3rd Degree (Women's Murder Club 3)

Jacobi had a paunchy ham hock of a face that never seemed to smile even when he told a joke, and deep, hooded eyes impossible to light up with surprise. But when he fixed on the hole where 210 Alhambra used to be and saw me, sooty, smeared, sitting down, trying to catch my breath—Jacobi did a double take.

“Lieutenant? You okay?”

“I think so.” I tried to pull myself up.

He looked at the house, then at me again. “Seems a bit run-down, even for your normal fixer-upper, Lieutenant. I’m sure you’ll do wonders with it.” He held in his grin. “We have a Palestinian delegation in town I know nothing about?”

I told him what I had seen. No smoke or fire, the second floor suddenly blowing out.

“My twenty-seven years on the job gives me the premonition we’re not talking busted boiler here,” said Jacobi.

“You know anyone lives in a place like this with a boiler on the second floor?”

“No one I know lives in a place like this. You sure you don’t want to go to the hospital?” Jacobi bent down over me. Ever since I’d taken a shot in the Coombs case, Jacobi’d become like a protective uncle with me. He had even cut down on his stupid sexist jokes.

“No, Warren, I’m all right.”

I don’t even know what made me notice it. It was just sitting there on the sidewalk, leaning up against a parked car, and I thought, Shit, Lindsay, that shouldn’t be there.

Not with everything that had just gone on.

A red school knapsack. A million students carry them. Just sitting there.

I started to panic again.

I’d heard of secondary explosions in the Middle East. If it was a bomb that had gone off in the house, who the hell knew? My eyes went wide. My gaze was fixed on the red bag.

I grabbed Jacobi. “Warren, I want everyone moved back away from here, now. Move everybody back, now!”

Chapter 5

FROM THE BACK of a basement closet, Claire Washburn pulled out an old, familiar case she hadn’t seen in years. “Oh, my God…”

She had woken up early that morning, and after a cup of coffee on the deck, hearing the jays back for the first time that season, she threw on a denim shirt and jeans and set out on the dreaded task of cleaning out the basement closet.

First to go were the stacks of old board games they hadn’t played in years. Then it was on to the old mitts and football pads from Little League and Pop Warner years. A quilt folded up that was now just a dust convention.

Then she came upon the old aluminum case buried under a musty blanket. My God.

Her old cello. Claire smiled at the memory. Good Lord, it had been ten years since she’d held it in her hands.

She yanked it from the bottom of the closet. Just seeing it brought back a swell of memories: hours and hours of learning the scales, practicing. “A house without music,” her mother used to say, “is a house without life.” Her husband Edmund’s fortieth birthday, when she had struggled through the first movement of Haydn’s Concerto in D—the last time she had played.

Claire unsnapped the clips and stared at the wood grain on the cello. It was still beautiful, a scholarship gift from the music department at Hampton. Before she realized she would never be a Yo-Yo Ma and headed to med school, it had been her most cherished possession.

A melody popped into her head. That same, difficult passage that had always eluded her. The first movement of Haydn’s Concerto in D. Claire looked around, as if embarrassed. What the hell, Edmund

was still sleeping. No one would hear.

Claire lifted her cello out of the felt mold. She took out the bow, held it in her hands. Wow…

A long minute of tuning, the old strings stretching back into their accustomed notes. A single pass, just running the bow along the strings, brought back a zillion sensations. Goose bumps. She played the first bars of the concerto. Sounded a little off, but the feel came back to her. “Ha, the old girl’s still got it,” she said with a laugh. She closed her eyes and played a little more.

Then she noticed Edmund, still in his pajamas, watching her, standing at the bottom of the stairs. “I know I’m out of bed”—he scratched his head—“I remember putting on my glasses, even brushing my teeth. But it can’t be, ’cause I must be dreaming.”

Edmund hummed the opening bars that Claire had just played. “So, you think you can finish off the next passage? That’s the tricky part.”

“Is that a dare, Maestro Washburn?”