“So by the time she comes to me, she’s been through the mill four times, cut up, bruised everywhere, back and neck injuries, and I don’t know what the hell happened to the poor girl.

“So I’m asking myself, did the boyfriend tune her up, kill her, and then hang her to cover up the homicide? Or was it a suicide, and the trauma is all from the attempts at resuscitation?”

“What about the baby?”

“The fetus, yeah. He was too little, only twenty-six weeks old. Lived for a couple of minutes at the hospital.”

Loretta dropped off the menus and the chips. She told Claire she looked fabulous in royal blue and that I looked as though I needed a vacation.

I thanked her kindly, told her we were going to wait for Cindy and Yuki before ordering, and asked her to bring some bread. Then I turned back to Claire.

Claire sighed, saying, “Double homicide or suicide? It’s too soon to tell. I’ve gotta backtrack, interview all the first responders, ask what they actually saw —”

Claire stopped, and I turned to see Cindy come through the front door.

Her kitten-gray sweater set off her pink cheeks and her tousled blond hair. But I could read the worry lines in her forehead.

She was wondering if she and I were okay, or if we had a fight to settle.

I got up and walked toward her, gave her a big fat hug.

“I’m sorry, Cindy,” I said. “You were right to do that story on Garza. You were doing your job, and I was off the wall.”

Chapter 109

Chapter 109

A LITTLE LATER at our table, Cindy’s face looked electric, charged up, excited, and maybe a little scared. She was giving us a detailed update on the malpractice trial when Yuki arrived at Susie’s, very late, and looking like hell, even worse than me. She slid into the booth beside Cindy, who squeezed her hand protectively.

“You got here just in time,” Cindy said.

“In time for what?”

“I’m about to drop a bomb.”

As radiant as Cindy looked, that’s how totally drained Yuki looked in comparison. Her hair was dull, her eyes were shadowed, and there was a button missing from the front of her pale silk blouse.

As Cindy set up her tape recorder on the table, I mouthed to Yuki, “Are you okay?”

“Never better,” she said with a thin smile.

“So you’ve got your bomb in that little thing?” Claire asked Cindy.

Cindy grinned. “I can’t reveal her name,” she said, cuing up the tape. “But she’s a nurse who works at Municipal. Wait’ll you hear this.”

A bad feeling was coming over me.

I hoped to God that I was wrong.

The tape rolled, and a woman’s staticky voice came from the small machine.

Noddie Wilkins had dropped another dime, this time to the Chronicle.