12th of Never Read online

  I pulled out the straight-backed chair and Fish looked up, recognized me, and gave me an endearing smile.

  I said, “Hello, Randy.”

  “Well look at you, Lindsay,” he said. “You’ve put on, I’m going to say, twenty-two pounds since I saw you last. You look healthy.”

  At five five, Randy Fish might have weighed 135 pounds when I’d kicked him around three years ago, but he weighed less now. His brown hair was clean. He had large brown eyes and bow-shaped lips. He looked unbelievably sweet and vulnerable and frail.

  It was easy to see how women had fallen for him, done what he’d asked of them, without having the slightest sense that he was a sexually deviant psychopath with an insatiable desire to maim and kill.

  “How’re you feeling?” I asked him.

  “Rested,” he said, smiling again.

  “I’m glad to see that you’re okay,” I said truthfully. “I still have some questions for you.”

  “Don’t you have something to tell me?” asked the killer.

  “What are you reading?” I asked.

  “The Poet by Michael Connelly. I’m not going to beg you, Lindsay. You know what I want.”

  I felt literally sick. I’d seen the morgue pictures of the five women we knew Fish had killed. One had had her fingers and toes cut off while she was alive. Another had hundreds of knife slits all over her body. All of them had been brutally raped, bitten, hanged. I knew too much about what this psycho had done and I didn’t want to give him anything.

  But if I wanted to find Sandra Brody’s body and those of the three other missing young women, I was going to have to give in.

  I quashed my gag reflex, but I still tasted bile at the back of my throat when I said, “I’m sorry I had to be so rough with you, Randy. But you know, you had threatened to kill a hostage. And Sandra Brody was still missing.”

  “You call that an apology?”

  “You remember Sandra,” I said. “She’s a pretty girl, brunette, size four, has a bit of an overbite. She was a biology major. I might be able to help you if you tell me where she is.”

  “I don’t remember a Sandra Brody,” he said. “In fact, I can’t even remember why I was locked up. But I do remember you, Lindsay Boxer. I wish we’d met under different circumstances. You’re very dear to me.”

  He showed me the book he’d been reading and said, “This is pretty good. Have you read it? Do you read?”

  He was back into his book, turning the pages, seemingly absorbed. As far as Randy Fish was concerned, the interview was over.

  I had apologized.

  He’d given me nothing in return. And I was absolutely sure he was messing with me. If I had gotten down on my knees and given him an unconditional apology, he would still have messed with me.

  He liked the game. He loved it.

  I tapped on the glass.

  Fish looked up.

  I smiled and said, “Go to hell, okay?”

  He shouted as I left the room, “I’m crazy about you, Lindsay Boxer. I really am.”

  Chapter 60

  YUKI HAD JUST about gotten a grip on the astounding fact of Lily Herman’s reappearance when John Kinsela called his first witness.

  “The defense calls Gary Goodfriend.”

  Yuki said, “What?” just loud enough for Nicky to hear. Her associate shrugged and looked at her with big eyes, as surprised as she was that their witness had been called by the opposition.

  Yuki watched as the gun dealer who had sold Keith Herman a gun passed her chair on his way to the witness stand. He was wearing the same fringed buckskin jacket he’d worn when he was a witness for the prosecution, but the swagger was gone now that he’d gone over to the other side.

  Goodfriend swore on the Bible and took his seat. Yuki looked directly at him, but he avoided her eyes.

  Kinsela jingled coins in his pocket as he asked his witness, “Mr. Goodfriend, did you call my office yesterday afternoon?”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “And why did you call me?”

  “Because I was having a whatchamacallit—guilty conscience.”

  “Will you please tell the court what you told me?”

  “I told you that I don’t really remember if it was Keith Herman who made that comment about having a rug rat problem, or if it was some other customer.”

  “But you testified that it was Keith Herman.”

  “I misremembered,” Goodfriend said now. “I definitely sold Keith Herman a gun. I’ve got the yellow copy of the sales slip. But like I said, I sold thirty guns that weekend. There was a lot of talking all around. It was noisy. It was a trade show, you know. And, what I’m thinking now is that I got confused.”

  Kinsela said, “So to be clear, you’re retracting your earlier testimony. You no longer believe that Mr. Herman wanted to kill his daughter.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Thank you for coming forward, Mr. Goodfriend. That was an act of good citizenry.”

  The judge said to Yuki, “You’ve got some questions, Ms. Castellano?”

  “Just a few, Your Honor.” Yuki struggled for composure. No good to let Kinsela see that he’d rattled her. She relaxed her face and smiled.

  “Mr. Goodfriend, I want to understand the timeline of your memory reversal.”

  “Okay. Sure.”

  “Last week you swore on the Bible that Mr. Herman had made a comment that you took to mean that he wanted to shoot his child.”

  “Uh-huh. But that was then.”

  “You realize that either that statement or the one you just made is a lie. Do you know that perjury is a felony?”

  “I wasn’t intentionally telling a lie. I just remembered it one way and then, yesterday, I remembered it a different way.”

  Yuki sighed. “You also stated that you believe that Mr. Herman is a violent person. Have you been threatened?”

  “Mr. Herman is in jail.”

  “I understand that, Mr. Goodfriend. Did anyone put pressure on you to retract your testimony?”

  “The only one that put pressure on me is you.”

  “Me?”

  Yuki was dumbfounded. What was this guy saying? She hadn’t been sure of him when he contacted her, but he had checked out as a legitimate gun dealer, with no record of any kind. His testimony had been good for her case because he had described the defendant’s violent personality for the jury.

  Goodfriend said now, “When I came to you and said I thought the defendant had made a threat, you said, ‘Are you sure?’”

  “Yes, and you said you were.”

  “Well, I wanted to be sure because of you putting pressure on me to get it right. I thought I was sure. Now I’m not sure anymore.”

  “So maybe your original memory was wrong. Or maybe your original memory was correct?”

  “Huh?”

  “Your Honor, I’m done with this witness. I reserve the right to charge him with perjury once I determine if he has even the most basic grasp of the truth.”

  Kinsela snorted from across the room.

  The judge said to Yuki, “Duly noted,” and told Gary Good-friend that he could step down.

  Nussbaum looked at the big white-faced clock over the exit door, then said, “Seems like an appropriate place to adjourn for the weekend.”

  Chapter 61

  IT WAS 7:40 on Monday morning when Claire saw Rich Conklin’s truck parked off by itself in the open lot on Harriet Street. When she got closer, she saw that Richie’s head was tipped back and his mouth was open. Looked like he’d passed out.

  She called out to him a couple of times and when he didn’t come to, she rapped on the window, said, “Richie. Yoo-hoo. Wakey-wakey.”

  He sat up, said, “Huh?” and then, “Oh, hi, Claire. Am I late?” He ran his hands through his hair, tucked his shirt into his pants.

  Claire went around to the passenger side and climbed up into the truck. The cab smelled of beer. There was a crumpled hamburger bag in the foot well, dirty laundry lying loos
e on the backseat. Richie hadn’t shaved.

  She said, “Actually, you’re early, my friend. How long you been sleeping here?”

  Rich leaned across her, opened the glove compartment, and took out his cell phone. He checked it for messages, then put it in his shirt pocket.

  Since he hadn’t answered her question, Claire had a few more for him.

  “What’s up, Richie? I suppose you’ve got a good reason to be camping out in the parking lot. When was the last time you took a shower?”

  He laughed, then said, “Hold on, Claire. That was a good idea. May I use your shower?”

  Claire had a private shower at the morgue. Problem was, it wasn’t exactly hers at the moment. Her stand-in, Dr. Herbert Morse, would be arriving in a few minutes, if he wasn’t already there in her office, boning up on how to be a medical examiner.

  “Honestly, if it was mine to give you, I’d tell you to shave, shower, and take your time on the potty. But I’m on the sidelines, as you know. Working out of a cubicle.”

  “Ah, I’m sorry, Claire. Well. I’ll think of something.”

  “Cindy kicked you out?”

  “We broke up after I crashed your dinner at Susie’s.”

  “So that’s what happened. I haven’t spoken with Cindy since then.”

  Rich sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Should I rent a place? Should I live in my truck for a while until I know what to do with myself?”

  Claire said, “I didn’t see this coming, Richie. Cindy’s always been crazy in love with you—and I thought vice versa.”

  He sighed again. “She’s changed.”

  “Uh-huh. You seeing that girl with the curly black hair?”

  “Morales?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What makes you think I’m seeing her?”

  “She looks at you like you poop rainbows.”

  “Yeah. Well, it’s complicated.”

  “Oh. How’s that?”

  “She’s got a little boy. And she’s still in school. I don’t know. There was a spark that took hold and you know, it just feels good to have someone look at me like I’m special. Especially when Cindy is always in her own world, by herself.”

  “You sleeping with Morales?”

  No answer from Richie.

  “Look at me,” Claire said.

  Rich did what she asked. His eyes were bleary. He didn’t even look happy.

  “People go through stages. It’s hard to find someone like Cindy, someone you love and trust. No one gets to have a relationship all their way all the time.”

  “I like kids,” Richie said. “I like kids a lot. It’s not a phase I’m going through.”

  There was a tap on Richie’s window. Lindsay was right there and Claire could see she was feeling crabby. Rich buzzed down the window.

  “Let’s go, okay?” Lindsay said. “I want to get back to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  Chapter 62

  THE COOLER WAS packed, what with everyone in there. Conklin, Claire, her two investigators, and I were grouped around a stainless steel table between stacks of drawers full of dead people. No coffee allowed. I needed coffee.

  The investigators were used to the walls of dead people, and to having no caffeine. They were eager to prove themselves.

  Jessica Kain was young and trim, and wore black tights, a baby-doll dress under a thin cotton jacket, and sunglasses pushed up in her streaked blond hair. Jay Dedrick was dark-haired, wiry, and had a tattoo of his wife’s name on his wrist—Jackie.

  The two were friends, but definitely competitive.

  Dedrick took the lead.

  “We went through every inch of Kennedy’s house. Faye Farmer lived there, too, but it was his house and most of the stuff was his. We went through his closets, his garage, the crawl spaces.

  “He left his computer on and we went through that. He said he didn’t care what we looked at; he had nothing to do with Faye’s death and didn’t know who did. We selected some of his DVDs at random. All of them were football games.

  “Bottom line on the search of Kennedy’s house: we found nothing indicating that he was planning to kill his girlfriend.”

  Kain pushed up the sleeves of her jacket, even though it was about forty-six degrees Fahrenheit in the cold storage. She said, “We dumped their phones. There was a call from Kennedy to Farmer at two forty-five on the morning of the shooting. She answered the call. Took fourteen seconds.”

  I said, “Long enough for him to say, ‘Don’t be a bitch’ and for her to say, ‘Screw you.’”

  Kain said, “That was the last call either one of them made or received that night. Kennedy got a call at seven sixteen a.m. from his sister in Seattle. Then he got calls from everyone in the world. Same for Faye, but she wasn’t taking calls by then. She was here.”

  Dedrick looked at notes on his tablet and read out names of the male partygoers they had interviewed, some of whom I knew from watching them play ball. Dedrick said he spent a few hours with Niners’ quarterback Calvin Sandler. Whenever Kennedy was spotted in a club or a restaurant, he was either with his fiancée or Cal Sandler or both.

  Dedrick told us, “Sandler said, and I quote, ‘This whole effing thing is effed up. Jeff was at his effing party the whole effing day and night and he never effing left.’

  “Sandler corroborates Kennedy’s story and says that he was with Kennedy when Faye Farmer stomped off,” Dedrick said.

  Kain listed the women guests, including Linda Banks, the “extra woman” whose flirting had detonated the Faye Farmer explosion. Banks, too, corroborated that Farmer had left in a huff.

  “Did Faye have any enemies?” I asked. “Did anyone want to kill her?”

  “Both Farmer and Kennedy had haters,” said Kain. “They each had thousands of followers on Facebook and Twitter. Also, there was a rumor that Faye might have been seeing some guy in the movie business. He’s a mystery man, if he even exists. I couldn’t find out his name.”

  I said, “So maybe Faye had an unknown admirer and she and Kennedy had at least a billion virtual fans. This just keeps getting better.”

  Claire spoke up. “What about Tracey Pendleton? Find out anything on my former security guard?”

  Dedrick said, “Pendleton has vanished. She has not used her credit card. She has not taken out any of the hundred and forty-five dollars she has in her checking account, and she has not used her phone. There’s no sign of her car, either.”

  Claire said, “Is she afraid to call in because she let the body snatcher into the morgue? Or is she drinking off a big paycheck for letting someone steal Faye Farmer’s body?”

  I was pretty sure that Tracey Pendleton knew who killed Faye Farmer because she opened the door and let someone in. That someone was either the killer, or a fixer who’d come to clean up for the killer.

  I was saying, “Tracey was likely collateral damage,” when the door behind me opened and FBI honcho Ron Parker poked his head in.

  “‘Scuse me, Lindsay. May I have a word?”

  Ah, nuts. What did he want now?

  Chapter 63

  I EXCUSED MYSELF, went out of the room, and asked Ron Parker what was up.

  He said, “There’s been a development.”

  Parker was wearing his weekend clothes—chinos, pink polo shirt, sunglasses hanging on the placket. He was looking at me as though he were about to open a trapdoor under my feet.

  I said, “You bring good news, I’m sure.”

  “It could be good.”

  I didn’t believe it for a second. I said, “Please don’t ask me to see Fish again.”

  “You’ve cast some kind of spell on him, Lindsay. He loves you, or maybe that beat-down you gave him turned him on. He says he’s willing to help us—meaning you—locate the bodies in this neck of the woods. Those are his words.”

  “I already went to see him, Ron. He got over on us, and now I’m done with Randolph Fish.”

  “He says he’ll give up names of girls we
didn’t know we were missing. This is important. It’s an opportunity to close out some ugly cold cases. I don’t see how we can turn him down.”

  “Ron, c’mon. He’s jerking us around.” “I don’t think so.”

  “Really?”

  “I told him that if he fucked us over, I’d have him transferred to the Q.”

  San Quentin is the oldest prison in California, with a death row that is the most decrepit, overpopulated hellhole imaginable. Originally built to hold forty-five prisoners, it now has a population of 725 convicted killers and more condemned dirtbags on the way every week.

  Fish wouldn’t like it there. No one ever did.

  “So the Q is the stick,” I said.

  “Yup. And here’s the carrot. If he helps, he gets one of those electronic book readers. Depending on how many of his victims he leads us to, we’ll talk about taking the needle off the table.”

  “I still say he’s conning us.”

  “You could be right. Still a good bet that Fish may have had an attack of conscience.”

  I said, “Fish has the conscience of a fish.”

  Ron laughed.

  We made a plan.

  Then I drove to the hospital to see my baby girl.

  Chapter 64

  I KNEW HOW to get to the neonatal ICU by heart. My baby was there. I could have found her in a blackout. Without a flashlight. With both hands cuffed behind my back.

  I took the first elevator in the bank and rode it to the fourth floor, a place that had been furnished in vanilla and soft lights, designed for the newly opened eyes of the preemies who were housed there most often.

  When the elevator opened, I stopped at the desk, exchanged pleasantries with the receptionist as I signed in, then I headed toward the waiting room. The walls, carpeting, and the furnishings throughout followed a vanilla color scheme.

  I found Joe slumped in a pale armchair, newspapers falling off his lap, his eyes closed. I called out to him.

  He smiled, said, “Hey, sweetie.” He stood and I went into his arms.