1st to Die (Women's Murder Club 1)

“You’re looking at two sections from Michael De-George,” she explained. “The long one’s from his head. The other is genital.”

Then she placed the hair from the petri dish on another slide and inserted it in the microscope lens bay, side by side with the others. My pulse was starting to race. I thought I knew where she was going with this.

The new hair was reddish brown in hue and twice the thickness of either of DeGeorge’s. It had tiny filaments twisted around the cortex. It clearly belonged to someone else.

“It’s neither cranial nor pubic. It’s from a beard,” Claire announced, leaning over me.

I pulled back from the scope and looked at her, shocked.

The killer’s facial hair had turned up in Becky DeGeorge’s vagina.

“Postmortem,” she said, to drive it home.

Chapter 44

AS CLAIRE SAID, we were piecing our killer together, step by step. His height, his face, his fetishes. The way he murdered.

Now I had to figure out how he was tracking his victims.

Raleigh and I were going full force on the travel and wedding-planner thing. We had fifteen detectives out there following up leads. Now that we had a facial characteristic, we went back to the guests, combing them for a guy in a beard who might have been seen trolling around.

I felt confident that some aspect of this widening search would yield results. One of the guests would have noticed someone. We would discover a travel agent in common, a leak somewhere. Or one of Jacobi’s searches would come up with a match.

The following morning, Hartwig called in. “Sparrow Ridge Vineyards…it’s owned by a group here known as Black Hawk Partners. A local guy, Ed Lester, an attorney, puts together real-estate partnerships.”

“You know where he was over the weekend?”

“Yeah, I checked. Portland. He ran in a marathon there. I caught up with him when he got back to the office. He was definitely in Portland.”

I still felt certain that whoever had dumped the bodies there hadn’t stumbled on the remote vineyard by accident. It meant something to the killer. “He owns this place outright?”

“Uh-uh. Black Hawk puts together deals. They bring in outside money from well-heeled guys down your way. People who want to break into the wine game. Lester acts as the managing partner.”

“So who’s he partnered with on this one?”

“I don’t know. Investors.”

I sucked in my breath, trying to remain patient. “Which investors?”

“Generally, investors who want to remain private. Listen, Inspector, I know where you’re heading, but this guy only deals with pretty established people. Believe me, anyone could’ve found that dump site. Real-estate agents, someone who’d checked it out, anyone local. I have to deal with these people long after you’re gone.”

I cradled the phone in my neck and spun around in my seat toward the window. “This is a multiple-murder investigation, Lieutenant, the worst I’ve ever seen. The dump site is three miles up a deserted dirt road. Anyone riding around in the dark with two bodies could’ve safely dumped them anytime before. Whoever did this had to know the vineyard was there. And I don’t think it’s a local. I don’t think he would draw attention so close to where he lives.

“Come back to me when you know who Lester’s partners are.” I hung up on Hartwig.

Some of my optimism began to unravel.

Raleigh turned up nothing on the travel agents. The Brandts had booked through Travel Ventures, a society agent that catered to a high-end crowd. The DeGeorges had used Journeytime, out of Los Altos.

We had people scour through the personnel records of both firms. There was no connection between the two: no cooperative arrangements, not a single travel agent who had worked for both of them. It was possible someone had tapped into their systems, said the manager of Journeytime. But finding such a person was next to impossible.

My end was equally disappointing. I had the files from both wedding planners. Engravers, bands, photographers, caterers, florists. Nothing matched up. The Brandts and the DeGeorges had lived in two separate worlds. However the killer was identifying the victims, I hadn’t found a clue.

Chapter 45

I CALLED CLAIRE AND CINDY TOGETHER for a second meeting of the girls. This time, the mood was decidedly different. There was no laughter or high fives. No festive margaritas. Two more people were dead. We had no suspects, only a widening case. Clues that were rapidly leading nowhere. Intense pressure coming down on all of us.

Claire was first to arrive. She hugged me and asked how I was feeling.