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

I told her about the interview at his lawyers’ office, the party at his house, and that we had a list of names to check out.

“How many names?”

“Twelve. If your two investigators can check out the party guests, Conklin and I can stay on Kennedy.”

“Deal,” said Claire. “You can have Kain and Dedrick. If they’re still letting me assign anyone to anything.”

She was jiggling her knees as though she were still dancing Julie on her thighs. From my phone, I sent her the list of party guests, then asked, “Find anything in Faye Farmer’s car?”

“Gunpowder on the dash. Faye’s blood on the seat back. I know. Shocker.”

My best friend inhaled, let out a plume of smoke.

She went on to say, “Clapper thinks she was most likely shot from the passenger seat. We have fingerprints—hers and Kennedy’s and a lot of prints that aren’t in the database. Nothing useful on the door handles. You have anything on Tracey Pendleton?”

“She hasn’t used her credit card or her phone.”

Claire said, “So she bought a no-name phone for forty bucks. Or maybe pesos. She could be buying gas with cash. I can’t figure it out. What does she want with that body?”

I said, “Here’s a late-breaking thought. Maybe Tracey Pendleton doesn’t have the body. Maybe whoever stole the body took her, too. Tracey was a witness.”

My phone rang. Conklin. We exchanged a few words, then I closed the phone, told Claire that I had to go.

Claire ground her cigarette out on the cement step. Ground it to powder. We both stood up. The look in Claire’s eyes was unutterably sad.

I hugged her and said, “This case is only thirty-six hours old. We’ve just gotten started.”

“I know. Shit.”

As she went back to the morgue, I trotted a half flight down to the squad room. I was already thinking about what Conklin had said: “The nutty professor is back.”

Chapter 47

PERRY JUDD LOOKED as elated as if he’d just won a million dollars and the title of Mr. America at the same time. He stood up from the chair in Interview 2 and grabbed my hand with both of his. His color was high. There was spittle in the corners of his mouth.

“I had a dream,” he said.

Conklin was rocking on the back legs of his chair. Morales brought coffee for three and left the room. I was pretty sure

everyone in the squad was behind the one-way glass. We had a soothsayer in the house who had accurately predicted a fatal shooting.

It was a first for all of us.

I uncapped my coffee container and glanced at the corner of the ceiling to make sure that the camera was recording. Conklin said to the professor, “When did you have the dream?”

“It was with me upon awakening,” said Judd. “It was so real, I thought I truly was on a streetcar. When I say ‘real,’ I mean it was as if I were actually there.”

“So take us through the dream from the top,” I said.

“Certainly. I was on the F line, heading toward the Ferry Building. I go to the Ferry sometimes, on the weekends. But in my dream, if that’s what it was, it was a weekday. There were commuters and tourists, all of us packed in.”

“Morning?” I asked him. “Afternoon?”

“I can’t tell,” said the professor. He squinted as if he were trying to get the scene in focus. “Daylight, anyway. And I recognized the driver. She’s about your age,” he said to me. “A little slimmer than you are. Her hair was blond, but not like yours. She had coarser hair.”

“Have you ever seen her in real life?” Conklin asked.

“Yes. But I don’t know her name. In my vision, she was taking tickets. I was looking at the advertising above the windows. A Geico ad. ‘Save fifteen percent in fifteen minutes.’ I told you it was that real.”