I nodded and the three of us girls took the elevator down to Lake Street. Martha sniffed around the sidewalk, relieved herself for show, and then herded me and Julie together as border collies, even old ones, do.
Back in Julie’s room, I found clean pj’s and asked her to tell me about her day. She was willing. I brushed the thick, dark curls she’d inherited from her dad, and I thought about Claire. My eyes watered. I heard Julie say, “Mommmmmy, are you listening? That was funny!”
I hadn’t heard a word.
“I’m sorry, Julie. Tell me again. Please.”
“No,” she said.
I asked her if she’d like me to read to her, and she said, “Not yet.” She wanted to tell me about a rabbit a classmate had brought to school, and kept talking until Joe came to the doorway and said, “How about a hug good night, Bugs?”
She said, “Dad, Mommy is out to lunch.”
“Then, I’ll make her some dinner.”
We hugged and kissed our little girl, told her it was okay to sleep with Martha for a little while, and shut off her light.
We were crossing the main room when Joe’s phone rang.
He picked up and said, “I will, Dave. Of course. I’ll call you in the morning. You, too. Good night.”
When he’d hung up the phone, we sat together on the sofa. He looked sad. In pain. I asked, “What is it? What’s wrong?”
“Ray. Dave’s father. He just died.”
“Oh, no.”
“Dave thinks Ray was murdered.”
“What?”
“I have to go back to Napa Valley. I have to be there to help him.”
CHAPTER 22
JOE AND I sat together on the sofa, our arms around each other.
Joe spoke haltingly about himself and Dave when they were roommates.
And he told me that he wondered if Dave was in such a bad place that the only way he could accept his father’s death was to create a fantasy that Ray had been murdered.
“It doesn’t make any sense otherwise,” Joe said. “Why would anyone kill Ray Channing inside a hospital?”
I didn’t want to break into Joe’s thoughts, but I was also grieving. Moments with Claire were flashing through my mind, starting with the look on her face as she told me about the cancer diagnosis, then back to her smiling at me when she painted my toenails the day Joe and I got married. She was Julie’s godmother and I was Rosie’s. Each of us was the go-to person for the other whenever we needed advice, love, support, and the truth.
I couldn’t imagine my life without Claire. And I didn’t want her to go.
Joe was holding me, and my body started shaking and I just couldn’t stop it. He turned me so that I was looking into his face, gripped my shoulders, and asked me, “Lindsay. What’s going on?”
I blurted out, “I said … I wouldn’t tell anyone.”
My voice cracked. He was alarmed and he tightened his grip on me.
“Tell me,” he said.
“Claire has cancer.”
I cried. Joe consoled me until he cried, too. Second time I ever saw Joe cry. I was so grateful that Julie was in bed, but Martha felt the sadness, came out of Julie’s room, and put her nose on the couch between us.
“Keep talking,” Joe said.
“She said it’s nothing to worry about, but she was lying.”
Joe held me tight. I thought about what Claire must be going through.
“She hasn’t told Edmund.”
“She will.”
“I can’t bear this, Joe.”
“You can. You will. You’ll be strong for Claire.”
We went into the bedroom and got in bed, under the blankets, and held hands.
The last time I looked at the clock, it was 3:40 in the morning. The big paw that had once caught footballs enclosed my hand, and when Joe squeezed my fingers, it was gentle. A hug.
I slept hard after that, and when I woke up a short time later, Joe was dressed.
He leaned over and kissed me.
“I made coffee and walked Martha. Julie’s still sleeping. Mrs. Rose will take her to the pre-K bus, and she’ll pick her up, make her dinner. I’ll call you after I see Dave.”
I sat up and kissed him again.
He said, “Go back to sleep. I’ll call you later.”
When the phone rang, I thought it was Joe, but it was Cindy.
CHAPTER 23
CINDY WAS AT her desk at the San Francisco Chronicle at 6 a.m.
It was nine o’clock in New York, and news had been breaking across the country all morning. Her scanner was on, transmitting police, paramedic, and fire department radio calls while she booted up her laptop.
First thing, she looked in on the updated SFPD 911 log for calls related to the Baron case. No arrest, no statement, nothing. Next web stop was the Examiner, the local competition. Nothing to worry about there. She checked out the major news outlets for any new reporting, found none, and then went back to the updated SFPD 911 log.
There was no hot news at all, so she moved on. Checked her inbox—it was full—and looked to see how much coffee was left in her mug. It was empty.
She watched through the glass walls of her office as reporters, writers, and staff ambled into the city room, navigated the maze of partitioned cubicles to their stations. They stowed their bags, got coffee, then went to work.
It was six fifteen when McGowan came in.
He went to his desk with its clear view of her office. He dropped off his computer bag and waved at her. After opening his laptop, he headed across the city room to suck up to the publisher, who was doing his morning walk-through.
McGowan was the worst kind of phony. A toady. Blech.
Cindy shook off the creeps, turned back to her computer, and opened her crime blog. A lot of people had posted questions about the Baron killings. Sometimes posters had questions for her. But she didn’t have anything to tell them, not today, not yet. She blogged that information on the case was pending and she would report to her readers as soon as she could.
Damn it. If Lindsay hadn’t blocked her, she could take the action that she and all journalists worked for—breaking the news.
The coffee station, the urn and fixings, were just down the hallway. Cindy brought her mug, and when she returned to her desk, there was an interesting bulletin in the chyron crawling across the bottom of her screen.
A drug dealer had been shot in Chicago yesterday morning. The cops had identified the victim as Albert Roccio but had kept the story quiet for twenty-four hours until the autopsy was completed.
Now the police were asking the public for information on Roccio’s death.
Cindy opened her link to the Chicago PD website and read up on the victim. Albert Roccio was fifty-four, a Chicago native. Owned a smoke shop on North Broadway where he sold papers, smokes, candy, soft drinks. He had an undetermined number of employees, who Cindy guessed were stock boys doubling as drug runners.
Roccio was divorced, no children. He had been exiting his apartment house on his way to work, car keys in hand, when he was shot, one bullet to the forehead.
Roccio’s girlfriend, Tonya Patton, forty-eight, and her boy, Vanya, eight, had been walking right behind Albert down the front steps. One bullet had been fired. One only. The woman and child had been spared.