10th Anniversary - James Patterson [87]
“I’m sorry that it happened this way, but in that moment, I acted on pure instinct. I couldn’t let Dennis live in the same world with Caitlin.”
Chapter 119
YUKI AND I walked Candace back to the beginning of her story, and she filled in the sickening gaps. She said that Dennis Martin was a degenerate womanizer and a stalker with a well-honed gift for emotional abuse but that he had a good reputation in the community and was well spoken. Candace said she was convinced that in a divorce trial she wouldn’t have gotten custody of the kids.
Dr. Martin said, “Had I known that he was abusing Caitlin before that moment, I would have taken her and Duncan and called the police. I would not have let my children see him die.”
After Candace was locked up and Phil was on his way home to Oakland, Yuki and I gathered our notes and collected the videotapes. And then we were alone.
I said, “That was the worst.”
“Awful. If the jury had heard it, even if they thought she was guilty, they might have let her off so she could be there for her kids.”
“Caitlin told her shrink that Dennis had been raping her?”
“Yes. I didn’t see any point in telling Candace that it had been going on for quite a while.”
“What are you going to recommend?”
“Damned if I know,” Yuki said.
She hurried upstairs to confer with Red Dog and I went down four flights to see Jacobi, my former partner, my longtime friend, and now the chief of police.
Jacobi cracked open a couple of Coke cans, and after I brought him up to the minute on Candace Martin, he said, “What’s Yuki thinking?”
“She and Parisi are chewing it over right now. Brady is going to bust me back to the beat,” I said. “I couldn’t let this case go.”
“You want me to talk to him?”
“Yeah. Would you?”
Jacobi nodded his head and began tapping on the desk. He kept it up until under my prompting to just spit out whatever he was thinking, he said, “Lindsay, a message was forwarded to me this morning. It’s not good news.”
“What is it? What’s wrong?” I asked.
“It’s about your father.”
“My father?”
“He died back in August. The pension people just got the word. I’m sorry, Linds.”
I said, “No,” and stood up, surprised that I felt light-headed, that my legs didn’t want to hold me up. I grabbed the back of the chair for support. I thought about how Marty Boxer was hardly a father. In fact, I wasn’t sure that he had even loved me. Had I loved him?
The next thing I knew, Jacobi had come around his desk and put his arms around me, and I was getting tears on his jacket.
“I wanted to be the one to tell you. He didn’t ditch you at your wedding, my friend. He had a heart attack. He was already gone.”
Chapter 120
CLAIRE’S HOME in Mill Valley is a dream of a house: wood-paneled inside with trusses and beams in the cathedral ceiling, stone floors throughout the open space, and a two-story fireplace. The bedrooms all have mountain vistas, and the patio has a multimillion-dollar view of a great, green, tree-studded lawn.
Edmund Washburn, a big teddy bear of a man, had fired up the barbecue, and Joe, Brady, and Conklin were horsing around with a football on the grass.
Yuki, Cindy, Claire, and I reclined on teak lounge chairs under woolly blankets, and baby Ruby slept in her rocking seat at Claire’s elbow.
A Mozart symphony was pouring out of the Bose, and Yuki was staring at the guys on the field, at Brady in particular, and she finally said, “I’m a goner. I just thought you ladies would like to know. I’m a very moony lady. Over my head for Jackson Brady.”
We laughed out loud — couldn’t help ourselves. Yuki wanted to be in a relationship and it looked like she was in one with my lieutenant.
Brady saw her watching him, tossed the football aside, and ran toward us. He grabbed Yuki out of the chair, hoisted her over his shoulder, and made a run for the space between the two saplings that marked the goal line.
Yuki shrieked and kicked melodramatically as Brady did the happy dance