Women's Murder Club [04] 4th of July

by James Patterson

  “Not at all. I replaced the alternator and the plugs. Engine purrs like this guy.”

  “This’s Hairball,” Keith told me, scratching the cat under the chin. “My attack cat. He rode in on the carburetor of a pickup truck a couple of years ago.”

  “Youch.”

  “All the way from Encino. Burned his paws, but he’s good as new now, aren’t you, buddy?”

  Keith asked if I needed gas, and I said that I did. We walked together into the soft afternoon sunshine.

  “I caught you on TV last night,” Keith told me as high-test gurgled into the Explorer’s capacious tank.

  “You did not.”

  “No, I did. Your attorney was on the news, and they showed a picture of you in your blues,” he said, grinning at me. “You really are a cop.”

  “You didn’t believe me?”

  The kid shrugged winningly. “I pretty much believed you. But it was okay either way, Lindsay. Either you were a cop or you just had a great line.”

  I hooted, and Keith’s face crinkled in laughter. After a bit, I told him about the Cabot case—just the overview, absent the grief and the gore. Keith was supportive and a damned sight more fun to talk to than Chief Stark. Hell, I was even enjoying his attention. Brad Pitt, right?

  He unlatched the Explorer’s hood, pulled out the dipstick, and gave me a direct look with his bright blue eyes. I stared into them long enough to notice that his irises were rimmed with navy blue and flecked with brown, as if there were little drifts of gold dust in them.

  “You need oil,” I heard him say. I felt my face color.

  “Sure. Okay.”

  Keith punched open a can of Castrol and poured it into the engine. As he did, he put his other hand in the back pocket of his jeans, adopting a posture of studied nonchalance.

  “So, satisfy my curiosity,” he said. “Tell me about your boyfriend.”

  Chapter 60

  I WRENCHED MYSELF OUT of whatever the heck was going on between us and told Keith about Joe: what a great guy he was, how funny, how kind, and how smart. “He works in DC. Homeland Security.”

  “I’m impressed,” said Keith.

  I saw the kid swallow before he asked, “Are you in love with the guy?”

  I nodded, picturing Joe’s face, thinking how much I missed him.

  “Lucky guy, that Manicotti.”

  “Molinari,” I said, grinning.

  “Lucky, whatever his name is,” Keith said, closing the hood. Just then, a black sedan with rental-car plates pulled up to the garage.

  “Damn,” Keith muttered. “Here comes Mr. Porsche, and his car’s not ready.”

  As I handed Keith my MasterCard, “Mr. Porsche” stepped out of his rent-a-car and into my peripheral vision.

  “Hey, Keith,” he called out. “How’s it coming, my man?”

  Wait a minute. I knew him. He looked older in broad daylight, but it was that obnoxious guy who’d hit on me and Carolee in the Cormorant. Dennis Agnew.

  “Just give me five minutes,” Keith called back.

  Before I could ask him about that creep, Keith was heading toward the office and Agnew was walking straight toward me. When he got within spitting distance, he stopped, put his hand heavily on the hood of my car, and shot me a look that hit me right between the eyes.

  He followed up the look with a slow, insinuating smile. “Slumming, Officer? Or do you just like young meat?” I was honing a retort when Keith came up from behind.

  “You calling me meat?” Keith said, aligning his body with mine. He matched Agnew’s sarcastic smile with a sunny one of his own. “I guess I should consider the source, you dirty old man.”

  It was a grin-off, both men holding their ground. A long blistering moment passed.

  Then Agnew took his hand off my hood.

  “C’mon, meat. I want to see my car.”

  Keith winked at me and handed me back my card.

  “Stay in touch, Lindsay. Okay?”

  “Sure thing. You, too.”

  I got into my car and started up the engine, but I just sat for a while watching Agnew follow Keith into the repair shop. The guy was wrong, but how wrong, and in what way, I just didn’t know.

  Chapter 61

  I’D SLEPT BADLY. WILD, fractured dreams had awoken me repeatedly. Now I leaned over the bathroom sink and brushed my teeth with a goofy vengeance.

  I was edgy and I was furious, and I knew why.

  By threatening me, Chief Stark had effectively stopped me from investigating leads that might finally solve the John Doe #24 homicide. If I was right, Doe’s killer was still active in Half Moon Bay.

  I banged glass and crockery around in the kitchen, feeding Martha, making coffee, eating my Wheaties.

  I was half-watching the Today show on the small kitchen TV when a red banner flashed on the screen.

  LIVE. Breaking News.

  A somber young woman, a local TV reporter, stood in front of a redwood house, the crime scene tape behind her cordoning off the house from the street. Her voice rose over the sounds of a crowd visible at the edges of the frame.

  “At seven-thirty this morning Annemarie and Joseph Sarducci were found dead in their home on Outlook Road. Their slashed and partially nude bodies were found by their thirteen-year-old son, Anthony, who was unharmed. We spoke with Police Chief Peter Stark just minutes ago.”

  The scene cut away to a shot of Stark facing reporters outside the station house. The crowd jostled for position. There were network call letters on some of the microphones. This was a siege.

  I turned up the sound.

  “Chief Stark. Is it true that the Sarduccis were slaughtered like animals?”

  “Chief! Over here! Did Tony Sarducci find them? Did the kid find his parents?”

  “Hey, Pete. Do you have a suspect?”

  I watched transfixed as Stark negotiated the balancing act of his life. Either tell the truth or lie and pay for it later, but keep the public calm and don’t give the killer any information he can use. I’d seen the same look on the face of Chief Moose when the DC-area sniper was at large.

  “Look, I can’t say more than this,” Stark said. “Two more people have died, but I can’t tell you anything of an evidentiary nature. We’re on it. And we’ll inform the public as soon as we have something substantive to report.”

  I grabbed a chair, pulled it right up to the screen, and sat down hard. Even though I’d seen so many murdered people, this case got me to the core.

  I didn’t think I could have a reaction like this. I was so outraged at the killer’s audacity I was shaking.

  I joined the throng outside the police station by proxy. I found myself talking at a thirteen-inch Sony and Chief Stark’s shrunken image.

  “Who is doing this, Chief?

  “Who the hell is murdering all of these people?”

  Part Four

  Trials and Tribulation

  Chapter 62

  THEY WERE CARRYING THE bodies out of the house just as I arrived. I parked between two black-and-whites on the lawn and looked up at a stunning glass-and-redwood contemporary.

  The gaping crowd parted as paramedics bumped down the steps with the stretchers, then slid the two body bags into the open maw at the back of the EMS van. Although I didn’t know Annemarie and Joseph Sarducci, I was swamped by unspeakable sadness.

  I edged my way through the mob and up to the front door, where a uniformed officer was on security detail, at ease, with his hands behind his back.

  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, da
mn 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 m
e, 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.