15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(12)

“No way.”

“Right.”

“No,” he said. “I mean, that’s why he looks familiar.”

“I’m not following you.”

Conklin said, “The guy in the hotel,” he said. “The one with the bulky jacket who eluded the cameras. Look, Lindsay.” He went over to his desk, moved some papers around, and came up with the screen shots we’d taken of the stealthy man crossing the hotel lobby on the day of the shootings.

“Lindsay, don’t you see it?” Conklin asked me, shoving the photocopy under my nose. “The man in the lobby is Joe.”





CHAPTER 17


I TOLD CINDY I had to see her, and she met me on the front steps of the Hall fifteen minutes later.

“What have you got for me?” she said.

She was wearing a different T-shirt and steel-tipped work boots. The boots signified something. My guess was that she wanted to kick butt. She was in serious bulldog mode.

“We need to identify these people,” I said.

I showed her the pictures on my phone of the three unknown subjects: the mystery blonde and the morgue shots of the two PI kids, slightly ’shopped so that they looked less dead.

“Send them to me,” she said.

I did and she asked, “Are they wanted for questioning in the hotel murders? What can you tell me?”

“Let’s just start with you putting them out under a headline, ‘Do you know these people?’ and see how it goes.”

“OK, OK, OK,” said Cindy. “You’re not giving this to anyone else, right?”

“You’ve got a twenty-four-hour exclusive; then the FBI is going to move in and do it their way.”

Cindy said, “I’ll get this up on the site, front page, as soon as I clear it with Tyler. These photos will be on the Web today and in the paper tomorrow.”

“OK.”

“I’m going to say ‘Contact Cindy Thomas.’”

“You’ve got twenty-four hours.”

“Gotcha.”

My phone buzzed. Brady, of course.

“Boxer, got some people here from the FBI.”

“I’m downstairs. I’ll be up in a second.”

I hung up and turned back to Cindy.

“I don’t know how long your twenty-four-hour window is going to stay open. There’s a cab,” I said, pointing to one at the light. “See if you can grab it.”

She thanked me and told me I wouldn’t be sorry. We hugged, and I went upstairs.

Conklin, Brady, and I all got into the elevator and rode it up to Jacobi’s office. There we met three serious men in gray suits, and over the next two hours, we told them everything we knew. Everything but the one thing I wasn’t ready to give up, and I knew Richie had my back.

I didn’t say a word about Joe.





CHAPTER 18


WHEN CINDY CALLED me at 10:30 p.m., I was bordering on despair. I still hadn’t heard from Joe, the baby was crying, and although I had done everything I knew to calm her, nothing worked. She was frantic and I didn’t know why. I had thrown on a robe and was going across the hall to get Mrs. Rose when the phone rang.

Cindy didn’t wait for me to say hello.

“I got a hit,” she said.

“I have to call you back.”

“Really?”

Julie let out a freshly minted over-the-top howl. Why?

“Really,” I said, and then, “I’ll call you back.”

I felt the baby’s forehead and checked her diaper, and both were fine. I carried her to the kitchen, patting her back while I warmed up a bottle. Was she sick? Or was she simply channeling my anxiety?

I took her back to her room, sat down in the rocker, fed her, and tried to soothe myself. Julie took the bottle, and of course she couldn’t cry and suck at the same time. Mercifully.

When she fell asleep in my arms, I put her into her bed as gently as possible. She barely stirred, but I stood over her watching until her breathing deepened and I was sure she was in a nice solid sleep.

I nuked a cup of milk for myself, stirred in some Green & Black’s powdered chocolate, and set it on the end table next to the big sofa, giving myself permission to just sit quietly and calm the hell down.

I had dozed off when the phone rang.

Joe.

I found the phone where I’d dropped it on the floor near the sofa and caught it on the fifth ring.

“Christ, Lindsay,” Cindy said. “What the hell is wrong with you? I said I have a hit on one of your suspects.”

“The baby,” I said. “She was having a tantrum.”

“Everything OK?”

“I think so.”

“OK,” Cindy said, moving on. “The blond-haired woman from the hotel. Someone wrote in saying he knows her. Are you free now? Or should I just tell Richie?”

“Put me on speaker and tell us both,” I said into the phone.

Richie grunted, “I’m here.”

“Good. Cindy, who is the blonde? Who the hell is she?”





CHAPTER 19


CINDY’S ANONYMOUS TIP could blow open the whole case. If it was good. If it was true.

I took my laptop to the big sofa in the living room, and, leaving Julie’s door open, I got to work. I typed the name Alison Muller into one law enforcement database after another, and when she didn’t come up, I Googled her.