Womens Murder Club - 07 - 7th Heaven Read Online Free PDF Page B

the sheriff in stepping cautiously toward the frenzied, singing hounds. “There’s something in this bag,” their handler said. The hounds had located a plastic shopping bag, the thin supermarket kind. I stooped down, saw that the plastic had been ripped, that the contents were wrapped in newspaper. I parted the newspaper wrapper. Saw the decomposing remains of a newborn child. The baby’s skin was loose and greenish, the soft tissues eaten by rats, so that it was no longer possible to tell if it was a boy or a girl. The date on the newspaper was only a week old. Someone hadn’t wanted this child. Had it been smothered? Was it stillborn? At this stage of decomposition, the ME might never know. Rich was crossing himself and saying a few words over the baby’s remains when my Nextel rang. I walked downhill as I answered the call, glad to turn my eyes from the terrible sight of that dead child. “Tell me something good, Yuki,” I begged her. “Please.” “Sorry, Lindsay. Junie Moon has recanted her confession.” “No. Come on! Michael didn’t die in her arms?” My roiling innards sank. Right now, all we had was Junie’s confession. How could she take that back? “Yeah. Now she says that she had nothing to do with Michael Campion’s death and disappearance. She’s saying that her confession was coerced.” “Coerced? By whom?” I asked, still not getting it. “By you and Conklin. The mean ol’ cops made her confess to something that never, ever happened.”
    Chapter 15

    SUSIE’S CAFÉ IS KIND OF a cross between Cheers and a tiki hut bar on a beach in St. Lucia. The food is spicy, the steel drums are live, the margaritas are world-class, and not only do the waitresses know our names, they know enough to leave us alone when we’re into something - as Cindy and I were now. We were in our booth in the back room, and I was glaring at Cindy over my beer. “You understand? Talking to you off the record is ‘leaking.’ Just saying to you that I was working a new lead on the Campion case could jam me up!” “I swear, Lindsay, I didn’t use what you said. I didn’t need a quote from you because I got the story from upstairs.” “How is that possible?” “Management has a source and I did an interview and I am not telling you with whom,” she said, setting down her beer mug hard on the table. “But the point is, you can hold your head up, Linds, because you told me nothing. Okay? That’s the truth.” I’m several years older than Cindy, and we’ve had a big sister, little sister thing since she crashed my crime scene a few years back and then helped me close the case. It’s hard to be friends with reporters when you’re a cop. Their rationalized “public’s need to know” gives bad guys the heads-up and messes up jury pools. You can’t truly trust reporters. On the other hand, I love Cindy, and I trusted her 99 percent of the time. She sat across from me in her snow-white silk sweater, blond curls bouncing like mattress springs, her two overlapping front teeth making her pretty features look even prettier. She looked totally innocent of my accusation, and she was holding her ground. “Okay,” I said through clenched teeth. “Okay and I’m sorry?” “Okay. I’m sorry.” “Good. You’re forgiven. So, can you tell me what’s happening on this case?” “You’re a funny girl, Cindy,” I said, laughing and waving my hand so that Yuki and Claire could see us from the doorway. Claire was so far along in her pregnancy she couldn’t fit in the booth anymore. I got up, moved a chair to the head of the table for Claire, as Yuki slipped in beside Cindy. Lorraine took our orders, and as soon as she’d left us, Yuki said to Cindy, “Whatever I say, even if it’s in the public domain, it’s off the record.” Claire and I cracked up. “What a pain. See, people think it’s actually an advantage that I know you guys,” Cindy said, sighing dramatically. “The hearing to suppress Junie