21st Birthday, James Patterson [best mystery novels of all time TXT] 📗

I nodded, glanced back at the mess on our desks, and grabbed my jacket. I did a quick inventory to make sure I had my badge, my phone, my gun.

Conklin watched me with concern in his eyes. He wasn’t going to say, “Everything’s going to be all right.”

Instead, he put his hand on my back and guided me toward the door.

“I’ll drive,” he said.

No objection from me.

Chapter 16

Thirty minutes after speaking with Brady, Conklin and I arrived at Baker Beach, a curving acre of sand on the Pacific Coast with the Golden Gate Bridge to the east rising into the morning sky.

The night shift had taped off the parking lot, excluding all but law-enforcement vehicles. I badged the uniform at the cordon. Richie parked the car. I turned off the radio and got slowly out of the car.

Vehicles are not allowed on the beach, but in this case, Claire’s team had bypassed the beach ban on vehicles and driven across the sand to the horseshoe of yellow tape, the primary perimeter that took in a section of beach around the victim at the water’s edge.

I saw the stoop-shouldered form of Gene Hallows, Crime Lab Director and Clapper’s new head of Forensics, standing just outside the tape watching his team take photos, sketch the location, but that’s all of the crime scene they’d be processing. No footprints. No car tracks. No other body in the surf.

Four detectives from Northern Station interviewed the growing crowd of surfers and beachcombers and early-morning nudists in the parking lot, towels around their waists. The detectives would be asking people for any information they might have about anyone or anything out of the ordinary.

Good luck with that.

The baby could have been dumped into the water anywhere along South Bay.

Lieutenant Tom Murry came over to me and unofficially passed the baton from Missing Persons to Homicide.

He said, “Freakin’ tragedy. I’ve sent my preliminary report to the chief and copied Brady. We’ll keep searching for the child’s mother.”

I mumbled something like “Monstrous. Keep in touch”—and just then Brady pulled into the lot next to an unmarked police vehicle. Probably Clapper’s ride. I saw him crossing the beach below, walking toward Hallows and the CSIs.

Richie and I headed out, crossing the asphalt and walking down a path to the primary scene.

Claire was hunkered down near the body but not touching her. Her techs stood by their vehicle, each holding something; a sheet, a body bag; two of the techs had a stretcher.

Claire was waiting for us to view the body in situ and then she’d take the deceased to the morgue.

Rich headed for the tape and I stood watching the little girl’s red hair moving with the action of the surf.

Claire stood up. Of all days to return to a job she loved, her first case was a young child. The grief I felt for a baby I had never known was mirrored in Claire’s face.

I reached for Claire and we went into each other’s arms.

There would be no happy ending for this dead child. All we could hope for were answers to how, why, and who had ended her precious life.

Chapter 17

I stood with Conklin and Hallows outside the barrier tape, only yards from the shoreline where the little girl was in danger of being reclaimed by the tide.

A clean white sheet had been laid out above the waterline, and as I watched the almost living surf bathe the little girl, Clapper broke away from the crowd of CSIs and waded into the water and lifted the child’s body out of the ocean.

He walked a dozen yards up the sand and gently placed the little girl on the clean white sheet. If there was any doubt in my mind that this was the same Lorrie Burke I’d seen in the photo Kathleen Wyatt had shown us, it was gone.

Clapper stepped back to let the CSIs take more photos.

He glanced at me and said, “Boxer. You’ve got your case.”

When I didn’t answer, he said, “Brady’s here, on his way down.”

I looked up and saw Brady making his way along the path to the beach. A few yards away from where I stood, Bunny Ellis, Claire’s lab assistant, folded the sheet around the child, left side, right side, tucked up over her feet, then turned down over her face.

Hallows unzipped the size small body bag and laid it down next to the sheet. Claire picked up the shrouded body, laid it inside the body bag, and Hallows zipped it, then carried the dead girl’s body to the rear doors of the ME’s van.

These were solemn moments. No one spoke. Even the people watching from the parking lot up on the bluff were quiet—and then a scream shattered the silence, a woman crying out, “L-orrrrr—eeee!”

I looked up toward the parking lot, flicking my gaze over the bystanders. Then I saw her.

Kathleen Wyatt was wearing a blue sweatshirt, a black watch cap, leggings. Even from where I stood a hundred yards away, I could see the anguish on her face.

I started running across the beach, taking the upward path to the parking lot, and Kathleen started running to me. Kathleen was only a few yards away from me. I called her. I meant to comfort her, to let her know that I would tell her everything I learned, as soon as I could. But I didn’t get the chance. The doors to the ME’s van had closed, and it started up the service road used by the park employee vehicles.

Kathleen evaded me and ran in front of the van. The van squealed to a stop and Wyatt went to the rear and banged on the doors, calling her granddaughter’s name.

I pulled her away from the van. Much stronger than Kathleen, I was able to hold her and signal the driver to go.

“I can’t leave her alone!” Kathleen wailed. “I have to stay with her!”

“Kathleen, Kathleen,” I said, spinning her around so that she was facing me. She looked so