21st Birthday by James Patterson (e book reader android .TXT) 📕

water and fish and sand poured through the underside and out the open windows. Something pale caught my eye. An arm followed the flow of water and flopped out of the passenger-side window. It was a woman’s arm, abraded and bloated from soaking in seawater and mauled by sea animals.

As we circled the car, I braced myself for the sight of the dead woman’s ruined face. She had been in the passenger seat when the car was driven into the ocean. She was still seated with the shoulder harness firmly locking her in place. Her head was flopped to the side and the gash across her throat was swollen nearly shut, no longer a clean cut. There was a large, flat stone on the accelerator that had caused the car to take flight. I was sure this was Tara Burke, but I couldn’t make a positive ID by looking at her. Still, I recognized the denim dress Tara had been wearing, the outfit that had been captured on video when she’d left her house with Lorrie on Monday morning. She wouldn’t have fingerprints any longer, but presumably dental work, if she’d had any, could identify her.

Brady called my attention to the pink diaper bag jammed under the back seat, where there was also an unbuckled infant car seat. As I studied the woman, I noticed something inked onto the inside of her wrist: a small heart-shaped tattoo that confirmed her identity.

My hand was shaking as I took a picture with my phone and walked around the car to show it to Brady.

A CSI said, “’Scuse us, lieutenant. We’re going to wrap the car with the body inside. Take it all back to the lab.”

“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” said Brady. “Good catch, Boxer. I say we leave this to Hallows and his crew. We’ll go wake up Burke and take him in. Time and tide wait for no man.”

“What was that?”

“Chaucer. I took English lit, too. It means ‘Let’s git.’”

Chapter 51

I trotted behind Brady up the stairs to his vehicle in the parking area. He opened the door, grabbed the mic, and requested backup to Burke’s address.

“Three patrol cars. Code two,” he said.

Urgent, no lights or sirens.

Within minutes we’d parked on Persia Avenue, three hundred yards from Burke’s front door. The house was dark. The silver Audi was in the driveway and Reg Covington, SWAT commander, had blocked the driveway with his armored car. Two unmarked cars were parked at the curb, and cops wearing Kevlar jackets quietly disembarked and crept toward the house.

Brady and I exited the Tacoma and with our BearCat backup only yards away and two teams surrounding the house, we moved in on 79 Dublin Street. Covington’s team of six used the hood, roof, and doors of the BearCat as shields and gun rests. We were covered.

Brady unlatched Lucas Burke’s picket gate and we approached the dark blue front door with its fist-shaped brass knocker. I stood to the side. Brady stepped in, knocked and announced, then I got out of his way as he lifted his leg and kicked in the door.

No alarms or lights came on, either inside or outside the house. Covington and two of his team rushed in, yelling.

“SFPD! Speak out!”

No one did. The advance team cleared the downstairs rooms and thundered up the stairs to the bedrooms.

I heard Covington shout, “Hands up! Face the wall!”

Burke’s voice. “What now? This is harassment.”

Brady and I bounded up the staircase and found Lucas Burke standing beside the bed in a T-shirt and boxers. He showed us that his hands were empty and Brady turned him 180 and told him to put his hands on the wall. One after the other, Brady jerked Burke’s arms around to his back and cuffed him, then spun him back around to face us.

I said, “Lucas, I’m sorry to tell you that we’ve recovered Tara’s car from the ocean. Her body was inside. You’re under arrest for suspicion in the murders of Tara Burke and Lorrie Burke.”

He howled, “Noooooooooo!”

I read him his rights; to remain silent. Anything he said could be used against him. Right to a lawyer and the state would provide an attorney if he couldn’t afford one.

“Do you understand your rights?”

He glared at me.

“I haven’t killed anyone.”

“Boxer, do it again, louder,” said Brady.

I shouted what I’d just said, one sentence at a time, asking him after each, “Do you understand?”

Burke hissed, “Yes, yes, yes, I understand.”

“Let’s go,” said Brady, pushing Burke to and through the bedroom doorway. Covington’s team followed Brady, and Burke and I brought up the rear, helping Brady stuff the accused into the back seat of our unmarked.

Burke would be charged with reasonable suspicion of homicide. Although we hadn’t caught him in the act, had no witness or physical evidence of any kind, by his own admission, Burke had fought with his wife the morning she disappeared. It would be harder or even impossible, with what we had, to prove that he’d killed Misty Fogarty, Wendy Franks, and Susan Wenthauser. So the DA would go with our strongest cases, and if we found further evidence we would charge him for those crimes, too.

But, what we had was compelling.

One, Tara strapped into the passenger seat of her car, her throat slashed; and, two, the dead baby, evidence of manual asphyxiation, her diaper bag stuffed under the same back seat, infant car seat unbuckled. Burke had seen them last. There had been a history of spousal abuse. He had been having an affair. Three strikes.

A good prosecutor would be able to convince a jury that Lucas Burke was a wolf dressed in a high school teacher’s tweeds. An impartial jury would buy it.

That’s what I believed.

Chapter 52

It was Friday morning, ten past nine.

Brady, Yuki, and I were with DA Len Parisi in his office with Lucas Burke and Newton Gardner, his publicity-grabbing hard-ass criminal defense attorney.

I was rested and focused and eager to hear what Lucas Burke would say about the recovery of his dead wife.

Lucas