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

hard for the bright side, at least I still had my own computer.

I put two photos up on my computer desktop; one of Tara Burke next to the morgue close-up of Wendy Franks’s face. I compared them, scrutinized them, confirming what I already knew. They didn’t match. So who was Wendy Franks? I was restless. She was haunting me. Why had she been murdered? Why hastily buried in McLaren Park? The park had a history as a dumping ground for inconvenient corpses, but the coincidence of a fresh body in close proximity to the Burke house bothered the hell out of me.

Except for matching her home address to the one on her driver’s license — she had moved to Sausalito from Santa Barbara two years ago — three databases had turned up a big pile of nothing so far. She had no record, not even a parking ticket. She’d graduated from UCLA. She was single, painted and sold seascapes, according to an article in a local paper that had covered her one-woman show. Sausalito is in Marin County and, accordingly, Clapper had tossed the case to Marin PD.

He had done the right thing, to be honest. Our task force still had Lorrie Burke’s open murder and her missing or dead young mother, and our Homicide squad was still responsible for any homicide investigation in both the Southern and Northern Districts.

I heard a booming voice and looked up to see DA Leonard “Red Dog” Parisi striding down the center aisle, the floor vibrating as he marched past me and into Brady’s office.

He closed the door, but I could hear him bellow, “Tell me I got this wrong. Tell me we didn’t lose Burke.”

I didn’t dare watch them through the glass walls, but I heard most of the back and forth. Burke hadn’t returned after his dramatic flight from his house. We’d kept him for less than a day and he’d been gone for one. That was enough to alarm the DA.

Brady said, “We’re looking for him, Len. We. Could. Not. Hold him.”

Brady’s office door opened. Parisi stepped out and said, “Clapper wants to discuss.”

He noticed me. “Boxer,” he said in greeting. Then, he kept going toward the exit.

Brady said to me, “Clapper wants us. Grab the tip lines, will ya? We’ve got to follow every lead.”

“Ten-four, boss.”

Four other cops in the bullpen were also at their desks taking calls. I stabbed a button.

“Sergeant Boxer. Homicide.”

“I saw Tara Burke,” a man’s voice said. “And I took her picture. Before I post on Instagram —”

“Right,” I said. “Send it to me. Your name please?”

He didn’t give me his name, but did stay on the line while he texted me a night view of a woman in a crowd.

“You’re sure this is Tara?” I said. “I can’t make out much of her face.”

“I could be wrong,” he said. “I want to help.”

“Where was this taken?”

“Fresno,” he said. “Last night.”

I thanked Mr. Anonymous, printed out the photo. It was hard to tell from the photograph if the subject was Tara or some other pretty young woman.

“Last night? Did you approach her?”

Line went dead. More calls came in and piled up. It got to be that within a couple of seconds I could tell if the caller was having a good time at our expense or sincerely thought they knew where to find Tara Burke. But none of the dozens of calls I took in the next half hour gave me any real hope at all.

Brady stopped by my desk on his return from his meeting with Clapper.

He said, “Hallows found nothing in Burke’s house that indicates a violent death. Or the cleanup of any kind of crime. Or even the thought of a crime. He allows as smothering a baby might leave no trace. So. Square one by process of elimination. And that means weekends and holidays are canceled.”

I just hate square one. I also hate coloring within the lines, staying in my lane, and doing it by the book.

Risking the wrath of Clapper, I called Claire.

CHAPTER 33

CLAIRE ANSWERED HER PHONE, “Washburn. What do you need?”

The snappish greeting told me to get right to the point.

“I’d like to see you about Wendy Franks.”

“No good, Linds. Her parents are coming in to identify her. Any minute.”

“Ah. Whatever you can tell me on the phone. I just need the basics.”

“Well, first of all, it’s a damned shame.”

“Right. More, please.”

“Okay. Unofficially. Healthy white female, killed by a deep knife slash across her throat by a common hunting knife approximately twenty-four hours before she was found. So there’s your cause, time, and manner of death.

“It appears that the killer took her from behind and cut left to right.”

I said, “Like, she was sitting, and the killer puts a hand on her shoulder and draws the blade across with the other hand?”

“Could be. He used considerable force. She’d pretty much bled out before the douchebag who did it dumped her.”

“So, you’re thinking she was killed somewhere else, then dumped. Possibly the grave was pre-dug. Which would make this premeditated.”

“That’s for you and the DA to decide. So, here’s the final flourish. The knife work I call serial killer gibberish. He made those cuts in her breasts while she was still alive, but probably unconscious. No defensive wounds on her arms, no bruising, no blood or tissue under her nails. Wendy never saw it coming.”

“Sick, sick, sick,” I said. “A fetish thing?”

Cappy walked by, overheard me. Gave me a look, patted my shoulder. I nodded to him, then, stared down at my desk.

Claire was saying, “Maybe, but I’m thinking he didn’t kill her for sexual pleasure.”

“Because?”

“She wasn’t raped. Still she was naked. I’m swabbing her neck, shoulders, face. See if that wretch left any DNA on her. Her blood’s on the way to the lab,” Claire said. “Where should I send the results and the autopsy report?”

“Send it to Captain Brevoort, Marin County PD.”

I thanked her and let