11th Hour (Women's Murder Club 11)

“Happy to do it,” he said. “Have you learned anything about what happened to Cecily?”

“Janet is taking responsibility for the seven women whose heads were buried in the garden, but she can’t give us any details on the murders. Nicole maintains that she’s innocent. So far, nothing about your wife.”

Harry nodded, then said, “Has Janet or Nicole asked for a lawyer?”

“No.”

“Lindsay, I need to know what happened to Cecily. Ten years after her death, even after I was acquitted, the public still believes I killed my wife. And now people are coming up to me in restaurants calling me a murderer. They think I killed those other women too.

“I can’t keep living this way. I’ve got an offer for Janet or Nicole, whichever one of them can name the killer and give you enough evidence to prove it.”

Chandler and I discussed his offer for another minute or two, and then I asked him to stand by.

Conklin and I found Nicole napping in the interview room, cheek down on the old gray metal table. I kicked the chair and it scraped across the floor. She lifted her head and Conklin and I took chairs on either side of her.

“How’s it going, Nicole?” the good cop asked her.

“It’s late. I want to go home now.”

I slapped morgue photos down on the table one after the other, close-up shots of arms, legs, thighs, buttocks with knife wounds, and a right shoulder blemished by burns from a stun gun.

“Do you recognize these body parts, Nicole?”

“Oh. Gross.”

I pointed to the knife cuts in the quartered haunch of human flesh.

“See these? These are stab wounds. And I’m betting they’re going to perfectly match the knife you were waving around a few hours ago. The lab is doing the workup now.”

“Well, you gotta do what you gotta do,” Nicole said.

Her words were flippant, but her expression had changed. She was starting to believe that we had evidence to indict and convict. Her eyes flicked from the photos to me and then back.

“We’re only hours away from nailing you to the wall, Nicole. But if you confess before we lock this case up, you could avoid the death penalty.”

“Really.”

Her voice was resigned. She twisted up her hair, kept her hands on her head, leaned back in the chair, and looked at the ceiling. She was beat. And so were we.

I got up, righted Nicole’s chair so that the force of the legs hitting the floor made her head jounce. I sat back down across from her.

“Look at me, Nicole.”

She shook her head.

“Then listen to me. Harry Chandler wants to know what happened to his wife and to the seven other women you killed. He’ll pay your attorney’s fees if you confess to all of it. There is no limit to how much he’ll spend on an attorney to represent you.”

I got up, opened the door, and Harry Chandler came in. He was big, imposing, and he looked straight at Nicole.

He said, “It’s a good deal and it’s your choice. Top-dog attorney, top-drawer law firm to negotiate your sentence — or you can deny everything and get whatever kind of lawyer you can afford.”

Nicole said, “Do you care about me, Harry?” She lifted her arms up to Chandler, but he backed away and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Nicole wailed, a wordless, keening cry.

Then she wiped her face with the sleeves of her turtleneck and said in an uninflected voice, “I need aspirin. I want to make a statement.”

Chapter 114