Mary, Mary

the steering wheel, but at least she was safe.
    The Suburban had barely inched forward when, with a sickening crack, the front windshield shattered into a spiderweb of about a million glass pieces.
    An instant later, a heavy metal pipe smashed through the driver’s-side window.
    Paralysis overtook Alicia. Her arms and legs wouldn’t function. She couldn’t even scream.
    The impulse to floor the accelerator got to her brain a moment too late—about a second after her car door flew open and large, powerful hands dragged her out onto the street. Alicia landed on her back, the air rushing out of her lungs in a gasp.
    “What kind of stupid are you?” she heard someone say—and then she felt a shock of pain on the side of her head. Then she saw a pipe rise up high and come down really fast, a blur aimed right at the center of her forehead.

Chapter 69
    EVERYTHING HAD CHANGED suddenly and dramatically on Mary Smith. Jeanne Galletta was out; she was completely off the case. She’d been reassigned.
    I tried going to bat for her, but within hours of Alicia Pitt’s murder, she was history on Mary Smith. That evening, Police Chief Shrewsbury announced that he would be personally overseeing the Hollywood Stalker murders, and that Detective Galletta was on temporary leave pending an investigation into the unfortunate murder of a young Las Vegas woman driving a blue Suburban.
    Jeanne was inconsolable, but she was getting the full spectrum of experiences on the case, including a turn as sacrificial lamb. “The mayor of Las Vegas telling the mayor of L.A. to tell the chief of police how to run an investigation?” she ranted to me. “When did this stop being about professionals doing good work?”
    “Somewhere around the dawn of time,” I said.
    The two of us met for a drink around 8:00 that night. She picked the spot, and said she wanted to make sure I had everything I needed from her on the murder investigation. Of course, she also wanted to vent.
    “I know Alicia Pitt’s my fault, but —”
    “Jeanne, stop right there. You aren’t responsible for what happened to that woman. It might have come as a result of a decision you made, but that’s not the same thing. You made the best call you could. The rest is politics. You shouldn’t have been taken off the case, either.”
    She didn’t speak for several seconds. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “That poor girl is dead.”
    “Do you have any vacation time?” I asked her. “Maybe you should use it.”
    “Yeah, like I’m going to leave town now,” she said. “I may be off the case, but —”
    She didn’t finish her sentence, but she didn’t need to. I had been in her position before. It’s best not to say out loud that you’re going to break the rules. Just go ahead and break them.
    “Alex, I’m going to need my space,” she said. “That’s why I wanted to meet you here.”
    “I understand completely. You know where to reach me,” I told her.
    Jeanne finally cracked a half smile. “You’re a really good guy,” she said. “For FBI.”
    “You’re okay for a cop. For LAPD.”
    Then she reached across the table and put her hand on mine. But she quickly took her hand away.
    “Awkward,” she said, and smiled again. “Sorry, if I’m being goofy.”
    “You’re being human, Jeanne. That’s different, right? I wouldn’t apologize for it.”
    “All right, I won’t apologize anymore. I have to go, though, before I cry or something incredibly embarrassing like that. You know where to reach me, if you need to.”
    Then Jeanne got up from the table. She turned back before she got to the door. “I’m not off this case, though. I’ll be around.”

Chapter 70
    WEIRD.
    When I got back to my room that night, an envelope was waiting for me at the front desk.
    It was from James Truscott.
    I opened it on my way to my room, and I couldn’t stop reading the contents all the way there.
    SUBJECT: WOMEN ON DEATH ROW IN CALIF.
    There were fifteen at the moment, and Truscott included a brief write-up on each of them.
    The first woman was Cynthia Coffman. In 1986, she and her boyfriend robbed and strangled four women. She’d been sentenced in 1989 and was still waiting. Cynthia Coffman was forty-two years old now.
    At the end of the long note, Truscott said that he planned to visit some of the women in prison. I was welcome to tag along if I thought it might be useful.
    After I finished reading the pages, I leafed through them a second time.
    What