2nd Chance (Women's Murder Club 2)

Suddenly my pulse was racing. “Can you show me what you’re talking about?”

“Of course,” Eunice Mercer said. “It’s over here.” She left the den and in a minute came back. She handed me a paperback copy of a book every schoolkid reads. Mythology, by Edith Hamilton.

It was an old dog-eared copy, looked as if it had been leafed through a thousand times. I rifled through the pages and spotted nothing.

I ran down the table of contents. Then I saw it. Halfway down, page 141. It was underlined. Bellerophon Kills the Chimera.

Bellerophon… Billy Reffon.

My heart clenched. It was the name he’d used on the 911 call about Art Davidson. He had called himself Billy Reffon.

I flipped to page 141. It was there. With an illustration. The lion rearing. The goat’s body. The serpent’s tail.

Chimera.

The bastard was telling us he had killed Chief Mercer.

A surge rippled through me. There was something else on the page. A sharp, edgy script, a few words, scrawled above the illustration in ink:

More to come… justice will be served.

Chapter 49

LEAVING MERCER’S HOME, I drove around in a sweat, terror filled at what I knew to be the truth.

All my instincts had been right. This was no random, racist murder spree. This was a cold, calculating killer. He was taunting us, the same way he had with the white van. With that cocky tape. Billy Reffon.

Finally, I said, Fuck it. I called the girls. I couldn’t hold back any longer. They were three of the sharpest law-enforcement minds in the city. And this bastard had told me there were going to be more killings. We set up a meeting at Susie’s.

“I need your help,” I said, panning their faces in our usual booth at the restaurant.

“That’s why we’re here,” Claire said. “You call, we come running.”

“Finally.” Cindy chuckled. “She admits she’s nothing without us.”

“This Kiss” by Faith Hill was drowning out a basketball game on the TV, but in the corner booth, the four of us were huddled in our own purposeful world. God, it was good to have everybody back together again.

“Everything’s screwed up with Mercer gone. The FBI’s come in. I don’t even know who’s in control. All I know is that the longer we wait, the more people are going to be killed.”

“This time there have to be some rules,” Jill said, tugging on a Buckler nonalcoholic beer. “This isn’t a game. That last case, I think I broke every rule I took an oath to uphold. Withholding evidence, using the D.A.’s office for personal use. If anything had gotten out, I’d be doing my cases from the tenth floor.”

We laughed. The tenth floor of the Hall was where the holding cells were located.

“Okay,” I agreed. It was the same for me. “Anything we find we take to the task force.”

“Let’s not go overboard,” said Cindy with a mischievous laugh. “We’re here to help you, not to make the careers of some uptight, bureaucratic men.”

“The Margarita Posse lives,” joked Jill. “Jesus, I’m glad we’re back.”

“Don’t you ever doubt it,” said Claire.

I looked around at the girls. The Women’s Murder Club. Part of me bristled with apprehension. Four people were dead, including the highest-ranking police officer in the city. The killer had proved he could strike anywhere he wanted to.

“Each murder has become more high profile, and daring,” I said, filling them in on the latest, including the book stuffed in Mercer’s jacket. “He no longer needs the subterfuge of the racial MO. It’s racial, all right. I just don’t know why.”

Claire took us through the chief’s autopsy, which she had finished up that afternoon. He was hit three times at close range with a .38 gun. “My impression is that the three shots were spaced at measured intervals. I could tell by the pattern that the wounds bled out. The last one was to the head. Mercer was already on the ground. It makes me think they may have confronted each other. That he was trying to kill him slowly. Or that they were even talking. I guess where I’m headed is that it’s likely Mercer knew his killer.”

“You checked into the possibility that all these officers were somehow connected?” Jill cut in. “Of course you have. You’re Lindsay Boxer.”