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

My own theory of the crime was starting to gel.

CHAPTER 35

IT WAS THE FIRST calm moment of the day.

I sat at the kitchen counter while Joe loaded the dishwasher and filled me in on the domestic tranquility on Lake Street.

Julie was across the hall with Mrs. Rose, who was showing her how to make cookies. Martha was sleeping on the rug in our bedroom, one of her favorite places. As he talked, Joe brought me a slab of lasagna and a glass of Chianti and sat down at the counter beside me.

This was as good as life got.

I kicked off my shoes and asked my sweet husband to brain-storm with me about heinous bloody murder.

With his decades of experience in America’s Secret Service, he was an excellent brainstormer, and he didn’t have to be sworn to secrecy. He also enjoyed it.

He poured himself a glass of wine and we clinked glasses, said “Cheers” in unison, and I started talking.

I recapped for Joe how Lucas Burke had resisted our search warrants, had sped away, and was currently missing. That DA Parisi was in an uproar, that Chief Clapper was facing media coverage and increasing the pressure on Lieutenant Brady, which didn’t solve anything.

I went over discovery of the body of Wendy Franks, who was found murdered in McLaren Park, and how she was briefly misidentified as Tara Burke.

“Possibly Franks’s death is unrelated. But my gut says otherwise.”

“Hmmm. Tell me more.”

I dug into the lasagna, which was hot and tasty. Joe made the best lasagna in the world, and I told him so.

“Good. Thanks. So keep talking, Blondie. You have about ten minutes before this place fills up with Julie, Mrs. Rose, and a pan of cookies.”

“A timeline is forming in my mind.”

“Go.”

“On Sunday night, before we’ve even heard of Lucas Burke, he nips out, and according to Misty has a ‘date’ with her in her car — then, fresh from his teenage rendezvous, he goes home. Tara lights into him the minute he walks in. The fight picks up again in the morning.”

Joe nodded and I went on.

“Burke leaves the house at seven thirty, we have that on video. He arrives at Sunset Park Prep on time. That’s been verified. Tara leaves soon after Burke with the baby and an overnight bag. Also on video.”

“Where’s she going?”

“Don’t know. No sign of her car or of her. When she walked out the door, her attitude tells me she’s defiant. Either she’s getting back at her cheating dog of a husband — ‘You’re not the boss of me.’ Or meeting her rumored but not verified boyfriend. Or she’s taking the baby and running away from home. Or she’s doing all three. Giving her husband the finger and running away from home with her boyfriend. Any which way, she hasn’t been seen or heard from since.”

“Got it,” said Joe. “I’m with you so far.”

“Okay,” I said. “So continuing the timeline. Same day, Tara’s mother, Kathleen Wyatt, breaks the glass on the fire alarm. She posts bloody murder on Cindy’s blog, calls Lucas Burke a killer, and storms Cindy’s office. Cindy gets me involved, and on Tuesday afternoon, I talk to Lucas about his still missing wife. He says, ‘She’s run away before. I destroyed her credit card. She’ll be back when she runs out of gas. There’s nothing to see here.’”

Joe said, “Then Wednesday morning, his daughter washes up dead on the beach.”

“Correct.”

I checked my watch to be sure of the date.

“Yes, that was Wednesday. Claire estimates that the baby had been dead for about thirty hours. Asphyxiation. The story is a media bomb, and still no sign of Tara.”

“So, who killed Lorrie?” Joe asked.

I slugged down some wine, pushed my plate to the side.

“I feel strongly that Tara is dead, which means she can’t have killed Lorrie and skipped town. My sketchy theory? Lorrie and Tara are killed together by Tara’s unknown rumored boyfriend. Or — track me here. Lucas meets Tara somehow, somewhere, after classes on Monday. He tells her all about Misty, and when Tara goes off on him, he kills her and smothers the baby with his hand. He wants nothing to do with this family.”

Joe was nodding, saying, “Yep, yep, yep,” so I kept going.

“Burke tosses the baby into the ocean. Maybe he doesn’t expect her to wash up so quickly, to be identified so soon. He takes longer to get rid of Tara. If I’m right that she’s dead, then I feel certain that when her body is found there will be marks on her body indicating murder.”

Joe said, “As theories go, yours works for me. If he killed the baby, he’d have to kill Tara and vice versa. If he had killed them at home, you’d have evidence, so that speaks to luring Tara to some location, remote probably —”

The doorknob turned and Martha got her old haunches under her and trotted to the foyer.

“To be continued,” said Joe. He went to the door and a grinning Julie stepped in, Gloria Rose behind her holding a tray of chocolate-chip cookies that smelled a hundred percent delicious.

“See the faces?” Julie said, pointing to how the chocolate chips formed smiles, frowns; some cookies looked like they were laughing and some seemed very stern. Cracked me up. I grabbed Martha’s collar and said to our lovely neighbor and nanny, “I’ll fire up a pot of decaf.”

“I’m all coffeed out,” she said, “but dying to taste the cookies. Got milk?”

“Pull up a stool,” Joe said.

He and Julie slid the cookies onto a plate, and minutes later, Julie was telling us who all the faces were — a kind of chocolate-chip-cookie mug book: guy at the grocery store, lady with a cat on a leash, me, Joe, Gloria Rose, and Martha.

“This is me,” Julie said. “No one can eat this one. Not even me.”

It was hilarious, chocolate chips arrayed across the upper curve of the cookie standing