Джеймс Паттерсон - NYPD Red 3

We were moving before I had the door closed. Two cops were standing in the cold, waiting for orders. Kylie hit the brakes and rolled down the window. “Is this your vehicle?” she asked.

“No, ma’am,” one said.

“Detective MacDonald. Find out who this belongs to and tell them I swapped cars with them. Mine’s at the bottom of the pond.”

She made a U-turn while I put out a BOLO on Tripp Alden and dispatched units to Hutch’s apartment and Lonnie’s.

“I don’t care how many politicians Hunter Alden has in his back pocket,” Kylie said. “He’s hid behind all that power and privilege long enough. I’m not taking his shit anymore.”

“Damn it, Kylie, who did you think you’d serve and protect when you signed on to Red? Boy Scouts? Kidney donors? Hunter Alden is a despicable human being, but he makes more money, pays more taxes, and generates more jobs than Joe Six-Pack. If you can’t handle him, you’re in the wrong outfit.”

She stopped at a light. Some people cry when they’re in pain. Kylie MacDonald breathes fire. “Ryan Madison put a gun six inches from my head and pulled the trigger. That wouldn’t have happened if Hunter Alden hadn’t lied to us. I’ll get him, Zach. I swear to God I’ll get him.”

“I want to nail him for something as much as you do, but coming on like a storm trooper and ‘not taking his shit’ is not an option.”

We drove the rest of the way in silence. There were two units from the One Nine parked outside Alden’s town house. The senior cop approached us.

“He’s in there, Zach. He says his kid’s not home, and I can’t search the place.”

I leaned on the intercom button until the gate opened. By the time Kylie and I got to the top of the stairs, Alden had stepped out and was sneering at us like we’d breached the perimeter and were planning to shove takeout menus under his door. “Where’s my son?” he demanded.

“We were about to ask you the same thing,” Kylie said.

“How the hell would I know?”

“He was in your garage a half hour ago,” she said.

“And I was upstairs with a goddamn murderer trying to keep Tripp from being his next victim. I was doing what I had to do to keep my son alive. If the two of you had done your job, I wouldn’t be in that situation.”

Kylie didn’t back off. “Our job? You mean like find your son’s kidnapper? We might have had better luck if you’d have bothered to report him kidnapped.”

“Don’t make me the heavy, Detective. ‘Call the cops, and we kill your kid.’ What was I supposed to do? I thought I might be dealing with the Russian Mafia, but it turns out to be his pissant teacher, Madison. When he finally showed up, I did what I do best. I closed a deal with him. The plan is for him to come back tomorrow, and I’ll wire him the money.”

“Mr. Madison’s plans have been changed,” Kylie said. “He won’t be coming back.”

“You have him in custody?”

“He’s on his way to the morgue. Your car was involved in the police action. It’s going to take a few more days before you get it back.”

“Screw my car. Where is Tripp?”

“I believe that question has been asked and answered,” Kylie said.

Clearly my attempt at sensitivity training with Kylie had failed. I decided to step in.

“Mr. Alden,” I said, “we did our best to apprehend Madison alive, but he opened fire on us. First from your garage, and again when we followed him to the park. In the middle of it all, Tripp managed to escape. He took off. We were hoping he came home.”

“He didn’t. Now you can stop hoping, get out, and take your friends with you,” he said, pointing at the two squad cars in front of the house. “They’re blocking my driveway.”

He took a step back and slammed the door.

My cell rang, and I checked the caller ID. “Cates,” I said.

Kylie threw her hands up, and I took the call. “Yes, boss.”

“I’m standing here with a dead prep school teacher, a private automobile that will probably cost the taxpayers half a million dollars to restore, and a hundred reporters behind the yellow tape all clamoring to know who gets credit for this mess.”

“Captain—”

“I’m not finished, Jordan. What if the PC shows up and asks me why two officers under my command shot a suspect and went AWOL?”

“Captain, you can tell the PC that we were in pursuit of two suspects. We caught one, but we couldn’t stop to file a report. We had to keep going.”

“ You tell him. Because if he shows up and you’re not here, I’m telling him you left the scene so you could look for a better job with Traffic Enforcement.”

“We’re on the way, Captain.”

“One more thing, Jordan. Did you search the blue van after you ran it into the pond?”

No. We raced out of the park because my partner was still reeling from having a gun to her head, and she was hell-bent on confronting Hunter Alden.

“No, ma’am,” I said. “The first responders were almost on the scene, so we left the van to them. Can you tell me what was in there, or do I have to wait to read about it in tomorrow’s paper?”

“I’d rather wait till you and your partner get here,” Cates said. “I want to see the look on your faces when you find out what you missed.”

Nothing attracts a crowd like a shoot-out, and by the time we got back to the park, it was lit up like a movie set and filled up with cop cars, fire engines, EMS wagons, news crews, and a mammoth Ford 4400 Jerr-Dan tow truck.

And Cates.

“IO 52,” she barked as soon as she saw us coming. “Or is that another departmental regulation you’d like to break?”

Interim Order 52 requires every officer who discharges a weapon resulting in injury or death to take a sobriety test. No cop has ever flunked it, and most cops find it demeaning, which is probably why Cates yelled it loud enough for at least a dozen cops to hear it.

“She’s more pissed at me than she is at you,” Kylie mumbled as we took NYPD’s version of a perp walk to a van, where someone from Internal Affairs was waiting to give us each a Breathalyzer test.

We were declared alcohol-free and reported back to Cates, who was with Chuck Dryden behind a screen he used as a paparazzi deterrent.

“This was in the van,” he said, pointing at a yellow polyethylene case that was crusted with frost. “It’s Tripp Alden’s camera case.”

As soon as he said it, I knew the box wouldn’t contain camera equipment. “Peter Chevalier,” I said, more statement than question.

Dryden snapped the latches and opened the top, and my eyes locked on the severed head.

“It’s been stored at below-zero temperatures for days and had only recently been removed from the deep freeze,” Dryden said.

“And I’ll bet Hunter Alden was the one who kept it on ice,” Kylie said. “Madison was pulling out of his garage when we spotted him.”

“I know where you’re going with this,” Cates said, “but unless you saw Alden hand him the head, there’s no way you can tie him to it.”

“Were there any prints on the box?” I asked.

“Wiped clean.”

“Doc, we’ve got the killer, and you’ve already autopsied Chevalier’s body,” Cates said. “How long until we can get this to the family so they can make funeral arrangements?”

“Not long. I can release it in a few hours.”

Dryden started to leave, then turned back and looked at Cates. “For what it’s worth, my team inspected the terrain,” he said, pointing at the area where Kylie had lost control of the Maybach. “It’s like a luge track. Once that car came over the hill, there was nothing the detectives could have done. They were at the mercy of Mother Nature.”