21st Birthday

by Patterson, James

  “A few seconds pass,” said Hallows. “If I get to make up the script, she’s telling him to get out of the car. I see shadowy movement inside that I can’t make out. Looks like she’s pulling away from him, but she doesn’t get the door open.”

  Alvarez looked at me and I looked back at her. We really didn’t want to see this.

  Hallows said, “Now look. Headlights go out. I’m thinking the guy who just slashed her throat has reached over and turned off the engine.”

  “He’s good,” said Brady.

  Clapper spoke. “For sure, this guy is organized and practiced. Cocky. And he’s done this before.”

  Alvarez said, “It’s only been a few minutes since he got in the car and now the back door is opening.”

  Hallows said, “Yeah. There he goes, using the tree shadow for cover, walking out of view. The rest of the video is a snooze. I fast-forwarded and watched until the security guard discovered Misty’s body in the early hours of the morning and cops came quick after that. Not to mention the press.

  “And that’s all I’ve got.”

  We stayed in the room for another half hour, theorizing, asking questions across the table.

  “To review,” I said, “Burke has an out-of-town alibi and looks different from Misty’s killer. So, he probably isn’t Wendy’s killer, either. Misty and Wendy had similar wounds on their bodies. Which means that there is potentially another killer who could have attacked Tara.”

  Michaels said, “Wang and I will go interview the head of school, also the guard who found the body. Interview as many students as we can. Two night shift guys from Northern want to work this with us. Burton and Krebs. Okay?”

  Clapper said, “Okay. Good. Yuki, tell Red Dog we still can’t hold Burke. He’s been put on leave from his teaching position. We’ll keep eyes on him round the clock.”

  “You got it,” Yuki said.

  Clapper said, “Hallows, I need the best still shot of this killer for distribution. Thanks all for your thoughts and hard work. There will be no holidays or weekends off for this task force until further notice.”

  He looked around the table, turned, and walked out the door.

  CHAPTER 45

  IT WAS CLAIRE’S BRILLIANT idea to meet at Susie’s.

  Since Wednesday morning when Lorrie Burke washed up on Baker Beach, I’d been torn up and heartsick, and that went for all four of us.

  We needed to be together. We needed to hash it all out.

  Maybe between us, we’d hone in on that little girl’s killer.

  Claire, Yuki, and I got there just after five, giving us a head start on the after-work crowd. The steel band and the barflies hadn’t yet arrived and Lorraine said we could sit anywhere at all. I called Joe and told him that I was out with the girls and would be home around eight.

  It was unanimous. We marched along the kitchen pass-through window and into the smaller back room, slid into banquettes flanking the table. Before shutting off my phone, as was our general rule at Susie’s, I called Cindy, again.

  “On my way,” she said. “Order for me. Whatever’s today’s special.”

  “Ham hocks over saffron rice?”

  “Sounds yum. I’m in the car.”

  “Hurry. Safely. Going dark now,” I said and turned off my phone.

  Claire ordered beer for the table, and then got right into it. No small talk or jokes. Her first week back at work had been gruesome and unrelenting.

  She said, “This killer is a precision blade man. No hesitation marks, no wasted motion on the slash through the neck, and then while blood is spurting like a fire hose and draining the body, he makes these random gashes on the upper breasts.”

  “What do you make of those marks? Don’t overthink,” Yuki said. “What comes to mind?”

  Claire didn’t get to answer right away, however, since Lorraine came over and took our orders. We ordered two chopped salads, one fish taco entrée with beans, ham hocks on rice for Cindy, and chips for everyone.

  When Lorraine moved on, Claire said, “What do I think? It’s some weird signature, though if we’re trying to connect the cases, there were no such marks on Lorrie’s body, and Wendy Franks was naked while Misty’s body was clothed. He’s way too good at this. It’s not sexual. This is a professional-grade killer who’s pleased with himself. He likes to butcher.”

  Cindy came through the passageway and took the empty seat next to me. I wanted to interrogate her — what do you know that I don’t know? — but I didn’t have to. She got comfortable, greeted all of us with blown kisses and fist bumps, then held up her glass for Claire to fill ’er up.

  After a couple of gulps, she said, “I’m devastated about Misty. I really liked her. My story this morning generated a lot of mail, but no one took credit, or coughed up a suspect, or called the dead girl a bitch. It was just people saying they’re mad and scared.”

  “Forward the mail to me?” I said.

  “Sure, but curb your expectations,” she said. “I posted about a hundred of them on my blog. I’ll send you the rest.”

  “Thanks, and if you don’t know, your story brought Burke into our house.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He drove in from Carmel with a death grip on your front page and came directly to the Hall.”

  “He turned himself in? He confessed?”

  “No, Cindy, to accuse of us of planting the story. To tell us he didn’t kill Misty. He came with his alibi. Ironclad. How’d you get the details on Misty’s murder?”

  “I can’t, you know, reveal my sources.”

  “Well, the killer’s signature is now out there for a sicko to copy. Enough warning to a perp to make him run. It doesn’t help the good guys, Cindy. Please don’t say ‘I was doing my job.’”

  “My story was truthful, and good. Burke came in. That’s a big deal, right? And the public has been warned that a vicious killer is roaming around. That could save a life. People start locking their car doors. Anyway, I was doing what I’m paid to do, what I’m good at, and you know I can never win these arguments with you, Linds, so let’s just call it a draw. Okay?”

  I drank down half a stein of beer in one draught.

  Cindy said, “I also dug around a little about Wendy Franks.”

  Lorraine brought our dinners, told Cindy she liked her new haircut, and asked if we wanted anything else. Cindy asked for more bread.

  Yuki said, “Cindy?”

  “What?”

  “Please don’t make us beg.”

  “All right, girlfriends. Wendy had a boat. A Sea Ray. Harbor master says she took it out on Monday night. She had a male passenger, but he didn’t see him.”

  Yuki said, “I don’t like what I’m thinking.”

  I finished my beer.

  Cindy said, “I’ll say it. Wendy and an unknown male — possibly Burke — could have dumped Lorrie Burke into the drink.”

  “You’re not going to put this out?” I said to Cindy.

  “Hell, no. It cannot be corroborated. But I like it as a theory.”

  I tried to eat but kept seeing the last minutes of Misty’s life over and over again. It was a cheaply produced horror movie with bad actors and an unsatisfying ending.

  Lorraine came over with a basket of bread for Cindy and a cordless phone for Yuki.

  “It’s your husband,” said Lorraine.

  Yuki thanked her and took the phone.

  “Hi, baby,” she said. “Oh. No. Yes, she’s right here.”

  She passed the phone across the table to me. Brady’s gravelly southern-inflected voice was loud and clear.

  “Brady, I had to shut off my phone while I ate —”

  “Boxer. Another body turned up in McLaren, around John F. Shelley Drive. Unidentified.”

  I delivered the news to my friends, leaving out any details that Cindy could exploit. We paid, hugged, and left, splitting up on the street in different directions. It was the shortest, most fraught, and laughter-free Women’s Murder Club meeting
on record.

  I called Joe to tell him my schedule had changed, got into my car, and headed out to meet Brady.

  CHAPTER 46

  BRADY WAS WAITING for me in front of the Hall, looking impatient, jouncing his keys in his hand.

  He barely waited for me to set my brakes before opening the passenger side door of his Tacoma for me.

  I said, “Is it Tara?”

  He said, “Give me a sec. Strap in.”

  I braced as he stepped on the gas, and went code 3 with all lights flashing, sirens wailing. He took us by a now familiar route to McLaren Park and pulled up within a half mile of Burke’s gabled house.

  When he turned off the engine he said, “A hand sticking out of the ground alerted a couple of joggers. That’s all I know.”

  Had to be Tara. She hadn’t been in touch with Kathleen, who called me three times a day. She hadn’t called her best friend. Hadn’t asked Lucas for an infusion of cash. Her car hadn’t been seen. She hadn’t used her phone. Tara had disappeared.

  Was she a captive? A fugitive? A corpse? I knew in my gut it was the latter. We pulled up to a herd of police vehicles at the verge of the park. Brady shut off the car and we both took deep breaths before extricating ourselves from seat belts and door locks. Brady checked in with the uniforms and CSIs standing by their vehicles at the curb.

  McLaren was wooded at that point in its terrain, but I could see four bright halogen lights up-lighting the trees a good trek away.

  Hallows came toward us, stoop-shouldered, grave, saying to Brady, “This guy is crazy, lieutenant. We need horse patrols and cars in this park until he’s caught.”

  I clamped down on my frustration, then asked Hallows, “What do we know about the victim?”

  Hallows looked at me, the disappointment on my face. “Sorry, Boxer. It’s not Tara.”

  Sunset had faded and night had come on.

  Hallows, with his monster tactical flashlight, led the way along a trail, and ten minutes later we reached the scene. CSU had set up an evidence tent a dozen feet from a body-sized mound of dirt half obscured by shrubbery. Items had been placed on a table for photographs, later to be bagged, tagged, and transported to the lab. I saw an inexpensive pearl necklace that had been found in the grave. There were sneakers of unknown color and brand. The victim was wearing the rest of her clothes and removal would be the ME’s job.

  Culver was overseeing CSIs who carefully shoveled dirt from the grave onto a tarp to be screened later.

  “Dale, did you find her ID?”

  “Nope. But look, we could still find her handbag in here.”

  I stayed long enough to see the remains lifted out of the two-foot-deep grave and laid carefully on a sheet. The victim’s clothes were unremarkable: jeans, a V-neck pullover, a blue windbreaker.

  “Was her throat cut?” I asked Culver.

  “Can’t tell and I don’t want to poke around there. The ME will tell us —”

  “Look at her fingernails,” I said.

  “We’re going to screen everything that comes out of this hole.”

  I said, “Okay, Dale. I think my job here is done.”

  I found Brady out on the street. He said. “I’m going to stick around. We’ll pick this up tomorrow. Have a uniform give you a lift.”

  I got my stuff out of Brady’s car and asked an officer for a ride back to the Hall. I was buckling up when there was a rap on the glass.

  It was a uniform. I buzzed down the window.

  “Sergeant, the victim had plastic in her back pocket. We’ve got a name.”

  CHAPTER 47

  I CALLED RICH CONKLIN from the car and we agreed to meet at the Hall, ASAP.

  He was at his desk when I got there at 7:15 p.m. I collected my laptop and slipped into my old swivel chair behind my old desk. Adjusted my lamp. Moved folders belonging to Alvarez over to Conklin’s desk and repossessed my territory.

  Felt damned good to put aside task force protocol and step back into my accustomed routine.

  I said, “There has to be a connection with the other murders. This could take ten minutes or ten hours.”

  “Either way is okay.”

  I showed Conklin the photos on my phone; a few angles on the victim and the shot of her credit card.

  He said, “Susan Wenthauser. How do you want to do this?”

  “You start with the white pages and the DMV database. After we have her address and phone, we’ll go to the credit card company, see if we can get the date of her last charge.”

  “Copy that.”

  I typed “Susan Wenthauser” into my web browser. A second later, her name came up.

  “Rich?”

  “Yo.”

  “Susan Wenthauser was reported missing last month when she was a no-show for her night flight back to Boise. She was twenty-two, visiting a cousin who lived here. The case went cold, fast. No body, no one saw her. Filed under missing persons.”

  Conklin was also typing her name.

  “Here’s a story from a Boise paper,” he said and began to read out loud. “Thelma Wenthauser, mother of missing twenty-two-year-old Susan, tells this reporter, ‘Susie is such a good girl. She’s never been out of Boise before. She’s been waitressing, you know. And making plans to get married. She wanted to visit her cousin in San Francisco. She’s not a runaway. Something has happened to her. Please say, ‘If anyone has any information that will help us bring Susan home, call the newspaper or the police.’”

  Conklin said, “No one called.”

  Susan’s picture was in the article, her arm around her mother’s waist. Cute picture.

  And then I found an article quoting Boise PD quoting the cousin saying she and Susan had had their visit, said good-bye, Susan called a cab but never made her flight. A political firestorm had blotted out news of the missing young woman, and nothing further was written in San Francisco about Susan Wenthauser.

  I picked up the phone and hit number 2 on my speed dial.

  “Brady, the victim. Susan Wenthauser? She was visiting from Boise. Last seen three blocks from the Burke house waiting for a cab to the airport. Her credit card was never charged for a ride, so there is no driver to trace. I’ll bet some psycho offered to give her the grand tour of San Francisco before he cut her throat.”

  CHAPTER 48

  JOE OPENED THE front door.

  “The kiddo’s asleep,” he said.

  I fell into his arms.

  He hugged me close, rubbed my back, and walked me backward to the living room, dropping me gently into his well-loved recliner. He even pulled up on the handle raising the foot platform. Then he took off my gun, my jacket, my shoes, placed my phone on the side table.

  “What can I get for madam?” he said. “Wine? Ice cream? Sleep mask?”

  “I’m sorry for being so late. People keep turning up dead.”

  “I heard.”

  “You did?

  “Claire. No news, she says. Just call her in the morning.”

  “Okay. Could we have wine and ice cream in bed?”

  “Who’s going to stop us?”

  I was in the shower for what could have been twenty minutes. Martha sat on the bath mat watching the spray against the shower curtain. I talked to her, telling her in detail about my shitty day. Joe reached in, turned off the water, and handed me a fluffy white towel.

  “You’re using all the hot water in the building.”

  I laughed. Didn’t know I had a laugh left in me.

  Joe was wearing pajamas I’d given him for his birthday, blue and white striped, bottoms only. He helped me out of the shower, bundled me up in a terry cloth robe and said, “Do you want to look in on Julie or just come to bed?”

  There was a glass of wine in his hand and he handed it over.

  “I didn’t dish up the ice cream. Yet.”

  I kissed him, took the wine and sipped, then handed the glass back to him. “I think I’ll take a peek. Maybe watch her sleep for a minute.”

  I tiptoed into Jul
ie’s dandelion-yellow bedroom. She was in her big-girl bed, “without fences, Mom.” As she was turning four in another week, we’d all agreed that a bed without rails was age appropriate.

  As I looked down on her, Julie opened her eyes, gave me a sleepy smile, and said, “It’s past your bedtime.”

  I cracked up. It wasn’t just that she liked to mimic me, it was that she knew exactly how and when to do it.

  “I’m going to bed now, Julie Bugs. See you in the morning.”

  I kissed her cheek, and she held up her toy cow, Mrs. Mooey Milkington. I kissed Mooey, too, and Julie threw an arm around my neck. I tickled her until she let me go. Still smiling, I backed out of her doorway and went to my favorite room in the house.

  The blue-painted bedroom at the corner of our apartment was cloud-like with white curtains and a big bed. It was the place where we’d made Julie and where I had delivered her, on a dark and stormy night, with the help of a dozen SFFD firefighters.

  Joe had missed the drama, but has made up for it in so many ways. As he was doing now. He handed me a bowl of pralines and cream ice cream in a blue earthenware bowl, the still-chilled Chardonnay, fluffed pillows behind me. Then, my gorgeous husband got into bed beside me.

  “Are you taking care, Blondie?”

  He was worried about my recurring condition. Pernicious anemia can be fatal and had given us a bad scare. More than once.

  “I’m emotionally exhausted,” I said, “but not physically.”

  He looked at me dubiously.

  “How are you?” I asked him.

  “All paperworked out,” he said.

  “Awwww. Tell me all about it before I fall asleep with a spoon in my hand.”

  My cell phone rang out from the living room. I knew it was on the table next to Joe’s chair. I tried to sit up.

  Joe said, “Nope. No way. You’re off duty.”

  “I’m working tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow is still a day away.”

  Right he was.