“Alan Beam committed suicide,” I said.

Hanni nodded. “We’ll treat it as a homicide until we’re sure, but according to this neighbor, Beam had attempted suicide before. She said he was terminal. Lung cancer.”

“And so he chained himself to the steering wheel and set himself on fire?”

“I guess he wanted to make sure he didn’t change his mind this time. But whatever his reason,” said Hanni, “it looks to me now like his daughter tried to save him – but she never had a chance.

“The poisonous gas and the superheated air brought her down.”

Chapter 109

BY THE TIME I got home that evening, I had too much to tell Joe and hoped I could stay awake long enough to tell him. He was in the kitchen, wearing running shorts and a T-shirt, what he wore when he went for a run with Martha. He was holding a wineglass, and from the scrumptious smell of garlic and oregano, it seemed he’d cooked dinner, too.

But the look on Joe’s face stopped me before I could reach him.

“Joe, I was at the hospital all night -”

“Jacobi told me. If I hadn’t found wet footsteps on the bathmat this morning, I wouldn’t have even known you’d been home.”

“You were sleeping, Joe, and I only had a few minutes. And is this a house rule? That I have to check in?” I said.

“You call it checking in. I call it being thoughtful. Thinking of me and that I might worry about you.”

I hadn’t called him. Why hadn’t I called?

“I’m drinking merlot,” he said.

Joe and I rarely fought, and I got that sickening gut-feel that told me that I was in the wrong.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re totally right, Joe. I should have let you know where I was.” I walked over to him, put my arms around his waist – but he pulled away from me.

“No flirting, Blondie. I’m steamed.”

He handed me a glass of wine and I took it, saying, “Joe, I said I’m sorry, and I am!”

“You know what?” he said. Martha whimpered and trotted out of the room. “I saw more of you when I lived in DC.”

“Joe, that’s not true.”

“So, I’m going to ask you flat out, Lindsay. One question. And I want the truth.”

I thought, No, please, please don’t ask me if I really want to marry you, please don’t. I’m not ready. I looked into the storm raging in Joe’s deep blue eyes.

“I want to know about you and Conklin. What’s going on?”

I was flabbergasted.

“You think I’m – Joe, you can’t think that!”

“Look. I spent an hour with the two of you. You’ve got a little something special going on between you, and please don’t tell me you’re partners.

“I worked with you once, Lindsay,” Joe went on. “We were partners. And now, here we are.”

I opened my mouth, closed it without speaking. I felt so guilty I couldn’t even act offended. Joe was right about everything. That Rich and I had a special feeling for each other, that I was neglecting Joe, that the time we spent together was more focused on each other when Joe lived a couple of time zones away than it was now.

Once Joe had made the commitment to move to San Francisco, he’d been mine, mine, totally mine. And I’d taken him for granted. I was wrong. And I had to admit it. But my throat was backed up with tears. This was the very thing that broke up cop marriages.

The Job. The obsession and commitment to the Job.

That’s what this was about – wasn’t it?

I felt sick with shame. I never wanted to make Joe feel bad, never wanted to hurt him at all. I set my glass down on the counter and took Joe’s glass out of his hand, put that glass down, too.

“There’s nothing going on, Joe. It’s just the Job.”

He looked into my eyes, and it was as though he was patting down my brain. He knew me that well.

“Give the sauce a stir in a couple of minutes, okay, Linds? I’m going to take a shower.”

I stood up on my toes and wrapped my arms around Joe’s neck, held on to the man I thought of as my future husband, pressed my cheek to his. I wanted him to hold me. And finally he did. He closed his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against him.

I said, “I love you so much. I’m going to do a better job of showing you, Joe, I swear, I will.”

Chapter 110

RICH WAS ALREADY at the computer when I got to my desk. He looked like he was in fifth gear, his index fingers tapping a fast two-step over the keys. I thanked him for the Krispy Kreme he’d parked on a napkin next to my phone.

“It was my turn,” Rich said, not looking up as I dragged out my chair and sat down. “Dr. Roach called,” Rich continued. “Said there were fifty-five ccs of gasoline in Alan Beam’s stomach.”

“What’s that? Three ounces? Geez. Is she saying he drank gasoline?”

“Yeah. Probably directly out of the can. Beam really wanted to make sure he got it right this time. Doctor says the gas would’ve killed him if the fire hadn’t. She’s calling it a suicide. But look here, Lindsay.”

“Whatcha got?” I said.

“Come over here and see this.”

I walked around our two desks and peered over Conklin’s shoulder. There was a Web site on his screen called Crime Web. Conklin pressed the enter key and an animation began. A spider dropped a line from the top of the page, made a web around the blood-red headline over the feature story, then skittered back to its corner of the page. I read the headline.

Five Fatal Shootings This Week Alone

When are the cops and the DA going to get it together?

The text below was a sickening indictment of San Francisco ’s justice system – and it was all true. Homicides were up, prosecutions were down, the result of not enough people or money or time.

Rich moved the cursor to the column listing the pages on the site.

“This one – here,” Rich said, clicking on a link called Current Unsolved Murders.

Thumbnail photos came up.

There was a family portrait of the Malones. Another of the Meachams. Rich clicked on the thumbnail of the Malones and said, “Listen to this.”

And then he read the page to me:

“ ‘Were the murders of Patricia and Bertram Malone committed by the same killers of Sandy and Steven Meacham?

“ ‘We say yes.

“ ‘And there have been other killings just as heinous with the same signature. The Jablonskys of Palo Alto and George and Nancy Chu of Monterey were also killed in horrific house fires.

“ ‘Why can’t SFPD solve these crimes?

“ ‘If you have any information, write to us at CrimeWeb.com. Diem dulcem habes.’ ”

My God, it was Latin!

“We never told the press about the Latin,” I said. “What does it mean?”

“Diem dulcem habes means ‘Have a nice day.’ ”

“Yeah, okay,” I said. “Let’s hope it’s going to be even better than that.”

I called the DA’s office, asked for Yuki, got Nick Gaines, told him we needed a warrant to get an Internet provider to give us the name of the Web site holder.

“I’ll buck it up the line,” Gaines said. “Just asking, Sergeant: You’ve got probable cause?”

“We’re working on it,” I said. I hung up, said, “Now what?” as Rich clicked on a box labeled Contact Us.

He typed with two fingers: “Must speak with you about the Malone and the Meacham fires. Please contact me.” Conklin’s e-mail address showed that he was with the SFPD. If the Webmaster was Pidge, we could be scaring him off.

On the other hand – there was no other hand.

I needn’t have worried. Only a couple of minutes after firing off his e-mail, Rich had a response in his inbox.

“How can I help you?” the e-mail read.

It was signed Linc Weber, and it contained his phone number.