2nd Chance (Women's Murder Club 2)

THE NEXT MORNING, the case against Frank Coombs, which only a day ago had seemed flimsy, was bursting at the seams. I was pumped.

First thing, Jacobi rapped at my door. “One for your side, Lieutenant. Coombs is looking better and better.”

“How so? You make any progress with Coombs’s PO?”

“You might say. He’s gone, Lindsay. According to the PO, Coombs split from this transient hotel down on Eddy. No forwarding address, hasn’t checked in, hasn’t contacted his ex-wife.”

I was disappointed that Coombs was missing, but it was also a good sign. I told Jacobi to keep looking.

A few minutes later, Madeline Akers called from San Quentin.

“I think I’ve got what you want,” she announced. I couldn’t believe she was responding so soon.

“Over the past year, Coombs was paired with four different cell mates. Two of them have been paroled, but I spoke with the other two myself. One of them told me to stuff it, but the other, this guy Toracetti… I almost didn’t even have to tell him what I was looking for. He said the minute he heard on the news about Davidson and Mercer, he knew it was Coombs. Coombs told him he was going to blow the whole thing wide open again.”

I thanked Maddie profusely. Tasha, Mercer, Davidson… It was starting to fit together.

But how did Estelle Chipman fit in?

A force took hold of me. I went outside and dug through the case files. It had been weeks since I’d looked at them.

I found it buried at the bottom. The personnel file I’d called up from Records: Edward C. Chipman.

In his thirty unremarkable years on the force, only one thing stood out.

He had been his district’s representative to the OFJ… the Officers for Justice.

It was time to put this on the record. I buzzed Chief Tracchio. His secretary, Helen, who had been Mercer’s, said he was in a closed-door meeting. I told her I was coming up.

I grabbed the Coombs file and headed up the stairs to five. I had to share this. I barreled into the chief’s office.

Then I stopped, speechless.

To my shock, seated around the conference table were Tracchio, Special Agents Ruddy and Hull of the FBI, the press flack Carr, and Chief of Detectives Ryan.

I hadn’t been invited to the latest task force meeting.

Chapter 76

“THIS IS BULLSHIT,” I said. “It’s total crap. What is this—some kind of a men’s club?”

Tracchio, Ruddy and Hull from the FBI, Carr, Rya

n. Five boys seated around the table—minus me, the woman.

The acting chief stood up. His face was red. “Lindsay, we were about to call you up.”

I knew what this meant. What was going on. Tracchio was going to shift control on the case. My case. He and Ryan were going to hand it over to the FBI.

“We’re at a critical moment in this case,” Tracchio said.

“You’re damn right,” I cut him off. I swept my gaze over the group. “I know who it is.”

Suddenly, all eyes turned my way. The boys were silent. It was as if the lights had been cranked up, and my skin prickled as if it had been cauterized.

I leveled my eyes back on Tracchio. “You want me to lay it out for you? Or do you want me to leave?”

Seemingly dumbfounded, he pulled out a chair for me. I didn’t sit. I stood. Then I took them through everything, and I enjoyed it. How I had been skeptical at first, but then it began to fit. Chimera, Pelican Bay… Coombs’s grudge against the police force. At the sound of Coombs’s name, the departmental people’s eyes grew wide. I linked the victims, Coombs’s qualification as a marksman, how only a marksman could have made those shots.