Women's Murder Club [03] 3rd Degree

by James Patterson

  “What’s going on here?” I asked a woman in a black gown.

  “The vice president,” she said. “He’s scheduled here any moment.” The vice president had been whisked away, but no one had been told. These people were milling around for an introduction. Would Danko be here, too?

  I scanned the line, face to face.

  I saw a tall, thin man, balding on top. He had a high brow. Close, narrow eyes. A hand in his jacket pocket. I felt a cold spot near the center of my chest.

  I could see the resemblance to the picture from thirty years ago. There were people milling about, blocking my view. But there was no mistaking it—Charles Danko was the image of his father.

  I turned my head away and spoke into my walkie-talkie. “I found him! Joe, he’s here.”

  Danko was in line to meet the vice president. My heart was beating furiously. His left hand was still in his jacket pocket. Was he holding some kind of detonator? How could he get it in here?

  “I’m in the room with the Rodins. Joe, I’m looking right at him.”

  Molinari said, “Stay there. I’m coming. Don’t take any chances.”

  Suddenly Danko’s gaze drifted to me. I didn’t know if he’d seen me on TV as part of the investigation, or if I had “cop” written on my face. Somehow he seemed to know. Our eyes locked.

  I saw him get out of the line he was standing in. He kept his eyes on me.

  I took a step toward him. Opened my jacket for my gun. At least a dozen people were blocking my way. I had to get through. I lost sight of Danko for just a second. No more than that.

  When the opening cleared again, Danko was no longer there.

  The white rabbit was gone again.

  Chapter 105

  I PUSHED MY WAY UP to where he’d been standing seconds ago. Gone! I scanned the room. “I lost him,” I spat into the walkie-talkie. “He must’ve ducked into the crowd. Son of a bitch!” For no good reason, I was mad at myself.

  I didn’t see Charles Danko anywhere. All the men were wearing tuxedos, looking the same. And all those people were exposed to danger, maybe even death.

  I badged my way through a barricade and ran down a long corridor that led to the closed-off section of the museum. Still no sign of Danko. I ran back to the main ballroom and bumped into Molinari.

  “He’s here. I know he is, Joe. This is his moment.”

  Molinari nodded and radioed that no one, under any circumstance, was to leave the building. I was thinking that if any kind of device went off in there, with all those people, it would be a total disaster. I’d die, too. And Molinari. It would be worse than the Rincon Center.

  Where are you, Danko?

  Then I caught a glimpse of him again. I thought so anyway. I pointed toward a tall balding man. He was circling away from us, ducking in and out of the crowd. “That’s him!”

  “Danko!” I yelled, pulling my Glock from its shoulder holster. “Danko! Stop!”

  The crowd parted enough for me to see him remove a hand from his jacket pocket. He caught my eyes again—and then he smiled at me. What the hell did he have?

  “Police!” Molinari shouted. “Everybody down!”

  Charles Danko’s fingers were wrapped around something. I couldn’t tell if it was a gun, or maybe a detonator.

  Then I saw it—a plastic canister in his hand. What the hell was it? He raised his arm and I charged. There was no other choice.

  Seconds later I crashed into Charles Danko, grabbing at his arm, hoping the canister would break free. I latched on to his hand, desperately trying to pry the canister free. I couldn’t budge it.

  I heard him grunt in pain, saw him twisting the canister toward me. Right at my face.

  Molinari was on the other side of Danko, trying to wrestle him down, too. “Get away from him!” I heard him yell at me. The canister turned again—toward Molinari. Everything was happening fast, in just a few seconds.

  I held on to Danko’s arm. I had some leverage. I was trying to break his arm.

  He turned toward me, and our eyes met. I’d never felt such hatred, such coldness. “Bastard!” I yelled in his face. “Remember Jill!”

  In that second, I squeezed the canister.

  Spray shot into his face. Very close in. Danko coughed, gasped. His face twisted into a horrified mask. Other agents had him now. They pulled him away from me.

  Danko was breathing heavily. He was still coughing, as if he could spit back the poison from his lungs.

  “It’s over,” I gasped. “You’re over. You’re done. You lost, asshole.”

  His eyes smiled vacantly. He motioned me closer. “It will never be over, you fool. There’s always another soldier.”

  That’s when I heard shots, and understood that I was a fool.

  Chapter 106

  WE RUSHED OUT to the courtyard, where the shots had come from. Joe Molinari and I pushed our way through the crowd. People were gasping, a few had started to weep.

  I couldn’t see what had happened, and then I could. And I wished that I hadn’t.

  Eldridge Neal was on his back, a crimson stain widening across his white shirt. Someone had shot the vice president of the United States. My God, not another American tragedy like this.

  A woman was being held down by Secret Service agents; she couldn’t have been much older than eighteen or nineteen. Frizzy red hair. She was screaming at the vice president, rambling on about babies being sold into slavery in the Sudan; AIDS killing millions in Africa; corporate war crimes in Iraq and Syria. She must have been waiting for Neal as he was moved out of the main hall.

  Suddenly I recognized the girl. I’d seen her before, in Roger Lemouz’s office. The girl who’d given me the finger when I told her to leave. Hell, she was just a kid.

  Joe Molinari let go of my arm and went to the aid of the vice president. The cursing, screaming girl was pulled away. Meanwhile, an ambulance drove right into the courtyard. EMS medics jumped out and began to tend to Vice President Neal.

  Had Charles Danko planned this?

  Had he known we were on to him?

  Was this a setup? Knowing that chaos would reign if we caught up with him? What had he said? There’s always another soldier.

  That was the scariest thing of all. I knew that Danko was right.

  Chapter 107

  I WAS SUPPOSED TO GO to the hospital to be examined, but I wouldn’t do it. Not yet. Joe Molinari and I went with the red-haired girl back to the Hall. We interrogated Annette Breiling for several hours, and then this revolutionary, this terrorist, this person who could shoot the vice president in cold blood, she cracked.

  Annette Breiling told us everything we needed to know, and more, about the plot at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

  It was four in the morning when we arrived in an up-scale neighborhood in Kensington, a couple of towns over from Berkeley. There were at least half a dozen patrol cars there and everybody was heavily armed. The street was in the hills and had a view of the San Pablo Reservoir. Very pretty, surprisingly posh. It didn’t look as if anything bad could happen here.

  “He lives well,” said Molinari, but that was it for small talk. “Let’s you and I do the honors.”

  The front door was opened by the Lance Hart Professor of Romance Languages, Roger Lemouz. He had on a terry-cloth robe, and his curly black hair was in disarray. His eyes were glassy and red, and I wondered if he had been drinking that night, if Lemouz had been celebrating.

  “Madam Inspector,” he said in a throaty whisper, “you’re beginning to wear out your welcome. It’s four A.M. This is my home.”

  I didn’t bother to exchange unpleasantries with Lemouz, and neither did Molinari. “You’re under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder,” he said, then pushed his way inside.

  Lemouz’s wife and two children appeared, entering the living room behind him, which was unfortunate. The boy was no more than twelve, the girl even younger. Molinari and I holstered our guns.

  “Charles Danko is dead,” I told Lem
ouz. “A young woman you know named Annette Breiling has implicated you in the murder of Jill Bernhardt, all of the murders, Lemouz. She told us that you were the one who set up Stephen Hardaway’s cell. You delivered Julia Marr and Robert Green into the cell. And you controlled Charles Danko—you knew how to push his buttons. His anger seethed for thirty years, but you got Danko to act on it. He was your puppet.”

  Lemouz laughed in my face. “I don’t know any of these people. Well, Ms. Breiling was a student of mine. She dropped out of the university, however. This is a huge mistake and I’m calling my lawyer right now if you don’t leave.”

  “You’re under arrest,” Joe Molinari said, making the obvious official. “Want to hear your rights, Professor? I want to read them to you.”

  Lemouz smiled, and it was strange and eerie. “You still don’t understand, do you? Neither of you. This is why you are doomed. One day your entire country will crumble. It’s already happening.”

  “Why don’t you explain what we’re missing?” I spat the words at him.

  He nodded, then Lemouz turned toward his family. “You’re missing this.” His small son was holding a handgun, and it was obvious that he knew how to use it. The boy’s eyes were as cold as his father’s.

  “I’ll kill you both,” he said. “It would be my pleasure.”

  “The army that is building against you is massive, their cause is just. Women, children, so many soldiers, Madam Inspector. Think about it. The Third World War—it’s begun.”

  Lemouz walked calmly to his family and took the gun from his son. He kept it aimed at us. Then he kissed his wife, his daughter, his son. The kisses were tender and heartfelt. Tears were in his wife’s eyes. Lemouz whispered something to each of them.

  He backed out of the living room; then we could hear running footsteps. A door slammed somewhere in the house. How could he hope to get away?

  A gunshot sounded loudly inside the house.

  Molinari and I ran in that direction.

  We found him in the bedroom—he’d killed himself, shot one bullet into his right temple.

  His wife and children had begun to wail in the other room.

  So many soldiers, I was thinking. This won’t stop, will it? This Third World War.

  Chapter 108

  CHARLES DANKO didn’t spray me with ricin. That was what the doctors were saying, hovering over me all morning at the toxicology unit at Moffit.

  And the vice president wasn’t going to die. Word was that they had him two floors below me, that he had even been on the phone to his boss in Washington.

  I spent several hours with a maze of tubes and wires sticking out of me, monitors reading my blood and chest scans. The contents of Danko’s canister were identified as ricin. Enough to kill hundreds of people if he had gone undetected. Danko had ricin in his lungs, and he was going to die. I wasn’t sorry to hear it.

  About noon I got a phone call from the president, as in the president. They stuck a phone to my ear, and in my daze I remembered hearing the word hero about six times. The president even said he was looking forward to thanking me in person. I joked that maybe we should wait for the toxic glow to settle down.

  When I opened my eyes after a snooze, Joe Molinari was sitting on the corner of my bed.

  He smiled. “Hey. I thought I said ‘no heroes!’”

  I blinked and smiled, too, a little more groggy than triumphant, embarrassed at the tubes and monitors.

  “The good news,” he said with a wink, “is the doctors say you’re fine. They’re just holding you for observation a few more hours. There’s an armada of press waiting for you out there.”

  “The bad news?” I said, hoarsely.

  “Someone’s gonna have to teach you how to dress for these photo ops.”

  “New fashion look.” I squeezed back a smile.

  I noticed that he had a raincoat draped over his arm and was wearing the navy herringbone suit I’d seen him in the first time. It was a very nice suit, and he wore it well.

  “The vice president’s recuperating. I’m heading back to Washington tonight.”

  All I could do was nod. “Okay…”

  “No”—he shook his head, inching closer—“it’s not okay. Because it’s not what I want.”

  “We both knew this would happen,” I said, trying to be strong. “You have a job. The interns…”

  Molinari scowled. “You’re brave enough to go after a man holding a canister of deadly poison, but you’re not ready to stand up for something you want.”

  I felt a tear creep out of the corner of my eye. “I don’t know what I want, right now.”

  Molinari put down his raincoat, then drew close and put a hand to my cheek, brushing away the tear. “I think you need some time. You have to decide, when things calm down, if you’re prepared to let someone in. Like a relationship, Lindsay.”

  He took my hand. “My name’s Joe, Lindsay. Not Molinari, or Deputy Director, wink, wink. And what I’m talking about is you and me. And not trying to joke it away because you’ve been hurt before. Or because you lost a really close friend. I know this’ll come as a disappointment, Lindsay, but you’re entitled to be happy. You know what I mean. Call me old-fashioned.” He smiled.

  “Old-fashioned,” I said, doing exactly what he accused me of, making jokes when I ought to be serious.

  Something was stuck inside me, the way it always seemed to stick when I wanted to say what was in my heart. “So, you get out here how often?”

  “Speeches, security conferences… a couple of national crises factored in…”

  I laughed. “We can’t help the jokes, neither of us.”

  Molinari sighed. “Even you must know this by now: I’m not one of the assholes, Lindsay. It can work. The next step is yours. You have to make a move to try.”

  He stood up and brushed his hand over my hair. “The doctors assured me that this is perfectly safe.” He smiled, then leaned over and planted a kiss on my lips. His lips were soft, and mine, chapped and dry from the night, clung on. I was trying to show him how I felt, knowing I’d be crazy not to tell him and let him walk out that door.

  Joe Molinari stood and draped the raincoat over his arm. “It’s been a privilege and an honor getting to know you, Lieutenant Boxer.”

  “Joe,” I said, a little scared to see him go.

  “You know where to reach me.”

  I watched him head to the door. “You never know when a girl might have a national emergency….”

  “Yeah”—he turned and smiled—“I’m a national emergency kind of guy.”

  Chapter 109

  LATER THAT AFTERNOON, my doctor came in and told me there was nothing wrong with my system that a good glass of wine or two wouldn’t cure.

  “There are even some people here who want to take you home,” he said.

  Outside my room, I saw Claire and Cindy peeking in.

  They took me home about long enough to shower, change, and give Martha a long-overdue hug. Then I had to go down to the Hall. Everyone seemed to want a piece of me. I made a date to see the girls later at Susie’s. It was important that we get together now.

  I did the news spots on the steps of the Hall. Tom Brokaw was patched through and interviewed me on a video link.

  As I recounted the story of how we had found Danko and Hardaway, I felt a tremor snaking through me, distancing me even as I spoke. Jill was dead; Molinari was gone; I didn’t feel much like a hero. The phone was going to ring, some other homicide called in, and life would slam back the way it always did. But this time I knew nothing was ever going to be the same.

  It was about four-thirty when the girls came to get me. I was doing reports. Although Jacobi and Cappy were bragging they had the best LT on the force, I’d actually felt depressed. Lonely and empty. Until the girls showed up, anyway.

  “Hey,” Cindy said, twirling a little Mexican cocktail flag in my face, “margaritas await.”

  They took me to Susie’s, the last place we had been with Jil
l. Actually, two years before, it was where we had welcomed her into our budding group. We took our places in our corner booth and ordered a round of margaritas. I ran them through the terrifying struggle at the Palace the night before, the president’s call, then today, Brokaw and the evening news.

  It was sad, though, just the three of us. The conspicuous empty space next to Claire.

  Our drinks came. “On the house, of course,” the waitress, Joanie, said.

  We raised our glasses, each of us trying to smile, but fighting back tears. “Here’s to our girl,” Claire said. “Maybe now she can start to rest in peace.”

  “She’ll never rest in peace,” Cindy said, laughing through tears. “Out of character.”

  “I’m sure she’s up there now,” I said, “sizing up the pecking order, looking down at us. ‘Hey, guys, I got it all figured out….’”

  “Then she’s smiling,” Claire said.

  “To Jill,” we all said. We clinked glasses. It was hard to think that this was the way it was going to be from now on. I missed her so much, and never more than that moment at our table, without her.

  “So,” Claire said, clearing her throat, her gaze landing on me. “What happens now?”

  “We’re gonna order some ribs,” I said, “and I’m gonna have another one of these. Maybe more than one.”

  “I think she was actually saying, what’s with you and Deputy Dawg.” Cindy winked.

  “He’s heading back to Washington,” I said. “Tonight.”

  “For good?” Claire asked, surprised.

  “That’s where the listening devices and sleek black helicopters are.” I stirred my drink. “Bell helicopter, I believe.”

  “Oh.” Claire nodded. She glanced toward Cindy. “You like this guy, don’t you, Lindsay?”

  “I like him,” I said. I flagged Joanie, ordered another round of drinks.