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

  I flashed him a sympathetic wag of my eyes. “I’m sorry. Let’s stop the Q and A.”

  “It’s okay. Things happen. Suddenly, it seemed we were just traveling in different circles. To be more precise, Marion fell in love with the guy who owned the real estate office where she worked. It’s an old story. I guess I never quite learned which fork to use.”

  “I could’ve saved you some pain,” I said. “It goes left to right. Are there kids?”

  “Two great boys. Fourteen and twelve. Jason is the jock. Teddy’s the brain. Set up a home page for his sixth-grade class. I get them every other weekend. Lights of my life, Lindsay.”

  I could actually see Raleigh as superdad. Kicking the ball around on Saturdays, installing the computer in the den. On top of it, the guy did have affectionate eyes. It was gradually dawning on me that he wasn’t the enemy.

  “I guess —” he grinned at me — “getting the order of forks right didn’t exactly help you, though. You’re divorced, right?”

  “Oohh. Somebody’s been checking around,” I said. “I was just out of the police academy. Tom was in his second year of law school at Berkeley. At first, he was going to go criminal. We had sort of a Carville-and-Matalin thing going. I imagined me testifying, Tom Terrific socking it to me on the cross. Ultimately, he opted for corporate.”

  “And?”

  “It was his picture, not mine. I wasn’t ready for the country club. It’s an old story, right?” I smiled. “The truth: He walked out on me. Kind of broke my heart into tiny pieces.”

  “Sounds like we’ve got some things in common,” Raleigh said gently. He did have nice eyes. Stop it, Lindsay.

  “If you must know,” I replied, deadpan, “for the past six months I’ve been having this torrid affair with Warren Jacobi.”

  Raleigh laughed and pretended to look surprised. “Geez, Jacobi doesn’t seem like your type. What’s the fatal attraction?”

  I thought of my ex-husband, Tom, then one other man I had been sort of serious about. What always attracted me when I let someone get close. “Soft hands. And, I guess, a soft heart.”

  “So what ya think?” Raleigh said. “You put a few homemade jams on the shelves. Give the coffees some sexier names. Arabian Breeze, Sirocco. You think we can hike up the average sale?”

  “Why are you going through this, Raleigh?”

  He gave me a look that was sort of between an embarrassed grin and a sparkle in his clear blue eyes. “I’ve been doing police work for sixteen years. So you get to thinking…. I have this favorite place. Up in Tahoe. Maybe one of these franchises…”

  “Sorry, I don’t see you behind the counter picking out the muffins.”

  “Nicest thing you’ve said to me so far.”

  I got up, tucked the envelope under my arm, and headed toward the door. “On second thought, you might make a better baker than a cop.”

  “That’s my girl.” He smiled. “Wise-guy answer for everything. Keep those defenses up.”

  As we left the shop, I softened and said to him, “I have this favorite place, too.”

  “Maybe you’ll show me one day.”

  “Maybe I will.”

  I was surprised by Raleigh — live and learn. He was actually a nice guy. I wondered if he had soft hands.

  Chapter 23

  WHEN REBECCA PASSENEAU looked at herself in the full splendor of her wedding dress, she knew that she was no longer her mother’s little girl.

  You’re my baby. She had heard those words from her very first days on the planet.

  With three older brothers, it wasn’t so hard to imagine why. Her mother had always wanted a girl. Daddy, too; but as the years went on they had assumed their time had passed. The oldest — Ben, the daredevil — had been killed before she was born. Her parents were crushed. They couldn’t even think of more children. Then, miraculously, Becky came.

  “My baby,” she heard her mother exclaim from where she stood behind Becky.

  “Oh, Mom.” Becky sighed, but she also smiled.

  She continued to look at herself. She was beautiful. In her long, white, strapless dress, an avalanche of tulle, she shone like the most lovely and beautiful thing in the world. Michael would be so happy. With all the arrangements — the hotel in Napa, the flowers, the last-minute alterations to the dress — she had thought the day would never actually come. But now it was almost here. Friday.

  Ms. Perkins, the saleswoman at Saks, could only stand and admire. “You’re gonna knock ’em dead, sweetheart.”

  Becky spun around, catching herself in every view of the three-paneled mirror. She grinned. “I will, won’t I?”

  “Your father and I want you to have something,” her mother said.

  She reached into her purse and pulled out a small suede jewelry pouch. In it was her diamond brooch, a four-carat oval on a string of pearls, passed on from her own mother.

  She stepped closer to Becky, clasped the strand around her neck.

  “It’s gorgeous.” Becky gasped. “Oh, Mom.”

  “It was given to me on my wedding day,” her mother said. “It has brought me a beautiful life. Now it’s for you.”

  Becky Passeneau stood there in the spell of the mirror. The glorious dress, the diamond in the hollow of her throat.

  She finally stepped off the alteration platform and hugged her mother. “I love you, Mom. You’re the best.”

  “Now it’s complete,” her mother said, with a tear in her eye.

  “No, not quite,” said Ms. Perkins. She ran into the back and hurriedly returned with a bouquet of flowers. Imitations, sales accessories, but at the moment they looked like the most resplendent blossoms in the world.

  She gave them to Becky, who stepped back up onto the platform, hugging them to herself. She saw her beaming smile reflected three times. They all stood back and admired.

  “Now you are complete,” Ms. Perkins said.

  Standing nearby in Saks, watching Becky model her stunning dress, Phillip Campbell couldn’t have agreed more.

  “Your big day is almost here,” he whispered softly. “You look beautiful.”

  Chapter 24

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Milt Fanning from the FBI Sex Crimes Unit reported in. His computer had popped up a handful of related crimes, but he was letting me know that none of them was a strong lead.

  They had started by plugging in fists used in the act of sexual assault, and that produced several cases, mostly gay crimes. One was in connection with a couple of murdered prostitutes in Compton that dated back to 1992, but Nicholas Chito was serving twenty-five years to life in San Quentin for that.

  There had been several hotel murders, even one involving newlyweds in Ohio, in which the groom had opened up the womb of his beloved with a 30-30 when he discovered he wasn’t the first. But there was nothing local or still outstanding, nothing tangible to give us a direction.

  I was disappointed but not surprised. Everything we had uncovered so far convinced me that when David and Melanie Brandt ran into their killer at the Hyatt, it wasn’t the first time they had met.

  I saw Jacobi wandering in from outside. For two days, he had been avoiding me — running down his assignments, specifically the searches for the champagne and the jacket.

  After two years, I knew that when Jacobi wasn’t needling me, he wasn’t happy.

  “How’s the search going?” I asked.

  He flashed me a tight-lipped smirk. “Chin and Murphy are calling every fricking wine store in a forty-mile radius. You think any of these guys keep track of this sort of thing? They all tell me that bottle could’ve been ordered from anywhere in the country. Then there’s mail order to consider. The Internet. Cripes!”

  I knew it was a long shot. But how many people pay two hundred bucks for a bottle of champagne?

  “Still,”— he finally faced me with a self-satisfied smile —“we came up with some names.”

  As if to torture me, Jacobi leafed through his notepad to what must’ve been page thirty.
Then he squinted, cleared his throat, saying, “Yeah, here we go… Golden State Wine Shop, on Crescent. Krug. Clos du Mesnil,” he pronounced, bludgeoning the French. “Nineteen eighty-nine. Someone ordered a case of the stuff last March. Name of Roy C. Shoen.”

  “You check him out?”

  He nodded. “Never heard of any Brandt. He’s a dentist. I guess rich dentists like fancy wine, too.” He flipped over the page. “Then there’s Vineyard Wines in Mill Valley. Murphy handled it.” For the first time in a couple of days he really smiled at me. “The guy who bought the wine was named Murphy, too. Regular customer there. Threw a dinner party for his wife’s birthday. You want to give me a morning off I’ll check him out, but I thought I’d send Murphy himself. Just for the laugh.”

  “Any luck with the tuxedo jacket?”

  “We called the manufacturer. Fifteen stores in the area sell this brand. If it even came from around here. We’re bringing in their local rep. Tracking down the owner of this thing…it ain’t gonna be easy.”

  “While you’re out there, Warren,” I teased, “see if you can pick yourself up a decent tie.”

  “Ho ho. So how you getting along without me?” Jacobi asked, facing me. He flattened his lips, and I could see the disappointment all over his face. Made me feel bad.

  “I’m coping.” Then, seriously, “I’m sorry, Warren. You know that I didn’t ask for this guy.”

  He nodded self-consciously.

  “You want me to check out everyone we dig up who’s into fancy champagne?”

  I shook my head. I got up, dropped a copy of the Brandt wedding list on his desk. “What I want you to do is check and see if they match against this list.”

  He leafed through the lists, whistling at a few of the more prominent names. “Too bad, Boxer. No Shoen or Murphy. Maybe we’ll just have to wait and take a shot at couple number two.”

  “What makes you say that?” I asked. Jacobi was a pain in the ass, but he was a good cop with a good nose for sniffing out a pattern.

  “We’re looking for a spiffy dresser who likes to get dirty with dead brides, right?”

  I nodded. I remembered something my first partner had told me. Never wrestle with a pig, Lindsay. You both get dirty. The pig likes it.

  “I figure it’s gotta be hard for a guy like that to find a date,” said Jacobi.

  Chapter 25

  THE FIRST WEEK of the bride and groom investigation was gone. Unbelievable.

  Jacobi’s team had pounded the jacket-and-champagne search, but so far they had come up empty. Raleigh and I had spoken to twenty wedding guests, from the mayor to the groom’s best friend. All of them were numb and sickened, but unable to put a finger on any one thing that might move us along.

  All I could focus on was that we needed something firm — fast — before this guy who took the rings killed again.

  I underwent my second transfusion. I watched the thick red blood drip into my vein. I prayed it was making me stronger, but I didn’t know. It had the slow, steady beat of a ticking clock.

  And the clock was ticking. Mine, Chief Mercer’s.

  Saturday at six, Jacobi closed his pad, put on his sport jacket, and tucked his gun into his belt. “See ya, Boxer,” he said.

  Raleigh stopped by before heading out. “I owe you a beer. You want to collect?”

  A beer would be nice, I thought. I was even growing used to Raleigh’s company. But something told me that if I went with him now, I’d let everything out: Negli’s, my treatments, the fear in my heart.

  I shook my head. “Think I’ll stick around,” I said with a polite shrug.

  “You got plans tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. I’m meeting Claire. Then I’ll come in here. What about you?”

  “Jason’s in a soccer tournament in Palo Alto. I’m taking both boys down.”

  “Sounds nice.” It did sound nice. It had the ring of something I might miss out on in life.

  “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.” He had given me his beeper the first day we hooked up. “I’m an hour away. Call if anything comes up.”

  With Raleigh gone, my corner of the squad room became shrouded in silence. The investigation was shut down for the night. One or two of the night staff were chatting out in the hall.

  I had never felt so lonely. I knew that if I went home now I’d be leaving behind some vital nexus to the case. Failing some unsaid promise I had made to Melanie. One more look, I said. One more pass.

  Why would the killer take the rings?

  A wave of exhaustion washed through my veins. My new fighting cells were sapping my strength even as they defended me, multiplied. The cavalry, charging in to the rescue. Hope attacking doubt. It seemed crazy.

  I had to let David and Melanie sleep for the night. I bound the thick crime file up in its elastic cord and placed it in the gray bin marked “Open Cases.” Next to similar files, with similar names.

  Then I sat at my desk in the dark squad room for a couple of minutes more. I started to cry.

  Book Two

  THE WOMEN’S MURDER CLUB

  Chapter 26

  BECKY DEGEORGE, in the bloom of her first full day as Michael’s wife, walked out of the hotel lobby holding her husband’s hand. She breathed in the cool night air, the first fresh air she had inhaled all day.

  In the brief span of their marriage, she and Michael had made love several times and taken two steamy showers together. They had poked their heads out for an obligatory but, at last, final brunch with the families. They had begged off the trip to Opus One, scurried back upstairs, and popped a last bottle of champagne. Michael had put on a sex video and as they watched the film they played out some unusual and exciting roles. He seemed to have several fantasies about wearing women’s clothes.

  Tomorrow, they’d be off to Mazatlan, for a heavenly week exploring all those sexy spots on his body she had yet to find. Maybe they’d even come out once or twice to see the dolphins.

  So far, she decided, things were going very well.

  Tonight, they were headed to the French Laundry, the finest restaurant in Napa. Everyone said it was the place to eat, and they had booked the reservation almost six months in advance. Becky’s mouth watered as she dreamed of some fabulous sequence of tastes: foie gras, wild-berry duck, all washed down with an expensive champagne.

  On the short walk to the car, a black limo pulled up alongside them. The passenger window opened, and a uniformed driver stuck his head out. “Mr. and Mrs. De-George?”

  They looked at each other, puzzled, then smiled. “That’s us.”

  “I’m at your service,” the driver announced. “Compliments of the hotel.”

  Becky was ecstatic. “You mean for us?” Once, in her job as a legal secretary, at a big closing, she had ridden in a fabulous stretch; but she had been jammed in the backseat with four preoccupied lawyers.

  “Booked and paid for the night,” the driver said, and winked.

  The newlyweds exchanged a bright, exclamatory look.

  “No one mentioned anything about this,” said Michael, who seemed pleased with the notion that he was thought of as a VIP.

  Becky peeked inside. “Oh, Michael.” There were lush leather seats and a polished mahogany bar with crystal glasses. The lights were dimmed to a romantic glow. There was even a bottle of chardonnay on ice. She thought of pulling up to the most fashionable restaurant in Napa in this wonderful car.

  “C’mon, Michael.” She laughed, almost pulling him in. “It’ll be a trip.”

  “I can be waiting at the restaurant when you come out,” the driver said, “and as it happens, you’re talking to someone who happens to know the most scenic routes through Napa.”

  She saw Michael’s mild hesitation begin to crack. “Don’t you want to take your princess in style?”

  Just as he had when she first smiled his way in the office, just as he had in bed last night, she saw him slowly come around. He was a little cautious sometimes. Accountants often were. But she’d always found
ways of loosening him up.

  “Whatever Becky wants,” Michael finally said.

  Chapter 27

  JUST MARRIED?” Phillip Campbell asked, his heart jumping.

  The bright lights of oncoming cars shot through him like X rays, exposing innermost desires.

  “Twenty-six hours, twenty-two minutes, and… forty-five seconds,” Becky chirped.

  Campbell’s heart pounded loudly. She was perfect. They were perfect together. Even better than he had hoped.

  The road was blank and seemed directionless, but he knew where he was going. “Help yourself to a drink. That’s a Palmeyer in the bucket. Some people think it’s the best in the valley.”

  As he drove, the killer’s nerves were taut and excited. What is the worst thing anyone has ever done? Can I do it again? More to the point, can I ever stop doing it?

  He glanced back and saw Becky and Michael pouring the Palmeyer wine. He heard the clink of raised glasses, then something about years of good luck. With a chill in his heart, he watched them kiss.

  He hated every smug, deluded pore in their bodies. Don’t you want to take your princess in style? He fingered the gun resting in his lap. He was changing murder weapons.

  After a while, Campbell turned the limo up a steep hill off the main road.

  “Where’re we heading, driver?” the husband’s voice came from the back.

  He glanced in the mirror and smiled confidently at the DeGeorges. “I thought I’d take you the scenic way. Best views in the valley. And I’ll still have you to the restaurant by eight.”

  “We don’t want to be late,” the groom warned sheepishly. “These reservations were harder to get than the damn hotel.”

  “Oh, c’mon, honey,” Becky chimed in with perfect timing.

  “Things start to open up just ahead,” he told them. “Real pretty. In the meantime, relax. Put on some music. I’ll show you the best views. Very romantic.”