“Uh-huh.”
“Red blood cells. Lots of them.”
I lifted my head from the scope and looked at her.
“They wouldn’t show up in a man’s urine. Not to anywhere near this degree. Not unless they’ve got a bleeding kidney, which to my knowledge, none of our principals show any signs of.”
“Or”— I shook my head slowly — “unless the killer was menstruating.”
Chapter 116
I STARED AT CLAIRE as the information settled in my mind. All along, Nicholas Jenks had been telling the truth.
He hadn’t been in the room when David and Melanie Brandt were killed that night. Nor in Napa. Probably not even near the Hall of Fame in Cleveland. I had hated Jenks so much I couldn’t see past it. None of us had been able to get past the fact that we wanted him to be guilty.
All the evidence — the hair, the jacket, the champagne — had been an incredible deception. Jenks was a master of the surprise ending, but someone had set the master up.
I put my arms around Claire and hugged her. “You’re the best.”
“You’re damn right I am. I don’t know what it proves,” she answered, patting my back, “but the person standing over that poor boy at the murder scene was a woman. And I’m just as sure that she stabbed David Brandt to death with her right hand.”
My mind was spinning. Jenks was loose, hundreds of cops on the chase — and he was innocent.
“So?” Claire looked at me and smiled.
“It’s the second-best news I’ve heard lately,” I said.
“Second best?”
I took her hand. I told Claire what Medved had shared with me. We hugged again. We even did a little victory dance. Then both of us got back to work.
Chapter 117
UPSTAIRS AT MY DESK, I radioed Jacobi. Poor guy, he was still sitting outside Joanna Wade’s home at the corner of Filbert and Hyde. “You all right, Warren?”
“Nothing that a shower and a couple of hours of sleep wouldn’t improve.”
“Tell me what’s going on.”
“What’s going on?” Jacobi recited, as if he were resentfully going over his log. “Four-fifteen yesterday afternoon, target comes out, struts down the block to Gold’s Gym. Six-ten, target reemerges, proceeds down block to Pasqua Coffee, comes out with plastic bag. I suspect it’s Almond Roast. Goes into the Contempo Casuals boutique, comes out empty. I gotta figure the new fall stuff hasn’t arrived yet, Boxer. She makes her way home. Lights go on on the third floor. Is it chicken I smell? I don’t know — I’m so fucking hungry I might be dreaming. Lights go out about ten-twenty-five. Since then, she’s been doing what I’d like to be doing. Why you got me out here like a rookie, Lindsay?”
“Because Nicholas Jenks is going to try to find his ex-wife. He believes she’s setting him up. I think he knows that Joanna is the murderer.”
“You trying to cheer me up, Boxer? Bring meaning into my life?”
“Maybe. And how’s this… I think she is, too. I want to know immediately if you spot Jenks.”
Chris Raleigh came in about eight, tossing a surprised look at my bleary eyes and disheveled appearance. “You should try a brush in the morning.”
“Claire called me at five-ten. I was in the morgue at five-thirty.”
He looked at me funny. “What the hell for?”
“It’s a little hard to explain. I want you to meet some friends of mine.”
“Friends? At eight in the morning?”
“Uh-huh. My girlfriends.”