James Patterson - Tick Tock

Seamus came up the steps, a smile from ear to ear.

"And how was your class tonight, Mary Catherine? Your art class that is, if you don't mind me askin'?"

"Oh, fine, Seamus. Look at the time. So much to do tomorrow. Good night," Mary said, off like a shot into the house, absolutely abandoning me.

Seamus looked at my completely open shirt with disdain.

"Michael Sean Aloysius Bennett. What in the name of the good Lord do you think you're doing? And don't be telling me you've been catching some rays," Seamus said.

"I'm… going to bed, Father," I said, hitting the screen door at mach two. "It's been a long day. G'night."

I woke up extra early for work the next morning.

And not just to beat the traffic this time. A stealthy exit after last night's questionable tonsil-hockey session with MC on the porch seemed just the thing.

In addition to probably breaking several employer sexual harassment laws, I didn't know where to start in sorting through my conflicting feelings. I really had no idea at all what to say to Mary in the light of day. I definitely didn't want to face another inquisition from Seamus.

Red wine always gets me into trouble. No, wait, that's my big mouth.

As I tiptoed out of Dodge, holding my shoes, I noticed a strange bluish light coming from the girls' room. I knew I should keep on going and leave the culprits to their own mischievous devices, but the cop in me couldn't resist a righteous bust.

I retraced my toe tips back into their room. The light was coming from under a suspiciously lumpy blanket on the bed in the corner. There was a lot of suspicious excited whispering going on as well.

"What's this?" I said, whipping away the blanket like a magician.

What I saw wasn't a rabbit, though it was still quite cute.

"AHHHHH!" Chrissy and Shawna screamed in unison, lying on their bellies in front of a laptop computer.

"A computer?" I said, clapping a hand against my head in mock outrage. "You smuggled in a computer on our vacation? Don't tell me that's Phineas and Ferb on that screen. No electronic toys, remember? No video games. Sound familiar?"

"It was Ricky," Shawna said, pointing toward the boys' room frantically.

"It's true. It's Ricky's. We're just borrowing it," Chrissy said.

"What's going on?" Mary Catherine whispered suddenly there, yawning in the doorway.

Uh-oh. I knew I should have gotten out while I could. The girls weren't the only ones who were busted.

"We're sorry, Mary," Chrissy said.

"Yes. We're so sorry," Shawna added quickly. "So sorry that Ricky brought a computer when he wasn't supposed to."

"We'll deal with this later," Mary said as she confiscated the computer and tucked the girls back in.

"You're up early," she said, glancing suspiciously at the shoes in my hand as we left the room. "Come to the kitchen. I'll make you coffee before you go."

"I'd love to, but I don't have time. Early briefing," I said.

"It's five-thirty," Mary Catherine said, peering at me.

"Duty calls," I said with a hopefully convincing smile and a wave as I headed toward the front door.

I stopped as I came out onto the porch. Even in the predawn murk, I could see it. Somebody had spray-painted the wall behind the porch swing.

GO HOME STUPID BASTERDS!

I stood there holding my hungover head in my hands. The sons of bitches had come onto my porch in the middle of the night? I guess my scare tactic over at the Flaherty compound hadn't gone as well as I'd hoped. This was really getting nuts now.

"Seems like Flaherty gets his spelling lessons from Quentin Tarantino," Seamus said in his bathrobe from the doorway.

I shook my head. Like it or not, I really did need to get to work. I couldn't stay to sort through this latest outrage. I glanced at Seamus.

"Seamus, I'm swamped at work. Do you think you could take care of this for me before the kids see it?"

Seamus gave me a hard glare.

"Oh, don't worry, Michael Sean Aloysius. I'll be cleaning up all the latest shenanigans going on around here before the kids see them," Seamus said.

I winced at his emphasis on the word. I guess I was getting a fresh, un-asked-for heaping of Catholic guilt to go this morning.

"And I'll tell you another thing, jail time or no jail time, I'll blast the first Flaherty I see back to Hell's Kitchen and straight down to Hell, where they belong," he called as I walked down the steps. "This old codger will make Clint Eastwood from Gran Torino seem like Santa Claus."

"You already do," I whispered as I hurried for the safety of my police car.

Instead of heading into the city to my crowded, frantic squad room, I skirted Manhattan altogether and took the Triborough Bridge north to the New York State Thruway. An hour and a half later, I was upstate in Sullivan County near Monticello, sipping a rest-stop Dunkin' Donuts java as I rolled past misty pine forests, lakes, and dairy farms.

The bucolic area was close to where Woodstock had taken place. It had also been home to the "Borscht Belt" vacation resorts, where Jewish comedians like Milton Berle and Don Rickles and Woody Allen had gotten their start.

Unfortunately, my visit had nothing to do with music and even less to do with laughter. This morning I was heading to Fallsburg, home of the Sullivan Correctional Facility.

My boss and I had decided it was time to have a chat with its most infamous resident, David Berkowitz, the.44 Caliber Killer. The Son of Sam himself.

There were several reasons why. One of the most compelling was that the Monday night double murder in Queens wasn't the only recent Son of Sam copycat crime.

An hour after we put the Son of Sam lead over the inner department wire, a sharp Bronx detective had called the squad. He told us that on Sunday a teenage Hispanic girl in the Bronx had barely survived an odd stabbing in Co-op City. Her attacker had worn a crazy David Berkowitz-style wig and said some real out-there stuff to her as he slowly cut her up. It mimicked almost perfectly Berkowitz's first crime, the random stabbing of a girl in Co-op City in 1975.

There was a long list of people with whom I'd rather spend my morning, but since Berkowitz seemed to have some connection to the recent string of murders, I thought it might be fruitful to have a sit-down. It was probably a long shot, but with seven people dead and no lead in sight, it was high time to get creative.

Sullivan Correctional was hidden discreetly behind a tall stand of pines, a few miles northeast of Fallsburg's small-town main street. As soon as I spotted the sudden vista of steel wire and pale concrete buildings built terrace-like up a rolling hill, the coffee in my stomach began to percolate for a second time. Sullivan was a maximum-security prison that housed many of New York City's most violent offenders. I knew because I had put a few of them there.

Under the stony eye of a tower guard, I was buzzed into the south complex administrative building, where I reluctantly relinquished my service weapon and signed in. I was escorted to the ground-floor office of Doug Gaffney, the prison manager, whom I'd spoken to the day before to set up the meeting.

Bald and stocky in a polo shirt and khakis, Gaffney reminded me of a middle-aged football coach more than a warden. Books about anger management and drug abuse lined the shelf behind his desk, along with a thick binder with the words "Life Skills" on the spine.

"Thanks for setting this up for me, Doug," I said after we shook hands and sat down.

"This case you're working on? We're talking about the bombing thing?" Gaffney asked as his secretary closed the door.

"Yes, but that's confidential, as is my visit," I explained, sitting up in my folding chair. "The press is already dogging us on this. I'd hate to sell more papers for them than I have to. What should I expect from Berkowitz?"