21st Birthday

by James Patterson

  “Thank you, Director Hallows. Your Honor, the prosecution rests. Your witness, Mr. Gardner.”

  Chapter 99

  Alvarez and I were in the back of a squad car speeding down the Strip from the Bellagio to the airport.

  I couldn’t wait to get home, but the job wasn’t done. I said, “Sonia, I’m feeling lucky.”

  “Yeah. He was in surgery either very late last night or this morning. He can’t have lawyered up. I know people in the ER.”

  I spoke through the grill.

  “Officer, changing our destination to Sunrise Med. Can you take us there and wait?”

  “Chief says we’re yours, sergeant. Whatever you need.”

  Minutes later we were parked to the side of the ambulance bay that led to the hospital’s emergency room. Alvarez and I were in our work clothes, badges pinned to our lapels. At our approach, the automatic sliders breezed open and we had a clear view of the ER, only moderately busy that morning.

  “Crap,” Alvarez said, looking to the head nurse at the admissions desk. “I don’t know her.”

  “You be the good cop. If that fails, I’ll be the badass.”

  The nurse looked up to see the two of us at her desk with badges on display.

  “How can I help you, officers?”

  Alvarez said, “My partner and I are San Francisco police working a case with LVPD. We need to speak with a patient who came in around midnight with a shoulder wound.”

  “Name?”

  “Last known as William Marsh.”

  She ran her finger down the list, found him.

  “Stay here. Let me get the attending.”

  A moment later, a tall thirtysomething man in a white coat over blue scrubs appeared at the desk.

  “Marco, hey,” said Alvarez.

  “Hey to you, Yorkie. You back already?”

  “No, no. This is my colleague, Sergeant Lindsay Boxer, SFPD. Boxer, this is Dr. Marco Ganz. Marco, we’d like to talk to our subject for a minute. William Marsh.”

  “He’s out of surgery. Sleeping it off down the hall.”

  “Just need a couple of minutes, doctor,” I said. “He killed someone last night, a girlfriend or a pickup. We need him to give us her name.”

  “Come with me.”

  We followed the doctor down the corridor to a room where cops stood on either side of the door. Dr. Ganz opened it. Burke was alone in the room, lying in the narrow hospital bed, IV in his arm. Monitors beeped out his vital signs.

  Ganz said, “Mr. Marsh, you have guests for a couple of minutes. I’ll be outside.”

  Burke had kicked off his blanket. He wore an open-backed hospital gown, white patterned with blue dots, matching socks, and his right arm was in a sling crossing his chest.

  “How sweet,” he said. “I appreciate the visit. Especially from you, Sergeant Boxer. You’re worried about me.”

  “Anyone you want me to call for you?” I asked without inflection.

  He didn’t answer.

  I said, “Okay, then. We’re taking the next flight home. Anything you’d like to offer our DA? For instance, a confession to the murders of Tara and Lorrie Burke, and Melissa Fogarty. Make it convincing and I think he’ll ask a favor for you with the Las Vegas DA.”

  “Well, that’s an offer I can’t refuse.”

  Sarcasm. Burke was cogent and awake, but his voice was slow. That would be from the Demerol dripping into his veins.

  “Here’s something for your DA, sergeant, dear. You’re going to like it. I’ve been sleeping with Luke’s child bride. For years. Luke didn’t know. I even went to the wedding.”

  Was he making this up?

  Burke smiled. I felt him padding around inside my head.

  He said, “Lorrie was my daughter. Even you can trust me on this. I wouldn’t kill that little girl. What do I think happened? I think Tara told Lucas the whole story, about Lorrie being my baby and all. And Luke lost it. My son has a murderous temper.”

  Damn it. He was lying, wasn’t he? So why did I believe him? Had Lucas really killed his own loved ones as charged? Or had Evan Burke?

  I could argue both sides—and I didn’t like it.

  Alvarez swiped at her cell phone and showed Burke the face of Jane Doe with a bullet hole through her forehead.

  “What’s her name? Her parents might like to know where she is.”

  “I…don’t…know…”

  Burke had stopped fighting the drugs.

  “Why’d you shoot her?” I said into his face. “Why’d you have to do that?” His eyes opened.

  “She wouldn’t stop screaming.”

  “You shot her for screaming? She was fucking terrified.”

  “Okay, sarge. How’s this?” There was a long pause, but I waited him out. He said, “I was tired of running. I wanted to stop…”

  His mouth went slack. And then his eyes closed.

  Dr. Ganz came into the recovery room.

  “Get everything you need? Don’t forget I told you he was sedated.”

  “Yes, you did,” I said.

  Ganz opened his arms and Alvarez went in for a hug.

  I said, “Thanks, doctor,” and left the building. I got into the cruiser and Alvarez was right behind me.

  “Yorkie?” I said.

  “That’s what he calls me.” She used her fingers to lift her bangs and rake them out of her eyes. “He says that I’m like a terrier. Once I get my teeth into something…”

  I laughed, and then said to the guys up front, “Our flight boards in twenty minutes.”

  “Copy that, sergeant.”

  Alvarez and I buckled in and the car squealed out onto South Maryland Parkway. She said, “What do you think of Burke’s version of the crimes?”

  “I wish I knew. He gives Lucas a believable motive for murder. His dad was sleeping with his wife. Lorrie wasn’t his daughter. People have killed for less. But Evan Burke killed that poor girl in front of our eyes—for no good reason. He might have talked his way through the exit door with his gun and a living hostage. He’s a monster, but he’s a smart guy. I don’t understand the lapse of judgment. Oh, yeah. He wants to stop running.

  “Honest to God, Sonia, we can’t believe anything that psychopath says.”

  Chapter 100

  United Flight 5274 was thirty thousand feet over Nevada.

  I was looking out the window, thinking about Evan and Lucas Burke.

  I no longer knew if Lucas had killed his wife and child and poor sweet Misty. Was Evan telling the truth when he said, “Those hits belong to Lucas.” He’d said it with such conviction. But had I believed that Lucas was capable of murder because I’d wanted to? Because I’d seen the dead baby? Because I’d spent time with Kathleen? Shared a cup of tea with Misty, telling her to break up with Luke?

  I couldn’t work it out. Had we indicted the wrong Burke? I pictured father and son facing off and tried to choose the real monster—and then, without warning, I was crying into my hands.

  I fumbled for my purse under the seat and couldn’t reach it. My tears were coming harder, turning into sobs.

  Alvarez was dozing in the seat next to me. There was a paper napkin in the seat pocket in front of her. I grabbed it, pressed it to my eyes, and when the sobs abated, I blew my nose, jostling Alvarez awake.

  “What?”

  “Sorry. Go back to sleep.”

  She took a look at me and said, “Lindsay. What’s wrong?”

  I tried waving her off again, but she persisted.

  Finally, I said, “I think I get it now.”

  “Get what?”

  “Why Burke really shot his girlfriend in front of us.”

  “Tell me. Don’t hold back.”

  A flight attendant rolled the cart to our row, offering snacks and beverages. I chose the breakfast burrito and a mini bottle of chardonnay.

  Alvarez said, “Make that two.”

  After we’d been served, I lowered the window shade and unscrewed the top from my bottle of wine. Alvarez w
as still waiting for me to finish my theory on why Burke shot Jane Doe.

  She shook my arm and said, “Speak.”

  “Okay. My theory goes like this. Burke saw Berney at the Bellagio. He rightly assumes that Berney is there for him. When we crashed his party at the Eagle, he put it all on red. Better to risk a murder charge in Vegas than in federal court.”

  “Mmm. Nevada has a death penalty,” Alvarez said.

  “Okay, say he gets a great defense lawyer, a local pit bull who’s looking for a showcase trial. Burke could cook up a convincing story about the Jane Doe shooting and maybe win over the jury. If so, he’d get light time or no time. You heard him, Sonia. He can say anything, spin anything, with feeling.

  I went on with my hypothesis.

  “So, Burke says, ‘The room was totally dark.’”

  “It was,” said Alvarez. “And noisy.”

  “Right. There’s pounding music from the wedding dancers overhead, pots clanking and shouting in the kitchen. And of course, Burke says he and Jane Doe were doing some heavy breathing when his door was kicked in.”

  Alvarez said, “He could say she never yelled for help.”

  “They’re having a good time, right? As Burke’s lawyer tells it, his client didn’t hear us knock. He didn’t hear us say ‘Police.’ He was otherwise engaged. Then, the door is kicked in and Burke sees silhouettes with guns. What’s he supposed to think?”

  Alvarez said, “That we aren’t room service. That he’s a target because of his winnings. He grabs his piece and fires.”

  “Right, and now the girl in his lap is screaming. He tries to push her head down as he aims around her, toward the doorframe—”

  “—but she pulls away or otherwise moves her head. Oh, noooo.”

  “You got it,” I said. “She catches a round with her skull. Now, it’s an accident. Manslaughter, not murder, and we cannot prove otherwise.”

  Alvarez said, “His lawyer calls it bad freaking luck.”

  “Burke’s a gambler,” I said. “Win some. Lose some. This could be the best bet of his life.”

  Chapter 101

  Newt Gardner moved with the confidence and deliberation of a jungle cat as he approached the stand to cross-examine Yuki’s star witness.

  Gardner said, “Director Hallows, I just have a few questions for you. Regarding the razor that you say was used to kill Ms. Fogarty.

  “Assuming the blood on the blade was Ms. Fogarty’s—”

  “It was.”

  “—and you assert that the fingerprints on the handle belong to Mr. Lucas Burke. Did I get that right?”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “How long can fingerprints remain on an item like that?”

  “As long as the surface isn’t handled. Could be for quite a long time.”

  “So, if someone picked up the razor with gloved hands, and didn’t wipe the handle, the fingerprints would be preserved?”

  “If the person who picked up the razor wanted to preserve them, yes.”

  “Now, you saw the video of Lucas Burke leaving his house? And some twenty minutes later Tara Burke left the same house with the baby?”

  “Yes, I saw that video many times. Frame by frame.”

  “Did you see Tara lock the front door?”

  “No. Her hands were full.”

  “So, could Luke’s razor have been taken from the unlocked house by a person wearing gloves who had an interest in preserving the fingerprints that were on it?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “So…” said Gardner, turning away from the witness, keeping the spectators and the jury waiting for him to finish his point, then spinning back around to give Hallows his fifteen-hundred-dollar-an-hour stare.

  “We agree. If someone wearing gloves took Mr. Burke’s razor from the house and the handle had Mr. Burke’s prints on it, that someone could have killed Ms. Fogarty with it. And if that razor remained concealed by weeds for months, it would still have the victim’s blood and the defendant’s prints on it, correct?”

  Yuki listened to Gardner lay out his case on Hallows’s back. Hallows was a very good criminologist, but Clapper had blamed him for not searching the vacant lot sooner.

  Hallows said, “I’m a scientist, sir. You’re asking me to give definitive answers to a number of compounding possibilities, all untested. That isn’t how I work.”

  “I’m asking you as an expert, director. Is this scenario possible?”

  “It’s possible.”

  “Okay. Now, the prosecution uses your photographic analyst’s work to substantiate their case. Is this type of ‘photographic analysis’ a science?”

  “Facial analysis by measurement of features is not all that technical or theoretical.”

  “All right. For sake of argument, let’s say that the method Dr. Werner Stutz is using is what’s called the golden ratio. Its purpose is to establish perfect facial proportions for the standards of beauty. My eyesight is twenty-twenty and I can barely see the features of the unknown subject taken in the school parking lot now called photo.”

  “Dr. Stutz uses high-powered digital microscopes and calipers.”

  “Even so. You say this isn’t a hundred percent dead cert match because the man in the parking lot was wearing a cap?”

  “Yes. The knit cap covered 5 percent of his features.”

  “Okay. I follow,” said Gardner. “So, here’s the question. If my client closely resembles his father, and it’s dark of night and the camera is a big box store item of C minus quality—”

  “Objection, leading like crazy, Your Honor.”

  “Sustained. Save it for your closer, counselor.”

  “Sorry, Your Honor. The question is, if Dr. Stutz is using a flawed photo 1 to make his match, by definition this match is flawed. And that photo might be the defendant’s father, Evan Burke.”

  Yuki stood. “Argumentative, Your Honor. Defense counsel is leading and argumentative and taking liberties with the court.”

  Gardner said, “Your Honor, the witness is trying to establish questionable methods as science.”

  Hallows wasn’t having it. “If an experiment is repeated innumerable times with the same precise result, it’s scientifically proven—”

  Judge Passarelli said, “That’s enough, everyone. Prosecution’s objection is sustained. Mrs. Clemons, please strike defense counsel’s statements from ‘Okay, I follow.’ Mr. Gardner. Do you have anything else for this witness?”

  “No, Your Honor,” said Gardner. “That’s all.”

  “Ms. Castellano. Redirect?”

  “Yes. Thank you. Director Hallows. Now, regarding the razor blade. You’d stake your reputation on the validity of the blood test and fingerprint analysis?”

  “Yes. One hundred percent.”

  Yuki thanked Hallows and returned to her seat at the counsel table. She was shaken by the exchange but more sure than ever that Lucas Burke was a killer.

  Would the jurors—all of them—see that?

  Or would they be swayed by her theatrical opponent?

  Chapter 102

  Yuki watched as Newton Gardner—top-tier criminal defense attorney, showboat, media candy, and amateur wrestler—opened his case by calling his first witness, his client’s ex-wife, Alexandra Conroy.

  Gardner was gracious to the attractive woman and gave her the expected softball questions establishing that Lucas Burke could not have killed Misty because at the time of the teenager’s death Lucas Burke was in Ms. Conroy’s arms, sobbing over the loss of his child and his privacy.

  The questions were neat and short.

  “What time did Mr. Burke call you? Come to your house? What was his mood? When did you arrive at Carmel? When did Mr. Burke see the murder headlines? What did you do after that?”

  Questions were asked and answered in about five minutes. Then Gardner turned the witness over to Yuki.

  Conroy was the key witness for the defense, and Yuki covered the same ground Gardner had done.


  But Yuki was coming from the opposite direction.

  She asked, “Ms. Conroy, after so many months and the very emotional circumstances, how can you know for sure that Lucas was in your hotel room at eight o’clock that night?”

  Ms. Conroy said, “I checked the time before my evening spa appointment because I was going to put in a room service order.”

  Yuki asked, “Did you place the order at eight p.m.?”

  “No. I wanted to talk to Luke first.”

  “At what time did you place the order?”

  “Later. Maybe nine or so.”

  Yuki went to her table and returned with a computer printout. She asked the witness, “Is this a copy of your phoned-in order?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you read your name at the top of the page along with the time you made it?”

  The former Mrs. Burke said, “I’m not wearing my glasses.”

  Yuki couldn’t help feeling a flash of killer instinct as she homed in on Conroy, preparing to pin her with the truth.

  She pointed out a line on the reservation sheet and said, “You placed your order at thirty-five minutes past midnight.”

  “Oh. Well.”

  Yuki continued.

  “That’s time enough for Luke to kill Misty at eight and drive back to Carmel by ten. Take a shower. Have a snack, maybe a drink. Watch, say, Jimmy Kimmel.”

  “Objection!”

  “Sustained. Watch it, Ms. Castellano.”

  Yuki said, “Sorry, Your Honor. Ms. Conroy, do you in fact know whether Lucas stayed in your hotel room?”

  Conroy said, “I’m not sure. Luke was very upset that weekend. I wanted to comfort him. That’s what I did. I wasn’t watching the clock.”

  Yuki said, “Thank you. That’s all I have for this witness.”

  Judge Passarelli told Conroy she could step down, and Gardner called his next and only other witness.

  “I call Lucas Burke.”

  Gardner helped Lucas around the counsel table without knocking over his chair, then released his client’s arm and watched him take the twenty-yard walk to the witness stand on his own.