3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)

understand how this must appear.” The lawyer hung his head. “But companies receive threats all the time.”

“This isn’t just a threat.” I tossed the e-mails back on my desk. “It’s extortion, coercion. You’re a lawyer, Zinn. The reference to his daughter is a blatant threat. You came in here to deal, Mr. Zinn. Here it is: This doesn’t get out. The name on these e-mails stays between us. But we send in our own team to ascertain where they originated from.”

“I understand.” The lawyer nodded sheepishly, handing over the file.

I skimmed over the e-mail addresses. [email protected] [email protected] Both signed the same. August Spies. I turned to Jacobi. “What do you think, Warren? Can we trace these?”

“We already put them through our own investigation,” Zinn volunteered.

“You traced them.” I looked up, shocked.

“We’re an e-traffic security company. All of them are free Internet providers. No user billing address. Nothing needed to open an account. You could go to the library, the airport, anywhere there’s an open-access online terminal and open one yourself. This one was sent from a kiosk at the Oakland airport. This one from a Kinko’s near Berkeley on University. These two, from the public library. They’re untraceable.”

I figured Zinn knew his stuff and was right, but one thing did jump out at me. The Kinko’s, the library, the real Wendy Raymore’s apartment.

“We may not know who they are, but we know where they are.”

“The People’s Republic of Berkeley,” Jacobi said, and sniffed. “Well, I’ll be.”

Chapter 29

I STOLE AWAY for a quick lunch with Cindy Thomas. Dim sum at the Long Life Noodle Company in Yerba Buena Gardens.

“You see the Chronicle this morning?” she asked, a pork dumpling sliding off her chopsticks as we sat on a ledge outside. “We lowered the boom on X/L.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I won’t be needing you to run a follow-up.”

“So, now it’s your turn, right, to do a little rhythm for me.”

“Cindy, I’m thinking this isn’t going to be my case much longer, especially if anything leaks out to the press.”

“At least tell me”—she looked at me solidly—“if I should be feeling these two murders are related?”

“What makes you think they’re related?”

“Gee,” she chortled, “two big-time businessmen murdered in the same city two days apart. Both of them ran companies on the wrong side of the headlines lately.”

“Two totally different MOs.” I held my ground.

“Oh? On one hand, we have a greedy corporate high roller sucking off tens of millions while his sales are going to rot; the other’s hiding behind a bunch of high-priced lobbyists trying to screw poor people. Both are dead. Violently. What was the question, Linds? Why do I think they might be related?”

“Okay.” I exhaled. “You know our arrangement? Absolutely nothing gets into print without my okay.”

“Someone’s targeting these people, aren’t they?” She didn’t mean the two already dead. I knew what she was saying.

I put the noodle container down. “Cindy, you keep your ear to the ground across the bay, don’t you?”

“Berkeley? I guess. If you mean pitching in with a couple of ‘real-life success’ pep talks in Journalism 403.”

“I mean under the radar. People who’re capable of causing trouble.” I took in a breath and looked at her worriedly. “This kind of trouble.”

“I know what you mean,” she said. She paused, then shrugged. “There is stuff happening over there. We’ve all become so used to being part of the system, we forget what it’s like to be on the other side. There are people who are growing… how should I put it… fed up. There are people whose message just isn’t getting out.”

“What kind of message?” I pressed.

“You wouldn’t hear it. For God’s sake, you’re the police. You’re a million miles away from these things, Lindsay. I’m not saying you don’t have a social conscience. But what do you do when you read that twenty percent of the people don’t have health insurance or that ten-year-old girls in Indonesia are pressed into stitching Nikes for a dollar a day. You turn the page, just like I do. Lindsay, you’re gonna have to trust me if you want me to help.”

“I’m going to give you a name,” I said. “This can’t appear in print. You run it around on your own time. Anything you find, no copyeditors. No ‘I have to protect my sources.’ You come to me first. Me, only. Are we right on this?”