James Patterson - 11th hour

“I like to drive.”

“Okay. When you want to tell me what’s eating you, I’m here.”

He tossed me the keys and a minute later I headed the squad car south into clotted morning traffic, toward Parnassus Heights, an affluent neighborhood near the Haight.

Beside me, Conklin filled me in on the tip he’d gotten, that Harry Chandler and his son from his first marriage, Todd, did not get along.

Conklin had done some research and learned that when Todd was quite young, he had changed his last name to Waterson, his mother’s maiden name, and although Todd had never lived at the Ellsworth compound, he had had access to the place while Chandler was living there with his second wife, Cecily, and for a few years after.

“Todd Waterson? The TV guy? I had no idea he was Harry Chandler’s son.”

“Little-known fact.”

“Well, news to me, anyway. I’ve seen his show. He’s pretty entertaining. What’s his story?”

“Brainy, big paycheck, and a discreet personal life. I found no gossip about him on the Web.”

Todd Waterson’s house was on Edgewood Avenue, an unexpectedly shielded and wooded street.

At Conklin’s direction, I drove through the gated entrance and up a generously landscaped private driveway. I braked in front of the detached garage, took a look at what three million could buy in this neighborhood.

Todd Waterson’s house was a sprawling, three-level stucco contemporary with Craftsman influences. There were decks and terraces with panoramic views of the bay and the city. The property was secluded and quiet. Very.

The front door opened as we got to the threshold. Todd Waterson was waiting for us. He was five foot seven in his socks, wearing frayed jeans and a sweatshirt with a PBS logo. He had sandy-colored hair and a face populated by forgettable features: a thin line of a mouth and his father’s gray eyes.

“I’m Sergeant Lindsay Boxer,” I said. “This is my partner, Inspector Richard Conklin.”

“Hello, and by the way, what’s this about?”

I said, “We’re investigating crimes committed at the Ellsworth compound.”

“Let me have your numbers, okay? I can’t do this right now.”

“It can’t wait, Mr. Waterson.”

“All right. Come in,” he said. “But let’s make it fast, all right? I have to leave for the studio and I can’t be late.”

Conklin and I followed Todd Waterson across his gleaming wooden floors under an airy cathedral ceiling. The walls were at hard angles, cut by beams and banks of floor-to-ceiling windows. Large photos of Waterson interviewing celebrities hung on the milk-white walls.

Waterson indicated where we should sit, and as we did, he said, “Just to cut to the chase, I haven’t seen or spoken with my father in five years.”

“Where were you last weekend?” I asked him.

“That’s what you want to know?” Waterson asked. “What am I — some kind of suspect? That’s really funny.”

“I thought you wanted to cut to the chase,” I said, not laughing.

“I was out and about. I spent all my nights here.”

“Can anyone vouch for your whereabouts?”

“Wait a minute. Before I give you names and numbers, what are you getting at and what does it have to do with me?”

“Seven heads were disinterred from your father’s back garden.”

“So I’ve heard. I haven’t set foot in that place in five years. Not since I had my final fight with my father.”

“You mind if I ask about that fight?”

“I sure do.”

Conklin took the baton. Conklin wasn’t pregnant. He hadn’t just told his spouse to vacate the premises. He wasn’t even mad.

I sat back and let him drive the interview.

“We’re checking out your father,” Conklin said.

“Okay.”

“What’s he like?”

“He’s narcissistic. He’s a womanizer. He can be cruel.”

“You say he’s a womanizer. All the heads in the garden belonged to females.”

“Is that right? So you’re asking could my father, the man I just described as cruel, be responsible for those heads?”

“That’s right,” Conklin said.

Rich had on his good-natured good-cop smile. You had to love Conklin, and in a way, I did. He said to Waterson, “Do you think your father is capable of murder? He’s been accused of it before.”

“Honestly? I don’t know. He’s capable of a cutting put-down. He’d like to fuck every woman in the world to death, but that’s all I know. I stay away from him. But now I’m repeating myself.”

“Okay,” Conklin said. “And where were you last weekend?”

Todd Waterson started to laugh.

“Let me get my book.”

Waterson got out of the chair and went to his desk. I stared out the window at Mount Sutro Open Space Reserve, a swath of green that cut through the city. I was thinking about Joe. Thinking about what he had done. How would I ever forgive him, and if I couldn’t, how could I raise our child alone?

How sad for our baby.

Todd Waterson returned to his seat, opened his iPad, tapped it, said to Conklin, “What’s your e-mail address?”

Conklin gave it to him.

Waterson tapped his iPad a few more times, then shut it down. “That’s a list of where I was and who I was with. Anything else?”

Conklin said, “And why don’t you have any contact with your father?”

“He’s a homophobe,” said Waterson. “He disapproves of my lifestyle. That’s where the cruelty comes in. Are we done?”

We thanked the guy for his cooperation and left his house.

“Okay,” said Conklin. “So, theorizing here, Todd Waterson is what? A gay guy who hates his father, so he decides to kill women. He becomes a serial killer and corpse mutilator who sneaks into his father’s backyard and buries the heads of his victims with some of their doodads. Later, he digs them up and decorates them with numbers and fluffy flowers.”

It was my turn to look at him as if he had a fish on his head.

He said, “Makes no sense to me either.”

I gave him the car keys and we drove back to the Hall in silence.

I’d like to say that the day improved, but that would be a lie. I had nothing in my tank but vapors and I tried to put in a day’s work on that.

Joe called a number of times, but I let the calls go to voicemail and I didn’t call him back.

Conklin and I cleared Todd Waterson by noon and I called Claire three times in six hours asking if she had facial-reconstruction results on the heads from the Ellsworth compound.

I even paid her a personal visit, talking to her over the shot-up dead body of a gangbanger.

“Lindsay, it takes time. Dr. Perlmutter is giving us every minute she has, but she gets called in on other jobs. And the DNA cannot be rushed.”

“I can’t get any traction on the case.”

“It’s been five days. You’re acting like it’s been five months.”

I got coffee out of the vending machine in the breezeway, climbed the back stairs, and settled in for the duration.

Conklin and I worked the tip line until nine that night. Sad to say, nothing of consequence washed up, just useless flotsam from people who had nothing better to do than screw with the police or indulge their paranoid delusions.

I shared a pizza with Conklin, went back to work, finally quit at ten. Half an hour later, I opened my door to a dark apartment and a note from Karen saying she had walked and fed Martha.

I listened to Joe’s voicemails. I took a long shower. I drank warm milk. I put on some soft music. I didn’t sleep that night.

I mean, I really didn’t sleep. I lay in the big bed, stayed on my side of it, and listened to Martha’s gentle snoring from her puffy bed on the floor.