The River Murders

by James Patterson

My mom had a brilliant idea. She said, “Do you think she’d stay with me while I recover? She’d have her own bedroom, and I wouldn’t make too many demands.”

  “So you’re saying you’ll treat her differently than you treat everyone else?” I was sitting a little too close and she was able to reach out and rap me on the hand with her knuckles. It made me flinch.

  I calmly said, “I will forward that idea. I think she’d love it. She already spends a lot of time caring for her dad, but he only has one bedroom.”

  I rolled back home about sunset and didn’t realize how tired I was until I plopped on the couch and Bart Simpson jumped up to sit next to me. Rubbing his head allowed my mind to wander.

  I just couldn’t accept that the explosion at Alicia’s apartment was purely an accident. Even though Buddy “Butt-crack” Wilson from the gas company said it was just a simple gas leak, I couldn’t let it go.

  I’d worked with explosives a little bit in the Navy. I was by no means an expert, but I did know modern buildings with decent pipes don’t just explode. I dozed off right on the couch.

  The alarm on my watch woke me at four-thirty. It was still pitch black outside. This was one of the few days I could still deliver newspapers and I jumped on it. By eight o’clock, I’d finished my wide route that covered several small towns in our area. Mostly I delivered small advertising circulars, but there was one town that got its own newspaper once a week. Those were easy to chuck out of the window of my station wagon onto driveways as I barely slowed down.

  When I was finished, I didn’t even go to Tina’s Plentiful. I knew I had to clear a few things up and satisfy my own curiosity before I got back to my regular routine. I drove directly to Alicia’s apartment building.

  The fire department had allowed the other residents to return. I wandered through the front door and could still smell the smoke embedded in the cheap carpet and wallpaper. Eventually, they’d have to change all of that.

  Alicia’s apartment had a piece of plywood nailed across the doorway, covered by police caution tape. I pictured how the blast had knocked the door off the hinges and saved the super’s life.

  I was startled to hear someone call my name. I turned and saw the super coming down the hallway. He only had a couple of Band-Aids on his forehead and cheek.

  I said, “Hey, Mike. Should you be back at work so soon?”

  The tall man shrugged. “This is my only source of income. I’m not only the super, I own the building. I can’t afford to take a day off.”

  “Did anyone come up with any answers?”

  He shrugged. “The cops explained that we’re just a small town. They don’t have the resources or experience to do an in-depth investigation. They were certain enough that it was an accident. I agreed so the building wasn’t shut down for a long investigation. That’s good and bad. It’s good because my insurance company should pay off fairly easily. It’s bad because it makes it look like I don’t take care of my building.”

  “Do you mind if I look around a little bit? I won’t damage anything or cause any problems.”

  “You’re a private investigator, so as long as you don’t charge me, I don’t see why not. Besides, I owe you. Big-time.”

  I brushed off his praise. I was also about to correct him and explain that I wasn’t an official private investigator. I had no license and hadn’t been vetted by the state. But I had some experience with explosives and a real interest in this case.

  Mike said, “The door and some of the debris from the apartment are in the dumpster.”

  I clapped my hands together and rubbed them as if I was trying to keep them warm. “There’s nothing like starting your day off by climbing in a dumpster.”

  The tall man laughed and patted me on the back as I headed around back.

  CHAPTER 10

  THIS WAS OUTSIDE my normal duties as an unlicensed private investigator. Usually, my job had a lot to do with finding people or interviewing people. This was the rare occasion where I was looking for evidence of a crime. Something that wouldn’t be obvious.

  I had to pull a lot of garbage out of the dumpster to examine it. Also, the door was wedged beneath much of the debris. After more effort than I really wanted to expend, I had the debris laid out in the parking lot next to the dumpster the same way the FAA laid out parts recovered from a plane crash. I was hoping I might see a pattern.

  The nature of the blast, one giant wave of heat, left very little smoke damage on most of the debris. Finally, I got to the door itself. It was intact. The hinges had been ripped from the jamb and were still attached to the door.

  I ran my fingers around the door handle and lock. I didn’t see anything unusual. Then, on closer examination of the deadbolt, I saw some odd markings on the outside of the lock. There were several scratches around the keyhole. I touched the marks carefully with my pinky and could feel the ridge with a minuscule amount of metal roughing the edges. These were fresh markings. At first I thought it was from the blast. Then I realized they looked like the markings from someone picking the lock. I’d seen it in training with the Navy. After I had washed out of SEAL training, I went through a number of criminal investigation courses. One of the instructors set up a crime scene to teach us how to determine if someone had entered a file room at the law enforcement training center in Arizona.

  The first clue in the training exercise looked exactly like the marks on this lock. The instructor had explained how hard it was to pick a lock. This concerned me.

  I continue to examine the door and found one other thing out of place. At the very bottom of the door, on the inside, a piece of clear Scotch tape about the size of my thumbnail was carefully placed on the corner.

  I had to think about this and what it meant.

  After I was done with the dumpster, I talked to Mike about security video or any other security devices on the property.

  He showed me his homemade security center in the corner of his own apartment.

  Mike said, “The cops glanced at all of these. There’s really nothing to see prior to the blast. For some reason, the light in our parking lot was out. That’s the only way the video picks up anything at night.”

  He walked me out to the parking lot and showed me the camera and the light.

  I borrowed a ladder and carefully set it against the eighteen-foot-tall light post. It only took me a moment of examination to realize someone had shot the light out with a BB gun. A single, tiny hole showed me that someone knew what they were doing. And it gave them a way to enter the apartment building unseen.

  Mike let me look through seven days of security video. Most of it was mind-numbing. I recognized many of the tenants as they came and went, including Mrs. Siddiqui, the woman I helped from the building after the blast.

  I noticed something at the edges of the parking lot where the camera caught a bit of the street. I watched the video three different times. At approximately two in the afternoon, three days prior to the blast, a blue SUV drove past on the street. It almost looked like surveillance.

  I watched the video of the night before the explosion. At the far corners of the dark video, I saw a person moving about five a.m. That would’ve been just after Alicia left for work.

  It was just a smudge. Almost like a ghost in a horror movie. From the size of the person, I guessed it was a man. That made me think as well.

  Then I started to put it all together. Surveillance of the area. They probably saw me coming over to watch TV with Alicia. The light knocked out by a well-placed shot from a BB gun. It could be kids fooling around. But what if it wasn’t?

  The marks on the deadbolt made it appear to me that someone had entered the apartment. If they were just trying to cover their tracks from a burglary, it seemed like a huge amount of effort. Especially to burglarize a nursing student. And what criminal in their right mind would elevate a simple burglary to a possible murder?

  The final piece of the puzzle was the tape at the bottom of the door. Somewhere in the recesses of my
mind I recalled an easy, old-school way to ignite a booby trap. In the training scenario I went through, it had to do with gasoline on the ground. And securing an easily ignited match, like a giant kitchen match, on the bottom of the door would be a good flashpoint.

  If there was enough natural gas in an enclosed space, a match would be an easy way to ignite it. And putting it on the door meant it would be ignited by the person with the key.

  All of this together pointed to one unsettling theory: whoever did this was a real pro. Even with the crude step of using a match taped to a door. I felt like it was all intentional. Someone purposely used household items to create the explosion. I had to figure out how to stop them.

  CHAPTER 11

  A FEW DAYS later, I was no closer to finding an answer to my questions. I hadn’t told Alicia about my concerns because I didn’t want to scare her, and I didn’t want to look like some kind of conspiracy nut.

  I was in an upbeat mood because it was time for my mom to come home. I had already helped Alicia get settled in the second bedroom at my mom’s house. She was thrilled with the chance to help my mom, who she knew from the hospital. She was also grateful she had a comfortable place to live.

  I drove my mom in her big Buick LaCrosse. I was jumpy. Every time I saw any sort of SUV, I checked it out carefully. I was starting to see blue SUVs everywhere.

  When we got to the house, I pushed my mom in a wheelchair up the ramp Bill and I had built the day before. Just simple plywood, but knowing my mom, we painted it the same color yellow as the house. It looked natural.

  Just as we got to the top of the ramp, my mom turned and motioned me closer. She patted me on the cheek and said, “That ramp is beautiful. It looks like a professional did it. Thank you so much.”

  Instantly, I was transported back to second grade, when my mom made me feel like I would definitely win the science fair with my in-depth look at the differences between green beans and lima beans. She had always made Natty and me feel like we could do anything.

  We got her settled comfortably on the couch. She barked at Natty to bring her the TV remote. She wanted to watch all the Jeopardy! episodes that had been saved on DVR. I noticed Bart Simpson was quiet, sitting carefully at the end of the couch. He sensed that she was injured, but he didn’t want to be too far away from her.

  Dolores Hackmacher had made some Toll House cookies. Natty and I both tried to steal several, only to be caught by my mom. She ordered Natty to come closer to the couch. When he stepped over to her, she gave him a little smack on the cheek and said, “Act your age.”

  Natty held his cheek and said, “Jesus Christ …”

  That earned him a serious slap.

  Natty said, “C’mon, Mom, what was that for? You curse all the time.”

  She calmly said, “First of all, I don’t curse all the time. Secondly, you boys are usually the cause of it. And thirdly, don’t take the Lord’s name in vain.”

  We both knew that tone. She was deadly serious. And if I thought about it, she occasionally dropped the F-bomb or a “shit,” but she never used “goddamn” or “Jesus Christ.” I knew to steer away from that minefield.

  Bill said good-bye to my mom and nodded for me to follow him out on the porch. Once we were alone, he said, “I know you’ve been asking around about the blue SUV and you think the explosion at your girlfriend’s apartment was deliberate.”

  I was going to say something, but he held up his hand.

  “Learn from my experience, Mitchum. Conspiracies just don’t happen much. It’s easy for people to think in conspiracies. That makes our ordinary lives more interesting. It keeps us from thinking about the real things we have to face every day. That’s why people want to believe it was a conspiracy to kill JFK or Martin Luther King. In real life, at least in police work, I found the simple answer is usually the right one.”

  He made sense, even if I still thought there was some conspiracy at work around me and my family. He was trying to comfort me and give me the benefit of his experience. It was one of the first times someone had actually acted like a father toward me in this town.

  When I walked back inside, my mom was chatting with Alicia. The two of them were giggling about something I was sure made fun of me. That was no conspiracy theory.

  When Alicia left for her training shift at the hospital in Newburgh, my mom patted the edge of the couch. She made no effort to distinguish calling me or calling Bart Simpson, and we both listened.

  She said, “That girl is a real find. She’s smart, pretty, and takes no bullshit. She’s a real keeper.”

  When I didn’t answer immediately, my mom said, “It doesn’t matter if you see it. She’d work out just as well for Natty. But I think you’re the one she’s interested in.”

  Just what I needed. More things to think about.

  CHAPTER 12

  THAT NIGHT, I decided to do a little surveillance around town. I had listened to Bill about conspiracies and decided I was too immature to learn from his experience. I’m sure he’d understand.

  All I really did was tool around town in my station wagon. I’m not even sure what I was hoping to find. A blue SUV with a dented front end. Someone I didn’t recognize who looked suspicious. All I knew is that I couldn’t sit around and do nothing.

  Bart Simpson had elected to stay at my mom’s house. He had a good sense for how much she needed him at the moment. My mom said he could be her service dog for a few weeks. She promised not to put him in a purse like the rich ladies in the city.

  Until I provided her with grandchildren, my mom would have to make do with a dog that slobbered and had terminal flatulence. That was okay with me.

  The first thing I realized during my surveillance was that I lived in the quietest town in America. I knew it was small and comfortable, without the normal noise of a big city, but this was ridiculous. There was no one on the streets. I passed a car about every three minutes. I’m not even sure why the town incorporated. It also made me realize I knew virtually everyone in town by name. Or, at least, I recognized them on sight.

  After a couple of frustrating hours, I decided it was a waste of time. But I wasn’t ready to go home. I had a boatload of nervous energy. For no real reason, I headed south on Route 9 toward Newburgh. I still found myself really examining every vehicle that passed me.

  Once I reached the city limits of Newburgh, I considered running by the hospital and visiting Alicia. That was something I’d never done before. Never even considered it. Did my mom’s little talk have more of an effect on me than I realized? Alicia was definitely special. Like my mom said, she was a keeper.

  When I thought about it, I decided I would only be a nuisance if I went by the hospital. I’d see her in the morning when I visited my mom. Or if I ate at Tina’s Plentiful.

  Instead, I turned toward my brother’s new apartment. He’d recently had to downsize because as a student, he didn’t have the cash coming in like he did as a drug dealer. He’d given up the rented Corvettes and Camaros for a rented Impala. He had moved from a house in the suburbs to a reasonable apartment on the edge of the city. It was one of the few decisions I couldn’t fault him for.

  I parked on the street next to his Impala and called him to let him know I was coming up.

  He said, “It’s not a great time, Mitchum. I’m studying.”

  “Then take a break. I’m already here.” I ended the call before he could protest any further.

  I knocked on the door and waited longer than I expected before I heard him yell, “Come in.”

  He sat awkwardly on his couch. There were no books open and the TV wasn’t on. He looked stiff and stilted with his hands folded in his lap.

  I stepped into the apartment. “I thought you were studying.”

  He didn’t answer. That was weird. Even for him.

  His eyes shifted to the hallway behind me. I looked over my shoulder and froze.

  I stared at a man pointing a gun at my face.

  CHAPTER 13

 
; WHAT DO YOU do when a man is pointing a gun at your face? Instinct kicks in. In my case, I raised my hands and backed away. At this point, I wasn’t even thinking about fighting back. That’s how complete the surprise was.

  I carefully eased backward until I bumped into the couch where Natty sat. Then I realized that of all the possible plans, that was the worst. Now we were bunched together and easy targets for the man with the pistol.

  I shifted to my right to get a little distance between my brother and me. A trickle of sweat ran down my forehead. I still hadn’t said a word. It felt like my brain snapped into gear a moment later. I worked hard to stay calm. At least now I was thinking a little more clearly. Unfortunately, the first thing I thought about clearly was having a bullet strike me in the face. That was disconcerting.

  A man stepped forward, out of the shadows of the hallway. It was hard to tell his age because he had a shaved head. He was powerfully built, with heavy muscles across his shoulders. That’s when I realized I recognized him. For just a moment, I thought he might be a famous wrestler. His dark mustache drooped over the corners of his mouth and I could see him going by the name of “The Ringmaster” or “Mr. Clean.”

  Then it hit me. The Mr. Clean image stuck in my head. That’s what we called him when we found him in the hidden prison on the outskirts of Marlboro.

  He had a smirk on his face, as he looked me over like a piece of meat. Then he said in that deep voice, “Hello, Mitchum. Been a while.”

  I was at a loss for words. A few months back, in the dead of winter, my fourteen-year-old cousin, Bailey Mae, had gone missing. It turned out she had stumbled into a plan this asshole and a couple of others had to run a secret prison in an old mining facility not far away.

  While looking for my cousin, I exposed the facility. Once the feds arrived and carted everyone off, I thought the whole thing was over. Apparently, I was wrong.