4th of July (Women's Murder Club 4)

“The marks on Joe are narrower than the marks on Annemarie,” Claire noted.

“Yes,” Ramos agreed again. “Different implements.”

“Like a belt,” I said. “Could these whippings have been made by two different belts?”

“I can’t say positively, but it’s certainly consistent,” said Ramos.

Claire looked not only focused but sad. “What are you thinking?” I asked her.

“I hate to say it, Lindsay, but this really brings me back. The marks look like what I remember seeing on your John Doe.”

Chapter 71

IT WAS AFTER MIDNIGHT when the Watcher headed inland from the beach. He climbed the sandy cliff, then stuck to the quarter mile of path that cut through the thistles and thick dune grasses and ran east from the cliffs. The Watcher could finally make out the serpentine bay-side road.

He was honing in on one particular house when he stumbled over a log in the path. He reached out to break his fall and went down hard, splaying on his belly, hands scraping packed sand and saw grass.

The Watcher got quickly to his knees, slapping his breast jacket pocket—his camera had flown.

“Fuck fuck fuck!” he yelled in frustration.

He crawled on all fours, patting the sand, feeling the sweat on his upper lip dry in the cool air.

Desperation clutched at him as the minutes leached away. At last, he found his precious camera, so small—lens-down in the sand.

He blew on the camera to dislodge the grit, pointed it at the houses, and peered into the viewfinder. He saw through a haze of fine scratches across the plastic lens.

This was bad.

Cursing under his breath, the Watcher checked the time—12:14 a.m.—and set out toward the house where Lindsay was staying.

Now that his zoom lens was useless, he would have to get closer, and on foot.

The Watcher stepped over the guardrail at the end of the field and stood square on the sidewalk with a streetlight blazing down on his head.

Two houses in from the end of the road, Cat Boxer’s house glowed with lamplight.

He ducked into shadows and approached the house obliquely by cutting through side yards, crouching at last in the lee of the privet hedge bordering the Boxer living room.

With heart pounding, he stood and peered through the picture window.

The gang was all there: Lindsay in her SFPD T-shirt and tights; Claire, the black ME from the city, in a gold caftan; and Cindy, her blond hair bunched on top of her head, a chenille robe covering all but the legs of her pink pajamas and her feet.

The women were talking intensely, sometimes laughing loudly, then getting serious again. If only he could make out what the hell they were saying.

The Watcher ran through the facts, recent events, the circumstances. The chair in the kid’s room. It didn’t connect any of them to anything, but it was a mistake that he’d made.

Was it safe to go forward?

There was so much more to do.

The Watcher felt the accumulating effects of stress on his body. His hands were shaking, and his chest burned with acid. He couldn’t stay here any longer, he just could not.

He looked around, making sure no one was walking a dog or taking out the garbage, then he stepped from behind the hedge and briefly into the streetlight. He jumped the guardrail and started along the darkened path to the beach.

A decision had to be made about Lindsay Boxer.

A tough one.