James Patterson - Cross Justice

“Why would he do that?”

Patty said that toward the end of last year, there’d been a rash of incidents involving heroin and meth at the Starksville high school, including the two overdoses mentioned in the grand jury indictment.

“There was real pressure from the principal and school board to identify the source of the drugs,” she went on. “I don’t think any teacher took that more seriously than Stefan. He became obsessed with finding the source.”

“He says he was out looking for Rashawn the night he was killed.”

Patty nodded. “Rashawn’s mother, Cece, called us around eight, said he wasn’t home and asked if he was here.”

Naomi said, “Stefan said he was upset about many things that night, picked up a bottle for the first time in years, went down by the tracks, drank it, and passed out.”

My cousin’s fiancée nodded, said, “He said he was frustrated that he wasn’t finding the source of the drugs and shocked that Rashawn had told him earlier in the day that he didn’t want him as a friend anymore. So he got drunk.”

“Why didn’t Rashawn want to be Stefan’s friend anymore?” I asked.

“Rashawn wouldn’t say, and Stefan was—”

Somewhere out front I heard a door slam and then a male shout, “Killer-lovin’ bitch! Nigger-lovin’ bitch. I hope you rot in hell!”

Two shots from a high-powered rifle ripped through the night.

I was up and moving at the first shot, digging out the Glock in my holster. Three more quick shots blew out the living-room windows, showering me with glass.

As tires squealed, I yanked open the front door and went out in a crouch onto the front porch. The car lights were off, but I could tell it was old, a beater Impala, white, with horrible mufflers. A figure in a black hood, coat, and gloves hung out the window, aiming a scoped hunting rifle at me. He fired.

The sixth bullet hit the cedar-shake siding a few feet from me. I tried to get a bead on him, but the car was gone.

Breathing hard from the adrenaline, I began to straighten out of my crouch when I saw a blond figure in running clothes sprawled at the bottom of the porch stairs, blood pouring from a head wound. There was no use even going down to check for a pulse. There was no doubt in my mind that—

“Sydney!” Patty screamed behind me. “No! No!”

She began to collapse. I twisted and grabbed her in my arms.

“Why?” Patty sobbed into my chest. “Why Sydney?”

I didn’t have the heart right then to tell her that it looked to me like a case of mistaken identity.

Within fifteen minutes, Dogwood Road was blocked off with traffic cones and the duplex was surrounded by yellow tape. Crime scene techs were photographing the body of Sydney Fox. A crowd had gathered. An unmarked cruiser pulled up at the perimeter, and Detectives Frost and Carmichael stepped out.

“Great,” Naomi muttered.

“You know them too?”

“Frost and Carmichael,” she said. “They led the city’s investigation into Rashawn Turnbull’s murder.”

“Good cops?” I said, putting aside my first impressions of them.

“Reasonably smart, adequately trained small-town detectives,” she said. “They say they’re by the book, but I suspect they cut corners, play fast and loose with the facts sometimes. And they tend to jump to conclusions.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said, and I waited for them to study the corpse.

Frost scratched at his acne-scarred nose, nodded at Naomi. “Counselor.”

“Detective Frost,” Naomi said. “This is Alex Cross, my uncle.”

“We’ve met,” he said without enthusiasm. He turned to me. “This is my case.”

“I’m on vacation,” I said.

“I’m saying that you will have nothing to do with this murder except as a witness,” the detective insisted. “Are we good on that right from the get-go?”

“Your town, your ball game, Detective Frost.”

Carmichael said, “What happened?”

Naomi, Patty, and I gave our accounts of the evening, including the light going out on the porch and the racial slurs we’d all heard just before the gunfire.

Frost’s expression soured, and he asked, “Sydney having an interracial relationship too?”

Patty frowned, said, “Not that I know of.”

“Then they were trying to kill you and they shot Sydney by mistake,” Carmichael said, relieving me of the burden of telling her. “Both of you blondes and all.”

Stefan’s fiancée took the news hard and looked sick to her stomach. “Oh God. I wish I’d never come to this town.”

“In the morning we’ll need you at the station to give sworn statements,” Frost told us. “In the meantime, you need to leave the premises. We’ve got more members of the crime scene team on the way.”

Patty said, “Can’t I stay here? In my house?”

The older detective said, “You won’t get much sleep.”

I said, “Come over to my aunt Connie’s. She’s got two extra rooms.”

Stefan’s fiancée looked too tired to argue. “Let me get a few things.”

“You’ll put a watch on my aunt’s place?” I asked the detectives when Patty and Naomi had gone back inside.

Frost said, “I can ask, but that doesn’t mean you’ll get it.”

“Budget cuts,” Carmichael explained.

Which meant Bree and I would have to take shifts watching the cul-de-sac. When Patty had thrown some things in a small bag, we skirted around the body of Sydney Fox. A coroner had a bright light on her, and a tech was taking pictures. It was only then that I realized she’d been hit in the forehead twice, two wounds three inches apart.

I remembered the pace of the shots, how quick and crisp they—

A male voice called out, “Dr. Cross?”

I slowed near Naomi’s car and saw a big, athletic guy in jeans and a black hoodie climbing from a gray Dodge pickup. He wore a badge on a chain around his neck, and he jogged over to us.

“Detective Guy Pedelini,” he said, smiling and extending his hand. “Stark County Sheriff’s Office. An honor to meet you, sir.”

“You too, Detective Pedelini,” I said, shaking his hand.

“Kind of outside your jurisdiction, aren’t you, Guy?” asked Naomi coolly.

Pedelini sobered, said, “Just paying my respects to your famous uncle, Counselor. But now that I’m here, can you tell me what happened?”

“A highly skilled rifleman in an old white Impala killed the wrong woman,” I said, and then I described what we’d heard yelled just before the shots.

The sheriff’s detective had gone stern, his full attention focused on me.

“Why do you say he’s highly skilled?”

“He was using a bolt-action rifle, not a semi or a pump, and he managed to put two rounds into Ms. Fox’s forehead before she hit the ground,” I said.

“A hunter,” Pedelini said.

“Or military trained,” I said. “Know any racists that fit the bill and own a beater Impala?”

The detective thought about that before shaking his head. “There are a couple of avowed racists around who drive beat-up old white cars and a fair number of decent hunters and ex-military types, but no one who’s capable of that kind of shooting. I mean, he’d have to have sniper training, wouldn’t he?”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Why are you so interested in this, Guy?” Naomi said.

“Someone tries to kill a material witness in a heinous murder case that went down in my jurisdiction, I’m interested, Counselor,” Pedelini said.

“Why would you care if I was shot?” Patty Converse said. “I’m a witness for the defense. You think Stefan’s guilty.”

“I do,” Pedelini agreed. “I think he’s guilty as sin. But that doesn’t stop me from being concerned about the safety of everyone else. See, Ms. Converse, I don’t want there to be any doubt about this trial. I want the judge and jury to hear both sides fully and then deliberate and condemn your fiancé, put him in Central Prison over in Raleigh, and get him in line for a lethal injection.”