2nd Chance (Women's Murder Club 2)

“So, have you seen all you came to see, Ms. Thomas? Should we expect you back in another couple of years?”

“No. I want to know how you deal with this. This violence in the face of all you’ve done, how the neighborhood feels about it.”

Winslow let himself smile. “Let me clue you in on something. I don’t deal in innocence. I’ve spent too much time in the real world.”

She remembered that Aaron Winslow wasn’t someone whose faith had been formed through a life of detachment. He’d come up from the streets. He’d been an army chaplain. Only days before, he’d put himself in the line of fire and possibly saved lives.

“You came here to see how this neighborhood is responding to the attack? Come see for yourself. Tasha Catchings is being memorialized tomorrow.”

Chapter 23

VANDERVELLEN’S STUNNING DISCLOSURE drummed in my head for the rest of the day.

Both murder victims had been related to San Francisco cops.

It could add up to nothing. They could be two random and unrelated victims. People in different cities, separated by sixty years.

Or it could mean everything.

I picked up the phone and called Claire. “I need a big favor,” I said.

“Just how big?” I could feel her grin.

“I need you to take a look at the autopsy of that woman who was hung in Oakland.”

“I can do that. Send it over. I’ll take a look.”

“This is where it gets huge, Claire. It’s still at the Oakland M.E.’s office. It hasn’t been released.”

I waited expectantly as she sighed. “You must be kidding, Lindsay. You want me to stick my nose into an investigation that’s still in progress?”

“Listen, Claire, I know this isn’t exactly procedure, but they’ve made some pretty important assumptions that could determine this case.”

“Want to tell me what type of assumptions I’d be stepping all over a respected M.E.’s toes to review?”

“Claire, these cases are related. There’s a pattern here. Estelle Chipman was married to a cop. Tasha Catchings’s uncle is a cop, too. My whole investigation hinges on whether we’re dealing with one killer. Oakland believes there’s a black man involved, Claire.”

“A black man?” She gasped. “Why would a black want to do these things?”

“I don’t know. But there’s starting to be a lot of circumstantial evidence linking both crimes. I have to know.”

She hesitated. “Precisely what the hell would I be looking for?”

I told her about the skin specimens they had found under the victim’s nails and their M.E.’s conclusion.

“Teitleman’s a good man,” Claire responded. “I’d trust his findings like I would my own.”

“I know, Claire, but he’s not you. Please. This is important.”

“I want you to know,” she shot back, “that if Art Teitleman asked to poke his nose into one of my preliminary investigations, I’d have his parking ticket stamped and politely tell him to go back to his side of the bay. I wouldn’t do this for anyone else, Lindsay.”

“I know that, Claire,” I said with a grateful tone. “Why do you think I’ve been working this friendship all these years?”

Chapter 24

LATE THAT AFTERNOON, I sat at my desk as one by one my staff called it quits for the day. I couldn’t leave with them.

My mind tried over and over to put together the parts. Everything I had was based on assumptions. Was the killer black or white? Was Claire right, that Tasha Catchings was intentionally killed? But the lion symbol had definitely been there. Link the victims, my instincts said. There’s a connection. But what the hell is it?