The 8th Confession (Women's Murder Club 8)

“And then his killer beat his face in? Broke his ribs?” I asked, incredulous. “Talk about crime of passion.”

“Oh, someone hated him, all right,” Claire told us. She called out to her assistant. “Put Mr. Jesus away for me, will you, Bunny? Get Joey to help you. And write ‘John Doe number twenty-seven’ and the date on his toe tag.”

Conklin and I followed Claire to her office.

“Got something else to show you,” Claire told us. She tore off her shower cap and peeled off her surgical gown. Underneath, Claire wore blue scrubs and her favorite T-shirt, the one with the famous quote on the front: “I may be fat and I may be forty, but here I is.”

That line cracked Claire up, but since she’s now forty-five, I was thinking she might be getting a new favorite T-shirt one of these days.

Meanwhile, she offered us seats, sat down behind her desk, and unlocked the top drawer. She took out another glassine evidence bag, put it on the desk, and bent her gooseneck lamp down to throw light directly on it.

“That’s Bagman’s crucifix,” I said, staring at a piece of tramp art that had the patina of an ancient and valuable artifact.

It was in fact as described: two bolts, copper wire, a toy baby lashed to the cross.

“Could be some prints on the plastic baby,” I said. “Where did you find this?”

“In Bagman’s gullet,” Claire told me, taking a swig of water. “Someone tried to ram it down his throat.”

Chapter 8

I WAS EAGER to hear Joe’s thoughts on Bagman Jesus.

We were having dinner that night at Foreign Cinema. Although it is located on a crappy block in the city’s dodgiest neighborhood, surrounded by bodegas and dollar stores, Foreign Cinema’s marquis and fine design make it look as though a UFO picked it up in L.A. and dropped it down in the Mission by mistake.

But apart from the way it looks, what makes Foreign Cinema a real treat are the picnic tables in the back garden, where old films are projected on the blank wall of a neighboring building.

The sky was clear that early May night, the evening made even cozier by the heat lamps all around the yard. Sean Penn was at one of the tables with some of his pals, but the big draw for me was having a dinner date with Joe without either of us having to book a flight to do it.

After so many gut-wrenching speed bumps, the roller-coaster ride of our formerly long-distance relationship had smoothed out when Joe moved to San Francisco to be with me. Now we were finally living together.

Finally giving ourselves a real chance.

As The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, an old French film, flickered without sound against the wall, Joe listened intently as I told him about my astounding day: how Conklin and I had walked our feet off trying to find out who had murdered Bagman Jesus.

“Claire took five slugs out of his head, four of them just under the scalp,” I told Joe. “The fifth shot was to the temple and was likely the money shot. Then Bagman took another slug to the back of the neck, postmortem. Kind of a personal act of violence, don’t you think?”

“Those slugs. They were twenty-fives or twenty-twos?”

“ Twenty-twos,” I said.

“Figures. They had to be soft or they all would have gone through his skull. Were there any shell casings at the scene?”

“Not a one. Shooter probably used a revolver.”

“Or he used a semiautomatic, picked up those casings. That kind of guy was evidence-conscious. Thinking ahead.”

“So, okay, that’s a good point.” I turned Joe’s thought around in my mind. “So maybe it was premeditated, you’re saying?”

“It’s not hopeless, Linds. That soft lead could have striations. See what the lab says. Too bad you won’t be getting prints off the casings.”

“There might be some prints on that plastic baby.”

Joe nodded, but I could tell he didn’t agree.

“No?” I asked him.

“If the shooter picked up the casings, maybe he was a pro. A contract killer or a military guy. Or a cop. Or a con. If he was a pro —”