The 8th Confession

“Ohhhh,” Cindy said.

Still standing in front of the bird, Rich gently removed Cindy’s diamond studs, placing first one and then the other on the table, seeing her skin flush from the V of her sweater up to her eyes as her breathing cranked to about sixty miles per hour.

She hooked her hand around his belt.

He kissed her again and she moaned, then opened her hazy blue eyes and said, “You’re a little fast for me, Rich, but please. Don’t stop.”

He gri

“Later,” she said, taking his hand, pulling him through the living room and back to her bedroom.

Once there, she turned on the bedside lamp with its pink bulb and gauzy shade, stood in front of him, and lifted her arms like a little girl. He pulled off her sweater. He ran his fingers across the tops of her breasts, which were swelling out of her pink lace demibra, her nipples hardening behind the lace.

She unhooked her bra, breasts spilling out, sat down on the bed, and wriggled out of her pants. He ripped his shirttails from his waistband, and Cindy leaned forward to help with the last of his shirt buttons, undo his belt buckle, and hug him around the waist, resting her cheek against his zipper.

His clothing flew into the corner of the room, and then they were lying side by side in her bed, glued together, all panting and skin-on-skin, Rich slipping his hands into the flimsy fabric of her panties, making them disappear.

There was a fumbling moment, Cindy finding a square of foil in her nightstand, opening the packet with her teeth – and then he was inside her, making love to the beautiful woman with the curly blond hair who breathed, “Oh, oh, oh,” into his ear, and he held her tight until the shock waves overtook him and he cried out into her pillow.

Rich was awoken sometime later by the sound of the telephone on the nightstand, Cindy silky and warm in his arms, whispering, “Let’s not tell Lindsay.”

“Why not?”

“She’ll spoil it.”

Rich nodded his agreement – he would have agreed to anything – and then he heard Yuki’s voice coming over Cindy’s answering machine.

“Cindy. Cindy, pick up. Where are you? I have to talk to you. Damn. Call me, okay? Love you.”

Cindy held Rich’s face with one hand, reached down with the other hand and gave him a little tug, breathed, “Richie? Can you stay?”

Chapter 59

CLAIRE AND I were huddled around her office computer at seven fifteen in the morning, caffeine free, reading an e-mail to Claire from Michelle Koo, a senior herpetologist at Berkeley.

Claire read aloud, “ ‘Dear Claire, two of the most familiar families of venomous snakes are the Elapidae and the Viperidae,’ ” she said, neatly rounding the corners of the Latin, “ ‘or, rather, elapid snakes and viperid snakes. Kraits are in the Elapidae family. The venom of elapids are neurotoxins, are typically faster-acting than viperids, and leave better-looking corpses.’ ”

“Better-looking corpses, indeed,” I said, breathing over her shoulder. “You could even say museum quality.”

“ ‘The kraits’ bites are often painless,’ ” Claire read on, “ ‘and this gives the victim a false sense of security.’ ”

“So that’s why the Baileys didn’t call for help.”

“I’m thinking the same thing, Linds. Or maybe they never knew they were in trouble. The Baileys had high blood-alcohol. Needleman, too. In medicalspeak, they were all zonked.

“Here,” Claire went on, “Michelle writes, ‘The symptoms can include stomach cramps and dizziness, dilated pupils and slurred speech, inability to swallow, heart arrhythmia, respiratory failure, and falling into a coma. Death can come in six to eight hours.’ ”

I had stopped reading the text and had fastened on the photo of the krait, the same beguilingly lovely elapid I’d seen lined up along a yardstick in the Christopher Ross murder book.

“Michelle says, ‘Death is directly due to the neurotoxicity of the venom as it acts on fundamental chemical pathways that keep our muscles working.’ And that’s the main thing, girlfriend. The muscles can’t work. So the victim can’t breathe. And the neurotoxin is metabolized so fast, even if you knew what to look for – which we didn’t – nothing shows up on the tox screen.”

I said to my best friend, “So if there’s no neurotoxin left in the victims’ bodies by the time they die, how can you prove what killed them?”

Claire opened a desk drawer, rooted around, cried, “Gotcha!” and pulled out a magnifying glass the size of a saucer.

“I’m going to do precisely what old Doc Wetmore did. Go over my patients’ bodies with a glass and a bright light,” she said. “Look for itty-bitty puncture wounds that might’ve been caused by fangs.”

Chapter 60

WE WERE ALL crowded into Jacobi’s votive holder of an office, Cindy in the worn desk chair in front of Jacobi’s desk, Conklin and I squeezed in between stacks of paper on his credenza.

“I’ve known you how long now?” Jacobi was saying to Cindy.

“Six years or so.”

“And I’ve never asked you for a favor before, have I?”

“ Warren, I told Rich and I told Lindsay that I’m not even working the high-society murder story.”

Jacobi leveled his hard gray eyes at my friend, and frankly I admired her ability to hold her own. He’d intimidated depraved killers with that same stony look.

“It’s not just that it’s not your story,” said Jacobi. “It’s that you know something we want to keep in the vault for now.”

“All of those files I pulled for Rich are in the public record,” Cindy said, showing Jacobi her palms. “Anyone could find out what I know, including someone else at the Chronicle.”

“It’s buried in the public record,” said Jacobi. “And we need it to stay buried for now. That’s why we’re going to make you an offer you can’t refuse.”

Cindy laughed. “I love it when you guys offer me an exclusive when I’ve already done the work.”

“Cindy, let’s not start talking personal gain, okay? We’ve got four unsolveds from the eighties and three probable homicides from the last week. We’ll give you the first clear shot, and that’s a promise.”

My cell phone rang, and I glanced down at my hip. I didn’t recognize the number, so I let the phone ring again before I snatched the receiver off the hook and growled, “Boxer,” as I edged out of Jacobi’s office.

Joe was laughing.

“Ohh man, I’m sorry,” I said.

“Forget it, Blondie, it’s good to hear your voice, no matter how snarly you are.”

“I’ve got good reason to snarl.”

I caught Joe up fast, telling him about Sara Needleman’s death and that Jacobi was restraining Cindy in virtual handcuffs so that our snake killer didn’t slither down a hole.

“Any leads on the doer?”

“Too many and none,” I said. “We’re going to start throwing darts at the phone book pretty soon. And by the way, when are you coming home?”

As I paced a circle around Cappy McNeil’s desk, Joe said he was hoping that he’d be back in a week or so and that we should make plans to do something fun, dress up, celebrate his return.

I kissed the little holes in my cell phone, heard kisses in my ear, and then I went back to Jacobi’s office. I sat down next to Conklin cheek-to-cheek on the cheap credenza, the warmth of his hip and arm making me think about him and about Joe, and making me ask myself yet again why each man had a grip on me that clouded my feelings for the other.

Conklin leaned forward, almost parking his nose in Cindy’s hair, saying to her, “Like you said, it might be the same killer coming out of retirement. Or he might be a copycat.”

“Either way, he’s a repeater,” Jacobi growled. “We can’t tip him off. We need every advantage because we’re nowhere, Cindy, and I’ll give you any odds: if he can, this guy is going to kill again.”