage a quick polish. The clock showed 3:59 when she pushed send. She shook out her hands and leaned back in her chair. Her story would be on the streets in the morning.

  The cops would read it, and maybe the rapist would, too.

  What would happen next?

  Chapter 38

  CINDY KICKED OFF HER SHOES in the small foyer, and removing her clothes as she walked into the bedroom, she dropped them on the bed as she walked to the shower. “Dressy,” Rich had said. She couldn’t even guess what he was planning. Where were they going and who was this important person she was going to meet?

  The shower was hot and invigorating. Cindy kept her eyes closed and stood there, letting the water beat down on her head. She didn’t move at all, but her mind was in motion.

  She was thinking about Richie—about how when she’d first met Lindsay’s new partner, he’d not only rocked her world, he’d knocked a few neighboring planets off course, as well. Yes, he was gorgeous, but thank God she’d been able to keep her lovesick wits together long enough to realize that Rich Conklin’s cover-guy looks were only the gift wrapping. He was a good person. He was intelligent. He was easy to talk to. He was protective. He was the one for her, most definitely. And he was mad about her, too.

  Admittedly, there had been a time when she worried that Rich had a major crush on Lindsay. You could see the electricity when they were together. But when she’d asked, they’d both said, “No, no, no. We’re just partners.”

  Now that she and Richie were living together, she worried about one thing only—that he would come home safely every night.

  Cindy got out of the shower, dried her hair, and stepped into a small, black Nicole Miller dress with a deep neckline that Rich hadn’t seen her wear before. As she returned the hanger to the closet they shared, she thought about where she’d lived before she and Richie had found a place together.

  Her old apartment building was on the border of two neighborhoods—one on the rise, the other on the edge of hell. She’d gone for the gentrification sales pitch because she really loved the open, sunny rooms in the Blakely Arms. And then accidental deaths in the building had turned out to be murders.

  She and Rich had become friends while she was both living in the building and writing the story about the killings. Rich and Lindsay were investigating the crimes. Later, when she and Rich had started dating, he’d told her that he wished she worked any desk but crime.

  Sometimes she wished it, too.

  But more often she was grateful for her job at the Chronicle. Writing about, and sometimes even confronting, people so dangerous they scared her curls straight had given her confidence and made her a better journalist.

  Cindy fastened her necklace of small glinting crystals and put a rhinestone clip in her hair. Then she turned on the news. An interview was in progress. A reporter from KWTV was talking to a woman whose face had been pixilated to protect her identity, but Cindy recognized her.

  It was the rape victim she’d met that morning.

  Inez Fleming.

  “All I remember is leaving work last night,” Fleming was saying. “A sanitation worker woke me up in the early morning in an alley near my house. I still had all my stuff. Purse, et cetera. Maybe whoever drugged me and raped me looked in my wallet and knew where I lived. Or maybe he’s someone I know. I can only say to women, don’t trust anybody.”

  Cindy fumbled with the remote, rewound the DVR, and watched the interview again.

  She’d been scooped.

  The story was out, but the mystery remained. Who did it? What happened? Why were the victims targeted? Was it personal or random? And how many women would this guy rape before he was caught?

  This she knew: she would stick with this story until the end.

  The phone rang beside the bed and she scooped the receiver off the cradle.

  “Richie?”

  “Come downstairs, honey. Expect the unexpected. Yep, that’s what I said. Be ready for anything.”

  Chapter 39

  YUKI’S DATE WAS SITTING next to her in a booth at Renegade, an elegant waterfront restaurant in SoMa with a full view of the Bay Bridge. A floor-to-ceiling waterfall sheeted down a copper wall behind him. His thigh was touching hers, his sun-bleached hair, combed back and cut straight, was falling loose around his collar, and he was telling her about the last case he’d worked in Miami.

  Yuki was mesmerized by the sound of his voice.

  “Guy runs out of a bank with dynamite strapped to his chest, duffel bag over his shoulder. He gets into his car, guns the engine and—plows into the car right in front of him.”

>   “On, no. Come onnn,” Yuki said.

  “Yeah, he did,” Jackson Brady said. “Rams his Chevy into the trunk of this Honda. Then he backs up and peels out, and the guy in the Honda calls the cops. Honda got a good look at Mr. Dynamite and he’s got a partial plate on the Chevy.”

  “Whoa. Way to go.”

  “Meanwhile, the teller has pulled the alarm, and now a caravan of cops takes off after the Chevy and finds it abandoned in a canal off the side of the road. The so-called dynamite is in the front seat, made out of painted dowels and wire. But anyway, the guy stole four grand, and they have his plate number, his address, and so on. His name is Timberland Carson and there’s an outstanding warrant on him, armed robbery of a convenience store.”

  Brady stopped and took a swig of his beer.

  “Don’t stop now,” Yuki said. She sipped her drink. Just sipped it. It was delicious, but she did not want to get drunk on her second date in one week with Jackson Brady.

  “So now I catch the case because the convenience store robbery was mine,” Jackson continued. “We go to Carson’s apartment, pound on the door,” Jackson said, punching the air to demonstrate. “ ‘Miami PD. Open up, Mr. Carson.’

  “Carson opens the door. ‘Oh, you found my car already? I was just going to report it stolen.’ ”

  Brady laughed and Yuki laughed along with him. Brady had great timing and he could mimic voices. What a howl.

  Brady said, “Meanwhile, I can see the car keys with the little Chevy fob on it hanging from the hook next to the door. I say, ‘Anyone else here, Mr. Carson?’

  “ ‘No,’ he says, and so now we’re in the house. He’s got to let us in because he’s the victim. Someone boosted his car, right? So my partner puts Carson up against the wall, says, ‘You’re under arrest for that convenience store.’ While he cuffs Carson, I’m looking around for the bank bag full of cash. There’s nothing in plain sight, but I can see that the lock on the bedroom door is busted,” Brady told her.

  “I push it open with my shoulder, and Carson’s roommate—who isn’t supposed to be there—flies off the bed into the crack between the mattress and the wall.”

  “Hel-lo.”

  “Yeah. Hello, roommate—and on the bed is a suitcase full of weapons—guns and knives, like a booth at a flea market.”

  “You’ve got your gun out?” Yuki asked.

  “Yeah, and I’m aiming at the bed, yelling, ‘Come outta there, hands in the air.’ You know. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’ And the guy pops up with a semiautomatic, says, ‘I can kill you. Maybe both of you. Or you can let me leave.’

  “I’m yelling, ‘Put down your weapon, put down your weapon.’ But the idiot fires, bullets go through the doorway, and in the second before I return fire, he’s put a shot into Carson’s ear.”

  “Holy crap. So you shot the roommate?” Yuki asked.

  Brady said, “Yeah. Damn right. I had to do it.”

  “So, two guys dead.”

  “Ah, look at me telling you war stories.”

  “I like hearing your war stories,” Yuki said.

  “Uh-oh,” Brady said. “Because they say what you like about a person when you meet them is what drives you crazy about them later on.”

  Yuki laughed. “I’m not worried,” she said. Then she added, “You wanted me to know you killed someone. Why?”

  Brady nodded, his hands clasped together on the table. “By the time IAB was done with me, I wanted to leave Miami. I wanted you to know that. I’m here to stay.”

  The waiter came over and said, “Your table is ready.”

  Yuki followed the waiter upstairs to the mezzanine, with its view of the lights on the bridge, the promenade below, and Cupid’s Span, a huge piece of public art, an arrow piercing the ground.

  She was aware of Brady walking behind her and liked the feeling of having him at her back.

  But, she was also worried. Not because Brady had killed a man, but because she was going to have to tell Lindsay that she was going out with her boss.

  Chapter 40

  CINDY LOOKED THROUGH the window facing Kirkham Street and saw a smart-looking black Town Car coming up the block. It pulled up to the modest three-story apartment building where she lived with Richie.

  There were no celebrities or wealthy people living in this building, so she made a mental note that this might turn out to be an interesting development. The driver got out of the car and headed up the front steps.

  The buzzer rang in her foyer.

  Cindy thought, Wrong number, and walked to the intercom.

  “Hello?”

  “Ms. Thomas. Your car is here.”

  “My car?”

  “Are you Cindy Thomas?”

  “I’ll be right down,” she said.

  Cindy threw on her best coat, a black cashmere blend with antique buttons. She locked up, ran down the three flights and the front steps to the sidewalk. Richie was standing next to the car, a big bunch of pink sweetheart roses in his hand.

  He was wearing a suit.

  It was a blue one, Rich’s only color, and he also wore a starched white shirt and a striped silver-and-blue tie. It took Cindy a second to fully get that, yes, this was Richard Conklin wearing a suit, and he had a look of triumph in his eyes.

  It wasn’t her birthday. It wasn’t his either. Who on earth was this someone he’d said he wanted her to meet?

  “God, you’re gorgeous,” Rich said when Cindy was close enough to see the shaving nick on his jaw.

  “You stole my line,” she said.

  She flung herself into his arms and they kissed a few times before Rich broke away, laughing, and said, “May I show you to our private room?”

  “Where are we going?” she asked once they were settled into the back of the car, her legs across his lap. “Who’s the mystery person? Tell me right now.”

  “I’m not saying.”

  Cindy gave him a soft sock to the arm as the car traveled from Golden Gate Park to Oak Street, along the panhandle, a wide tree-covered median, and then from Van Ness past City Hall to California. “Every now and then I like to try to keep something from you,” Rich said.

  Cindy laughed and said, “Well, you got me, Inspector. I am clueless.” And she was still clueless when the car pulled up in front of Grace Cathedral and stopped.

  Grace Cathedral was a stupendous Gothic structure with a long history going back to before the earthquake and fire of 1906 and through its reconstruction to the present day.

  The cathedral was such a short distance from where she and Richie lived that she’d passed by it many times, always gripped by the awesome sight of the exaggerated arches and spires and the Ghiberti Doors of Paradise, Old Testament–inspired replicas of the gilded originals in Florence.

  You saw this cathedral and you had to think of God.

  Cindy didn’t even know for sure where she came out on the God question, but a cathedral was meaningful, even for the nonreligious. Not only was it a place of worship, but it embodied the history of the times and the course of generations, the birth through death of entire families.

  Cindy was speechless and trembling as she and Rich walked up the steps, through the open doors, and across the inscribed limestone labyrinth that was thirty-five feet across.

  As she entered the nave, Cindy’s eyes were drawn upward to the stained-glass windows and then along the murals that led from the back of the church to the altar.

  Cindy was dazzled.

  She didn’t know what it was, but something momentous was about to happen.

  Chapter 41

  RICH’S HEART POUNDED as he walked with Cindy down the center aisle of Grace Cathedral, awestruck as he always was by the monumental vaulted ceiling and the gold crucifix behind the altar.

  Cindy was squeezing the circulation out of his hand, staring up at him, searching his face, speechless for the first time since he’d met her.

  She started to ask, “What’s go—?” but her foot turned and her high heels started to
go out from under her. Rich had his hand under her elbow and at the small of her back. He caught her before she went down and smiled at her. He felt a laugh fighting to get free.

  “Can’t take you anywhere,” he said.

  “Clearly not,” she said.

  The altar seemed a mile away down the aisle flanked with hundreds of rows of mostly empty pews. Rich felt his heart knocking against his ribs. His mouth was dry. And he never felt more certain of anything in his life.

  Images of Cindy blew through his mind: the first time he’d seen her with Lindsay, all big eyes and questions, the way her slightly overlapping front teeth made her smile so cute, an endless source of delight. And the way she looked now, her endearing face framed by all those blond curls.

  His Cindy. The woman he knew so very well.

  He flashed on the time she’d been a virtual third cop on their team, when he and Lindsay were working the string of homicides in the apartment building where Cindy lived at the time.

  He’d learned a lot about her then.

  How steadfast she was when facing danger. How hard she pushed herself forward when she was afraid. He admired her so much for those qualities.

  But they made him worry about her, too.

  And then they were at the altar.

  The deacon smiled, very nearly winked, and then disappeared into the shadows—and they were alone.

  “Who are we meeting here?” Cindy asked softly.

  “I’m hoping he’s your future husband, Cin. What would you think of getting married right here?”

  “Is that a proposal, Richie?”

  Richie dropped to one knee. He said, “Cindy. If I know anything, it is that you are the love of my life. I want to spend the rest of my years getting to know you and love you even more than I do now. Will you marry me?”

  He pulled the little velvet box from his jacket pocket and opened the lid. His mother’s solitaire diamond engagement ring lay inside. She had given it to him, saying, “Someday you’ll give this to a very special woman.”