WMC - First to Die Read online

  Chapter 102

  I THINK WE ROCKED ALL NIGHT. We laughed some, cried some. I don't even remember how I woke up in bed. The following day, I barely left his touch. With all that was threatening, all that seemed uncertain, I felt so safe and sure in his arms. I never wanted to leave. But something else happened during that weekend -apart from Negli's, apart from Chris and me. Something gripping, invading my sense of comfort and security. It was something Jacobi had said that planted the thought. One of those thrown-out remarks you didn't pay much attention to but somehow got filed away in your mind. Then it comes back at the oddest time, with more force and logic than before. It was Sunday night. The weekend was over. Chris had driven me home. Hard as it was to leave him, I needed to be alone for a while, to take inventory of the weekend, to figure out what I would do next. I unpacked, made some tea, curled up on my couch with Her Sweetness. My mind wandered to the murder case. Nicholas Jenks was behind me now. Only the countless reports to fill out. Even though he was still ranting about being set up. it was just more insanity, more lies. It was then that Jacobi's words snaked into my brain. Good collaj; he'd said, early Tuesday morning. He had that annoying, persistent look in his eyes. Just remember, he'd called after me, it was the champagne match, that got you. on your way… Why do you think Jenks left that champagne? I was barely paying attention. Jenks was locked away. The case was a slam dunk. I was thinking about the night before, and Chris. I stopped on the stairs and turned to him. I don't fe now Warren. We've been over this. Heat of the moment, maybe. You're right. He nodded. That must be why he didn't ball up the jacket and take it with him, too. I looked at him, like, Why are we going through this now? Jenfes needed a clean tux jacket to get out of the hotel undetected. The DNA match on the hair made it all academic, anyway. Then he said it. You ever read the whole book? he asked. Which book? Jenfes's boo fe Always a Bridesmaid. The parts that matter, I replied. Why? He said, I don't fe now it just sort of stuck with me. Like I said, my wife happens to be a fan. There were some copies of the manuscript around, so I took one home. It was interesting how it all came out in the end. I looked at him, trying to figure out where all this was heading. It was a setup, Jacob! said. This Phillip Campbell guy, he gets off. He pins the whole thing on someone else. Days later, Warren's words came creeping back into my mind. A setup. He pins the whole thing on someone else. It was ridiculous, I told myself, that I was even dignifying this scenario, running through it in my mind. Everything was solid, airtight. Setup, I found myself thinking again. "I must be an idiot," I said aloud. "Jenks is clinging to any story he can to wiggle his way out of this." I got up, brought my tea into the bathroom, began to wash my face. In the morning I would tell Cheery about my disease. I had some time coming. I would face this thing head-on. Now that the case was complete, it was the right time. Now that the case was complete! I went into the bedroom, ripped the tags off a "Little Bit of Heaven," a T-shirt Chris had bought me. I got into bed, and Martha came around for her hug. Memories of the weekend began to drift in my head. I closed my eyes. I could hardly wait to share it with the girls. Then a thought from out of the blue hit me. I shot up as if I'd had a nightmare. I stiffened. "Oh, no. Oh, Jesus, no," I whispered. When Jenks had lunged at me at his house, he had swung with his left hand. When he'd offered me a drink, he'd picked up the pitcher with his left hand. Impossible, I thought. This can't be happening. Claire was certain David Brandt's killer had been right handed.

  Chapter 103

  JILL, CLAIRE, AND CINDY looked at me as if I were insane. The words had barely tumbled out of my mouth. "What if Jenks is right? What if someone is trying to set him up?" "That's a crock!" snapped Jill. "Jenks is desperate and only moderately clever. We've got him!" "I can't believe you're saying this," exclaimed Cindy. "You're the one who found him. You're the one who made the case." "I know. I know it seems crazy. Hopefully, it is crazy. Just hear me out." I took them through Jacobi's comment about the novel, then my lightning bolt about Jenks's left-handedness. "Proves nothing," Jill said. "I can't get past the science, Lindsay," Claire said with a shake of her head. "We've got his goddamn DNA at the scene." "Look," I protested, "I want the guy as much as anybody. But now that we have all this evidence- well- it's just so neat. The jacket, the champagne. Jenks has set up complicated murders in his books. Why would he leave clues behind?" "Because he's a sick bastard, Lindsay. Because he's an arrogant prick who's connected to all three crimes." Jill nodded. "He's a writer. He's an amateur at actually doing anything. He just fucked up." "You saw his reactions, Jill. They were deeper than simply desperation. I've seen killers on death row still in denial. This was more unsettling. Like disbelief." Jill stood up, her icy blue eyes spearing down at me. "Why, Lindsay, why the sudden about-face?" For the first time I felt alone and separated from the people I had most learned to trust. "No one could possibly hate this man more than I do," I declared. "I hunted him. I saw what he did to those women." I turned to Claire. "You said the killer was right-handed." "Probably right-handed," Claire came back. "What if he simply held the knife in his other hand?" proposed Cindy. "Cindy, if you were going to kill someone," I said, "someone larger and stronger, would you go at him with your opposite hand?" "Maybe not," injected Jill, "but you're throwing all this up in the face of facts. Evidence and reason, Lindsay. All the things we worked to assemble. What you're giving me back is a set of hypotheticals. "Jenks holds his pitcher with his left hand. Phillip Campbell sets someone up at the end of his book." Lindsay, we have the guy pinned to three double murders. I need you firm on this." Her jaw was quivering. "I need you to testify." I didn't know how to defend myself. I had wanted to nail Jenks as eagerly as any one of us. More. But now, after being so sure, I couldn't put it away, the sudden doubt. Did we have the right man? "We still haven't uncovered a weapon," I said to Jill. "We don't need a weapon, Lindsay. We have his hair inside one of the victims!" Suddenly, we were aware that people from other tables were looking at us. Jill huffed and sat back down. Claire put her arms around my shoulders. I puffed a deep breath into my cheeks, slumped back against the cushion of the booth. Finally, Cindy said, "We've been behind you all the way. We're not going to abandon you now." Jill shook her head. "You want me to let him go, guys, while we reopen the case? If we don't try him, Cleveland will." "I don't want you to let him go," I said. "I only want to be one hundred percent sure." "I am sure," Jill replied, her eyes ablaze. I sought out Claire, and even she had a skeptical expression fixed firmly in my direction. "There's an awful lot of physical evidence that makes it pretty clear." "If this gets out," Jill warned, "you can toss my career out with the cat litter. Bennett wants this guy's blood on the courthouse wall." "Look at it this way," Cindy said, chuckling, "if Lindsay's right, and you send Jenks up, they'll be studying this case as a 'how not to' for twenty years to come." Numbly, we looked around the table. It was as if we were staring at the pieces of some shattered, irreplaceable vase. "Okay, so if it's not him," Claire said with a sigh, "then how do we go about proving who it is?" It was as if we were all the way back at the beginning- all the way back at the first crime. I felt awful. "What was the thing that nailed our suspicion on Jenks?" I asked. "The hair," said Claire. "Not quite. We had to get to him before we knew who it belonged to." "Merrill Shortley," Jill said. "Jenks and Merrill? You think?" I shook my head. "We still needed one more thing before we could take him in." Cindy said, "Always a Bridesmaid. His first wife." I nodded slowly as I left Susie's.

  Chapter 104

  OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, I went back over everything we had on Joanna Wade. First, I reread the domestic complaint she had filed against Jenks. I looked at pictures of Joanna taken at the station, bruised, puffy faced. I read through the officers' account of what they found at the scene. Exchanges laced with invectives. Jenks swinging wildly, clearly enraged. He had to be subdued, resisted arrest. The report was signed by two officers from Northern, Samuel Delgado and Anthony Fazziola. The following day, I went back out to visit Greg Marks, Jenks's former agent. He was even mor
e surprised at my visit when I told him I was there on a different aspect of Jenks's past. "Joanna?" he replied with an amused smile. "Bad judge of men, Inspector, but a worse judge of timing." He explained that their divorce had been finalized only six months before Crossed Wire hit the stands. He said the book sold nearly a million copies in hardcover alone. "To have to put up with Nicholas through all the lean years, then come away with barely more than cab fare…" He shook his head. "The settlement was a pittance compared to what it would've been if they had filed a year later." What he told me painted a different picture of the woman I had met in the gym. She seemed to have put it all behind her. "She felt used, dropped like worn baggage. Joanna had put him through school, supported him when he first started writing. When Nick bagged law school, she even went back to her job." "And afterward," I asked, "did she continue to hate him?" "I believe she continued to try and sue him. After they split up, she tried to sue him for a lien against future earnings. Nonperformance, breach of contract. Anything she could find." I felt sorry for Joanna Wade. But could it drive her to that kind of revenge? Could it cause her to kill six people? The following day, I obtained a copy of the divorce proceedings from County Records. Through the usual boilerplate, I got the sense it was an especially bitter case. She was seeking three million dollars judgment against future earnings. She ended up with five thousand a month, escalating to ten if Jenks's earnings substantially increased. I couldn't believe the bizarre transformation that was starting to take over my mind. It had been Joanna who had first mentioned the book. Who felt cheated, spurned, and carried a resentment far deeper than what she had revealed. Joanna, the Tac-Bo in351 structor who was strong enough to take down a man twice her size. Who even had access to the Jenkses' home. It seemed crazy to be thinking this way. More than preposterous it was impossible. The murders were committed by a male, by Nicholas Jenks.

  Chapter 105

  THE NEXT DAY, as we shared a hot dog and a pretzel in front of City Hall, I told Chris what I had found. He looked at me in much the same way the girls had a few days before. Shock, confusion. Disbelief. But he didn't get negative. "She could've set the whole thing up," I said. "She knew about the book. She lobbed it out there for us to find. She knew Jenks's taste- champagne, clothes- his involvement with Sparrow Ridge. She even had access to the house." "I might buy it," he said, "but these murders were committed by a man. Jenks, Lindsay. We even have him on film." "Or someone made up to look like Jenks. Every sighting of him was inconclusive." "Lindsay, the DNA was a match. " "I spoke to the officers who went to the house when he beat Joanna," I pressed on. "They said, as enraged as Jenks was, she was dishing it right back to him, just as strong. They had to restrain her as they took him away in the car." "She dropped the charges, Lindsay. She got tired of being abused. She may not have gotten what she deserved, but she filed and started a new life." "That's just it, Chris. She didn't file. It was Jenks who left her. She sacrificed everything for Jenks. Marks described her as a model of co dependency I could see Chris wanted to believe, but he was unconvinced. I had a man in jail with almost incontrovertible evidence against him. And here I was unraveling everything. What was the matter with me? Then, out of the blue, something came back to me, something I had filed away long ago. Laurie Birnbaum, the witness from the Brandt wedding. How she had described the man she saw. Something strange… The beard made him seem older, but the rest of him was young. Joanna Wade, medium-height, right-handed, the Tac-Bo instructor, was strong enough to handle a man twice her size. And Jenks's nine millimeter. He said he hadn't seen it in years. At the house in Montana… The records showed he had bought the gun ten years ago. When he was married to Joanna. "You should see her," I said with rising conviction. "She's tough enough to handle any of us. She's the one link who knew about everything: wine, clothes, Always a Bridesmaid. She had the means to pull it all together. The photos, the sightings were inconclusive. What if it was her, Chris?" I was holding his hand- my mind racing with the possibilities- when I felt a sudden, awful tightness in my chest. I thought it was the shock of what I had just proposed, but it hit me with the speed of an oncoming train. Vertigo, nausea. It swept from my stomach to my head. "Lindsay?" Chris said. I felt his hand bracing my shoulder. "I feel kind of weird," I muttered. The sweats, a rush, then terrible light-headedness. As if armies were marching and clashing in my chest. "Lindsay?" he said again, this time with real concern. I leaned into him. This was the weirdest, scariest sensation. I felt both momentarily robbed of strength and then back in control; lucid, then very woozy again. I saw Chris, and then I didn't. I saw who killed the brides and grooms. And then it faded away. I felt myself falling toward the sidewalk.

  Chapter 106

  I FOUND MYSELF COMING TO on a wooden park bench in Chris's arms. He held me tightly while my strength returned. Orenthaler had warned me. It was stage three. Crunch time in my body. I didn't know which held more apprehension for me: going on chemo and gearing up for a bone marrow transplant or feeling my strength eaten away from the inside. You can't let it win. "I'm okay," I told him, my voice getting stronger. "I was told to expect this." "You're trying to do too much, Lindsay. Now you're talking about reopening a whole new investigation." I took a deep breath and nodded. "I just need to be strong enough to see this through." We sat there for a while. I could feel the color in my face reviving, the strength in my limbs returning. Chris held me, cuddled me tenderly. We must've looked like two lovers trying to find privacy in a very public place. Finally, he said, "What you were describing, Lindsay, about Joanna, you really think it's true?" It could still add up to nothing. She hadn't lied about her separation from Jenks. Or about her current relationship with both him and Chessy. Had she concealed a bitter hatred? She had the knowledge, the means. "I think the killer is still out there," I said.

  Chapter 107

  I DECIDED TO TAKE A HUGE RISK. Iflblewit.it could knock the lid right off my case. I decided to run what I suspected by Jenks. I met him in the same visiting room. He was accompanied by his lawyer, Leff. He didn't want to meet, convinced there was no longer a point in talking with the police. And I didn't want to convey my true intent and end up feeding their defense arguments if I was wrong. Jenks seemed sullen, almost depressed. His cool and meticulous appearance had deteriorated into an edgy, unshaven mess. "What do you want now?" he sneered, barely meeting my eyes. "I want to know if you were able to come up with anyone who would like to see you in here," I said. "Pounding the lid on my coffin?" he said with a mirthless smile. "Let's just say, in the interest of doing my duty, I'm giving you one final chance to pry it back open." Jenks snorted skeptically. "Sherman tells me I'm about to be charged in Napa with two more murders. Isn't that great? If this is an offer of assistance, I think I'll take my chances on proving it myself." "I didn't come here to trap you, Mr. Jenks. I came to hear you out." Leff leaned over and whispered in his ear. He seemed to be encouraging Jenks to talk. The prisoner looked up with a disgusted glare. "Someone's running around, intent to look like me, familiar with my first novel. This person also wants to see me suffer. Is it so hard to figure out?" "I'm willing to hear any names," I told him. "Greg Marks." "Your former agent?" "He feels like I owe him my fucking career. I've cost him millions. Since I left, he hasn't gotten a worthwhile client. And he's violent. Marks belongs to a shooting club." "How would he have gotten his hands on your clothing? Or been able to get a sample of your hair?" "You find that out. You're the police." "Did he know you'd be in Cleveland that night? Did he know about you and Kathy Kogut?" "Nick is merely proposing," Leff cut in, "that other possibilities do exist for who could be behind these crimes." I shifted in my seat. "Who else knew about the book?" Jenks twitched. "It wasn't something I paraded around. Couple of old friends. My first wife, Joanna…" "Any of them have any reason to want to set you up?" Jenks sighed uncomfortably. "My divorce, as you may know, was not exactly what they call mutually agreeable. No doubt there was a time Joanna would've been delighted to find me on a deserted road while she was cruising al
ong at sixty. But now that she's back on her feet, with a new life, now that she's even gotten to know Chessy… I don't think so. No. It isn't Joanna. Trust me on that." I ignored the remark and looked firmly into his eyes. "You told me your ex-wife's been to your house." "Maybe once or twice." "So, she'd have access to certain things. Maybe the wine? Maybe what was in your closet?" Jenks seemed to contemplate the possibility for a moment, then his mouth crinkled into a contemptuous smile. "Impossible. No. It isn't Joanna." "How can you be so sure?" He looked at me as if he were stating an understood fact. "Joanna loved me. She still does. Why do you think she hangs around, covets a relationship with my new wife? Because she misses the view? It's because she cannot replace what I gave her. How I loved her. She is empty without me. "What do you think?" he snorted. "Joanna's been holding specimens of my hair in a jar ever since we were divorced?" He sat there, stroking his beard, while the resolve on his face softened into a glimmer of possibility. "Someone has it in for me… but Joanna… she was just a little clerk when I met her. She didn't know Ralph Lauren from JCPenneys. I gave her self-esteem. I devoted myself to her, and she to me. She sacrificed for me, even worked two jobs when I decided to write." It was hard to think of Jenks as anything other than the ruthless bastard who was responsible for these horrible crimes, but I pressed on. "You said the tuxedo was an old suit. You didn't even recognize it. And the gun, Mr. Jenks, the nine millimeter. You said you hadn't seen it in years. That you thought it was kept somewhere at your house in Montana. Are you so sure this might not have been planned for some time?" I could see Jenks subtly shifting his expression as he came around to the impossible conclusion. "You said that when you started writing, Joanna took a second job to help support you. Just what sort of work?" Jenks stared up toward the ceiling, then he seemed to remember. "She worked at Saks."