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

Chapter 22

Claire placed her hand on the dead child’s forehead.

“Sorry,” she said. “Sorry that this happened to you, little one.”

She took another photo of the baby girl’s face and tucked the drape around her. Then, Claire shucked her gown, cap, and mask, dropped them into the laundry bin, stripped off her gloves and disposed of them in the trash.

The autopsy suite was kept at fifty degrees, and Claire was cold inside and out. The unnatural and premature deaths of children made her sick. Even after all the decades in med school followed by work at Metro Hospital, followed by the time and bodies she’d autopsied as chief ME, she still couldn’t get used to it. If she were alone right now, she would cry.

Bunny Ellis, Claire’s morgue tech, was dropping the instruments into the autoclave.

“Doctor, ready for me to put the patient away?”

“Only if you want five gold stars and lunch on me.”

“Stars, yes. Lunch, maybe some other day.”

“Gotcha,” said Claire. “Thanks, Bunny. I’ll be in my office.”

Claire pushed open the swinging doors, and when she was outside in the corridor, she leaned against the wall for a moment to collect herself, then headed to her office. She sat in her swivel desk chair and called Lindsay’s cell.

Lindsay picked up.

“Claire. Can I call you back? This is a bad time.”

“I need thirty seconds. Just give me that.”

“Go.”

Claire said, “Lorrie Annette Burke was a well-nourished Caucasian female about a year and a half old, twenty-two pounds. The manner of death is pending.

“This part is not for dissemination. Lorrie Burke’s death appears to be consistent with homicide. There’s some bruising around the mouth, petechial hemorrhaging in and around the eyes. She was smothered, Lindsay. Looks like with a hand over her mouth and nose. There are fingerprint bruises on her right upper arm as though she was jerked or possibly held down.

“There was no water in her lungs. She was dead when she went into the ocean, and I can’t establish time of death with real accuracy due to the water temperature and bloating of the body, but I’m estimating thirty hours ago more or less. Enough time in the water for sea predators to nibble at her fingers. Her blood is going out to the lab now. She looks very much like her photo, but you may need to identify her by DNA.

“How many seconds was that?”

“Just the right number. And you’ve got me thinking that Lorrie was alive for about a day after going missing. Thanks, Butterfly.”

After they ended the call, Claire went to the washroom and splashed water on her face.

She was having some just discernable pain in her chest, which was to be expected after her recent surgery. She had been told not to exert herself by her surgeon, her husband, her best friends, and her oldest child, and here she was worn out before noon. She needed to take a nap.

Back at her desk, Claire opened the intake folder and looked at the list. There were three patients needing her attention. None of them, thank God, were children.

If she did one more post now and called in her backup pathologist, barring complications she could be home in bed in four hours.

Yeah, right.

Going by past experience, that would never happen.

Chapter 23

Brady and I were in Interview 1, sitting across the table from Lucas Burke.

It’s a small room, ten by twelve with gray-painted cinder block walls, a camera in one corner of the ceiling, two chairs on each long side of the gray metal table, and a shelf under the one-way mirror inset into a wall. There’s a narrow observation room behind the glass.

Richie Conklin was observing. I liked, trusted, and respected Brady and we had done many interrogations together. But I felt for Conklin. When Brady informed him about the task force and that he would be working with a new partner, he’d said okay, but he couldn’t have taken this news as anything but a demotion.

I felt Clapper’s hand in this shake-up, but right now I had to focus on this critical opportunity to interview Burke while he was vulnerable. Burke would have a hard time lying to us without being called out.

A tried-and-true method of police interrogation involved manipulation of the suspect, namely to make him comfortable. Make him your friend. Give him a way out so that he would tell the truth before the hammer came down.

There were rougher, more intimidating methods, but “Let’s be friends” seemed appropriate protocol with this man in this circumstance.

I asked Burke if he needed anything.

“Coffee? Tea?”

“I can’t stay here,” he said. “Call me when you know something.”

Brady said, “Mr. Burke, I know you’d like to be anyplace but here. Understand that the more focused we are during these critical first hours, the better our chances of finding Tara alive and maybe Lorrie’s killer. Okay?”

Burke sighed deeply and said, “I can barely think straight, but go ahead. Ask me and make it fast.”

“Now I’m sorry, but I have to show you a picture.”

“Of Lorrie?”

Brady nodded at me.

The morgue photo Claire had sent me was on my phone. I took the phone out of my jacket pocket, brought up Lorrie’s image, and passed my phone across the table to Burke. He looked at the photo, rocked back in his chair, cried out “Nooooooooo,” and then slapped my phone facedown on the table.

“That’s her,” he said, weeping. “I need to go home.”

Brady said, “You’re free to go, Mr. Burke. But, did you understand what I said? A half hour answering our questions may help us get the bastard who did this. We need your help.”

Brady and I took turns tossing questions; softballs at first.

Who were Tara’s friends? Names of her relatives? Did you have a housekeeper? A nanny? Can you account for your time on Sunday, Mr. Burke? What were your movements on Monday after your fight with Tara?

And then Brady started pitching hard balls right across the plate. Can anyone confirm your whereabouts on