7th Heaven (Women's Murder Club 7)

“I wouldn’t say I know her, know her, but we were cellmates one night at the women’s jail.”

“And did Ms. Moon say why she was arrested?”

“Yeah, everyone gets a turn at that.”

“And what did Ms. Moon tell you?”

“She said she was a working girl and that she had a date with Michael Campion.”

“And why did that stick in your mind?”

“Are you kiddin’? It was like, Whoa. You did the dirty with the golden boy? And like what was that like? And by and by it came out that he died when they were doing it.”

“Is that what Ms. Moon told you?”

“Yeah. She said he had a bad heart, and that happened to me once, too, but my john was no golden boy. He was a smelly old man, and he died in the front seat of his Caddy, so I just opened the door — oh, ’scuse me.”

“Ms. Brown, did Ms. Moon say what she did when Mr. Campion had a heart attack?”

“She got all weepy-like,” said Tanya Brown. “Said she and her boyfriend got rid of his body.”

“Did she say anything else?”

“She said Michael was the sweetest boy she ever met and how bad it sucked for him to die on the happiest night of his life.”

Yuki thanked the witness, made sure she didn’t roll her eyes as she turned her over to L. Diana Davis.

Davis asked Tanya Brown the same question she’d asked each of Yuki’s previous two jailhouse witnesses.

“Did Ms. Moon offer you any proof that she’d been with the so-called victim? Did she describe any distinguishing marks on his body, for instance? Show you any souvenirs? A ring, or a note, a lock of his hair?”

“Huh? No, I mean, no, ma’am, she didn’t.”

“I have no other questions,” said Davis dismissively, again.

Chapter 52

TWILLY PHONED YUKI at the office, asked her to have dinner with him at Aubergine, a hot new restaurant on McAllister. “I’ve got so much work to do,” she moaned. Then she relented. “An early dinner, okay? That would be great.”

At six the restaurant was filling up with the loud pretheater crowd, but she and Twilly had a small table far from the bar, where it was quiet enough to talk. Twilly’s knees bumped against hers from time to time and Yuki didn’t mind.

“Davis is like an IED,” Yuki said, moving tiny bay scallops on her plate with her fork. “She blows up in your face at every checkpoint.”

“Her act is getting old. Don’t worry,” Twilly told her. “She’s probably up every night worrying about you.”

Yuki smiled at her dinner companion, said, “Hey. That’s enough about me.” And she asked him to tell her about his first true-crime book.

“Must I? It sold about two hundred copies.”

“It did not.”

“It did, and I know because I bought all of them myself.”

Yuki threw back her head and laughed, loosening up finally, feeling pleased that she had Twilly’s attention all to herself.

“I wrote it under a pseudonym,” Twilly said. “That way if you were to Google me, that bomb won’t come up on the list.”

“Well, now I know,” said Yuki. “So, what was the book about?”