Page 42

CHAPTER 40

AFTER THE CHURCH service, we followed Jacobi’s casket to the cemetery, where a few more speeches and prayers were delivered. We were walking toward Claire’s car at the end of Cypress Avenue at the conclusion of a wrenching day of tears, eulogies, and long good-byes when an SUV marked SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE pulled up alongside us.

The driver buzzed down his window and said to Cindy, “Ms. Thomas? Mr. Tyler asked me to give you a lift back to the newsroom.”

Cindy said, “Lindsay, can you come with me? I have business to discuss with you.”

Transportation got sorted out in the street. Cindy and I got into the Chronicle ’s SUV. I’d catch a ride back to the Hall later. She and I and Yuki and Claire made a plan for us all to meet at Susie’s Café for dinner tonight.

This day of loss and grief was complicated by a car accident on the freeway. When we cleared the tangle, Claire’s Escalade was only two cars behind us. Cindy and I could count on a good ten minutes of private time ahead of us.

Cindy lowered her voice and said, “Breaking news from Verne, Nevada.”

And she got right into what she’d learned from her meeting with homicide detective Steven Wilson about the murder of twenty-year-old Sadie Witt.

Cindy said, “After Herman Witt was arrested and locked up, waiting for sentencing, he had his quarter-million-dollar family home legally transferred to Sadie. No strings attached. Yeah. An act of contrition. But weeks after he’d transferred the deed to Sadie, she was murdered.”

“First, I want to say, Cindy, good catch. Based on what you’ve told me, all three victims came into money, but none of it was taken from them. It’s like someone coming into sudden wealth just angers this psycho killer. Does that make sense?”

Cindy said, “So, you think the wealth factor is a blinking red light that somehow attracts this killer?”

“Let’s say that’s right, Cindy. But how? And why? The killer gets nothing from his killings except a brief moment of infamy—in the media. Is that reason enough?”

Cindy said, “That could be way more than reason enough. He gets attention, big time. I mean, maybe he works in an office, doing spreadsheets, which goes unnoticed. This big idea occurs to him. I could kill people because I say so . Now he’s building a legacy …”

“Okay. I get that,” I said. “So, how does he choose his targets? How? People come into windfalls—by inheritance or a big cash settlement in a divorce. Jacobi got a million-dollar settlement. That could explain why he was targeted. The flashing red light theory only works if there’s publicity, right? You said the Witt story was in the local paper? On the paper’s website?”

Cindy said, “Yes to both. Wilson showed the story to me. But, Linds, unlike the letter in the New York Flash, which we thought was probably written by the killer, Sadie Witt’s murder was followed and written up by a reporter from the Verne Morning News from beginning to end. The details were all there: times, dates, cause and manner of death. Except for whodunit—”

“Right. The paper ran the whole deal.”

I said, “So, if I’m getting this right, Sadie Witt was murdered before Jacobi and Robinson.”

“Correct. Sadie was first of the three—that we know about.”

I finished Cindy’s thought in my mind. If the killer wasn’t caught, he would kill again.