4th of July (2005)

by JAMES PATTERSON (with Maxine Paetro)

  I could tell he was a pro because he gave me both a warm smile and a cold eye. I took a chance and badged him.

  “The chief’s inside, Lieutenant.”

  I rang the bell.

  The first bar of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons chimed.

  Chief Stark opened the door, and when he saw that it was me, his jaw tightened.

  “What are you fucking doing here?” he said, biting down on his words. I put my heart into my reply, because it was true.

  “I want to help, damn it. May I come in?”

  We stared at each other across the threshold until finally Chief Stark blinked.

  “Anyone ever tell you that you’re a persistent pain in the ass?” he said, stepping aside so that I could enter.

  “Yes. And thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. I called a friend of mine on the SFPD. Charlie Clapper says you’re a good cop. He’s right about half the time. Don’t make me sorry.”

  “You honestly think you could feel sorrier than you do right now?”

  I walked past Stark through the foyer and into the living room with its wall of windows facing the water below. The furnishings were of a spare Scandinavian variety: clean lines, flat woven carpets, abstract art, and although the Sarduccis were dead, I could feel their presence in the things they’d left behind.

  Even as I mentally catalogued everything I could see, I noticed what was missing. There were no cones, tags, or markers on the ground floor. So where had the killer entered?

  I turned to the chief. “Mind running the scene for me?”

  “Bastard broke in through the skylight upstairs,” said Stark.

  Chapter 63

  THE MASTER BEDROOM FELT not just cold, but hollowed out, as if the room itself were suffering from the terrible loss.

  Windows were open, and the vertical blinds clacked in the breeze like the rattling bones of the dead. The rumpled ice blue bed linens were spattered with arterial blood, and the sight of that made the room feel even colder.

  A half dozen CSU techs bagged knickknacks from the nightstands, vacuumed the carpet, brushed surfaces for prints. Except for the blood, the room seemed oddly undisturbed.

  I borrowed some surgical gloves, then leaned in close to look at a studio shot of the Sarduccis that was propped on the bureau. Annemarie was pretty and petite. Joe had a “gentle giant” look, his arms proudly surrounding his wife and son.

  Why would someone want this couple dead?

  “Annemarie’s throat was slashed,” Stark said, his voice breaking into my thoughts. “Just about cut her head off.”

  He indicated the blood-drenched carpet beside the bed. “She fell there. Joe wasn’t in bed when it happened.”

  Stark pointed out that Annemarie’s blood spatter radiated out straight across the bed and that the stain pattern was uninterrupted.

  “No signs of a struggle,” said the chief. “Joey bought it in the bathroom.”

  I followed Stark across the blond carpet to a white marble bath. Bright blood was concentrated on one side of the room, a lateral swath sprayed against the wall at about knee level. It dripped down the wall and joined the congealing lake of blood on the floor. I could see the outline of Joe’s body where he had fallen.

  I crouched to get a better look.

  “The intruder must’ve found the lady alone in bed,” said the chief, running me through his hypothetical. “Maybe he puts his hand over her mouth, asks, ‘Where’s your husband?’ Or maybe he hears the toilet flush. He offs Annemarie quick. Then he surprises Joe in the can. Joe hears the door open and says, ‘Honey —?’ He looks up now. ‘Wait. Who are you? What do you want?’”

  “This blood’s from his neck wound,” I said, indicating the swath low on the wall. “The killer had to get Joe down on all fours so he could control him. Joe was the bigger man.”

  “Yeah,” Stark said wearily. “Looks like he got him down, stood behind him, pulled Joe’s head back by the hair, and —” The chief drew his finger across his throat.

  I asked questions and the chief answered: Nothing had been stolen. The boy hadn’t heard a sound. Friends and neighbors had come forward to say that the Sarduccis were happy, didn’t have an enemy in the world.

  “Just like the Daltrys,” Chief Stark said. “Same story with the O’Malleys. No weapons, no clues, nothing funny with their finances, no apparent motive. The victims didn’t know each other.” The chief’s face kind of crumpled in on itself. He was vulnerable for a split second, and I could see the pain.

  “All the victims had in common was that they were married,” he said. “So where does that go? Eighty percent of the people in Half Moon Bay are married.

  “The whole goddamned town is terrified. Me included.”

  The chief finished his speech. He looked away, stuffed the back of his shirt into his pants, patted down his hair. Collected himself so he didn’t look as desperate as he must have felt. Then he looked me in the eye.

  “So what are your thoughts, Lieutenant? Wow me, why don’t you?”

  Chapter 64

  I HADN’T SEEN THE bodies, and the labs from this savage double homicide wouldn’t start trickling in for days. Still, I ignored the chief’s sarcasm and told him what my gut had already told me.

  “There were two killers,” I said.

  Stark’s head jerked back. He practically spat, “Bullshit.”

  “Look,” I said. “There was no sign of a struggle, right? Why didn’t Joe try to overpower his assailant? He was big. He was a bear.

  “Try it this way,” I went on. “Joe was taken out of the room at knifepoint—and he cooperated because he had to. Killer number two was still in the bedroom with Annemarie.”

  The chief’s eyes darted around, looking at the scene from a new angle, imagining it the way I saw it.

  “I’d like to see the kid’s room,” I said.

  When I stepped across the threshold, I could see from his stuff that Anthony Sarducci was a smart kid. He had good books, terrariums full of healthy creepy-crawlers, and a high-powered computer on his desk. But what got me most interested were the indentations in the carpet where the desk chair normally stood. The chair had been moved. Why was that?

  I swung my head around and saw it just inside the doorway.

  I thought about that cop standing sentry outside the Sarducci house and made a mental leap.

  The child had heard nothing.

  But what would have happened if he had?

  I pointed out the chair to the chief.

  “Anyone move this chair?” I asked.

  “No one’s been inside this room.”

  “I changed my mind,” I told him. “There weren’t two intruders here. There were three. Two to do the killings. One to manage the boy if he woke up. He sat right over there in that chair.”

  The chief turned stiffly, walked down the hall, and returned with a young female CSU tech. She waited by the door with her roll of tape until we had stepped out of the room. Then she cordoned it off.

  “I don’t want to believe this, Lieutenant. It was bad enough when we were dealing with one psycho.”

  I held his gaze. Then, for just a second, he smiled.

  “Don’t quote me, now,” he said, “but I think I just said we.”

  Chapter 65

  IT WAS LATE IN the afternoon when I left the Sarducci house. I drove southeast along Cabrillo, my mind buzzing with the details of the crime and my conversation with the chief. When he confirmed that the Sarduccis, like the other double-murder victims, had been whipped, I told him that I’d had a brush with these murderers myself.

  I told him about John Doe #24.

  All the dots between the Half Moon Bay murders and my John Doe hadn’t been connected yet, but I was pretty sure I was right. Ten years on homicide had taught me that though MOs might change over time, signatures always stayed the same. Whipping and slashing in combination was a rare, possibly unique signature.

  The light was red as I approached the intersection just a
few blocks from the Sarduccis’. As I braked, I glanced into the rearview mirror and saw a red sports car coming up behind me very fast. I expected the car to stop, but it didn’t even slow down.

  I could not believe what I saw next. My eyes were pinned to the rearview mirror, watching as the car kept coming toward me on a collision course.

  I leaned on my horn, but the car just got bigger in my rearview. What the hell was going on? Was the driver on his freaking cell phone? Did he see me?

  Adrenaline shot through me, and time splintered into fragments. I stepped on the gas and jerked the wheel to avoid the collision, driving off the road and onto a front lawn, taking out a garden cart before coming to rest at the base of a Douglas fir.

  I jerked the Explorer into reverse, tearing up the lawn before getting back onto the roadway. Then I took off after the fast-disappearing maniac who’d almost driven through my backseat. Who hadn’t stopped to check on the wreck he almost caused. The asshole could have killed me.

  I kept the red car in sight, getting close enough to recognize its elegant shape. The car was a Porsche.

  My face got hot as my fear and anger came together. I gunned my engine, following the Porsche as it wove through traffic, crossing the double yellow line repeatedly.

  The last time I’d seen that car, Keith had been fixing the oil pan.

  It was Dennis Agnew’s car.

  A dozen miles flew by. I was still on the Porsche’s tail when we went up and over the hills into San Mateo and south on El Camino Real, a seedy thoroughfare bordering the Caltrain tracks. Then, without signaling, the Porsche hooked a sharp right into a strip mall entrance.

  I followed, squealing into the turn, coming to a stop in a nearly desolate parking lot. I turned off the engine, and as my racing heart slowed to a canter, I looked around.

  The minimall was a down-market collection of retail shops: auto parts, a Dollar Store, a liquor store. Down at the far end of the lot was a square cement-block building with a red neon sign in the window: Playmate Pen. XXX Live Girls.

  Parked in front of the poster-plastered storefront was Dennis Agnew’s car.

  I locked the Explorer and walked the twenty yards to the porn shop. I opened the door and went inside.

  Chapter 66

  THE PLAYMATE PEN WAS an ugly place lit by harsh overhead lights and flashing neon. To my left were racks of party toys: dildos and ticklers in garish colors and molded body parts in lifelike plastic. To my right were soda and snack machines—refreshment for all those film lovers trapped inside tiny video booths with their brains hooked into their fantasies, hands firmly on their joysticks.

  I felt eyes tracking me as I walked the narrow aisles lined with videos. I was the only female wandering loose in the place, and I guess I stood out more in my slacks and blazer than if I’d been stark naked.

  I was about to approach the clerk in front when I felt a dark presence at my elbow.

  “Lindsay?”

  I started—but Dennis Agnew looked thrilled to see me.

  “To what do I owe the honor, Lieutenant?”

  I was caught in a maze of stacks and racks of chicks-and-dicks, but like a steer in the chute of a slaughterhouse, I could see that the only way out was straight ahead.

  Agnew’s office was a brightly lit, windowless cubicle. He took the chair behind a wood-grain Formica desk and indicated where I should sit—a black leather sofa that had seen better days.

  “I’ll stand. This isn’t going to take long,” I said, but as I stood there in the doorway, I had to look around the room.

  Every wall was hung with framed photos signed to “Randy Long” from G-stringed lovelies, porn film publicity stills of overheated couplings featuring Randy Long and his partners. I also saw a few flashbulb snapshots of Agnew posing with grinning guys in suits.

  Bells started clanging as I matched the mugs of young up-and-coming wiseguys to the mobsters they’d later become. At least two of the suits were now dead.

  It took me another couple of seconds to realize that Dennis Agnew and the younger, long-haired Randy Long in the photos were one and the same. Agnew had been a freaking porn star.

  Chapter 67

  “SO, LIEUTENANT, WHAT CAN I do you for?” Dennis Agnew said, smiling, making neat stacks of his papers, corraling a loose pile of cock rings, pouring them like coins from one hand to another, then onto the desktop.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to pull,” I said, “but where I come from, running a car off the road is a crime.”

  “Seriously, Lindsay. You don’t mind if I call you Lindsay?” Agnew folded his hands and gave me one of his bleached-beyond-white smiles. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “That’s crap. Twenty minutes ago you ran me off the road. People could’ve been killed. I could’ve been killed.”

  “Oh. No. Couldn’t have been me,” Agnew said, furrowing his brow and shaking his head. “I think I would’ve noticed that. No, I think you’ve come here because you want to see me.”

  It was infuriating. Not just that Agnew was a creep with a fast car who didn’t give a shit, but his mocking attitude really fried me.

  “See these girls?” he said, hooking a thumb toward his “wall of fame.” “You know why they do these flicks? Their self-esteem is so low they think by debasing themselves with men, they’ll actually feel more powerful. Isn’t that ridiculous? And look at you. Debasing yourself by coming here. Does it make you feel powerful?”

  I was choking on this load of crap, sputtering, “You arrogant horse’s ass,” when I heard a voice saying, “Whoa. Please tell me you’re applying for a job here.”

  A small man with a cheap green jacket buttoned over his beer belly appeared in the office doorway. He leaned against the doorjamb, an arm’s length from where I stood, running his eyes over me. It was a look that just about skeeved me out of my skin.

  “Rick Monte, this is Lieutenant Lindsay Boxer. She’s a homicide cop from San Francisco,” Agnew said. “She’s on vacation—or so she says.”

  “Enjoying your time off, Lieutenant?” Rick asked my bustline.

  “I’m loving it, but I could make this an official visit at any time.”

  As soon as I said those words, I felt a jolt straight to the heart.

  What was I doing?

  I was on restricted duty and out of my jurisdiction. I’d chased a citizen in my own car. I had no backup, and if either of these jerk-offs phoned in a complaint, I’d be up on disciplinary action.

  It was the last thing I needed before my trial.

  “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were upset,” Dennis said in his oily voice. “I haven’t done anything to harm you, you know.”

  “Next time you see me,” I said through clenched teeth, “turn and walk the other way.”

  “Oh. Pardon me. I must have it wrong. I thought it was you who followed me.”

  I was hot to fire off a comeback, but this time I stifled it. He was right. He hadn’t actually done anything to me. He hadn’t even called me a name.

  I left Agnew’s office, kicking myself for showing up on this lowlife’s turf.

  I had pointed my nose toward the front of the shop, intent on putting this horrid little scene behind me, when my way was blocked by a brawny young guy with blond streaks in his mullet and tattooed flames shooting out of his T-shirt collar.

  “Out of my way, hot stuff,” I said, trying to squeeze past him.

  The guy held out his arms while standing like a boulder in the middle of the store. He smiled, daring me.

  “Come on, mama. Come to Rocco,” he said.

  “It’s all right, Rocco,” Agnew said. “This lady is my guest. I’ll walk you out, Lindsay.”

  I reached for the door, but Agnew leaned against it, boxing me in. He was so close all I could see was his face: every pore, every capillary in his bloodshot eyes. He pressed a videocassette into my hands.

  The cover advertised Randy Long’s epic performance in A Long Hard Night
.

  “Take a look when you have a chance. I put my phone number on the back.”

  I pushed away from Agnew and the video clattered to the floor.

  “Move it,” I said.

  He stepped back, just clearing the door enough so that I could open it. Agnew had a grin on his face and his hand on his crotch as I left.