16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

Weeks ago Claire had put out a BOLO on the medical examiner’s network, seeking information about needle marks on people who appeared to have died suddenly, with no known cause. Other people had access to this network. The Chronicle subscribed to it, for instance, and so did the Daily News. Cindy had asked Rich for confirmation. Which he had given her.

He hadn’t told her anything confidential, but she had known she was onto something when Sarah Nugent, only forty-one years old, died two days ago in front of her hotel—cause of death unknown.

Lindsay was the primary investigator on the case.

It was SOP to get a quote from her, but Cindy didn’t need it. What she needed to do was get the story out before another paper ran it. As for the empty v

ial marked “succinylcholine,” she could write that the tip had come from an anonymous source close to the investigation.

But should she? Should she write the story without Lindsay saying, “Sure. Go for it”?

Cindy went back to the restaurant and joined the girls for Key lime pie and tea. “Off the record” hardly applied, as she didn’t hear a thing her friends were saying. She was thinking of Lindsay.

With or without Lindsay’s permission, she had to write the story. Journalism wasn’t a hobby. It was a job with a responsibility to the public to write the truth. Plus, it was her job.

After the check had been paid, Cindy called Rich and let him know that she was on the way home. As she drove, she organized the story in her mind and thought she could have it in the publisher’s inbox before he got his morning coffee.

When she was a block from home, she tried calling Lindsay, and when she didn’t pick up, she left a message.

“Linds, call me, please. I want to run the Sarah Nugent story and talk about the formerly presumed heart attacks. I’m not going to mention Claire by name. But I could sure use a quote from you.”

The story was writing itself inside her head. Cindy couldn’t wait to start putting the words down.

CHAPTER 68

I WAS MAKING breakfast for Julie, with the TV on in the background, when I heard reporter Susan Steinhardt of Channel 5 say, “This just in. A number of deaths in San Francisco originally attributed to heart failure appear, instead, to have been murders.”

Say that again?

I dialed down the stove and amped up the volume. Ms. Steinhardt was on set, dark hair perfectly waved, coolly delivering her report, which felt anything but cool to me.

She said, “Senior crime writer Cindy Thomas of the San Francisco Chronicle broke this story only minutes ago. She writes that as many as five victims have died from injections of a paralytic drug called succinylcholine.

“According to Ms. Thomas, who gave her sources as ‘individuals close to the investigation,’ the victims were assaulted on the street and injected with this drug by an unknown attacker,” Steinhardt said. “We’ll bring you news updates as they come to us.”

No way. Cindy had gone public with our investigation.

I grabbed my phone and called Cindy, and as soon as she said, “Hello,” I went off on her, all guns blazing.

“Cindy, what the hell? You put out the sux story? The killer now knows we’re onto him. You just made our investigation harder, or impossible, so congrats on your scoop and thank you very much.”

Then I clicked off. Besides dropping them in the toilet, the worst thing about cell phones is that you can’t pound them into the cradle. But I slapped my phone down hard on the counter anyway before returning to Julie’s oatmeal.

Just then Mrs. Rose arrived in a cloud of tea rose perfume, calling out, “Girls, I’m here.”

When she saw the look on my face, she said, “You okay?”

“Not really.”

“Is Julie okay?”

“She’s fine.”

“I’ll be right back,” said Mrs. Rose. She leashed a bounding, leaping, squealing Martha and took her out for her walk.

My phone buzzed.

I hesitated. Then I answered it.