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

of her little personal items they’d pulled from the glove box, her scarf smelling of flowers, her life’s blood drained onto the car seat.

Alvarez had handled it like the pro he recognized she was. So what was getting to her? She took a sip of her cold coffee to give herself pause.

“Sonia?”

“Okay. So, I’m driving home last night listening to the car radio. Clearing my brain. And this old song comes on from I think the seventies. I only know it from riding with my parents and they’re tuning into the oldies but goodies station and singing along.”

He smiled. “Gotcha. What song?”

“‘Cat’s in the Cradle.’”

“Harry Chapin,” Rich said.

“That’s it,” said Alvarez.

She rocked Lindsay’s desk chair forward so that the feet hit the floor and said, “So, you know. This is a sad song about a little boy wanting to be like his dad. But dad’s got work and he’s away all the time, making promises to his kid about being together soon, then breaking the promises. And the little boy who loves his father wants to be like his father when he grows up. That’s what he says. He wants to be like his dad.”

“Oh, my God,” said Richie leaping ahead.

“The kid grows up, gets married, has kids. Dad is retired and wants to be with his son. And son has no time to be with his father. And father says —”

Conklin said, “His son grew up just like him.”

Alvarez said, “I just started crying. Me! Vice. Narcotics. I’ve seen it all. No real problems with my parents. So was my tearing up from empathy? Or sentimentality, remembering my father singing that song in the car? Then I started really listening to the lyrics.”

“I’m wondering where Evan was when Lucas was growing up. Did Lucas want to be like his father — who probably killed his wife and child? According to a source of Joe’s, he’s been under investigation for decades for multiple murders across the country. What did Lucas know consciously or in a very guarded place, deep in his brain?”

“It’s a powerful thought, Sonia.”

Alvarez nodded, then said, “But wait. There’s more.”

“Keep going. I’m your captive audience.”

CHAPTER 72

THE SQUAD ROOM was in typical morning activity mode.

Cops were working the phones, escorting subjects through to Interviews 1 and 2, guys shouting to each other across the aisle, Brenda answering all of her phones. Traffic to and from the break room kept up a pretty constant stream past Conklin and Alvarez’s desk.

But Conklin and Alvarez were in their own bubble.

Alvarez said, “I turned the car around and came back here.”

“Hunh?”

“Night shift didn’t know me, but I said I was working with you. Then, I sat down and pulled up the video.”

“Which one?”

“This one.”

She cued up the Sunset Park Prep parking lot tape on her desktop computer, turned the monitor so Rich could see it, too. This was a copy of the ten minutes of Misty waiting. She was there, standing in front of her car, looking in the camera’s direction.

“Here we go, Rich. A guy shows up all in black who may have been Lucas or may have been stranger danger.”

The two watched the image of the man in black stick to the side of the lot where it was darkest. A chain-link fence divided the parking lot from the rough-mown field behind a gas station on the other side of the fence. A tree with its roots in the field lowered its many branches over the fence, throwing moon shadow into the parking lot at about eight o’clock that night.

Alvarez said, “I still believe what I did when Director Hallows showed us this footage. As the suspect comes closer, we see in Misty’s body language that she knows it isn’t Lucas. So then —”

“She gets in the car and turns on the headlights,” said Conklin. “She’s ready to pull out of the lot when this psycho gets into the back seat, reaches over, and slaughters her like a pig.”

“Yup,” said Alvarez. “Now watch this. It’s dark, but the headlights and floodlight affixed over the camera are on, and that’s both good and bad for us. We can see the lot, but the dude in dull black clothing looks even darker by contrast as he exits the car and leaves.”

“Yes. I see that.”

“Watch this closely, Rich. The unidentified subject stays close to the fence, passes under the tree branches — more cover, right? And then he does this with his hand.”

She pointed to the computer monitor.

Rich said, “Pushed back some leaves or something? Or maybe touched his hat. Making sure he still has it on?”

“Could be. But let me roll this back. Look at it again.”

Alvarez backed up the video, hit forward again, and then hit pause.

Rich said, “Is that the best picture we can get?”

“Unfortunately, this is enhanced. Now, look here,” she said. “Could that motion when the killer lifts his hand, could that be him whipping something over the fence?”

“Oh, Christ,” said Conklin. “The murder weapon? You could be right. Call Brady. Number one on speed dial.”

CHAPTER 73

CINDY AND JONNY SAMUELS stood in the street outside the yellow tape still roping off Sunset Park Prep.

Adjacent to the parking lot where Misty Fogarty was killed was a vacant lot behind an old gas station. The field was overgrown with tall weeds reaching up through stacks of old tires and rusted-out chassis.

In the last few hours, the field had been transformed. Tall stakes had been planted every four feet in a grid. CSU was covering the area, ten CSIs and techs in a line, arm’s length apart, passed metal detectors across the ground. They also concentrated their attention along the chain-link fence dividing the two properties.

Cindy scanned the school parking lot. Clapper was in center field giving Hallows the business. Brady stood with his enormous arms crossed, watching through the fence, clearly perturbed. And she