MY MESSAGE LIGHT was flashing.
It was after one in the morning when I finally got back to my apartment.
I threw my suit jacket over a chair and pulled off my sweater, hitting the PLAYBACK button of the answering machine.
5:28. Jamie, Martha's vet. She's ready to be picked up in the morning.
7:05. Jacobi, just checking in.
7:16. Jill. A quiver of nerves in her voice. “I need to talk to you, Lindsay. I tried your cell phone, but it didn't answer. Call me, whenever you get home.”
11:15. Jill again. “Lindsay? Call me as soon as you get home. I'm up.”
Something had happened. I punched in her number and she answered on the second ring. “It's me. I was in Portland. Is everything okay?”
“I don't know,” she said. A pause. “I threw Steve out tonight.”
I almost dropped the phone on the floor. “You really did it?”
“This time's for keeps. We're done, Lindsay.”
“Oh, Jill...” I thought of her carrying this all night, wait-ing for me to come home. “What did he do?”
“I don't want to go into it right now,” she said, “other than it won't be happening anymore. I threw him out, Lindsay. I changed the locks.”
“You locked him out? Wow! So where is he now?”
Jill coughed out a laugh. “I don't have any idea. He went out about seven and when he came back, about eleven-thirty, I heard him pounding on the door outside. It would have been worth the past ten years of bullshit just to see the expression on his face when his key didn't fit. He'll swing by tomorrow to get his stuff.”
“Are you alone? Have you called anyone?”
“No,” she answered. “I was waiting for you. My buddy.”
“I'm gonna come over,” I said.
“No,” she said, “I just took something. I want to go to sleep. I have to be in court tomorrow.”
“I'm proud of you, Jilly.”
“I'm proud of me, too. You're not going to mind if I need a little hand-holding over the next few weeks?”
“No hand I'd rather hold. I'm giving you a big hug, honey. Get some sleep. And here's some advice from a cop: Keep that door locked.”
I hung up the phone. It was going on two in the morning, but I didn't care. I wanted to call Claire or Cindy and tell them the news.
Jill finally booted the asshole out!
Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree
Chapter 54
“HEY, LIEUTENANT,” Cappy Thomas shouted as I walked in the following morning. “Leeza Gibbons on the line. Enter-tainment Tonight? Wants to know if you can do lunch.”
I had made the mistake of calling Jacobi from the plane last night, and maybe gave a few too many details about the day. Some snickers rippled around the squad room.
I took some hot water back to my desk. A light was flashing on my phone. I punched it in.
“Listen, LT” - Jacobi's voice - “me and the missus were thinking about heading over to the Big Island sometime in July. Any chance you can snag the G-3?”
I punched off the line, spooning a pouch of Red Zinger into my mug.
“Hey, LT, phone!” Cappy yelled again.
This time I picked it up and snapped, “Look, I didn't sleep with him, I didn't ask for the jet, and while you bozos were scratching your balls back here, I actually moved the homicide case along.” “I guess that'll have to do as an update.” Cindy laughed. “Oh God...” I lowered my head, letting the blood drain
from my face. “Believe it or not, I didn't call to bust your chops. I've got news.”
“I've got news, too,” I said, thinking of Jill. “Yours first.” Cindy's tone was urgent, so I didn't think she was talking about Jill.
“Your fax should be ringing any second.”
Just then Brenda knocked on my window, and handed me
Cindy's transmittal. Another e-mail. "This was on my computer when I got to work this
morn-ing," Cindy said. I was jolted back to reality. This time the sending address
was MarionDelgado@hotmail.com. The message was only one line: That wasn't us in
Portland. It was signed, August Spies.
Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree
Chapter 55
“I'VE GOT TO TAKE this upstairs,” I said, shooting out of my chair, almost pulling the phone out of the wall. I was halfway up to Tracchio's office before I realized I forgot to tell Cindy about Jill. Things were going too fast now.
“He's behind closed doors,” his secretary warned. “You'd better wait.”
“This can't wait,” I said, and pushed the door open. Trac-chio was used to my barging in.
He was facing me, seated at his conference table. He was flanked by two others with their backs to me. One was Tom Roach, the local FBI liaison.
I almost fell when I saw that the other was Molinari.
I felt as if I had hit a wall, bouncing off and vibrating like in the Roadrunner cartoons.
“Soon enough, Lieutenant,” Molinari said, rising.
“Yeah, that was what you said. I thought you had pressing matters in Portland.”
“I did. They're taken care of now. And we have a killer to catch down here, don't we?”
Tracchio said, “We were just about to call you, Lindsay. The deputy director informed me how well you handled the situation up there in Portland.”
“Which situation was he referring to?” A glance Molinari's way.
“The Propp homicide, of course.” He motioned for me to sit down. “He said you were helpful in putting forth your theory of the crimes.”
“Okay” - I handed Tracchio Cindy's e-mail - “then you should love this.”
Tracchio scanned the page. He passed it across to Molinari.
“This was sent to the same reporter at the Chronicle?” he asked.
“Seems like they got a regular chat room going on,” Moli-nari replied as he read. “We could make that useful.” He pursed his lips. “I was just asking the Chief if you could work directly with us. We need help here on the ground. I'll need a place to work. I want to be right in the thick of it, Lieutenant. In your squad room if possible. That's how I work best.”
Our eyes met. I knew we weren't playing games. It was a matter of national security.
“We'll find you an office, sir. In the thick of it.”
Womans Murder Club 3 - 3rd Degree
Chapter 56
MOLINARI WAS WAITING for me out in the hall, and as soon as Roach had ducked into the elevator, I looked at him reprovingly. “Soon enough, huh?”
He followed me down the stairwell to my office. “Look, I had the local FBI office to placate up there. There's always a lot of politics. You know that.”
“Anyway, I'm glad you're here,” I said, holding the stair-well door for him. I let it close. “I never had a chance to thank you for the ride. So, thanks.”
I put Molinari in our squad room, cleared out a small office for him to work in. He told me he had declined some-thing more fitting and private on the fifth floor next to the Chief.
It proved to be not such a bad thing, having the Depart-ment of Homeland Security working hand in hand with us, though Jacobi and Cappy looked at me as though I'd gone over to the enemy. Within two hours he had traced back the origin of the latest e-maiclass="underline" an Internet caf‚ called the KGB Bar in Hayward that was popular with students across the bay.
And also who Marion Delgado was - the latest Hotmail address.
Molinari draped a fax from the FBI computers across my desk. An old newswire story, with a grainy photo of a grin-ning, gap-toothed kid in a peasant smock holding a brick in his hand. “Marion Delgado. He was some five-year-old who in 1967 derailed a freight train in Italy by tossing a brick in its path.”
“Is there a reason you're thinking this is important to the investigation?” I asked.