The 8th Confession

Chapter 51

SARA NEEDLEMAN was still chilling in the morgue that evening when the teams working her case were summoned to Chief Anthony Tracchio’s office with its high view of Bryant Street and a photographic panorama of the Golden Gate Bridge mounted across from his mahogany desk.

Tracchio was a bureaucrat by trade, had come up through the ranks by political appointment. He had no street experience, was squishy around the middle, and had a silly hair-sprayed comb-over, but I was starting to appreciate that he was politically shrewd, a quality that I lack entirely.

Tracchio was agitated in a way I’d rarely seen him. He said, “People, tell your families you won’t be home until we’ve got this case wrapped up. And buck up. Whoever solves this thing is going to be a hero. Or heroine,” he said in my direction.

Teams reported, and Tracchio, Hampton, and I questioned them before they were tasked to new assignments.

Conklin and I collected the names of every person interviewed regarding Sara Needleman, then went back to our desks to compare them with a similar list on the Baileys.

“Compare and contrast” was eye-glazing work, but it had to be done. I pulled my chair over to Conklin’s desk and read off names.

Whenever we had a match, Conklin slapped the Staples Easy Button and it squawked, “That was easy.”

By nine that night, our empty pizza box was in the round file. We’d eliminated the Baileys’ live-in household staff and a few hundred others, but still the lists yielded dozens of overlapping names.

The Baileys and Sara Needleman went to the same gym, were all members of the opera society, frequented the same restaurants and clubs. They even shared the same dry cleaner.

“Sara Needleman was thirty-three and so was Isa Bailey. Bet they went to the same school,” said Conklin.

I nodded. It was something.

Something that expanded the search.

I drained my soda can, tossed it in the trash, and said, “I read about a lab experiment. First up were the rats. Two lights, one flashes green, one flashes red. Guess the light that’s about to flash, and if you go to the correct light, you get food. Eight out of ten times, the green one flashes.”

“Go on.”

“The green light flashes so many times, the rats go to that chute every time. Why not? They’re rewarded eighty percent of the time.

“Now the behaviorists did the same experiment with humans.”

“Never been high on rat chow myself.”

I laughed. “The humans got M amp;M’s.”

“I know this is going somewhere,” said my partner.

“The people tried to predict when each light would go on. They were looking for a pattern – so many reds before a green, like that. And they were rewarded only sixty-seven percent of the time.”

“Proving that rats are smarter than people.”

I shook my head no.

Conklin tried again. “Proving that we should interview every name on both lists whether they’re red people or green?”

I laughed, said, “Proving that sometimes people think too much.”

“You’re tired, Linds.”

“Let’s compare the lists again. And this time, we don’t overthink. We just pull the names of the rats who had keys to the victims’ houses.”

Rich hit the Staples button, and it yapped, “That was easy.”

Chapter 52

PET GIRL WAS handing over Sara Needleman’s dogs to the caretaker, Lucas Wilde-boy, she liked to call him, when the squad car pulled up to the curb and two familiar cops got out. The woman cop was tall, blond, looked like Sheryl Crow had landed a gig on Celebrity Cops.

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 ru

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 ru

“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 fu

“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.”