The 5th Horseman (Women's Murder Club 5)

It was an oddly intimate gesture that startled Yuki, and repelled her. She jerked her hands away instinctively, and the doctor retracted his.

“By the way,” said Garza, turning cold again, “you’ll need to speak to Nurse Nuñez on your way out. Your mother has to be transferred to a funeral home within twenty-four hours. I’m afraid we can’t keep her here longer than that.”

Yuki stood up abruptly, knocking over the chair as she got to her feet.

“This isn’t over. I’m a lawyer,” Yuki said. “I’m going to look into this thoroughly. I’m going to find out what actually happened to my mom. Don’t move her until I say so, understand? And by the way, Dr. Garza, you have the bedside manner of an eel.”

Yuki turned toward the door, stumbling over the upturned chair, her feet catching the legs, pitching her forward.

She stopped her fall by grabbing at the wall, snapping off the light switch with the flat of her hand as she clumsily regained her balance, plunging Dr. Garza’s office into blackness.

She didn’t stop to say a word, or even to turn the light back on.

Feeling wobbly, Yuki negotiated the doorway, the hallway, the stairwell. And from there, she ran out to the street.

The air outside was heavy and damp, and suddenly she felt faint. Yuki sat down on the sidewalk under a large sycamore tree and stared at the people going to work as if it were a normal day.

She thought about the last time she’d seen her funny, feisty mom. Keiko had been eating ice cream in bed, dispensing her crazy old-world advice with the conviction of a judge.

And she remembered most how much they’d always laughed.

Now, all of that was over.

And it just shouldn’t be.

“Mom,” Yuki said now. “It wasn’t a dignified exit, I know, but I left that bastard sitting in the dark.”

She laughed to herself, thinking how much her mother would have enjoyed that scene.

Yuki-eh, why you never act like lady?

Then the pain swamped her.

Yuki drew her legs up and hugged them to her chest. With the solid old tree against her back, she put her head on her knees and wept for her mother. She sobbed like a child, one who would never be the same again.

Chapter 36

IT WAS TOO EARLY for this kind of crap, just 7:00 in the morning when I pulled up to the curb in front of an old Tudor-style house on Chestnut Street. A large evergreen tree sent fingers of dark shade across the grass between the house and the garage. A handful of cops already dotted the front lawn.

I slammed the door shut on my three-year-old Explorer, buttoned my khaki blazer against the morning chill, and marched across the well-shorn grass.

Jacobi and Conklin were at the front doorstep interviewing a seventy-something couple wearing matching awning-striped bathrobes and slippers. With their stricken faces and spiky bed heads, the septuagenarians looked as shocked as if they’d just put their fingers into wall sockets.

The elderly gentleman screeched at Jacobi, “How do you know we don’t need police protection? You can see into the future?”

Jacobi turned his weary expression on me, and then introduced Mr. and Mrs. Robert Cronin.

“Hello,” I said, shaking their hands. “This is a terrible ordeal, I know. We’ll make it as easy on you as we possibly can.”

“CSU is on the way,” Conklin told me. “I’m okay here to do the interview, Lieutenant.” He was asking permission, but letting me know he was more than ready.

“It’s all yours, Inspector. Do your job.”

I excused myself and Jacobi; then we walked together toward the dark-blue Jaguar XK-E convertible parked with its top down in the driveway. A beautiful car, which only made things worse.

I’d known what to expect since getting Jacobi’s call twenty minutes ago. Still, when I looked into the victim’s face, my heart lurched.

Like Caddy Girl, this woman was white, probably eighteen to twenty-one, petite. Her blond hair fell to her shoulders in loose waves. The girl had lovely, lustrous hair.