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

“Maybe I’ll take a quick nap.”

“Keep your phone on.”

“Copy that.”

I put my phone on the nightstand in the closest bedroom and dropped onto the bed. When my head hit the pillow, I was already asleep. I dreamed about Berney. In this fantasy, I was interrogating him in the box.

What’s your name? Your real name? What’s your interest in Evan Burke? Am I bait? Or free labor so you can nab Burke and take him back to Washington?

In my dream, the spy who looked like a preacher man just smiled but didn’t answer.

I was awoken by the sound of crinkling paper. Alvarez was back from her shopping excursion to the lobby, and she had a couple of shiny bags with her.

“What’d you get?

Sonia opened one bag and took out something black and slinky with sprays of sequins from shoulder to hip.

“Try this on,” she said.

“Me?”

“I’ve got a backup for you in case …”

I stripped off my shirt and trousers and stepped into the sparkly black cocktail dress. Alvarez said, “So far, excellent. Shoe size nine?”

She took a pair of black shoes with a short heel out of a bag and handed them over. I wiggled them on.

They looked good.

While I was admiring my legs, Alvarez had put on a cream-colored pantsuit. We were transformed.

“Cagney and Lacey,” I said.

“Rizzoli and Isles.”

I told Alvarez we could always try to expense the undercover outfits. We laughed, then Alvarez said, “We’re not done yet.”

CHAPTER 84

NICK GAINES HAD POSITIONED the whiteboard so that the judge, jurors, and witnesses could see the photos of Lorrie and Tara Burke and Melissa Fogarty, along with their names and dates of birth and death.

Yuki felt good. She was stacking her points brick by brick as she built her case against Lucas Burke.

She’d put on a series of cops and coast guard officers, all of whom were experienced at testifying in court.

Patrolman Jay Whitcomb had been first on the scene when the body of a red-haired female child was found on Baker Beach. Coast guard lieutenant Samuel Waverly directed the recovery of Tara Burke’s vehicle. School security guard Mike Cassidy was the unsuspecting soul who’d found Misty Fogarty sitting in her own blood in her car parked in the Sunset Park Prep student lot. And Misty’s best friend, Johanna Weber, testified that Burke told Melissa that he loved her and wanted to marry her.

Yuki also had a copy of the note from Lucas to Misty saying so. It was entered into evidence and shown to the jury.

It was about three thirty when Yuki called Dr. Claire Washburn to the stand.

Claire was both authoritative and accessible, and her testimony was in spoken English, not medical jargon.

She explained that the baby had been asphyxiated and, judging from the bruises on her face, most probably smothered by hand.

And she described to the jury what she could tell from the autopsy of the baby’s mother.

“Tara Burke’s body was bloated and, no other way to say this, chewed on by sea life. Her eyes, fingers, parts of her cheeks were gone, and the fatal injury was also swollen and disturbed. That said, only a sharp blade across the throat could have made that mortal wound. Force had been used, and Mrs. Burke was nearly decapitated. Both Tara and Lorrie were dead before the car went into the ocean.”

With Yuki guiding her witness, Claire described Melissa Fogarty’s slashed throat, the seemingly gratuitous stab marks on her chest.

Yuki walked to the whiteboard and indicated Fogarty’s photo.

“Is this Melissa Fogarty?” Yuki asked her witness.

“Yes.”

The jurors turned to look at the picture of Misty. From her expression, she had good feelings toward the person behind the lens. Her eyes smiled. Her grin was verging on laughter. She had been a beautiful eighteen-year-old.

At Yuki’s questioning, Claire described the slash across the girl’s throat. detailing the “serial killer gibberish” of the gashes in her upper chest.

Yuki entered the morgue photos with close-ups of the injuries into evidence and then passed them to the jurors.

Yuki thanked the witness and turned her over to defense counsel.

Newt Gardner had had no questions for the law-enforcement witnesses, but he wanted to cross-examine Claire. Gardner stood, and this time he spoke from his position at the counsel table.

“Dr. Washburn, is it your professional conclusion that that all three of these victims were killed by the same person?”

“I see a pattern in the manner of death of the two adult women.”

“Please just answer the question, doctor. Can you tell us if the victims were all killed by the same person?”

“Not definitively, but the evidence points to one killer.”

“How so?”

“Tara and Melissa both died from similar slashes across their throats.”

“So, if I understand you correctly, you have no evidence leading to Lorrie Burke’s killer.”

“No scientific evidence.”

“So, that’s a ‘no.’ During your postmortem examinations of Tara Burke and Melissa Fogarty, did you obtain evidence that they were killed by my client?”

“As I said, Mr. Gardner, Mrs. Burke’s throat was slashed. She was in the ocean for days. What we could tell from that water-logged fatal wound was that it was inflicted with a sharp blade. Same type of wound Melissa Fogarty suffered.”

“Same or similar?”

“Due to the condition of Mrs. Burke’s body, I can only say ‘similar.’”

“So you can’t even be sure that the throats were slashed by the same weapon or the same individual, can you?”

When Claire didn’t answer, Gardener said, “You found nothing in or on any of the deceased that would lead you to believe that my client killed them, isn’t that right?”

Claire didn’t speak.

“Yes or no, Dr. Washburn?”

“I have no direct evidence that your client killed those people, correct.”

“I have no further questions for the witness.”

Yuki stood and said, “Redirect, Your Honor.”

She walked over to Claire.

“The shallow gashes on Melissa Fogarty’s chest that you called ‘serial killer gibberish’ could be the killer’s signature, his way of marking the victim, is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Were there any similar gashes on