The 5th Horseman (Women's Murder Club 5)

Guttman’s voice was squelched by the roar and echo of a large engine coming toward us. Wheels squealed as a black Chevy van wound up and around the helix of the parking-garage ramp.

It stopped twenty feet away from where we stood, and the side doors slid open.

A woman stepped out of the driver’s seat.

Black, just over forty, substantial in every way imaginable, Claire Washburn carried herself with the dignity of her office and the confidence of a well-loved woman.

The ME had arrived.

Chapter 11

CLAIRE IS SAN FRANCISCO’S chief medical examiner, a superb pathologist, a master of intuition, a pretty fair cellist, a happily married lady of almost twenty years, a mother of two boys, and, quite simply, my best friend in the universe.

We’d met fourteen years ago over a dead body, and since then had spent as much time together as some married couples.

We got along better, too.

We hugged right there in the garage, drawing on the love we felt for each other. When we broke from our hug, Claire put her hands on her ample hips and took in the scene.

“So, Lindsay,” she said, “who died on us today?”

“Right now, she goes by Jane Doe. Looks like she was killed by some kind of freako perfectionist, Claire. There’s not a hair out of place. You tell us, though.”

“Well, let’s see what we can see.”

Claire walked to the car with her kit and in short order took her own photos, documenting the victim from every angle, then taped paper bags over the young woman’s hands and feet.

“Lindsay,” she finally called for me, “come have a look here.”

I wedged into the narrow angle between Claire and the car door as Claire rolled up the girl’s upper lip, then rolled down the lower one, showing me the bruising by the beam of her penlight.

“See all this here, sugar? Was this young lady intubated?” Claire asked me.

“Nope. The EMTs never touched her. We waited for you.”

“So this is trauma artifact. Look at her tongue. Appears to be a laceration.”

Claire flicked her light over the furrow at the girl’s neckline.

“Unusual ligature mark,” she told me.

“I thought so, too. Don’t see any petechial hemorrhaging in the eyes,” I said, talking the talk. “Odd, isn’t it? If she was strangled?”

“All of it’s odd, girlfriend,” said Claire. “Her clothes are immaculate. Don’t see that too much with a body dump. If ever.”

“Cause of death? Time of death?”

“I’d say she went down somewhere around midnight. She’s just going into rigor. Other than that, all I know is that this girl is dead. I’ll have more for you after I examine young Jane under some decent light back at the shop.”

Claire stood and spoke to her assistant.

“Okay, Bobby. Let’s get this poor girl out of the car. Gently, please.”

I walked to the edge of the fourth floor and looked out over the tops of buildings and the creeping traffic down on Golden Gate Avenue. When I felt a little collected, I called Jacobi on my cell.

“I turned Guttman loose,” he told me. “He’d just gotten off a flight from New York, had left his car at the garage while he was out of town.”

“Alibi?”