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

heard about Lorrie. She lives only a couple of hours away. I wanted to be with her, just to talk. Although our marriage had died a long time ago, Alex always understood me. I called her. She said, ‘Come.’

“I drove straight to her house. It was dark when I got there.”

“And then what, Luke?”

“We talked. I cried for hours. Alex made a reservation for us, a weekend’s stay at a resort in Carmel. We woke up early and drove to the resort. We spent Friday night, and late Saturday morning, in the breakfast room, I saw the paper with Misty’s picture under a headline saying that she’d been murdered.

“Alex and I left the resort and drove directly to the police station in this building, where I was arrested for murders I didn’t, couldn’t have, would never commit. So help me, God.”

“Thank you, Lucas.”

Gardner turned his handsome face to the jury as if to say, You see what kind of man he is. He didn’t do it.

“Your witness,” Gardner said to ADA Castellano.

“No questions,” Yuki said.

“Okay then,” said Gardner. “The defense rests.”

CHAPTER 104

THE JUDGE CALLED a twenty-minute recess, which gave Yuki some time to settle her nerves.

This was it. She was about to give her closing argument. She’d been rehearsing variations on her summation for months with Len Parisi, with Nick Gaines, and with her husband, Jackson Brady.

She swung her eyes to the back of the room and saw Brady standing beside Cindy’s chair.

He gave her a smile and she returned one of her own.

She heard the judge call her name and felt the hush in the courtroom as if it were a chill breeze. Nick’s note was in front of her: “Go get ’em.”

ADA Castellano walked to the lectern and addressed the jury with all of the confidence she had.

“Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, this case is about the murder of two innocent young women and a baby girl, all of whom were intimately connected to the defendant, Lucas Burke.

“Mr. Burke claims to have loved them all and denies his guilt, but the evidence shows that he decided, with malice aforethought, to kill all three.

“How do we know he did it?

“Mr. Burke has testified that his marriage was going up in in flames. Tara was too spendy with her credit cards, and the defendant states that he couldn’t afford this. He told her to grow up, to stick to the budget, and when she continued to overspend, he canceled her credit cards.

“She was angry.

“You heard Tara’s mother, Kathleen Wyatt, who told you that Mr. Burke was abusive to her daughter. Tara denied it, but this is often the case with abused spouses, and this seems to be such a case. Fights, bruises, mounting anger.

“Mr. Burke already had another teenage girlfriend. We have introduced the note that he wrote to Melissa Fogarty saying that he wanted to marry her, but to date, no ring was forthcoming. Not only was this affair another sign that Lucas Burke’s marriage vows were broken, but perhaps Lucas was feeling pressure from his girlfriend.

“Based on these financial and emotional circumstances, I believe even Mr. Burke would admit that he went to bed angry every night and woke up angry every morning. And maybe he could no longer contain that anger and had to take action before it destroyed him.

“On the Monday, Lucas Burke fought with his wife on what would turn out to be the last day of her life. Phone records show that Mr. Burke last phoned Tara at eleven that morning. They spoke for three minutes and he never called her again. Not even after their baby was found dead Wednesday morning. He never called her during that period of nearly a week when she was missing. Unlike Tara’s mother, he didn’t dog the police department, demanding that they inform him of progress in the search for his wife, and he didn’t put up posters asking, ‘Have you seen Tara Burke?’

“Lucas Burke knew where she was.

“We deduce that on that last call, he made a plan to meet with her purportedly to discuss their fight — but it was a ruse. He had a different idea. He met her at a romantic place overlooking the water, and killed her by drawing his razor blade across her throat.

“He then smothered his own baby with his hand. He tucked them both into Tara’s car, put a stone on the accelerator and, after getting safely out of the car, he rolled it into the ocean, where it stayed until Saturday. According to our medical examiner, both Tara and Lorrie were dead before they hit the water.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is an absence of contradictory evidence from the defense.

“You have heard from the head of our Forensics laboratory who examined the evidence, and we have shown you the murder weapon used to kill Melissa Fogarty.

“Ms. Fogarty’s blood was found on the blade, and Lucas Burke’s fingerprints were on that razor’s handle. Furthermore, Lucas Burke was the last known person to see Tara and Lorrie Burke, and he went to great lengths to get rid of their bodies.

“Why did Mr. Burke go on a murder spree?

“We contend it was because he didn’t want to be weighed down with other people’s expectations. So instead of moving to a new location, he expressed the volatile personality he has shown us in this room.

“And he believed that he could get away with it.

“Mr. Burke’s defense is common to police and prosecutors all over this country. We have heard it too many times. It’s referred to as TODDI.

“That’s an acronym for the words ‘the other dude did it.’ In this case of three dead souls who loved the defendant, the defense wants to blame the other dude, the defendant’s father. Mr. Burke’s father does not have a criminal record. He has not been introduced to this court in person or by way of other witnesses. In fact, the defense