4th of July (2005)

by JAMES PATTERSON (with Maxine Paetro)

  The Truth waved a hand, a dismissive gesture. “Don’t jerk me around. Get me the goods.” Then, “Let’s order.”

  The waitress named Maddie pranced out onto the terrace in skinny hip-huggers and a tank top that exposed a smooth expanse of tummy.

  “That’s what I call a belly-blinker,” said the Seeker, his charm overshadowed by the hunger in his eyes.

  Maddie gave him a wan smile before refilling their coffee mugs. Then she pulled out her order pad and took the Truth’s order: scrambled eggs, bacon, and a freshly baked cinnamon bun.

  The Seeker and the Watcher ordered, too, but unlike the Truth, they only picked at their food when it came. They continued to speak in muted voices.

  Working the angles.

  Trying it on.

  The Truth stared into the fog, listening intently as a plan finally came together.

  Chapter 38

  THE DAY UNFURLED LIKE a yellow beach blanket. It was a terrible shame that Joe wasn’t here to share it with me.

  I whistled Martha into the car, and we headed into town for provisions. As we sped along Cabrillo Highway, I saw the sign: Bayside School, Department of Child Welfare, State of California.

  The big blue Victorian house loomed large on my right side. On an impulse, I pulled the car into the parking area.

  I sat for a long moment, taking in the house, the playground, the tall chain-link fence. Then I locked the car and walked up a gravel pathway to a heavy oak door.

  A very overweight black woman, probably in her midthirties, answered the bell.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m looking for Dr. Brown.”

  “Come on in. She’s in the teachers’ lounge. I’m Maya Abboud. I’m one of the teachers here.”

  “What kind of school is this?” I asked as I followed her through dark, narrow hallways and up two flights of stairs.

  “The state stashes runaways here, mostly. These kids are the lucky ones.”

  We passed small classrooms, a TV lounge, and dozens of children from very small ones to adolescents. It was a far cry from Oliver Twist, but still, that all of these children were essentially homeless was sad and troubling.

  Ms. Abboud left me at the threshold of a bright, many-windowed room, and inside it was Carolee Brown. She jumped to her feet and came toward me.

  “Lindsay. Good to see you.”

  “I was passing by and, well, I wanted to apologize for being abrupt yesterday.”

  “Oh, stop. I surprised you, and you didn’t know me from a tuna fish sandwich. I’m glad you’re here. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

  I told Carolee that I couldn’t stay long, but she assured me it would just take a minute.

  I followed her outside to the playground and saw that we were headed toward a pretty, dark-haired girl of about eight, sitting at a table under a shade tree, playing with her Power Rangers.

  “This is my daughter, Allison,” said Carolee. “Ali, this is Brigid and Meredith’s aunt Lindsay. She’s a police lieutenant.”

  The little girl’s eyes got very bright as she turned them on me.

  “I know exactly who you are. You’re taking care of Penelope.”

  “I sure am, Ali, but it’s just for a few weeks.”

  “Penelope is so cool, isn’t she? She can read minds.”

  The little girl chattered on about her pig friend as she and her mom walked me to the parking area.

  “It’s really cool that you’re a policewoman,” Allison said, grabbing my hand.

  “It is?”

  “Sure. Because it means you’re good at fixing things.”

  I was wondering what the little girl meant, when she squeezed my fingers excitedly, then sprinted to my car. Martha wagged her tail and barked until I let her out. Then she danced around Allison and covered her with sloppy kisses.

  We eventually separated child and dog, and Carolee and I made plans to get together soon. As I waved good-bye through the open window, I thought, I’ve made a new friend.

  Chapter 39

  THE WATCHER NERVOUSLY STROKED the steering wheel as he waited for Lorelei O’Malley to leave the house. It was bad news that he had to go in again.

  At last, the silly-ass woman exited her house in her shopping outfit du jour and locked the door behind her. She gunned her little red Mercedes down Ocean Colony Road without looking back.

  The Watcher got out of his car. He was wearing a blue sport jacket and slacks, dark sunglasses—what a field supervisor from the telephone company might wear. He walked quickly toward the house.

  As he had before, the Watcher stooped at the basement window well and pulled on gloves. Then, slicing through the caulking with the blade of his hunting knife, he removed the pane of glass and dropped into the basement.

  He moved swiftly through the house, up the stairs to the O’Malleys’ bedroom. Once there, he opened the closet, pushed aside a raft of dresses, and examined the video camera on the shelf attached to the back wall.

  The Watcher took the tape out of the camera and slipped it into a pocket. He took another tape at random from a messy stack of tapes on the same shelf, resisting the impulse to tidy the rest. Then he took a packet of photos from the nightstand drawer.

  He’d only been in the house for two minutes and twenty seconds when he heard the front door slam.

  His mouth went dry. In all his days of watching this house, no one had ever come back after leaving for the morning. The Watcher went to the closet and crouched beneath a shimmying curtain of skirts. He reached up and closed the door.

  The carpet dampened the sound of footsteps, and the Watcher was startled when the doorknob turned. He had no time to think. The closet door opened, the clothing parted—and the Watcher was revealed, crouching like a thief.

  Lorelei O’Malley gasped out loud and clutched at her breast, then her face darkened.

  “I know you,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

  The knife was already in his hand. Lorelei saw it and let out a piercing scream. The Watcher felt he had no choice. He lunged forward, the long blade popping buttons off her blue silk dress as it slid into her belly.

  Lorelei twisted, trying to escape the knife, but the Watcher held her tightly in what could have passed for a lover’s embrace.

  “Oh. God. Why are you doing this?” she moaned, her eyes rolling back, her voice fading to a sigh.

  Pressing his hand against the small of her back, the Watcher sliced the blade up through the soft tissues of Lorelei’s abdominal cavity, severing her aorta. The blood didn’t spray; it poured from the woman’s body like water from a bucket until her knees gave and she fell onto the shoes lining the closet floor.

  The Watcher knelt and touched two fingers to her carotid artery. Her eyelids flickered faintly. She would be dead in seconds.

  He had just enough time to do what needed to be done. He pushed up her blue skirt, took off his belt, and whipped Lorelei O’Malley’s buttocks until she was dead in her clothes closet.

  Chapter 40

  IT COULD ONLY GET worse, and it did. The Watcher sat in the van in a parking lot on Kelly Street across from the two-story house the doctor used as his office.

  He flicked his eyes over to the Seeker, who looked dazed and confused in the seat beside him. Then he surveyed the parking lot again. He nervously noted the shoppers, the few cars entering and leaving.

  When Dr. Ben O’Malley stepped outside, the Watcher jostled the Seeker. They locked eyes. “Get ready.”

  Then the Watcher got out of the van. He sprinted toward the doctor, overtaking him before he reached his SUV.

  “Doc, Doc, thank God! I need help.”

  “What is it, son?” the doctor asked, looking both startled and annoyed.

  “It’s my friend. Something’s happened. I don’t know if it’s a seizure or a heart attack or what!”

  “Where is he?”

  “Over there,” he said, pointing to the panel van fifty feet away. “Hurry, okay? Please?”

  The W
atcher jogged ahead, looking back to make sure that the doctor was following. When he reached the van, he wrenched open the passenger-side door, stepping aside so the doctor could see the Seeker slumped across the front seat.

  The doctor peered into the interior, reached in, and lifted one of the Seeker’s eyelids. He jerked in surprise as he felt the sharp point of a blade piercing the nape of his neck.

  “Get in,” said the Watcher.

  “Don’t say a word,” said the Seeker, charming, disarming, unflappable, “or we’ll kill your whole family.”

  Chapter 41

  THE WATCHER HEARD THE doctor’s bound body bump and roll in the back of the van as they climbed the steep road.

  “What about here?” he asked the Seeker. He checked the rearview mirror, then turned off the roadside into a niche between clumps of trees. He applied the brakes.

  The Seeker leaped out of the van, hauled back on the sliding door, and propped the doctor into a sitting position.

  “Okay, Doc, time to go,” he said, ripping the duct tape from his mouth. “Any last words? Or forever hold your peas.”

  “What do you want me to say?” Dr. O’Malley gasped. “Just tell me. Do you want money? I can get money for you. Drugs? Anything you want.”

  “That’s really stupid, Doc,” said the Seeker. “Even for you.”

  “Don’t do this. Help me,” he pleaded. “Help me, please.”

  “Help me, please,” mocked the Watcher.

  “What did I do to you?” Dr. O’Malley sobbed.

  A rough shove sent the doctor out of the van and into the grit on the side of the road.

  “It’s easier than you think,” the Seeker said kindly, leaning close to the doctor’s ear. “Just fill your mind with things you love . . . and say good-bye.”

  The doctor never saw the rock that caved in the back of his skull.

  The Seeker opened his knife and lifted the doctor’s head by a handful of salt-and-pepper hair. As neatly as if he were slicing a melon, he slit the man’s throat.

  Then the Watcher used his belt as a lash, striking hard, leaving brownish stripes on the bright white skin of O’Malley’s buttocks.

  “Feel that?” he said, panting over the dying man.

  The Seeker wiped his prints off the knife using the doctor’s shirttail. Then he hurled the knife and the rock far down the hillside, where they were swallowed by trees, brush, and tall rasping grasses.

  Together the two men lifted the doctor’s body by his arms and legs and carried him to the cliffside edge of the road. They swung the limp body and on the count of three launched it over the side. They listened as the body crashed into the underbrush, tumbling downhill to a place so remote it would lie hidden, they hoped, until coyotes dragged off the worthless carcass.

  Chapter 42

  I WAS ON THE front porch picking out notes on my Seagull when a god-awful clanking mangled my concentration. It was a tow truck, of all things, rattling along the peaceful curves of Sea View Avenue. I scowled until I noticed that it was towing a 1981 Bonneville.

  My 1981 Bonneville.

  The driver waved when he saw me.

  “Hey, lady. I’ve got a special delivery for you.”

  Ah. The man in the moon. The gas station guy. I grinned as Keith worked the gears that let the car down. When it was on all fours, he got out of the cab and came toward me with a little swagger in his walk.

  “So what makes you think you can make this jalopy go?” he asked, taking a seat on the step.

  “I’ve tinkered around with a few engines,” I told him. “Patrol cars, mostly.”

  “You’re a mechanic?” He whistled through his teeth. “Holy shit. I knew there was something neat about you.”

  “Not exactly a mechanic. I’m a cop.”

  “You lie.”

  “I don’t lie,” I said, laughing off the kid’s moon-eyed attention.

  He stretched a muscular arm toward me and with a cursory “Do you mind?” snatched up my guitar.

  Help yourself, buddy.

  The kid put the Seagull in his lap, strummed some chords, then belted out a few lines of a country sob song of the “My baby’s left me all alone” variety. He put so much ham into it, I could only laugh at his performance.

  Keith took a mock bow, then handed the guitar back to me.

  “So what’s your specialty?” he asked.

  “Acoustic rock. The blues. I’m working on a song right now. Fooling around with some pieces and parts.”

  “Here’s an idea. Why don’t we talk about it over dinner? I know this fish place in Moss Beach,” he said.

  “Thanks, Keith. That’s a nice idea, but I’m already taken.” I reached up and clutched the Kokopelli Joe had given me.

  “I don’t mind telling you that you’re breaking my heart.”

  “Awww. You’ll survive.”

  “No, it’s true. I’m smitten. Beautiful, a mechanic in her spare time. What more could a guy ask for?”

  “Come on, Keith,” I said patting his arm. “Show me around my new car.”

  I stepped down from the porch with Keith behind me. I ran my hand over the Bonneville’s fender, opened the driver’s door, and settled in. The car had a good roomy, comfy feel, and the dash was full of whizbang dials and gizmos, just as I remembered.

  “It’s a good choice, Lindsay,” Keith said, leaning on the roof of the car. “I wouldn’t sell you a junker. My backup toolbox is in the trunk, but call if you have any problems.”

  “Will do.”

  He flashed a sheepish smile, took off his cap, shook out his sandy hair, repositioned his cap, and said, “Well, take care, okay?”

  I waved as he drove away. Then I put the key into my new baby’s ignition and turned it.

  The engine didn’t start. It didn’t even cough, buzz, or whine.

  It was dead as a flat frog in the middle of the road.

  Chapter 43

  I MADE A SHOPPING list of the parts I’d need, and then spent the rest of the day bringing up the Bonneville’s shine with a tube of compound I found in Keith’s tool kit. I was supremely happy buffing dull brown into a high bronze gleam.

  I was still admiring my work when the evening paper came sailing out the window of a passing car. I backpedaled quickly and plucked it out of the air, earning a “Nice catch!” from the paper guy.

  I snapped open the thin local Gazette, and the bold black headline grabbed me:

  LOCAL DOCTOR’S WIFE STABBED TO DEATH AT HOME

  DOCTOR MISSING

  I stood rooted to the lawn and read:

  Lorelei O’Malley, wife of Dr. Ben O’Malley, was found slain in her home on Ocean Colony Road this afternoon, apparently the victim of a burglary gone wrong. The victim’s stepdaughter, Caitlin, 15, found her stepmother’s body in the bedroom closet when she returned home from school. Dr. O’Malley, a respected general practitioner and longtime member of the community, is missing.

  This afternoon, Chief Peter Stark asked the crowd outside the police station to be calm but vigilant.

  “There appear to be similarities in the recent homicides,” said Stark. “But I can’t comment because it would jeopardize the overall investigation. What I can do is give you my word, this police force will not rest until the murderer is caught.”

  In answer to questions from reporters, Chief Stark said, “Dr. O’Malley was last seen at around noon. He was on his way out to lunch but did not return to his office or call in. He’s not a suspect at this time.”

  I rolled up the paper and stared blankly at the pretty pastel and shingled houses on Sea View Avenue. My instincts were screaming. I was a cop without a case, a cop without a job. I didn’t want to read about homicides. I wanted firsthand information.

  I put away the tools I’d been using to polish the car, then I went inside and had the phone company set up a conference call.

  I was suddenly lonely for the girls.

  Chapter 44

  THE OPERATOR CONNECTED ME with Claire first, an
d her mellow voice warmed me.

  “Hi, doll. Sleeping in? Getting some color in your cheeks?”

  “I’m trying, Butterfly, but my brain is like a hamster on a wheel.”