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

Rich pointed to an exit coming up at a left angle to the highway.

“That’s it,” Cindy said. “Good catch, Richie.”

He took a hard left and we traveled, I’d say a half a mile, following real estate company arrows, crossing other narrow turnoffs, until a grim little shack was dead ahead in our headlight beams.

Rich pulled up to small home that looked like Burke’s place at Mount Tam. The structure was a hybrid of sorts; an old camper attached to a handmade wood-frame house. There was a red-and-white sign on a post at the end of the drive reading “Sold by Patricia McNamee Real Estate.” There were no lights on in the dwelling, no cars in the driveway, no traffic, only insect sounds as the sun melted in the distance.

I said, “Looks cozy.”

Cindy laughed nervously.

Rich said, “Cindy. Stay here until we come to get you. Lock the doors.”

My partner and I approached the house with flashlights and guns. We listened at the doorways and windows, pressed our ears to aluminum and wood siding.

It seemed that no one was home.

CHAPTER 119

IT WAS GREAT WORKING with Richie again.

We didn’t have to speak as we circled the house, me to the left, Conklin to the right. We heard nothing, saw nothing through the windows, or in the yard and after checking the toolshed we executed the knock and announce protocol.

I knocked, called out, “Police! Open the door.”

No answer. The front door was locked and there was a real estate lock box just outside the door jamb.

Conklin called out “Police!” once more and louder. When there was no answer, he kicked in the door, right off the hinges.

I stepped in and flipped on the lights, which illuminated the entire four-hundred-square-foot interior, all visible from the doorway.

The main room doubled as a bedroom/sitting room with a built-in bed and a bookcase with a foldout writing surface for a desk, cubbyholes above it for filing. The camper section contained both the kitchen and bathroom.

Conklin and I cleared the dwelling, including the two closets and the shower stall. When we were sure it was safe, Rich stood up the kicked-in front door and called out to Cindy.

We stood aside as she stepped over the threshold and began her exceedingly well-earned treasure hunt.

She said, “What I’m looking for is supposed to be under this bed.”

The twin-sized bed was made of a built-in rectangular frame tied into the floorboards. The mattress was centered on top, no room underneath for dust bunnies or anything else. Rich hefted the mattress out of the frame and leaned it against the wall. Inside the frame were two-by-four slats resting across the width of the bed, used to support the mattress. It took only a minute to lift them from the frame — and there it was.

A plain wooden chest, about the size of a child’s toy box.

“Go ahead,” I said to Cindy.

She stepped into the opening where the slats had been and tried opening the lid of the box. It was locked.

She said, “Oh. Right.”

Pulling out a red string lanyard from inside her shirt, I saw the key that had been taped under Burke’s signature. Cindy tried the key, and after a few wiggles, the lock clicked open.

Cindy lifted the lid and stared at the treasure inside. I saw three stacked leather-bound books with dates etched into the covers. I opened one and saw dated pages, covered in very small, very tight cursive writing.

Cindy pulled a large, bulging scrapbook from the bottom of the chest. When she flapped it open, we saw that it was filled with glued down photos. All of the photos were of women, all smiling at the camera, all looking to be in their teens or early twenties, Burke’s cramped handwriting under each; for instance, Becky Weise, Catalina, 1998, tattoo around her ankle of birds and flowers. Roses are red. Summer is yellow. Neither of them last.

Each photo was annotated with dates, names, or “unknown,” plus maps to the places where Burke had presumably killed his victims and where he’d buried, dumped, or hidden their remains.

I looked to Cindy and saw tears streaming down her cheeks. I hugged her hard and tried not to cry myself. It was too painful. The scrapbook had transformed Burke’s bragging and lying and sly intimations into real people; real people Burke had all killed.

“What do I do?” Cindy said. “What’s my first step?”

Conklin said, “Let me see that note from Burke, the one the nurse gave you.”

He sat on the floor next to us and read the handwritten note, the map to Burke’s house, and also something of a legal document.

“I, Evan William Burke, do hereby leave my possessions from my house in Lonelyville to Cynthia Thomas.”

It was dated, signed, and witnessed “Nancy Shepherd, RN.”

Richie said, “These books belong to you, Cin. But the information in here? It can’t just go out online.”

“No, of course not,” Cindy said. “But which police?”

“I know what we should do,” Rich said.

We rifled through the books on the shelves, the desk, too, and found more letters and an accordion file of photos, all of which we put into the wooden box. We tossed the drawers and closets and found other items of interest:

A key to a Sea Ray motor boat, the same model Wendy Franks had owned.

A luggage tag, monogrammed “SW,” presumably for Susan Wenthauser, the young traveler killed before she could find her way home.

A picture of Misty Fogarty in her blue and white school uniform, taped to the inside of a kitchen cabinet. It was disgusting to think that he’d taken this picture and then killed her out of spite.

With the chest of evidence in the trunk, Rich drove us to a Loew’s about fifteen minutes away where we picked up a strong wifi signal in the parking lot.

And we made calls.

First to Brady, to let him know we were safe. Then I called