Page 84 of Almost Dead (The Cahills 2)

“So, did you know the Amhursts were from Marin County?” she asked.

Paterno nodded; he remembered that from the last time he’d been on Marla’s trail. “She grew up in a fancy house overlooking the bay around here somewhere, I think. Her father, Conrad, lived out his final days in a care facility in Tiburon, just a few miles away.”

“And now someone related to Marla dies up here.”

“Related by marriage, through Marla’s husband.”

“It’s all a little incestuous if you ask me.”

“Won’t argue that,” Paterno agreed.

Hours later, after viewing the interview tapes of Favier and Van Arsdale, he still found it hard to think that the preacher had iced his wife. He had too much at stake.

And now he was exposed.

If not as a murderer, as an adulterer and a liar.

The media was out en masse, of course, and as Donald Favier left the police station, he made a statement to the media, admitting his sins to God and his flock at Holy Trinity of God. He stood in the winter sunlight, his breath fogging, his hair neatly in place, his mistress nowhere in sight. In jeans and a dress shirt with the sleeves rolled over his forearms, he asked Jesus’s and everyone’s forgiveness. Gold rings flashing, he clenched his fist and promised, if God would help him on his quest, to find the sorry, misguided soul who had taken precious, loving Cherise’s life.

“Can you believe this guy?” Quinn asked as they stood to one side and watched the display.

“Not for a minute.” Paterno eyed the reverend, hypocrite that he was. With a determined, square jawline, conviction in his intense eyes and talk of Jesus’s forgiveness, he turned the crowd. He vowed to find the killer of his beloved wife, and, though he was but a man, a man with flaws and weaknesses, with Christ’s help, he would seek justice.

“Touching, ain’t it?” Paterno muttered to Quinn as he watched the charismatic man work the crowd. “Almost makes me want to believe him.”

“You think he’s our killer?”

Squinting against cool winter sunshine, Paterno shook his head. “Don’t know,” he said, “but I doubt it. I’m talking about his whole act. The forgiveness, the shame, the vows of becoming a reformed sinner.” He watched the reverend nod at the cameras and slide behind the wheel of his Mercedes.

“You don’t think people can change?”

“My old man had a saying. A leopard doesn’t change his spots. That’s all I’m telling you. Nothin’ more.”

His cell phone rang, and he picked it up. “Paterno.”

“It’s Underhill,” a voice said, and Paterno pictured the detective, a strapping black man of about thirty-five or thirty-six. With short-cropped hair and a take-no-prisoners attitude he’d picked up in the military, Underhill was all business. “A security guard at the medical school up on Mt. Sutro issued a ticket to a silver Taurus, older model, that was parked up on the hill the day Cissy Holt said she saw Marla Cahill. The parking lot backs up to the Cahill mansion, and I thought you might like to know.”

Paterno couldn’t believe it.

“And there’s more. A security camera not only caught the license plate of the vehicle, confirming the ticket, but also might have got a picture of the driver.”

“Marla Cahill?”

“Could be. A copy of the tape is being sent here to the station by messenger. I’ve got one coming for the state police and the feds as well.”

“Good. And put out a BOLF for the license plate.”

“Already done,” Underhill said. “I’ve got the name and address of the registered owner. One Hector Alvarez. Lives near San Jose. I already contacted the authorities down there. Someone should be knocking on Mr. Alvarez’s door as we speak.”

“Keep me posted.”

“You got it.”

Paterno clicked off.

“Good news?” Quinn asked.

“Could be.” Paterno tamped down his enthusiasm until he’d actually looked at the tape. “Let’s go. We might have our first serious lead in the Eugenia Cahill case.”

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