21st Birthday

by Patterson, James

  “Where does he live?”

  “I got a birthday card from him on my fortieth. The return address was somewhere in Marin County. If I look at a map, I might remember. But logic tells me that he may have a place near where I live now. So that he could watch me, follow people in my life and kill other people to muddy the picture. Look. This man is a high genius. You have to be prepared —”

  I interrupted, “You have a picture of him? You have anything with his DNA? That birthday card for instance. The flap of the envelope?”

  “I threw it out. Took it down to the trash. But,” said Burke, “talk to the police in Marin County. He was arrested when Mom and my baby sister disappeared. They’ll have a mug shot, won’t they?”

  This was Lucas’s recollection. Police records might well show otherwise.

  Katie knocked on the office door, opened it, and said, “Mr. Parisi, you have a meeting with the mayor in five minutes. After you see him, you have a meeting with the victims’ families.”

  “Thanks, Katie. Yuki, you want to add anything?”

  “I do,” said Yuki. “If Mr. Burke didn’t kill his wife and child, he and Mr. Gardner can tell the judge at arraignment.”

  “Okay, then,” said Parisi. “Mr. Burke, we’ll investigate your claim, as far-fetched as it is. I suggest you and Mr. Gardner prepare for court. Sergeant Boxer, if you will be so kind, take Mr. Burke back to his cell.”

  CHAPTER 54

  THE TASK FORCE GATHERED once again in Swanson’s empty office at the end of our floor.

  I ran the story for those who hadn’t heard it.

  Brady stood with his back to the whiteboard and said, “Show of hands, who believes Lucas Burke is innocent?”

  No hands went up. And then, as if it had its own mind, my right hand lifted from the table.

  “Boxer?”

  “I’ve spent a lot of time with Burke. I don’t like him. But I find his emotional distress, over the baby, over Misty, real. When I’m with him, I believe him. Otherwise?” I threw up my hands. “I’ve struggled with this, you know that, lieu. So, it’s either that he’s a dirty old man who has positioned himself to date underage girls, end of statement. Or all of that plus he’s a gifted liar and a stealthy killer. Or all of the above and his psycho killer father is setting him up for a fall. Count me on the fence.”

  Brady held me in his ice-blue stare a beat too long, and then said, “I’m going to meet with the mayor. Boxer, you’re in charge. But this is how I see it. What Gardner said is true. We have only circumstantial evidence. So, if Lucas Burke is telling the truth, we need to find Evan Burke, bring him in and question the hell out of him. We do impeccable police work. Determine whether Burke Senior has a California residence. Check out his movements over the last week, down to the minute. What we don’t want to do is send the DA into court to arraign the wrong man.”

  Brady left the room and I took the floor.

  I divvied up the manpower, six teams and me, and assigned them to NCIC, ViCAP, and other databases we had at hand. Until we found Evan Burke, we would scrutinize every unsolved murder of every female going back fifteen years.

  The state of California had produced a lot of data.

  We hit the keys.

  A simple search for “Evan Burke” turned up sixty men with that name in California alone. We halved the list to men in their sixties, but that wasn’t enough.

  I reached out to Captain Geoffrey Brevoort, Marin County PD. Although Breevort quickly confirmed Corinne and Jodie Burke’s disappearance, Lucas’s memory of his father’s arrest didn’t match the records. Breevort had nothing on Evan Burke; no mug shots, no prints or DNA. He’d been questioned, yes. But his alibis had held up and the man not only cooperated, he was an emotional wreck.

  While I was on the phone with Brevoort, Conklin found a dozen Evan Burkes in the DMV so now we had addresses, birth dates, and best of all, photos of several dozen Evan Burkes in California. None of them resembled Lucas.

  And then, Alvarez found a California boating license for an E. R. Burke in Sausalito, six nautical miles off the coast of San Francisco. There was no photo attached to the file, no prints, but it was a place to start.

  I called Brevoort again and plugged into the detectives working on the Wendy Franks case, told them what we knew. I reached the harbor master in Sausalito, the one who had seen Wendy Franks taking her Sea Ray out with an unknown male passenger.

  I sent him a clip of the man in black who was captured on video in the Sunset Park Prep parking lot. Not good enough for facial recognition or any recognition, but hell, maybe the dim and grainy photo would come up as a “maybe.”

  It didn’t.

  I texted him the info Alvarez had turned up; name and numbers of the certification and vessel ID. The harbor master had no such vessel at his marina. He offered to check around and I thanked him.

  We broke for pizza, and then put our eyes back on our screens. The day moved so slowly that when Brady arrived back in the task force HQ, I was surprised that it was still light outside.

  Five fifteen to be exact.

  I gave Brady the rundown. “We’ve made some progress. No man called Evan Burke has a record. One did live in Sausalito and his wife and child did disappear and it is a cold case. Ten years ago, that same Evan had a Century Boats 30 Express and a license to operate it. He sold it. The current owner lives in the Caribbean. We do not have a current address for that Evan Burke, but it’s still more than we had.”

  “Good work, Boxer. Time to quit for the day.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah. And everyone try to go to bed early tonight.”

  CHAPTER 55

  OUR TASK FORCE of eight put place marks between pages, saved files, made notes for the next day, and we did it quick. Then we filed down the hallway to our bullpen.

  I phoned Joe from my desk and he said Julie had just had her dinner.

  “Want to meet us at the park?” he said.

  This was a question that made Martha act like a pup, and I was having a similar reaction. Park. Grass. Lake. Daughter, husband, and dog all together.

  “You don’t have to ask twice,” I said. “I’ll be home in fifteen minutes, traffic permitting.”

  Traffic permitted.

  My family was waiting on the front steps of the apartment building when I cruised to a stop at the curb. Joe opened my car door, and while Julie hung on to our old doggie’s leash, Joe gave me a big smooch.

  I locked the car, then picked Julie up and carried her for a full block, glad to stretch my legs and hear my daughter’s breathy voice in my ear.

  “We had chicken wings.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “Dad saved you some pie.”

  “What kind?”

  “Dad, what kind?”

  “Peach, right?”

  “Good. I love peach pie.”

  “Put me down now, Mommy.”

  The park was full of dogs and families when we got there, and Julie found her friend Chrissy. While they counted, named, and fed the ducks, Joe and I took a bench with a view of the children at lake’s edge and the surrounding park.

  My husband and I sat close together on a wooden bench in the twilight and I squeezed his hand.

  “Bad day?” he asked me.

  “Not the worst ever, but knotty.”

  “Well my day hasn’t been knotty or even tangled. So lay it on me.”

  “I’d hoped I could co-opt your brain for a bit.”

  “Ready and eager,” he said.

  I let it all out. Since I had free access to the former director of Homeland Security with years of experience with the CIA and the FBI, I thought maybe he could help me with my tricky damned case. I told him about the meeting this morning with Red Dog and Lucas Burke and his shark, Newt Gardner.

  Joe said, “Burke either has more money than we know, or Gardner is seeing a lot of cameras in this case.”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised,” I said. “Man killing his wife and baby isn’t ju
st tabloid news. It’s 60 Minutes. We’re holding back the other victims.”

  “So holding back on Misty and the sea-loving artist who’d lived in Sausalito?”

  “Wendy Franks. And that young girl from Boise, Susan Wenthauser. We can’t prove anything, not even motive. Maybe before the trial, if there is one, we’ll get some evidence. We can always hope someone comes forward on Franks or Fogarty.”

  “Could be very afraid.”

  “Yeah. But. Right now, we have a potential turn in the case you’re not going to believe. Picture this, Joe. Burke is in the hot seat, all of us sitting around Parisi’s desk. The meeting is over. We’re two seconds from leaving the room. Then Gardner whispers to Burke and then Burke said this, Joe —”

  I had to pause to get up and grab Julie before she waded into the lake. She and I had a very agreeable chat about the ducks, I said hello to Chrissy’s mom, then went back to Joe, who was smiling fondly as he watched this little scene.

  “You cliff-hung me,” he said.

  “Sorry. Where was I?”

  “Lucas Burke said something.”

  “Right. Right. Then he says with his lawyer’s encouragement, ‘I think my father killed my mom and sister and maybe others. I think my father is a serial killer and I think he killed Lorrie and Tara.”

  “His father?” said Joe. “Burke says his father killed his wife and daughter?”

  “That’s what he said. His own wife and daughter and Burke’s, yes.” I let him in on the day’s work. Evan Burke had an old boat license and no known address; I had a verified police report that Evan Burke’s wife and daughter had in fact disappeared and been investigated as a homicide.

  “It’s a cold case now.”

  Joe said, “So I’d look for patterns of several women disappearing in various places. See if Evan Burke lived in the vicinity.”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure. Might be able to find something like that if we had a computer wiz on staff or three of them who could just hunt for that.”

  We were both silent for several minutes, watching the kids, having thoughts of serial murder.

  Then Joe said, “I have a thought. Did I ever mention a guy named Berney?”

  “Don’t think so. Who is he?”

  “He was with the FBI, DC office, back in the day. We used to think of him as a magician of the dark side. He had contacts, informants, a network here and overseas. And a special kind of mind for detail. I think I still have his number.”

  Joe pulled his phone out of his jacket, swiped a few buttons, and a few seconds later, his call was answered.

  The two did some catching up. Where are you? What are you doing? How long has it been? Then Joe said, “Berney, here’s why I called. You remember my wife, Lindsay, an SFPD Homicide sergeant? She’s working on a case that resembles a black hole.”

  I didn’t have my ear to the phone, but from what Joe said, I got the impression that Berney’s network remained intact. He knew of the Burke-related killings. He also knew that Lucas Burke was on the hook for them.

  Joe said, “Could you run a check on the father? Name’s Evan Burke. And before you ask, I don’t have a location beyond our general vicinity.”

  Joe listened. Berney was doing the talking, punctuated by Joe saying, “Okay, I understand,” “Got it,” and finally, “Well thanks. I’ll tell her. You, too.”

  Joe disconnected the line.

  “Berney knows who they are. He said words to the effect that this is a dangerous situation — for you. I can’t swear but I think Burke and son might be an active case with the FBI. Or, maybe Berney has been aware of them for a while on an earlier crime. Lucas Burke’s mother and sister, say. Either way, Lindsay, be very careful when you’re around Lucas, and if you find Evan, that goes for him, too. Berney will call me if he gets anything solid.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s a lot.”

  With her usual impeccable timing, Julie ran toward us and climbed over Martha and into my lap.

  “Home now,” she said.

  “Home, now, pleassssse.”

  She laughed at me. So did Joe.

  Fine. We gathered our belongings, including Martha’s leash, and making a family chain with our held hands, walked slowly home.

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER 56

  WHEN YUKI’S EYES OPENED Monday morning, the sky was black outside her window.

  She checked her sleep tracker, and by that slight green glow she learned that it was just after four. No, no, no. Too early. Her head was swimming with thoughts and images, and the sound of Lucas Burke’s pathetic voice. She thought about the autopsy pictures Claire had shown her of Tara Burke, and before that, the heartbreaking images of Lorrie. She pictured Newton Gardner, Burke’s showboat attorney. Yuki knew that if anyone could get Burke off, it was Gardner.

  She fluffed up her pillow and closed her eyes, tried counting backward by sevens, but it was hopeless. Ninety-three, eighty-six, and then she was flashing on Gardner’s TV appearances and recalling a time she’d watched him in court. She’d both despised and learned from his attack-dog methods and his ability to captivate juries. They loved him. During recesses, he’d go out to the hallway outside the courtroom and manage the press. They loved him, too.

  Gardner would turn this Burke case into a billboard for himself.

  Yuki lay quietly under the bedcovers, thinking, dozing off, thinking some more, listening to her husband breathing beside her, dozing again.

  Next thing she knew, Brady was standing next to the bed, towel around his waist, saying, “Your turn, darlin’.”

  “Okay. Can you make the coffee?”

  She got out of bed, showered, washed her hair, blew it out, twisted the blond streak around her finger. All the while, she was organizing her thoughts, wondering if things would go much better for her if she just ignored Newt Gardner. Yeah, yeah, he’d hate that.

  Besides, this was arraignment court. Guilty or not guilty, how do you plead? And she thought about the judge, Vivian Kahn, a no-nonsense litigator, originally from LA, appointed to the bench in San Francisco three years ago. Yuki thought Kahn was the perfect judge for the job. She had personality. She could be acerbic, but she also had a sense of the absurd. And if Burke told the judge that his father did it, Yuki thought there was no way Kahn would take it seriously.

  But there was no way to know until she was standing before her, presenting the charges against Burke.

  Yuki slipped on her robe, checked the time. Only seven fifteen. She would have time to get to the office, meet with Red Dog, check her mail, and obsess a little more. Yuki found Brady in the kitchen dumping the dregs of his coffee into the sink.

  “A little high-test goes a long way,” he said. He scrutinized her expression and said, “You’ve got this in the bag, darlin’. I’ll try and git there to see you running over the defense counsel.”

  “Yeah. You always say that.”

  “Let me put it this way, then. I’ll do my best. But I can already see it. You’re gonna leave the courtroom glowin’. The press is gonna be all over you. Newt Gardner is gonna think he lost his mojo. That might give him a breakdown.”

  “You’re awfully cheerful,” she said.

  “I want Burke behind bars and I’m going to get my wish, that’s why.”

  “You’re going to jinx me if you don’t stop.”

  He grabbed her and kissed her.

  “Wear your blue Armani,” he said.

  “That’s why I hung it on the back of the door.”

  “Need anything before I go?”

  “I’m good. Keep your phone on.”

  Brady kissed her again and left the apartment.

  CHAPTER 57

  YUKI SLIPPED INTO her sharp blue suit and heels, then drove to the Hall, where she took the elevator to the second floor.

  Walking through the reception area, she took a hard left and saw down at the end of the corridor that Len Parisi’s door was open. When she got to his office, she tapped lightly on the do
or. Parisi looked up and waved her in.

  He was in shirtsleeves, tie loosened, a stack of paper in front of him.

  “Do you want to do a run-through?” he asked.

  “I’ve got it, Len.”

  “Clapper’s likely to show up. He’ll be standing in the back row near the door.”

  “Not a problem. What about you? Gonna come and watch?”

  “You’ve done a thousand of these, Yuki. You don’t need any help from me.”

  She smiled, thanked him, and walked down the hall, her shoes clicking on the linoleum flooring. She entered her office to check her interoffice mail. She closed the door, checked her makeup, her teeth, the blond streak just dipping over her eyebrow. All as it should be.

  Yuki wondered if she wasn’t a touch overdressed, but Newt Gardner would be, too. Showtime. They might have to wait hours for the case to be called, but when it was, the entire process might take five minutes. But in those five minutes she wanted to run right the hell over the defendant and get him remanded, no bail.

  Yuki opened her door again, and exchanged greetings with her intern assistant, Deirdre Glass. Deirdre was also wearing a suit, had put on some pearls with matching earrings. She told Yuki that the charge file was in order and looked eager and ready to go.

  “You want your briefcase or a folder?”

  “Briefcase. Let’s get this bastard arraigned,” she said.

  Arraignment court was on the same floor as the DA’s office. Deirdre carried the briefcase with the charge document and the two walked to the courtroom. A guard opened the door for them and Yuki and Deirdre took two seats behind the bar in the large and teeming courtroom. Yuki saw Gardner across the aisle with Burke. The attorney was doing the talking and Burke looked utterly confident.

  Not for the first time today, Yuki felt doubt.

  Defendants, court officers, and attorneys came through the room and took seats in the gallery. The press was visible crowding the seats at the back, and every time the door opened, Yuki saw the men and women with cameras and mics who were all here today for this one thing: the arraignment of Lucas Burke.