1st to Die

Cindy visits the San Francisco Writers Guild and makes up a story about her brother to find out if Nicholas Jenks registered a copy of Always a Bridesmaid with the guild. The receptionist confirms that the guild has a copy of the book.

Jill gets a court order to retrieve Always a Bridesmaid from the Writers Guild. Jill, Cindy, Claire, and Lindsay go to a coffee shop and divide up the book to read for potential evidence.

The main character of Always a Bridesmaid is Phillip Campbell, who is in jail for killing his wife and her lover. In the novel, Jill and Claire discover two depictions of murders that fit the Brandt and DeGeorge killings.

When Chris and Lindsay go to Nicholas’s house to arrest him, Nicholas takes a swing at Lindsay, and she easily knocks his feet out from under him.

After the press conference announcing Nicholas’s arrest, Chris finds her Lindsay alone in the squad room. They kiss and she invites him home.

Chris and Lindsay have sex.

Lindsay sits on her terrace and reflects on the past 24 hours. She and Chris briefly discuss the upcoming interrogation of Nicholas before returning to bed.

Lindsay returns to Nicholas’s home to review what crime scene investigators have found. They located the case of champagne and matched its lot number to the bottle from the Brandts’ hotel room. In Nicholas’s closet, they found a shopping bag containing trousers that match the jacket left at the Brandt murder scene. Finally, they retrieved beard clippings from Nicholas’s razor.

Lindsay takes the razor clippings to Claire. The clippings match the beard hair found inside Becky DeGeorge.

Lindsay, Jill, and Chris meet with Nicholas and his lawyer Sherman Leff. Nicholas claims that he lied about Kathy to save his marriage, that he was in Cleveland for a reading at a local bookstore and never went near the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and that he is being set up. As the meeting ends, Lindsay feels weak. She rushes to the bathroom and coughs “blood all over the sink” (314).

Lindsay attends Nicholas’s arraignment and is relieved when he is not granted bail.

Lindsay goes out with her friends to celebrate and finally tells Jill and Cindy about her aplastic anemia diagnosis.

The person pretending to be Phillip Campbell reflects on Nicholas’s arrest while removing makeup that impersonates Nicholas’s face. Under the disguise is a woman.