12th of Never (Womens Murder Club 12) (15 page)

“She’s not the person I envisioned. So … what could this mean?”

“Have you seen her before?” I asked for the third time.

“No. Never.”

“Where were you this morning between eleven and twelve noon?”

“I told you, Sergeant Boxer. I was in class with thirty students,” Judd said. “We’re reading
Anna Karenina
.”

Conklin said, “Why do you suppose you saw a blond driver in your dream? I mean, this woman isn’t blond and she has never been blond. You think she was a victim of circumstance? She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

“I am wondering the same thing, Inspector. But I have absolutely no idea.”

His sappy voice made my last nerve snap like an old guitar string.

“What happened inside that streetcar?” I said to the professor. I grabbed the pad and pencil away from him and drew an arrow off the word
clairvoyance
, encircled a bunch of question marks.

“Give us an educated guess. Maybe you have an idea that doesn’t involve extrasensory malarkey.”

Judd looked shocked. Then he got pissed.

“Don’t talk to me that way, Sergeant. I came here at your request and of my own volition. I’ve told you everything I know. Where’s the thanks I deserve?”

“You know about lucid dreaming?” I asked him.

“Well, yes. Lucid dreaming occurs when a person is conscious that he is having a dream. He’s lucid. According to the literature, if the dreamer is aware that he’s dreaming, he can change the direction, even the outcome of the dream.”

“Exactly.”

“Oh. I see.”

“Try lucid dreaming, would you, Professor Judd? Next time you’re in a dream, get your head on straight. Grab the gun. And then remember who the killer is and tell us. Thank you for coming in. Always a pleasure seeing you. Please don’t leave town.”

I flipped the pencil into the middle of the table, said to Conklin, “My baby is sick. I’m going home.”

YUKI AND HER associate, Nicky Gaines, returned from the lunch recess a few minutes before court reconvened and took their seats.

Yuki had rested her case, and now it was the defense’s turn to present theirs. She hoped like mad that her case was strong enough to hold up no matter what Kinsela said to convince the jury that Keith Herman, a subhuman piece of garbage, was not guilty.

Yuki thought about Patricia Reeves, a woman who was tried for the murder of her two-year-old daughter. Reeves’s lawyer had stated that his client had been sexually abused by her father and that the father had been complicit in covering up the child’s accidental death.

In Yuki’s opinion, the defendant had lied, the lawyer had lied, too, and Patricia Reeves had gotten away with murder.

Like Reeves’s attorney, Kinsela was a master of the ad hominem attack. He’d assaulted Lynnette Lagrande’s character to discredit her. And he would certainly come up with a load of random bullcrap in his client’s defense.

Thinking over Kinsela’s case, looking for holes in her own, Yuki didn’t see any quicksand.

Come to think of it, she also didn’t see the defense.

Yuki poked Gaines with her elbow and angled her chin toward the defense table. No one was there; not the lawyers, not Keith Herman. Where were they?

Just then, Judge Arthur R. Nussbaum came through his private door and the bailiff called the court to order. Nussbaum saw the void at the defense table, called the bailiff over to the bench, leaned down, and whispered loud enough for Yuki to hear, “Have the clerk call Kinsela. Find out where the hell he is.”

Worst-case scenarios were now rising in Yuki’s mind. Had Keith Herman escaped from jail? Had he hanged himself? Had her wish that John Kinsela would eat shit and die actually come true?

The judge apologized to the jury for the delay, saying, “If the defense and the defendant aren’t here in five minutes, I’m going to adjourn court for the day.” Then he muttered, “And there will be hell to pay.”

Five minutes passed. Very. Very. Slowly.

The bailiff returned to the bench and had another whispered conversation with the judge, which was interrupted by a young lawyer in a severe charcoal-gray suit and high heels coming up the aisle in a great clacking hurry.

“Your Honor, I’m Linda Gregory from Mr. Kinsela’s office.”

“What’s going on, Ms. Gregory?”

“May I approach?”

As the attorney came toward the judge, the doors at the end of the aisle opened again. Nicky said to Yuki, “Lookit this, will you?”

Yuki turned and saw Keith Herman, handcuffed and flanked by two armed guards, walking toward the bar. He was smiling as if he’d just gotten a free pass to the good seats in heaven.

A woman in the gallery said loudly, “Oh, my God.”

Two more people had come through the double doors; John Kinsela was holding the hand of a cute little girl with honey-blond hair. The child was about eight, wearing jeans, a floral print shirt, and a pink hoodie. She looked neat and clean.

Yuki’s heartbeat sped over the legal limit. She recognized that little girl. From the rustle and gasps in the gallery, everyone did. This child’s picture had been on the news and had circumnavigated the Internet a million times since she’d gone missing.

Kinsela stopped in the aisle beside his table and said to the judge, “I apologize for being late, Your Honor, but I received an urgent call just an hour ago. Then I needed my client to confirm this little girl’s identity.”

“Explain yourself, Mr. Kinsela.”

“Judge, I’d like to introduce you to my client’s daughter, Lily Herman. She was found alive and well, sitting on the front steps of her former home.

“We respectfully request that you dismiss the charges against Mr. Herman.”

YUKI THOUGHT SOMETHING was very wrong with Lily Herman. The child seemed distracted, as if she were seeing things from a distance or through a filter. She had to have been traumatized, or maybe she was drugged. Where had she been for the last year? What had happened to her?

The judge sat behind the desk in his chambers, opened his drawer, and said, “Lily, I’m a bit of a chocolate nut. How about you? Do you like M&M’s?”

“I like Jell-O,” Lily said. “The purple kind.”

Nussbaum said, “I’m sorry, Lily. I’m out of Jell-O. We’ll be able to get you some after we talk. Do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

Lily kicked her feet under the judge’s side chair, looked around, blinked at Yuki, then slid her gaze over Kinsela, who was sitting in a chair against the wall. Kinsela smiled, but the child turned away and brought her attention back to the judge. He asked her if she knew the difference between a lie and the truth.

“Yeppers. I know the difference.”

“It’s very important, so important that you have to swear to God to tell the truth.”

“No problem,” said the eight-year-old. “I swear to God.”

“What’s your full name, dear?” Nussbaum asked.

“Lily Baines Herman.”

“And how old are you, Lily?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you know what month this is?”

“Is it summer yet?”

“Not yet, but soon,” said the judge. “You’ve been missing for a long time. Everyone has been worried. Where have you been?”

“In a room. In a house,” she said. “I had a TV and a little tiny tabby kitten. Pokey.”

Lily’s gaze wandered again as she took in the rows of law books, the many-paned windows, the heavy furnishings, and the landscape paintings. Yuki would have given a million bucks to know what she was thinking.

“Who else lived in this house?”

“Marcia and Alan.”

“Do you know their last names?”

“Nopey-nope-nope.”

“Are you related to them? Are they family members?”

“No way!”

“So help me out, Lily. Tell me all about these people and how you came to be living with them. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Yuki, Kinsela, and Judge Nussbaum waited for the little girl to elaborate on her one-word answer. Finally, she stopped swinging her legs and began to speak as if she were reading or playing a part.

“They had masks. Different ones on different days. Like devil masks. Like pig masks. They told me their names but I never saw their faces. I had my own room and a bathroom and I had a computer for games. I had three meals a day and a snack before bedtime.”

“Could you use a phone?”

“Nopey-nope-nope.”

“You were kidnapped,” the judge said.

Lily shrugged. “They didn’t hurt me.” Then, “I miss Pokey.”

“Did your father have anything to do with this, Lily? For instance, was he keeping you safe? Is that what he told you?”

“My daddy didn’t know where I was or he would have come to get me. He loves me. He would have given Marcia and Alan a beating.”

“Did Marcia and Alan take you home this morning, Lily?”

“When can I see my mommy?”

I PARKED THE Explorer three feet away from the curb on Lake Street, but I was so dirty-dog-tired that I didn’t have the strength to park it again.

I opened the apartment door, and when Martha didn’t throw herself at me, I tiptoed around the entranceway to the living room. Joe was in his big leather recliner, Julie in his arms with her head on his shoulder, both of them sound asleep. Martha lifted her head, flapped her tail, then put her face back down on Joe’s slipper.

I couldn’t imagine a warmer welcome.

I ditched my gun, phone, jacket, and shoes—just dropped all of it on a chair. Then I hit the soft leather sofa with the puffy cushions, drew up the chenille throw, and settled in.

I was dreaming about Julie wearing a big-girl party dress and blowing out birthday candles when I heard Joe speaking. I opened my eyes a crack, saw that lamps were lit, and that it was dark outside. I must have gotten about four hours of sleep.

Joe was saying into the phone, “Okay. Tomorrow morning, nine a.m. We’ll be there.”

He hung up looking grim and walked with the baby to the kitchen, where he heated up a bottle in the microwave. When the oven beeped, he tested the milk, then started back across the room with the baby.

“Honey, who was that on the phone?” I asked.

“Hey, you were really out. Do you feel better?”

“Was that Dr. Gordon?”

“Uh-huh. We have an appointment tomorrow morning.”

“Did she get the tests back?”

“I think so. But she would have told me if anything was wrong. The baby is warm,” he said.

“How warm?”

“She keeps fluctuating between normal and a hundred and three. She goes up. She goes down. Our roller-coaster baby.”

“Joe. This can’t be right. I’m really getting scared. Actually, I’m way past scared. I’m terrified.”

I rolled Julie’s crib into our bedroom, next to my side of the bed. It was another night when supposedly nothing was really wrong with Julie, but I didn’t believe it. I’d been told that babies get fevers, that all new mothers worry this way, but I felt alarmed every time I touched her skin.

I was hovering uselessly over Julie’s crib when my phone rang. I didn’t answer, and then I didn’t answer it when it rang again. It had been a long time since a phone call had brought me good news.

If I didn’t pick up the phone, maybe the caller would go away.

AFTER THE PHONE had rung three times in five minutes, I gave in and dug it out from under the pile of clothes on the chair. I looked at the caller ID.

“For God’s sake. Whose life is this, anyway?”

Joe said, “Who is it?”

“The bad news bear.”

I said, “Boxer,” into the mouthpiece and he said, “You’re not going to believe this.”

Julie set up a wail from her crib. Her voice was pitched at extra loud. I could hardly hear Brady’s voice.

“I’m a little busy right now, boss,” I said.

“Remember Randolph Fish?”

“Did he die?”

“No, he woke up.”

Randolph Fish was a brutal, clever, truly diabolical killer who had been linked to nine dead or missing college girls over a three-year span, all on the West Coast.

The remains of five of the young women had been found in wooded areas and remote industrial locations. The victims had been tortured and mutilated, each dying by different means. Bludgeoning. Strangulation. Stabbing.

The other three girls had never been found or heard from again, but they matched the killer’s type—petite, dark-haired, and very trusting. Because of the different locations and manners of death, it had taken years to connect the dead and missing girls to one killer.

And then the killer made a mistake.

A fingerprint found on a car belonging to one of the dead girls matched that of Randolph Fish, an itinerant bartender who had been arrested in San Francisco a month before for assault and then released.

After victim number nine, Sandra Brody, was abducted from the campus of the University of San Francisco three years ago and taken to whereabouts unknown, Jacobi and I were asked to work with the FBI. Jacobi and I joined the stakeout in the Mission.

It was about nine at night, windy and cold. We were watching two bars and a movie theater on 16th when Fish came out of the theater.

He saw an FBI vehicle and, like a praying mantis nabbing a bug, Fish snatched a woman at random who was also leaving the theater. He held a knife under her throat and shouted to the agents in the black SUV, “I’ll kill her. Believe me, I will.”

I was on the theater side of the street, crouched between two cars, and I had a clear shot at the back of Randolph Fish’s head. I couldn’t see the hostage’s face, only the line of her throat and the blade pressing against it.

I stood up, held my gun with both hands, and shouted, “Fish! Let her go or I’ll blow your brains to the moon.”

I hoped like hell that he would obey because I didn’t know if my aim was good enough to take him out before he killed his hostage. Luckily, I didn’t have to find out.

The human shield broke free. Fish bolted into the street toward oncoming traffic. I ran, too, yelling, “Stop or I’ll shoot.”

He must’ve heard the conviction in my voice.