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

She held up the front section of the Bay Area Herald, a quality paper that ran straight-up mainstream news. She turned it this way and that way so that Rich and I could both read the headline, see the picture of her leaving the building last night with her computer bag, her blond streak of hair falling over her eye, looking up the street for her car.

The headline read, “Parisi subs out Burke trial to an ADA with spotty track record.”

Yuki’s voice quavered as she read the lede: “Accused of double homicide, defendant Lucas Burke’s chances of acquittal just improved by facing off against prosecutor Yuki Castellano, an ADA with an iffy conviction track record in criminal court.”

Conklin said, “Don’t let that a-hole throw you, Yuki,” and I said something much the same. I believed it. Yuki was terrific; through no fault of hers, she’d had some stinkers tossed her way. She’d lost a couple of big cases, not because she was unprepared or overmatched but because of circumstances such as key witnesses changing their stories — or dying — during trial.

Even so, Yuki had won more cases than she’d lost, and she was an attractive woman, now married to a top cop. The camera liked her and sometimes reporters found her an easy target.

Yuki said, “The jury is going to love Burke’s showboat defense counsel. Newt Gardner has a made-for-TV personality and believable charm. He can spin arguments seamlessly, and the jurors buy it. I’ve seen him do it. He even makes me think, Jesus, do I have the wrong guy?”

I had nothing for her. Certainly not the thing she wanted most: bulletproof, direct evidence that Lucas Burke had killed his wife and baby.

Yuki said, “I know you all have been working nonstop, but I can tell you that Newton Gardner’s opening and closing statements are going to be one and the same. ‘Lucas didn’t do it. The prosecution can’t and didn’t prove that he did.’

“And then all of us — you, you, me, Brady, Red Dog, Clapper, and the whole of the SFPD — are going to take hard indelible hits to our careers, and the psycho is going to go free.”

CHAPTER 71

AN HOUR HAD PASSED since the meeting with Yuki.

Rich Conklin was at his desk, facing Inspector Sonia Alvarez in Lindsay’s old seat at the front of the bullpen.

They had coffee containers at hand while their computers continued their daily searches for pattern murders of young females across the country over the previous thirty years. So far, the neck-slashing pattern accompanied by a constellation of gashes across the top of the women’s chests seemed unique.

The personal line on Richie’s desk phone lit up. He punched it, said “Conklin,” and put Claire on speaker.

“Hi, Claire,” Rich said. “I’m putting you on speaker so Sonia can hear this, too.”

She said, “I’ve been on the medical examiner’s chat line for a couple of hours so I could get the East Coast into it.”

“What’s the consensus?” Rich asked.

“That the murder weapon was likely the same or similar used on Tara Burke, Wendy Franks, and Melissa Fogarty. As you know, the baby was smothered. The earliest victim, Wenthauser, last seen blocks from Lucas Burke’s residence, was skeletal. We couldn’t get a good cause of death off her. But back to your other victims. A straight-edged blade — a razor or a well-honed knife — was used, but I can only say ‘similar’ weapon because the length and width of Misty and Wendy’s slashes were consistent.”

“And Tara?”

“Her mortal wound was distorted by soaking in the water. As for the chest gashes, six of the MEs and I agree. Those little stab wounds are serial killer gibberish.”

Sonia said, “A game he’s playing? He’s just horsing around?”

“Right,” said Claire. “The stabs or gashes or puncture wounds were applied both ante and post mortem. Killer didn’t care if the victims were alive or dead. He’s just screwing with the cops and the Forensics crew or playing mumblety-peg.”

“Any thoughts on why?” asked Alvarez.

“Nothing consistent. Three negatives all different. One hypothesized that the victim got a stab wound for each emotional wound she inflicted on the killer. Nothing to back that up. Another thought was that the killer was marking how many seconds it took the victim to die once her throat was slashed. Possible. Uh. The third opposing thought was that the killer was stabbing to the beat of a favorite song.

“To me,” Claire said, “that falls under the heading of pathological gibberish.’”

After the call ended, Alvarez tipped her chair back so that she was looking at the ceiling with her large, black, unblinking eyes.

“What you thinking, Alvarez?”

“Long version or short?”

“You choose.”

“Okay,” she said, “my thoughts on Lucas are that this man is not a cool customer. He’s volatile. Highly emotional. Agree?”

“Agreed.”

“If he’s a psychopath, maybe he could fake it, but no matter what, he couldn’t have been in Sacramento and in Sunset Park Prep’s parking lot at the same time.”

“His alibi and corroboration by his ex-wife that he left his house and drove to Sacramento, arriving by nine, are why we didn’t charge him with Fogarty.”

Alvarez said, “Maybe the ex stretched the time of his arrival, but still, I don’t think Lucas killed Misty. He loves this girl and he’s carving on her chest? I’ve seen sicker stuff that I will never ever unsee. But mutilating Misty’s chest does not compute.”

“Gotcha. But since we’re not charging him with the Fogarty murder, how does this help us?”

“I don’t know yet,” said Alvarez. “But we have to make sure that it doesn’t hurt us. If the same person killed Tara, Misty, and Wendy, and Lucas didn’t kill Misty, there’s a chance he didn’t kill Tara or Lorrie, either. That’s why I chose the long version.”

Sonia Alvarez smiled with her mouth but not with her eyes.

She looked sad and Conklin didn’t know why. She hadn’t gotten emotional even when they’d gone through Misty’s car, bagging all