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

breaths, felt the pavement under my shoes and used the traffic on Bryant as a backdrop for my thoughts about Misty. I thought about being eighteen, falling in love with a seductive older man, a psychopath who specialized in English literature and teenage girls.

That made me think of Tara, who’d been even younger than Misty when she married Burke. The search for Tara seemed to have stalled, which only made the daily calls from Kathleen that much more fraught.

The Hall of Justice is cut on an angle at the corner of Bryant and Seventh. I climbed the granite steps to the glass and steel door, pulled it open, and went through security. Put my gun in the tray, my phone followed, and after clearing the metal detector I treated myself to an elevator ride to the fourth floor.

Brenda handed me some messages.

“Any bad news?”

“If so, I wouldn’t tell you,” she said. “This messenger hates getting shot.”

“Hah. I wouldn’t shoot you. I’d ask for a Kind bar.”

She opened her drawer and handed me one.

“Thanks, Brenda.”

I flipped through the tip line calls she’d fielded as I went to the back of the squad room. Looking into Brady’s office, I saw that his elbows were on his desk and his phone was hard against his ear. I pressed my hand to his wall and he looked up, signaled me to come in.

My morning coffee was still on my desk — cold, but I didn’t care. I brought it with me and sat down across from Brady and propped my feet up against the side of his desk. I unwrapped my Kind bar as Brady was saying, “Okay, Hallows, thanks.”

Brady hung up. “Hallows. Letting me know they’re processing the car. Have all of Misty’s things. Bag. Clothes. Phone. Surveillance video from the parking lot.”

“Misty told me she had a date with Burke in that car last Sunday night. More than once, I’m sure.”

I told him about Misty’s body, what the killer had done to her, what Claire had told me.

“She’s sure it’s the same doer?”

“Not yet, but she says Wendy Franks and Misty Fogarty have the same MO. Exactly.”

“Ah, sheet,” he said. “So we’ve got a serial.”

Brady’s intercom buzzed.

He pressed the button hard with his thumb.

“What? Who?” He stood up so he could see to the front of the squad room. Then he said to Brenda, “Tell them I’ll be right out.”

He sat down and pressed speed dial 1.

“Chief,” he said, “Lucas Burke is in the house. Looks like he brought his alibi with him.”

CHAPTER 40

LUCAS BURKE STOOD in Brady’s doorway, shaking a newspaper at us, bellowing, “What in God’s name is this? Bait to get me here? If this is fake, I’m going to sue this city, and whoever planted this story is going to be very sorry. Am I clear?”

I said, “May I see that?”

Burke threw the late edition of the Chronicle onto Brady’s desk and I read the headline: “Slash-and-Gash Killer Takes Second Victim.”

Misty Fogarty’s picture was centered on the front page. The stark headline punched me right to my heart. I felt light-headed and had to grip the edge of the desk.

Steady, girl.

Brady pointed at Burke. “Stay right there,” he said, before picking up his phone.

“Brenda, are the interview rooms vacant?”

To me, Brady said, “Sit tight. Be right back.”

I sat tight as directed, but my brain was ranging.

Cindy had written this story with no help from me or Richie, but still she’d gotten out the details of the murder, possibly attracting the interest of a copycat. Probably contaminating a future jury. If there’d ever be one.

I heard Cindy’s voice in my mind; “I’m doing my job.”

There was a tapping on the glass wall from outside Brady’s office and I came back to the moment. It was the woman who’d accompanied Burke to the Hall.

“This is my ex-wife, Alexandra Conroy,” Burke said. “She called me when she heard that Lorrie was murdered. Do you have any suspects, sergeant? Besides me?”

“I’m very sorry,” I said, dodging the question.

Brady was halfway down the squad room aisle briefing Chi and Cappy. I collected myself. I stood up and introduced myself to Burke’s ex-wife. We shook hands, and I told her to sit at my desk. “We won’t be long.”

I started gathering impressions.

Conroy looked to be in her forties, about Lucas’s age. She was well put-together in cream-colored knit separates. She had sun-streaked hair, a sun-pinked nose, and she wore no wedding band. My take? She had free time. She didn’t get messy. And despite the divorce, apparently she cared for Burke.

Burke wore a short-sleeved white shirt and khakis. His face and arms were burned to the point of peeling. Since the last time I saw him, he’d been exposed to the sun without SPF anything. Could be that he and Ms. Conroy had been lounging on a beach. Was it an alibi?

I watched Burke clutch the newspaper, shaking it as he reread Cindy’s report of Misty’s gruesome death. He was muttering, making hurt sounds, “Oh, God. Oh, God. Why? Why her?”

I said, “Lucas. Did you know Wendy Franks?”

He looked up at me like he’d stumbled out of a dark cave into daylight. “Who? No.”

I heard Brady ask Cappy and Chi to bring Ms. Conroy to Interview 1. “Take notes. I don’t want to wait for the transcript.”

Brady headed back toward his office, shook hands with Conroy, and introduced her to the detectives.

Then Brady said to Burke and me, “Let’s make ourselves more comfortable.”

Burke said, “I demand answers.”

“Same here,” said Brady.

CHAPTER 41

LUCAS BURKE WOBBLED, bumped into the walls of the corridor leading to Interview 2.

I put a steadying hand on his back and he shook me off. My mind split again. I suspected Burke of these horrific murders, yet his grief and rage felt absolutely real.

But if he killed these women — and his own baby — I would