12th of Never wmc-12

by James Patterson

  “Cindy kicked you out?”

  “We broke up after I crashed your dinner at Susie’s.”

  “So that’s what happened. I haven’t spoken with Cindy since then.”

  Rich sighed. “I don’t know what I’m doing. Should I rent a place? Should I live in my truck for a while until I know what to do with myself?”

  Claire said, “I didn’t see this coming, Richie. Cindy’s always been crazy in love with you—and I thought vice versa.”

  He sighed again. “She’s changed.”

  “Uh-huh. You seeing that girl with the curly black hair?”

  “Morales?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “What makes you think I’m seeing her?”

  “She looks at you like you poop rainbows.”

  “Yeah. Well, it’s complicated.”

  “Oh. How’s that?”

  “She’s got a little boy. And she’s still in school. I don’t know. There was a spark that took hold and you know, it just feels good to have someone look at me like I’m special. Especially when Cindy is always in her own world, by herself.”

  “You sleeping with Morales?”

  No answer from Richie.

  “Look at me,” Claire said.

  Rich did what she asked. His eyes were bleary. He didn’t even look happy.

  “People go through stages. It’s hard to find someone like Cindy, someone you love and trust. No one gets to have a relationship all their way all the time.”

  “I like kids,” Richie said. “I like kids a lot. It’s not a phase I’m going through.”

  There was a tap on Richie’s window. Lindsay was right there and Claire could see she was feeling crabby. Rich buzzed down the window.

  “Let’s go, okay?” Lindsay said. “I want to get back to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  Chapter 62

  THE COOLER WAS packed, what with everyone in there. Conklin, Claire, her two investigators, and I were grouped around a stainless steel table between stacks of drawers full of dead people. No coffee allowed. I needed coffee.

  The investigators were used to the walls of dead people, and to having no caffeine. They were eager to prove themselves.

  Jessica Kain was young and trim, and wore black tights, a baby-doll dress under a thin cotton jacket, and sunglasses pushed up in her streaked blond hair. Jay Dedrick was dark-haired, wiry, and had a tattoo of his wife’s name on his wrist—Jackie.

  The two were friends, but definitely competitive.

  Dedrick took the lead.

  “We went through every inch of Kennedy’s house. Faye Farmer lived there, too, but it was his house and most of the stuff was his. We went through his closets, his garage, the crawl spaces.

  “He left his computer on and we went through that. He said he didn’t care what we looked at; he had nothing to do with Faye’s death and didn’t know who did. We selected some of his DVDs at random. All of them were football games.

  “Bottom line on the search of Kennedy’s house: we found nothing indicating that he was planning to kill his girlfriend.”

  Kain pushed up the sleeves of her jacket, even though it was about forty-six degrees Fahrenheit in the cold storage. She said, “We dumped their phones. There was a call from Kennedy to Farmer at two forty-five on the morning of the shooting. She answered the call. Took fourteen seconds.”

  I said, “Long enough for him to say, ‘Don’t be a bitch’ and for her to say, ‘Screw you.’”

  Kain said, “That was the last call either one of them made or received that night. Kennedy got a call at seven sixteen a.m. from his sister in Seattle. Then he got calls from everyone in the world. Same for Faye, but she wasn’t taking calls by then. She was here.”

  Dedrick looked at notes on his tablet and read out names of the male partygoers they had interviewed, some of whom I knew from watching them play ball. Dedrick said he spent a few hours with Niners’ quarterback Calvin Sandler. Whenever Kennedy was spotted in a club or a restaurant, he was either with his fiancée or Cal Sandler or both.

  Dedrick told us, “Sandler said, and I quote, ‘This whole effing thing is effed up. Jeff was at his effing party the whole effing day and night and he never effing left.’

  “Sandler corroborates Kennedy’s story and says that he was with Kennedy when Faye Farmer stomped off,” Dedrick said.

  Kain listed the women guests, including Linda Banks, the “extra woman” whose flirting had detonated the Faye Farmer explosion. Banks, too, corroborated that Farmer had left in a huff.

  “Did Faye have any enemies?” I asked. “Did anyone want to kill her?”

  “Both Farmer and Kennedy had haters,” said Kain. “They each had thousands of followers on Facebook and Twitter. Also, there was a rumor that Faye might have been seeing some guy in the movie business. He’s a mystery man, if he even exists. I couldn’t find out his name.”

  I said, “So maybe Faye had an unknown admirer and she and Kennedy had at least a billion virtual fans. This just keeps getting better.”

  Claire spoke up. “What about Tracey Pendleton? Find out anything on my former security guard?”

  Dedrick said, “Pendleton has vanished. She has not used her credit card. She has not taken out any of the hundred and forty-five dollars she has in her checking account, and she has not used her phone. There’s no sign of her car, either.”

  Claire said, “Is she afraid to call in because she let the body snatcher into the morgue? Or is she drinking off a big paycheck for letting someone steal Faye Farmer’s body?”

  I was pretty sure that Tracey Pendleton knew who killed Faye Farmer because she opened the door and let someone in. That someone was either the killer, or a fixer who’d come to clean up for the killer.

  I was saying, “Tracey was likely collateral damage,” when the door behind me opened and FBI honcho Ron Parker poked his head in.

  “‘Scuse me, Lindsay. May I have a word?”

  Ah, nuts. What did he want now?

  Chapter 63

  I EXCUSED MYSELF, went out of the room, and asked Ron Parker what was up.

  He said, “There’s been a development.”

  Parker was wearing his weekend clothes—chinos, pink polo shirt, sunglasses hanging on the placket. He was looking at me as though he were about to open a trapdoor under my feet.

  I said, “You bring good news, I’m sure.”

  “It could be good.”

  I didn’t believe it for a second. I said, “Please don’t ask me to see Fish again.”

  “You’ve cast some kind of spell on him, Lindsay. He loves you, or maybe that beat-down you gave him turned him on. He says he’s willing to help us—meaning you—locate the bodies in this neck of the woods. Those are his words.”

  “I already went to see him, Ron. He got over on us, and now I’m done with Randolph Fish.”

  “He says he’ll give up names of girls we didn’t know we were missing. This is important. It’s an opportunity to close out some ugly cold cases. I don’t see how we can turn him down.”

  “Ron, c’mon. He’s jerking us around.” “I don’t think so.”

  “Really?”

  “I told him that if he fucked us over, I’d have him transferred to the Q.”

  San Quentin is the oldest prison in California, with a death row that is the most decrepit, overpopulated hellhole imaginable. Originally built to hold forty-five prisoners, it now has a population of 725 convicted killers and more condemned dirtbags on the way every week.

  Fish wouldn’t like it there. No one ever did.

  “So the Q is the stick,” I said.

  “Yup. And here’s the carrot. If he helps, he gets one of those electronic book readers. Depending on how many of his victims he leads us to, we’ll talk about taking the needle off the table.”

  “I still say he’s conning us.”

  “You could be right. Still a good bet that Fish may have had an attack of conscience.”

  I said, “Fish has the consc
ience of a fish.”

  Ron laughed.

  We made a plan.

  Then I drove to the hospital to see my baby girl.

  Chapter 64

  I KNEW HOW to get to the neonatal ICU by heart. My baby was there. I could have found her in a blackout. Without a flashlight. With both hands cuffed behind my back.

  I took the first elevator in the bank and rode it to the fourth floor, a place that had been furnished in vanilla and soft lights, designed for the newly opened eyes of the preemies who were housed there most often.

  When the elevator opened, I stopped at the desk, exchanged pleasantries with the receptionist as I signed in, then I headed toward the waiting room. The walls, carpeting, and the furnishings throughout followed a vanilla color scheme.

  I found Joe slumped in a pale armchair, newspapers falling off his lap, his eyes closed. I called out to him.

  He smiled, said, “Hey, sweetie.” He stood and I went into his arms.

  “How is she?” I asked.

  “She’s sleeping quietly.”

  “Any news?”

  “I don’t think we’ll hear anything today—”

  The woman in the seat next to me was in her early twenties, wearing a red tracksuit and running shoes.

  She said, “I made this for Scotty. Want to see?”

  I said that I did and she took out a little knitted outfit, blue and white, with a pom-pom on the top of the hat. Her husband was sitting next to her. He said that he was going outside to use the phone.

  Just then, pandemonium cut loose.

  There was a loud beeping, like a truck’s backing-up alert, and simultaneously a voice came over the intercom: “Code blue in NICU. Code blue.”

  I screamed, “Oh, God.” I bolted out of my chair and pitched myself toward the NICU’s swinging double doors. Joe ran along with me as I rounded the bend and headed to the windowed room at the end of the hall. I pulled up short, saw only the infant incubators lined up in four rows of four—when a nurse closed curtains across the window.

  I hadn’t been able to pick out my baby. I hadn’t been able to see Julie.

  Three doctors pushing a crash cart blew through the doorway. I tried to see around them, but the door closed in my face.

  I clutched at Joe and said, “It’s Julie, I just feel it, Joe.”

  He shushed me and held me and walked me back to the waiting room, where we sat with three other sets of parents who were nearly paralyzed with fear.

  We were all strangers to each other, yet drawn together like people in a lifeboat, watching as the ocean liner goes down.

  And then a doctor left the NICU and came toward us.

  He stood in the alcove, pulled down his mask, and looked around. I didn’t know him.

  But still, his eyes locked on mine.

  Chapter 65

  THE ICU DOCTOR was looking straight at me when he said, “Are Scott Riley’s parents here?”

  The young woman sitting next to me, the mom who had knitted the outfit for her son, stood up and said, “I’m Scotty’s mom. Is there a problem, Doctor?”

  “Let’s walk a little,” he said.

  I watched them go out into the hallway. I was afraid for Scott’s mother, hoping that the doctor would tell her that her baby was out of danger. But Mrs. Riley screamed, her voice echoing in the hallway.

  “Nooo, no, no. It can’t be. I just saw him this morning and he was fine.”

  Mr. Riley ran toward his wife, who had dropped to her knees and was rocking herself as she sobbed. Scott’s father said to the doctor, “Who are you? I’ve never seen you before. Maybe you’ve mixed up the babies. I know Scotty is going to be fine.”

  Nurses swarmed into the hallway and helped Mrs. Riley to her feet, tried to walk her out of the public space.

  My heart broke for the Rileys, and their fear reignited mine. It was like lighting a match in a gas-filled room. I felt that I could explode.

  Maybe the babies had been mixed up.

  Joe put his arms around me and I folded myself into his embrace. I said to Joe, “Scotty was a preemie. Julie is a big girl. She’ll be okay. Won’t she, Joe?”

  The head nurse came out to the hallway and was walking toward the end of the corridor when Joe and I got out of our seats and boxed her in.

  I said, “We’re Julie Molinari’s parents. Have you seen her? Do you know how she’s doing?”

  The nurse put her hand on my arm and told us that our baby was sleeping, that all her vital signs were normal. I thanked the nurse. I overthanked her. I just felt so damned grateful.

  “I’d like to hold her now, if that’s okay.”

  Joe said, “Honey, never wake a sleeping child.”

  We went back to the waiting room, held hands, and took turns pacing for another hour before Joe said, “Sweetheart, you’re making yourself crazy. I’m here for Julie. I’m not going anywhere, and besides, she’s sleeping soundly. Didn’t you tell me there’s someplace you’re supposed to be?”

  Chapter 66

  I DROVE FOR two hours, some of that time wishing my eyes had windshield wipers. I pulled myself together about the time I saw the guard towers and the razor wire of the Atwater penitentiary. I parked in the law enforcement lot, combed my hair, and put on lipstick so that I looked like I had some game.

  I showed my badge thirty times before being shown to Warden Haight’s corner office overlooking the yard. FBI big cheese Ron Parker joined us, and we talked about the psycho we were taking for a day trip and how dangerous he was.

  The warden took a call, then said that Fish was ready for transport to his “playground.” All I had to do was say hello to Fish so he knew that I was on board.

  Parker and I walked through the loud, labyrinthine prison corridors out to the lot inside the north gate. The transport vehicle was a black armored van with a steel grille between the front seat and the rear cargo area, where Pretty Boy Fish was flanked by armed guards and shackled to an iron loop in the floor.

  Fish smiled when he saw me. It was a great smile, seemingly genuine. The killer was a charmer. With a different mind-set, he could have been a talk show host or a real estate broker dealing in upmarket homes.

  “It’s a wonderful day for a treasure hunt,” said Randolph Fish. “I think I know where we might find Sandra Brody.”

  We pulled out of the prison yard caravan-style. A pair of motorcycle cops took the lead, then came Fish’s transport van. More cops on bikes followed, then the red van with the hounds. Parker’s government-issue SUV was next, and I brought up the rear in my geriatric blue Explorer.

  As I drove blindly through the cloud of dust, I thought about Fish saying, “I think I know where we might find Sandra Brody,” a vague but intriguing statement that was a mile short of a confession.

  So far, all that connected Fish to Sandra Brody was that she fit the pattern of young women Fish had been convicted of killing. She had dark hair, was attending college, and she had vanished at three in the afternoon without a trace.

  A friend of Sandra’s had taken a cell phone picture of her an hour before she disappeared. Sandy had been crossing the campus on her way to her volunteer job at the Raphael House, a shelter for homeless people. Her jeans looked new, her shirt was powder blue, she was carrying a brown saddle-leather backpack, and she was wearing loafers. Her long, dark hair was shining. To me, she looked like an angel.

  Sandra Brody never arrived at her destination.

  Jacobi and I had interviewed Sandra’s friends, her boyfriend, and her devastated parents. We had seen videos and photographs of Sandy from the time she was born to the time she was last known to walk the earth.

  That cell phone picture had been flashed over the Web and was posted on her Facebook page.

  HAVE YOU SEEN SANDY?

  The reward for information increased from ten thousand dollars to ten times that amount as money flowed in from friends Sandra hadn’t known she had. Three years after she disappeared, her page was still up. People still wrote on her wall.
Her parents hadn’t given up hope that the phone would ring and Sandy would be on the other end of the line.

  If Randolph Fish helped us to find Sandra’s body, at the very least, her family would know what had happened to her. I prayed that we were on the road to solving the mystery.

  We traveled up Highway 99 north to I-580 west and from there to Redwood Regional Park. I’d been there before and knew it to be 1,829 acres of sequoia, evergreens, chaparral, and grasslands just outside the dense urban areas of Oakland and the East Bay. Wildlife abounded, and that was one of the elements that made this wilderness a good dumping ground.

  If coyotes had found a dead body, they would have carried it away, along with any evidence that might lead to Sandra’s killer.

  That’s what I was thinking when suddenly the caravan veered onto the verge. Parker nosed his car onto the weedy edge of the road and after avoiding the motorcycles spinning their wheels in loose stone, I came to a stop.

  The transport van doors opened and a guard jumped down. He helped his prisoner to the ground and the second guard joined them. He unlocked Randy Fish’s leg irons as the driver and another armed guard dismounted from the front of the vehicle. The cadaver dogs put their noses to the ground and their handler got a good grip on their leads.

  Despite the reason we had all driven to this spot, I noticed that it was a beautiful day. The new leaves were a fresh green. The sun was blazing in a clear blue sky, and the air was a mild, pine-scented sixty-two degrees.

  Randolph Fish hadn’t stepped on natural earth in more than three years. He took in a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tipped his face up to the sun.

  Parker advanced on him and said, “Okay, Mr. Fish. Let’s get to work.”

  Chapter 67

  I HEARD THE psycho killer say to the head of the FBI’s San Francisco field office, “I’d like to have my hands free.”

  “I don’t think so,” Ron Parker said. He took a panoramic look around the steep, heavily wooded terrain.