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

  His eyes went to Yuki. “Ms. Castellano, is it?”

  “Yes, Your Honor. This is a delaying tactic,” she said, her words coming out clipped and fast, her usual rat-a-tat style. “Defense counsel wants to get her client out of the public eye so that the media flap will die down. Ms. Blanco knows perfectly well that Mr. Brinkley is quite competent to stand trial. He shot and killed four people. He turned himself in. He confessed of his own volition.

  “The People want and deserve a speedy trial —”

  “I understand what the People want, Ms. Castellano,” said the judge, countering her verbal machine gun with a patient drawl. “But we’ll get a quick turnaround from Dr. Everedt. Shouldn’t take more than a few days. I think the People can wait that long, don’t you?”

  Yuki said, “Yes, sir,” and as the judge said, “Next case,” to his clerk, Yuki left the courtroom through the vestibule and out the double courtroom doors.

  She turned right, down the dingy marble hall toward her office, hoping that the court-appointed shrink would see what she and Lindsay knew to be true.

  Alfred Brinkley might be crazy, but he wasn’t legally insane.

  He was a premeditated killer four times over. Soon enough, if all went well, the prosecution would get their chance to prove it.

  Chapter 33

  I TOSSED THE KEYS TO CONKLIN and got into the passenger-side door of the squad car.

  Conklin whistled nervously through his teeth as we pulled onto Bryant, headed north on Sixth Street for a few blocks, then went across Market Street and north toward Pacific Heights.

  “If there was ever a thing that would make you not want to have kids, this is it,” he said.

  “Otherwise?”

  “I’d want a whole tribe.”

  We theorized about the kidnapping — whether or not there really had been a murder and if the nanny could have played a part in the abduction.

  “She was inside,” I said. “She would’ve known everything that went on in the household. How much money they had, their patterns and movements. If Madison trusted her, the abduction would have been a piece of cake.”

  “So why pop the nanny?” said Conklin.

  “Well, maybe she outlived her usefulness.”

  “One less person to cut in on the ransom. Still, to shoot her in front of the little girl.”

  “Was it the nanny?” I asked. “Or did they shoot the child?”

  We lapsed into silence as we turned onto Washington, one of the prettiest streets in Pacific Heights.

  The Tyler house stood in the middle of the tree-lined block, a stately Victorian, pale yellow with gingerbread under the eaves and plants cascading over the sides of the flower boxes. It was a dream house, the kind of place you never imagined being visited by terror.

  Conklin parked at the curb, and we took the Napa stone path six steps up to the front-door landing.

  I lifted the brass knocker and let it fall against the striker plate on the old oak door, knowing that inside this beautiful house were two people absolutely steeped in fear and grief.

  Chapter 34

  HENRY TYLER OPENED THE FRONT DOOR, paling as he seemed to recognize my face. I held up my badge.

  “I’m Sergeant Boxer and this is Inspector Conklin —”

  “I know who you are,” he said to me. “You’re Cindy Thomas’s friend. From homicide.”

  “That’s right, Mr. Tyler, but please . . . we don’t have any news about your daughter.”

  “Some other inspectors were here earlier,” he said, showing us down a carpeted hallway to a sumptuous living room furnished authentically in 1800s style — antiques and Persian rugs and paintings of people and their dogs from an earlier time. A piano was angled toward the windows and a zillion-dollar panoramic view of the bay.

  Tyler invited us to sit, taking a seat across from us on a velvet camelback sofa.

  “We’re here because a witness to the kidnapping heard a gunshot,” I said.

  “A gunshot?”

  “We have no reason to think Madison has been harmed, Mr. Tyler, but we need to know more about your daughter and Paola Ricci.”

  Elizabeth Tyler entered the room, dressed in beige silk and fine wool, her eyes puffy and red from crying. She sat down beside her husband and clasped his hand.

  “The sergeant just told me that the woman who saw Madison kidnapped heard a gunshot!”

  “Oh, my God,” said Elizabeth Tyler, collapsing against her husband.

  I explained the situation again, doing my best to calm Madison’s parents, saying we knew only that a gun had been fired. I left out any mention of blood against glass.

  After Mrs. Tyler had composed herself, Conklin asked if they’d noticed anyone who seemed out of place hanging around the neighborhood.

  “I never saw a thing out of the ordinary,” Tyler said.

  “We watch out for one another in this neighborhood,” said Elizabeth. “We’re unabashed snoops. If any of us had seen anything suspicious, we would have called the police.”

  We asked the Tylers about their movements over the past days and about their habits — when they left the house, when they went to bed at night.

  “Tell me about your daughter,” I said. “Don’t leave anything out.”

  Mrs. Tyler brightened for a moment. “She’s a very happy little girl. Loves dogs. And she’s a musical genius, you know.”

  “I saw a video. She was playing the piano,” I said.

  “Do you know she has synesthesia?” Elizabeth Tyler asked me.

  I shook my head. “What is synesthesia?”

  “When she hears or plays music, the notes appear to her in color. It’s a fantastic gift —”

  “It’s a neurological condition,” Henry Tyler said impatiently. “It has nothing to do with her abduction. This has got to be about money. What else could it be?”

  “What can you tell us about Paola?” I asked.

  “She spoke excellent English,” Tyler said. “She’s been with us only a couple of months. When was it, sweetie?”

  “September. Right after Mala went home to Sri Lanka. Paola was highly recommended,” Mrs. Tyler said. “And Maddy took to her instantly.”

  “Do you know any of Paola’s friends?”

  “No,” Mrs. Tyler told us. “She wasn’t allowed to bring anyone to the house. She had Thursdays and Sunday afternoons off, and what she did on those days, I’m sorry, we really don’t know.”

  “She was always on her cell phone,” Tyler said. “Madison told me that. So she had to have friends. What are you suggesting, Inspector? You think she was behind this?”

  “Does that seem possible to you?”

  “Sure,” said Tyler. “She saw how we live. Maybe she wanted some of this for herself. Or maybe some guy she was seeing put her up to it.”

  “Right now, we can’t rule anything out,” I said.

  “Whatever it takes, whoever did it,” Henry Tyler said, his wife starting to break down beside him, “just please find our little girl.”

  Chapter 35

  PAOLA RICCI’S ROOM in the Tylers’ house was compact and feminine. A poster of an Italian soccer team was on the wall opposite her bed, and over the headboard was a hand-carved crucifix.

  There were three main doors in the small room, one leading out to the hallway, one opening into a bathroom, and another that connected to Madison’s room.

  Paola’s bed was made up with a blue chenille spread, and her clothes hung neatly in her closet — tasteful jumpers and plain skirts and blouses and a shelf of sweaters in neutral colors. A few pairs of flat-soled shoes were lined up on the floor, and a black leather bag hung from the knob of the closet door.

  I opened Paola’s handbag, went through her wallet.

  According to her driver’s license, Paola was nineteen years old.

  “She’s five nine, brown haired, blue eyed — and she likes her weed.”

  I waggled the baggie with three joints I’d found in a zipper pocket. “But there’s no
cell phone here, Richie. She must’ve taken it with her.”

  I opened one of the drawers in Paola’s dresser while Conklin tossed the vanity.

  Paola had white cotton workaday underwear, and she also had her days-off satin lingerie in tropical colors.

  “A little bit naughty,” I said, “a little bit nice.”

  I went into the bathroom, opened the medicine cabinet. Saw her various lotions and potions for clear skin and split ends, and an opened box of Ortho Tri-Cyclen, the patch for birth control.

  Who was she sleeping with?

  A boyfriend? Henry Tyler?

  It wouldn’t be the first time a nanny had gotten involved with the man of the house. Was something twisted going on? An affair gone wrong?

  “Here’s something, Lieu,” Conklin called out. “I mean, Sarge.” I stepped back into the bedroom.

  “If you can’t call me Boxer,” I said, “try Lindsay.”

  “Okay,” he said, his handsome face lighting up with a grin. “Lindsay. Paola keeps a diary.”

  Chapter 36

  AS CONKLIN WENT TO SEARCH Madison’s room, I skimmed the nanny’s diary.

  Paola wrote in beautiful script, using symbols and emoticons to punctuate her exclamatory writing style.

  Even a cursory look through the pages told me that Paola Ricci loved America.

  She raved about the cafés and shops on Fillmore Street, saying she couldn’t wait for nicer weather so that she and her friends could sit outside like she did at home.

  She went on for pages about outfits she’d seen in shop windows, and she quoted her San Francisco friends on men, clothes, and media stars.

  When mentioning her friends, Paola used only their initials, leading me to guess that she was smoking pot with ME and LK on her nanny’s nights out.

  I looked for references to Henry Tyler, and Paola referred to him infrequently, but when she did, she called him “Mr. B.”

  However, she embellished the initial of someone she called “G.”

  Paola reported charged looks and sightings of “G,” but I got the clear impression that whoever he was, she was more anticipating having sex with “G” than actually having it.

  The person mentioned most often in Paola’s diary was Maddy. That’s where I really saw Paola’s love for the child. She’d even pasted some of Madison’s drawings and poems onto the pages.

  I read nothing about plans, assignations, or vengeance.

  I closed Paola’s little red book, thinking it was the journal of an innocent abroad.

  Or maybe she’d planted this diary to make us think so.

  Henry Tyler followed Conklin and me out to the front step. He grabbed my arm.

  “I appreciate your downplaying this for my wife, but I understand why you’re here. Something may have already happened to my daughter. Please, keep me up to date on everything. And I insist that you tell me the truth.”

  I gave the distraught Henry Tyler my cell phone number and promised to check in often during the day. Techs were wiring up the Tylers’ phone lines, and inspectors from the Major Crimes Squad were canvassing the houses on Washington Street when Conklin and I left.

  We drove to Alta Plaza Park, a historic, terraced gem of a place with breathtaking views.

  Along with the nannies and toddlers and dog owners recreating within the park’s tranquil greens were cops doing interviews.

  Conklin and I joined the canvass, and between us all, we talked to every nanny and child who knew Madison, including one nanny with the initials ME, the friend Paola had mentioned in her diary.

  Madeline Ellis broke into tears, telling us about her fear for Paola and Maddy.

  “It’s like everything I know has been turned upside down,” she said. “This place is supposed to be safe!”

  Madeline rocked the carriage with a baby inside, her voice choking as she said, “She’s a nice girl. And she’s very young for her age.”

  She told us that the “G” in Paola’s diary was George, last name unknown, a waiter at the Rhapsody Café. He had flirted with Paola, and she with him — but Madeline was positive that Paola and George had never had a date.

  We found George Henley working the tables outside the Rhapsody Café on Fillmore, and we questioned him. We drilled him, tried to scare him, but my instincts told me he wasn’t involved in a kidnapping or a murder.

  He was a kid, just a regular kid, working his way through night school, trying to get his degree in fine arts.

  George wiped his hands on his apron, took Paola’s driver’s license from my hand, looked at her picture.

  “Oh, sure. I’ve seen her around here with her girlfriends,” he said. “But until this minute, I never knew her name.”

  Chapter 37

  THE SUN WAS GOING DOWN on Pacific Heights as we left the apartment of a handyman named Willy Evans who lived over the garage of one of the Tylers’ neighbors. Evans was a creep with unbelievably dirty fingernails and two dozen terrariums inhabited by snakes and lizards. But as slithery as Willy Evans was, he had a solid alibi for the time Madison and Paola were abducted.

  Conklin and I buttoned our coats and joined the canvass of the neighborhood, showing pictures of Paola and Madison to homeowners just returning from work.

  We scared the hell out of a lot of innocent people and didn’t get a single lead in return.

  Back at the Hall, we converted our notes and thoughts into a report, noting the interviews we’d done and that the Devines, a family living next door to the Tylers, were on vacation before, during, and after the abduction and weren’t interviewed, and that Paola Ricci’s friends thought she was a saint.

  A deep sadness was weighing on me.

  The only witness to the abduction had told Jacobi that she’d heard a pop and saw blood explode on the inside of the rear window of the van at nine this morning.

  Did the blood belong to Paola?

  Or had the child put up a struggle and gotten a bullet to shut her up?

  I said good night to Conklin and drove to the hospital.

  Claire was sleeping when I came into her room.

  She opened her eyes, said, “Hi, sugar,” and fell back asleep. I sat with her for a while, leaned back in the leatherette armchair and even dozed fitfully for a moment or two before kissing my friend’s cheek and telling her good-bye.

  I parked my Explorer on the uphill slope a few doors from my apartment and got out my keys, thoughts of Madison Tyler still cycling through my mind as I walked up the hill.

  I had to blink a couple of times to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

  Joe was waiting outside my apartment, sitting on the steps, a leash looped around his wrist, an arm around Martha.

  He stood and I walked into his big hug, swayed with him in the moon shadows.

  It felt so good to be in his arms.

  Chapter 38

  AS FAR AS I KNEW, Joe had never found out about my misadventure in Washington, and now didn’t seem like the time to tell him.

  “You’ve fed Martha?” I asked, hugging him closer, reaching my arms up around his neck for his kiss.

  “Walked her, too,” he murmured. “And I bought a roasted chicken and some vegetables for the human folk. Wine’s in the fridge.”

  “Someday, I’m going to walk into my apartment and shoot you by accident.”

  “You wouldn’t do that, would you, Blondie?”

  I pulled back, smiled up at his face, saying, “No, I wouldn’t do it, Joe.”

  “You’re my girl.”

  Then he kissed me again, a true toe curler, and my body melted against his. We walked up the stairs to my apartment, Martha barking and herding us together, making us laugh so hard we were weak by the time we got to the top floor.

  As was our habit . . . the food had to wait.

  Joe took off my clothes and his, turned on the shower until the temperature was just right, and once we were both inside the stall, put my hands on the wall and washed me gently and slowly, working me up until I wanted to
scream. He wrapped me in a bath sheet and walked me to my bed, lowered me down, turned on the small lamp by the night table, the one with the soft pink light. He unwrapped me as if this were our first time together, as if he were just now discovering my body.

  And that gave me the time to admire his broad chest, the way the pattern curls led my eyes downward — and when I reached out to touch him, he was ready.

  “Just lie back,” he said into my ear.

  The brilliant thing about going so long without Joe was that when I was with him, there was the element of “the unknown” along with the safety of familiarity.

  I lay back on the pillows, my palms turned up, and Joe drove me crazy as he kissed me everywhere, ran teasing fingers over hot spots and pressed his hard body against mine.

  I was dissolving in the heat, but as much as I was dying for him, something else was going on in my head. I was fighting my feelings for Joe, and I didn’t know why.

  Then the answer came: I don’t want to do this.

  Chapter 39

  I FELT CRAZY, wanting Joe and not wanting him at the same time.

  I rationalized at first that I was still swimming in worry for Madison and Paola, but what came to mind was my shame at showing up at Joe’s place nearly two weeks ago, needing him so much, feeling as though I’d gone where I didn’t belong.

  He was lying beside me now, his hand on the plane of my belly.

  “What is it, Lindsay?”

  I shook my head — No, nothing’s wrong — but Joe turned me toward him, made me look into his deep blue eyes.

  “I had a horrible day,” I told him.

  “Sure,” he said, “that’s not new. But your mood is.”

  I felt tears spring from my eyes, and that embarrassed me. I didn’t want to be vulnerable with Joe. Not now anyway.