The 9th Judgment

"Okay, so we followed Dowling's car to Cow Hollow," Yuki said. "The car stops, and we have to drive past it, of course. We take a spin around the block, and on the return lap, I see Totally Gorgeous walking by herself to this extremely nice house. Dowling stayed in his car. He didn't leave until his girlfriend went inside, but the point is, he didn't walk her to the door. Clearly he didn't want to be seen."

Yuki paused for breath, took out a business card, and flipped it over so I could see the address she'd written on the back.

Conklin said, "We have his phone log."

I typed the address Yuki gave me into the computer and came up with a name and a phone number.

"Graeme Henley," I said to Conklin, and read him the number.

My partner scrolled down his computer screen. "It's here. He called that number three or four times a day all last month."

"Graeme Henley is probably not a woman," I said.

"So the girlfriend is married," Yuki said. "That's why he stayed in the car. Lindsay, Casey thought Marc was seeing someone. If he was, if he was serious, if he couldn't get rid of Casey... the girlfriend could be a motive."

"There's something else," I told Yuki. "I've got a witness who says Casey Dowling was alive when Hello Kitty left the Dowling house."

"You've got a signed statement?"

"It's an anonymous source but credible."

"Huh," said Yuki. "You have an anonymous but credible source who says Casey was alive when Kitty left the Dowling house. Who could that be? Oh my God. Kitty called you?"

"Uh-huh, and she told me things only Kitty could know. Have we got probable cause for a wiretap warrant?"

"It's a stretch," Yuki told us. "I'll go to work on Parisi. I'm not promising, but I'll give it everything I've got."

Chapter 77

YUKI GOT IT done.

A signed warrant for a wiretap was in my hands by lunch the next day, and within hours there was a tap on a phone circuit a couple of blocks from Dowling's house. Effective three o'clock in the afternoon, Dowling's phone calls were being routed through a small, windowless room on the fourth floor of the Hall.

The room was empty but for two Salvation Army-quality desks and chairs, a bank of file cabinets, and an outdated telephone book.

Conklin and I brought coffee and settled in behind a locked door. I was keyed up and bordering on optimistic. The odds that Dowling would say something incriminating were a long shot-but a shot we actually had.

For the next five hours, my partner and I monitored Dowling's incoming and outgoing calls. He was a busy lad, having scripts overnighted from Hollywood, schmoozing with his agent, his lawyer, his banker, his manager, his PR person, his broker, and-finally-his girlfriend.

The conversation with Caroline Henley was laced with "darlings" and "sweethearts" from both ends of the line. They made a plan to have dinner together the next week, when Graeme Henley was on a business trip in New York.

Then, when I was sure the conversation was over, it got interesting.

"You don't know what this is like, Marc. Graeme knows something's wrong, and now he wants us to go into counseling."

"I understand completely, Caroline. You have to stall him. We've waited for two long years, darling. Another few months won't matter in the big picture."

"You've been saying that forever."

"Three or four more months, that's all," Dowling said. "Be patient. I told you it will work out, and it will. We need the public to get bored with the story, and then we'll be fine."

Conklin broke into a grin. "Two years. He's been seeing her for two years. It's not a smoking gun, but it's something."

Chapter 78

I CALLED JACOBI from Yuki's office and told him that Marcus Dowling had been having an ongoing relationship with a woman, not his wife, for two years.

"Go get 'em," Jacobi said.

Conklin and I drove to Caroline Henley's place, a modern two-story house only blocks from the Presidio.

Mrs. Henley came to the door wearing her blond hair in one long braid, black tights under a blue-striped man's shirt, a big diamond ring next to her wedding band. A couple of little boys were playing with trucks in the living room behind her.

I introduced myself and my partner and asked Mrs. Henley if we could come in to talk, and she opened the door wide.

Conklin has consistently proved that he can get any woman to spill her guts, so once we were ensconced in overstuffed furniture, I turned the floor over to him.

"Marcus Dowling says you two are very good friends."

"He never said that. Come on. I've met him at a couple of cocktail parties is all."

"Mrs. Henley, we know about your relationship," my partner said. "We just need you to verify his whereabouts at certain times. We have no interest in making trouble for you. Or," he added reasonably, "we can come back when your husband is home."

"No, please don't do that," she said.

Caroline Henley told us to wait. She bent to talk to the boys, then took their small hands, walked them to a bedroom, and closed the door.