11th Hour (Women's Murder Club 11)

Nigel Worley had told Conklin the same story Janet had told me. He’d said that no one had a grudge against him, his wife, or his daughter and that Mr. Chandler hadn’t received any hate calls or letters at the compound.

Nigel Worley, like his wife, insisted that he had no idea who could have put the severed heads on the

patio and that he had never before seen the victim with the long brown hair.

If we were to believe them, the Worleys had been together virtually every minute of the last ten years and could vouch for each other’s whereabouts over the weekend in question.

I was frustrated but tried not to show it.

How could Brady expect me to leave our Jane Doe and that naked skull unidentified? How could I put this case down without solving it?

I couldn’t.

Chapter 10

I KNOCKED ON Brady’s open office door. He waved me in and told me to sit down.

I knew this office very well. It had once been mine, but I had given up the job of lieutenant so that I could do detective work full-time instead of watchdogging time sheets and writing reports.

Warren Jacobi had been my partner back then.

Ten years older than me, with many more years on the street, Jacobi had good reasons to move into this corner office when I left it. He didn’t want to work the street anymore. He wanted more access to the top, less sprinting through dark alleys. He had taken over from me and gotten the squad running like a fine watch, and soon he was promoted to chief, leaving the lieutenant’s job vacant again.

That was ten months ago.

Jackson Brady, who had recently transferred from Miami PD, had asked for the promotion and gotten it, along with the small glass-walled office with a window looking out on the James Lick Freeway.

Applying the whip was nasty work, but someone had to do it. Brady was doing fine.

“I need a minute,” I told Brady now.

“Good. That’s all the time I’ve got.”

“I want to run the Ellsworth case as primary,” I said. “It’s going to be a bear, but I’m into it. I can handle both Ellsworth and the vigilante cop if I work with Conklin and another team.”

Brady got up from behind the desk, closed the door, sat back down, and gave me his hard blue-eyed stare, full-bore.

“There’s something you have to know about the vigilante cop, Boxer. He’s not shooting just dirtbags. His last victim, Chaz Smith, was working undercover.”

“I’m sorry. Say that again.”

“Chaz Smith was a cop.”

Brady told me his theory: a cop who worked in the Hall of Justice had gotten fed up with due process and decided to go it alone, but he had screwed up more than he knew when he took out Chaz Smith.

“Smith was running a big operation for Narcotics,” Brady told me. “And he had other cops working for him down the line. We have to protect those cops, and we have to bring this vigilante down. No room for failure. No excuses.”

“I have to tell Conklin.”

“Where is he?”

“Driving Harry Chandler’s caretakers to a hotel.”

“You can tell him,” Brady said, “and I’m willing to give you a shot working both cases, Boxer. But if one of them has to take a backseat, I’ll tell you right now, it’s going to be your house of heads.”

“I hear you.”

“Make sure you do. This vigilante is not only a cop, he’s a cop killer. He murdered one of us.”