7th Heaven

by James Patterson

  HAWK’S SURGEON, Dr. Dave Hammond, was a compact man with rusty hair and the tight manner of a perfectionist who’d spent the night stitching his patient’s guts back together. Conklin and I had spent the same eight hours in a small, dull waiting room at St. Francis Hospital, waiting for Hammond ’s report.

  When the doctor entered the waiting room at 6:15 a.m., I shot to my feet, asked, “Is he awake?”

  Hammond said, “Right now, the patient’s condition defines touch-and-go. He was bleeding like a son of a bitch when he came in. One slug punctured his lung and nicked his aorta. The other damn near pulverized his liver.”

  Conklin said, “So, Doctor, when can we talk to him?”

  “Inspector, you understand what I just said? We had to inflate the kid’s lungs, transfuse him, and remove a chunk of his liver. This is what we like to call major surgery.”

  Conklin smiled winningly. “Okay. I hear you. Is he awake?”

  “He just opened his eyes.” Hammond sighed with disgust. “I’ll give you one minute to get in and get out.”

  One minute was all we’d need, enough time to wring two words from that bastard – his first name and his last. I pushed open the door marked RECOVERY and approached Hawk’s bed. It was a shocking sight.

  Hawk’s body was lashed down in four-point restraints so that he couldn’t flail and undo the work his surgeons had just done. Even his head was restrained. IV bags dripped fluids into his body, a chest tube drained ooze out of his lungs, a catheter carried waste into a canister under the bed, and he was breathing oxygen through a cannula clipped to his nose.

  Hawk looked bad, but he was alive.

  Now I had to get him to talk.

  I touched his hand and said, “Hi there. My name is Lindsay.”

  Hawk’s eyes flickered open.

  “Where… am I?” he asked me.

  I told him that he’d been shot, that he was in a hospital, and that he was doing fine.

  “Why can’t… I move?”

  I told him about the restraints and why he was tied down, and I asked for his help. “I need to call your family, but I don’t know your name.”

  Hawk scanned my face, then dropped his gaze to the badge on my lapel, the bulge of my gun under my jacket. He murmured something I had to strain to hear.

  “My work here is finished,” Hawk said.

  “No,” I shouted, gripping the kid’s hand with both of mine. “You are not going to die. You’ve got a great doctor. We all want to help you, but I have to know your name. Please, Hawk, tell me your name.”

  Hawk pursed his lips, starting to form a word – and then, as though an electric current had taken over his body, his back bowed and he went rigid against his restraints. Simultaneously, the rapid, high-pitched beeping of an alarm filled the room. I wanted to scream.

  I held on to Hawk’s hand as his eyes rolled back and a noise came from his throat like soda water pouring into a glass. The monitor tracking his vital signs showed Hawk’s heart rate spike to 170, drop to 60, and rocket again even as his blood pressure dropped through the floor.

  “What’s happening?” Conklin asked me.

  “He’s crashing,” Hammond shouted, stiff-arming the door. The rapid beeping turned into one long squeal as the green lines on the monitor went flat.

  Hammond yelled, “Where’s the goddamned cart!”

  As the medics rolled it in, Conklin and I were pushed away from the bed. A nurse closed the curtain, blocking our view. I heard the frenzy of doctors working to shock Hawk’s heart back into rhythm.

  “Come on, come on,” I heard Dr. Hammond say. Then, “Crap. Time of death, 6:34 a.m.”

  “Damn it,” I said to Conklin. “Damn it to hell.”

  Chapter 105

  AT 7:45 THAT MORNING, I took off my jacket, hung it over the back of my chair, opened my coffee container, and sat down at my desk across from Conklin.

  “He died on purpose, that monster,” I said to my partner.

  “He’s dead, but this is not a dead end,” Conklin muttered.

  “Is that a promise?”

  “Yeah. Boy Scout’s honor.”

  I opened my desk drawer, took out two cello-wrapped pastries, not more than a week old. I lobbed one to Rich, who caught it on the fly.

  “Oooh. I love a woman who bakes.”

  I laughed, said, “Be glad for that coffee cake, mister. Who knows when we’ll see food again.”

  We were waiting for phone calls. A blurry photo of Hawk being wheeled out of the Campion house was running in the morning Chronicle. It was unlikely someone could ID him from that, but not impossible. At just after eight, my desk phone warbled. I grabbed the receiver and heard Charlie Clapper’s voice.

  “Lindsay,” he said, “there were a dozen prints on that bottle and the foil it was wrapped in.”

  “Tell me something good.”

  “I’d love to, my friend,” Clapper said. “But all we’ve got for sure is a match to Hawk’s prints, and he’s not in AFIS.”

  “There’s a shock. So he’s still a John Doe and, I take it, so is Pidge.”

  “Sorry, kiddo. The only other match I got was to Connor Campion.”

  I sighed, said, “Thanks anyway, Charlie,” and stabbed the blinking button of my second line.

  Chuck Hanni’s voice sounded wound-up, excited.

  “Glad I got you,” Hanni said. “There’s been a fire.”

  I pressed the speaker button so Conklin could hear.

  “It just happened a few hours ago in Santa Rosa,” Chuck said. “Two fatalities. I’m on the way out there now.”

  “It’s arson? You think it’s related to our case?”

  “The sheriff told me that one of the vics was found with a book in his lap.”

  I stared at Conklin, knowing he was thinking the same thing: that SOB Pidge hadn’t wasted any time.

  “We’ll meet you there,” I said to Hanni.

  I wrote down the address and hung up the phone.

  Chapter 106

  THE HOUSE WAS TUDOR-STYLE, surrounded by tall firs and located in a development of million-dollar-and-up homes bordering on a golf course in Santa Rosa. We edged our car into the pack of sheriff’s cruisers and fire rigs, all of which had been on the scene for hours. The firefighters were wrapping up as the ME and arson investigators came and went, ducking under the barrier tape that had been looped around the premises.

  I was furious that Pidge had killed again, and once again, he’d taken his hellacious arson spree to a county where Rich, Chuck, and I had no official standing.

  Chuck called out to us, and we walked toward the house.

  “The fire was contained in the garage,” he said, massaging the old burn scar on his hand.

  Hanni held the garage door open, and Conklin and I stepped inside. It was a three-car garage, tools and lawn equipment against the walls, and in the center of the floor was a late-model minivan that had been seared by flames, the exterior scorched black, blue, and a powdery gray. Hanni introduced us around to Sheriff Paul Arcario, to the ME, Dr. Cecilia Roach, and to the arson investigator, Matt Hartnett, who said he was a friend of Chuck’s.

  “The homeowner is a Mr. Alan Beam,” Hartnett told us. “He’s still inside his vehicle. And there’s a second victim, a female. She was found on the floor next to the van. She’s in a body bag for safekeeping. Otherwise, everything is just as we found it.”

  Hanni shined his light into the carcass of the van so that Conklin and I could get a better look at the victim’s incinerated body in the driver’s seat. The seat was tilted back. A heavy chain lay across the victim’s legs, and a small book rested on his lap, right above the pink and protruding coils of his large intestine.

  I went weak at the knees.

  The smells of burned flesh and gasoline were overpowering. I could almost hear the screaming, the pleading, the soft whick of a match, and the boom of the consuming fire. Rich asked me if I was okay, and I said that I was. But what I was thinking was that what had happ
ened here in the small hours of the morning had been the ultimate in terror and agony.

  That it had been nothing less than the horror of hell.

  Chapter 107

  DR. ROACH ZIPPED the body bag closed and asked her assistants to carry the female victim out to the van. Roach was petite, in her forties, wore her thick graying hair in a ponytail and her glasses on a beaded chain.

  “There was no ID on her,” Dr. Roach told me. “All I can say is that she looks to be a juvenile, maybe a teenager.”

  “Not Beam’s wife?”

  “The ex-Mrs. Beam lives in Oakland,” said the sheriff, closing his cell phone. “She’ll be here in a few.”

  Hanni began a run-through of the fire for our benefit.

  “The fire started inside the passenger compartment,” he said. “Paper and wood were piled up in the backseat directly behind the driver. And this is a tow chain,” he said of the heavy links lying across the victim’s lap.

  He pointed to a metal bar down in the driver-side foot well, explained that it was a steering wheel lock, like The Club, and that it had been passed through the chain and locked around the steering column. Hanni theorized that first the chains and The Club were locked, then the newspapers and wood were doused with gasoline.

  “Then, probably, the gas was poured over the victims and the can was wedged behind the seats -”

  “Sorry, folks, but I’ve got to start processing this scene,” Hartnett said, opening his kit. “I’m getting shit from the chief.”

  “Hang on just a minute, will you please?” I asked the arson investigator. I borrowed a pen from Hanni, reached into the van, and as Hanni aimed his light over my shoulder, I used the pen to open the book resting on Alan Beam’s lap.

  What kind of message had Pidge left for us?

  The usual fortune cookie nonsense?

  Or was he mad now? Would he slip up and give us something that made sense? I stared at the title page, but all I saw were the printed words The New Testament. That was all. No scribbling in Latin, not even a name. I was backing out of the van when Rich said, “Lindsay, check that out.”

  I went back in for a second look and this time saw a bit of fire-blackened ribbon trailing out from the pages. Using the pen again, I opened the Bible to the bookmark. Matthew 3:11.

  A few lines of text had been underlined in ink.

  My cheek was nearly resting on the victim’s parched and naked bones as I read the underlined words out loud.

  “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

  Chapter 108

  CONKLIN GRUNTED, said, “Purification by fire. It’s a major biblical theme.”

  Just then the garage door opened behind us and I turned to see a chic forty-something woman wearing a business suit limned in the sunlight behind her. Her face was stretched in anger and fear.

  “I’m Alicia Beam. Who’s in charge here?”

  “I’m Paul Arcario,” the sheriff said to her, stretching out his hand. “We spoke earlier. Why don’t we go outside and talk?”

  Mrs. Beam pushed past him to the van, and although Conklin put an arm out to stop her, it was too late. The woman stared, then shrank away, screaming, “Oh, my God! Alan! What happened to you?”

  Then she snapped her head around and locked her eyes on me.

  “Where’s Valerie? Where’s my daughter?”

  I introduced myself, told Mrs. Beam that she had to leave the garage, and that I would come with her. She became compliant as soon as I put my hand on the small of her back, and we walked together out of the garage to the front of the house.

  “It’s my daughter’s weekend with her father,” she said.

  She opened the front door, and as she stepped over the threshold, she broke away from me, running through the rooms, calling her daughter’s name.

  “Valerie! Val. Where are you?”

  I followed behind her, and when she stopped she said to me, “Maybe Val spent the night with a friend.”

  The look of sheer hope on her face pulled at my heart and my conscience. Was that her daughter in the body bag? I didn’t know, and if it was, it was not my job to tell her. Right now I had to learn whatever I could about Alan Beam.

  “Let’s just talk for a few minutes,” I said.

  We took seats at a pine farm table in the kitchen, and Alicia Beam told me that her marriage of twenty years to Alan had been dissolved a year before.

  “Alan has been depressed for years,” Alicia told me. “He felt that his whole life had been about money. That he’d neglected his family and God. He became very religious, very repentant, and he said that there wasn’t enough time…”

  Alicia Beam stopped in midsentence. I followed her eyes to the counter, where an unfolded sheet of blue paper was lying beside an envelope.

  “Maybe that’s a note from Val.”

  She stood and walked to the counter, picked up the letter, began to read.

  “Dear Val, my dearest girl. Please forgive me. I just couldn’t take it any longer…”

  She looked up, said to me, “This is from Alan.”

  I turned as Hanni leaned through the doorway and asked me to step outside.

  “Lindsay,” he said. “A neighbor found a message from Alan Beam on her answering machine saying he was sorry and good-bye.”

  It was all coming clear, why there were no Latin come-ons. No fishing-line ligatures. And the victims were not a married couple.

  Pidge hadn’t done this.

  Pidge had nothing to do with these deaths. Any hope I had of tripping him up, finding a clue to his whereabouts, was dead – as dead as the man in the car.

  “Alan Beam committed suicide,” I said.

  Hanni nodded. “We’ll treat it as a homicide until we’re sure, but according to this neighbor, Beam had attempted suicide before. She said he was terminal. Lung cancer.”

  “And so he chained himself to the steering wheel and set himself on fire?”

  “I guess he wanted to make sure he didn’t change his mind this time. But whatever his reason,” said Hanni, “it looks to me now like his daughter tried to save him – but she never had a chance.

  “The poisonous gas and the superheated air brought her down.”

  Chapter 109

  BY THE TIME I got home that evening, I had too much to tell Joe and hoped I could stay awake long enough to tell him. He was in the kitchen, wearing running shorts and a T-shirt, what he wore when he went for a run with Martha. He was holding a wineglass, and from the scrumptious smell of garlic and oregano, it seemed he’d cooked dinner, too.

  But the look on Joe’s face stopped me before I could reach him.

  “Joe, I was at the hospital all night -”

  “Jacobi told me. If I hadn’t found wet footsteps on the bathmat this morning, I wouldn’t have even known you’d been home.”

  “You were sleeping, Joe, and I only had a few minutes. And is this a house rule? That I have to check in?” I said.

  “You call it checking in. I call it being thoughtful. Thinking of me and that I might worry about you.”

  I hadn’t called him. Why hadn’t I called?

  “I’m drinking merlot,” he said.

  Joe and I rarely fought, and I got that sickening gut-feel that told me that I was in the wrong.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “You’re totally right, Joe. I should have let you know where I was.” I walked over to him, put my arms around his waist – but he pulled away from me.

  “No flirting, Blondie. I’m steamed.”

  He handed me a glass of wine and I took it, saying, “Joe, I said I’m sorry, and I am!”

  “You know what?” he said. Martha whimpered and trotted out of the room. “I saw more of you when I lived in DC.”

  “Joe, that’s not true.”

  “So, I’m going to ask you flat out, Lindsay. One question. And I want the tru
th.”

  I thought, No, please, please don’t ask me if I really want to marry you, please don’t. I’m not ready. I looked into the storm raging in Joe’s deep blue eyes.

  “I want to know about you and Conklin. What’s going on?”

  I was flabbergasted.

  “You think I’m – Joe, you can’t think that!”

  “Look. I spent an hour with the two of you. You’ve got a little something special going on between you, and please don’t tell me you’re partners.

  “I worked with you once, Lindsay,” Joe went on. “We were partners. And now, here we are.”

  I opened my mouth, closed it without speaking. I felt so guilty I couldn’t even act offended. Joe was right about everything. That Rich and I had a special feeling for each other, that I was neglecting Joe, that the time we spent together was more focused on each other when Joe lived a couple of time zones away than it was now.

  Once Joe had made the commitment to move to San Francisco, he’d been mine, mine, totally mine. And I’d taken him for granted. I was wrong. And I had to admit it. But my throat was backed up with tears. This was the very thing that broke up cop marriages.

  The Job. The obsession and commitment to the Job.

  That’s what this was about – wasn’t it?

  I felt sick with shame. I never wanted to make Joe feel bad, never wanted to hurt him at all. I set my glass down on the counter and took Joe’s glass out of his hand, put that glass down, too.

  “There’s nothing going on, Joe. It’s just the Job.”

  He looked into my eyes, and it was as though he was patting down my brain. He knew me that well.

  “Give the sauce a stir in a couple of minutes, okay, Linds? I’m going to take a shower.”

  I stood up on my toes and wrapped my arms around Joe’s neck, held on to the man I thought of as my future husband, pressed my cheek to his. I wanted him to hold me. And finally he did. He closed his arms around my waist and pulled me tight against him.

  I said, “I love you so much. I’m going to do a better job of showing you, Joe, I swear, I will.”