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

to the Hall. I was buckling up when there was a rap on the glass.

It was a uniform. I buzzed down the window.

“Sergeant, the victim had plastic in her back pocket. We’ve got a name.”

CHAPTER 47

I CALLED RICH CONKLIN from the car and we agreed to meet at the Hall, ASAP.

He was at his desk when I got there at 7:15 p.m. I collected my laptop and slipped into my old swivel chair behind my old desk. Adjusted my lamp. Moved folders belonging to Alvarez over to Conklin’s desk and repossessed my territory.

Felt damned good to put aside task force protocol and step back into my accustomed routine.

I said, “There has to be a connection with the other murders. This could take ten minutes or ten hours.”

“Either way is okay.”

I showed Conklin the photos on my phone; a few angles on the victim and the shot of her credit card.

He said, “Susan Wenthauser. How do you want to do this?”

“You start with the white pages and the DMV database. After we have her address and phone, we’ll go to the credit card company, see if we can get the date of her last charge.”

“Copy that.”

I typed “Susan Wenthauser” into my web browser. A second later, her name came up.

“Rich?”

“Yo.”

“Susan Wenthauser was reported missing last month when she was a no-show for her night flight back to Boise. She was twenty-two, visiting a cousin who lived here. The case went cold, fast. No body, no one saw her. Filed under missing persons.”

Conklin was also typing her name.

“Here’s a story from a Boise paper,” he said and began to read out loud. “Thelma Wenthauser, mother of missing twenty-two-year-old Susan, tells this reporter, ‘Susie is such a good girl. She’s never been out of Boise before. She’s been waitressing, you know. And making plans to get married. She wanted to visit her cousin in San Francisco. She’s not a runaway. Something has happened to her. Please say, ‘If anyone has any information that will help us bring Susan home, call the newspaper or the police.’”

Conklin said, “No one called.”

Susan’s picture was in the article, her arm around her mother’s waist. Cute picture.

And then I found an article quoting Boise PD quoting the cousin saying she and Susan had had their visit, said good-bye, Susan called a cab but never made her flight. A political firestorm had blotted out news of the missing young woman, and nothing further was written in San Francisco about Susan Wenthauser.

I picked up the phone and hit number 2 on my speed dial.

“Brady, the victim. Susan Wenthauser? She was visiting from Boise. Last seen three blocks from the Burke house waiting for a cab to the airport. Her credit card was never charged for a ride, so there is no driver to trace. I’ll bet some psycho offered to give her the grand tour of San Francisco before he cut her throat.”

CHAPTER 48

JOE OPENED THE front door.

“The kiddo’s asleep,” he said.

I fell into his arms.

He hugged me close, rubbed my back, and walked me backward to the living room, dropping me gently into his well-loved recliner. He even pulled up on the handle raising the foot platform. Then he took off my gun, my jacket, my shoes, placed my phone on the side table.

“What can I get for madam?” he said. “Wine? Ice cream? Sleep mask?”

“I’m sorry for being so late. People keep turning up dead.”

“I heard.”

“You did?

“Claire. No news, she says. Just call her in the morning.”

“Okay. Could we have wine and ice cream in bed?”

“Who’s going to stop us?”

I was in the shower for what could have been twenty minutes. Martha sat on the bath mat watching the spray against the shower curtain. I talked to her, telling her in detail about my shitty day. Joe reached in, turned off the water, and handed me a fluffy white towel.

“You’re using all the hot water in the building.”

I laughed. Didn’t know I had a laugh left in me.

Joe was wearing pajamas I’d given him for his birthday, blue and white striped, bottoms only. He helped me out of the shower, bundled me up in a terry cloth robe and said, “Do you want to look in on Julie or just come to bed?”

There was a glass of wine in his hand and he handed it over.

“I didn’t dish up the ice cream. Yet.”

I kissed him, took the wine and sipped, then handed the glass back to him. “I think I’ll take a peek. Maybe watch her sleep for a minute.”

I tiptoed into Julie’s dandelion-yellow bedroom. She was in her big-girl bed, “without fences, Mom.” As she was turning four in another week, we’d all agreed that a bed without rails was age appropriate.

As I looked down on her, Julie opened her eyes, gave me a sleepy smile, and said, “It’s past your bedtime.”

I cracked up. It wasn’t just that she liked to mimic me, it was that she knew exactly how and when to do it.

“I’m going to bed now, Julie Bugs. See you in the morning.”

I kissed her cheek, and she held up her toy cow, Mrs. Mooey Milkington. I kissed Mooey, too, and Julie threw an arm around my neck. I tickled her until she let me go. Still smiling, I backed out of her doorway and went to my favorite room in the house.

The blue-painted bedroom at the corner of our apartment was cloud-like with white curtains and a big bed. It was the place where we’d made Julie and where I had delivered her, on a dark and stormy night, with the help of a dozen SFFD firefighters.

Joe had missed the drama, but has made up for it in so many ways. As he was doing now. He handed me a bowl of pralines and cream ice cream in a blue earthenware bowl, the still-chilled Chardonnay, fluffed pillows