15th Affair (Women's Murder Club #15)(6)

It was idyllic. Picture-perfect and framed in gold. We didn’t have breakfast table perfection when I was growing up, so I cherished every bit of this. Gloried in it.

Joe said, “I checked my phone and you were phoning me at three this morning.”

“I’d just gotten home after working some terrible business at the Four Seasons. The fourteenth floor was like an abattoir.”

I told Joe the details, availing myself of his excellent crime-solving mind.

“Among the many mysteries was this woman we saw going into the dead man’s room,” Lindsay said. I described her in full. “She may have been his lover, or lover-by-the-hour, or even his wife. Or I don’t know, Joe. All we know is that she’s the only living person who can answer our questions.”

“The bangs down to her glasses,” Joe said. “Not a bad disguise. Even talking on the phone distorts the shape of the mouth. All of that will outwit facial recognition. More coffee?”

“No thanks, honey. I’m going to hit the shower.”

I stood under the water and thought about the blond woman with the wraparound shades and how finding her could kick the doors down on all of it.

But in lieu of that, the dead man in 1420 was the beginning of the story.





CHAPTER 9


I FOUND CLAIRE hard at work in her autopsy suite, gowned and gloved up and halfway through the internal exam of the unknown male killed in room 1420. His face had been reflected down over his chin and a Y incision had opened his body down to the pubic bone.

“How’s it going?” I asked.

“You know how long I’ve been ME?” Claire asked me.

“Since I was this tall,” I said, putting my hand on top of my head. Actually, we’d been rookies together, back about a dozen years ago.

“And you know how many autopsies I do a year?”

“Why don’t you tell me?” I said.

She put a bloody liver on a scale. Bunny Ellis, one of Claire’s morgue techs, waggled her fingers hello at me and took Claire’s notes.

“One thousand, two hundred bodies more or less pass through these doors annually,” Claire said.

“I hear you.”

Claire was grumpy. Rare for her.

“What I hate the most—”

“Dead kids. I know.”

“And what I hate the second most? Healthy murder victims who could have had full and productive lives. Like Mr. Doe or Wang or whatever his real name is. He was perfect. All his organs are A-plus. He has bones and joints of steel. I don’t think this man even got heartburn,” she said.

“Tell me more,” I said, since this was why I had stopped by this morning.

Claire continued to cut and slice as she talked.

“He has a scar on his knee, probably from falling off a bike when he was six, and that’s it.”

“What about his stomach contents?”

“BLT on rye with mayo. Green tea.”

“You ran his blood?”

“It’s waiting to go out. With these.”

She showed me a stainless steel bowl with three slugs rattling inside.

“Medium-caliber, like nine-millimeter. Based on that squeaky-clean crime scene, keep your expectations in check,” said Claire. “I’ll bet you a burger and fries there won’t be a record of the murder weapon.”

I said, “Who’s up next?”

“I only have two hands, Lindsay. Two. I’m not finished with Mr. Wang.”

“I’ll get out of your way, Butterfly,” I said, calling her by her nickname.

As if she hadn’t barked at me, she said, “I’ll do young Ms. Doe next. That is a clean-looking girl, Lindsay. Skin like milk. She could just barely drive and vote. I’ll need backup to get this work done today. Meanwhile…”

“Meanwhile what?”

“Phone keeps ringing. The brass. The mayor. The press. Other bodies from other crimes. If you can break for lunch,” Claire said, “the girls want to get together at MacBain’s.”

By “the girls,” she meant herself and me, Cindy, and Yuki, the four of whom Cindy had collectively dubbed the Women’s Murder Club.

“I’ll try,” I said.

I left Claire and loped down the breezeway and through the back door of the Hall of Justice. I showed my badge to the guy at the metal detector, then took the stairs to the homicide squad on the fourth floor. The day shift was drifting in, but a lot of phones were ringing through to voice mail.

Brady was in his office, the ten-foot-square glass cubicle in the back corner of the room. He saw me coming, got up from behind his desk, and opened the door.

Brady is built like a wrestler, blond, taciturn, and as brave as they come. But he’s all business, all the time.

“Got anything?” he said.

“Just what I had last night, Lieu. Professional job from start to finish. One ID could blow it open,” I said. “We’re working on that now.”

Before he could say “Keep me in the loop,” all his phone lines rang at once.





CHAPTER 10


MACBAIN’S IS THE neighborhood hole-in-the-wall beer-and-burger joint frequented by cops, lawyers, and bail bondsmen who work along the 800 block of Bryant Street. Claire and I stood inside the open doorway and stared at the raucous scene. Customers had parked four deep at the bar, and the tables in front were all taken. Looked to me like a retirement party.