20th Victim: (Women’s Murder Club 20) (Women's Murder Club)

by James Patterson

  They quickly, almost arbitrarily, cut the long list of possible killers into a manageable short list: A charge nurse who manned the ICU and cardiac station at night. An EMT who’d brought in 60 percent of the patients who had died. There was Murray’s favorite anesthesiologist, Dr. Quo, who checked in on post-op patients.

  But Dave’s opinion didn’t waver. Murray still held the number one spot.

  “Ray had a roommate when I was there with you. Abe somebody.”

  “Horowitz. Abe Horowitz. He was scheduled for a triple bypass the day after Dad died.”

  “You think he has checked out of the hospital?” Joe asked.

  “Or did he, you know—check out?”

  “Was Murray his doctor?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Joe got on his phone, called Saint John’s, and asked to speak with a patient, Abe Horowitz. The front desk put the call through.

  Joe reintroduced himself to the man he’d met casually the other week and said that he’d like to drop by for a visit.

  “Wonderful,” Horowitz said over the phone. “Ray said a lot of good things about you.”

  “Can I bring you anything?”

  “Nope, but I might have something interesting to tell you.”

  CHAPTER 83

  AN HOUR LATER Joe walked into room 419 in the recovery wing.

  “Abe, hi. How are you feeling?”

  “Ha. Like my rib cage was wrenched open and my sternum was cracked. Oh, yeah, and my arteries were rearranged, but I’m still breathing. Watch your cholesterol is my advice to you. Please have a seat, Joe.”

  Joe said, “I have a little gift for you. I think it’s going to have to wait until they let you out of here.”

  “Hey,” said Horowitz, examining the bottle. “Channing Winery Private Reserve Cab. I’m going to save that for a special occasion. Like the first night I’m home. My wife and I are going to drink to poor Ray.”

  Joe pulled up the offered seat and told Horowitz that he felt terrible that Ray had died, that Ray’s son was inconsolable.

  He said, “Dr. Alex Murray was your surgeon?”

  “Sure. One of a couple or so in the operating room. You know, what I wanted to tell you is that I had an out-of-body experience.”

  Joe said, “Really. I want to hear all about it.”

  “Okay, because it was amazing. I’m in the operating room, I guess unconscious. And then I was up above the operating table, my back to the ceiling, and I was watching the operation. You’ve heard these stories before, haven’t you? Patient dies and he hears what the people in the operating room are saying?”

  Joe leaned in, said, “Abe, you’re saying you died?”

  “I’m not just saying it. Dr. Murray told me. My heart stopped. I was officially dead. Yeah, believe it. I watched the heart-lung bypass machine squeeze my heart. They were listening to classical music, talking over the violins.

  “I was in a state of … I don’t know what else to call it but wonder. Or grace. I could see and hear everything, including the flat line on the monitor. Then here they come, regular beeps. My heart beating in my chest. A nurse says, ‘He’s back.’ I wake up in the recovery room. What do you think of that?”

  “Damned good story, Abe.”

  “And all true.” Horowitz laughed.

  Joe laughed with him. It felt great to be in the presence of a man so happy to be alive. He said, “So, Abe, Dr. Murray brought you back to life?”

  “God, I love that man. I’m only sixty-three. I have a lot to live for.”

  “Abe, Ray was a good friend when I was in school with Dave, and I feel awful that he died. Were you with him when he passed away?”

  “I’m sure I was,” said Horowitz, “but I was knocked out, so I’d get sleep before my operation. I very dimly remember a nurse calling, ‘Mr. Channing. Mr. Channing.’ I opened my eyes and called out to Ray, but she had closed the curtain. There was some fussing going on, as if she wasn’t supposed to be there, and then the nurse and an orderly, I think, wheeled him out. I said, ‘So long, Ray.’”

  Joe wanted to ask who else was in the operating room when Abe Horowitz came back to life, and what nurse and what orderly had wheeled Ray Channing’s body out of the room, but it felt wrong to do that. As if he were questioning Horowitz’s memory.

  And then he did it anyway.

  Horowitz said, “I heard voices but didn’t see any faces when they rolled Ray’s gurney out of the room. I do remember the sheet over his face. Now, when I was in the OR, I was just watching Dr. Murray. Everyone was wearing gowns and masks, but I know Alex. He’s been my doctor for ten years. Joe, why do you ask?”

  “Favor to Dave. He’s grief stricken.”

  The two men talked for another few minutes about Abe’s upcoming stay at rehab and how long Joe would remain in Napa. They were making small talk about their families when a nurse came into the room with Abe’s medication.

  Joe made a mental note of the nurse’s name, and after she left, Joe put his card on Abe’s night stand and shook his hand good-bye.

  He got into the elevator thinking of Horowitz saying, “God, I love that man,” and continued thinking about Abe Horowitz’s story about his life-and-death-and-life operation.

  Dr. Murray, the nice white-haired doctor with the metal-framed glasses and bright-red tie, had opened Abe Horowitz’s chest, cut away the arteries that had led to his heart attack, and effectively, scientifically killed his patient. After that, he’d reconnected the arteries in a medically precise procedure and, using a heart-lung bypass machine in an almighty-God kind of way, palpated his patient’s heart and brought him back to life.

  Joe had a new thought about Murray. If he was a killer, he was a very, very smart one.

  CHAPTER 84

  I’D BEEN PUZZLING all night about Brady’s call saying that the man who’d been shot in LA was a retired cop.

  I didn’t understand this twist in the Moving Targets’ MO, and I sure didn’t like it. I put my Kevlar vest on under my Windbreaker and kissed Julie and Mrs. Rose good-bye.

  I got to the Hall at eight, alarming the security guard in the lobby with my Halloween mask of a face.

  I said, “I got a few licks in, too.”

  The guard said, “I don’t doubt it for a second, Sergeant.”

  I held my face as I laughed, knowing that there was going to be more of this kind of talk as my bruises spread.

  Upstairs in the squad room, Conklin said, “You’ll be fine. You’ll be fine.”

  The repetition made me think otherwise, but I let it pass.

  “Who’s in with Brady?”

  “Detective Noble from LA.”

  “He flew in? Does Brady want us to join them or take Noble to the war room?”

  Conklin said, “War room. I brought churros. Only ate one.”

  He picked up the phone and tapped the keys. My long view from the front to rear of the squad room included the back of Noble’s head and Brady, behind his desk, picking up his landline. He and Conklin had a short exchange about logistics, then they hung up.

  “I’ll set up the room,” said Conklin.

  “Allow me,” I said.

  Conklin said, “I got it,” and went to make coffee. I sighed and walked to Brady’s office, steeling myself against his comments when he saw my face. I introduced myself to Detective Noble, who winced when he stood up to shake my hand and got a good look at me. Brady didn’t even blink.

  Noble and I walked through the empty bullpen to the war room, which was now wallpapered with photos of the sniper victims. Conklin played Inspector Mom, offering refreshments, including churros and just-brewed police department mud with a choice of flavored creamers. Then Detective Noble brought us up to speed on yesterday’s shooting.

  “It’s not in the papers yet,” he said, “but three people were killed yesterday. One was former LAPD narc Barry Pratch.”

  Noble showed us pictures. First one, Pratch was in his dress uniform, possibly for his photo ID. The second
photo was nearly identical to those of the other sniper victims.

  Pratch was spread-eagle, facedown in a street that had been cordoned off and banked by cruisers. He wore civvies: jeans, polo shirt, running shoes. His khaki jacket had reinforced shoulders, patches on the elbows—a hunting jacket or what you’d wear to a shooting range.

  I looked up and asked Noble, “Do you know anything about who killed him? Why was he wearing a shooting jacket? Please say you’ve got witnesses.”

  Noble said, “If only. No. The whole thing is odd. Pratch had been with LAPD for a decade but got written up a number of times for suspicious shootings on the job. Rumor had it, never officially stated, that he was using oxy, very likely taken off perps. Maybe he was selling, too. Wouldn’t surprise me,” Noble said.

  Clapper had said similar things about Detective Carl Kennedy. The only difference that I could see was that Kennedy had moved from LAPD to Houston and was on the job when he was murdered. Maybe Pratch and Kennedy had been friends.

  Noble said, “Pratch was about to get canned, so he took early retirement three years ago. But listen to this. He was going after the shooters. And he killed two of them. He was hunting down drug dealers like he was still on the job.”

  “What does this mean to you?” I asked Noble.

  “My theory is that Pratch took out two of the snipers and would have kept going. But someone, a third shooter, capped him first. Dead men don’t shoot.”

  Noble went on to tell us about the shooters’ bodies.

  One of the dead men had been found on the roof of a two-story office building. The other had been standing outside an apartment house. Neither of the snipers had been identified yet. But LA’s overworked Forensics Unit had photos, prints, and expended bullets, and would ID the dead men as soon as they could.

  “Which could be weeks,” Noble said.

  We refilled our coffee cups and kicked it around.

  Why had a disgraced police officer killed two trained assassins? How had he known them, and how had he known where they would be? Was he one of them? Had he gone straight and decided that shooting drug dealers was dead wrong? Or had he had Moving Targets in his sights from the beginning and joined them? Maybe he’d seen a way to redeem himself by bringing them down.

  All good theories, but where was the key to the answer?

  Would we ever know?

  Noble had said, “Dead men don’t shoot.”

  Correct. And they don’t talk, either.

  CHAPTER 85

  BRADY STIFF-ARMED THE door and burst into the war room, saying, “Barkley was just seen entering the Sleep Well in Portola.”

  I knew the place. The Sleep Well Motel was pinkish in color with a traditional motel design: a square-U-shaped building enclosing a parking area, which faced San Bruno Avenue.

  Brady snapped out his orders. “Take Lemke and Samuels. I can’t raise Nardone. Boxer, you’re first officer. SWAT’s on the way.”

  I followed Brady down the center aisle with Conklin right behind me. Lemke and Samuels were at their desks. Lemke’s jutting lower jaw made him look like an old pit bull. Samuels was round shouldered with glasses and could pass for an accountant. People underestimated him. They were wrong to do so. They were both good cops, inseparable, and now Lemke had a halo because one of his snapshots at the Barons’ funeral had turned out to be Barkley.

  Conklin conveyed Brady’s orders.

  Samuels forwarded their phones to Brenda, and the two of them grabbed their jackets. We were all hoping for another crack at Barkley. I wanted him alive and in the box because he was all we had—and he might be a key to the whole Moving Targets operation.

  The four of us jogged down the fire stairs to Bryant and signed out a couple of squad cars. Conklin took the wheel of ours and we went to Code 3, switching on our sirens and flashers, Conklin stepping on the gas.

  I reported in, requesting a dedicated channel, and signed off. A minute later four-codes streamed over the speaker. Officer needs emergency help. Send ambulance. Requested assistance responding. A second request, send ambulance.

  Traffic parted ahead of us, and within ten minutes we were on the main road through Portola, a working-class neighborhood on the edge of the city. We flew past the small businesses—shoe repair shop, bakeries, grocery store, a couple of restaurants—and then I saw the blinking neon sign up ahead.

  SLEEP WELL MOTEL. VACANCIES. FREE WI-FI.

  By the time we arrived, the motel’s parking lot was filled with law enforcement vehicles and cops on foot who were attempting to clear the area of bystanders.

  My job as primary responder was to stabilize the scene, secure it for CSI, and determine what had happened for the record and for the lead investigator, who, please God, wouldn’t be me. I reached out to Clapper and filled him in. “We need prints right away.”

  “In a motel room. Wish us luck.”

  “All the luck in the world.”

  I looked past the cruisers, ambulances, and guest vehicles, trying to get a fix on what the hell had gone down. Where was Nardone? Brady had said Barkley had been seen. Given time spent relaying orders and driving through noon traffic, it was a fair bet that Barkley was long gone.

  I was out of the car before Conklin fully braked. I hobbled on my twisted ankle to the ambulance that was taking on a patient. The paramedic wouldn’t let me inside.

  “He’s got a head injury. Please. Get out of our way.”

  “What’s his name? What’s his name?”

  “Glenn Healy. Officer Healy.”

  “Where are you taking him?”

  “Zuckerberg San Francisco General.”

  The rear doors closed, sirens shrieked, and the bus moved onto the main road. Someone called out to me.

  “Sergeant Boxer. Over here.”

  Sergeant Robert Nardone was sitting on the third step of a staircase running from the parking area to the second floor. Cleaning supplies and toiletries were heaped around Nardone’s feet as if Mr. Clean and Bed Bath & Beyond had purged their trucks, haphazardly flinging samples across the area.

  My eyes were drawn to an overturned housekeeper’s cart that had crashed into a vintage Buick some twenty feet from the foot of the stairs. That explained the toiletries.

  But I still couldn’t picture what had happened here.

  Nardone would have to tell me.

  I asked him, “Bob, are you all right?”

  “We lost him, Boxer. Bastard stole our car and booked.”

  CHAPTER 86

  NARDONE WAS PALE and had a nasty abrasion down the left side of his face, and he was holding his left arm tightly to his chest.

  Any minute now paramedics would load him into an ambulance, but I held on to hope that before then I’d get his statement. I’d known Sergeant Robert Nardone for years. He had a sharp eye, worked hard, and was angling for a job in Homicide. Although he’d been injured, he was sitting up, speaking, and seemed to be tracking the scene as it devolved.

  I said, “Nardone. Are you okay?”

  “Good enough.”

  “The guy who did this. Was it Barkley?”

  “I forgot to ask for his ID.”

  Sarcasm was a good sign. Nardone had a gift for it.

  I brushed little bars of soap, bottles of shampoo, sponges, and a spray bottle off a step and sat down beside him. I now had a wide view of the parking lot.

  Tourists, paying guests, and local looky-loos meandered across the two hundred square feet of asphalt, stepping on possible evidence and getting in the way of the cops who were doing their best to clear and cordon off the area. No one was taking witness names or statements. A lot rested on what Nardone had to tell me.

  EMTs with lights flashing and sirens whooping filed into the area, and civilian drivers leaned on their horns as they tried to leave.

  I told Nardone I was concerned that Barkley had hijacked a police cruiser. An armed criminal driving a patrol car could speed without being stopped, could pull drivers over, and if he could get them to st
ep out of their vehicle, he could rob them, kill them, take their car. That stolen black-and-white made Leonard Barkley more dangerous than before.

  Nardone gave me his car’s tag number and I called it in, requesting an APB, forthwith. And now I saw another victim. Standing beside the second bus, Lemke and Samuels talked to a patient who was strapped onto a gurney. She was sobbing, and I saw blood running down an arm.

  I turned back to Nardone. “Who is she?”

  “Housekeeper. Accidental casualty.”

  He’d dropped the bravado and was fixing me with a hurt look in his eyes.

  “He kicked the shit out of us, Boxer, and took everything but our skivvies. Healy got the worst of it. Way worse.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Please start at the beginning.”

  Nardone sighed and gingerly touched his face with his fingertips.

  When he was ready, he said, “Healy was driving. We were looking for a coffee shop when I saw a guy looked like Barkley cross the road, heading to the motel. I was pretty sure it was him, but the picture I have of Barkley, the dude had a beard.”

  “Yep. He shaved. Go on.”

  “So we pulled in the lot and saw him take the stairs to the second floor and enter room 208. You can see it at the head of the stairs. We parked over there, where we could watch the room, and I called in a sighting of a suspect wanted for questioning, and we requested backup.”

  “But he saw you, right?”

  “Yeah. He peeks through the curtain, then opens the door, and I see him assessing his next steps. He’s going to either bolt for the elevator at the end of the building. Or he’s going to vault over the railing. Healy and I get out of the car, draw our weapons, and I yell, ‘Stay where you are. Show us your hands.’

  “That’s when the cleaning woman comes out of room 206 and slow-walks her cart along the second-floor walkway, blocking our view of the suspect. She’s wearing earbuds and she’s humming. I can’t see around her, and she doesn’t hear me.”