7th Heaven

“This map on Atkinson’s computer,” he said. “He’s starred San Francisco, Palo Alto, Monterey. Unreal. Look at this! Photos of the houses they burned down. This is evidence, Lindsay. This is frickin’ evidence.”

It was.

I peered over Conklin’s shoulders as he opened Web pages, scanned research on each of the victim couples, including the names of their kids and the dates of the fires. Long minutes went by before I remembered the peculiar drawing pinned to the corkboard and was able to grab Rich’s attention.

“Requiescat in leguminibus,” I said again.

Rich came over to the wall and looked at the drawing of a couple who might be the Atkinsons. He read the caption.

“Leguminibus,” Rich said. “Means legumes, I think. Aren’t they a kind of vegetable? Like beans and peas?”

“Peas?” I yelled. “Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ!”

“What?” Conklin asked me. “What is it?”

I hollered out to Jacobi, who was working the rest of the house with the sheriff’s department. With Conklin and Jacobi behind me, I found the stairs to the basement. The freezer was of the trunk variety, extra large.

I opened the lid and cool air puffed out.

“Requiescat in leguminibus,” I said. “Rest in peas.”

I started moving the bags of frozen vegetables aside until I saw a woman’s face.

“This freezer is deep enough for two,” Jacobi muttered.

I said, “Uh-huh,” and stopped digging.

From her approximate age, I was pretty sure I was looking at Moira Atkinson, dressed in her finest, frozen to death.

Chapter 122

I WAS WEARING my new blue uniform, and I’d washed my hair thirteen times and once more for good luck when I walked into the autopsy suite the next day. Claire was standing at the top of a six-foot ladder, her Minolta focused down on Mieke Vetter’s decapitated and naked body. Claire looked huge and wobbly up there.

“Can’t someone else do that?” I asked her.

“I’m done,” she said. She climbed down the ladder, one ponderous step at a time.

I gestured to the woman on the table. “I can save you some time,” I said to Claire. “I happen to know this victim’s cause and manner of death.”

“You know, Lindsay, I still have to do this for evidentiary purposes.”

“Okay, but just so you know. Yesterday, your patient sprayed me with blood, bone fragments, hair, not to mention brains. You have any idea what dripping brains feel like?”

“Warm gummy bears? Am I right?” Claire said, grinning at me.

“Uh. Yeah. Exactly.”

“One of my first cases was a suicide,” Claire said, getting on with her work, drawing a Y incision with her scalpel from each of Ms. Vetter’s clavicles to her pubis.

“This old soldier ends it all with a twelve-gauge shotgun under his chin. So I come into his RV, fresh out of training, ya know? And I’m leaning over his body in the La-Z-Boy, taking photos, and the cops are yukking it up.”

“Because?”

“I had no idea. You see, that’s the point, girlfriend.”

I started laughing for the first time in a long while.

“So as I’m leaning over the body, about a quarter of the guy’s brain has been slowly peeling off the ceiling – it falls and smacks me right behind my ear.”

She slapped her neck to show me, and I rewarded her story with a good guffaw.

“Like I said, warm gummy bears. So, how’d it go?” she asked me.

“How did which go? The interview with your patient’s devil spawn? Or the meeting with the mayor?”

“Both of ’em, baby girl. I’m going to be here all night, thanks to your bird friends filling up my vault all over again.”

“Well, Vetter first, short and to the point,” I told Claire. “He lawyered up, pronto. Got nothing to say. But when he does get around to saying something, I’ll bet you a hundred bucks he says his buddy tortured and killed all those people and he just watched.”

“Won’t really matter, will it? Killer or accessory, he still gets the needle. Plus, you witnessed him killing this poor woman.”

“Me and thirty other cops. But for the sake of the victims’ families, I still want him convicted for killing them all.”

“And your meeting with the mayor?”

“Hah! First Conklin and I get the high fives and Jacobi almost cries, he’s so proud of us, and I think, ‘Whoa, we’re gonna pull our horrible crime-solution rate out of the basement up to maybe the ground floor’ – when the whole conversation devolves into which jurisdiction has the first bite at Vetter since the killings took place in Monterey and Santa Clara Counties as well as – Claire? Honey? What is it? What’s wrong?”

Claire’s face had twisted in pain. She dropped her scalpel, and it rang out against the stainless steel table. She grabbed her belly, looked at me with shock in her eyes.

“My water just broke, Lindsay. I’m not due for three weeks.”

I called for an ambulance, helped my friend into a chair. A minute later the doors to the ambulance bay banged open and two brawny guys strode into the autopsy suite carrying a stretcher.

“What’s up, doc?” said the biggest one.

I said, “Guess who’s having a baby?”

Chapter 123

BECAUSE LITTLE RUBY ROSE was premature, we all wore sterile pink paper hospital gowns, hats, and masks for the occasion. Claire looked like she’d been dragged a quarter of a mile in a tractor pull, but the baby-glow was there under her pallor. And since baby-glow was contagious, we were all euphoric and giggly.

Cindy was crowing about her interview with Hans Vetter’s uncle, and Yuki, having put on a couple of ounces since recovering from being drugged with LSD and almost killed by Jason Twilly, chortled at Cindy’s jokes. The girls told me that I looked hot and possibly happy, the way I should look, since I was living with the perfect man.

“How long is she going to keep us waiting?” I asked Claire again.

“Patience, girlfriend. They’ll roll her in when they’re good and ready. Have another cookie.”

I’d just folded a gooey double chocolate chip with walnuts into my maw when the door to Claire’s room opened – and Conklin came in. He was wearing matching gown, hat, and mask in blue, but he was one of the few men I’d ever known who could look goofy and great at the same time. I could see his gorgeous brown eyes, and they were shining.

Rich held a big bunch of flowers behind his back, and he went around the room saying hello, kissing Cindy and Yuki on their cheeks, squeezing my shoulder, kissing Claire, and then he dramatically produced red roses.

“They’re ruby roses,” he said, with a shy version of his brilliant smile.

“My God, Richie. Three dozen long stems. You know I’m married, right?”

When the laughter stopped, Claire said, “I thank you. And when my little girl gets here, she’ll thank you, too.”

Cindy was looking at Conklin like she’d never seen a man before. “Pull up a chair,” she said. “Richie, we’re