The 20th Victim (Women's Murder Club #20)(48)

It was put-up-or-shut-up time for McGowan.

“Let’s see it,” Cindy said.

McGowan placed a sheet of paper on her desk and stood watching her.

“It’s a first draft,” he said, “but I want your early read on the tone.”

“Be quiet and let me read,” she said.

Jennings’s name was at the top of the sheet.

The text read:

There’s more than one kind of head shot.

Some head shots are close-up photos that can get you a part. Another can drop you to the mat in the eighth round. Others you catch and throw back to the pitcher. Those are known as high, hard ones.

Roger Jennings was versed in high, hard ones. He knew they were coming because he would call them. He didn’t do it often—it wasn’t his style—just when he needed to ruffle a hitter.

As a batter himself, he was quick to react. He could duck or fall flat to the ground. He was seldom tagged as the target of pitches, let alone those thrown at his head.

But the head shot that killed him wasn’t a baseball. It was a bullet, and he never saw it coming.



Cindy looked up at Jeb, who’d been nervously watching her read.

He said, “And then his bio, thirty-eight years old, survived by his wife, Maria, twenty-nine, blah, blah, blah—”

“It’s good, Jeb. It’s very good. Poetic. Evocative. Compelling. And yes, I like the tone.”

“Really? Thanks, Cindy.”

“You’re welcome. Keep going. Make sure you mention that witnesses report that Jennings was selling drugs. Maybe that’s the kicker at the end of the piece. Maybe it’s a refrain or a summary. Try it a few ways.”

“Can do.”

“Good. We’re looking for eight more profiles and counting.”

“Right,” Jeb said. “I’ll have those for you before we close for the day.”

“Go get ’em,” said Cindy.

And when he was gone, she dialed Tyler’s extension.

He picked up his phone.

“It’s Cindy,” she said. “Hold a spot on the front page for this: ‘Anonymous Shooter Confesses.’ Sending you a draft in five.”





CHAPTER 72





JOE WAS WORKING in his home office, outlining a security analysis proposal for the TSA.

It was pleasant work. He’d written the book on the Transportation Security Administration when he was in Homeland Security, and figuring out the new TSA specs gave him a chance to use comfortable tools that were right at hand.

Julie had left her stuffed cow, Mrs. Mooey Milkington, on his desk to keep him company. Martha was snoozing next to his feet. Bill Evans’s soothing “Peace Piece” was coming through his earbuds, and in about an hour Joe was going to break for the meat loaf sandwich that was chilling in the fridge.

It was while Joe was in this fine-tuned contemplative mood that his phone rang, breaking it all into shards.

Joe glanced at his caller ID, which read, NAPA COUNTY JAIL.

He let the phone ring a few more times as he decided whether or not to pick up, but by the third ring he really had no choice.

“Molinari.”

“Joe. Thank God you’re there.”

“Dave. Please don’t tell me you’re in lockup and that this is your one phone call.”

“You want me to start lying to you now?” Dave said. It was a joke but not a good one.

“What happened? Give me the condensed version so you don’t use up your quarter.”

“Okay. This morning, after I drank my breakfast, I went to Murray’s office and called him out. His nasty nurse—”

“Atkins?”

“Yeah. Her. She barred the door. So I made a general announcement in the waiting room that Murray had killed my father, and I was shown the door. I saw Murray’s Beemer in the parking lot, so I rolled past it and keyed the side of his car. Next thing, cops came, lifted me out of my chair, and carried me into the squad car.”

“What are the charges, Dave?”

“It was vandalism with a side order of defamation.”

“How bad was the scratch?”

“Headlight to taillight. I don’t need a lawyer to tell me it was more than four hundred dollars in damages. I could go to jail for, like, three years.”

A muffled sound coming over the phone was Dave crying, and Joe had to strain to hear the guard tell him, “Say good-bye. Time’s up.” Dave argued with the guard, said that he was talking to his lawyer and that he needed to get bailed out.

“Thirty seconds,” said the guard. “Make it count.”

Joe said, “Dave, what’s the bond?”

“It’s 10K. Look, Joe, I know I have a goddamn lot of nerve, but can you come back and pay the bail? I can repay you as soon as we get to my place. Also, I have a few more documents you’re going to want to read. And, Joe, I gotta be honest. It kills me that you don’t believe me about Murray.”

Joe thought about all of the sleeping pills Dave had saved up in his medicine cabinet. If he didn’t want to spend the rest of his life blaming himself for Dave’s suicide, he had to see him, try to get him into therapy. At the very least, throw out all the pills he could get his hands on.

“Your bed is all made up,” Dave was saying. “And I have a couple of New York steaks and a bottle of Private Reserve Cab that Ray had been aging for ten years.”