16th Seduction (Women's Murder Club 16)

Cindy scrolled to the top of her page. Under the headline was her lead paragraph.

Edward Lamborghini, a patient at the Hyde Street Psychiatric Center on Bush Street at Hyde, was shot to death today by a homicide inspector of the SFPD.

Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, who was present at the scene during the incident, said, “Mr. Lamborghini confessed to killing eight people. He was armed and holding a bystander hostage. He refused to drop his weapon and attempted to kill his hostage with a lethal injection before he was brought down.”

Lindsay’s quote was perfect. Richie hadn’t been able to speak to her on the record about his take-down of Neddie Lambo, but he’d given her background color that had made the writing pop: descriptions of the signage in the trash room, the smell of garbage, the look of the cavernous underground tunnel.

The story was good. Vivid. Accurate. Moving.

Cindy reread the entire four-thousand-word piece again, tightened it up in a few places, spell-checked everything.

Then she sent her story to the editor in chief, Henry Tyler.

While she waited for him to read, she called Richie. When she left him this morning, he’d been in deep sleep getting the rest he deserved and needed.

“I’m doing good, babe,” he said to her. “I’m having chocolate chocolate chip ice cream and coffee with heavy cream. You only live once, right?”

“Totally right.”

“And now I think I’ll go back to bed.” Cindy smiled, just picturing him. “See you later. I love you,” she said.

“I love you, too, Cin.”

Tyler buzzed her.

She punched a button on her console. “Henry?”

“Great job, Cindy. Fire away. Let’s meet after lunch and discuss your follow-up on this.”

Cindy sent her “Stealth Killer” to the copyeditor and sat back to enjoy the moment.

Tyler loved the piece. And people who had been afraid of “the Stealth Killer” would now feel safer out on the street.

Cindy tidied her desk, then went to the cafeteria for a late breakfast. When she returned to her desk and opened her mail, she saw that her inbox was overflowing. The emails all voiced variations on the theme, What great news! Thank God it’s over.

Almost buried in that avalanche of email was one from Lindsay reminding the members of the Women’s Murder Club that they had a meeting tonight, not for laughs over a spicy meal but a working get-together at the Hall of Justice Homicide squad room.

Lindsay was hoping that if they pooled their resources and gave the Connor Grant files a thorough thrashing, they might come up with something damning enough to counter his unjustified, vengeful, and just plain evil complaint against Lindsay.

If it was possible, Cindy was sure that the four of them could do it.

CHAPTER 87

I HAD COMMANDEERED the break room for our meeting because it had a long, well-used table and four folding chairs. There was also a coffeemaker close at hand and a big tin of oatmeal cookies on the counter, courtesy of Inspector Samuels.

I’d asked the property room to bring up the dozens of boxes we’d taken from Connor Grant’s garage laboratory before his trial; he had never asked for their return. They were stacked now in a line against a wall, twelve across, eight high.

Conklin and I had gone through about half of the boxes before the trial and marked the ones we’d ransacked with an X. Nothing we’d found rose to the level of evidence against the science teacher. No. The boxes were neatly filled with papers related to classwork, but no material on bombs, mass murder, GAR, or any antigovernment activity, like we’d hoped to find.

We’d given up after the fiftieth b

ox, owing to the press of work and shortage of manpower. Tonight the WMC was going to dig through the rest.

“Why bother with this?” I asked the girls rhetorically. “Because his complaint to IAB calls me a liar and could cost me my job and my career. Also, and probably more importantly, I think the guy is guilty. He told me that he bombed Sci-Tron. Why?”

“My theory,” said Claire, “is that he’s like an arsonist. He was elated at having pulled off the explosion. He was high. So he bragged to you, and then reality set in when he was booked.”

Yuki said, “Or he wanted to up the stakes. Blow up Sci-Tron and also beat the justice system.”