16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

“If only.”

He laughed. My partner, the good cop.

Conklin fed the three letters Grant had given us into the mobile data terminal, while I watched the street. Five squad cars pulled out into the night, leaving two cruisers behind to protect the not-guilty mother of all dirtbags.

Conklin whistled through his teeth as the software ran all the plate combinations with the letters WXL in San Francisco.

“Got a Land Rover with a WYL,” he said.

“Registered to?”

“Cary Woodhouse, of all people. Could be his plate or just pretty damn close to it.”

We knew that Woodhouse had lost his wife in the Sci-Tron explosion and had threatened Connor Grant inside a packed courtroom.

“If Woodhouse did the drive-by, he wasted no time,” I said. “What can we find out about him?”

Conklin tapped the keys and said, “He’s a career soldier. Christ, the guy’s an actual hero. Desert Storm.”

While I stared up at Grant’s shot-out bedroom window, Conklin phoned Brady and told him, “Grant got three letters off the probable shooter’s plate. Two of them match Woodhouse’s vehicle. I’m thinking this was harassment or a warning. If the shooter had seriously wanted to kill Grant, he could have come through the front door. Cheap locks

, no cameras.”

Brady’s voice came over the speaker, telling Conklin he’d put out an APB on the vehicle in question and that he wanted us to drive to the Woodhouse residence.

“Report back,” said Brady.

A CSI van rolled up to Grant’s house and parked. I got out of Conklin’s car, walked over to the van, and spoke to George Campbell, a former science teacher himself and now a CSI on the graveyard shift. We talked about the shots fired, and I asked him to call me when he’d gotten back the ballistics on the slugs.

“Put a hot rush on it,” I said. “And Campbell, while you’re hunting for slugs, if anything strikes you as weird or out of place, call me.”

“I sure will.”

I walked back to Conklin’s car, thinking that even if Campbell found a notebook with actual hand-lettered instructions on how to blow up Sci-Tron, Grant would still be not guilty. Double jeopardy applied.

Still. I needed to know if he had done it.

Conklin buzzed down his window and said, “Ready?”

“I’ll follow you.”

I got into my car, switched on the engine, gave it some gas, and was two car lengths behind Conklin as we headed out.

CHAPTER 56

CARY WOODHOUSE LIVED in Parkside on Twenty-Fourth Avenue. The house was of the tiled-roof Mediterranean style that had been popular in the 1930s, and along with the similar homes on this street, it looked fresh and well tended.

Conklin pulled into Woodhouse’s driveway behind a boxy, dark-colored Land Rover. I double-parked on the street, and Conklin and I put on our Kevlar vests and our SFPD Windbreakers over them. We approached the front door together.

I rang the bell, and in a minute the door opened.

The guy in the doorway was barrel chested, wearing a blue plaid flannel shirt and baggy cords, standing six feet tall in his bedroom slippers. He had a Bud in his hand.

I introduced myself and Conklin, asked if he was Mr. Cary Woodhouse.

“Yes. What’s this about?”

Conklin said, “We’d like to ask you a couple of questions, sir. Better if we come inside.”