21st Birthday by Patterson, James (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📕

spoken with Lieutenant Murry, who had expanded his search area and was still looking for Tara Burke, alive or dead.

Conklin and I were on track so far.

“Something wrong, lieu?”

“Cookie?” he said. He offered me an open tin of sugar cookies, all different shapes. I picked a squiggly one with a jelly button in the center.

Brady picked one with sprinkles.

He shoved the whole thing into his mouth and washed it down with cold coffee. After he swallowed, he said, “I’m setting up a task force in the interest of finding Tara Burke. You and me, Boxer, we’re partners again, at least for a while until we solve this case. Or maybe longer.”

“What? I mean, whatever you say, Brady, but what about Conklin?”

I like and trust Brady, and we’d been partners for a short while years ago. But at that time, I was the senior partner. Now, Brady outranked me and would have the first and last word. I reported to him and he wasn’t asking for my opinion. But I didn’t like the way this new arrangement felt. A dark thought occurred to me.

Was this Clapper’s idea of keeping me on a leash?

Brady said, “We’re adding a new person to Homicide. Name is Sonia Alvarez and she’s coming here from Las Vegas PD. Clapper knows her, thinks highly of her, introduced her to Conklin by conference call, let them know they’re going to be partners.”

“Yikes.”

“It’s too soon to say how it will work out,” Brady said, “So back to what I was saying. Task force. You and me, Conklin and Alvarez, and Missing Persons. If Murry’s team doesn’t turn up Tara Burke and fast, you and I will be point men for every other cop in the department. Any questions?”

“Does Conklin know?”

“I’m gonna tell him. You and I will interview Burke. Conklin will observe, and as soon as Alvarez gets here, we’ll start breaking her in.”

It felt like I was supposed to salute.

But I kept my wits about me and went back to my desk to wait for Conklin. I had just a few minutes to digest this sour news and get back to work.

Tara Burke was still missing and suspect number one was in the house.

CHAPTER 22

CLAIRE PLACED HER HAND on the dead child’s forehead.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry that this happened to you, little one.”

She took another photo of the baby girl’s face and tucked the drape around her. Then, Claire shucked her gown, cap, and mask, dropped them into the laundry bin, stripped off her gloves and disposed of them in the trash.

The autopsy suite was kept at fifty degrees, and Claire was cold inside and out. The unnatural and premature deaths of children made her sick. Even after all the decades in med school followed by work at Metro Hospital, followed by the time and bodies she’d autopsied as chief ME, she still couldn’t get used to it. If she were alone right now, she would cry.

Bunny Ellis, Claire’s morgue tech, was dropping the instruments into the autoclave.

“Doctor, ready for me to put the patient away?”

“Only if you want five gold stars and lunch on me.”

“Stars, yes. Lunch, maybe some other day.”

“Gotcha,” said Claire. “Thanks, Bunny. I’ll be in my office.”

Claire pushed open the swinging doors, and when she was outside in the corridor, she leaned against the wall for a moment to collect herself, then headed to her office. She sat in her swivel desk chair and called Lindsay’s cell.

Lindsay picked up.

“Claire. Can I call you back? This is a bad time.”

“I need thirty seconds. Just give me that.”

“Go.”

Claire said, “Lorrie Annette Burke was a well-nourished Caucasian female about a year and a half old, twenty-two pounds. The manner of death is pending.

“This part is not for dissemination. Lorrie Burke’s death appears to be consistent with homicide. There’s some bruising around the mouth, petechial hemorrhaging in and around the eyes. She was smothered, Lindsay. Looks like with a hand over her mouth and nose. There are fingerprint bruises on her right upper arm as though she was jerked or possibly held down.

“There was no water in her lungs. She was dead when she went into the ocean, and I can’t establish time of death with real accuracy due to the water temperature and bloating of the body, but I’m estimating thirty hours ago more or less. Enough time in the water for sea predators to nibble at her fingers. Her blood is going out to the lab now. She looks very much like her photo, but you may need to identify her by DNA.

“How many seconds was that?”

“Just the right number. And you’ve got me thinking that Lorrie was alive for about a day after going missing. Thanks, Butterfly.”

After they ended the call, Claire went to the washroom and splashed water on her face.

She was having some just discernable pain in her chest, which was to be expected after her recent surgery. She had been told not to exert herself by her surgeon, her husband, her best friends, and her oldest child, and here she was worn out before noon. She needed to take a nap.

Back at her desk, Claire opened the intake folder and looked at the list. There were three patients needing her attention. None of them, thank God, were children.

If she did one more post now and called in her backup pathologist, barring complications she could be home in bed in four hours.

Yeah, right.

Going by past experience, that would never happen.

CHAPTER 23

BRADY AND I WERE in Interview 1, sitting across the table from Lucas Burke.

It’s a small room, ten by twelve with gray-painted cinderblock walls, a camera in one corner of the ceiling, two chairs on each long side of the gray metal table, and a shelf under the one-way mirror inset into a wall. There’s a narrow observation room behind the glass.

Richie Conklin was observing. I liked,