The 8th Confession

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.

“What is all this?” I asked as McCorkle shifted the three binders to my overflowing desk.

“Patience, my pretty. This is the final one. Christopher Ross. He was the last to go, died in December nineteen eighty-two.”

“McCorkle, my man, fill me in.”

“I’m going to tell you everything, and maybe you, me, and Conklin here are all going to get some closure.”

I leaned back in my chair. There were people in the world who lived for an audience, and Simon McCorkle was one of them.

It partly came from being in that lab all the way out there on Hunters Point. It also came from obsessing about cold cases and colder bodies.

But there was another thing. Whether he solved the crime today or next month, St. Jude was always sinking free throws, scoring points that wouldn’t have been made without him. His job made for excellent storytelling.

“Here’s what these victims all had in common.” McCorkle leaned forward in his chair, put a beefy arm across the folders so that I was staring at a hairy, half- naked hula girl on his personal tattoo beach.

“The victims were all high-society types. They all died showing no signs of foul play. But the last victim, this Christopher Ross – the killer left the murder weapon at the crime scene. And a very distinctive weapon it was.”

I was just out of school when this terrible killing spree ended, so I hadn’t fastened on the particulars of this case – but it was coming back to me now, why those cases were unsolved.

McCorkle gri

“It was a distinctive murder weapon, all right,” I said to my Erin go bro. “Those victims were killed by snakes.”

Chapter 55

RICH CONKLIN had di

It was not a date, they’d both been very clear about that, but she was twinkling at him as she passed him the files she’d printed out, all the stories on the “high-society murders of nineteen eighty-two” that had run in the Chronicle before the personal computer was as common as the telephone.

“I’m trusting you,” she said. “If you tell anyone I gave you this stuff from our ‘morgue,’ I’m going to be in the soup.”

“Wouldn’t want any soup on you,” Conklin said.

“So fair’s fair,” said Cindy. “I share, you share.”

Cindy had a rhinestone clip in her hair. Very few girls older than eight could pull off rhinestone barrettes at the same time they were wearing pink, but Cindy somehow looked 100-percent delicious.

And Conklin was absolutely mesmerized watching her strip the meat from a chicken wing with her lips, so delicately and at the same time with such pleasure.

“Rich,” she said, “fair’s fair. It’s clear that you see a co

“See, the question is, can I trust you, Cindy? Because, actually, you’re not so trustworthy.”

“Awwww. You just have to say the magic words.”

“Please, Cindy.”

“Richieee. What you want to say is ‘off the record.’ I’d go to jail before I’d go back on ‘off the record.’ ”

Rich laughed, sat back, let the waiter take away the remains of his sea bass, said, “Thanks for telling me. I don’t want you to go to jail. But you realize I’d be in more than soup if I leaked this story to your paper.”

“You don’t have to worry. Number one, I promise.” She made the Girl Scout oath hand sign, three fingers up, thumb over her pinky. “Two, you’re going off the record. And three, it’s not my story,” she said. “I’m working the Bagman Booker case, remember?”

“Okay, off the record, Cindy. You read the files. Back in eighty-two rich people were killed, turns out by snakebites, and yeah, maybe the killer is coming out of retirement. Maybe he’s bored. Wouldn’t be the first time. The BTK killer, for instance.”

“Oh man, that guy,” said Cindy, shaking her head, rhinestones flashing. “ ‘Bind them, torture them, kill them.’ That guy still gives me the creeps. Worked for a home-security company, I seem to remember. Mr. Regular Dad, Kiwanis Club, Rotary Club, whatever.”

“Yep. He was a homebody for about twenty-five years after his last killing. Then one day he realizes life had more punch when he was taunting cops, getting headlines. So he starts sending letters out to newspapers and TV stations. His ego trips him up and he gets nailed.”

“So you’re thinking the society killer of nineteen eighty-two is the same guy who killed the Baileys and Sara Needleman?”

Conklin signaled the waiter for the check. “Possibly.”

“Wouldn’t that be something?” Cindy said.

She was looking at him like he’d done something wrong, so he said, “Oh, sorry, did you want anything else? Ice cream or something?”

“I was just thinking. I’m not finished talking about this. I finally unpacked my cappuccino machine, Rich.”

Conklin watched her twirl a curl around her finger. He smiled and said, “Are you inviting me over for coffee?”