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

“Do you?” he shouted back. “Take my word for it, or don’t. Lucas has been a killer since he was a kid. Animals, of course. But my wife and his sister were his first human kills — that I know about.”

His voice broke. He coughed. Then he spoke again.

“I do not know what he did with their bodies. Maybe he’ll tell you if you make him a deal. He wouldn’t tell me. Lucas is a sick human being. And he’s a liar. He’s the one who sent you here, isn’t he?”

“Your name came up,” Conklin said.

Burke snorted.

“We’d like your comments about your son for the record,” Conklin continued. “We can give you a lift to our station, get this on tape, and drive you back. Door-to-door service and that will be the end of it. Check off, ‘did my civic duty.’”

“That’s not happening. You’ve got your man and I’m done with you two and him. Now get off my property and stay off it.

“You know the drill. ‘All trespassers will be shot on sight.’”

CHAPTER 66

BRADY WAS STANDING on the road when our headlights hit him.

Conklin pulled in next to the van and Brady opened my door, “Tell me every detail,” Brady said. “Start with when the guy called you out.”

I told him about the floodlights, the AK, the man who looked like the picture we’d seen of Evan Burke.

“His features were smooth and ordinary,” I said, “what we could see of him. He said his son, Lucas, has killed a lot of people, starting with his own mother and sister, and including Tara and Lorrie Burke. But he, Evan, doesn’t have any evidence whatsoever.”

Brady said, “He was too far from you for me to hear what he said about Lucas.”

Conklin said, “He said that his son is a psychopath and a genius and that we’ll never catch him in the act of anything. But sure as shootin’, Luke did it.”

“Starting to sound like both of them are psycho,” said Brady. “Suggest we keep our vehicles so we can see the roads leading to Burke’s place tonight. Maybe he’ll bolt and we can follow him.”

Cappy and Alvarez got out of the van, stretched their legs, and Brady brought out a cooler from the back. There were enough water and sandwiches to take the edge off our hunger, but I still felt the sting of being run off by Burke.

We returned to our vehicles and prepared for an all-night stakeout. As the adrenaline I’d been mainlining burned off, I felt deflated, bordering on depressed.

One good thing.

I was in a car with Conklin.

It felt good. Like old times.

Sometime later, when Rich shook me awake, I said, “What?”

“Motorcycle. Alvarez saw it coming down from Burke’s house. Buckle up.”

Brady’s voice came over the radio. “Boxer. Conklin. Follow the bike. No flashers. No sirens. Do not lose him.”

The bike had a head start and we pulled out, followed it at a distance of thirty yards. There were no other cars on the road. I looked in the rearview and saw our van behind us.

We were keeping up when the bike took a hard turn, uphill. It wasn’t going to Burke’s cabin, so where? I was on the comms with Brady when another motorcycle came down the mountain from a different mountain trail. One of these bikes was a decoy, the other could be Burke. The second bike was on Route 1 heading south toward the bridge. Conklin sped up and passed the bike and as we passed him, the biker made the motion of pulling the chain that blows a trucker’s horn.

His helmet and goggles covered most of his face, but not his mouth and I saw that he was grinning.

When the bike took Morton Road I knew that in fact our chain had been yanked. Brady made a U-turn back to where we’d come from. He must have used the force of his will to get that van up the mountain or maybe they pulled over and ran.

Brady’s voice came over the receiver.

“House is empty. I threw a rock through the window to see what would happen, but nothing did. No lights, horns, or explosives. I pushed in the door and had a look around. No one was home.

“The bastard’s playing with us.”

Didn’t surprise me. At all.

Brady went on. “Where’re you at?”

“Coming up on the marina, this side of the bridge,” I told Brady. “We’re going to stop there and look around.”

The harbor master was in his small multi-windowed office on the pier. He was a windblown but upbeat and talkative man in his sixties who introduced himself as Monty McAllister. Sure, he said, he knew Jake Winslow, said he did keep a boat at the marina, but no, he hadn’t seen him in weeks.

“No motorcycles came in tonight, nope. Not a one.”

Conklin asked to see Winslow’s boat. McAllister said, “Follow me.”

The boat, in good repair, was a Century Boats 30 Express named Lucky Strike. Definitely not occupied.

We went back to our car and reported in. Brady said, “Stay there. He could show up at any time.”

“Any time” came and went. The sun was rising in the east, lighting the upper architecture of the famous bridge. McAllister brought us mugs of coffee and we sat in the car until eight in the morning.

Brady called to ask, “Anything?”

“No, boss.”

“Me, neither. Burke didn’t go back to his house, either. Fucking guy is just fucking gone.”

CHAPTER 67

CINDY THOMAS WAS driving over the Golden Gate Bridge while Jonny Samuels dozed in the seat beside her.

They were on a field trip to Mount Tam with one objective: to interview Evan Burke or people who knew him, get a verifiable story, an unshakable quote, and if feasible, a good photo of Burke talking with her.

Cindy felt lucky to be the one reporter with an actual smoking-hot lead. She had reliable sources at the Hall,