The 9th Judgment - James Patterson [53]
“I’m not so sure.”
“What does that mean, Sue?” Yuki’s voice went up an octave. “What do you mean, exactly?”
“I’ve been following Marc since the funeral. I follow him all the time. Yuki, I had to do it. I was hoping he was the man I said he was, but another part of me was saying that he did kill Casey and that I was so under his spell, I didn’t see it. Casey told me she thought he was seeing someone, remember? Oh my God, I can’t stand it. Tell me I’m crazy and put me out of my misery, or do something for poor Casey.”
Yuki juggled her handbag and briefcase. What had she created by talking to Sue Emdin? Her hands were shaking as she got out her keys and opened her front door. “Where are you now?”
“Outside his house. I’ve been here for over an hour. Babe-a-licious is still with him, and if you ask me, she’s not going home. Not tonight anyway.”
“Tell me again. What does this prove?”
“It proves that all of Marc’s talk about how heartsick he is over losing Casey is bullshit. If he’s lying about that, it means he could be lying about everything.”
“What kind of car are you driving?” Yuki asked.
“Gold Lexus. I’m parked right across the street from his house.”
“Nobody would notice a car like that.”
“His neighborhood is full of them.”
Yuki put down her briefcase, kicked off her heels, and looked for a pair of flats. She was as crazy as Sue.
“I’ll be there in twenty minutes,” she said.
Chapter 76
MY THIRD CUP of coffee was still hot when Yuki walked through the gate in the squad room at nine thirty a.m. and made a beeline to where I sat behind my floral barricade.
“I might have something on Marcus Dowling,” she said.
Conklin got up, gave her his chair, and said, “You have our complete attention.”
Yuki told us in one long run-on sentence that Casey’s school friend, Sue Emdin, had been tailing Dowling for more than a week and had seen him last night in a restaurant made for clandestine meetings, having dinner with a woman who was more friendly than friend.
“Sue followed them from the restaurant, then called to tell me she was staking out Dowling’s house. I went to sit with her.”
“Jesus, Yuki.”
“Just listen, okay? No laws were broken. At about eleven last night, Dowling and this woman came out of the house, falling all over each other. She’s in her late twenties, early thirties, Pilates body, long cover-girl hair. Totally gorgeous.”
“You’re saying, totally his girlfriend,” Conklin said.
“So it would seem. Dowling helps said blonde into his car and then off they go.”
“And you’re following them?” I said.
“Well, yeah.”
“Really, Yuki,” I said, flipping my ballpoint into the air. “That was nuts and dangerous and you know it. Everyone wants to be a cop, but it beats the hell out of me why.”
“It’s a glamour job, right?” Yuki cracked, waving a hand to indicate the splendor of our grimy, gray-on-gray bull pen.
“So you’re outside his house. What happened after that?” I asked.
“Okay, so we followed Dowling’s car to Cow Hollow,” Yuki said. “The car stops, and we have to drive past it, of course. We take a spin around the block, and on the return lap, I see Totally Gorgeous walking by herself to this extremely nice house. Dowling stayed in his car. He didn’t leave until his girlfriend went inside, but the point is, he didn’t walk her to the door. Clearly he didn’t want to be seen.”
Yuki paused for breath, took out a business card, and flipped it over so I could see the address she’d written on the back.
Conklin said, “We have his phone log.”
I typed the address Yuki gave me into the computer and came up with a name and a phone number.
“Graeme Henley,” I said to Conklin, and read him the number.
My partner scrolled down his computer screen. “It’s here. He called that number three or four times a day all last month.”
“Graeme Henley is probably not a woman,” I said.
“So the girlfriend is married,” Yuki said. “That’s why he stayed in the car. Lindsay, Casey thought Marc was seeing someone. If he was, if he was serious, if he couldn’t get rid of Casey… the girlfriend could be a motive.”
“There’s something