12th of Never (Women's Murder Club 12)

“He’s a 49er, sweetie. His girlfriend turned up dead in her car, couple miles from his house.”

“Homicide? And you think this Niner is the doer?”

Brady laughed, shook his head. “You’re a tough talker.”

Yuki put her hands on her hips and grinned at him. “It’s been said more than once that I’m one tough cookie.”

Brady took a sip of coffee, put the mug in the sink, put his arms around Yuki, and said, “Kill ‘em in court today, Cookie. I’ll call you later.”

He kissed the center part in her hair and went for the door.

Chapter 8

AT NINE THAT morning, Dr. Perry Judd walked through the swinging half door at the entrance to the homicide squad room and demanded the attention of a detective, saying, “I want to report a murder.”

Rich Conklin had walked Dr. Judd back to Interview 2 and had been trying to get a straight story ever since.

Dr. Judd said that he taught English literature at UC Berkeley. He was fifty, had brown hair, a goatee, and small eyeglasses with round frames the size of quarters. His jacket and button-down shirt were blue, and he wore a pair of khakis with a pleated front.

He had seemed to be a solid citizen.

“I was going into Whole Foods on Fourth Street last night,” Judd said. “There was a woman right in front of me and it just happened that I followed her into the store. She said hello to one of the cashiers. I got the feeling she was a regular there.”

The professor then described the woman in extraordinary detail.

“She was blond, about two inches of black roots showing. She was about forty, a ‘squishy’ size ten, wore a white blouse with a ruffled neckline and a necklace. Green beads, glass ones.”

Judd had gone on to say that the woman had been wearing sandals, her toenails painted baby blue.

Then the professor had gone completely off-road. He began quoting from obscure books, and although Conklin seriously tried to get the connection, the guy sounded psycho.

Conklin liked to let a witness lay out the whole story in one piece. That way he could shape and sharpen his followup questions and determine from the answers if the witness was telling the truth or talking crap.

Dr. Judd had stopped talking altogether and was staring into the one-way glass behind Conklin’s back.

Conklin said, “Dr. Judd. Please go on.”

The professor snapped back to the present, then said to Conklin, “I was thinking about The Stranger. You know, by Camus. You’ve read it, of course.”

Conklin had read The Stranger when he was in high school; as he remembered it, the story was about a murderer who had separated from his feelings. Not like a psychopath who didn’t feel—this killer had feelings, but was detached from them. He watched himself commit senseless murders.

What could this 1940s novel by Camus possibly have to do with a woman shopper at Whole Foods?

“Dr. Judd,” Conklin said. “You said there was a murder?”

“This woman I described went to the frozen-foods section, and I was going there myself to get a spinach soufflé. She reached into the case and pulled out a pint of chocolate chip ice cream. She was turning back when three muffled shots rang out. She was hit in the back first, then she whipped around and was hit twice more in the chest. She was dead by the time she hit the floor.”

“Did you call the police?”

“No. I didn’t think to do it until now.”

“Did you see the shooter?”

“I did not.”

“Were there any other witnesses?”

“I honestly don’t know,” Judd said.