7th Heaven (Women's Murder Club 7)

Tracchio patted his Vitalis comb-over and introduced us to the parents of the missing boy as Conklin and I dragged chairs up to his massive desk. Connor Campion acknowledged us with a hard stare. “I had to read this in the new

spaper?” he said to me. “That my son died in a whorehouse?”

I flushed, then said, “If we’d had anything solid, Mr. Campion, we would have made sure you knew first. But all we have is an anonymous tip that your son visited a prostitute. We get crank tips constantly. It could have meant nothing.”

“Could have meant? So what’s in this paper is true?”

“I haven’t read that article, Mr. Campion, but I can give you an update.”

Tracchio lit up a cigar as I filled the former governor in on our last eighteen hours: the interviews, our futile searches for evidence, and that we had Junie Moon in custody based on her uncorroborated admission that Michael had died in her arms. When I stopped talking, Campion shot out of his seat, and I realized that while we had assumed Michael was dead, the Campions hadn’t given up hope. My sketchy report had given the Campions more of a reality check than they’d expected.

It wasn’t what they wanted to hear.

Campion turned his red-faced glare on Tracchio, a man who’d become chief of police by way of an undistinguished career in administration.

“I want my son’s body returned to us if every dump in the state has to be picked through by hand.”

“Consider it done,” Tracchio said.

Campion turned to me, and I saw his anger collapse. Tears filled his eyes. I touched his arm and said, “We’re on this, sir. Full-time. We won’t sleep until we find Michael.”

Chapter 13

JUNIE MOON SLIPPED into the interview room at the women’s jail wearing an orange jumpsuit and new worry lines in her youthful face.

She was followed by her attorney, Melody Chado, a public defender who would make a reputation for herself with this case, no matter how the jury decided. Chado wore black — tunic, pants, jet-black beads — and was all business. She settled her client in a chair, opened her black leather briefcase, and looked at her watch several times as we waited. There were only four chairs in the small room, so when my good friend Assistant District Attorney Yuki Castellano entered a moment later, there was standing room only.

Yuki put down her briefcase and leaned against the wall.

Ms. Chado appeared to be just out of law school. She was probably only a couple of years older than her client, who looked so vulnerable I felt a little sorry for her — and that pissed me off.

“I’ve advised my client not to make any statements,” Ms. Chado said, setting her young face with a hard-ass expression that I found hard to take seriously. “This is your meeting, Ms. Castellano.”

“I’ve talked with the DA,” Yuki said. “We’re charging your client with murder two.”

“What happened to ‘illegal disposal of a body’?” Chado asked.

“That’s just not good enough,” Yuki snapped. “Your client was the last person to see Michael Campion alive. Ms. Moon never called medical emergency or the police — and why not? Because she didn’t care about Campion’s life or death. She only cared about herself.”

“You’ll never get an indictment for murder,” Chado said. “There’s enough reasonable doubt in your theory to fill the ocean.”

“Listen to me, Junie,” Yuki said. “Help us locate Michael’s remains. If it can be determined in autopsy that his heart attack would have killed him no matter what you did, we’ll drop the murder charge and pretty much get out of your life.”

“No deal,” Chado interjected. “What if she helps you find his body and it is so decomposed that his heart is just rotted meat? Then you’ll have a demonstrable connection to my client and she’ll be screwed.”

I reevaluated Melody Chado as she fought with Yuki. Chado had either had a great education, grown up in a family of lawyers — or both. Junie fell back in her chair, turned a shocked face toward her breathless attorney. I guessed that Chado’s description had blown off whatever romance was left of Junie’s memory of Michael Campion.

“I want to hear about the knife, Junie,” Rich said, steering the interview to our only piece of evidence.

“The knife?” Junie asked.

“We found a knife under your sofa. Looks like bloodstains on the blade. It’ll take a few days to get the DNA results, but if you help us, Ms. Castellano will take that as another sign of your cooperation.”

“Don’t answer,” said Melody Chado. “We’re done.”

Junie was looking at Rich, and she was talking over her attorney. “I thought the knife went into one of the garbage bags,” she said to my partner. “So I don’t know what knife you found. But listen, I remember the name of the town.”

“Junie, that’s enough. That’s all!”