James Patterson - Cross Justice

“I hope I’ve helped to give you closure, Dr. Cross,” she said after I’d disentangled myself from the Miata.

“I wanted to know my father’s whole story, and now I do, and now I’ll have to learn to live with it, and so will my grandmother.”

Reverend Maya gazed at me for a long moment, and then said, “I have to go home and make dinner for my husband, who should be getting off work about now, but I wish you and your family all of Jesus’s blessings.”

“Thank you, Reverend,” I said, smiling weakly and nodding. “I wish the same for you and your husband. And drive safe.”

“Always,” she said. Then she put the Miata in gear and sped off into the gathering night.

It began to rain as I drove across the bridge around eight thirty that evening. I was debating when to call Bree. A part of me wanted to pick up the phone right then, but I didn’t want to churn the emotions all over again while in public and behind the wheel. I’d call when I got back to my room at the Hampton Inn after checking in with Sergeant Drummond.

But neither Drummond nor Johnson answered the phone, and when I drove by Mize Fine Arts, I didn’t see any sign that the place was under surveillance. I drove on toward Mize’s house, knowing that I was doing what I often did in turbulent times. I was turning my mind to a mystery and an investigation as a way of escaping the rest of my life.

I should have gone somewhere to eat, then returned to my hotel and tried to get an earlier flight back to North Carolina. Instead, I was in front of Mize’s house, relieved to see Drummond’s vehicle right where I’d left it.

I drove around the corner, parked out of sight, and strolled down the sidewalk as nonchalantly as an African American male can in Palm Beach. Johnson saw me in the passenger-side mirror and unlocked the car.

I climbed in the backseat.

“Success?” Drummond asked, looking at me in the rearview.

“It was a great help. She was a great help.”

“Then we’re happy.”

“Yes, thank you, Sergeant.”

“Least we could do.”

“Given up watching the store?”

Drummond gestured through the windshield. “Those lights went on about an hour ago. Don’t know if it’s part of a security system or if Mize is in there.”

“How long are you going to sit on him?”

“I don’t know. Until I—”

“Sarge,” Johnson interrupted. “Garage door’s going up. Which car’s it gonna be? The Lexus or the...”

The rear end of a dark green convertible backed out of the garage into the turnaround. The top was up, and the car had to have been forty years old. It looked to me like something Sean Connery might have driven in his years as Bond.

“An Aston Martin DB Five convertible,” said Johnson appreciatively. “A very rare car. A very fast and nimble car. Roadster.”

“We’ll stay with it,” Drummond said, starting the car.

The roadster pulled out, revealing the silhouette of a tall figure behind the wheel. The car turned away from us, heading north at a rapid but legal clip toward Worth Avenue and Mize’s shop.

“You going to pull him over?” Johnson asked.

“I want to see where he goes at night after ignoring our phone calls and door knocks,” the sergeant said.

“Maybe he goes to Coco’s place,” Johnson said.

“You’re thinking they’re in this together?” Drummond asked.

“Why not? Coco could be turning Mize onto his targets. Or vice versa.”

Drummond frowned, glanced in the mirror at me. “A woman serial killer? Isn’t that rare?”

“You’ve got multiple killings here, but it doesn’t feel serial to me. In every case, effort was made to cast the deaths as suicides. Most serial killers delight in being blatant about their acts. So a woman could be our killer or an accomplice.”

“Motive?”

“Money.”

The Aston Martin was two cars and almost a block ahead of us as it rolled to the stop sign. Instead of taking a left toward Mize Fine Arts, the Aston Martin turned right and headed toward the ocean.

Drummond stayed well back now, unwilling to risk being noticed, while Johnson and I craned our necks to see the roadster take a left onto Ocean Boulevard just as the rain came on hard. When we turned after it, less than a minute later, we couldn’t see where Mize had gone.

Then Johnson saw brake lights in the shadows beyond a gate set in a wall that surrounded a two-story Mediterranean. The house was mostly shielded from the road by a riot of plants and towering palms. We circled the block to make sure Mize hadn’t gone somewhere else and returned feeling that he must have been allowed in by someone who lived or worked there. Edwin and Pauline Striker were listed as owners in the county records Johnson pulled up on his iPad.

“Is Pauline a candidate for Coco?” I said.

Johnson shook his head. “Both owners are in their late sixties. But maybe Coco’s a daughter or something.”

Drummond parked where we could see the gate and then drummed his fingers on the wheel. Even though his face remained expressionless, I was learning to read his other nonverbal cues. He was frustrated, and I sensed why.

The various links we’d established connecting the victims, Mize, and Coco were weak, at best, and some were unproven. We didn’t even know, for example, if the Coco who’d painted the portraits was the same woman who worked for Mize. And the only thing that tied Mize to any of it was the fact that he’d employed Francie Letourneau and had been called by the maid just before she’d been killed.

That certainly wasn’t enough to warrant us going into Mize’s home or even, for that matter, into the Strikers’ place. For all we knew, the Strikers were old and dear friends of the art dealer, and he was over for a late visit.

But what if—

Drummond said, “I’m sitting here wondering if Mize is in there alone with Pauline Striker.”

“Or with Coco and Pauline Striker.”

“Call the house,” I said. “Make it sound as if you’re checking in with people who used Francine Letourneau as a maid or a woman named Coco as a portrait painter. See if that flushes him out.”

Johnson looked up the number, called it, heard it ring into voice mail. He left a message identifying himself and asking that someone give him a call back on his cell phone regarding an ongoing investigation.

When he hung up, I doubted we’d get a call anytime soon and I yawned, glanced at my watch. It was nearly ten.

Then Johnson’s phone rang.

“The Strikers,” he said, and he put the phone on speaker and answered.

In a hallway off the master suite upstairs, Jeffrey Mize became Coco. He got control of himself and affected a crotchety voice, saying, “This is Pauline Striker. I am looking for Detective Johnson.”

“You got him,” Johnson said. “Thanks for the quick callback.”

“What’s this about?” Coco said.

“An investigation I’m a part of,” Johnson said. “I’m trying to find out if you or your friends employed a Francine Letourneau as a maid in the past four or five years.”

“The answer for me is no,” Coco said. “We’ve been lucky and haven’t had a turnover in staff in ten years. Both our girls are part of the family. As far as the staff at other houses, I couldn’t say.”

“Right,” Johnson said.

“Is that all? My husband and I are entertaining.”

“Sorry to interrupt, but just one more question.”

“Go ahead.”

“Have you ever had a portrait of yourself done by an artist named Coco?”

For a moment, the cloud that was Coco lifted, and Mize felt panic surge through him. But in the next instant, Coco reasserted control and said, “The only formal portraits of me and my family are photographs. What’s this about? I have guests to entertain.”