V
against a wall and I tell him I'll stick it in his face so tight it's gonna look as large as Godzilla." A warm silence fell over us. For a moment, the faces of David and Melanie Brandt, even Negli's, seemed a million miles away. We were just having fun. I felt something happening, something that hadn't happened in a long time, that I desperately needed. I felt connected.
Chapter34
"SO NOW THAT WE'RE ALL FRIENDS…," said Claire, after we had eaten, "how'd the two of you meet up, anyway? Last I heard, you were going out to Napa to check on some missing newlyweds." Michael and Becky De George who a moment ago had seemed so far away, came hurtling back with a crash. I had so much to tell her, but the day had changed so subtly from what I had planned. I almost felt deceitful, withholding, filling her in on what had taken place in Napa yet leaving out the important development that was going on inside of me. Claire took it in, digesting it all with that sharp mind of hers. She had consulted on several serial-homicide cases, both as a lead examiner and an expert witness. An idea was rolling through my head. In my weakened condition, I didn't relish the responsibility of running a media -i.,.Ai. intensive investigation into multiple homicides alone. What I came back with surprised even me. "How'd you like to lend me some help?" "Help?" Claire blinked with surprise. "How?" "This thing is about to explode, Claire," I said. "If there's a bride and groom killer out there, the attention will be national. We all have an interest in this case. Maybe we could meet like this. The three of us… off the record." Claire looked at me warily. "You're suggesting we do this on our own?" "We've got the top guns of the MEs office, Homicide, even the press, eye-deep in margaritas at this table." The more I thought it out, the more I knew it could work. We could reassemble whatever clues came out of the official investigation, share what we had, cut through the political cover-your-ass and the bureaucracy. Three women, who would get a kick out of showing up the male orthodoxy. More important, we shared a heartfelt empathy for the victims. Suddenly, the idea seemed lit with brilliance. Claire shook her head in an incredulous way. "C'mon," I pressed, "you don't think it would work? You don't think we'd be good at this?" "That's not it at all," she replied. "It's that I've known you for ten years, and never once, on anything, have I ever heard you ask for help." "Then surprise," I said, looking straight into her eyes. ""Cause I'm asking now." I tried to let her see that something was troubling me, something maybe larger than the case. That I wasn't sure I could handle it. That I could use the help. That there was more to it. Claire gradually broke into the slimmest acquiescent grin. "In margaritas veritas. I'm in." I beamed back, grateful, then turned to Cindy. "How about you? You in?" She stammered, "I-I have no idea what Sid Glass would say- but fuck him. I'm in." We clinked glasses. The Women's Murder Club was born. %a 'll
Chapter 35
THE NEXT MORNING, I arrived at the office straight from an eight o'clock transfusion, feeling lightheaded, slightly woozy. First thing I did was scan the morning Chronicle. To my relief, there was nothing on the front page about anything relating to the disappearance in Napa. Cindy had kept her word. I noticed Raleigh coming out of Roth's office. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing his thick forearms. He gave me a guarded smile- one that told me of his discomfort at my cutting a deal yesterday with Cindy. With a flick of his blue eyes, he motioned me outside to the corridor. "We have to talk," he said, as we huddled near the staircase. "Listen, Raleigh," I said. "I'm really sorry about yesterday. I thought it would buy us some time." His dark eyes smoldered. "Maybe you should tell me why she was worth compromising control of this case." 1st to Die I shrugged. "You see anything about Napa in the papers this morning?" "You contramanded a direct order from the chief of police. If that doesn't leave you in a hole, it sure digs one for me." "So you'd rather be digging out of a story in the Chronicle about a serial killer?" He backed against the wall. "That's Mercer's call." A policeman I knew skipped up the stairs past us, grunting hello. I barely nodded back. "Okay," I said, "so how do you want to play it? You want me to go in and spill my guts to Sam Roth? I will." He hesitated. I could see he was torn, clicking through the consequences. After what seemed like a minute, he shook his head. "What's the point? Now." I felt a wave of relief. I touched his arm and smiled at him for a couple of long beats. "Thanks." "Lindsay" he added, "I checked with the state highway patrol. No record of any limos reported stolen in the past week." That news, the dead end that it represented, discouraged me. A voice shouted out from the squad room. "Boxer out there?" "I'm here," I hollered back. It was Paul Chin, one of the bright, efficient junior grades assigned to our team. "There's a Lieutenant Frank Hartwig on the line. Says you know him." I ran back in, grabbed the phone on our civilian clerk's desk. "This is Lindsay Boxer." "We found them, Inspector," Hartwig said.
Chapter36
"CARETAKER DISCOVERED THEM," Hartwig muttered with a grim shake of his head. We were walking up a dirt path leading to a small Napa winery. "I hope you're ready for this. It's the worst thing I've ever seen. They were killed making love." Raleigh and I had rushed up to St. Helena, turning east off 29, "the wine road," onto Hawk Crest Road until it wound high into the mountains, no longer paved. We had finally come upon an obscure wooden sign: Sparrow Ridge. "Caretaker comes up here twice a week. Found them at seven this morning. The place's no longer in regular use," Hartwig continued. I could tell he was nervous, shook up. The winery was barely more than a large corrugated shed filled with shiny, state-of-the-art equipment: crushers, fermenting tanks, staggered rows of stacked, aging barrels. "You're probably used to this sort of homicide," Hartwig said as we walked in. The sharp, rancid smell hit our nostrils. My stomach rolled. You never get used to homicide scenes. They were killed making love. Several members of the local SCU team were huddled over the open bay of a large, stainless grape presser. They were inspecting two splattered mounds. The mounds were the bodies of Michael and Becky De George "Awhh, shit, Lindsay" Raleigh muttered. The husband, in a blazer and khakis, stared up at us. A dime-sized penetration cut the center of his forehead. His wife, whose black dress was pushed up to her neck, was on top of him. White-eyed fear was frozen on her face. Her bra was pulled down to her waist, and I could see blood-spattered breasts. Her panties were down to her knees. It was an ugly, nauseating sight. "You have an approximate time?" I asked Hartwig. He looked close to being sick. "From the degeneration of the wounds, the M.E. thinks they've been dead twenty-four to thirty-six hours. They were killed the same night they disappeared. Jesus, they were just kids." I stared at the sad, bloodied body of the wife, and my eyes fell to her hands. Nothing there. No wedding band. "You said they were killed in the act?" I asked. "You're sure about that?" Hartwig nodded to the assistant medical examiner. He gently rolled Becky De George body off her husband's. Sticking out of Michael De George unfastened khakis was the perfectly preserved remainder of his final erection. A smoldering rage ripped through me. The De Georges were just kids. Both were in their twenties, like the Brandts. Who would do such a terrible thing? "You can see over here how they were dragged," Hartwig said, pointing to smears of dried blood visible on the pitched concrete floor. The smears led to car tracks that were clearly delineated in the sparsely traveled soil. A couple of sheriff's men were marking off the tracks in yellow tape. Raleigh bent down and studied them. "Wide wheel base, but fourteen-inch tires. The tread is good, kept up. An SUV would have sixteen-inch wheels. I would guess some kind of large luxury sedan." "I thought you were just a desk cop," I said to him. He grinned. "I spent a summer in college working in the pit crew on the NAS CAR circuit. I can change a tire faster than a beer man at 3Com can change a twenty. My guess would be a Caddy. Or a Lincoln." Lima, his eyes were saying. My own mind was racing through something Claire had once said. Link the crimes. It was uncommon for a pattern killer to switch methods. Sexual killers liked closeness to their victims: strangulation, bludgeoning, knives. They wanted to feel their victims struggle, expire. They liked to invade a victim's home. Shooting was detached, clinical. It provided no thrill. For a moment, I wondered if there were two murderers. Copycat killers. It couldn't be. No one else knew about the rings. I went over to Becky De George as the doctor was zipping her into a body bag. I gazed down into her eyes. They were making love. Did he force them? Did he surprise them? A sexual psycho who changes his methods. A killer who leaves clues. What did he leave here? What were we missing?