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“Of course I have. There’s no record any of them had even met. Their careers don’t seem to have crossed. Tasha Catchings’s uncle is younger than the others by twenty years. We can’t find anything that puts them together.”
“Somebody hates cops. Well, actually, a lot of people do,” Cindy said.
“I just can’t find the link. This started out in the guise of a hate crime. The killer wanted us to view the murders in a certain way. He wanted us to find his clues. And he wanted us to find the chimera. His fucked-up symbol.”
“But if this is a personal vendetta,” Jill said, “it doesn’t make sense that it would lead back to some organized group.”
“Unless he was setting someone up,” I said.
“Or unless,” Cindy said, chewing her lip, “the chimera doesn’t lead back to a hate group at all. Maybe this book is his way of telling us it’s something else.”
I stared at her. We all did. “We’re waiting, Einstein.”
She blinked remotely, then shook her head. “I was just thinking out loud.”
Jill said she would dig into any grievance cases against a black officer who had wronged or injured a white. Any act of vengeance that might explain the killer’s mind-set. Cindy would do the same at the Chronicle.
It had been a long day, and I was exhausted. I had a task force meeting at seven-thirty the next morning. I looked each of my friends in the eye. “Thank you, thank you.”
“We’re gonna solve this sucker with you,” Jill said. “We’re going to get Chimera.”
“We’ve got to,” Claire said. “We need you to keep picking up the bar bill.”
For a few more minutes, we chatted about what we all had going on the next day, when we could get together again. We were starting to cook now. Jill and Claire had their cars parked in the lot. I asked Cindy, who lived in the Castro section, near me, if she needed a ride.
“Actually,” she said with a smile, “I have a date.”
“Good for you. Who is your next victim?” Claire exclaimed. “When do we get to check him out?”
“If you supposedly mature, talented women want to ogle like a bunch of schoolkids, I guess now. He’s picking me up.”
“I’m always up for a good ogle,” Claire said.
I snorted out a laugh. “You could be meeting Mel Gibson and Russell Crowe, and it wouldn’t rock my boat tonight.”
As we pushed through the front door, Cindy tugged my arm. “Hold on to your oars, honey.”
We all saw him at once. We all ogled, and my boat was rocked.
Waiting outside, looking altogether sexy and handsome, dressed entirely in black, was Aaron Winslow.
Chapter 50
I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. I stood there gawking. I looked at Cindy, then back at Winslow, my surprise slowly giving way to a blushing smile.
“Lieutenant.” Winslow nodded, cutting through the awkward murk. “When Cindy said she was meeting friends, I wasn’t expecting to find you here.”
“Yeah, me too,” I babbled back.
“We’re headed to the Blue Door,” Cindy said to the crowd, going through the introductions. “Pinetop Perkins is in town.”
/> “Terrific.” Claire nodded.
“Beatific,” snipped Jill.
“Anybody care to join?” Aaron Winslow asked. “If you haven’t heard it, there’s nothing like Memphis blues.”
“I’m in the office at six tomorrow,” said Claire. “You two go along.”
