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

“I’m sure of it,” I said.

Jill was dark, disarmingly attractive. Curly jet-black hair framed a narrow, oval face. She was an achiever, thirty-four, a rising star in Bennett Sinclair’s office.

All you needed to know about Jill was that as a third-year prosecutor, it was she who had tried the La Frade case, when the mayor’s old law partner was indicted on a RICO charge for influence peddling. No one, including the D.A. himself, wanted to submarine his or her career by taking on the powerful fund-raiser. Jill nailed him, sent him away for twenty years. Got herself promoted to the office next to Big Ben himself.

One by one, Raleigh and I laid out Nicholas Jenks’s connections to the three double murders: the champagne found at the first scene; his involvement in Sparrow Ridge Vineyards; his volatile relationship with the third bride, Kathy Voskuhl.

Jill threw back her head and laughed. “You want to bust this guy for messing up someone’s life, be my guest. Go try the Examiner. Here, I’m afraid, they make us do it with facts.”

I said, “We have him tied to three double murders, Jill.”

Her lips parted into a skeptical smile that read, Sorry, some other time. “The champagne connection might fly, if you had him nailed down. Which you don’t. The realestate partnership’s a nonstarter. None of it pins him directly to any of the crimes. A guy like Nicholas Jenks — public, connected — you don’t go around making un-substantiated accusations.”

With a sigh, she shifted a tower of briefs aside. “You want to take on the big fish, guys? Go back, get yourself a stronger rod.”

My mouth dropped at her hard-edged reaction to our case. “This isn’t exactly my first homicide, Jill.”

Her strong chin was set.

“And this isn’t exactly my first page-one case.” Then she smiled, softened. “So

rry,” she said. “It’s one of Bennett’s favorite expressions. I must be spending too much time around the sharks.”

“We’re talking about a multiple killer, “ Raleigh said, the frustration mounting in his eyes.

Jill had that implacable, prove-it-to-me resistance. I had worked with her on murder cases twice before, knew how tireless and prepared she was when she got to court. Once, she had invited me to go “spinning” with her during a trial I was a witness at. I gave up in a sweat after thirty grueling minutes, but Jill, pumping without pause, went on at a mad pace for the full forty-five. Two years out of Stanford Law, she had married a rising young partner at one of the city’s top venture firms. Leapfrogged a squadron of career prosecutors to the D.A.’s right hand. In a city of high achievers, Jill was the kind of girl for whom everything clicked.

I passed her the security photo from the Hall of Fame, then Nicholas Jenks’s photograph.

She studied them, shrugged. “You know what an adversarial expert witness would do with these? It’s pup-shit. If the cops in Cleveland feel they can convict with this, be my guest.”

“I don’t want to lose him to Cleveland,” I said.

“So come back to me with something I can take to Big Ben.”

“How about a search and seizure,” Raleigh suggested. “Maybe we can match up the champagne bottle from the first crime scene to the lot he purchased.”

“I could run it by a judge,” Jill mused. “There must be someone out there on the bench who thinks Jenks has done enough to bring down the structure of literary form to the point where they’d go for it. But I think you’d be making a mistake.”

“Why?”

“Some two-time crack whore, her you can bring in on suspicion. You bring in Nicholas Jenks, you better arraign. You alert him that you’re onto him — you’ll spend more time fending off his lawyers and the press than making your case. If he’s it, you’re gonna have one shot and one shot only to dig up what you need to convict. Right now, you need more.”

“Claire has a hair in her lab from the second killing, the DeGeorges,” I said. “We can make Jenks give us a sample of his beard.”

She shook her head. “With what you have, his compliance would be totally voluntary. Not to mention, if you’re wrong, what you might lose.”

“You mean by narrowing the search?”

“I was talking politically. You know the game rules, Lindsay.”

She riveted those intense blue eyes directly at me. I could envision the headlines, turning the case back against us. Like the screwups with O. J. Simpson and Jon Benet Ramsey. In both cases it seemed the cops were as much on trial as any possible defendants.

Jill got up, smoothed her navy skirt, then leaned on her desk. “Look, if the guy’s guilty, I’d like to tear him apart as much as you. But all you’re bringing me is an unlucky preference in champagne and an eyewitness on her third vodka and tonic. Cleveland’s at least got a prior relationship with one of the victims, bringing up a possible motive, but right now none of the jurisdictions have enough to go on.

“I’ve got two of the biggest headline grabbers in the city looking over my every move,” Jill finally admitted. “You think the district attorney and the mayor want to pass this thing on?” Then she fixed unflappably on me. “What’s the litmus test here? You’re sure it’s him, Lindsay?”

He was linked to all three cases. The desperate voice of Christine Kogut was clear in my mind. I gave Jill my most convincing nod. “He’s the killer.”