14th Deadly Sin: (Women’s Murder Club 14) (21 page)

I did my best not to explode with
For God’s sake!
I channeled my good-natured partner and said, “Allyson—”

But she wasn’t done.

“And there were three EMTs around her body. And the date itself. The twelfth of May. One and two equals three,” she concluded triumphantly.

“OK,” I said. “So what does that mean to you?”

Mrs. Gosselin laughed. “I don’t know. You’re the detective, aren’t you, Sergeant?”

How much deader could a dead end be?

I thanked the Gosselins, left them my card, and left their apartment.

I called Joe.

“I’m going back to work, Joe. Save me some leftovers. I know. I’m sorry. I swear I’ll be home in two hours. I promise.”

TINA STRICHLER’S CRUEL death disturbed me above and beyond Joe’s fixation on the possible sequential string of Claire’s Birthday Murders. The Strichler case wasn’t
cold.
It was active, and I knew Michaels and Wang weren’t working it.

It pissed me off, but I understood. They had no witnesses, no leads, and no time to dig into the case, which had fallen directly to the bottom of the list.

But the case was very real and present to me. I’d seen Strichler’s blood running into the street. I’d gone through her wallet and had seen that she’d had a psychiatric practice. She’d had a well-put-together appearance and, very likely, a full life, which had been terminated by a madman with a knife, an unknown killer who might never be known.

After talking with Joe, I drove to the Hall and took the elevator to the sixth-floor jail, where I asked to see Wayne Broward.

Broward was in jail because I’d breached his chain-link-barking-dog-no-trespassing-and-that-means-you security system, and I was going to be at his arraignment in the morning. However, he’d never answered my question.

I pulled rank on the desk sergeant, applying a little pressure, and Wayne was taken from his cell past visiting hours and shown into an interview room. When he saw me, he called out, “Sweetheart. Give me a kiss.”

“Against the rules, Wayne.”

His guard sat him down in the chair and locked his handcuffs to a hook in the table. The guard knew why Broward was in lockup, and he asked me, “Do you want me to hang in with you here, Sergeant?”

“Thanks, Santino, but I’ll be OK.”

It was embarrassing to be reminded, but it was true. The man sitting across from me might have killed me.

“Wayne, I have a question for you.”

“Isn’t my lawyer supposed to be here?”

“This has nothing to do with your case. You’re being charged for assaulting me with a deadly weapon.”

He laughed. “Assault. That’s an overstatement, don’t you think?”

I kept going. “I’m sure that’s the position your lawyer will take tomorrow. Meanwhile, remember why I came to see you at your house?”

“Nope. Remind me.”

I took Tina Strichler’s picture out of my jacket pocket. It was creased but still recognizable. “This woman. Have you ever seen her?”

“Not that I recall. Refresh my memory.”

“Do you know her, Wayne? Have you ever seen her?”

“She looks familiar.”

Really?
I felt a little spark of hope.

“Wait,” he said. “Didn’t you show me her picture before?”

I nodded. “Yep. I showed you the picture before.”

Was Wayne Broward really this loony? Or was his crazy-guy persona a well-honed act? I’d dealt with crazy killers before. And actually, Wayne Broward wasn’t as crazy as some of them.

I told Wayne I’d see him around and called the guard.

I left the Hall around 8:30 p.m. and made the drive home, the whole time trying to shake Dr. Tina Strichler out of my head, and not managing it at all.

JOE WAS NOT in a good mood.

“You said you’d be home at seven, Lindsay.”

“I’m sorry.”

“OK.”

His face was stiff, like he’d been fuming for a while. Embracing him was like hugging a tree.

“I’m
sorry.
Did something happen?”

“No,” he said. “Just your average single-parent day. I cleaned up the kitchen. I vacuumed. I did the laundry. I put together a bag of stuff for Goodwill. Julie, Martha, and I went to Whole Foods. I peeled, chopped, parboiled, and roasted dinner. I bathed Julie. I put her to bed. I trimmed Martha’s nails and I ate dinner. Alone. I cleaned up the kitchen. I took out the garbage. I made the bed. I applied for three consulting jobs in DC. Oh. I got a phone call from Evan Monroe, who was looking for you.”

“Who is Evan Monroe?”

“He’s Tina Strichler’s brother.”

Tina Strichler’s brother had called me? Why? I put that newsbreak on a back burner for the moment.

I said to Joe, “Would you have been this mad at me if I’d been home at seven?”

“I doubt it. You’re taking advantage, Linds.”

I did get it. While I was out doing my job all day, he was holding the home team together without benefit of stimulation or adult conversation. I got that he wasn’t just steamed up about today. It was an accumulation of days like this, added to the fact that I was working a very dangerous job that might follow me home—if I even
got
home.

I told Joe all of that, and I did my best to make amends. I said I would be more mindful of late hours and that I owed him a lot. And that tomorrow I would get Mrs. Rose to come in and that we could go out to dinner. “Anywhere.”

I stopped short of groveling.

“OK, OK, forget it. So. Where were you?” he asked.

“I went to see Wayne Broward.”

“In jail? How’d that go?”

“He’s nuts. He needs to stay locked up. I hope he gets a shitty lawyer.”

Joe hadn’t totally forgiven me, but he laughed. Then he took a plate of food out of the fridge. I got up and took it out of his hand.

“I can heat that up. You sit,” I said.

I put the plate of chicken and green beans in the microwave, and I poured wine for both of us. While my dinner revolved, I took off my shoes, put my gun away, and went in to see Julie, who was sleeping deeply.

I heard the microwave beeping.

Joe worked on his computer while I ate, which was OK. My mind was focused on the message from Evan Monroe, wondering if it was too late to call him back and if my returning that call would irritate my husband even more.

I cleaned up the kitchen, and after a quick shower and a change of clothes, I said, “Joe, what did Evan Monroe want?”

Joe said, “Wang gave him your name. I think because you were first officer. So Monroe’s calling you because there hasn’t been any movement on the case. He told me he had an idea about who could have killed Tina.”

“He told you that?” I said.

“He was messed up, Lindsay. I told him you’d call, but he wouldn’t let me off the phone. He said that when Tina was in graduate school, she was raped. She identified the guy and he was put away for twenty-five years. She saw him when he was up for parole a while back, and she told Evan afterward that she was no longer sure he was the person who raped her.”

“Is the guy out?”

“Yep. His time was up five years ago. Beginning of May.”

“Holy crap. Evan Monroe told you the guy’s name?”

“Clement Hubbell. I looked him up on ViCAP.”

Joe went to the living room and sat on the sofa. I sat next to him, and he put his arm around me. That felt good.

Joe said, “Hubbell was let out on May fifth five years ago. If Tina wrongly identified him, he’s had a lot of time to make a plan. But it might have been hard to find her from lockup. She was Bettina Monroe when she was raped. She got married and divorced and kept her married name.”

“Let’s see what Hubbell looks like,” I said, putting my hand on my husband’s thigh.

Joe leaned forward, opened his laptop, and called up Hubbell’s mug shot. He was white. His hair was brown. He was five ten, which made him average height.

And as of May fifth five years ago, he was a free man.

IT HADN’T TAKEN Joe long to locate Clement Hubbell, the man who’d been convicted of rape, had done twenty years in Chino, and had been released two weeks before the first of what Joe saw as five linked murders, one a year on the twelfth of May.

After lunch with Julie and her sitter, and under a sunny sky, Joe drove toward Edgehill Mountain and the home of Denise and Clement Hubbell.

Edgehill Mountain was an old, remote development with winding roads and small, widely spaced houses that had views of the Pacific and Ocean Beach. His car’s GPS told Joe that he was coming up on his destination, and then he saw it up ahead on his left, a tidy tan house with red doors, standing alone at the side of the road.

Joe slowed the car to get a look at the picket-fenced vegetable garden beside the house, where an older woman in red checkered pants and a pink cardigan was weeding the beds.

He checked the number on the mailbox, then pulled his Mercedes into the driveway next to a dinged-up Toyota wagon. He took his Glock out of the glove box and slipped it into his shoulder holster, then pulled on his leather bomber jacket and got out of the car.

Putting his hands in his jacket pockets, Joe walked over to the gate and peered into the garden. The woman who was working the soil had sweet, doll-like features and white hair; she looked to be in her midseventies. Probably Hubbell’s mother.

“Mrs. Hubbell?” Joe said.

The woman looked up, shielding her eyes from the sun. “Oh, hi, Jerry,” she said. “Where’s Clem?”

“No, ma’am. My name is Joe Molinari. We’ve never met. You’re Clem’s mom?”

“Yes, I’m Denise, but Clem isn’t home. I thought he was with you.” The woman laughed, got to her feet, and dusted off her knees. “Come on in,” she said. “I’ve got blueberry muffins in the oven and a jar I just cannot open by myself.”

Joe said, “Sure.” He opened the gate for Denise Hubbell, who chattered away as she led him to the house about planting different types of peppers. Joe weighed whether or not to go into the house before deciding
What the hell?
Clement Hubbell wasn’t home, and his mother might help him fill in some blanks.

Joe followed Mrs. Hubbell as she opened the back door, which led directly into the kitchen.

She said, “Have a seat.”

Joe sat down at the red Formica table, and Mrs. Hubbell handed him the screw-top jar of sliced peaches, then fussed around the kitchen.

Joe opened the jar and said, “It’s so beautiful out here, Denise. How’s Clem doing?”

“Oh, still crazy after all these years.” She laughed. “He spends most of his time in the hole.”

Denise Hubbell used oven mitts to take the muffin pan out of the oven and put it down heavily on the stovetop. Joe saw immediately that the batter was still unbaked, but she didn’t seem to realize it.

“Let’s let them cool for a minute, Jerry.”

“I’m sorry,” Joe said. “What do you mean, ‘the hole’?”

Denise removed her mitts, fluffed her hair, and said, “That’s what he calls his room. Any space too big or too bright makes him dizzy. To think how the two of you used to run around all the time to all hours. I had to bait Clem with dinner and once he was in, bolt the door.”

She laughed again. She had a very nice laugh.

“You think he’d mind if I saw his room?” Joe said. “I’ve got a note for him that I’ll leave on his dresser.”

“You go ahead,” said Clement Hubbell’s mom. “End of the hall. You know where it is. When you get back, we’ll have coffee and sweets.”

Joe said, “Good deal,” and walked through the kitchen and into a hallway. He passed the living room on his right, then a pink-floral-papered bedroom to the left. Beyond that was a door centered at the end of the hallway.

Joe turned the knob expecting to see Clem Hubbell’s “hole,” but rather than a bedroom at the back of the house, there was a flight of stairs heading down. Joe found a light switch and flicked it on. He saw that the wooden stairs led to a basement room, which was another way of saying “the hole.”

Joe left the hallway door open and started down.

WHEN HE REACHED the bottom of the stairs, Joe saw that the basement was a typical subterranean cinder-block room. It had a washer, a dryer, a water heater, a furnace, stacks of boxes, and a pile of lawn furniture. Four small, high windows let in some light.

There was no bed or sofa or anything that suggested a living space. But under the staircase was a narrow door with a gleaming brass doorknob that suggested use and might be the entrance to Clement Hubbell’s “hole.”

Joe considered again what he was doing and was sure he was not breaking any laws. He’d been invited into the house, had gotten permission to go to Hubbell’s room. He turned the knob and the door opened, letting him into another hallway, this one totally devoid of light.

He left the door open behind him, and after letting his eyes acclimate, he noticed that the floor of this hallway was made of poured concrete and that it was on a fifteen-degree downward angle. Calculating the turns he’d made, he was heading under the vegetable garden, but about twenty feet down.

He cupped his hands and called out “Hellooooo.” Not hearing an answer or any sound, he kept one hand on the cinder-block wall and walked down the incline until it terminated in an empty twelve-by-twelve room that was dimly lit by a pale-blue light.

Centered in the floor of that room was a hatch door flipped back into the open position. There was an attic-type folding ladder attached to the hatch frame by a spring-loaded hinge, and the ladder extended straight down into a pale pool of bluish light.

Joe called “Hellooooo” again, and as before, there was no answer. He had too much curiosity to walk away, but climbing down that ladder was a big commitment to the unknown.

He would need both his hands on the ladder, meaning his gun would be holstered and he would be backing down virtually blind into whatever lay below. Although Hubbell wasn’t home, Joe still had a queasy feeling that this hole could be a bear trap.