“I must be an idiot,” I said aloud. “Jenks is clinging to any story he can to wiggle his way out of this.”
I got up, brought my tea into the bathroom, began to wash my face.
In the morning I would tell Cheery about my disease. I had some time coming. I would face this thing head-on. Now that the case was complete, it was the right time. Now that the case was complete!
I went into the bedroom, ripped the tags off a “Little Bit of Heaven,” a T-shirt Chris had bought me. I got into bed, and Martha came around for her hug.
Memories of the weekend began to drift in my head. I closed my eyes. I could hardly wait to share it with the girls.
Then a thought from out of the blue hit me. I shot up as if I’d had a nightmare. I stiffened. “Oh, no. Oh, Jesus, no,” I whispered.
When Jenks had lunged at me at his house, he had swung with his left hand.
When he’d offered me a drink, he’d picked up the pitcher with his left hand.
Impossible, I thought. This can’t be happening.
Claire was certain David Brandt’s killer had been right-handed.
Chapter 103
JILL, CLAIRE, AND CINDY looked at me as if I were insane.
The words had barely tumbled out of my mouth. “What if Jenks is right? What if someone is trying to set him up?”
“That’s a crock!” snapped Jill. “Jenks is desperate and only moderately clever. We’ve got him!”
“I can’t believe you’re saying this,” exclaimed Cindy. “You’re the one who found him. You’re the one who made the case.”
“I know. I know it seems crazy. Hopefully, it is crazy. Just hear me out.”
I took them through Jacobi’s comment about the novel, then my lightning bolt about Jenks’s left-handedness.
“Proves nothing,” Jill said.
“I can’t get past the science, Lindsay,” Claire said with a shake of her head. “We’ve got his goddamn DNA at the scene.”
“Look,” I protested, “I want the guy as much as anybody. But now that we have all this evidence — well — it’s just so neat. The jacket, the champagne. Jenks has set up complicated murders in his books. Why would he leave clues behind?”
“Because he’s a sick bastard, Lindsay. Because he’s an arrogant prick who’s connected to all three crimes.”
Jill nodded. “He’s a writer. He’s an amateur at actually doing anything. He just fucked up.”
“You saw his reactions, Jill. They were deeper than simply desperation. I’ve seen killers on death row still in denial. This was more unsettling. Like disbelief.”
Jill stood up, her icy blue eyes spearing down at me. “Why, Lindsay, why the sudden about-face?”
For the first time I felt alone and separated from the people I had most learned to trust. “No one could possibly hate this man more than I do,” I declared. “I hunted him. I saw what he did to those women.” I turned to Claire. “You said the killer was right-handed.”
“Probably right-handed,” Claire came back.
“What if he simply held the knife in his other hand?” proposed Cindy.
“Cindy, if you were going to kill someone,” I said, “someone larger and stronger, would you go at him with your opposite hand?”
“Maybe not,” injected Jill, “but you’re throwing all this up in the face of facts. Evidence and reason, Lindsay. All the things we worked to assemble. What you’re giving me back is a set of hypotheticals. ‘Jenks holds his pitcher with his left hand. Phillip Campbell sets someone up at the end of his book.’ Lindsay, we have the guy pinned to three double murders. I need you firm on this.” Her jaw was quivering. “I need you to testify.”
I didn’t know how to defend myself. I had wanted to nail Jenks as eagerly as any one of us. More. But now, after being so sure, I couldn’t put it away, the sudden doubt.