“He convinced you to plant it,” Frost said.
“Convinced me? Hell, I jumped at the chance. I didn’t think twice about it. Not for a second. When we got the next search warrant for Cutter’s place, I made sure I had Camille’s watch in my pocket. It was easy to pretend I’d discovered it in the ceiling.”
“But the two watches weren’t identical.”
“No, Sam didn’t know that Camille had added an inscription before she gave the watch to Melanie. Camille always called her daughter ‘the dreamer,’ and so she had the words engraved on Melanie’s watch in French. It was a little thing for the two of them. I didn’t find out about that until it was too late. I showed Camille the watch to identify it, and she looked at the back, and she was speechless. She knew what we’d done. Sam persuaded her to go along with the ruse at Cutter’s trial, but when she was on the stand, I really didn’t know whether she’d back us up. I was holding my breath the whole time.”
Frost shook his head. He didn’t even know what to say. “Jess.”
“What, are you judging me? Don’t give me that shit, Frost. I did what I did to save lives. I’d do it again. Cutter needed to go down, and I couldn’t get him the straight way. So I got him the crooked way instead.”
“I know the pressure you were under.”
“You don’t know the half of it. The whole damn city was crucifying me because I couldn’t catch the guy who did this. And I couldn’t even stand up in public and say, ‘I know who the son of a bitch is, I just can’t prove it.’ Yeah, the pressure sucked, but I didn’t do it to get myself out from under the heat. I did it because Rudy Cutter was a murderer, and my job is to put murderers away. Sometimes you have to cut corners to do what’s right.”
“Is that what you call it? Cutting corners? I call it a felony.”
“Gee, it must be nice to be the only noble cop in San Francisco. You think anyone is going to thank you for exposing what I did?”
“No.”
“If this guy gets out and kills again, you’ll be the one who gets hung out to dry.”
“Maybe so.”
“I told you, we can still make this go away, Frost,” Jess insisted. “I’m not saying that for myself. I don’t care what happens to me. Think about all those women. Think about Katie.”
“Do you really believe I’ve been thinking about anything else tonight? I don’t need a lecture from you, Jess. I didn’t ask for any of this. You’re the one who put me here.”
Jess stood up again. “Okay. Whatever. Do what you have to do.”
“I wish you’d come to me about this back then,” he told her.
“What would you have said?”
“Don’t plant the watch,” Frost replied.
“That’s why I didn’t ask.”
He went to the bar and poured her another shot of tequila. A larger one this time. He brought it to her, and she took it without a word and gulped it down. She wiped her mouth, and then she went to the bar herself and poured the next shot and drank that one, too. She kept talking.
“I remember the look on Cutter’s face,” she told him. “The bastard was actually impressed. I mean, he knew it was a setup. But he didn’t say a word. It was like he was giving me credit for figuring out a way to win the game. And besides, what was he going to say? ‘Hey, that can’t be the real watch, because I’ve got the real one stashed in a safe-deposit box somewhere’?”
“Except Cutter didn’t have it stashed,” Frost pointed out. “He never did. Lamar Rhodes had the watch, and he gave it to his sister.”
“Well, I didn’t know that little fact, did I? Damn, what are the odds? Cutter grabs a watch off every other victim, but Melanie’s watch gets stolen before he took her. Unbelievable.”
“Yeah.”
Jess came and stood in front of him. She was uncomfortably close again. He smelled the tequila on her breath. He thought she might reach for him and kiss him. Sex him into a coma and, while he was sleeping, search the house until she found the watch and could destroy it.
“Tell me you don’t think he’s innocent,” Jess said. Her voice was loud and slurred.
“No, I don’t think that.”
“I did not put an innocent man behind bars.”
“I’m not saying you did.”
“Rudy Cutter is a serial killer.”
“Yes, he is.”
Jess walked unsteadily toward the foyer, where she grabbed her trench coat. She slipped it on and opened the door to confront the rain. Frost followed her to the threshold. She stepped into the downpour, and then she turned around, with her hands shoved in her pockets.
“We both had to make a tough choice on this one, Frost,” she called over the noise of the storm. “I can live with mine. Can you live with yours?”
8
The worst part was telling Duane.
Frost opened the door, expecting his brother to be alone, but instead Duane had his latest girlfriend with him. His brother hoisted two bags of groceries from Bristol Farms in the air. He whipped inside the Russian Hill house like a hurricane, leaving a pert redhead on the porch in his wake.
“Bison burgers!” he called to Frost over his shoulder. “On my famous garlic-rosemary focaccia buns, with melted Flagship cheddar. Plus sweet potato matchstick fries, edamame salad, and red-velvet truffles.”
Duane was already out of sight, heading toward the kitchen, but Frost heard him call, “Shack, Shack, Bo-Back, how are you, buddy?”
The girl on the porch, who was left alone, grinned at him. “I’m Tabitha, by the way, but everyone calls me Tabby. Tabby Blaine.”
Frost heard a belated shout from inside as his brother introduced them. “Frost, meet Tabby. Tabby, this is my bro!”
“Come on in,” he told her.
“Thanks.” She strolled into the foyer and then the living room, and she headed immediately to the panoramic view over the bay. “What a place.”
“It’s my cat’s,” Frost said.
Tabby glanced at him over her shoulder, and her green eyes sparkled with amusement. She had very long eyelashes. “Yeah, Duane told me about Shack. I bet that line works pretty well with the girls. ‘Hi, I’m Frost, I rent a mansion from my cat.’”
“It does, actually,” Frost admitted. “And here’s the little land baron himself.”
Shack hopped onto the back of the sofa, and from there, he jumped immediately into Tabby’s arms. She caught him with a startled giggle, but she knew exactly how to hold him, and Shack settled against her shoulder and began to purr and swipe at her long red hair.
“I hope you’re not allergic,” Frost said.
“Wildly, actually, but that’s okay. I love cats. You can’t have the nickname Tabby and not love cats, right? I popped a Benadryl before coming over here, so I should be good for a while.”
“Aw, Tabs, you made these matchsticks too thick,” Duane called in a crabby voice from the kitchen.
“They’re perfect,” Tabby called back. “Quit complaining.”
To Frost’s astonishment, Duane let it go. He’d never seen anyone challenge Duane about ingredients and live to tell the tale.
“So you’re a chef, too?” Frost asked her.
Tabby’s head bobbed. Shack continued to tickle her hair. “Yeah, I work over at Boulevard on the Embarcadero.”
“Impressive. They’ve got a Beard Award, don’t they? I figured you worked with Duane in SoMa.”
“Work with Duane? Oh please, do I look like a masochist? I helped him get ready for tonight, but that’s as far as I go. Did you know his nickname in the chef community is the Beast? Duane Beaston, that’s what they call your brother.”