Page 35 of 25 Alive

Walsh cleared his throat and continued. “Okay, I have to back up a bit. The woman I knew was actually the second wife of the unnamed agent—let’s just call him ‘Mike.’ And Mike’s first wife died under unusual circumstances. She drowned in the bathtub in the house where they once lived together in Portland, Oregon. Mike was also in Portland at the time, but he had something of an alibi established. He was at his nephew’s high school basketball game with family and had the punched ticket stub to prove it.”

I shrugged. This was proof of nothing.

Walsh said, “No, you’re right. Checking it out, which I did, questioning him, which others did, his alibi was thin, but he’d covered his tracks well enough. He’d been with family and friends in a public setting.”

“I’m not really getting this, Jim. In your opinion, did Mike hire a hitter? Was he framed? Or is it a coincidence that he was in the same town when she killed herself? Or do you think he killed her?”

Walsh started to shrug and knocked over his coffee, which spilled and spread across the table. I snatched up the Witt file along with the Jacobi and Robinson murder books, and Walsh found a roll of paper towels and soaked up the mess.

“God, I’m so smooth,” Walsh said.

“Don’t worry about this. Just get to the point, please. I feel my hair turning gray.”

Walsh laughed. And then he said, “Okay, okay. Two things stick out, Lindsay. Mike paid his ex a six-figure divorce settlement. And he married again, only to end in another divorce. His second ex-wife was also killed, and I can’t see it as anything less than a murder. This is what eventually brought me to San Francisco and to you.”

“I’m ready now, Jim.”

“Mike’s second ex-wife was found hanged from a beam in the attic of the family home. There was no note, but a message was written on the soles of her shoes in ballpoint pen. In block letters, on the sole of one loafer, were the words ‘I said.’ And on the sole of the other shoe, the same kind of lettering—”

“‘You dead,’” Lindsay finished. “Damn. Why would he do that?”

“It all may have been a sick setup. As you said. A frame-up. I’d like to prove that. I’d like to exclude Mike. But not if he’s a killer. Two ex-wives dead under mysterious circumstances? Both received six-figure divorce settlements. Of course he was questioned. He had another alibi. This time the alibi was substantiated and he was cleared. Still, my suspicions keep mounting.”

“Okay. I understand. How do you see me helping you?”

“I’d like us to be silent partners, Lindsay. To share information as we can. To keep the lines open. Help each other and, best case, hunt down this maniac. And I hope to hell it’s not my friend.”

“Look, Jim. I can’t help if you don’t trust me enough to tell me his name.”

Walsh shook his head, then reluctantly said, “Brett. Brett Palmer. That’s his name. He’s moving to San Francisco. I’ll give you the where and when once I know. But I have to protect Palmer until we have evidence that exonerates him—or nails his ass.”

“Got it.”

We exchanged contact information and shook hands again. Then I walked FBI special agent James Walsh along the fourth-floor corridor to the bank of elevators. I watched the lights over the elevator go down to the ground floor.

I thought Walsh’s gut instincts were probably right. But he didn’t like what his gut was telling him.

CHAPTER56

WHEN YUKI GOT to her desk the next morning, she had an email from Len “Red Dog” Parisi in her inbox, with the subject line: “Esteban Dario Garza Trial, Next Steps.”

The message was brief. Her presence was requested at ten o’clock today in the DA’s conference room on the second floor.

Yuki, as prosecutor, was on the short list, as was Nick Gaines, and the other invitees were Dario’s defense team. Gaines met Yuki in her office, and they walked to the conference room together. It was an imposing space, with windows on the east side and sunlight glinting on the burnished oak table. There was a pad of paper in front of each chair, pens lined up parallel to the pads, as well as a carafe of water, water glasses, and charging stations at intervals along the center of the table.

Yuki and Gaines took seats flanking the chair at the head of the table, and about two minutes later, Red Dog came through the doorway. He was wearing one of his mahogany-coloredtweed jackets that brought out the red of his hair. It wasn’t just his hair and the jut of his jaw that had given Parisi his nickname. It was because of his reputation as a hardball prosecutor and, later, San Francisco’s district attorney. He was fierce, tenacious, and indomitable.

He sat down and gave cursory nods to the others. A few minutes later, Dario’s defense lawyers joined them at the table: Jon Credendino plus his second chair, Donna Villanova.

The atmosphere in the room was strained. Those present plugged in their devices, filled their glasses, passed notes, and finally Red Dog tapped the table with the butt of a pencil, which sounded like a gavel.

His opening remarks were stark and, Yuki thought, rightly so.

“You all know that Judge Martin Orlofsky, a fine judge with a great future, was brutally murdered yesterday, along with his wife, Sandra Flynn Orlofsky, a linguist who taught at Berkeley. Their killer decapitated their bodies with a machete to make the point that he had the time and the balls to commit this atrocity.”

Parisi swept his gaze across the faces of the rest of the table, then went on. “No doubt that decapitations bring young Dario Garza to mind. We’re not stopping until we arrest the killer or killers responsible for this tragedy.”

Parisi paused for breath, then: “The Crime Scene Unit has been on the scene nonstop, and although teams of homicide inspectors have been meeting with Judge Orlofsky’s friends and associates, no firm leads have come to light.”

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