The 17th Suspect (Women's Murder Club 17)

I commiserated. For different reasons, we were both feeling like trees.

We had a breakfast date this morning. Not in the break room with passed-over donuts, but at an actual eatery in Jacobi’s section of town.

He lives in Hayes Valley. Gentrified not long ago, it has shaken off the rough edges and is now littered with cute little restaurants and bars and boutiques; a nice place to visit. Jacobi’s house holds down the end of a block on Ivy Street and is one of many single-family and multifamily wood-frame houses, built closely together, facing sidewalks lined with young red-flowering gum trees.

I parked my Explorer behind my old friend’s Hyundai SUV and called him on my phone.

“Lindsay?”

“Who else?”

“You’re not the only woman I know,” he said, laughing.

“I’ll be right down.”

A couple of minutes later he came down the zigzag of wooden steps from his living quarters over his wide-body garage. He looked the same as always: gray haired, with hooded eyes, walking with a limp, and wearing a leather flight jacket handed down to him from an uncle who’d fought in the Korean War.

But he looked different to me now. He hadn’t aged. It was nothing as obvious as that. He didn’t even look depressed.

He looked lighter. Like a man who had been retired before he was ready to go, but was glad that the load was off his back. He was grinning when he crossed the street and I crossed the street toward him.

We opened our arms and hugged in the middle of Ivy, and man, it felt good.

Jacobi had stood in for my awful father before, and he was doing it now, even as I had come to comfort him.

He might have heard my strangled sob.

“Do not go wobbly on me, Boxer. I may be fat, I may be pushing sixty, but here I am.”

“Let’s get out of the road,” I said, “so that those aren’t your last words.”

Playa del Oro was a little Mexican joint sandwiched between a shoe repair shop and an art gallery. We ordered huevos rancheros and tea and talked about how we’d come to this unexpected place in our lives.

He said, “Boxer, I’m not an innocent party. I didn’t know Ted Swanson had assembled a robbery crew, but I should have known. I have to be accountable. If I were the mayor, jeez, Louise—someone had to pay. Obviously the buck stopped at my door. And hey, it came with full retirement pay.”

“That part is awesome,” I said.

“And pretty soon, Medicare.” Jacobi grinned broadly, looking lighter and younger by the minute. He said, “But enough about me. Tell me how you’re doing. Don’t leave anything out.”

I told him, “I feel pretty good but like I’m playing hooky. I’m supposed to be on the job. I mean, shit happens and then you die, right? But this is a case of shit happens and you get to stay home, watch movies

, and collect a pay-check.”

“Go figure,” said Jacobi. “We’ve got the same deal. But there’s upside for both of us. Your job is to rest up and heal. Mine is to get back to my fighting weight. My doctor told me to lose the bowling ball or else, and when he described ‘or else,’ I definitely didn’t want it.”

I pointed to the dish of chocolate chili cake with a side of churros our waitress had put down in front of us, and he laughed. “I know, I know, but this is a special occasion, old friend. I’m going to cut down on the carbs and start walking. I might get a dog.”

“How about this, Chief? Why don’t we get together to walk my dog every week or so. Or our dogs. We could go to a museum once in a while, take in a ball game. Fight back against enforced home confinement.”

“I like the sound of that, Boxer.”

We grinned at each other, reached across the small round table laden with sweets, and shook on it.

I said, “We’re both fighters.”

Jacobi said, “And fighters win.”

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