Джеймс Паттерсон - 14th Deadly Sin:

Hot Tea was warming up, and regulars at the bar waved as I walked through the main room, down the narrow corridor past the kitchen, and into the back room, where Claire and Yuki were waiting at our cozy red leather booth.

Claire was telling Yuki something that required vigorous use of her hands, and Yuki was listening intently as I slid in beside her. I got and gave a couple of good hugs, and Claire said, “I’m telling Yuki about this stinkin’ case I got.”

“Catch me up,” I said.

I signaled to Lorraine that I needed beer, and Claire said to me, “Yesterday morning, EMTs bring in this eight-year-old girl. The one in charge says Mom’s story is that she gave the little girl a bath at four in the morning, went to get a fresh towel, and when she came back, the little girl had drowned.”

I said, “A bath at four in the morning?”

Claire said, “Exactly. The EMT quotes the mom as saying the little girl is hyperactive and sometimes a bath calms her down. So I’m checking out this poor little girl, and damn, there’s no foam in her mouth, fingers aren’t wrinkled up, the lungs do not cross at the midline, but her hair is wet. I look her over. No bruises. No nothing.”

Lorraine came with a glass and a pitcher of beer and said, “Lindsay, I recommend the coconut shrimp with rice.”

I told her I was up for that, and Yuki and Claire said, “Me, too,” in unison. Then Claire went on.

“I give her the full-body X-rays and they’re fine. No broken bones, and I send her blood to the lab and it comes back negative for drugs or poison.”

Yuki said, “What the hell? She had something viral? Bacterial?”

“Nope,” said Claire. “I checked. But when I’m doing the internal exam, I find pizza in the little girl’s stomach.”

We all pondered that bit of information for a few moments. Then Lorraine brought the food We all sat back as the plates were set down, and Yuki said, “Don’t stop now, Claire. Go on.”

“OK, hang on,” said Claire. She sampled the shrimp and rice, swallowed some beer, dabbed at her lips, and said, “So I call Wayne Euvrard. You know him, Lindsay. Vice, Northern District. He finds out that Mom’s got a sheet for prostitution and now this whole four a.m. bath and pizza story is just grabbing me all wrong. And I still don’t know what killed this little girl.

“So I ask Euvrard to have Mom come in for a chat. And he does and tells me she comes in to see him wearing a new outfit, has her face on and her hair done. And he says to her, ‘What happened to your baby?’ And he’s pretty sure she’s going to say, ‘She drowned.’

“But instead, he tells me, ‘Mom takes a deep breath and squeals the deal. She says, “I had an outcall. Steady customer, and I needed the money. Anita has a seizure disorder but hardly has seizures anymore and when she does, we just leave her on the floor and she gets over it.”’

“Mom goes on to tell Euvrard that Anita must’ve gotten up and eaten something and then had a seizure, because she was dead on the floor when Mom came home from her call. And Mom decides if she leaves her there and calls the police, they’ll take her kids away. So she put her daughter in the tub and called nine-one-one.

“And I thought, Christ, they’d be right to take away her children. She’s irresponsible. Maybe criminally negligent. And I say to Euvrard, ‘Did she say, “If only I had stayed home, my daughter would be alive”?’ And Euvrard said, ‘Nope. Nothing like that. I saw no remorse at all.’

“So I write Anita up as probable seizure disorder, manner of death natural.”

I said, “You’re going to let this lady slide?”

Claire said, “That’s up to the prosecutor, but Inspector Euvrard did book her on child endangerment resulting in a homicide.”

Claire stabbed a shrimp with her fork, held it up, and said, “And that’s how we close cases in the Medical Examiner’s Office.”

Claire’s delivery was priceless, and Yuki spat out her beer, and yes, this was a bad story, but it was good to hear Yuki’s merry-bells laughter, which I hadn’t heard in a while. And of course, that was when my phone rang.

“Sorry to interrupt your day off,” Conklin said.

“What’s up?”

“Tom Calhoun—”

“Calhoun who’s working with us on the mercado shooting?”

“Yeah,” said Conklin. His voice sounded terrible. “Calhoun and his whole family. They were murdered.”

CHAPTER 51

I APOLOGIZED TO my girlfriends and tried to pick up the check, but they objected, hugged me, and watched me go.

Conklin met me at the curb in his Bronco, PDQ. I got into the passenger seat and buckled up. He turned on the siren and we sped toward Potrero Hill, revving over the slopes and slamming the undercarriage on the downhill drops.

There were only a few streaks of light left in the sky when we got to Potrero, but I knew this neighborhood in the dark. Knew it cold. I had lived a few streets over from the murder house until a few years ago, when my own house burned to the ground.

We turned off Eighteenth Street onto Texas, which looked like a Saint’s Day street festival. Lights blazed from every window on the block, and strobes flashed from dozens of law enforcement vehicles crowding the street. After parking between two CSU vans, Conklin and I badged the unis at the barricade between the street and yard, ducked under the tape, and took the short walk up to the front of the two-tone green Victorian house.

When we got to the front steps, I saw vomit on the foundation plantings and that the door knob and lock assembly had been shotgunned out of the door.

Charlie Clapper met us on the doorstep. Even on the weekend, he dressed impeccably; his hair was freshly combed, the creases in his pants were crisp, and his jacket looked like it had just come from the cleaner’s.

But Charlie looked stunned.

“This is as bad as it gets,” he said.

Clapper is director of the forensics unit at Hunters Point, but before he took over the CSU, he was a homicide cop. A very good one. Top dog at a crime scene, he does a first-class job without grandstanding or getting in our way.

I was about to ask him to run the scene for us when Ted Swanson came out of the kitchen, shaking his head and looking pale and as shocked as if one of his arms had been ripped off.

He moaned, “This is fucked up.”

Conklin and I gloved up, slipped booties over our shoes, and entered the kitchen, where we saw the formerly animated robbery cop, Tom Calhoun.

Calhoun was naked, duct-taped to a kitchen chair. He’d been beaten up so badly, I wouldn’t have recognized him but for his bald spot. There was no doubt in my mind. He’d been tortured for a good long time by professionals.

All of his fingers had been broken; his soft white underparts had been burned with cigarettes; his eyelids had been sliced off; and finally, probably mercifully, he’d been shot through his temple.

“He didn’t go fast,” said Swanson, who was standing behind us. “Those fucks cut up Marie, too, before they shot her.”

Clapper said, “Marie was found lying over there by the stove. She’s on her way to the morgue.”

Conklin asked about the kids and Swanson said, “Butch and Davey were asleep when they were shot, looks like. I don’t think they knew anything, right, Charlie?”

Clapper said, “I’d have to agree with you there. They didn’t wake up.”

“I knew these people,” Swanson said. “I had dinner here last week. What the hell was the point of this?”

He began to cry, and I put a hand on his arm and told him how sorry I was. Swanson’s partner, Vasquez, came into the kitchen, saying, “Sergeant, the second floor is off limits. CSI is dusting everything. We should all get out of here and let these people work.”