Women's Murder Club [01] 1st to Die Read online

  “Then what is it? This grotesque case?”

  Claire raised a hand. “It’s Lindsay. I rode back from Napa with her yesterday. She told me the most awful news. She’s very sick. She’s got a rare blood disorder, a form of anemia. It’s called Negli’s aplastic.”

  “It’s severe, this Negli’s anemia?”

  Claire nodded, her eyes dim. “Damned severe.”

  “Oh, God,” Edmund murmured. “Poor Lindsay.” He took her hand, and they sat there for a moment in stunned silence.

  Claire finally spoke. “I’m a doctor. I see death every day. I know the causes and symptoms, the science inside out. But I can’t heal.”

  “You heal us all the time,” Edmund said. “You heal me every day of my life. But there are times when even all your love and even your amazing intelligence can’t change things.”

  She nestled her body in his strong arms and smiled. “You’re pretty smart for a guy who plays the drums. So what the hell can we do?”

  “Just this,” he said, wrapping his arms around her.

  He held Claire tight for a long time, and she knew he thought she was the most beautiful woman in the whole world. That helped.

  Chapter 43

  THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, I got my first glimpse of the killer’s face.

  Chris Raleigh was talking to the people who had handled the victims’ travel arrangements. I was checking into who had planned their weddings.

  Two different companies. For the DeGeorges, White Lace. For the Brandts, a fancy consultant, Miriam Campbell. That wasn’t the link.

  I was at my desk when the duty clerk put through a call.

  It was Claire. She had just returned from examining the bodies of the victims with the county coroner in Napa.

  She sounded excited.

  “Get over here,” she said. “Hurry.”

  “You found a link. Becky DeGeorge was sexually disturbed?”

  “Lindsay, we’re dealing with one sick dude.”

  “They were definitely in the act when they were killed,” Claire told me minutes later when I met her in the lab. “Semen traces found in Rebecca DeGeorge matched those I scraped off her husband. And the angle of the wounds confirmed what I suspected. She was shot from behind. Rebecca’s blood was all over her husband’s clothes. She was straddling him…. But that’s not why I asked you here.”

  She fixed her large, wide eyes on me, and I could tell it was something important.

  “I thought it best to keep this quiet,” she said. “Only the local M.E. and I know.”

  “Know what, Claire? Tell me, for God’s sake.”

  In the lab, I spotted a microscope on a counter and one of those airtight petri dishes I remembered from high school biology.

  “As with the first victims,” she said excitedly, “there was additional sexual disturbance of the corpse. Only this time, it wasn’t so obvious. The labia was normal, what you would assume postintercourse, and there were no internal abrasions like with the first bride. Toll missed it…but I was looking for signs of additional abuse. And there it was, inside the vagina, sort of shouting, ‘Come and get me, Claire.’”

  She picked up the petri dish and a tweezer, and gently removed the top. Her eyes lit up with importance.

  Out of the clear dish she lifted out a single, half-inch red hair.

  “It’s not the husband’s?”

  Claire shook her head. “Look for yourself.”

  She flicked on the microscope. I leaned in, and against the brilliant white background of the lens, I saw two hairs: one thin, shiny, black brown; the other short, curly, sickle shaped.

  “You’re looking at two sections from Michael De-George,” she explained. “The long one’s from his head. The other is genital.”

  Then she placed the hair from the petri dish on another slide and inserted it in the microscope lens bay, side by side with the others. My pulse was starting to race. I thought I knew where she was going with this.

  The new hair was reddish brown in hue and twice the thickness of either of DeGeorge’s. It had tiny filaments twisted around the cortex. It clearly belonged to someone else.

  “It’s neither cranial nor pubic. It’s from a beard,” Claire announced, leaning over me.

  I pulled back from the scope and looked at her, shocked.

  The killer’s facial hair had turned up in Becky DeGeorge’s vagina.

  “Postmortem,” she said, to drive it home.

  Chapter 44

  AS CLAIRE SAID, we were piecing our killer together, step by step. His height, his face, his fetishes. The way he murdered.

  Now I had to figure out how he was tracking his victims.

  Raleigh and I were going full force on the travel and wedding-planner thing. We had fifteen detectives out there following up leads. Now that we had a facial characteristic, we went back to the guests, combing them for a guy in a beard who might have been seen trolling around.

  I felt confident that some aspect of this widening search would yield results. One of the guests would have noticed someone. We would discover a travel agent in common, a leak somewhere. Or one of Jacobi’s searches would come up with a match.

  The following morning, Hartwig called in. “Sparrow Ridge Vineyards…it’s owned by a group here known as Black Hawk Partners. A local guy, Ed Lester, an attorney, puts together real-estate partnerships.”

  “You know where he was over the weekend?”

  “Yeah, I checked. Portland. He ran in a marathon there. I caught up with him when he got back to the office. He was definitely in Portland.”

  I still felt certain that whoever had dumped the bodies there hadn’t stumbled on the remote vineyard by accident. It meant something to the killer. “He owns this place outright?”

  “Uh-uh. Black Hawk puts together deals. They bring in outside money from well-heeled guys down your way. People who want to break into the wine game. Lester acts as the managing partner.”

  “So who’s he partnered with on this one?”

  “I don’t know. Investors.”

  I sucked in my breath, trying to remain patient. “Which investors?”

  “Generally, investors who want to remain private. Listen, Inspector, I know where you’re heading, but this guy only deals with pretty established people. Believe me, anyone could’ve found that dump site. Real-estate agents, someone who’d checked it out, anyone local. I have to deal with these people long after you’re gone.”

  I cradled the phone in my neck and spun around in my seat toward the window. “This is a multiple-murder investigation, Lieutenant, the worst I’ve ever seen. The dump site is three miles up a deserted dirt road. Anyone riding around in the dark with two bodies could’ve safely dumped them anytime before. Whoever did this had to know the vineyard was there. And I don’t think it’s a local. I don’t think he would draw attention so close to where he lives.

  “Come back to me when you know who Lester’s partners are.” I hung up on Hartwig.

  Some of my optimism began to unravel.

  Raleigh turned up nothing on the travel agents. The Brandts had booked through Travel Ventures, a society agent that catered to a high-end crowd. The DeGeorges had used Journeytime, out of Los Altos.

  We had people scour through the personnel records of both firms. There was no connection between the two: no cooperative arrangements, not a single travel agent who had worked for both of them. It was possible someone had tapped into their systems, said the manager of Journeytime. But finding such a person was next to impossible.

  My end was equally disappointing. I had the files from both wedding planners. Engravers, bands, photographers, caterers, florists. Nothing matched up. The Brandts and the DeGeorges had lived in two separate worlds. However the killer was identifying the victims, I hadn’t found a clue.

  Chapter 45

  I CALLED CLAIRE AND CINDY TOGETHER for a second meeting of the girls. This time, the mood was decidedly different. There was no laughter or high fives. No festive margaritas. Tw
o more people were dead. We had no suspects, only a widening case. Clues that were rapidly leading nowhere. Intense pressure coming down on all of us.

  Claire was first to arrive. She hugged me and asked how I was feeling.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. I had gone through three treatments.

  Sometimes I felt strong. At other times, especially in the afternoon, I felt like a ghost of myself. “Medved said he’d review my red cell count next week.”

  Cindy arrived next. She was wearing a halter top under a man’s plaid shirt, a pair of embroidered jeans. She was very pretty, and city cool. I hadn’t spoken to her since Monday, when I had let her run with the story of the second killings. Even holding her story back for a day, she had still scooped the city.

  “I guess I’m buying,” she announced. She tossed us a new business card with the bright red logo of the Chronicle on it. I read the card, Cindy Thomas, Reporter, Metro Crime Desk.

  We toasted her with warm congratulations, then we roasted her a little, just to keep her ego in check. What else were friends for?

  I told them that the travel agents and wedding planners had led nowhere. “A couple of things really bother me,” I said. “The gun. …Sexual killers don’t usually change methods. The methods are part of the sexual thrill.”

  “It’s a strange combination,” agreed Claire. “He’s so in control when he plans his strikes. He seems to know everything. Where they’re married, room numbers, what their honeymoon itinerary is. How to get away. Yet, when he kills, he’s close to rage. It’s not enough to merely kill them. He has to defile.”

  I nodded. “That’s the key. He’s striking at weddings, something about them is intolerable to him. But I think his obsession’s with the brides. Both of the grooms were dispatched quickly. It’s as if they didn’t even matter to him. But the brides…that’s his real fascination.

  “So where would this guy go,” I asked aloud, “to scout potential victims? If you wanted to kill brides, where would you check them out?”

  “They had to choose a ring,” suggested Claire. “A jeweler.”

  “Or City Hall,” said Cindy. “They’d need a license.”

  I looked at her and chuckled. “It would sure fit if a government employee was behind this.”

  “Postal employee.” Claire and Cindy spoke simultaneously.

  “Photographers,” said Claire.

  I could see a twisted bastard hiding behind the lens. They were all good possibilities. It only required time and manpower to check them out before the killer struck again.

  “This bride business isn’t exactly my expertise,” I said to Claire. “That’s why you’re here.”

  “What happened to all that three sharp cookies crap?” She laughed. “And the part about my being a top-notch M.E.?”

  There was a ripple of frustrated laughter around the table. We all took another sip of beer. The Women’s Murder Club. This was good. No men allowed.

  “Where’s the goddamn link?” I asked. “He wants us to find it. That’s why he’s leaving clues. He wants us to uncover the link.”

  Everyone was silent, lost in thought.

  “I can feel it,” I went on. “In the ceremony, the celebration, he finds something that drives him into psychopathic rage. Something he needs to stamp out. Hope, innocence? The husbands he kills right away. But the brides? How does he find the brides?”

  “If he’s living in this twisted dream world,” said Cindy, thinking aloud, “he would go to where the fantasy was the strongest, the most vivid. He might want to build up his anger by observing them in an unsuspecting state.”

  Then Claire looked at us with a spark in her eye. “I was thinking, I’d go where they bought their wedding dresses. That’s where I would pick the victims out.”

  Chapter 46

  WHEN I GOT TO WORK the following morning, there was a fax from Hartwig listing the partners at Sparrow Ridge. I gave them to Jacobi to check. Then I called my contacts at both wedding planners, White Lace and Miriam Campbell.

  I wasn’t expecting much. So far, everything had come back empty. To my shock, both planners confirmed it.

  Melanie Brandt and Becky DeGeorge had bought their dresses at the same place.

  The Bridal Boutique at Saks.

  It was the first tangible link between the two cases. It could lead to nothing, but I felt in my bones it had the real, promising sensation of something good.

  I was at Saks by the time the store opened at ten. The Bridal Boutique was on the third floor, tucked away in a corner next to Gifts and Fine China.

  I caught Maryanne Perkins as she was arriving for the day, a cup of steaming coffee in her hand. The department manager was a stylish, affable woman of about fifty, just the type who would work with brides for twenty years. She had someone cover for her and sat down with me in a cluttered back room filled with magazine photos of brides.

  “I was devastated when I heard it,” she said. She shook her head, ashen faced. “Melanie was just here, two weeks ago.” She stared at me glassily. “She was so beautiful…. My brides are like my children, Inspector. I feel as if I’ve lost one of my own.”

  “One?” I fixed on her eyes. “You haven’t heard?”

  “Heard what?”

  I told Maryanne Perkins about Becky DeGeorge.

  Shock and horror swept over her face. Her green eyes bulged, welled with a rush of tears. She stared through me as if she were looking into the wall. “Oh, my God….” She took in a heart-jolting breath. “My husband and I were at our cabin in Modesto for a few days. She was just in…. Oh, my God…. What’s going on here, Inspector?”

  An immediate flood of questions tumbled out. Who would know about their customers? Other salespeople? Managers? The killer had been pegged as a male. Did any men work in the department?

  Each of these questions elicited a disbelieving negative response from Maryanne Perkins. The staff had all been together for a minimum of eight years. No males. Just like our murder club.

  She leaned back in her chair, scrolling her memory for any details that she could muster. “We were admiring her. Becky… she was stunning. It was as if she had never thought of herself in quite that way, but seeing herself in her dress, it suddenly became clear. Her mother had given her this brooch — pearls, diamonds — and I ran back to the office for flowers. That’s when I noticed someone. Standing over there.” She pointed. “He was staring in Becky’s direction. I remember thinking, ‘See, even he thinks you’re beautiful.’ I remember now.”

  Frantically, I took down a description: late forties, maybe younger. “I didn’t get a really good look,” the bridal manager said. “He had a beard.”

  I was sure it was him! It confirmed that Claire was right. Saks had to be where he found his victims, where he tracked them.

  I pressed her hard. “How would anyone find out details about someone’s wedding? Dates? Locations? Where they would honeymoon?”

  “We keep that information,” Maryanne Perkins said, “when the girls choose a gown. Some of it we need to know to help us, like dates, deadlines. And it just helps us get a feel for the bride. Most of them register with us as well.”

  A feel for the bride.

  “Who has access to this information?”

  She shook her head. “Just us…my assistants. It’s a small department. Sometimes we share it with Fine China and Gifts.”

  I felt I was finally close. My heart was slamming inside my chest. “I need to see a copy of anything you have on Melanie Brandt and Becky DeGeorge, and every customer you’re currently working with.” He was spotting his potential victims here, wasn’t he? There was a good chance he would come back. Someone on the store’s list could be next in line.

  I saw Ms. Perkins’s jaw drop. She appeared to be focusing on a horrible sight. “There’s something else you’ll want to know.”

  “What?”

  “About a month ago, after inventory, we noticed that our folder on the brides was missing.”


  Chapter 47

  AS SOON AS I GOT BACK to the Hall, I did two things: I called Claire and Cindy and told them what I’d found out at Saks, then I went to find Chris Raleigh.

  I shared everything with Chris, and we decided to put a woman detective from the Sex Crimes Unit inside the department store. I sent a sketch artist over to see Maryanne Perkins at Saks.

  Then Chris shared something important with me. Roth and Mercer had handed over our case files to the FBI.

  I felt a knifing pain deep in my chest. I rushed into the bathroom, closed the door behind me, pressed my back against the cold, chipped tile. Goddamn, son-of-a-bitch, controlling men. Goddamn Roth and Mercer!

  I stared at my face in the mirror. My cheeks were flushed. My skin was burning.

  The FBI. This was my case — and Claire’s, and Cindy’s, and Raleigh’s. It meant more to me than any other I’d ever worked on.

  Suddenly, my legs felt wobbly. Negli’s? The doctor had said I’d be feeling fits of nausea or light-headedness. I had my fourth transfusion scheduled at Moffett, the hematology unit, at five-thirty.

  An overwhelming emptiness tugged at me, alternating between anger and fear. I was just starting to crack this thing. I didn’t need outsiders in dark suits and tiepins buzzing around with a clumsy, ham-handed alternative investigation.

  I blinked into the mirror. My cheeks, which had been burning with anger, now looked pallid and lifeless. My eyes were watery and gray. My whole body seemed drained of color.

  I stared at myself until a familiar voice came alive inside me. Come on. Get yourself together. You win — you always win.

  I splashed cold water on my face. The flashing sweat on my neck began to subside.

  You’re allowed one of these. I exhaled with a thin smile. Just don’t do that again.

  Gradually, a familiar glimmer came to life in my eyes and normal color seeped back into my cheeks. It was four-twenty. I had to be at Moffett by five. I’d start on the names from Saks tomorrow.