She recognized Kathy Kogut’s face from the photos Lindsay had come back with. Red hair, curly. Trendy inlaid glasses.
And next to her, smiling into the camera, was another face Cindy knew. It took her breath away. Her fingers trembled with the realization that she had deciphered the hieroglyphics at last.
It was the trimmed, reddish-colored beard. The narrow, complicit smile — as if he knew where all this might one day lead.
Next to Kathy Kogut was the novelist Nicholas Jenks.
Chapter 72
I WAS TOTALLY SURPRISED when Cindy appeared at my door at half past eleven. With a look of wide-eyed elation and pride, she blurted, “I know who Kathy Kogut’s lover was.”
“Nicholas Jenks,” I replied. “C’mon in, Cindy. Down, Martha.” She was tugging at my Giants night-shirt.
“Oh, God,” she groaned, loudly. “I was so pumped up. I thought I had found it.”
She had found it. She had beaten McBride and Seattle. Two squads of trained investigators as well as the FBI. I looked at her with genuine admiration. “How?”
Too restless to sit, Cindy stalked around my living room as she took me through the steps of her amazing discovery. She unfolded a copy of the news photo showing Jenks and Kathy Kogut at the movie opening. I watched her circle the couch, trying to keep up with herself: Bright Star… Sierra…Crossed Wire… She was hyper. “I’m a good reporter, Lindsay,” she said.
“I know you are.” I smiled at her. “You just can’t write about it.”
Cindy stopped — the sudden realization of what she had overlooked hitting her like a pie in the face.
“Oh, God,” she moaned. “That’s like being in a shower with Brad Pitt, but
you can’t touch.” She looked at me, half smiling, half like nails were being driven into her heart.
“Cindy”— I reached out and held her — “you wouldn’t have even known to look for him if I hadn’t clued you in on Cleveland.”
I went to the kitchen. “You want some tea?” I called out.
She collapsed on the couch and let out another wail. “I want a beer. No, not beer. Bourbon.”
I pointed to my small bar near the terrace. In a few moments, we sat down. Me with my Nocturnal Seasonings, Cindy with a stiff glass of Wild Turkey, Martha comfortable at our feet.
“I’m proud of you, Cindy,” I told her. “You did crack the name. You scooped two police forces. When this is over, I’m gonna make sure you get a special mention in the press.”
“I am the press,” Cindy exclaimed, forcing herself to smile. “And what do you mean, ‘When this is over’? You have him.”
“Not quite.” I shook my head. I explained that everything we had, even stuff she didn’t know — the vineyard, the champagne — was circumstantial. We couldn’t even force him to submit a hair.
“So what do we need to do?”
“Tie Nicholas Jenks solidly in to the first crime.”
Suddenly, she began pleading, “I have to run with it, Lindsay.”
“No,” I insisted. “No one knows. Only Roth and Raleigh. And one more….”
“Who?” Cindy blinked.
“Jill Bernhardt.”
“The assistant district attorney? That office is like a colander trying to sail across the Pacific. It’s nothing but leaks.”
“Not Jill,” I promised. “She won’t leak this.”
“How can you be so sure?”