21st Birthday (Women's Murder Club)

by James Patterson

  Rich Conklin got up and followed me in, watched me vigorously clean out the coffee maker, refill the tank and the filter, tap the brew button with a vengeance.

  I said, “Any word on Burke? Please tell me he came home last night.”

  “No such luck,” said my old friend.

  During the years I’ve been partnered with Rich, we’ve both grown some stress-induced gray hairs. I plucked. He didn’t. A little silver looked good on him.

  He took my mug down from the high shelf and we stood together watching the coffee drip into the pot. It was hypnotic and I felt myself relax.

  He asked “How you doin’?” The Joey Tribbiani imitation was our shorthand way of saying “we’re friends.”

  I replied, “How you doin’?”

  “I asked first.”

  “Do I look ragged? I think I had 100 percent REM sleep. I was running all night.”

  “From or to?”

  “After, I think. I was chasing, not catching.”

  We took our coffee to a table that had stood in this room since the Kennedy years, kicked the chairs out from under, and sat down.

  Rich said, “Speaking of chasing, Cindy interviewed Clapper this morning.”

  “Good for her.”

  “Yep. It aired on KRON.”

  “What did Clapper say?”

  Rich was saying “Same old bull —” when Brady appeared right beside us.

  “Where’s Alvarez?” he asked Conklin.

  “She left her charger in her car. She’ll be right back.”

  Brady said, “I need alla y’all in my office, PDQ.”

  PDQ turned out to be under five minutes.

  Brady’s hands were clasped on his desk. Alvarez had retrieved her charger and was inside the glass box in time for roll call. We all were. Alvarez and I sat across the desk from Brady. Conklin leaned against the doorframe. Chi stuck his head in, read the tension in the room, and backed out without speaking.

  Conklin closed the door.

  Brady said, “There’s been another ugly-ass murder.”

  I was thinking, Tara.

  “Teenage girl, throat cut in her car in the parking lot at her school.”

  “ID on the vic?” I said, my mouth suddenly dry.

  “Yeah. Sorry, Boxer, I know you talked to her. It’s Melissa Fogarty, aka Misty.”

  I jumped up and shouted, “That son of a bitch!”

  Every cop in the department turned their head.

  Brady said, “Down, Boxer.”

  “She said she was going to break up with him.”

  He said, “You go to the ME’s office and take a look at the victim. Conklin, Alvarez, go to the crime scene. The car will be transported to the lab soon. Stay with the CSIs at the scene and then head out to Hunters Point and have someone there show you the car. Killer had to leave something at the scene, in the vehicle or on the girl. Y’all stay in close touch with me.”

  Alvarez and Conklin edged past and Brady shook his finger at me. “Get a grip, Lindsay. No mistakes.”

  I nodded, left Brady’s office, took the stairs at a jog, exited by the lobby’s back door to the breezeway that connected the Hall to the medical examiner’s office.

  Hitting speed dial, I left a message for Claire, saying, “I’m on my way.”

  CHAPTER 37

  JONNY SAMUELS SAID, “He’s changed in the space of a week, you notice?”

  Cindy had just wrapped her interview with Chief Charles Clapper outside the Hall of Justice. The building was gray granite and a pretty good backdrop in the morning light.

  Clapper had said to her and the camera, “We’re still looking for Tara Burke. The San Francisco Chronicle is running her photo on their website and in the print edition. Our tip lines are open. If you’ve seen Tara or think you know where she could be … Look. This is a twenty-year-old woman. She doesn’t have much money on her, if any. Her young daughter has been murdered.

  “We need the eyes of the people of this city to help us find her. Ms. Thomas will give you the numbers to call. Thank you.”

  Clapper thanked Cindy, and Samuels turned away and walked up the steps to the Hall of Justice.

  Cindy was going over her notes, figuring out her lede, and Samuels was looking at the raw video he’d shot when Cindy looked up and shouted, “Oh, my God!”

  Six or seven cruisers parked outside the building were suddenly backing out, tires squealing, and heading up Bryant. Sirens blasted.

  “Quick,” she said. “I saw Richie in one of those cars. We’ve gotta move.”

  “Give me the keys,” he said.

  She handed them over. They ran a long block to where they’d parked on Bryant at Sixth. Samuels opened the door for Cindy, then got behind the wheel. Cindy buckled up and grabbed the dash as the car lurched out onto Bryant, then went flat-out as Samuels headed north. They drafted behind the police cars for as long as they could see and hear them, and by then Cindy had picked up a few words through the static on the scanner.

  The words were “Sunset Park Prep.” Lucas Burke taught English Lit there. Cindy picked up code 10-10 for “ME needed,” but nothing for “shooter at large” or “ambulance needed” or “officers in need of assistance.”

  By the time Cindy and Samuels reached the school, cops had taped off the parking lot and were redirecting pedestrian and vehicular traffic. Samuels pulled into a metered parking spot outside the school and grabbed his camera. Cindy fed the meter and the two of them approached the parking lot on foot.

  A girl in her school uniform walked past where Cindy stood with Samuels, her head was down as she spoke into her phone, saying “I can’t believe it. This can’t be true.”

  She was in obvious emotional distress. Other kids were running out of the main building, hugging, crying.

  Cindy reached out a hand and touched the girl’s shoulder.

  “Pardon me. Can you tell me what happened?”

  The student said into the phone, “Hold a second.” Then she turned back to Cindy and said, “Someone was killed. I heard she was found in her car and that there was a lot of blood.”

  The student’s eyes were huge with shock.

  “I’m Cindy Thomas. What’s your name?” Cindy asked her.

  “Tina. Tina Hosier.”

  “Tina, this is Jonathan Samuels. We work for the Chronicle. Can we talk to you?”

  “Can you give me a ride home? My car’s in the parking lot.”

  “Sure can.”

  Cindy would have helped this distressed teen for any reason, and at this moment, she thought she had a better chance of learning something from this student than from law enforcement.

  Tina spoke into her phone. “Nana. I’ve got a ride. I’ll see you in ten minutes. Love you, too.”

  CHAPTER 38

  “SERGEANT BOXER,” I SAID, announcing myself to the ME’s new receptionist. “Dr. Washburn is expecting me.”

  “Just a moment, please.”

  I stared hard at the bodybuilder behind the desk as he made the call and kept staring until he said, “Go right in.”

  I thanked him, waited for the buzzer, then, pulled the door open and kept going down the hallway to the autopsy suite.

  Bunny was waiting for me, blocking the entrance with her size 4 body.

  “Here ya go, sergeant.”

  She held up a green surgical gown. I slid my arms obediently through the sleeves. She went behind me and tied the strings back and front. Next, she handed me matching booties and a cap, and when I was appropriately garbed, Bunny said, “Okay. You’re good.”

  She held open the swinging door and I stepped into the chilly tiled autopsy room. Claire stood behind the draped body on the table and said, “I haven’t started. She just got here.”

  I said, “I have to see her.”

  Bunny gently folded down the sheet, exposing the girl’s face, neck, and upper chest. Her eyes were half open. Lipstick smeared her lips. I groaned involuntarily. Misty Fogarty, the girl I had met for tea at four o’
clock yesterday afternoon, had been effervescent and then emotional. It pained me to see her dead.

  The murder weapon had opened a gaping wound, cutting through the arteries and musculature of her neck. There had been a lot of blood. Whatever hadn’t sprayed and pumped out to cover the interior of her car had stained her hair and chest.

  Claire watched to make sure I was steady.

  I said, “Give it to me, doctor.”

  She said, “Okay, sergeant. Okay. Based only on first look, unofficially, mics off, the slime who killed this young lady has the same signature as the one who killed Wendy Franks. First, we have the slashed throat from left to right. Same blade or type of blade. And the killer made some slits in her breasts, like with Ms. Franks. Serial killer gibberish. Or so it appears pending verification. As with the previous victim, that’s your cause and manner of death. I estimate she died last night between eight and ten p.m. According to the head of school, the car was in the school parking lot overnight and Misty’s body was discovered by security this morning.”

  I said, “I was with her yesterday for an hour, from four o’clock. She was asking me what to do.”

  “About?”

  “Lucas Burke. Remember Cindy telling us they were having an affair? I wanted to shake her. I wanted to warn her. I wanted to say, ‘Get the hell away from him. Transfer to another school. Destroy your phone, drop out of social media, change your email and your name. Disappear until Lucas Burke is locked up for good.’

  “But instead, I had the good sense to ask, ‘What do you think you should do?’”

  My voice broke. Bunny Ellis put her arm around my waist, and my best friend looked at me with terrible sadness in her eyes. Misty had been alive, vibrant, grinning at me yesterday. Now she was lying on a stainless steel table, her half-open eyes clouded over, mouth slack, blood still sticky in her hair.

  I struggled on.

  “Misty said ‘I should break up with him, right?’ and I agreed. So what’d she do? Looks like she makes a date to see him. I can hear her, crying ‘I can’t see you anymore,’ and him going, ‘Just a second, hon. I’ve got a surprise for you in the back seat.’”

  Claire said, “Speculating.”

  I snuffled, wrapped my arm around my face, then used the tissue Bunny tucked into my hand. After I’d mopped up and put the Kleenex in my pocket, Claire said, “Linds, it’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “I understand, but she was a potential witness against him. You had to be neutral in that diner. And you didn’t get her killed. If you’d said, ‘Don’t see him, get out of town,’ would she have listened? She didn’t have to see him. She could have called him or texted him or just walked away. You’re not responsible.”

  “I hear you. Anything else?”

  “Okay. There are no bruises on her that I can see. We bagged her hands. I’ll go over every finger carefully. But I haven’t started an external exam, never mind internal. You’re about five or six hours ahead of me, girlfriend. Any questions before I sneak you out through the ambulance bay?”

  I shook my head, whispered, “No. Not now. Thanks.”

  “I’ll tell you this right now and for free,” Claire said, as she gently covered Misty’s face. “Assuming this same guy killed both women. Whoever he is, whatever his motive, he’s organized. Calculating. Manipulative. He kills with deliberation and precision and deceit.

  “This dude doesn’t feel love. He doesn’t feel hate. He just likes to kill women.”

  CHAPTER 39

  LEAVING CLAIRE’S OFFICES behind me, I went for a long walk under the overcast morning sky.

  I took deep breaths, felt the pavement under my shoes and used the traffic on Bryant as a backdrop for my thoughts about Misty. I thought about being eighteen, falling in love with a seductive older man, a psychopath who specialized in English literature and teenage girls.

  That made me think of Tara, who’d been even younger than Misty when she married Burke. The search for Tara seemed to have stalled, which only made the daily calls from Kathleen that much more fraught.

  The Hall of Justice is cut on an angle at the corner of Bryant and Seventh. I climbed the granite steps to the glass and steel door, pulled it open, and went through security. Put my gun in the tray, my phone followed, and after clearing the metal detector I treated myself to an elevator ride to the fourth floor.

  Brenda handed me some messages.

  “Any bad news?”

  “If so, I wouldn’t tell you,” she said. “This messenger hates getting shot.”

  “Hah. I wouldn’t shoot you. I’d ask for a Kind bar.”

  She opened her drawer and handed me one.

  “Thanks, Brenda.”

  I flipped through the tip line calls she’d fielded as I went to the back of the squad room. Looking into Brady’s office, I saw that his elbows were on his desk and his phone was hard against his ear. I pressed my hand to his wall and he looked up, signaled me to come in.

  My morning coffee was still on my desk — cold, but I didn’t care. I brought it with me and sat down across from Brady and propped my feet up against the side of his desk. I unwrapped my Kind bar as Brady was saying, “Okay, Hallows, thanks.”

  Brady hung up. “Hallows. Letting me know they’re processing the car. Have all of Misty’s things. Bag. Clothes. Phone. Surveillance video from the parking lot.”

  “Misty told me she had a date with Burke in that car last Sunday night. More than once, I’m sure.”

  I told him about Misty’s body, what the killer had done to her, what Claire had told me.

  “She’s sure it’s the same doer?”

  “Not yet, but she says Wendy Franks and Misty Fogarty have the same MO. Exactly.”

  “Ah, sheet,” he said. “So we’ve got a serial.”

  Brady’s intercom buzzed.

  He pressed the button hard with his thumb.

  “What? Who?” He stood up so he could see to the front of the squad room. Then he said to Brenda, “Tell them I’ll be right out.”

  He sat down and pressed speed dial 1.

  “Chief,” he said, “Lucas Burke is in the house. Looks like he brought his alibi with him.”

  CHAPTER 40

  LUCAS BURKE STOOD in Brady’s doorway, shaking a newspaper at us, bellowing, “What in God’s name is this? Bait to get me here? If this is fake, I’m going to sue this city, and whoever planted this story is going to be very sorry. Am I clear?”

  I said, “May I see that?”

  Burke threw the late edition of the Chronicle onto Brady’s desk and I read the headline: “Slash-and-Gash Killer Takes Second Victim.”

  Misty Fogarty’s picture was centered on the front page. The stark headline punched me right to my heart. I felt light-headed and had to grip the edge of the desk.

  Steady, girl.

  Brady pointed at Burke. “Stay right there,” he said, before picking up his phone.

  “Brenda, are the interview rooms vacant?”

  To me, Brady said, “Sit tight. Be right back.”

  I sat tight as directed, but my brain was ranging.

  Cindy had written this story with no help from me or Richie, but still she’d gotten out the details of the murder, possibly attracting the interest of a copycat. Probably contaminating a future jury. If there’d ever be one.

  I heard Cindy’s voice in my mind; “I’m doing my job.”

  There was a tapping on the glass wall from outside Brady’s office and I came back to the moment. It was the woman who’d accompanied Burke to the Hall.

  “This is my ex-wife, Alexandra Conroy,” Burke said. “She called me when she heard that Lorrie was murdered. Do you have any suspects, sergeant? Besides me?”

  “I’m very sorry,” I said, dodging the question.

  Brady was halfway down the squad room aisle briefing Chi and Cappy. I collected myself. I stood up and introduced myself to Burke’s ex-wife. We shook hands, and I told her to sit at my desk. “We won’t be long.”
/>   I started gathering impressions.

  Conroy looked to be in her forties, about Lucas’s age. She was well put-together in cream-colored knit separates. She had sun-streaked hair, a sun-pinked nose, and she wore no wedding band. My take? She had free time. She didn’t get messy. And despite the divorce, apparently she cared for Burke.

  Burke wore a short-sleeved white shirt and khakis. His face and arms were burned to the point of peeling. Since the last time I saw him, he’d been exposed to the sun without SPF anything. Could be that he and Ms. Conroy had been lounging on a beach. Was it an alibi?

  I watched Burke clutch the newspaper, shaking it as he reread Cindy’s report of Misty’s gruesome death. He was muttering, making hurt sounds, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Why? Why her?”

  I said, “Lucas. Did you know Wendy Franks?”

  He looked up at me like he’d stumbled out of a dark cave into daylight. “Who? No.”

  I heard Brady ask Cappy and Chi to bring Ms. Conroy to Interview 1. “Take notes. I don’t want to wait for the transcript.”

  Brady headed back toward his office, shook hands with Conroy, and introduced her to the detectives.

  Then Brady said to Burke and me, “Let’s make ourselves more comfortable.”

  Burke said, “I demand answers.”

  “Same here,” said Brady.

  CHAPTER 41

  LUCAS BURKE WOBBLED, bumped into the walls of the corridor leading to Interview 2.

  I put a steadying hand on his back and he shook me off. My mind split again. I suspected Burke of these horrific murders, yet his grief and rage felt absolutely real.

  But if he killed these women — and his own baby — I would devote myself to nailing Lucas Burke, for as long as it took. Right now, I was glad to be partnered with Jackson Brady. He would sort out Burke and get to the truth.

  Interview 2 was the larger of the two interrogation rooms, with a water cooler and a small fridge as well as a dinged-up metal table and four matching chairs. The camera in the corner of the ceiling started rolling once we opened the door. I was sure that Clapper had been notified, and that either Parisi or an ADA was standing with him in the observation room.