The 9th Judgment (Women's Murder Club 9)

Heidi gave Sarah a peck on the lips—and Sarah kissed Heidi back, but harder and with feeling, Heidi’s sweet mouth opening under hers as Sarah put her whole heart into it.

If only she could tell Heidi everything.

Chapter 18

THE MORNING AFTER their murders, Barbara Ann and Darren Benton, along with Casey Dowling, were chilling in the morgue while Conklin and I stared at each other across our overloaded desks, not knowing whether to spit or go blind.

We were working the Dowling case because Jacobi had been absolutely clear when he said, “Dowling trumps Benton. Dowling trumps everything.” Because Casey Dowling was a high-profile victim and the Bentons were not.

I told Jacobi that the lunatic killer who’d left a message in the Bentons’ RAV4 made me feel like I’d put my finger in a live electric socket. That I was sure their killer was signaling a pattern in the making. That Conklin and I should be on the Benton case now, full-time.

Jacobi showed me his palms. What do you want from me? No manpower. No budget. I want to keep my job. Do what I tell you.

Conklin looked fresh, his brown eyes sparkling in the gloom of the bull pen, his shining brown hair falling across his forehead as we studied Stolen Property’s case notes on Hello Kitty and scoured crime scene photos of the Dowlings’ master bedroom.

I was uploading Clapper’s footage of the scene when Cindy Thomas blew through the gates and headed toward Conklin and me.

“Look at this!” she shouted, her blond bedspring curls bouncing, blue lightning flashing in her eyes.

She was waving the Oakland Tribune, the smaller, foxier tabloid that competes with the Chronicle. The headline read, “Hello Kitty Kills.” Because Cindy had named this cat burglar and had reported on his heists, she considered him hers.

“Everyone’s on my story now,” she said, swiveling her fierce gaze from me to Conklin and back to me again. “Give me a break, please. I need something that the Trib doesn’t have.”

“We’ve got nothing,” I said. “Wish we did.”

“Rich?” she said to my partner.

Cindy is four years younger than I, more a little sister to me than my actual little sister. I love her, and even though she fights me, she also uses her keen intuition and bulldog tenacity to help me solve homicides. That’s in the plus column.

Cindy pulled over a chair, triangulating me and Conklin. It was a neat visual metaphor, and I didn’t like it.

“Why would Hello Kitty kill Casey Dowling?” she asked. “Kitty has never been violent. Why would he even be carrying a gun when armed robbery would get him life?”

“We’re working the case, Cindy,” I said. “Jeez. We haven’t stopped. I got all of two hours in the rack last night—”

“Rich?” Cindy cocked her head like a little yellow bird.

“Exactly what Lindsay said. We’ve got nothing. No prints. No gun. No witnesses.”

“Usual deal,” Cindy said. She batted her eyelashes at Conklin and gave him her best come-hither stare. “Off the record.”

Conklin waited a beat, then said, “What if Casey knew the intruder?”

Cindy leaped up, hugged Conklin around the neck, kissed him on the mouth, and then flew out of the squad room.

“BYE, CINDY,” I called after her.

Conklin laughed.

Chapter 19

“I’M GOING TO see Claire,” I told my partner.

“Stay in touch,” he said.

I ran down three flights and worked my way through the Hall’s crowded lobby, out the back door, and down the breezeway to the medical examiner’s office.

I found Claire in the autopsy suite. She was wearing a floral shower cap and an apron over her XXL scrubs—still carrying some poundage from her pregnancy on her size-sixteen frame. I called out to her, and she looked up from the body of Barbara Ann Benton, who was lying eviscerated on the table.