The 7th Canon by Robert Dugoni Read Free Book Online

door, pounding on the glass. When the door didn’t immediately open, he felt his face flush and his legs weaken. About to knock again, Donley pulled back his hand when the guard appeared and motioned to the tower. Donley heard the lock disengage. The door swung open. He stepped past the guard into the hall, sucking in air, ripping loose the knot of his tie, and undoing the button of his collar.
    The deputy looked confused. “You done already?”
    “Yeah,” Donley managed to say, still struggling to catch his breath.
    The deputy stepped into the room and retrieved the chair. Exiting, he said, “Creeps me out, too.”
    Donley took back the contents of his briefcase. About to leave, he glanced at the narrow, wire-mesh window.
    The priest had shut his eyes.

Chapter 6
    Lieutenant Aileen O’Malley massaged her eyelids, careful not to dislodge her contact lenses. At 10:00 a.m., the damn things already burned, and the pounding in her temples maintained a steady beat that two Tylenol hadn’t come close to silencing.
    Gil Ramsey, San Francisco’s district attorney, stood with his back to her, staring out the glass wall into the homicide room, where detectives sat at cluttered desks. In the middle of the room, someone had set the traffic-signal light to red, but O’Malley knew that was wishful thinking. There would be no stopping this day. O’Malley had been going since getting the call at four thirty in the morning.
    Linda St. Claire, Ramsey’s chief prosecutor, sat across O’Malley’s desk, her bare legs crossed, foot tapping. John Begley stood in the corner, trying to avoid the wandering leaves of a philodendron plant.
    “Without a search warrant?” St. Claire shook her head. “I say we let the priest go and try Connor.”
    O’Malley buried her chin in her hand. On first blush, she and St. Claire had much in common. Both had succeeded in traditionally male-dominated professions by being smart and resolute. Tall, both of them kept in good physical condition. But the similarities ended there. O’Malley exercised because her job required she be in shape, her figure an athletic cut with swimmer’s shoulders and narrow hips. Growing up, she’d been the girl next door the boys wanted to play with. St. Claire worked out to further her significant social life, her curves defined under the tutelage of a personal trainer and augmented by a plastic surgeon. Growing up, she’d been the girl next door every boy wanted.
    “There’s no sense trying to make it better than it is,” St. Claire said. “Connor screwed up. How did he find out about the kid at the shelter? Anything we can use?”
    O’Malley shook her head. “Anonymous caller. Connor and John were on standby. Connor was in the office when the call came in.”
    Ramsey turned from the window, impeccably dressed in a navy-blue suit, white shirt, and silver tie that matched the color of the salt in his salt-and-pepper hair. He directed his attention to Begley. “What did the caller say?”
    “‘There’s a dead body at the shelter,’” Begley said.
    “Anything else?”
    Begley shook his head. “You can hear background noise, cars on the street, people talking. It was a pay phone.”
    St. Claire spoke to Ramsey. “What evidence we’ll be able to get in will depend a lot on Connor’s state of mind.”
    “Then pack your bags,” Begley said. “’Cause we’re going down if that’s the case.”
    St. Claire continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “We need to know whether, when Connor got to the building, he thought there could be more than one body, or if he had probable cause to believe there was something or someone in the locked office.”
    Begley shook his head. “Not likely.”
    St. Claire persisted. “There has to be something to justify his knocking down a locked door.”
    Ramsey jingled the change in his pockets, a habit. “The crime scene was the recreation room. It’s a stretch to extend that to a locked office across a hall. John’s