by Gayle Wilson
"There's no reason to think he was waiting for you. Mrs. Patterson," Sonny broke in. His eyes said he didn't like what Mac had just suggested. "No reason to think any of this was directed at you."
"Except that it happened in my apartment."
"If he was waiting for you, then he would still have been here when you got back from the park. He was gone, which indicates he wasn't interested in you personally."
Mac knew they'd all like to believe this couldn't be Tate, considering it was the department's mistakes that had put him back on the street. "Or it could indicate he had a reason to leave before she arrived."
A flush of color began to spread upward into his partner's jowls. Mac wasn't supposed to be throwing a monkey wrench into the works. He was here on sufferance, which meant he shouldn't keep bringing up things the department didn't want brought up.
"A reason like what?" Sonny's question was derisive.
Mac stood up and walked across to the answering machine. He'd noticed the blinking light earlier, but he hadn't figured it was important. Now, however...
"I ain't sure they've dusted that," Sonny warned as he reached out to push the play button.
"If he'd touched this, it wouldn't still be blinking," Mac said, without looking up. He completed the motion, and the recorder kicked in almost immediately.
His voice. His message.
"Mrs. Patterson, this is Detective Donovan. I wondered if I could come by to talk to you for a few minutes. I'm in the neighborhood, so maybe if I stopped by say...around five-thirty, five-forty-five, I could ask you a couple of questions about the message that was left on your machine last night/'
Then the mechanical voice of the recorder stated the date and time. Five-seventeen.
Mac hadn't intended to give Sarah much warning. And he hadn't left his cell number, making it as hard as he could for her to keep him from showing up. He had figured he'd deal with getting her to let him in after he arrived.
"I'm betting that when you get the time of death, it's going to be close," he said. "I figure my call came in while the guy was here."
"You think that's why he left?" Sonny asked. "Because he heard your message?"
Mac could tell his partner was considering the idea. Did that make it more likely this wasn't a random killing? More likely that either Tate or someone set off by the publicity surrounding Sarah Patterson's attempt to bring her son's murderer to justice had been waiting for her to come home?
"I think it's possible," Mac said. "Especially if Mrs. Patterson doesn't find anything missing. That would pretty much rule out the burglary theory."
Nothing appeared to be out of place in the apartment. It hadn't been tossed by someone looking for money or valuables to pawn. Maybe they hadn't had time, but Mac felt in his gut this hadn't been a robbery gone wrong.
"You notice anything missing?" Sonny asked her. "Anything of value?"
"I don't have anything of value," Sarah said.
"Would your dog have let somebody come into the apartment with you not here?" Sonny asked.
"He's not a watchdog. When we got him, we thought maybe he'd be some protection, but..." She shook her head. "He turned out to be pretty much worthless for that."
"So what you're saying is that somebody could have gotten in, and the dog wouldn't have put up a fuss?"
"How would they get in? The door was locked."
"Locks keep out the honest people. Ms. Patterson. Somebody wants in your place, they'll find a way. Fire escape off the bedroom?" Sonny asked.
"Yes."
"You keep that window locked?"
"Of course."
"I didn't notice any broken glass," Mac volunteered.
He hadn't been looking for any. He hadn't been looking at much of anything except the blood and the grotesque positioning of that knife.
"Could have used a suction cup. Cut the piece out and then reach inside and open her up."
They were back to the burglary theory. The department would love for that one to work, only Mac didn't believe it. Not any more. And he was beginning to think Sonny didn't either.
"Was that your knife in the bedroom?" he asked.
"What?" Obviously she hadn't thought about the possibility before. "I think... I think it might be," she said softly. From what was in her eyes, she had allowed the image of the body to reform in her head as she tried to come up with an answer.
Mac glanced at Sonny, who nodded permission. "Could you check, please?"
"In there?" Her eyes considered the door to the hall.
"Wherever you keep the knives," Mac explained.
She rose and. with Mac following, walked into the kitchen and over to the drawer beside the sink. She reached out to grasp the pull, but Mac put his hand around her wrist. The bones felt as delicate as a child's under his fingers.
She looked up, eyes widened. Maybe she didn't like to be touched. Or maybe she didn't understand why he didn't want her to grasp the handle.
"There might be prints."
He inserted his ballpoint inside the old-fashioned open chrome handle, being careful not to touch the center. He lowered the pen until there was as much below as above the pull. Then using both hands, he slid the drawer out.
It stuck a couple of times, as wooden drawers tended to in this climate. Eventually he eased it far enough out that they could see the contents. There was a silverware tray with a few case knives, forks and spoons. To its side were a couple of longer, sharper knives.
"The big one isn't there," Sarah said, her voice very low.
Tate carried his own tools. The patrolman had discovered the suitcase containing them in his van after the accident.
Mac wondered if it had been given back to him when the judge released him. It seemed that even a system so flawed that it could put a killer back on the streets wouldn't return his implements of torture to him.
Suddenly, Sarah seemed to waver, swaying slightly so that Mac quickly put his hand under her elbow. "You okay?"
"Somehow that makes it worse."
He nodded as if that made sense. Personally, he didn't see how it could be any worse, no matter what the murderer had used or where he'd gotten it.
"Will this be on the news?" she asked, looking up into his eyes. "Will they give out his name?"
The fact that Dan Patterson was the father of one of the victims and that he had been killed almost as soon as Tate was released would have been enough to guarantee a media frenzy. With his wife having just tried to shoot Tate—
"I don't want Dan's mother to hear about it from the TV," she went on. "She's not well. This is going to be so hard for her. She lives with him."
"You want me to send one of the uniforms to break it to her?"
He could tell the idea was tempting. After a moment, she shook her head.
"I should do it. I should be the one. I owe her that much. After Danny died..."
"I'll take you."
Mac had surprised himself with that offer. Morel wouldn't want him within a hundred yards of Sarah Patterson, much less driving her around. Especially not considering the insanity that was about to break over their heads when the press got hold of this.
Besides that, the protective urge he'd felt since he'd seen her standing below him on the courthouse steps that morning hadn't lessened. If anything, it had increased. In his situation—
"Thank you. Do you think we can we do it soon?"
"Anytime you're ready."
Sonny wasn't going to like this, but he could handle his partner. They had no legitimate reason to detain Mrs. Patterson. No one had suggested she might be a suspect.
If what she'd told them about the kid and the park was true, she had an alibi. She'd been with the boy during the killer's brief window of opportunity.
That was something else he had wanted to do, he remembered. Talk to that kid. It might go better if she was with him when he approached the boy.
The kid knew her, and the parents apparently trusted her enough to let her take him to
the park. They might not want their son talking to the police, but with Mrs. Patterson there—
"I just realized that I'll have to take Toby." she said. "Is that all right? I can't leave him here. Not with..." She tilted her head toward the back of the apartment. "Besides, he's terrified."
Mac hesitated, thinking about the interview he'd been planning to sneak in on their way out.
"He's no trouble," she added, trying to convince him. "He'll lie down on the back seat and go to sleep. He loves to ride. He doesn't get to do that much anymore."
"So you're going to stay at your mother-in-law's tonight?" Mac asked. She wouldn't want to come back here, of course, but apparently she realized that only with his question.
"I hadn't thought. I guess I could."
"She'll be okay with the dog?"
"I can tie him up somewhere," she said. "I just can't leave him here."
"You want to get some things. Pack a bag, maybe."
Her eyes went to the open door, and he knew she was thinking about having to go back into that bedroom.
"I could do it for you," he said, again surprising himself. Her gaze came back to his face. "Nightgown? Toothbrush? Change of clothes?"
He didn't say change of underwear, but he thought it. And then, the mental question automatic, he wondered what kind she wore.
Which made him pretty much of a sick bastard himself, since it was her husband lying back there dead. Ex-husband, he corrected. Now very ex.
After a moment she shook her head. "I can borrow something from Louise. Right now I just need to get out of here."
"Why don't you get the dog and a jacket? I'll tell Detective Cochran about the knife."
She nodded, looking around the kitchen, almost as if she were disoriented. "That's the glass I found." She lifted her chin toward the sink.
"I'll tell him that, too. You go get your stuff."
He didn't want to leave her alone in the kitchen. The whole apartment was a crime scene, and this time they couldn't afford any mistakes. He put his hand in the center of her back, gently directing her away from the drawer where the knives were stored and the glass in the sink.
"Tell him this was Tate." she begged, her eyes on his face.
He nodded, and only with his agreement did she move. Not to the door, but to the dog.
The mutt sat up, expectant again, as she bent to unfasten his leash. And then, without releasing him, she knelt, burying her face in his thick coat.
Mac didn't understand what was going on until her shoulders began to shake. She didn't make any sound. There was just that small jerking movement of her body.
The dog leaned against her, relishing the human contact. When "we" got him, she had said. And belatedly Mac realized this must have been her son's dog.
Everybody had a breaking point. He would have thought Sarah Patterson had reached hers long ago, but seemingly, through everything, she had managed to hold on. Hold down a job. Keep a roof over her head. Take care of her murdered child's mutt.
Tonight she had come home to the life she'd had to rebuild, hour by hour, maybe even minute by minute, to find her ex-husband slaughtered like an animal in her own bedroom.
She was entitled to cry. And she was entitled to shed those tears in private, crime scene or not.
Ten
"I'm going to take her to give her mother-in-law the bad news. You got any objections?"
Sonny looked over his shoulder, his attention reluctantly pulled away from the removal of the shower curtain.
"Morel ain't gonna like it."
"Screw Morel. She doesn't want his mother to hear it from the TV. You aren't planning on taking her downtown, not tonight anyway. And she sure as hell can't sleep here."
Sonny delayed answering until the tech carrying the curtain had pushed past Mac, leaving them alone in the bathroom. "So what do you think?"
"I think you got a public relations nightmare on your hands."
"Jesus. Mac, you're starting to sound like Morel."
"I've been taking lessons."
"I meant about who did this."
"She says Tate."
"I know what she says. I want to know what you say. You were gonna talk to the FBI."
"They don't think he'd be leaving messages, but they can't rule it out."
"That's a shitload of help."
"The knife came out of the kitchen drawer." Mac told him.
"And Tate carries his own."
"You know what happened to his kit? The one the rookie took out of the van."
"Beats me. We're probably still holding it. That don't mean he's gonna come unprepared. He never has."
Tate was what the FBI classified as an organized killer, which meant every step was carefully planned and prepared for. Despite the mutilations he inflicted on his victims, that meticulous nature carried throughout the course of the crime.
There was no bloodlust frenzy that made him lose control. According to the profilers, control was what he was all about.
"If this is Tate—" Mac began.
"It ain't. This is somebody who saw what Ms. Patterson tried to do and wanted in on the action. Her ex just happened to end up in the wrong place at the wrong time."
"You need to think about that before you put it out. Sonny. Tell Morel to think about it. People aren't going to be comforted if you're telling them that we've got two killers out there."
"Almost any night you want to choose, we got a homicide around here. This one ain't any different."
"The hell it isn't. You don't think somebody's going to put this together?"
"Maybe," Sonny said. "But we're gonna keep 'em from doing that for as long as we can. By the time they do, we'll have caught the guy."
Mac knew Sonny didn't believe that any more than he did. "Call me tomorrow," he said.
"Getting involved ain't a good idea," his partner warned again before he could move out of the doorway. "That's friend-to-friend advice."
"Low profile," Mac promised.
"I don't mean involved with the case. This ain't no time to go tilting at windmills, Mac."
"The guy who did that was nuts."
"That's what I'm talking about."
"She's been through a lot."
"Which means she'll be ripe for the picking. That ain't your style, Mac."
Ripe for the picking. Vulnerable. She was. Maybe more than any of them had understood before.
"You think that's why I'm doing this? Why I'm taking her to her mother-in-law's?"
"I'm just saying now isn't such a good time to make a move on her."
Rage washed through Mac in a wave, out of proportion to the accusation. Because the accusation had come from Sonny, who ought to know him better than that? Or because it had come too close to the truth?
"Screw you."
Mac turned and walked back to the living room. Sarah was standing by the door, wearing her jacket.
She was obviously waiting for him. the dog's leash in her hand.
"Something wrong?" she asked, reading either his face or the stiffness of his posture.
"Not a thing."
Nothing beyond being on the outside of my own case while everybody else seems determined to botch it. And then getting accused of having ulterior motives when all I'm trying to do is help somebody out.
"You ready?" He managed, only because he was working at it. to sound slightly less belligerent.
She studied his face a few seconds more before she nodded. "Do they need the number where I'll be?"
"If they do, they can look it up."
Without thinking, he put his hand against the base of her spine, turning her and then urging her toward the door. Again, as she moved beside him, he was aware of how small she was. Vulnerable.
And no matter what Sonny thought...
He took a breath, fighting a renewed surge of resentment, as he opened the door and watched the dog pull her toward the stairs. No matter what Sonny thought, acting on his attraction to Sarah Patterson wasn't what this offer
had been about.
That was the last thing Sarah Patterson needed right now. And it would make him the kind of predatory jerk he had always despised. All he was doing was giving her a ride to her mother-in-law's. He doubted he'd see her again after tonight.
Maybe, he admitted to himself, that wouldn't be a bad thing.
"Why couldn't you just leave it alone?" Dan Patterson's mother said. "Why couldn't you let the police handle it? It's their job. Not yours."
"Louise, I'm so sorry, but...the police don't believe this had anything to do with what I did." Sarah's tone was conciliatory, but she was clearly thrown by her mother-in-law's reaction.
Of course, this wasn't what Mac had been expecting either, considering Sarah's worries about the older woman's health. Louise Patterson's anger was probably as much a product of her grief and shock as Sarah's unnatural calmness had been. The old woman's face had crumpled as she'd listened to the news of her son's death, but her tears had almost immediately given way to recriminations.
"I told you," Louise said, ignoring the hurt in Sarah's voice. "I told you that you had to let it go. I told you that more than two years ago, Sarah, but you wouldn't. Now see what you've done."
"Mrs. Patterson, what happened to your son tonight isn't your daughter-in-law's fault," Mac intervened, feeling that Sarah had been emotionally beaten up enough.
The faded blue eyes cut to his face, remaining there only a second or two before they returned to Sarah's as her harangue continued unabated.
"It wasn't enough that we had to lose Danny. Now he's killed Dan, too, and all because of you. Taking a gun to the courthouse like you had the right to shoot that man."
"I had the right." Sarah's anger finally broke through.
"That bastard murdered my son. and they just let him get away with it."
"And now he's killed my son. Now they're both dead. Or is that what you wanted all along?"
"Mrs. Patterson—" Mac said again.
"You know it's not," Sarah interrupted, her words stronger than his attempted mediation. "I never wanted anything to happen to Dan. You know that."
"I know you broke his heart. And I know he's dead. They're both dead. I hope you're happy. Sarah. You wanted to punish Dan for Danny's death. Well, maybe now—finally—you'll feel like he's been punished enough."