I met Rich and Cindy at Old Jerusalem Café, a coffeehouse on Irving and Fourteenth that had a wide assortment of coffees and teas and delicious Mediterranean pastries. I found Mr. Conklin and the future Mrs. Conklin sitting at a table waiting for me.

I said, “Hi,” slid into the seat across from them, ordered Turkish coffee, and braced myself for a confrontation. I hoped I could handle it without snapping.

Rich brushed his hair out of his eyes with his fingers and said, “Cindy told me. About Joe.”

I nodded miserably, looked down.

“You’ll work it out,” he said. “You will.”

“I’m sorry about what I said, Rich.”

“Yeah. It’s okay. Cindy’s got something for us.”

I glanced up, wondering what he meant.

“Lookit,” Cindy said.

She took her iPad out of her handbag, began to type. My coffee came and I sugared it heavily and then followed up the sugar with a triple dose of cream.

Cindy turned the tablet toward me. “It’s numerology,” she said. She showed me this equation.

1 0 4 = 5

“In numerology, you add the numbers together. One plus zero is one. One plus four equals five.”

“Okay.”

“Now,” Cindy said, “let’s look at six one three.”

She typed:

6 1 3 = 10 = 1

“I get it,” I said. “Six and one is seven, and three makes ten.”

“Right. Then you reduce the ten by adding one and zero together. That equals one.”

“Got it.”

Cindy was typing numbers. She said, “Now add the two reduced numbers together.”

5 + 1 = 6

I waited for drums to roll. Cymbals to clash.

“What does six mean?”

“It means number six. As in number six Ellsworth Place.”

I sucked in a breath. Cindy was referring to one of the four brick buildings adjacent to the main Ellsworth house, the detached houses that backed onto the garden.

“We didn’t have a warrant to search number six,” I said.

“Cindy spoke to Yuki,” Rich said. “Yuki thinks she can make a case that the original warrant should have included those buildings. That the compound is all one property.”

“I’m coming with you to the compound,” said Cindy.

Rich and I turned to her and in unison said, “No.”

“Yes,” she said. “The numbers are mine. Lindsay, you gave them to me and asked me to solve them, and I think I did it. If you want me to ever talk to you again, either of you, I’m coming with you. The answer is yes.”

Chapter 75

Chapter 75

YUKI AND I were in her cubicle at the DA’s offices in room 325, third floor of the Hall of Justice. I sat in a side chair, my white-knuckled hands clasped on her desk.

Yuki hooked her glossy black hair behind her ears, dialed the phone, and spoke to several people before she got Judge Stephen Rubenstein on the line.