2nd Chance (Women's Murder Club 2)

He stared at the photo for a long moment. Then he said, “That’s the man I saw.”

Chapter 96

I SPENT THAT WHOLE DAY at the Hall, on the phone with the field or at a grid map of the city, overseeing the manhunt for Frank Coombs.

We placed a watch on several of his known acquaintances and places where we thought he might run, including Tom Keating’s. I did a trace on the yellow Bonneville that had picked Coombs up and ran the phone numbers found on his desk. No help there. By four, the guy who had rented the house in South San Francisco had turned himself in—insisting it was the first time he had met Coombs.

Coombs had no money, no belongings. No known manner of transport. Every cop in the city had his likeness. So where the hell was he?

Where was Chimera? And what would he do next?

I was still at my desk at seven-thirty when Jill walked in. She was only a few days out of the hospital. She had on a brown wrap raincoat, with a Coach briefcase slung over her shoulder. “What’re you still doing here?” I shook my head. “Go home and rest.”

“You got a minute?” she asked.

“Sure, pull up a chair. Afraid I don’t have a beer to offer.”

“Don’t worry.” She smiled, opening her bag and removing two Sam Adamses. “I brought my own.” She tilted one toward me.

“What the hell.” I sighed. We had no trace on Coombs, and it was clear in Jill’s face that something was bothering her. I figured it was Steve, already humping some new deal, leaving her alone again.

But as soon as she unzipped her case, I saw the blue personnel folder. And then a name, Boxer, Martin C.

“I must’ve told you,” Jill said, cracking her beer and sitting herself down across from me, “that my father was a defense lawyer back in Highland Park.”

“Only a hundred times.” I flashed her a smile.

“Actually, he was the best lawyer I ever saw. Totally prepared, unswayed by race or what a client could pay. My dad, the totally upright man. Once, I watched him work a case at night at home for six months to overturn the conviction of an itinerant lettuce farmer who was falsely convicted on a rape charge. A lot of people back then were pushing my dad to run for Congress. I loved my dad. Still do.”

I sat there silently, watching her eyes grow moist. She took a swig of beer. “Took me until I was a senior in college to realize the bastard had cheated on my mother for twenty years. The big upstanding man, my hero.”

I broke into a faint smile. “Marty’s been lying to me all along, hasn’t he?”

Jill nodded, pushing my father’s dog-eared personnel file along with a deposition across my desk. The deposition had been folded open to a page highlighted in yellow. “You might as well read it, Lindsay.”

I braced myself and, as dispassionately as I could, read through Kenneth Charles’s testimony. Then I read it over again. All the while, a sinking feeling of disappointment. And then fear. My first reaction was not to believe it; anger filled me. But at the same time, I knew it had to be true. My father had lied and covered up his whole life. He had conned and bullshitted and disappointed anyone who ever loved him.

My eyes welled up. I felt so betrayed. A tear burned its way down my cheek.

“I’m so sorry, Lindsay. Believe me, I hated to show you this.” Jill reached out a hand and I took it, squeezed hard.

For the first time since becoming a cop, I had no idea what to do. I felt a chasm widening; it couldn’t be filled with anything that resembled duty, or responsibility, or right.

I shrugged, draining the last of my beer. I smiled at Jill. “So whatever happened to your father? Is he still with your mom?”

“Fuck, no,” she said. “She was so tough sometimes, so cool. I just loved her. She threw him out when I was in law school. He’s been living in a two-bedroom condo in Las Colinas ever since.”

I started to laugh, a painful laugh that mixed with the disappointment and the tears. When I stopped, I was left with this crushed feeling in my heart and all these questions that wouldn’t go away. How much had my father known? What had he kept silent about? And finally, what was his connection to Chimera?

“Thanks,” I said. I squeezed Jill’s hand again. “I owe you, sweetie….”

“What are you going to do, Lindsay?”

I folded my jacket over my arm. “What I should’ve done a long time ago. I’m going to find out the truth.”

Chapter 97

MY FATHER WAS IN THE MIDDLE of a game of solitaire when I got home.