The 8th Confession

The guy cop was a couple of inches taller than the blonde, buffed, maybe thirty.

Sheryl Crow showed her badge, reintroduced herself as Sergeant Boxer and her partner as Inspector Conklin, and asked if Pet Girl would mind coming with them to the Hall of Justice to answer some questions.

Pet Girl said, “Okay.”

She was cool. All she had to do was play along, and they’d move along – just like they’d done the last time, when they’d questioned her about Isa and Ethan Bailey.

She slid into the backseat of the squad car, thought about the night she’d done it, pretty sure she hadn’t forgotten anything.

She flashed on Wilde-boy, positive that he hadn’t seen her go into Sara’s house because he’d walked naked past his window, the light going on in his bathroom, and she’d heard the shower running before she’d gone in the main entrance.

She remembered doing it to Sara when “the dame with the golden needle” was so boozed up, she couldn’t even open an eye. Pet Girl felt a thrill, like she wanted to laugh or maybe pee.

And she listened to the two cops gabbing in the front seat, talking to Dispatch, joking and stuff, seemed to Pet Girl that they weren’t acting like they had a killer sitting behind them.

More like they’d already forgotten she was even there.

She stood silently between the two cops as they went up in the elevator, turned down the offer of a soft drink when they showed her to the interview room.

“Are you sure?” the sergeant asked her. “Maybe a bottle of water?” Like the cop cared instead of wanting to get a DNA sample, a trick so old it was amazing anyone ever fell for it.

“I want to help,” Pet Girl said sweetly. “Whatever you want to know.”

Inspector Conklin was cute, had light-brown hair that flopped over his eyes. He pushed it away as he read to himself whatever notes he had written about her. And then he asked her where she’d been over the last forty- eight hours.

Pet Girl knew they were locking in her story in case they ever interrogated her again, and hey, no problem.

“I walked the Baileys’ dogs four times, morning and evening both days. I wonder what’s going to happen to the dogs…”

Then she’d detailed her tight calendar of dog-walking and running errands, including walking Sara Needleman’s AKC champs this morning after Lucas Wilde called her to say that Sara Needleman was dead.

“See anything or anyone unusual in this neighborhood in the last week or so?” Sergeant Boxer asked her.

“Nope.”

“What do you think of Lucas Wilde?”

“He’s okay. Not my type.”

“What was your relationship like with Sara Needleman?” asked Inspector Conklin.

“I loved Sara,” she told him. Found herself giving him a flirty smile. Couldn’t hurt. “Sara was smart and funny and generous, too. She gave me samples from her collection. That’s just the way she was.”

“How often did you walk her dogs?”

“Maybe once a week. She liked to walk them herself. Anyway, if she got into a time crunch, she’d call me and I’d pitch in.”

“And the Baileys?”

“Same. Walk the dogs. Run errands. I work for a lot of people in their crowd. Dozens. I’ve got references.”

“Sounds pretty good,” Inspector Conklin said. “You make your own hours.” Then, “Did Sara have any enemies?”

“Christ, yeah. She had three ex-husbands and about thirty ex-boyfriends, but I’m not saying they’d want to kill her.”

“Anyone on that list of exes who may have also held a grudge against the Baileys?”

“If you only knew how little those people told me about anything.”

“Do you have keys to the Needleman house and the Bailey house?” Sergeant Boxer asked her. Pet Girl reached into a side pocket of her backpack, pulled out a key ring the size of a boat anchor.

“I’ve got lots of keys. That’s kind of the point. I keep out of my clients’ way. I’m the silent type, and they like that about me. I come in, walk the pets, bring them back. Pick up my check. Most of the time, nobody even knows I’ve been there.”

Chapter 53

AFTER THE dog walker left, I said to Conklin, “You know, my dog sitter has had my keys and my alarm code for years and I’ve never thought a thing of it. Martha loves Karen. I trust her.”

“So what are you saying now, Sarge-of-My-Heart? You’re throwing out the ‘rats with keys’ theory?”

“I don’t know, bud. The dog walker’s got access, but what’s her motive? What’s she got to gain by killing her employers?” My intercom buzzed, and Brenda’s voice came over, sounding breathy and a little coy. “Lindsay, you have a visitor.”

I looked across the squad room. Didn’t see anyone.

I pressed the intercom button, asked Brenda, “Who is it?”

“He’s on his way back.”

I heard him before I saw him, the whir of rubber rolling over linoleum flooring, and then St. Jude was there, doing a wheelie, parking his chair up to my desk, a huge grin on his bearded face.

“Boxer, you look great, kid. Better and better.”

I got up and hugged the legendary Simon McCorkle, known around the state as “St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes.” McCorkle had been shot in the back while on duty, was paralyzed from the waist down but refused to retire. Since that dark day twenty years ago, “St. Jude” had been in charge of cold cases, worked out of an office suite at the crime lab.

“Thanks, McCorkle. I see a little gray in your beard. Looks fine on you.”

“Give me your hand, Boxer. No, the left one. Not married? So I still have a chance.”

I laughed, introduced McCorkle to Conklin, and they gripped paws like long-lost brothers of the shamrock, and pretty soon we were telling St. Jude about the case of the deceased millionaires, an investigation that was driving us crazy.

McCorkle said, “That’s why I’m here, girl- o. When I saw Sara Needleman on the tube this morning, I added it to the Baileys – and guess what, Boxer?

“It rang a bell.”

Chapter 54

MCCORKLE REACHED BEHIND his chair with one of his massive, heavily tattooed arms and pulled a backpack onto his lap.

“I brought you a present,” he said, winking at me.

“I can’t even guess, but I’m hoping for chocolate.”

He took a murder book out of his backpack, a three-ring binder thick with notes and documents from a homicide case. The book was lettered across the cover with a broad-tip marker: PANGORN, 1982.

Two more murder books followed the first, one marked GODFREY, 1982, and the other, KENNEDY, 1982.