Джеймс Паттерсон - Unsolved

I’m not a special agent, but I don’t correct him. He’s assuming this is an official investigation of the FBI and that I’m a special agent, even though I never said either of those things. I haven’t lied to him.

“And you’ve been to the scene?”

“I was there, yes. You have some reason to believe—”

“She was selling her house, wasn’t she?”

“She—what was that?”

“Her house was for sale.”

“Uh…hang on.” I hear muffled voices, the sergeant asking someone else about whether Nora Connolley’s house was for sale. I already know it was.

“Yeah, guess so,” he says, returning to the phone. “You coulda figured that out from any old computer.”

That’s the point, Sergeant.

“So how does that make a slip-and-fall in the bathroom a murder?” he asks.

“I think it fits into a pattern,” I say. “I’m investigating the possibility of a killer who’s making the victims’ deaths appear accidental or natural.”

“Huh. That sounds like that case you all had a couple years ago, that guy who tortured people and torched the crime scenes.”

“Something like that. But someone even more skilled.”

A pause. “Well, listen, who am I to tell the FBI to stand down? But I gotta say, it sounds like a stretch to me. You wanna take over this investigation, it’s all yours.”

But that’s the thing. I can’t. I don’t have the authority, and I won’t unless I can make a case to the Bureau. That’s the catch-22. I can’t open an investigation to prove that an investigation’s warranted. I need this guy. I need Sergeant Crescenzo.

“Would you be willing to open the investigation locally?” I ask. “I’d prefer to stay below the radar for now.”

“You want me to start an investigation based on the fact that someone put her house up for sale and then slipped and fell in the shower?” Sergeant Crescenzo lets out an amused grunt. “I need more than that to open a homicide investigation.”

Sure he does. I can’t blame him.

“Graham—the arsonist you mentioned? Graham was good,” I say. “But this guy’s better. Graham brutally tortured the victims, then covered up the crime scenes by setting fire to them. This guy? His victims show no sign of foul play. He comes and goes without a trace. He’s a ghost.”

Another pause. I’ve got him thinking, at least. “I’ll come to New Orleans tomorrow,” I say. “We’ll take a look at the crime scene, nice and quiet, and if you still think I’m full of hot air, I’ll leave you alone.”

“Tomorrow, huh?”

“And one more thing, Sergeant. Please keep this out of the press. For everyone’s sake.”

He’s apparently mulling this over.

“I’ll call you when I land,” I say, and I hang up before he can protest.

7

THE FLIGHT into New Orleans is bumpy, but luckily the weather is clear. Rain is the last thing I need. I drive a rental car to St. Roch, a neighborhood still struggling to bounce back from the beating it took from Katrina. There are vacant homes and plenty of potholes in the roads, but there are also planters of fresh flowers in the boulevard medians and some new construction in the commercial areas.

When I pull up to the house on Music Street, a graying African-American man in shirtsleeves, tall and broad, is leaning against a sedan and reviewing a document. When I get out of my air-conditioned car, he nods at me.

“Sergeant Crescenzo,” I say, startled by the blazing heat.

“Call me Robert,” he says, shaking my hand. “Agent Dockery, you are a master of understatement. You didn’t tell me you were the one who caught Graham.”

“I worked on the case, yes. And call me Emmy.”

“Worked on the case.” He chuckles and sizes me up, probably looking for scars. I’m wearing a scarf that covers my neck, so there’s nothing to see here.

“You brought the coroner’s findings?” I ask.

“There was no autopsy,” he says. “No need for one. But we have her initial investigation notes, yes. And I brought the photos too.”

That should be good enough. I turn to the house. Nora Connolley lived in a one-story, stucco A-frame with tomato-red and lime trim. The tiny front yard is enclosed by a wrought-iron fence. A red, white, and blue For Sale sign from a real estate company called Jensen Keller is attached to the fence.

“Wanna go inside?” he says, opening the gate and walking toward the front porch.

“I want to go in the back way,” I say. “Let’s start with the detached garage.”

Crescenzo turns to me. “There’s a detached garage? How did you know that? That Google Earth thing?”

“The video on the real estate agent’s website,” I say. “That’s how he knew it too.”

“ He being the killer.” Not hiding the skepticism in his voice.

I walk around the house, following the wrought-iron fence, which encircles the whole property. The backyard is far larger than the front yard.

“Nothing was taken from the home,” Crescenzo says, keeping pace with me. “No sign of sexual assault. No sign of struggle.”

I can’t blame him for thinking this was exactly what it looked like, a slip-and-fall in a shower. He has no reason to think otherwise.

“Were there unexplained puncture wounds on her torso?” I ask.

“How—” He stops in his tracks. “Now, how in the hell did you know that?”

“Lucky guess.” I stop and look over the area. She kept a nice yard. A vegetable garden in one corner, a neat cobblestone walkway leading from the garage to the back patio.

“Needle punctures,” he says.

“Two of them.”

“Yes, Emmy, two of them. You know a lot.”

“How big a woman was she?” I ask.

“The deceased? Oh, she was a tiny woman. Maybe five two, five three. Not thin like you, but not heavy either.”

She looked petite from the photos I saw on Facebook, but you can never be sure.

We reach the detached garage, a small, windowed structure with aluminum siding. We walk through the fence into the alley. The garage door is closed and locked. We walk back around to the door that leads into the yard. The door is locked from the outside.

“I didn’t ask the real estate agent to open the garage up,” says Robert. “Just the house.”

I push on the handles of the window and it gives. I lift the window as high as it can go. Then I turn to Robert Crescenzo.

He raises his hands. “Don’t look at me.” He’s well over six feet tall and broad-shouldered. No way he could fit through that opening.

“Okay if I slip in?” I’m tall myself, but I’m skinny as a rail these days.

He thinks about it a moment but probably realizes there isn’t any harm.

It’s easier than I expect. I slide in headfirst, facing up, and when my torso is through, I reach out, grip the interior frame of the window, and bring my legs in. I grit my teeth and ignore the pain in my ribs. My landing on the garage floor won’t qualify me for the Olympic gymnastics team, but I stay on my feet.

I take my first breath inside and I’m hit with the smell of gas and lawn clippings. With the light coming through the window, it isn’t hard for me to navigate around the parked car and open the door into the yard. I flip on a light switch too. The garage is small, only enough room for a single car, a bicycle, and assorted lawn equipment.

Robert Crescenzo comes in through the door I opened. He shines a flashlight into the car’s interior. He tries the door, and it’s open, so he pops the trunk, goes around, and lights that up too.

“Nothing obvious, at least.” He looks at me. “Did you think there would be? You think, what, she was ambushed in her garage?”

No, that’s not what I think. But I say, “Maybe,” and gesture to the car. “You mind if I get in?”