The House Husband

by James Patterson

  And cops really like to talk.

  I’ll admit it—I immediately felt horrible for the Diaz family, even though I hadn’t met them until the moment I knocked on their door, presenting myself as a police department counselor with a very urgent matter to discuss. Mrs. Diaz was all too eager to grant me access to her home, offering me a seat and a cup of unsweetened iced tea.

  You see, I had to intervene, because I knew exactly how this would all play out. At some point, Mrs. Diaz—Franny—would learn about the affair, and she would either (a) soldier through the faithless marriage for the kids’ sake or (b) divorce her cheating husband for the kids’ sake.

  But what she wouldn’t realize is that the kids would be the ones to suffer no matter what option she chose. Detective Martin Diaz would already have damned them. They would grow up to repeat the same mistakes as their parents, and the cycle would continue forever.

  Unless someone could do something about it.

  A man with a plan.

  Now Franny Diaz has a gun on her husband, and she’s most likely thinking about what I’ve told her during the past hour, because she asks him, “Is it all true, Martin?”

  The twin boys are old enough to know what’s going on. They stare at their father with a delicious kind of hate even more intense than their mother’s. The little girl, mercifully, doesn’t seem to know too much about what’s going on. Her only response is to sob gently.

  Don’t worry, angel. It’ll all be over soon.

  “Franny, please…”

  “Is it?” she demands.

  But the answer’s already in her husband’s eyes.

  And now Francine Diaz is pointing the gun at her husband like she really means it.

  CHAPTER 22

  Teaghan is completely lost in her case notes when her cell phone finally rings. What is it, close to midnight now? She snatches the cell off her kitchen table, already annoyed.

  “Took you long enough, Diaz.”

  The voice on the other end, however, is not Diaz. It’s someone female, her voice slurring a little as she speaks.

  “Detective Beaumont?”

  “Yeah, who is this?”

  There is an audible sob, then the sound of a deep breath. “It’s Theresa. From Homicide. We met a bunch of times…”

  Teaghan puts it together quickly: Theresa McCafferty, Diaz’s temporary partner. If they were back in high school, McCafferty would be the kind of insufferable bully who would go out of her way to snub and embarrass Teaghan. Only this isn’t high school, and both of them carry badges and guns. Those “bunch of times” they met weren’t pleasant; Teaghan tries to steer clear of cops like McCafferty.

  “Yeah, I remember. What’s up?”

  It’s strange to hear McCafferty sound so sad, so…vulnerable. Cops like McCafferty don’t do vulnerable.

  There’s a long pause before she finally asks, “Did you hear about Martin?”

  “No, what happened?”

  And then everything seems to rush at Teaghan all at once. First, it’s Charlie, carrying their sleeping baby in his arms, a stricken look on his face, coming up from their basement bedroom.

  “T, I’m so sorry. I just heard about it on WHYY…”

  But Teaghan is confused. Sorry about what? Has the entire world lost their minds at the same time?

  “What are you talking about?” she asks.

  And then her cell phone buzzes—another call coming in. McCafferty, meanwhile, is still on the line saying something about Diaz and his family, all of them, even the kids, and God, she’s so sorry.

  “McCafferty, tell me what’s going on!”

  “They were shot, Teaghan. In their own home. Just a short while ago. Oh, God, I can’t believe it…”

  None of this makes any damn sense to Teaghan…

  Charlie, looking at her like she’s just received a diagnosis of terminal cancer…

  McCafferty, going on and on about the whole family being butchered…

  The other call, buzzing again, insisting on breaking through…

  And then she gets it.

  The realization hits her like a sledgehammer to the chest, and Teaghan starts sobbing, right there at her kitchen table. Her fingers scratch at the case notes on the tabletop.

  My God.

  Diaz.

  The baby, following his mother’s cue, wakes up and does the same.

  CHAPTER 23

  Conflict of interest can take a flying leap; Teaghan demands access to the Diaz house now.

  The uniforms guarding the perimeter take one look at her face and realize they’d be fighting a losing battle. One of them lifts the yellow tape and allows her through.

  It’s 3:00 a.m., and the streets of Fox Chase are still pitch-dark. But neighbors up and down the street have emerged from their warm homes to take a look for themselves. Clearly, they’ve all heard the horrible news. Their shocked faces are illuminated by the red and blue lights from the squad cars as they look around and huddle for warmth and safety.

  They all must know the Diaz family—know the father was a homicide detective. Usually, with a cop living on your block, you feel a little bit safer. But when the same cop is killed along with his family, what does that mean for your own family?

  Teaghan walks up the front pathway, steeling herself for what she’s about to see inside. Didn’t she and Diaz just do this a few days ago?

  You sure you’re up for this?

  Yeah, Diaz. I had a baby. I’m not going through chemo.

  No, yeah, I mean…It’s a whole family we’re talking about here.

  I’ve seen dead kids.

  But Teaghan has never seen dead kids she knew.

  Teaghan and Charlie have visited the Diaz house at least a half dozen times over the past couple of years. (Their family get-togethers had to be at the Diaz place; the Beaumonts’ cramped apartment wouldn’t work.) Charlie loved playing out back with the Diaz boys, kicking a soccer ball around and roughhousing, while Teaghan and Martin would knock back a few beers and talk a little shop. Or at least as much shop as Franny could tolerate.

  Come to think of it, those visits to the Diaz home were probably what gave Charlie the baby itch. They’d spend their drive back to West Philly debating the pros and cons of starting a family. Charlie, naturally, had plenty of items in the pros column (we’re not getting any younger, I’ve always wanted a big family, look how much fun we had today), leaving Teaghan to fire back all of the cons (we both have demanding jobs, their place is too small, life is crazy enough without the burden of raising a kid).

  But in her mind, they all boiled down to one big con: being a parent means you’re responsible for another life. And that can be a terrifying thing. Charlie still doesn’t get that. He hasn’t been to the dark places that Teaghan has been to in her life.

  Like this one.

  Teaghan takes a deep breath and steps through the front door.

  Come on, T, she tells herself, you’ve been to dozens of crime scenes. You know what to do.

  But another voice shoots back: Yeah, but it’s never someone you know.

  CHAPTER 24

  Inside, the forensic team is still at work, but everybody sounds pretty confident about what happened. Teaghan heard it on the drive up to Fox Chase, straight from the chief of the Homicide Bureau.

  In short, Detectives McCafferty and Diaz were having an affair. She couldn’t believe it. Her Diaz—her partner, her rock—and that hot mess, carrying on like a couple of teenagers? “McCafferty pretty much admitted the whole thing,” the chief said. “Now she’s afraid someone’s gonna come after her.” Apparently, it’s been an open secret in the Homicide Bureau. Teaghan hadn’t heard because she’d been busy having a kid.

  Somehow poor Franny Diaz found out about it. Probably not from another homicide cop; the blue wall of silence was formidable. (Even if Teaghan had known, she’s pretty sure she’d never tell.) Most likely, Diaz himself slipped. Left behind the wrong bar receipt or forgot to delete a text.

 
; No matter how it happened, Franny reached her breaking point. And tonight, after Diaz returned home, Franny took her husband’s service revolver and shot him with it, twice in the chest. Then she turned the gun on her children, swiftly, before taking her own life.

  Which…no.

  Teaghan refused to believe it, even if the physical evidence was right there before her very eyes.

  Her partner, dead on his own living-room floor, two shots delivered right to his chest, both in the kill zone. Cops are trained on silhouettes to shoot with maximum stopping power. So are many cops’ wives, Franny Diaz included.

  The Diaz kids—all three of them—were sitting at the kitchen table when they were executed.

  And then Franny apparently went into the kitchen to take her own life, as if she couldn’t stand the sight of her husband any longer.

  Except…

  Except this makes no sense whatsoever.

  Teaghan spent many hours with Franny. Ending her children’s lives was absolutely the last thing she would ever do. She was the kind of mom who would single-handedly lift a tractor-trailer off the family car if it meant she could protect her babies. Teaghan considered her a role model, in fact, for how to be loving yet tough as steel. She wanted to be Franny when she grew up.

  And Franny wasn’t some fragile flower who would become unhinged at the news of Diaz’s infidelity. Hell, on the force, that is practically an epidemic. Quickest way to ruin your marriage? Put on a badge.

  No, Franny Diaz would have given her husband holy hell, then taken off with the kids and immediately hired the toughest divorce attorney she could afford. She wouldn’t end Diaz with two taps to the rib cage; she’d make him suffer for the rest of his days. That’s the kind of woman she was. Not a killer. Not a suicidal head case.

  A flash snaps Teaghan out of her thoughts. One of the CSI guys is taking a photo of something near Diaz’s body. A shell casing, maybe?

  “What’s that?” she asks. “By the hand?”

  Calling it the hand; distance is the only way to get through something like this.

  The CSI guy looks up at her, recognizes her, then mumbles his apologies as he moves out of the way.

  Teaghan can’t crouch down, but it’s plain as day from her standing position. A word, scrawled in blood, right near Diaz’s hand. Written in his own blood on the living-room carpet:

  DADDI

  With the last letter only partially formed, because Diaz most likely died while writing it. Her partner’s final will and testament: Daddy.

  CHAPTER 25

  Well, tonight hasn’t gone as planned.

  At all.

  I drive home feeling pretty low, to be honest. The problems were twofold: my target and my choice of weapon. In other words, maybe I made a mistake messing around with Colonel Mustard and the rope.

  That is to say, Detective Martin Diaz and a gun.

  Cops are always problematic because they keep such weird hours. When I discovered that Detective Diaz was having an affair, I thought it might be an occasional fling, not an every-night-I-can-get-away bender. So there I was, sitting in his house, holding his wife and kids at gunpoint, for, like, well over an hour. Talk about awkward! The poor kids, up way past their bedtime, watching their mother with increasingly panicked looks in their eyes. I’m telling you, if Detective Diaz hadn’t finally arrived home when he did, I think the situation may have spun out of control on its own.

  (Say what you will about the Cookes, but at least they had their Sunday dinner at the same time, without fail.)

  And then there was the math of the situation. If one—or all of them!—decided to rush me, I’m not sure I could have pulled the trigger. Because I’m not a wanton killer. If the deaths can’t be arranged just right, I won’t go through with it. I deliver peaceful mercy, not terrifying death. They might not all have appreciated the nuances in the moment, but I’m sure they’ll all understand in the afterlife.

  Where everything will make sense to all of us.

  Forever and ever, amen.

  So anyway, I’ve got all of this nonsense swirling around in my head as I make the long drive back to my neighborhood. I’m so preoccupied I realize I’ve forgotten to pick up the milk, oranges, and bananas Ruth wanted from the Wawa. Wonderful. Not that she’ll complain. Ruth’s not the type. But the slightly disappointed look in her eyes will be punishment enough. She will have to make an extra run to the store, which will make her workday all that much longer. And the last thing I want to do is make her life more difficult.

  As I pull up to our block, I think about heading out to a twenty-four-hour market anyway, but then I see there’s a parking spot open not too far from our front door. I can’t leave it to chance. If I don’t take the spot now, someone else will. I’ll just have to deal with my wife’s disappointment tomorrow.

  I’ll also have to come up with an explanation for why I was out so late tonight. A man can only bowl for so long, and again, I don’t want her to start to worry. Or to think I was being a dirty dog like Detective Diaz.

  I guide our minivan into the space, cleanly, expertly. You live in Philadelphia long enough, you can almost parallel park on autopilot. But this time—whoa—my back right tire bumps into the curb, jolting me in my seat. What the heck? I must be losing my touch.

  I change gears, pull the minivan forward a few inches, cut the wheel a little sharper, and try again.

  And this time, BUMP, again.

  This is insane. I reach for the gearshift, slide it from R to D, checking the display to make sure I’m not in the wrong gear or something. That’s when I notice the odometer.

  Now, when I left earlier this evening, I was careful to note the number of miles on there. (Always do.) It was 56,702.

  I calculated the drive to Fox Chase and back in advance. The journey should have only added 26.5 miles to the count. Roughly a marathon. If I were in much better shape, I could have theoretically run up there and back.

  So why does my odometer read 68,791?

  CHAPTER 26

  The department gives her a few days off, which are both welcome and awful.

  Because Teaghan’s only been back on the Job, what, a couple of days? And now she’s back in her apartment in mom mode again. The cop part of her brain is pissed off. What the hell is this nonsense? I want to work.

  Need to work.

  Charlie is no doubt secretly thrilled. Teaghan can mind the baby while he really drills down into his Manayunk piece. “You should enjoy the extra time with the little guy,” he says. “He’s what’s important now.”

  And she knows her husband didn’t quite mean it this way, but what about Diaz and his family? Are they no longer important?

  So she says nothing.

  But the cop part of her brain is screaming. The cop part of her brain wants justice for her fallen partner. For Franny. For the boys. And his little girl.

  Teaghan holds her baby boy, rocking him gently, trying to get him to stop crying and go to sleep for just a little while so she can think.

  “Shhh, now, sweet thing.”

  The whole thing is so coincidental as to be absurd. A homicide cop is involved in a murder-suicide at the same time as he’s investigating another murder-suicide? Even before she heard the news, Teaghan thought the first three cases of familicide were about two too many. Now there’s a fourth, just days after the Pancoast murders?

  But what is she really thinking? That somebody is going around murdering innocent families and trying to make it look like they did themselves in? That is equally crazy.

  “You’re okay, little guy. Shhhh, now. Mommy’s here, Daddy’s here, everything will be all right.”

  Except…

  Except that one word hangs her up: innocent.

  Were these four families actually innocent? As much as it pained her to admit it, Martin Diaz certainly wasn’t. Playing around on Franny behind her back, and with that drunk McCafferty, no less. The chief almost didn’t have to confirm it; the shock in McCafferty’s voice sai
d it all. And it explains why Diaz was so weird and chilly with her on her first day back. You can’t fool a fellow detective for long. Sooner or later, Teaghan would have found out, and he’d have had to deal with her wrath. She might not have ratted him out to Franny, but her partner had to know Teaghan wouldn’t put up with his duplicity for very long.

  The chief said it was an open secret in the Homicide Bureau.

  But if there is some killer out there, targeting whole families, does that mean the killer is a cop? A horrifying thought, but who else could have known about Diaz and McCafferty?

  And what’s the connection to the Pancoast murders, for that matter? Or the others?

  Maybe Pancoast was guilty of something, too. That’s what Diaz himself alleged back at the crime scene.

  Come on, T, these are the Philly unions we’re talking about. You’ve been in the city long enough to know what that means.

  So the killer knows about Diaz’s dirty business and Pancoast’s… What about Cooke and Posehn? What was weighing on their guilty consciences?

  Baby Christopher refuses to go down without a fight—he’s just as stubborn as his mother. As he continues to cry with increasing intensity and her breasts ache, Teaghan considers tearing Charlie away from his computer, just for a few minutes, so she can think.

  But no. That would be admitting a kind of defeat. She can be a homicide detective and a mother at the same time, can’t she?

  So she’ll just suck it up and ignore the wailing.

  Teaghan’s mind goes back to the Pancoast crime scene. Are there any physical similarities between that and the Diaz scene? Killers typically follow a pattern, even when they’re trying hard not to follow a pattern. She needs something tangible to connect the two. She can’t walk into her chief’s office with a well-intentioned hunch.

  Teaghan mentally runs through both crime scenes, as if flipping the pages of two different photo albums, looking for a detail to repeat itself.