The 8th Confession - James Patterson [71]
“You know what those rich girls called their old school chum? They called her ‘Pet Girl.’ ”
Chapter 94
CONKLIN TOOK A CHAIR in Jacobi’s office, but I was so revved up, I couldn’t sit. I was also freaking out. We’d interviewed Norma Johnson twice, written her off as a suspect both times and kicked her.
“Am I missing the obvious?” Jacobi asked me. “Or are you?” His meaty hands were clasped together on his trash heap of a desktop.
“Maybe it’s me. What’s the obvious?”
“Did you consider that Ginny Friedman might be the doer? She not only admits to knowing one of the original victims, she knew half the current ones, too.”
“She has a solid alibi, Jacobi. Didn’t I say that?”
“You said she had an alibi, Boxer. I’m asking for details.”
There were times when reporting to Jacobi was like having bamboo slivers pushed under my fingernails. Had he forgotten we’d worked together for more than ten years?
Had he forgotten he used to report to me?
“When the killings happened, Ginny Friedman was cruising the Mediterranean on a sailing ship,” I told him. “She learned about the killings when the ship docked last week in Cannes. France.”
“I know where Cannes is,” Jacobi said, pronouncing it in the plural.
“I have Friedman’s round-trip airplane receipts and her travel documents from the Royal Clipper on my desk. The ship left port before the Baileys were killed, and it didn’t return until Brian Caine and Jordan Priestly were dead.”
“You’re sure?”
“I examined her passport,” I said. “The photo was current, and the book was properly stamped. She wasn’t in San Francisco over the last month, Jacobi, no chance. But McCorkle is checking her out anyway.”
Jacobi picked up the receiver on his phone, punched all five of his lines so no calls could come through. Then he fastened his eyes on me.
“Tell me more about this Pet Girl.”
I told Jacobi that Johnson’s father, Christopher Ross, wasn’t married to Norma’s mother, that the mother just changed the bed linens and vacuumed the floors in his Nob Hill manse.
“Ross was so rich, he was beyond scandal,” I said, “at least, while he was alive. After he died, Norma’s mother was canned and little Norma was officially an outcast.
“Her daddy left her nothing. Her friends treated her like dirt. And then she started working for them.”
“She had keys to their houses,” Conklin added, “and passwords to their security systems. She also had plenty of opportunity. What did she say, Lindsay? That nobody even knew she’d been there. That her clients liked it that way.”
“She was just ten when her father was killed?” Jacobi asked.
“Right. She couldn’t have killed those highfliers from the eighties. But the fact that her father was a victim might have inspired her.”
“Copycat,” said Jacobi.
“So we think,” I said.
Jacobi slapped his desk, and dust flew up.
“Pick her up,” he said. “Go get her.”
Chapter 95
I SAT BESIDE Conklin at the table in the interrogation room, ready to jump in if needed, but he had the interview under control. Norma Johnson liked him, and Conklin was showing her what a good person he was, a guy you could trust — even if you were a freaking psycho.
“I don’t understand why you didn’t tell us that your father had been killed by a snake, Norma,” Conklin said.
“Yeah. Well, I would have told you if you’d asked me, but you know, I didn’t connect my father’s death to any of this until you said that the Baileys and Sara had been killed by a snake.”
“Brian Caine and Jordan Priestly? Did you know them?”
“Not well. I work for Molly Caldwell-Davis occasionally, and I’ve met Brian at her place once or twice. Jordan was there all the time, but we weren’t friends.”
“Did you work for Molly on the night of May twenty- fourth?”
“I’d have to look at my book, but no, wait. Didn’t Molly have a party on the twenty-fourth? Because I was invited. I dropped by, didn’t know anyone, so I said ‘hey’ to Molly and left after about ten minutes. She didn’t need me to walk Mischa.”