4th of July - James Patterson [43]
I glanced at the eight-by-eleven-inch manila envelope in her hand. The night before, I’d called Jacobi and asked him to get me anything he could find on Dennis Agnew, aka Randy Long.
I filled Cindy and Claire in on my first accidental meeting with Agnew at the Cormorant bar, the set-to at Keith’s garage, and the near-rear-ender. Then I described my skeevy tour of the Playmate Pen in minute detail.
“He said that to you?” Cindy exclaimed after I quoted Agnew on “women debase themselves with men so they can feel powerful.” Her cheeks pinked; she was pissed off right up to her eyelashes. “Now, there’s someone who should be crushed and outlawed.”
I laughed and told her, “Agnew had this wall of fame, like something you’d see in Tony’s office in the Bada Bing. All these signed photos from porn queens and wiseguys. Unreal. Claire, will you open that, please?”
Claire took three pages from the envelope. They were stapled together and annotated with a Post-it note from Jacobi.
“Read it out loud, if you don’t mind,” Cindy said, leaning over the back of the front seat.
“There’s some minor league stuff: DWI, assault, domestic violence, a drug bust and some time at Folsom. But here ya go, Linds. Says he was charged with first-degree murder five years ago. Case dismissed.”
I reached over and peeled off Jacobi’s handwritten note: “The vic was Agnew’s girlfriend. His lawyer was Ralph Brancusi.”
I didn’t have to say more. We all knew Brancusi was a high-profile defense attorney. Only the wealthy could afford him.
Brancusi was also the lawyer of choice for the mob.
Chapter 69
WHEN WE GOT BACK to Cat’s house, there was a patrol car in the driveway, and Chief Stark was walking toward us. He looked as grim as ever, brow scrunched up, with a haunted look in his eyes that was actually contagious.
“What is it, Chief? What’s happened now?”
“The ME’s starting the posts on the Sarduccis,” he said, squinting into the sun. “This is your formal invitation.”
I felt a surge of excitement that I masked out of consideration for the chief. I introduced Cindy and Claire.
“Dr. Washburn is the CME in San Francisco,” I said. “Okay for her to come along?”
“Sure, why not?” the chief grunted. “Take all the help I can get. I’m learning, right?”
Cindy looked at the three of us and saw that she wasn’t being included in the invitation. Hell, she was the press.
“I get it,” she said good-naturedly. “Look, I’ll hang out here, no problem. I’ve got my laptop and a deadline. Plus, I’m a leper.”
Claire and I got back into the Bonneville and followed the chief’s car out to the highway.
“This is great,” I said, my enthusiasm brimming over. “He’s letting me into the case.”
“What am I doing?” Claire said, shaking her head. “Aiding and abetting your completely ill-advised involvement when we both know you should be out on the porch with a gin and tonic, your butt in a chair and your legs over the railing.”
I laughed. “Admit it,” I said. “You’re hooked, too. You can’t turn away from this thing, either.”
“You’re nuts,” she grumbled. Then she looked over at me. My grin set hers off.
“You kill me, Lindsay. You really do. But it’s your ass, baby.”
Ten minutes later, we followed Stark’s car off the highway into Moss Beach.
Chapter 70
THE MORGUE WAS IN the basement of the Seton Medical Center. It was a white-tiled room smelling as pristine and fresh as the frozen-food section in a supermarket. A cooler hummed gently in the background.
I nodded at two evidence techies who were grousing about some bureaucratic scheduling screwup as they folded the victims’ garments into brown paper bags.
I was drawn to the autopsy tables in the middle of the room, where the ME’s young assistant was running a sponge and hose over the Sarduccis’ bodies. He turned off the water and stepped aside as I approached.
Joseph and Annemarie lay naked and exposed under the bright lights. Their glistening bodies were unmarked except for ugly slash wounds across their necks, their faces as unlined in death as those of children.
Claire called my