The 8th Confession

“I’m a rock star, Richie. Look,” she said, slapping the paper down on my desk. Conklin tried to stifle a laugh and failed.

I said to Cindy, “You’ve heard the expression ‘misery loves company’?”

“You’re miserable and I’m company. What’s your point?”

“Misery loves miserable company.”

Conklin snorted and Cindy har-de-har-harred and I couldn’t keep stone-faced for another second.

Cindy gloated, “Don’t you just hate it when I’m right?”

She lovingly smoothed out the newspaper so I could see the picture on the front page of the Metro section, the photo of Rodney Booker, aka Bagman Jesus, under the headline $25,000 REWARD. DO YOU KNOW WHO KILLED THIS MAN?

So there it was: Rodney Booker was Bagman Jesus.

Rodney Booker had been identified by his father from the morgue photos, which showed three raised lines on Rodney’s shoulder, a crude slash-and-rub-with-ashes tattoo he’d gotten while in Africa.

Rodney Booker’s death was a homicide. And my name was associated with his case file. All I needed to do was find out who killed him, and while I didn’t have the time to do that, Cindy Thomas was both high on success and hot on the trail.

“I’ve been thinking,” Cindy said. “I can just keep working the case, turn over anything I find out to you. What, Lindsay?”

“Cindy, you can’t work a homicide, okay? Rich, tell her.”

“I don’t need your permission at all,” Cindy said. Then, eyes brightening, “Here’s an idea. Let’s go to Susie’s and map out a plan we can all live with -”

I rolled my eyes, but Conklin was shaking his head and grinning at Cindy. He liked her!

I was ready to call Jacobi, let him straighten her out, when Claire blew through the gate, stomped toward us with a bad look in her eyes.

“Dr. Washburn is on her way back,” Brenda’s electronic voice cawed from my intercom.

Claire was busy. She didn’t like to pay house calls to Homicide. Cindy, oblivious, called out, “Claire! We’re off to Susie’s. Come with us.”

Claire fixed her eyes on me.

“I can’t go to Susie’s,” she said, “and neither can you. Another one just came in. Killed just like the Baileys.”

Chapter 49

THE DRAPED BODY on the autopsy table was female, thirty-three, her skin as white as my mom’s bone china. Her hair was a shimmering shoulder-length cut in four shades of blond. Her finger- and toenails had been lacquered recently, oxblood red, no chips.

She looked like the sleeping princess in the fairy tale waiting for the prince to chop through the briars and kiss her awake.

I read her toe tag. “Sara Needleman.”

“Positively ID’d by her personal assistant,” said Claire.

I knew Sara Needleman by her photographs in Vogue and W. She was a big-name clothing designer who made custom gowns for those who had thirty grand to throw down for a dress. I’d read in the Gazette that Needleman often did gangs of bridesmaids’ dresses, each gown related in color but distinctly different in style, and that during the debutante season, Needleman’s shop was in overdrive, designing for both the moms and the debs.

Surely Sara Needleman knew the Baileys.

Claire picked up her clipboard, said, “Here’s what I’ve got. Ms. Needleman called her personal assistant, Toni Reynolds, at eight this morning complaining of abdominal cramps. Ms. Reynolds says she told Sara to call her doctor and that she’d check in on her when she got to work.

“Sara did call her doctor, Robert Dweck, internist, and was told she could come in at noon.”

“She didn’t make the appointment,” Conklin said.

“No flies on you,” Claire said to Conklin. “Sara Needleman called nine one one at ten-oh-eight. EMS got there at ten fifteen, found Sara dead in her bedroom.”

“She died of stomach cramps? Something she ate?” I asked.

Claire continued, “To be determined, girlfriend. To be determined. Stomach contents and blood are at the lab.

“Meanwhile, I spoke with the medics who brought Sara in. There was no vomit or excrement in the house.”

“Why do you think her death is like the Baileys’?”

“At first I didn’t. There was a lull when she came in, so I got to her quick, thinking I knew what to look for.”

Three of Claire’s assistants tried to look busy, but they were hanging close enough to hear her report. I could already see the words “Breaking News” under a glamour shot of Sara Needleman interrupting our regularly scheduled programming. I could feel the public linking Needleman’s death to the Baileys’, the barometric pressure falling.

Big storm coming in.

Claire ticked off the possible causes of Sara Needleman’s death.

“Leaving poison aside for now, stomach cramps are often caused by a perforated ulcer or an ectopic pregnancy gone bust.”

“But not this time,” Conklin guessed.

“Correct, Mr. Man. So the cramps could’ve been unrelated to her death. I checked for aneurysms, stroke, heart attack – found nothing. I examined all her organs. You could gift wrap them, tie ’em with a bow. Show ’em to med students to let them know what normal organs look like.”

“Huh.”

“No marks on her body, no bruises of any kind. Nothing wrong with Sara Needleman except that she’s dead.”

Conklin said, “She was on my list of names. I hadn’t gotten to her yet.”

“Too late now,” I muttered.

Claire said, “So now I’m thinking we’ve got the Baileys and Needleman. Same social circle. Could be same cause of death. So when I sent out Sara’s blood, I ordered the works. I’ve got sections holding at minus seventy for testing by someone who’s going to be looking for something other than the usual herbs and spices,” Claire said glumly. “What am I going to say now, compadres?”

Conklin said it. “More police work.”

“Bingo, Ricardo. Someone’s got to figure this out, because I’ve hit the wall.”

Claire turned to Sara Needleman’s body, put her hand on the woman’s sheeted torso, and said, “I hear hoofbeats coming down the road, Sara darlin’, I’m thinking ‘horse.’ You are a definite zebra.”

Part Three. PARTY ALL THE TIME

Chapter 50