Dogpatch. I had waffles. She had eggs Benedict. Our waitress was Shirley Gurley.”
Pause for a movie-star smile.
“What were her parents thinking? After that, Kaye and I went shopping at the farmers’ market and loaded up on produce because we were about to take a little cruise.”
“And where did you go?” Conklin asked.
I thought about the dead surfer, seventeen years old, lying in the medical examiner’s lab fifty miles up the coast, time of death still undetermined.
Hewett said, “What are you fishing for, Inspector?”
I took out the morgue shots of the unidentified teen on the autopsy table. I said, “This boy washed up in Big Sur very early this morning. He was linked to the bodies at the Ellsworth compound.”
Chandler lifted his eyes, met my gaze. “I don’t know this boy. I have never seen him before, alive or dead.”
Against his lawyer’s advice, Chandler gave us the names of shops he and Kaye had visited. He produced time-stamped digital photos of them together, and just for good measure, he said there was surveillance video at the yacht club showing that he’d taken the boat out at four in the morning and returned at nine at night.
I asked him when he’d last seen his son, Todd.
“Years and years ago,” Chandler said. “And no, I don’t think he killed anyone. But you should ask him yourself.”
I said, “We’ve obtained a search warrant for your boat.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“The Crime Scene Unit is there right now.”
“They’re inside my boat?”
I guess we finally pissed off Harry Chandler. He stood abruptly and said to his attorney, “I don’t have to answer any more questions, do I?” And he stormed out of the interrogation room.
Charlie Clapper called me at the end of the day, said he’d found no incriminating evidence on the Cecily; no blood, no trace, no bleach, no nothing.
I had just hung up the phone with Clapper when it rang again. Claire calling to say, “That surfer boy who washed up on Big Sur?”
“Yes?”
“The ME in Monterey County said cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head. The wound matched to his surfboard that also washed up. Witnesses saw him going out into the surf on that board.”
“It was an accident.”
“Right, Lindsay. Accidental death.”
That card with the number 613 on it that some insane tipster said he’d found — it was pure fiction.
Chapter 70
I was in desperate need of a laugh or, even better, a boxcar full of them.
I called an impromptu meeting of the Women’s Murder Club, and because it was only two blocks from the Hall, I convinced everyone to meet at MacBain’s Beers o’ the World Saloon.
An hour after sending up the flare, I climbed the wooden back steps to the small room with two tables and one window where Captain MacBain used to count out the day’s cash. Cindy and Claire had already made good progress on the first pitcher of beer, and Yuki had only about an inch left of her margarita.
I could have put down a pitcher of beer all by myself, but the little bundle I was carrying under my jacket had the majority vote and that vote was no to booze.
Claire pulled out a chair and patted the seat and I dropped into it.
Yuki flashed me a grin, said, “I was telling everyone about Brian McInerny.”
“The comedian? Go ahead, Yuki.”
“Okay, so he’s suing a transit worker for taking a punch at him. He deserved the punch, but anyway, I’m deposing him,” Yuki said. “McInerny wants to give answers as both himself and his alter ego.”
“I’ve seen his act,” Cindy said. “He has an imaginary twin.”
“Right,” Yuki said. “And it’s easier to let him do it than stop him. I’m asking him questions and he’s answering as himself and as his character. So crazy. We have it all on tape.”
I gave my order to the waitress, and Yuki continued her story.
“And you know, during a deposition, when someone needs a break, the videographer says, ‘All right, it’s eleven twenty-three and we’re going off the record.’ And then when you’re coming back on, the videographer says, ‘It’s eleven thirty-five and now we are back on the record.’
“So McInerny needs a lot of breaks. He doesn’t like the deli food we served, so he has to order lunch from his favorite restaurant. Then he has to have a conference with his imaginary twin. As if that weren’t enough to make us all crazy, now he’s got a new shtick.
“When we restart the camera, McInerny pretends that he’s in the middle of a conversation. The camera goes on and McInerny says to me, ‘That’s the filthiest joke I’ve ever heard in my life.’”
Yuki demonstrated the shocked look she got on her face; it was hysterical and we all laughed. Yuki said, “The second time we come back he looks directly at the videographer and says to her, ‘Are you hitting on me? Are you coming on to me?’
“Then, of course, we had to take a five-minute break because she was laughing so hard she was crying.”
One minute I was laughing at the story, but the next my mind must have wandered off, because I suddenly realized that the girls were staring at me.
Yuki in particular gave me an appraising eye.
“Something’s wrong, Lindsay. What is it?”
“I’m fine. It’s been a really long day, but I’m okay.”
“I know what you look like when you’re tired, Lindsay,” Yuki said. “This is different. You look like you’ve been running laps in hell.”
Cindy said, “Yuki’s right. Are you feeling sick? Are you coming down with something?”
The waitress brought over another pitcher of tap along with a bottle of Australian root beer and a frosty mug of ice, both of which she put down in front of me.
When her footsteps faded I said to my friends, “Joe is having an affair.”
Chapter 71
I poured root beer into my mug with a shaking hand. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the hiss and crackle of the soda hitting the ice. Then everyone spoke at once.
Claire shouted — actually, she insisted — “No. No. Joe would never cheat on you.”
Cindy cut in. “This just can’t be true.”
But Yuki believed me.
She was back in her role of human nail gun, pinning me with her eyes, firing questions, bam-bam-bam.
“Who is the woman?”
“June Freundorfer. An old partner of Joe’s in DC.”
“How old?”
“My age.”
“How did you find out, Lindsay?”
“Does it matter?”
“Did Joe tell you about the affair?”
“No. She did,” I said.
