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

The woman was a cop.

Chapter 72

I WOKE EARLY IN the morning with a thought that surfaced in my mind like a porpoise breaking from beneath the waves.

I let Martha out back, put coffee on to perk, and booted up my laptop.

I remembered that Bob Hinton had said that two other people had been killed in Half Moon Bay two years before: Ray and Molly Whittaker. They were summer people, Hinton had said. Ray was a photographer, Molly a bit player, an extra, in Hollywood.

I went online to the NCIC database and looked them up. I was still in shock when I went into the bedrooms to rouse the girls.

When they were dressed and had coffee and scones in front of them, I told them what I’d learned about Ray and Molly Whittaker.

“They were pornographers, both of them. Ray was behind the camera, and Molly performed with kids. Boys, girls, it didn’t seem to matter,” I said. “They were busted for it and acquitted. Their lawyer? It was Brancusi, again.”

The girls knew me too well. They got on my case, warning me to be careful, reminding me that for all intents and purposes I was a civilian and that even though it seemed logical to check out a possible connection between the Whittakers and Dennis Agnew, I was out of my territory, no one had my back, and I was heading for big trouble.

I must have said “I know, I know” a half dozen times, and as we said good-bye in the driveway I made a lot of promises to be a good girl.

“You should think about coming home, Lindsay,” said Claire finally, holding my face in her hands.

“Right,” I said. “I’ll definitely think about it.”

They both hugged me as though they would never see me again, and frankly, that got to me. As Claire’s car backed down the driveway, Cindy leaned out the window.

“I’ll call you tonight. Think about what we said. Think, Lindsay.”

I blew kisses and went inside the house. I found my handbag hanging from a doorknob and rooted around inside it until I felt my phone, my badge, and my gun.

A minute later I started up the Explorer.

It was a short drive into town, with my mind churning right up to the second I pulled my car into a parking spot outside the police barracks.

I found the chief in his office, staring at his computer, coffee mug in hand, a box of sugared doughnuts on the side chair.

“Those things will kill you,” I said. He moved the doughnuts so I could sit down.

“If you ask me, death by doughnuts is a fine way to go. What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?”

“This,” I said. I unfurled Dennis Agnew’s rap sheet and slapped it down on top of the messy pile of paper on the chief’s desk. “Ray and Molly Whittaker were whipped, weren’t they?”

“Yup, they were the first.”

“Did you like anyone for their murders?”

The chief nodded.

“Couldn’t prove it then, can’t prove it now, but we’ve been watching this guy for a long time.”

He picked up Agnew’s rap sheet and handed it back to me. “We know all about Dennis Agnew. He’s our prime suspect.”

Chapter 73

I WAS ON THE porch at sunset, noodling a little tune on my guitar, when headlights at the bottom of the road crawled slowly up the street and stopped outside Cat’s house.

I was already moving toward the car as the driver got out of the front seat and opened the rear passenger-side door.

“I get it,” I said, my face glowing enough to light up the dusk. “You just happened to be in the neighborhood.”