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“That’s the thing, Cin. He was not a pro. Not even semi. Still, he got a key card, got an unregistered gun, shot two people, and ditched with the jewels. He got out of the hotel just like that. Shazam.”

“It seems too neat,” said Cindy. “How did a drug addict and occasional film extra get onto Joan and her jewels? Someone had to have put him up to it. If I had to guess, someone gave him a playbook.”

“You’re right. We downloaded the call log on his phone. We found a lot of stuff there, but at first look, nothing was incriminating. He called his mother regularly. He had a few friends, none of whom connected him to Alton or the Murphys. But then we found several calls to a burner phone in his call history. If he was given instructions, I bet it went through that phone. I’m thinking that if O’Brien was the shooter, he was supposed to cash in the jewels. But he flamed out before he could collect his check.”

Cindy asked, “What’s your next move?”

“Wait for the lab reports. Sam Alton’s widow wants justice. The Murphys are out of it. Joan is alive. She has the jewelry plus a great story for all of her dinner parties, and a couple of decorative scars.

“I don’t understand her,” Rich continued. “I’d expect her to want me to catch the person who did this and killed Sam.”

“That might be the snag,” said Cindy. “Maybe she doesn’t want to admit to having an affair with Sam.”

“Sure. Maybe that would torpedo her marriage. But do you think that Robert doesn’t know? Is he really so clueless? Or is he grilling her when the cops aren’t there? Is that what’s making her stick to her story? ‘I was drugged and kidnapped and shot and I don’t know who that hairy fat guy was who was found naked on top of me.’”

Cindy laughed and Rich joined her.

It was all so crazy.

But it was just the kind of mystery Cindy loved to solve.

Chapter 23

The next morning, Cindy and Rich said good-bye on the street and got into their cars. Rich headed to the Hall, and Cindy set her course toward Seacliff.

She didn’t tell Rich where she was going. She knew what he would say. “You’re poking into a police investigation. It’s dangerous.” Or words to that effect. Either way, it wouldn’t be something she’d want to hear.

If she listened to Rich and some of her well-meaning friends, she’d be writing a fashion column. Or maybe pieces about local politics.

But she was a crime writer. Crime was not just her beat at the Chronicle, it was her passion. She’d written a bestselling true-crime book, sold two hundred fifty thousand copies in paperback, and had a standing offer from her publisher that he’d entertain any book ideas she might have. So, yeah.

And then she laughed out loud at the realization that she was justifying her job to herself.

She drove from her apartment through Golden Gate Park on Crossover Drive and then continued into the Richmond District toward Seacliff. She checked the house numbers on El Camino Del Mar, a street populated with mansions and set back from the road. She slowed the car and took in the gateposts bracketing a stucco wall. This was the house. The iron gates were closed.

Cindy cruised past the house, slowing as she saw another break in the wall. This gate was also made of wrought iron, but it wasn’t as wide. Only one car could fit through it at a time.

Cindy saw that there was a driveway beyond the gate. It seemed to be a service entrance, and it looked to her as though the gate had been left open.

Cindy drove farther down the road, parked her Acura on the verge, and got out. Since it was eight thirty in the morning, she had the street to herself, though she could hear the distant sound of a power tool up the road. It was either a chainsaw or blower. When one car came toward her, a Lexus with tinted windows, she busied herself on her phone until the car passed by.

Then, she crossed the road and walked directly to the service entrance gate.

Cindy pulled on the handle and the gate swung open. She slipped inside and carefully closed the gate behind her. She stopped in her tracks, looking around at the grassy lawns beyond the drive. There was a barnlike machine or tool shed to her left and beyond that a pathway of beckoning stone steps cut into a steep upward slope in the lawn.

Right now, she was “snooping,” as it was called in the trade. But once she’d climbed those steps, it would no longer be fun and games. She’d have no believable excuse. It would be trespassing, plain and simple.

She stopped for a moment and put her game face on. Then she climbed up every one of those thirty steps. Technically, she wasn’t breaking in. She was looking for someone to interview about a pretty interesting story that centered around a murder and the robbery of an impressive jewelry collection. If she got lucky, she’d run into Joan while she was wandering around the premises. And if she got really lucky, Joan would remember her from Claire’s office.

She set out toward the pool house. It was a darling cottage with French doors that faced the pool.

Cindy reflected on what she knew about Joan. Joan had always been rich. She had owned this magnificent house before she met and married Robert Murphy, who, after all, might actually love her. And maybe she loves him, too. But anyone could make a case that something had gone horribly wrong in their marriage. That something may have caused two people to die.

Who’d done what to whom and why?

If the answer to those questions didn’t make a good story, Cindy didn’t know what would.

She was about to check on the pool house when a door on the side of the house opened and a man came striding toward her. He was wearing his glasses on a cord around his neck, and they bounced against his bare chest with every step he took. He wore cargo shorts, but he wasn’t wearing any shoes.


Tags: James Patterson Women's Murder Club Mystery