“You know what? He didn’t do it, Chief. You were right. He doesn’t have it in him. Look. He’s not too bright, and he’s not exactly mentally stable. I mean, I’m sorry, Keith, you’re a pretty good grease monkey, but it’s crazy to think you have the chops to do those murders. And without leaving a clue? I don’t think so.”
“Yeah, we’re wasting our time,” the chief said, following my lead. “This little punk couldn’t get away with stealing dimes out of parking meters.”
Keith swung his head to the chief, to me, to the chief again. “I get what you’re doing,” he said.
I ignored him, continuing to direct my remarks at the chief.
“And I think you were right about Agnew,” I continued. “Now, there’s a guy with balls enough to knock off people at close range. Watch them squirm. Watch them die. And he has the brains to get away with it.”
“Right. Him being connected and all,” said the chief, patting down the back of his hair. “It only makes sense.”
“You shouldn’t be talking this way,” Keith muttered.
I turned back to him with a questioning look.
“Keith, you know Agnew,” I said. “What do you think? Is he our guy?”
It was as if a timer had tripped and a bomb had detonated far underground. First there was a tremor, then a rumble, then everything broke loose.
“Dennis Ag-new?” Keith spat. “That dick-for-brains freaking porno has-been. He’s lucky I didn’t kill him. And believe me, I’ve thought about it.”
Keith clasped his hands together and brought them down hard on the tabletop, making the pens, the notepad, the soda cans jump.
“Look. I’m a brighter bulb than you think, Lindsay. Killing those people was the easiest thing I ever did.”
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 130
KEITH WORE THE SAME coldly furious expression he’d shown me when I’d put my gun to his neck. I didn’t know this Keith.
But I needed to.
“You’re totally wrong about me, both of you,” he said. “And even if you’re playing me, that’s fine. I’m sick of the whole deal. Nobody cares.”
When Keith said “Nobody cares,” I sat back hard in my chair. The Cabot kids had spray-painted the same words on the wall where they’d killed their victims. And so had the killer of John Doe #24, ten years ago.
“What do you mean, ‘Nobody cares’?”
Keith fixed me with his hard blue eyes. “You’re the smart one, right? You figure it out.”
“Don’t mess with me, Keith. I do care. And I’m really listening.”
As the video camera recorded his confession, it was a cop’s dream come true. Keith gave it all up: the names, the dates, the minutiae only the killer could possibly know.
He talked about using different knives, different belts, described every murder, including how he’d tricked Ben O’Malley.
“Yeah, I clubbed him with a rock before cutting his throat. I threw the knife over the side of the road.”
Keith laid out the details in an orderly fashion, like so many cards in a game of solitaire, and they were convincing enough to convict him many times over. But it was still hard for me to believe that he’d done these bloody crimes alone.
“You killed Joe and Annemarie Sarducci by yourself? Without a fight? What are you, Spider-Man?”
“You’re starting to catch on, Lindsay.” He lurched forward in his seat, scraping the chair against the floor, sticking his face too close to mine.
“I charmed them into submission,” he said. “And you better believe it. I worked alone. Spin that for the DA. Yeah, I’m Spider-Man.”
“But why? What did these people ever do to you?”
Keith shook his head as if he pitied me. “You couldn’t understand, Lindsay.”
“Try me.”
“No,” he said. “I’m through talking.”
And that was it. He ran his hands through his blond hair, guzzled down the last of his Classic Coke, and smiled pleasantly, as if he were taking a curtain call.
I wanted to punch his face until he didn’t look so smug anymore. All those people slaughtered, and it made no sense at all.
Why wouldn’t he say why he’d done it?
Still, it was a great day for the good guys. Keith Howard was booked, printed, photographed, slapped back into cuffs, and taken to a holding cell pending his transport and arraignment in San Francisco.
I stopped by Chief Stark’s office on my way out.
“What’s wrong, Boxer? Where’s your party hat?”
“It’s bothering me, Chief. He’s protecting other people, I’m sure of it.”
“That’s your theory. Guess what? I believe the guy. He’s said he’s smarter than we think, and I’m gonna give him credit for being the big, bright bulb he claims to be.”
I gave the chief a tired smile.
“Shit, Boxer. He confessed. Be happy. This goose is cooked. Let me be the first to congratulate you, Lieutenant. Great catch. Great interview. It’s over now. Thank God, it’s finally over.”
Womans Murder Club 4 - 4th of July
Chapter 131
THE PHONE RANG, YANKING me out of a sleep so deep, I thought I was in Kansas. I fumbled around in the dark for the receiver.
“Who is this?” I croaked.
“It’s me, Lindsay. Sorry to call so early.”
“Joe.” I pulled the clock toward me; it read 5:15 in bright red numbers. I felt a jolt of alarm. “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”
“Everything’s fine with me,” he said, his voice calm, warming, sexy. “There’s a crowd outside your house, though.”
“You’re picking that up by GPS?”
“No, I just turned on the TV.”
“Hold on,” I said.
I stepped across the room and pulled up a corner of the window shade.
A couple of reporters had set up on the lawn, and camera crews were stringing cables out to satellite vans that curved around the road like Conestoga wagons.
“I see them now,” I said, getting back under the covers. “They’ve got me surrounded. Shit.”
I snuggled back down into the bedding and with the phone tucked between my face and my pillow, Joe felt so close, he could have been in the same time zone.
We talked for a good twenty minutes, made plans to get together when I got back to the city, and winged some kisses across the phone line. Then I got out of bed, threw on some clothes and a little makeup, and stepped outside Cat’s front door.
Reporters converged and pushed a posy of mikes up to my chin. I blinked in the morning light, saying only, “Sorry to disappoint you guys, but I can’t comment, you know. This is Chief Stark’s case, and you’ll have to talk to him. Th-th-that’s all, folks!”
I stepped back inside the house, smiled to myself, and closed the door on the fusillade of questions and the echoing sound of my name. I threw the bolt and turned off the phone’s ringer. I was taking down my crime notes from the kids’ corkboard when Cindy and Claire rang in with a conference call to my cell phone.
“It’s over,” I told them, repeating what the chief had said. “At least that’s what I’ve been told.”
“What’s really going on, Lindsay?” my intuitive, highly skeptical friend Cindy asked.
“Boy, you’re smart.”
“Uh-huh. So what’s the deal?”
“Off the record. The kid’s really proud of himself for getting into the psycho-killer hall of fame. And I’m not sure he’s totally earned it.”
“Did he confess to the John Doe killing?” Claire asked.
“There you go, Butterfly,” I said. “Another smarty.”
“Well?”
“No, he did not.”
“So where do you come out?”
“I don’t know what to believe, Claire. I really thought whoever killed these people also killed John Doe. Maybe I was wrong.”