Detectives and crime scene techs entered and left the house at irregular intervals. A media tent had been set up on a neighbor’s lawn, and a local reporter was going live from Half Moon Bay.
I parked my car down the block and walked toward the house, blending in with a clump of bystanders who were watching the police process the scene from the sidewalk across the street. It was a good enough vantage point, and as I stood there, I sifted through my impressions, hoping for a nugget of insight.
To start with, the houses of the victims were as different as chalk and cheese. Crescent Heights was a blue-collar community with Highway 1 whizzing between the unpretentious homes and their view of the bay. Ocean Colony backed up onto a private golf course. The O’Malley house and the others around it fairly glistened with all of the nicest things money could buy. What did the two homes and the people who’d lived in them have in common?
I studied the O’Malleys’ spiffy colonial, with its slate roof and boxwood topiaries in pots by the door, and once again I ran through the preliminary questions. What had drawn a killer here? Was it a personal hit or a random killing of opportunity?
I turned my eyes up to the blue-shuttered windows on the second floor, where Lorelei O’Malley had been stabbed to death in her bedroom.
Had she been whipped, too?
I was concentrating so intently, I must have attracted attention to myself. A young uniformed cop with a florid face and an excitable manner was headed toward me.
“Miss? Miss? I’d like to ask you some questions.”
Damn. If I had to show my badge, this cop would run me through the database. Pass the news along: Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer, SFPD, was at the scene of the crime. In twenty minutes the media would be ringing the doorbell and camping out on Cat’s lawn.
I assumed my most innocent expression.
“Just passing through, Officer. I’m leaving now.”
I flipped a little wave, turned around, and walked quickly to the Explorer.
Nuts. I saw him do it.
That cop wrote down my plate number as I drove past.
Chapter 49
THE QUAINT LITTLE WATERING hole was named for a soaring seabird, the Cormorant, an elegant facsimile of which hung from the ceiling over the bar.
The place had a raw bar, six kinds of beer on tap, loud music, and a full Friday-night crowd. I looked around until I spotted Carolee Brown at a table near the bar. She was dressed in slacks and a hot pink pullover; a gold crucifix glinted discreetly at her throat.
The Cookie Lady on her night off.
Carolee saw me a split second after I saw her, and she smiled broadly, gesturing for me to join her. I shimmied my way through the crowd and hugged her lightly as she stood to greet me.
We ordered Pete’s Wicked Ale and linguini with clams, and, as women sometimes do, we got personal within minutes. Carolee had been briefed by my sister, Cat, and knew about the shooting that had left me twisting slowly in the California legal system.
“I misjudged the situation because they were kids,” I told Carolee now. “After they shot my partner and me, I had to bring them down.”
“It really sucks, Lindsay.”
“Doesn’t it ever? Killing a kid. I never thought I could do such a thing.”
“They forced you to do it.”
“They were murderers, Carolee. They’d killed a couple of kids, and when we apprehended them, they saw only one way out. But you’d think kids with all the advantages these two had wouldn’t be so whacked.”
“Yeah, I know. But judging from the hundreds of kids who’ve come through my school, believe me, psychologically damaged kids come from everywhere,” Carolee said.
When Carolee spoke of damaged children, something slammed into my brain. I saw myself as a kid, flying across my bedroom, careening into my bureau. “Don’t talk back to me, missy.” My father swaying in the doorway, king of the hill. I was a damaged child myself.
I struggled to drag myself back to the Cormorant.
“So what are you, Lindsay?” Carolee was saying. “Single? Divorced?”
“Divorced—from a guy I think of as the brother I never had,” I said, relieved that she’d changed the subject. “But I could be talked into hooking up again.”