I went online to the NCIC database and looked them up. I was still in shock when I went into the bedrooms to rouse the girls.
When they were dressed and had coffee and scones in front of them, I told them what I’d learned about Ray and Molly Whittaker.
“They were pornographers, both of them. Ray was behind the camera, and Molly performed with kids. Boys, girls, it didn’t seem to matter,” I said. “They were busted for it and acquitted. Their lawyer? It was Brancusi, again.”
The girls knew me too well. They got on my case, warning me to be careful, reminding me that for all intents and purposes I was a civilian and that even though it seemed logical to check out a possible connection between the Whittakers and Dennis Agnew, I was out of my territory, no one had my back, and I was heading for big trouble.
I must have said “I know, I know” a half dozen times, and as we said good-bye in the driveway I made a lot of promises to be a good girl.
“You should think about coming home, Lindsay,” said Claire finally, holding my face in her hands.
“Right,” I said. “I’ll definitely think about it.”
They both hugged me as though they would never see me again, and frankly, that got to me. As Claire’s car backed down the driveway, Cindy leaned out the window.
“I’ll call you tonight. Think about what we said. Think, Lindsay.”
I blew kisses and went inside the house. I found my handbag hanging from a doorknob and rooted around inside it until I felt my phone, my badge, and my gun.
A minute later I started up the Explorer.
It was a short drive into town, with my mind churning right up to the second I pulled my car into a parking spot outside the police barracks.
I found the chief in his office, staring at his computer, coffee mug in hand, a box of sugared doughnuts on the side chair.
“Those things will kill you,” I said. He moved the doughnuts so I could sit down.
“If you ask me, death by doughnuts is a fine way to go. What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”
“This,” I said. I unfurled Dennis Agnew’s rap sheet and slapped it down on top of the messy pile of paper on the chief’s desk. “Ray and Molly Whittaker were whipped, weren’t they?”
“Yup, they were the first.”
“Did you like anyone for their murders?”
The chief nodded.
“Couldn’t prove it then, can’t prove it now, but we’ve been watching this guy for a long time.”
He picked up Agnew’s rap sheet and handed it back to me. “We know all about Dennis Agnew. He’s our prime suspect.”
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 73
I WAS ON THE porch at sunset, noodling a little tune on my guitar, when headlights at the bottom of the road crawled slowly up the street and stopped outside Cat’s house.
I was already moving toward the car as the driver got out of the front seat and opened the rear passenger-side door.
“I get it,” I said, my face glowing enough to light up the dusk. “You just happened to be in the neighborhood.”
“Exactly,” Joe said, reaching an arm around my waist. “Thought I’d surprise you.”
I put my hand on the front of his crisp white shirt.
“Claire called you.”
“And Cindy.” Joe laughed a little sheepishly. “Let me take you out to dinner.”
“Hmm. What if I make dinner here?”
“Deal.”
Joe tapped the roof, and the sedan took off.
“C’mere,” he said, folding me in his arms, kissing me, shocking me once again that a kiss could spark such a conflagration. I had one moderately sane thought as the heat surged through my body: Here we go again. Another drive-by romantic interlude on the roller-coaster affair of my life.
Joe cupped my face in his hands and kissed me again, and my heart surrendered its feeble protestation. We entered the house, and I kicked the door shut behind us.
I stood on tiptoe with my arms around Joe’s neck and let him walk me backward through the house until I was on my back in bed and Joe was taking off my clothes. He started with my shoes and kissed everything he exposed on his way up to my lips.
Dear God, he melted everything but my Kokopelli.
I gasped and reached for him, but he was gone.
I opened my eyes and watched him undress. He was gorgeous. Fit, tanned, hard. And all for me.
I smiled with sheer delight. Five minutes ago, I’d been looking forward to a Law & Order marathon. Now this! I opened my arms, and Joe covered my body with his.
“Hey,” he said. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“Shut up,” I said. I bit his lower lip, not too hard, then opened my mouth to his and wrapped my limbs around him.
When we emerged from the bedroom an hour later, barefoot and disheveled, it was pitch-black outside. Martha thumped her tail, plainly meaning, Feed me, which I did.
Then I made a luscious tricolor salad with a mustard vinaigrette and thinly shaved Parmesan, and I put some pasta on to boil while Joe stirred basil, oregano, and garlic into tomato sauce. Soon a divine aroma filled the air.
We ate at the kitchen table, exchanging our headlines of the past week. Joe’s headlines were a lot like CNN’s. Horrifying car bombs, airport infiltrations, and political dustups that I didn’t need to have top-secret clearance to hear about. As we washed the dishes together, I told Joe the briefest, least inflammatory version of my encounters with Agnew.
His jaw clenched as I laid it out for him.
“Pretend I didn’t tell you,” I said, kissing his brow as I refilled his glass with wine.
“Pretend I’m not mad at you for putting yourself in that kind of danger.”
Jeez, had everyone forgotten that I was a cop? And a smart one, by the way. First female lieutenant in San Francisco and so on and so forth.
“How do you feel about Cary Grant?” I asked him. “How does Katharine Hepburn grab you?”
We cuddled together on the sofa and watched Bringing Up Baby, one of my favorite screwball comedies. I cracked up as I always did at the scene where Cary Grant crawls around after a terrier with a dinosaur bone in its mouth, and Joe laughed along with me, holding me in his arms.
“If you ever catch me doing that with Martha, don’t ask.”
I laughed.
“I love you so much, Lindsay.”
“I love you so much, too.”
Later that night, I fell asleep inside the curve of Joe’s body thinking, This is so right. I just can’t get enough of this man.
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 74
JOE COOKED BACON AND scrambled eggs in the dazzling light pouring through the kitchen windows. I filled mugs with coffee, and Joe read the squint in my eyes for the unspoken question that it was.
“I’m here until I get the call. If you want, I’ll help you brainstorm the murders.”
We got into the Explorer with Joe at the wheel and Martha on my lap. I filled Joe in on the Sarduccis as we slowly cruised past their glass house beside the bay.
Then we headed up to Crescent Heights, taking the snaking dirt road to the door of the Daltrys’ abandoned little house.
If ever a house looked devastated by murder, this was it. The front lawn had gone to seed, boards had been hammered over the windows and the doors, and scraps of crime scene tape fluttered like little yellow birds in the bushes.
“Very different socioeconomic class from the Sarduccis,” said Joe.
“Yeah. I don’t think these murders have anything to do with money.”
We pointed the Explorer down the mountain and within a few minutes we entered Ocean Colony, the golf course–bordered community where the O’Malleys had lived and died. I pointed out the white colonial with blue shutters as we neared it. Now there was a For Sale sign in the front yard and a Lincoln in the driveway.