Women's Murder Club [06] The 6th Target Read online

  “I saw that without meaning to, I’d done just what my dad had done. And so, Lindsay, this is the news I wanted to tell you. I’m home for good.”

  Chapter 128

  I HELD JOE’S HAND as he told me that he’d relocated to San Francisco. I was listening, and I was watching Joe’s face — full of love for me. But the wheels in my mind were spinning.

  Joe and I had talked about what it would be like to be in the same place at the same time, and I’d broken up with him because it seemed we’d fallen into a way of talking more than forming a plan to make that talk come true.

  Now, sitting so close to this man, I wondered if the problem had really been Joe’s job or if we had conspired together to keep a safe distance from a relationship that had all the potential to be lasting and real.

  Joe picked up his coffee spoon and put it in his handkerchief pocket — I’m pretty sure he thought that the spoon was his pair of reading glasses.

  Then he fumbled in his jacket pocket and took out a jeweler’s box, black velvet, about two inches on all sides.

  “Something I want you to have, Lindsay.”

  He put aside the vase of sweetheart roses that was between us on the table and handed the box to me.

  “Open it. Please.”

  “I don’t think I can,” I said.

  “Just lift up the lid. There’s a hinge at the back.”

  I laughed at his joke, but I’m pretty sure I stopped breathing as I did what he said. Inside, nestled on velvet, was a platinum ring with three large diamonds and a small one on each side sparkling up at me.

  I finally sucked in my breath. I had to. The ring was a “gasper.” And then I looked across the table into Joe’s eyes. It was almost like gazing into my own, that’s how well I knew him.

  “I love you, Lindsay. Will you marry me? Will you be my wife?”

  The waiter came by and, without saying a word, sailed off. I closed the box. It made a dull little click, and I could swear that the light in the room dimmed.

  I swallowed hard, because I didn’t know what to say. The wheels inside my head were still spinning, and I was feeling the room spin, too.

  Joe and I had both been married.

  And we’d both been divorced.

  Was I ready to take a chance again?

  “Linds?”

  I finally choked out, “I love you, too, Joe, and I’m . . . I’m overwhelmed.” My voice cracked as I struggled to speak.

  “I need some time to do some deep thinking of my own. I need to be absolutely sure. Will you hold on to this, please?” I said, pushing the small box back across the table.

  “Let’s see how we do for a while. Just doing normal things,” I said to Joe. “The laundry. The movies. Weekends that don’t end with you getting into a car and heading to the airport.”

  Disappointment was written all over Joe’s face, and it hurt me terribly to see it. He seemed lost for a moment, then turned my hand over, put the box in my palm, and closed my fingers around it.

  “You keep this, Lindsay. I’m not changing my mind. I’m committed to you no matter how much laundry we have to do. No matter how many times we wash the car and take out the garbage and even fight about whose turn it is to do whatever. I’m really looking forward to all of that.” He grinned.

  Unbelievable how the room brightened again.

  Joe was smiling, holding both my hands in his. He said, “When you’re ready, let me know so I can put this ring on your finger. And tell my folks that we’re going to have a big Italian wedding.”

  Chapter 129

  IT WAS JUNE 6 when Jacobi called me and Rich into his office. He looked really pissed off, as bad as I’d ever seen him.

  “I got some bad news. Alfred Brinkley escaped,” he said.

  My jaw dropped.

  Nobody got out of Atascadero. It was a mental institution for the criminally insane, and that meant it was a maximum-security prison more than a hospital.

  “How’d it happen?” Conklin asked.

  “Bashed his head against the wall of his cell . . .”

  “Wasn’t he medicated? And under a suicide watch?”

  Jacobi shrugged. “Dunno. Anyway, the doc usually comes to the cell block, but this doc named Carter insists that the prisoner be brought to his office. Under guard. In the minimum-security wing.”

  “Oh, no,” I said, seeing it happen without being told. “The guard had a gun.”

  Jacobi explained to Conklin, “The guards wear their guns only when moving prisoners from one wing to another. So the doc says Brinkley has to be unshackled so he can give him the neuro test.”

  Jacobi went on to say that Brinkley had grabbed a scalpel, disarmed the guard, snatched the gun. That he’d put on the doctor’s clothes, used the guard’s keys to get out, and took the doctor’s car.

  “It happened two hours ago,” said Jacobi. “There’s an APB out on Dr. Carter’s blue Subaru Outback. L.L.Bean edition.”

  “Probably dumped the car by now,” Conklin said.

  “Yeah,” said Jacobi. “I don’t know what this is worth,” he added, “but according to the warden, Brinkley was all cranked up about this serial killer he read about, Edmund Kemper.”

  Conklin nodded. “Killed about six young women, lived with his mother.”

  “That’s the guy,” said Jacobi. “One night he comes home from a date, and his mother says something like, ‘Now I suppose you’re going to bore me with what you’ve been doing all night.’ ”

  “His mother knew about the killings?” I asked.

  “No, Boxer, she did not,” Jacobi said. “She was just a ballbreaker. Look, I was on the way to the can when the call came in, so may I finish the story, please?”

  I grinned at him. “Carry on, boss.”

  “So anyway, Mother Kemper says, ‘You’re going to bore me, right?’ So Edmund Kemper waits until she goes to bed and then cuts off her head and puts it on the fireplace mantel. And then he tells his mother’s head all about his night out. The long version, I’m sure.”

  “That psycho turned himself in, I seem to remember,” Conklin said. He cracked his knuckles, which is what Rich does when he’s agitated.

  I was rattled, too, at the idea of Brinkley at large, armed and seriously psychotic. I remembered the look on Brinkley’s face when he’d stared Yuki down after his trial. He’d leered at her and said, “Someone’s got to pay.”

  “Yeah, Kemper turned himself in. Thing is, when he confessed to the cops, he said that he’d actually killed those girls instead of his mother. Get it?” Jacobi was talking to me now. “He’d finally killed the right person.”

  “And the warden said that Kemper meant something to Alfred Brinkley?”

  “Right,” Jacobi said, standing, hoisting up his pants by the belt, making his way around Conklin’s long legs toward the door. “Brinkley was obsessed with Edmund Kemper.”

  Chapter 130

  FRED BRINKLEY WALKED ALONG Scott Street, looking straight ahead under the brim of Dr. Carter’s baseball cap. He was watching the small peaks of sails in the marina at the end of the street, smelling the air coming off the bay.

  His head still hurt, but the meds had quieted the voices so that he could think. He felt strong and ka-pow-pow powerful. The way he’d felt when he and Bucky had wasted those pitiful assholes on the ferry.

  As he walked, he replayed the scene in Dr. Carter’s office, how he’d exploded into action when the cuffs came off like he was some kind of superhero.

  Touch your nose.

  Touch your toes.

  Grab the scalpel.

  Put it to the doctor’s jugular and ask the guard for his gun. Fred was laughing now, thinking about that stupid guard snarling at him as he taped the guard and the doctor naked together, shoved gauze into their mouths, and locked them inside the closet.

  “You’ll be back, freak.”

  Fred touched the gun inside the doctor’s jacket pocket, thinking, I’ll be back, all right.

  I’m planning
on it.

  But not just yet.

  The small stucco houses on Scott Street were set back twenty feet from the road, butted up close to one another like dairy cows at the trough. The house Fred was looking for was tan with dark-brown shutters and a one-car garage under the second-floor living space.

  And there it was, with its crisp lawn and lemon tree, looking just like he remembered. The car was in the garage, and the garage door was open.

  This was excellent. Perfect timing, too.

  Fred Brinkley walked the twenty feet of asphalt driveway, then slipped inside the garage. He edged alongside the baby-blue ’95 BMW convertible and took the cordless nail gun off the tool bench. He slammed in a cartridge, fired into the wall to make sure the tool was working. Tha-wack.

  Then he walked up the short flight of stairs, turned the doorknob, and stepped onto the hardwood floor of the living room. He stood for a moment in front of the shrine.

  Then he took the leather-bound photo albums off the highboy, grabbed the watercolor from the easel, and carried the load of stuff to the kitchen.

  She was at the table, paying the bills. A small under-the-cabinet TV was on — Trial Heat.

  The dark-haired woman turned her head as he entered the kitchen, her eyes going huge as she tried to comprehend.

  “Hola, Mamacita,” he said cheerfully. “It’s me. And it’s time for the Fred and Elena Brinkley Show.”

  Chapter 131

  “YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE, ALFRED,” his mother said.

  Fred put the nail gun down on the counter, locked the kitchen door behind him. Then he flipped through the photo albums, showed his mother the pictures of Lily in her baby carriage, Lily with Mommy. Lily in her tiny bathing suit.

  Fred watched Elena’s eyes widen as he took the watercolor portrait of Lily, broke the glass against the counter.

  “No!”

  “Yes, Mama. Yes, sirree. These are dirty pictures. Filthy dirty.”

  He opened the dishwasher and stacked the albums on the lower rack, put the watercolor in the top rack. Slammed the dishwasher door on the complete photographic collection of his sainted sister and dialed the timer to five minutes.

  Heard the machine begin to tick.

  “Alfred,” said his mother, starting to stand, “this isn’t funny.”

  Fred pushed her back down in her seat.

  “The water isn’t going to come on for five minutes. All I want is your undivided attention for four, and then I’ll set your precious picture albums free.”

  Fred pulled out a chair and sat down right next to his mother. She gave him her “you’re revolting” look, showing him the disdain that had made him hate her for his entire life.

  “I didn’t finish what I was telling you that day in court,” he said.

  “That day when you lied, you mean?” she said, twisting her head toward the ticking dishwasher, shooting a look to the bolted kitchen door.

  Fred removed the guard’s Beretta from his jacket pocket. Took off the safety.

  “I want to talk to you, Mama.”

  “That’s not loaded.”

  Fred smiled, then put a shot through the floor. His mother’s face went gray.

  “Put your arms on the table. Do it, Mom. You want those pictures back, right?”

  Fred wrenched one of his mother’s arms away from her side, put it on the table, put the head of the nail gun to her sleeve, and pulled the trigger.

  Tha-wack. Nailed the other side of the cuff. Tha-wack, tha-wack.

  “See? What did you think, Mama? That I was going to hurt you? I’m not a madman, you know.”

  After he secured the first sleeve, he nailed down the second one, his mother flinching with each thwack, looking like she was going to cry.

  The knob on the dishwasher timer advanced a notch as a minute went by.

  Tick, tick, tick.

  “Give me my pictures, Fred. They’re all I have . . .”

  Fred put his mouth near his mother’s ear. Spoke in a loud stage whisper. “I did lie in court, Mom, because I wanted to hurt you. Let you know how I feel all the time.”

  “I don’t have time to listen to you,” Elena Brinkley said, pulling her arms against the nails, fabric straining.

  “But you do have time. Today is all about me. See?” he said, shooting the three-quarter-inch framing nails up the sides of her sleeves to her elbows.

  Tha-wack, tha-wack, tha-wack.

  “And the truth is that I wanted to do the dirty with Lily, and that was your fault, Mom. Because you made Lily into a little fuck-doll, with her tiny skirts and painted nails and high heels — on a twelve-year-old! What were you thinking? That she could look like that and no one would want to do her?”

  The telephone rang, and Elena Brinkley turned her head longingly toward it. Fred got up from his seat and pulled the cord out of the wall. Then he lifted the knife block from the counter and put it down hard on the table. BLAM.

  “Forget the phone. There’s no one you need to talk to. I’m the most important person in your world.”

  “What are you doing, Alfred?”

  “What do you think?” he said, taking out one of the long knives. “You think I’m going to cut your tongue out? What kind of psycho do you think I am?”

  He laughed at the horror on his mother’s face.

  “So the thing is, Mommy, I saw Lily going down on this guy, Peter Ballantine, who worked at the marina.”

  “She did no such thing.”

  Brinkley began to swipe the eight-inch-long blade against the sharpener — a long Carborundum rod. It made a satisfying whicking sound.

  “You should leave now. The police are looking —”

  “I’m not finished yet. You’re going to listen to me for the first time in your spiteful, miserable . . .”

  Ticketa, ticketa, tick.

  Inside his head, he was saying, Kill her. Kill her.

  Fred put down the blade and wiped the sweat from his palms onto the sides of Dr. Carter’s khakis. Picked up the knife again.

  “As I was saying, Lily had been teasing me, Mom. Flouncing around, half naked, and then she puts her mouth on Ballantine’s dick. Forget the pictures and listen to me!

  “Lily and I took the day-sailer out, and we anchored far out where no one could see us — and Lily took off her top.”

  Liar. Coward. Blaming her.

  “And so I reached out to her. Touched her little titties, and she looked at me like you’re looking at me. Like I was dog shit.”

  “I don’t want to hear this.”

  “You will hear it,” Brinkley said, touching the blade gently to the crepey skin of his mother’s neck. “So there she was in her little bitty half of a bathing suit, saying that I was the freak, saying, ‘I’m going to tell Mom.’

  “Those were her last words, Mama. ‘I’m going to tell Mom.’

  “When she turned away from me, I pulled back on the boom and gave it a shove. It smacked her across the back of the head, and —”

  There was the sound of breaking glass, followed by a deafening concussion and a blaze of light.

  Fred Brinkley thought that the world had blown apart.

  Chapter 132

  I WATCHED THROUGH THE SMALL kitchen window, horrified, as Brinkley held a sharpened knife to the side of his mother’s neck.

  We were armed and ready, but what we needed was a clear line of fire, and Mrs. Brinkley was blocking our shot. Breaking in through either door would give him time enough to kill her.

  Fear for the woman climbed up my spine like a lit fuse. I wanted to scream.

  Instead, I turned toward Ray Quevas, head of our SWAT team. He shook his head — no — again telling me he couldn’t take the shot. This situation could go south in an instant no matter what we did, so when he asked for a green light on the flashbang, I said go ahead.

  We pulled on our masks and goggles, and Ray jabbed the window with the launcher barrel, breaking the glass — and then he fired.

  The grenade bounced
off the far wall of the kitchen and exploded in an ear-shattering, blinding concussion.

  The SWAT team had the door down in a half second, and we were inside the smoke-filled room, wanting only one thing: to incapacitate Brinkley before he could get his head together and grab his gun.

  I found Brinkley on the floor, facedown, legs under the table. I straddled his back and bent his arms behind him.

  I had the cuffs nearly closed when he flipped over and shoved me off his body. He was as strong as a freaking bull. As I struggled to right myself, Brinkley grabbed his gun, which had fallen onto the floor.

  Conklin ripped off his mask and yelled, “Keep your hands where I can see them.”

  It was a standoff.

  Chapter 133

  LASERS WERE POINTED AT BRINKLEY’S HEAD — but he had two hands on his gun grip, prone position, his military training kicking in. His Beretta was aimed at Conklin. And Rich’s gun was on Brinkley.

  I was right there.

  I screwed my Glock into Brinkley’s first vertebra hard enough so that he could really feel it, and I yelled through my mask, “Don’t move. Don’t you move an inch, or you’re dead.”

  Richie kicked out at Brinkley’s gun, sending it skittering across the floor.

  Six weapons were trained on Brinkley as I cuffed him, exhilaration flowing through me — even as Brinkley laughed at us.

  I pulled off my mask, gagging a little from the phosphorus still in the air. I didn’t know what Brinkley found so funny.

  We had him. We had him alive.

  “He was going to kill me!” Elena Brinkley shouted at Jacobi. “Can’t you keep him locked up?”

  “What happened?” Brinkley said, looking over his shoulder into my face.

  “Remember me?” I said.

  “Oh, yeah,” he said. “My friend, Lindsay Boxer.”

  “Good. You’re under arrest for your prison break,” I said. “And I think we’ve got a reckless endangerment charge to go with it. Maybe attempted murder, too.”