The 8th Confession (Women's Murder Club 8)

“Take it easy, Boxer,” Jacobi said, putting his hands on my shoulders. My good friend. “Try to breathe.”

Tears leaked out of the corners of my eyes, but I wasn’t sad. It was something else — surprise and relief that I was alive.

I breathed in the smoke-filled air and said, “I don’t get it, Warren. Wallis jumped out of his car! Was he trying to escape? Or was that how he wanted to die?”

“Whatever,” Conklin said beside me.

I nodded. Whatever. Henry Wallis, the man with the snake-and-skull tattoo on his shoulder, was dead.

Chapter 66

JACOBI TOOK ME and Conklin out to dinner at Restaurant LuLu, the place for homey Provençal cooking, rich casseroles and pizzas grilled in a hickory-wood oven. The sunken dining room was packed, conversation was humming all around us, and our waiter really knew the wine list, long considered one of the best in town.

I knew why Jacobi was celebrating.

The chief and the mayor had given him a big ol’ “attaboy.” TV newscasters were brimming with the drama: the chopper shots and the news that life was safe again for the rich and famous.

But I couldn’t stand this, and I had to say it. “Warren, is everyone crazy? You feel comfortable saying that Henry Wallis is the guy who killed our millionaires?”

Jacobi answered with a question: “Can’t you let something good into your life, Boxer?” And then another: “Can’t you just be happy for an hour?”

“I guess not,” I said, scowling at him. “What’s wrong with me? Or am I just too smart for this charade?”

Conklin nudged me under the table with his knee, and I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with him either.

A man had died.

We’d almost followed him off a cliff.

We were lucky we weren’t looking up at Claire from her table or seeing a story on TV of dead children, their tearful parents threatening to sue the city for another fatal high-speed chase, the sad-faced anchorperson saying, “The funeral services for the little Beckwith children will be at Our Sisters of the Sacred Heart on Sunday.”

The waiter poured the wine, and Jacobi tasted it, pronounced it excellent, and, over the clamor of fat-walleted diners chatting happily all around us, raised his glass to me and Conklin.

“Thanks,” he said, “from the chief, the mayor, and especially from me. I love you guys.”

Jacobi smiled, something I’ve seen him do maybe twice in the last ten years, and he and Conklin tucked into their pan-roasted mussels and rotisserie duck.

I had no appetite.

The muscles in my face had gone rigid, but my mind was whirling around on its brain stem.

Was Henry Wallis really the high-society killer?

Or was he just some loser of an ex-con with something to hide — so he’d freaked out and ended his life?

Did anyone care but me?

Chapter 67

AGAINST EVERYONE’S GOOD JUDGMENT, I found an ADA in her office at nine that night, the indefatigable Kathy Valoy. She called a judge and got us a search warrant for Henry Wallis’s apartment, and now, at midnight, Conklin and I were there.

Wallis had lived in a three-story walk-up on Dolores Street, a few blocks from the Torchlight Bar.

We rang the buzzer until we woke up the building’s owner, a squat man by the name of Maury Silver. He was balding, with loose dentures, bad breath, and a stained work shirt hanging long over his boxers.

Silver looked at our warrant through the cracked door, read every page back and front, and then let us enter the building.

“What happened to Henry?” he asked. “Oh no. You telling me he’s the one who drove off the cliff? Henry’s a killer?”