1st to Die

by James Patterson

  But this one, Kathy, she had been chosen in a different way.

  I was certain that whoever had done this had known her.

  Chapter 57

  I DROVE STRAIGHT TO THE HILTON on Lake Shore Boulevard and was able to catch Merrill Shortley just as she was about to depart for the airport. She turned out to be stylish, maybe twenty-seven, with shoulder-length, chestnut brown hair tied back in a bun.

  “A group of us were up all night,” she said, apologizing for the swollen lines around her face. “I’d like to stay on, but who knows when they’ll finally release the body. I have a one-year-old.”

  “The Koguts told me you live in San Francisco.”

  She sat on the edge of the bed across from me. “Los Altos. I moved down two years ago, when I got married.”

  “I need to know about Kathy Kogut in San Francisco,” I explained. “Lovers. Breakups. Someone who might have a cause to do this.”

  “You think she knew this madman?” Her face was clenched.

  “Maybe, Merrill. You can help us decide. Will you help?”

  “Kathy hooked up with guys,” Merrill said after a pause. “She was always free about things in that way.”

  “Are you saying she was promiscuous?”

  “If you want to see it that way. Men liked her. There was a lot of energy going on back then. Music, film. Alternative stuff. Whatever made her feel alive.”

  I was getting the picture. “Does that include drugs?”

  “Like I said, whatever made her feel alive. Yes, Kathy did recreational drugs.”

  Merrill, though pretty, had the hard-edged face of a street survivor who had remade herself as a soccer mom.

  “Anyone come to mind who might’ve wanted to hurt her? Someone who was overly fascinated? Maybe jealous when she moved on?”

  Merrill thought a bit, shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “You two were close?”

  She nodded. At the same time, her eyes hooded.

  “Why did she move away?”

  “She landed a great job. Must’ve seemed like she was finally climbing the ladder. Her father and mother always wanted that. The Shaker Heights thing. Look, I really have to catch a plane.”

  “What are the chances Kathy was running away from something?”

  “You live the way we lived, you’re always running from something.” Merrill Shortley shrugged and looked bored.

  There was an attitude, a coldness about Merrill I didn’t like. She still surrounded herself with the cynical aura of a dissolute past. And I had the suspicion she was withholding something. “So what’d you do, Merrill? Marry the dime-bag mambo king of Silicon Valley?”

  She shook her head. Finally, she smiled thinly. “Fund manager.”

  I leaned forward. “So you don’t remember anyone special? Someone she might’ve kept up with? Been scared of?”

  “Those years,” Merrill Shortley said, “I have a hard time remembering anyone special at all.”

  “This was your friend,” I said, my voice rising. “You want me to show you what she looks like now?”

  Merrill stood up, stepped over to the dresser, and began to pack a leather bag with toiletries and makeup. At some point, she stopped and caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Then she looked over her shoulder and caught my eye. “Maybe there was this one guy Kathy was into. Big shot. Older. She said I’d know who he was — but she wouldn’t give me a name. I think she met him through the job. As I remember, he was married. I don’t know how it ended. Or who ended it. Or if it ever did.”

  My adrenaline began to flow. “Who is he, Merrill? He might have killed your friend.”

  She shook her head.

  “You ever see this man?”

  She shook her head again.

  I pushed on.

  “You’re the one friend from back then she invites to her wedding and you never met him once? You don’t even know a name?”

  She gave me a cool smile. “She was protective. She didn’t tell me everything. Scout’s honor, Inspector. I assume he was a public figure.”

  “You see her much in the past couple of years?”

  Merrill shook her head again. She was being a real bitch. New money in Silicon Valley.

  “Her father told me she still used to come to town. On business.”

  Merrill shrugged. “I don’t know. I have to go.”

  I yanked open my bag and removed one of the crime-scene photos McBride had given me, the one of Kathy, wide-eyed, slumped in a bloody heap in front of her husband.

  “Someone she knew did this. You want to be met at the plane and thrown in a holding cell as a material witness? You can call in your husband’s lawyer, but it’ll still take him two days to get you out. How would the tech-fund crowd react to that news? I’m sure I could get it in the Chronicle.”

  Merrill turned away from me, her chin quivering. “I don’t know who it was. Just that he was older, married, some big-time SOB. Kinky, and not nice about it. Kathy said he played sex games on her. But whoever he was, she was always quiet about it, protective. The rest you’ll have to do on your own.”

  “She still continued to see this guy, didn’t she?” I was starting to put it together. “Even after she moved to Seattle. Even after she met her husband.”

  She gave me the slightest smile. “Good guess, Inspector. Right up to the end.”

  “How close to the end?”

  Merrill Shortley picked up the phone. “This is four-oh-two. Checking out. I’m in a rush.”

  She stood up, slung a Prada bag over her shoulder, an expensive-looking raincoat over her arm. Then she looked at me and said dryly, “To the very end.”

  Chapter 58

  “NO WONDER the bride didn’t wear white,” Raleigh frowned and said as I told him about my interview with Merrill Shortley.

  McBride had set us up for dinner at Nonni’s, an Italian place on the lake, a short walk from our hotel.

  Raleigh’s interview with the groom’s parents had yielded nothing eventful. James Voskuhl had been an aspiring musician who had floated on the edge of the music scene in Seattle, finally hooking his way into representing a couple of upcoming bands. He had no known connection to San Francisco.

  “The killer knew Kathy,” I said. “How else would he find her here? They had a relationship.”

  “Right up to the end?” he mused.

  “To the very end,” I answered. “Meaning maybe here, in Cleveland. These weren’t choirgirls. Merrill said this guy was older, married, kinky, predatory. It fits the pattern of the murders. Someone she knew in San Francisco must have seen Red Beard. Somebody knows. Merrill claims that Kathy was protecting her lover, possibly because he was a celebrity.”

  “You think this Merrill Shortley has more to add?”

  “Maybe. Or the family. I got the feeling they were holding something back.”

  He had ordered a ’97 Chianti and when it came he tilted his glass. “Here’s to David and Melanie, Michael and Becky, James and Kathy.”

  “Let’s toast them when we catch this pathetic bastard,” I said.

  It was the first time we’d been alone in Cleveland, and suddenly I was nervous. We had an entire evening to fill, and no matter how we kept steering back to the case or joking how “this wasn’t a date,” there was this pull, this bass chord twanging inside me, telling me that this was no time to start anything with anyone, not even handsome and charming Chris Raleigh.

  Then why had I changed into a baby blue sweater and nice slacks instead of staying with the chambray shirt and khakis I’d worn all day?

  We ordered. I had osso bucco, spinach, a salad; Raleigh, a veal paillard.

  “Maybe it was someone on her job?” Raleigh said. “Or connected with her job?”

  “I told Jacobi to check out her firm in Seattle. Her father said she still came down to San Francisco on business. I want to see if that’s the case.”

  “And if it isn’t?”

  “Then either she was hiding s
omething or they are.”

  He took a sip of wine. “Why would she go through with a wedding if she was still involved with this guy?”

  I shrugged. “They all said Kathy was finally settling down. I’d like to see what she was like back then, if this is what they meant by settling down.”

  I was thinking that I wanted another crack at the sister, Hillary. I remembered something she had said. Old habits are hard to crack. I had thought she was talking about drugs, parties. Did she mean Red Beard?

  “McBride tells me tomorrow morning we should be able to review some film at the museum.”

  “The guy was there, Raleigh,” I said with certainty. “He was there that night. Kathy knew her killer. We just have to find out who he is.”

  Raleigh poured a little more wine into my glass. “We’re partners now, aren’t we, Lindsay?”

  “Sure,” I said, a little surprised by the question. “Can’t you tell I trust you?”

  “I mean, we’ve been through three double murders, we’re committed to seeing it through, I backed you up with Mercer. I even helped clean up after dinner at your place.”

  “Yeah, so?” I smiled. But his face had a cast of seriousness to it. I was trying to figure out where he was going.

  “What do you say, maybe it’s about time you started calling me Chris.”

  Chapter 59

  AFTER DINNER, Chris and I walked down by the tree-lined lakefront toward our hotel. A cool, misty breeze lapped at my face.

  We didn’t say much. That same nervous apprehension was tingling on the surface of my skin.

  Occasionally, our arms brushed. He had his jacket off, and there was a solid outline to his shoulders and arms. Not that I was noticing superficial things like that.

  “It’s still early,” he said.

  “Five-thirty, our time,” I replied. “I could still catch Roth. Maybe I should bring him up to date.”

  Raleigh grinned. “You already called Jacobi. I bet he was probably in Roth’s office before he hung up the phone.”

  As we walked, it was as if this unbearable force were pulling me close, then pushing me away. “Anyway,” I said, “for once I don’t feel like calling in.”

  “What do you feel like?” Raleigh asked.

  “Why don’t we just walk.”

  “The Indians are playing. You want to sneak our way in? It must be the fifth inning.”

  “We’re cops, Raleigh.”

  “Yeah, that would be bad. You want to dance, then?”

  “No,” I said, even firmer. “I don’t want to dance.” Every word seemed charged with a hidden, electric message. “What I’m starting to feel like” — I turned to him — “is that I’m having a hard time remembering to call you Chris.”

  “And what I’m starting to feel like,” he answered, facing me, “is I’m having a hard time trying to pretend that nothing’s going on.”

  “I know,” I murmured breathlessly. “But I just can’t.”

  It sounded really stupid, but as much as I wanted him, there was a greater hesitation inside holding me back.

  “I know…but I just can’t. What does that mean?”

  “It means I’m feeling things, too. And that part of me wants to go with those feelings. But right now, I just don’t know if I can. It’s complicated, Chris.”

  Every nerve in my body was on alert.

  We found ourselves walking again, the breeze from the lake suddenly cooling the sweat that had broken out on my neck.

  “You mean it’s complicated because we’re working together?”

  “That,” I lied. I’d dated guys on the force once or twice.

  “That… and what else?” Raleigh said.

  A thousand desires inside me were screaming to give in. What was going through my mind was crazy. I wanted him to touch me; and I didn’t. We were alone on the waterfront. At that moment, if he held me, if he bent and kissed me, I didn’t know what I would do.

  “I do want to,” I said, my fingers reaching for his hand, staring into his deep blue eyes.

  “You’re not telling me everything,” he said.

  It took everything I had to hold off confessing. I don’t know why I didn’t. A deep part of me wanted him to want me, and to keep thinking I was strong. I could feel the heat from his body, and I thought he could feel the wavering resolve in mine. “I just can’t right now,” I said softly.

  “You know, I won’t always be your partner, Lindsay.”

  “I know that. And maybe I won’t always be able to say no.”

  I don’t know if I was disappointed or relieved to see our hotel up ahead. Part of me wanted to run to my room, throw open the windows, and just breathe in the night air.

  I was sort of happy I wouldn’t have to make that decision, when Raleigh took me by surprise.

  He leaned over without warning and pressed his lips on mine. The kiss was so soft, as if he were gently asking, Is this okay?

  I let the kiss linger warmly. Soft hands… soft lips.

  It wasn’t as if I hadn’t imagined this happening. It was just as I had imagined. I wanted to be in control, but here it was, out of the blue, and I was giving in. But just as I was starting to give him myself, the fear caught up to me — the fear of the inescapable truth.

  I dropped my head, slowly pulled away.

  “That was nice. For me, anyway,” Raleigh said, resting his forehead against mine.

  I nodded but said, “I can’t, Chris.”

  “Why are you always holding back, Lindsay?” he asked.

  I wanted to say, Because I am deceiving you. Tell him everything that was going on.

  But I was content to deceive, though I did it with the greatest yearning I had felt in years. “I just want to nail Red Beard,” I answered.

  Chapter 60

  THE NEXT MORNING, Detective McBride left a message for us to meet him in Sharp’s office at the Hall of Fame.

  Something had come back on the film.

  In a sparsely decorated conference room, the museum’s security chief, McBride, and several members of the CPD Homicide staff sat facing a wide-screen video monitor on a walnut cabinet.

  “At first,” Sharp began self-importantly, “we were just randomly going through the tape with members of the families, stopping on anyone who didn’t look familiar. Your sketch,” he turned to me, “helped narrow it down.”

  He flicked a handheld controller toward the screen. “The first clips you’re gonna see are the main entrance.”

  The screen lit up, standard black-and-white surveillance footage. It was so weird and strange. Several gaudily dressed guests seemed to be arriving at once, many of them outfitted as famous rockers. One was Elton John. His date had teased hair dyed in various light and dark shades, Cyndi Lauper–style. I recognized a Chuck Berry, a Michael Jackson, a couple of Madonnas, Elvis, Elvis Costellos.

  Sharp fast-forwarded, the film advancing like individual, edited stills. An older couple arrived dressed in traditional evening wear. Behind them, almost tucked into their backs, came a man who was clearly shying from the camera, averting his face.

  “There!” Sharp said.

  I saw him! My heart pumped madly in my chest. Goddamn Red Beard!

  It was a horrible, grainy likeness. The man, sensing the direction of the camera, quickly hurried by. Maybe he had come there earlier, scouting for security cameras. Maybe he was just smart enough to avoid a direct shot. Whatever it was, he sneaked into the crowd and disappeared.

  A ball of anger knotted in my chest. “Can you back up, home in?” I said to Sharp. “I need to see his face.”

  He leveled his remote, and the image channeled in to a higher magnification.

  I stood up. I was staring at a partially obscured shot of the killer’s face.

  No eyes, no clear feature. Only a shadowy profile. A jutting chin. And the outline of a goatee.

  There was no doubt in my mind that this was the killer. I didn’t know his name. I could barely see his face. But the fuzzy ima
ge I had first sketched together in my mind with Claire was now in front of me.

  “Is that the best you can do?” Raleigh pressed.

  A member of the museum tech staff replied, “Might be able to get it technologically enhanced. On this rough footage, this is what we have.”

  “We pick him up again later on,” Sharp said.

  He quickly fast-forwarded and stopped at a wide-angle view of the Main Hall, the wedding reception. They were able to zoom in on the same tuxedoed man standing at the edge of the crowd, observing. When the image was magnified, though, it became grainy and lost its resolution.

  “He’s purposely avoiding looking at the camera,” I whispered to Raleigh. “He knows where they are.”

  “We ran these shots by both families,” Sharp said. “No one places him. No one can identify who he is. I mean, there’s a chance it’s not him. But considering your sketch…”

  “It’s him,” I said firmly. My eyes burned on the grainy screen. I was also sure we were looking at Kathy Voskuhl’s mysterious lover.

  Chapter 61

  HILLARY KNEW. I was almost sure of it. But why she would conceal such a thing related to her sister’s death, I couldn’t imagine. Old habits are hard to crack, she had said.

  I wanted another shot at her, and I reached her by phone at the family house in Shaker Heights.

  “I had a chance to speak to Merrill Shortley,” I told her. “I just need a few details cleared up.”

  “You realize this is a very stressful time for my family, Inspector,” Hillary replied. “We told you what we knew.”

  I didn’t want to come on too strong. She had lost her sister in a horrible way. Her parents’ home was filled with mourners and grief. And she was under no obligation to talk to me at all.

  “Merrill told me a few things about Kathy. Her lifestyle…”