It wasn’t hard to track down Joanna Jenks, now Joanna Wade. A search through the police files had her maiden name listed as part of the domestic complaint she had filed against her husband years before. A Joanna Wade was currently residing at 1115 Filbert Street on Russian Hill.
It was an attractive limestone town house on the steepest part of the hill. I buzzed, identified myself to the housekeeper who answered. She informed me that Ms. Wade was not at home. “Ehersizing,” she said. “Gold’s Gym. On Union.”
I found the gym around the corner between a Starbucks and an Alfredson’s market. At reception, a buffed, ponytailed staffer informed me that Joanna was in Exercise Room C. When I asked what Joanna Wade looked like, the staffer laughed. “Think blond. And kick-ass fit.”
I wandered in, and through a large observation window, spotted a Tae-Bo class in Exercise Room C. About eight women sweating in Lycra and jog bras were kicking their legs out karate style to loud music. I knew that Tae-Bo was the latest exercise craze, the biggest burn. Any one of these women looked as if she could take a resisting suspect up against a wall, then beat the patrol car back to the precinct with breath to spare.
The only blonde was in front. Trim, sculpted, pushing herself hard and barely breaking a sweat. It was her class.
I hung around until she finished up and most of the class had rushed out. She toweled the sweat off her face.
“Great workout,” I said, as she headed my way.
“The best in the Bay Area. Looking to sign up?”
“Maybe. First I thought I could ask you a couple of questions.”
“Try Diane up front. She can tell you the whole deal.”
“I wasn’t talking Tae-Bo.” I flashed her my badge. “I’m talking Nicholas Jenks.”
Joanna stared at me, flapping her blond ponytail off her shoulders to cool her neck. She smirked. “What’d he do, get caught shoplifting one of his books out of Stacey’s downtown?”
“Can we talk?” I asked.
She shrugged and led me over to a changing area that was unoccupied. “So what could I tell you about Nick that you couldn’t find out from one of his jacket flaps?”
“I know it was several years ago,” I said, “but you once filed a domestic complaint against him.”
“Listen, in case the paperwork didn’t catch up, I dropped the charge back then.”
I could see the terror of the moment exploding all over again for her. “Look,” I said genuinely, “no one’s trying to dig up old wounds, Ms. Wade. I’d just like a read on your ex-husband.”
“Up to his old tricks again?”
I could see her sizing me up. Was I an ally or a foe? Then she let out a capitulating breath and looked right at me.
“If you’re here about Chessy, I could’ve warned her. If he hadn’t been such a creep about how he dumped me. How did he put it, I write through her, Jo. She inspires me. You ever read his books, Inspector?” she asked. “She didn’t have to inspire him by holding a job down while he went off and found himself, did she? She didn’t have to read his drafts, deal with his rages when he got rejected, tell him every night how much she believed in him. You know where he met her? In the makeup room at Entertainment Tonight.”
“What I’m asking, Ms. Wade,” I said, “is how violent is Nicholas Jenks?”
She paused, looked away. When she turned back, her eyes had filled up as if she were about to cry.
“You know, you come in here after all this time and make me go through this again. What do you want me to say? That his mother didn’t love him? That he’s a screwed-up, dangerous man? Life with Nick…it’s so hard. He’s holding something in and God only knows when it’s going to come out. I would ask myself, Why? What had I done? I was just a kid.” Her eyes glistened.
“I’m sorry.” I truly felt for her. For both Mrs. Jenkses. I couldn’t even imagine what it was like to wake up and find myself married to someone like him.
“I need to ask,” I said. “What are the chances things with your ex-husband have intensified? Become more serious.”
She looked stunned. “Is Chessy all right, Inspector?”
“Chessy’s all right.” I nodded, making it clear I felt there were others who might not be.
She waited for me to blink. When I didn’t, she gave me a mirthless laugh. “So I guess we’re talking a lot deeper than pilfering a book from Stacey’s bookstore?”
I nodded again. Woman to woman now, I said, “I need to ask you a crucial question, Ms. Wade.”
Chapter 79
WHAT I ASKED JOANNA WADE was whether Nicholas Jenks was capable of murder. I couldn’t tell her the reason, but it didn’t matter. Joanna was a quick study. I saw the shock in her eyes. After she calmed, I watched her go through a thoughtful evaluation.
Finally, she looked at me and asked again, “Have you ever read his books, Inspector?”
“One, Fatal Charm. Tough book.”
“He lives with those characters, Inspector. Sometimes I think he forgets it’s only what he does for a living.”
I saw the self-judging look in her eyes. I leaned in closer. “I don’t mean to hurt you. But I have to know.”
“Could he kill? Is he capable of murder? I know he’s capable of completely debasing another human being. That’s murder, isn’t it? He’s what they call a sexual sadist. His father used to beat his mother in their bedroom closet as an aphrodisiac. He preys on weakness. Yes, the famous Nicholas Jenks humiliated me…. But let me tell you the worst thing, the very worst. He left me, Inspector. I didn’t leave him.”
Joanna leaned back and gave me sort of a compassionate smile. “I’ve seen Chessy around a few times. Luncheons, benefits. We’ve even spoken a bit. He hasn’t changed. She knows I know exactly what she’s going through. But it’s something we can’t share. I see the fear. I know how it is. When she looks in the mirror, she no longer recognizes the person she once was.”
My blood was at the boiling point. Through the tough veneer, I saw a glimpse of the woman Joanna Wade had been — young, needing, confused.
I reached out and touched her hand. I had my answer. I closed my pad, ready to get up, when Joanna surprised me.
“I thought it was him. Not really. But I thought of Nick when I heard about those terrible crimes. I thought about his book, and I said, It could be him.”
I stopped Joanna. “What book?”
“That first thing he wrote. Always a Bridesmaid. I figured that’s what brought you here, what connected him to the murders.”
I stared at her, confused. “Just what are you talking about?”
“I barely remember it. He wrote it before we met. I was lucky enough to come in for the second unpublished one, which, I’m told, he recently sold for two million. But this book I’d totally forgotten about until recently. It was about a student in law school who discovers his wife with his best friend. He kills them both. Ends up going on a rampage.”
“What kind of rampage?” I asked. What she said next made me gasp.
“He goes around killing brides and grooms. A lot like what happened.”
Chapter 80
THAT WAS THE PIECE of the puzzle I needed. If Jenks had premeditated these crimes, mapped them out in some early book, it would constitute unimpeachable knowledge. No longer circumstantial. With everything else we had, I could definitely bring him in.
“Where can I find this book?” I asked.
“It wasn’t very good,” Joanna Wade replied. “Never published.”
Every nerve in my body was standing on end. “Do you have a copy?”
“Trust me, if I did I would have burned it years ago. Nick had this agent in town, Greg Marks. He dumped him when he got successful. If anyone would have it, it might be him.”
I called Greg Marks from the car. I was really humming now. I loved this.
The operator connected me and after four rings, an answering tape came on: “You’ve reached Greg Marks Associates…” I cringed with disappointment. Damn, damn, damn
.
Reluctantly, I left him my pager number. “A matter of great urgency,” I said. I was about to tell him why I was calling when a voice cut in on the tape — “This is Greg Marks.”
I explained I needed to see him immediately. His office wasn’t too far; I could be there in ten minutes. “I have an engagement at One Market at six-fifteen,” the agent replied curtly. “But if you can get here…”
“You just stay right there,” I told him. “This is police business and it’s important. If you leave, I’ll arrest you!”
Greg Marks worked out of his brownstone, a third-floor loft in Pacific Heights with a partial view of the bridge. He answered the door with a suspicious reserve. He was short, balding, smartly dressed, a jacquard shirt buttoned to the top.
“I’m afraid you haven’t picked a popular topic with me, Inspector. Nicholas Jenks hasn’t been a client for over six years. He left me the day Crossed Wire hit the Chronicle’s bestseller list.”
“Are you still in touch?” I wanted to make sure anything I asked him wouldn’t get back to Jenks.
“Why? To remind him how I baby-sat him through the years when he could barely use a noun with an adjective, how I took his obsessed midnight calls, stroked that gigantic ego?”
“I’m here about something Jenks wrote early on,” I interrupted. “Before any big deals. I spoke to his ex-wife.”
“Joanna?” Marks exclaimed with surprise.
“She said he had written a book that never got published. She thought it was called Always a Bridesmaid.”
The agent nodded. “It was an uneven first effort. No real narrative power. Truth is, I never even sent it out.”
“Do you have a copy?”
“Packed it back to him as soon as I turned the final page. I would think Jenks must, though. He thought the book was a suspense masterpiece.”
“I was hoping I wouldn’t have to go through him,” I said, without conveying the basis of my interest.
I leaned forward. “How do I get my hands on a copy of that novel, without going to Jenks directly?”
“Joanna didn’t save it?” Marks rubbed a finger across his temple. “Jenks was always paranoid about people ripping him off. Maybe he had it copyrighted. Why don’t you check into that?”
I needed to run this by someone.
I needed to run it by the girls.
“Do you want to hear something really scary about Jenks?” the agent said then.
“Please, go ahead.”
“Here’s the idea for a book he always wanted to write. It’s about a novelist who is obsessed — the kind of thing Stephen King does so well. In order to write a better book, a great book, he actually murders people to see what it’s like. Welcome to the horrible mind of Nicholas Jenks.”
Chapter 81
THIS WAS WHY I had become a homicide detective. I rushed back to the office, my head whirling with how to get my hands on this lost book, when the next bombshell hit.
It was McBride.
“Are you sitting?” he asked, as if he were about to deliver the coup de grace. “Nicholas Jenks was here in Cleveland. The night of the Hall of Fame murders. The son of a bitch was here.”
Jenks had lied right to my face. He hadn’t even blinked.
It was now clear; the unidentifiable man at the Hall of Fame had been him after all. He had no alibi.
McBride explained how his men had scoured the local hotels. Finally, they uncovered that Jenks had been at the Westin, and amazingly, he had registered under his own name. A desk clerk working there that night remembered him. She knew it the minute she saw Jenks — she was a fan.
My mind raced with the ramifications. This was all McBride needed. They had a prior relationship with the victim, a possible sighting at the scene. Now Jenks was placed in his town. He had even lied under questioning.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to the district attorney for an indictment,” McBride announced. “As soon as we have it, I want you to pick Nicholas Jenks up.”
The truth hit me like a sledgehammer. We could lose him to Cleveland. All the evidence, all those right hunches, wouldn’t help us. Now we might only be able to tag on a concurrent life sentence at a second trial. The Brandts and the Weils, the DeGeorges and the Passeneaus would be crushed. Mercer would go ballistic.
I was left with an absolutely demoralizing choice: Either pick Jenks up and hold him for McBride, or make our move now with less than an airtight case.
I should run this up the ladder, the voice sounded in my head.
But the voice in my heart said run it by the girls.
Chapter 82
I GOT THEM TOGETHER on an hour’s notice. “Cleveland’s ready to indict,” I told them. Then I dropped the bombshell about the book Always a Bridesmaid.
“You’ve got to find it,” Jill declared. “It’s the one link we can tie in to all three crimes. Given that it was unpublished, it’s as good as exclusive knowledge of the killings. It might even parallel the actual crimes. You find that book, Lindsay, we put Jenks behind bars. Forever!”
“How? Joanna Wade mentioned a prior agent, and I went to see him. Nada. He said check out the office of copyrights. Where is that?”
Cindy shook her head. “Washington, I think.” “That’ll take days, or more. We don’t have days.” I turned to Jill. “Maybe it’s time for a search warrant. Blow in on Jenks. We need the gun and the book. And we need them now.”
“We do that,” Jill said nervously, “we might bungle this whole investigation.”
“Jill, you want to lose him?”
“Anyone know about this yet?” she asked.
I shook my head. “Just the first team — you guys. But when Mercer finds out, he’ll want to jump in with everything he has. Cameras, microphones, the FBI waiting in the wings.”
“If we’re wrong, Jenks’ll sue our ass,” Jill said. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
“And Cleveland’ll be waiting,” said Claire. “Make us look like a bunch of fools.”
Finally, Jill sighed. “All right… I’m with you, Lindsay. If you can’t think of another way.”
I looked at all three of them to make certain we were unanimous. Suddenly, Cindy burst in. “Can you give me another twenty-four hours?”
I looked at her. “I don’t know. Why?”
“Just until tomorrow. And I need Jenks’s Social Security number.”
I shook my head. “You heard what I said about McBride. Anyway, for what?”
She had that same look as the other night, when she burst into my apartment — holding the photo of Jenks and Kathy Kogut, the third bride. “Just give me until tomorrow morning.”
Then she got up and left.
Chapter 83
THE FOLLOWING MORNING, Cindy sheepishly pushed open the glass doors leading to the office of the San Francisco Writers Guild. This felt a lot like the day at the Grand Hyatt. At the reception desk, a middle-aged woman with the punctilious look of a librarian looked up at her. “May I help you?”
Cindy took in a deep breath. “I need to find a manuscript. It was written quite a while ago.”
The word copyright had set her off. She had written short stories in college. They were barely good enough to get into the school’s literary journal, but her mother had insisted, Get them copyrighted. When she investigated, it turned out it took months and was way too costly. But a friend who had published told her about another way she could register documents locally. He told her, All the writers do. If Nicholas Jenks had wanted to protect himself in his salad days, he might’ve gone the same route.
“It’s sort of a family thing,” Cindy told the woman. “My brother wrote this history. Going back three generations. We don’t have a copy.”
The woman shook her head. “This isn’t the library, hon. I’m afraid that whatever we have here is restricted. If you want to find it, you’ll have to have your brother come in.”
“I can’t,” Cindy said solemnly. “Nick is dead.”
Th
e woman softened, looked at her slightly less officiously. “I’m sorry.”
“His wife said she can’t locate a copy. I’d like to give it to our dad, a sixtieth-birthday present.” She felt guilty, foolish, lying through her teeth like this, but everything was riding on getting this book.
“There’s a process for all of this,” the woman replied sanctimoniously. “Death certificate. Proof of next of kin. The family lawyer should be able to help you. I just can’t go letting you in here.”
Cindy’s mind raced. This wasn’t exactly Microsoft here. If she had found her way to the crime scene at the Grand Hyatt, tracked Lindsay to the second crime, she ought to be able to handle this. Everyone was counting on her.
“There must be a way you can let me take a look. Please?”
“I’m afraid not, dear. Not without some documentation. What makes you even think it’s registered with us?”
“My sister-in-law is sure it is.”
“Well, I can’t just go giving out registered documents on someone’s hunch,” she said with finality.
“Maybe you can at least look it up,” Cindy proposed. “To see if it’s even here.”
The dachshund-nosed defender of the free press finally relaxed. “I guess I can do that. You say it was several years ago?”
Cindy felt an adrenaline surge. “Yes.”
“And the name?”
“I think it was called Always a Bridesmaid.” She felt a chill just saying the words.
“I meant the name of the author, please.”
“Jenks,” Cindy said, holding her breath. “Nicholas Jenks.”
The woman peered at her. “The mystery writer?”
Cindy shook her head, faked a smile. “The insurance salesman,” she said as calmly as she could.
The woman gave her a strange look but continued to punch in the name. “You have proof of relationship?”
Cindy handed her a piece of paper with Jenks’s Social Security number on it. “This should be on his registration.”